Chapter 7

J.J. started barking as soon as Tierney and I broke through the trees. He was a large dog, and his bark could sound like a sonic boom under the right circumstances.

I expected Tierney to turn tail and run, but he only said, “Beautiful Husky. Male?”

I nodded. “His name’s J.J..”

As we drew near, Tierney squatted and turned his body to the side so he wasn’t directly facing J.J., and then waited. He held out a single hand, his palm down.

“You’ve grown up with dogs,” I noted.

Tierney nodded. “I have.”

J.J. stalked forward, a low growl emitting from his chest until he drew near. Tierney knelt, patient and unmoving, as my dog sniffed him. His effort was rewarded by one of J.J.’s playful yips and a sloppy kiss to the cheek.

Tierney laughed, finally breaking his stance and burying his hands in J.J.’s red fur. “Good dog.” He glanced up at me, rubbing J.J.’s sides. “J.J., you say? Does it stand for something?”

Another blush. Damn. “James Joyce.”

Tierney turned his pale, twinkling eyes to me. “Irish author. Why does this not come as a surprise?”

“My mom’s not the only one with a thing for Ireland,” I admitted.

“Many Americans seem to cling tightly to their Irish heritage,” Tierney agreed. “It’s quaint.”

“It’s insane,” I said with a laugh. “I’ve never been there, yet it feels like it’s in my blood.”

“Ireland will do that. Among other things.” He made no effort to hide the way his gaze swept over me.

I flushed from tiptoes to hairline. “Come on in,” I said, happy I didn’t sound strangled with embarrassment as I turned my back.

With J.J. at his heels, Tierney followed me into the cottage.

Just inside the open door, Tierney looked around, taking in the stone floors and walls, the sooty ceiling above the stove, and the table that had seen better years. “Well, ’tis a great place you have, Mena McGinty.”

“Thanks.” I opened the fridge to find I was all out of white tea. My money was on a certain little blonde preggo drinking it all; I’d started keeping a steady supply in the fridge for her. “I’ve worked hard to get it lookin’ this nice. It was a bit run-down and dirty when I came along.”

“Feels like a home, doesn’t it?” Tierney flashed another knee-melting smile, and I fought the urge to fan myself.

It’d been a long time since I’d had a boyfriend, and I was embarrassed to realize it was showing. My social skills had suffered in my long period of solitude.

“If you want to have a seat in the living room, I’ll gather drinks and snacks and meet you there,” I told him shyly.

Tierney winked. “Aye. I’ll be waitin’ for ya.”

*

I found a couple of straight-up black iced tea packets shoved in the back of my spice cabinet. I had a thing for fruity teas, and therefore more tins of Peach-Grape, Cran-Apple, and Pomegranate-Rose than I could possibly ever need. But I also had a feeling the strapping young Irish lad in my house wasn’t one for flavored teas.

As I walked into the living room with a tray of goodies, Tierney was standing at one of my herb cabinets.

“You’ve a serious collection of herbs.” He touched the glass of a dusty Mason jar full of Mugwort. “Pentacles on the wall. Candles and incense everywhere…. So, tell me, Mena McGinty. Are you Wiccan, then?”

I set the tray on the coffee table. “No. Not Wiccan. Just witch.”

Tierney came to sit beside me on the sofa and thankfully accepted a large glass of sweet tea. I watched, amused, as he drained the entire thing.

“What’s the difference?”

I reached for the pitcher to pour him more tea, but he waved me off and picked it up himself. I was tickled when he topped off my glass first.

“You know what Wicca is, but you don’t know what a witch is?”

He snagged a chocolate chip oatmeal cookie from the plate with long fingers and took a big bite. “Oh, Lord in Heaven, these are good. D’you bake them with narcotics?”

“Just the usual,” I said, mortified as my face got hot yet again. The man made me feel like a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. “I’m much like a Wiccan in belief system, but I don’t follow a very organized path.”

“I’m not one for organized religion meself,” he said. There were cookie crumbs in his five o’clock shadow. He winked. “The extent of it for me is using the Lord’s name in vain and hoping me ma don’t hear.”

I took a bite of cookie and chewed, swallowing before I spoke again. “Why are you in Maine?”

“Just traveling.” He shrugged, finishing off a second glass of tea. “My employer sacked me a couple’a months ago. Decided it was a fine time to see the world while I still could. One never knows when life will happen.”

I nodded. “Life does happen. How long are you here?”

“Oh, well, I’ve been in the country since April. I began in Florida and have worked my way north.” Another cookie disappeared.

“Dear Goddess, Tierney, you didn’t walk all that way?”

His bright smile flashed. “Nonsense. I hitched a ride once or twice.”

When he inhaled yet another cookie, I cleared my throat. “Um, are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.”

He looked horrified, staring at the fourth cookie in his hand. “No. No, I’m grand. You’ve done more than enough already.”

“I really don’t mind. Let’s pack this up and go into the kitchen. I’ll throw together something while we chat. If you don’t mind leftovers, it’s no bother.”

We relocated. The stove was still warm from breakfast that morning, so I added another log and leaned in to stoke the fire back to life.

“Would you mind if I used the toilet?” Tierney asked as he set his glass of tea on the kitchen table.

“Oh, sure. Just down the hall and through the living room is my bedroom. The bathroom is in there.”

I pulled containers from the fridge. A little bit of potatoes, corn, and chicken in the bottom of a bread pan, topped with butter. I shoved it in the oven. All the while, I tried really hard not to think about the fact there was a strange man in my bathroom. And bedroom.

“I like your altar,” Tierney said as he returned a few minutes later. Even knowing he was in the house, his voice startled me. I was beginning to think I’d been solitary for too long.

“Thanks!” I grabbed another couple of tea bags from the cabinet and set about making a second pot of iced tea.

“That pentacle is quite the picture. Did you make it?”

“The wooden one?”

He nodded.

I hit the button on the electric kettle. “A big wind storm came through Kentucky during Hurricane Ike a few years ago. My neighbor was a woodworker. One of his pear trees fell during the storm, so he chopped it into disks and made keepsakes to sell at the flea market. I asked him to make that for me.”

“Repurposing,” Tierney mused. “Brilliant. He didn’t care about the pagan symbol?”

I shrugged. “Lucky me, I had pretty cool neighbors.” As the tea bags steeped, I slipped on a bright orange oven mitt and pulled his meal from the oven. “Hope you like veggies.”

“Love ‘em.” Tierney grinned.

*

“When was the last time you ate?” I asked him a while later as his plate emptied.

He finished chewing a mouthful of potatoes, his face thoughtful. “Sometime yesterday evening. I passed through a town south of here — Gables? It was the last bit of civilization I saw before Waterford. I picked up some nonperishable items but…” He cleared his throat and gave me a sheepish grin. “I ate them shortly thereafter.”

I chuckled, and then sipped my steaming coffee. “Well, eat up. It’s not every day I get to have company.”

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

“I ate a little while ago,” I told him. I set the mug on the uneven wood of the table with a thunk.

We were silent as Tierney polished off his meal. When he finished, I gathered up the dishes and offered him the plate of cookies once more. He waved me off with a groan.

“Couldn’t possibly. I’m stuffed to the brim.”

“Did you have someone to cook for you there?” I asked, wondering if he’d left behind some little Irish wife to come traipse about the States.

“Oh, no,” he said, his grin wry. “Me mum. I moved home after losing the job. Couldn’t afford my fancy Dublin flat anymore.”

“Sorry to hear that,” I said. “I’ve heard Dublin is a neat city.”

Tierney nodded, and then toasted me with his cow-spotted mug. “Thanks for dinner. And the tea.”

“You’re very welcome.” I caught his pale eyes and winked. “It was nice to have company.”

Goddess, help me. Was I flirting?

With a big stretch and a sigh, Tierney stood. “Well, Mena McGinty, I should be off. It’s goin’ to be dark by the time I reach Waterford town.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Were you planning on staying at the motel? It’s not the nicest.”

“I’m not too sure where I’m headed, to be honest,” he answered, holding his palms out as if to say who knows?

My heart skipped a beat as I flashed back to my own arrival in Waterford. I hadn’t known where I was going, either. Sarah had put me back on track, giving me a home to get started.

Tierney continued. “I’m running short on funds. Should probably pick me up some employment. ’Til I earn a little money for the flight home. It’s summer, there’s loads of campgrounds, aren’t there? I’ll be dandy.”

I remembered my mother’s lecture from earlier this summer: “You’ve got to start taking risks again.”

“Tierney,” I burst out as he looped his arm through his backpack. “Why don’t you stay here? The couch folds out.”

He raised one of those yummy eyebrows. “Yeah? You don’t know me, Mena McGinty.”

I recalled what Sarah told me three years ago as I’d sat lonely and forlorn in the Diner on a frigid, snowy night and repeated it now. “I don’t need to know you, Tierney Sheehan. All I need to know is you need some place to stay.”