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His face is aglow. “Aye, lass.” I see why they cast Jack as Donal Cam. In the diffuse light, with his sculpted features and shining flaxen hair, he is a man from another time. He pulls me against him, hands clasped behind my back. “Here’s your first word,‘Póg’.” His lips meet mine, and the kiss is as sweet as the fragrance of the fresh grasses covering the hills around us.
“Póg,” I whisper afterwards, running my thumbs along the creases on either side of his lips.
“Come on. We’ve a lot to see.” He takes my hand and drags me up to the circle of stones where we climb and chase each other, laughing like kids on a schoolyard.
Each place we go is more enchanting that the last. Peeking through a tangle of ferns at the Glenbeigh overlook, we see a gray-blue curve of ocean caressing the shore. Jack gestures toward a distant stretch of green. “When we get time away, I’ll bring you back here to play Dooks Golf Links.”
Further down the road, my eyes fix on the landscape as Jack’s narrative fills me with a peace I haven’t felt in a very long time. “Over there is where folks claim the gates of Tir na nÓg lay.”
“Nieve’s hometown.”
“The same.” The mention of Nieve brings Niks to mind, and my peace frays around the edges.
He gazes over the palette of green, chewing his lip. “I imagine Deidre’s Sidhe Otherworld Tribunal lurks there as well.”
“You mean the good ol’ boy network who dumps poor Donal Cam in whatever time tortures him the most?”
He grunts. “I suspect Deidre sits at the head of their table.”
The city of Killarney is as charming as I’m beginning to suspect all Irish cities are. Still full from breakfast, we can’t tackle a meal, but we both need a caffeine fix. Killarney is too crowded a place to risk being seen with Jack. He suits up in a baseball cap and sunglasses before pulling into a car park at the edge of town. I pop out to get us coffee.
We sit in the car and watch a line of horse-drawn carriages clip clop down the street. I understand why Deidre set her stories in Ireland. There is a strong overlay of the past even here in what passes as a city. Mist and stretches of land cover more ground than houses and towns.
“I do love it here, Jack. Everywhere we go is so beautiful.” I’m tempted to admit I’m also more drawn to him with each passing hour. He’s charming without trying and so down to earth it’s incomprehensible I’ve known him such a short length of time. He could be someone I went to school or grew up with.
He leans over to bump my shoulder. “I told you this could work, you and me.” I try to ignore the niggling of pressure behind his words. This man wants what he wants and isn’t afraid to push his agenda.
I’m not sure hiding in a car qualifies as working, but I won’t be the storm cloud to ruin our day. “I have to admit Mr. O’Leary, today ranks as the best first date I’ve ever had.”
“Fourth date. Pub is one. I count the stables and the car ride home as two. I did give you a gourmet energy bar for dinner.” Jack throws back the rest of his coffee. “Add in the driving range as a third.” He starts the car. “Which brings us to today and number four, which we’re not half done with.”
I’m suddenly blindsided with the thought that I never want to go on another first date. I can’t imagine anyone fitting their puzzle piece to mine as perfectly as Jack. The sensation is so overpowering it brings tears to my eyes. I pretend to be transfixed with the view out my window.
I don’t have to pretend for long, as we leave the city of Killarney and enter Killarney National Park. How could anyone not believe in ancient magic and faeries while driving through a forest so lush that water clings to the leaves like frozen waterfalls of diamonds? We climb, passing meadows and stretches of trees so tightly packed I’d have no trouble believing we’ve strayed off the main road into another realm. Fantasy overshadows reality. The beauty surrounding us permeates my soul. I’m afraid to speak and shatter the otherworldly vibe.
Jack’s screech-to-a-halt parking style is not for the faint of heart. I’m going to insist on at least a thirty-second warning in the future so my stomach can prepare.
He’s around to my side of the car, opening my door. Abandoned sunglasses sit on the dash. After a check of the immediate area, which appears to be empty, he flings the baseball cap into the back seat and holds out a hand to me. The look of anticipation on his face is so alluring, it makes me want to jump him right there in the car park.
“I’ve something to show you.”
I take his hand. He yanks me across the street so fast I almost trip. We pass weather-worn boulders higher than my head and step out onto an overlook.
“Oh, Jack.” Through the cool and mysterious late Irish afternoon, a landscape, the stuff of love songs, unfolds before me.
“This place is called Ladies View. Named for the delight it gave Queen Victoria’s ladies in waiting. Do you love it?”
I wrap my arms around his waist, but I can’t take my eyes off the view. A dozen different shades of green from hunter to mint roll down hillsides. Caps of granite covered in mosses of orange and tan dot the countryside. White lichen on the rocks read like delicate lace. At the bottom of the slope are lakes as dove gray as Jack’s eyes in low light.
“It’s a poem.”
He wraps his arms around me and we hold each other, drinking in the glorious scene before us.
“Will you come home with me now, beautiful girl?”
I turn in his arms and slide my thumbs along his cheeks. Bringing his face down to mine, I brush my lips against his in a dozen tiny kisses. He snatches me off my feet and into his arms. I wrap my legs around his waist, as light kisses shift into an insane longing for one another.
A car grumbles to a stop in the car park beyond the trees, preventing me from giving myself to Jack under the shadows of the yew at the edge of the overlook. He sets me down. I slide my hands under his coat and down the back of his jeans, exploring the taut muscles of his backside. “God, I hope it’s not far.”
