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“Jack. Oh, Jack.”
I want him here beside me, wrapping those warrior arms around me until all my sadness evaporates into his warmth.
“Why did you have to say ‘adore’? Anything but ‘adore.’”
I drop my head to my knees. Tears blind me. I’m granted less than five minutes of solitude before I hear voices on the other side of the door.Shit.Do I stand up or just hope they don’t come in?
Doolin and Deidre enter, laughing like loons.
“I thought they had a mind to boot us off the range this morning when you let your club go flying after the ball,” says Doolin.
“That’s what you get for trying to convince me it’s fun to whack a ball with a metal stick.”
Doolin falls onto a chair and slaps the table. “The face on the whole line of ‘em on the driving range frozen in backswings when you marched out in front of them to pick up your club.”
“I only asked them to hold up for a minute.”
“It’s just not done that way, love.”
When Doolin pulls Deidre onto his lap for a kiss, I figure that’s my cue to make myself known. I clear my throat.
Deidre spies me over Doolin’s shoulder. “What in the name of Saint Patrick on a biscuit happened to you, girl?”
Doolin sets her on her feet as he rises. “Are you all right, Gillian?”
Deidre fans an arm over me. “This is no portrait of ‘all right’.” She approaches and holds out a hand.
I take it and wobble to standing.
She narrows her eyes and stares into mine. Pressing lips together, she gives a curt nod to the chair at the end of the table, and I sit. Treating Doolin to a sunbeam of a smile, she waves him to the door. “Give us the room, darling.”
Doolin asks Deidre a question in Irish that I don’t understand. Judging from his reaction, I must look like I was the sole survivor of a plane crash.
“Nothing like that,” she says, patting my hand. “Why don’t you go make a nice cup of honey and lemongrass tea for our girl?”
“As you say. Right. I’ll be doin’ just that.” Doolin bustles out, clearly relieved to be given a task that doesn’t involve talking to the sodden wad of misery slumped in his classroom.
As soon as the door closes, Deidre sits next to me. She twists me to face her so our knees touch. “Our man came after you, didn’t he?”
I swallow five or six times before I’m able to speak. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She frowns. “Darling, my life is all about the tangled mess of romance. I know it as clear as a patch of blue through an Irish rainstorm when I see it in the wild.”
A sob busts out. If only I could confess my broken heart to the person who has splattered heartache across thousands of pages.
“Look, if I was forced to watch Doolin rub nasties with another woman, I’d spit nails at the both of them.” She wipes my tears. “Dissolving into a puddle is the high road.”
Alarms go off in my head like air raid sirens from a World War II movie. I can’t talk about Jack. About us. The repercussions may oust me fromThe Chieftain’s Sonfor good. No matter how much I want to confide in Deidre, my secret has to stay a secret.
“Thanks for picking me off the floor.” I nod to the corner. “Literally. You don’t know how much I appreciate it, but I’ve got to get to work.”
When I try to stand, she pushes me back into the seat. “If you won’t spill, allow me.”
I feel raw and exposed. There’s fear deep in my gut that Deidre knows the truth about Jack and me.
“You’d have to be dead not to give Jack O’Leary a second look. So, we’ll start there.”
“Deidre, please.” If she knows, who else has guessed? The knot in my stomach jumps into my throat, and I can’t swallow.
