twenty-eight

Merrit excused herself from Liam and escaped down the corridor to the rear exit. She pushed open the door and inhaled until her lungs crackled. No signs of spring in the air at the moment. She zipped up her jacket and rubbed her hands together. Misty rain cooled her cheeks. Her knee joints felt slippery, as if coated with butter.

She was tempted to walk home. Right now. Stomp off the stress of Liam’s illness and his expectations of her. At last, he’d seen for himself what she’d contended with all these months. She’d gone her own way while trying her best not to let the locals’ attitudes affect her. They didn’t matter. Only her relationship with Liam mattered.

Unfortunately, she did care about their responses to her. Their expressions after Liam’s announcement had reminded her of Elder Joe’s the day he’d said that thing about sheep and lambs, as if he’d decided to renounce her. He and many others judged her for reasons she didn’t understand. In their eyes, she hadn’t proved herself, and she’d bet that many of them were convinced she never would. She was a transgressor within the sanctity of their community.

“I’m not ready,” Merrit had said when Liam revealed his oh-so-brilliant idea. “More precisely, I’m not you. They want someone like you—the bigger-than-life sort.”

“You are ready. Besides, you won’t know until you try.” He’d paused. “And I must witness your start, of course.”

And, of course, he had to play the ace up his sleeve. Merrit had known she couldn’t refuse. And it was too late to retreat now. Now the pressure was on to prove herself.

She stepped outside. Behind her, rough wood floorboards creaked under approaching footsteps. Detective O’Neil shimmied through the door before it clicked closed without spilling the two pints he carried. Lights from the neighboring building lit his lopsided smile and thick fringe of hair as he passed her one of the pints.

“That was the bloody bollocks, wasn’t it?” he said. “You’d think Liam was selling the antichrist as matchmaker.”

Hah, spot-on. She swallowed a mouthful of Guinness. “You didn’t know that I’m the antichrist?”

He stepped backwards with eyes rounded in horror and blessed himself with the wrong hand. “En nomine espiritu sancto, exorcizo—”

She slapped at him, laughing. “Okay, okay, Mr. Latin, I’m exorcised now.”

“Exorcised, me arse. I don’t know Latin from leprechaun gibberish.”

“On that note,” Merrit said, “what can I do for you, Detective?”

“Call me Simon.” He shoveled hair off his forehead, his habitual insouciance in place. “Fancy you should ask. You could say yes to dinner.”

She swallowed more Guinness to hide her surprise. This had to be a fishing expedition on behalf of Danny and the investigation. Simon as the spy against Merrit’s meddling. “Let me see if I’m understanding you correctly. You want to buy us dinner and engage in non-investigative conversation?”

“You’re thinking about it too hard, but, yes, that.”

A spasm of doubt prevented her from replying. It didn’t feel right, not with Liam sick. She almost asked Simon if he’d broached the topic with Danny. There had to be rules about extracurricular dating activities. Danny would disapprove.

“Don’t be so bloody American about it,” Simon said. “Drink, food, a cracking good time—what’s the harm?”

Sod it. This was Simon’s personal business. And hers.

“No harm.” She swallowed another mouthful of beer. “I’ll bite on the cracking good time, Simon O’Neil, not to be mistaken for the playwright Neil Simon.”

Simon chinked his pint against hers. “Feisty. I like that.”

He turned away to open the back door. Merrit felt her smile sag. A frisson of fear startled her, a vision of dating leading to a relationship leading to marriage. Married to an Irish bloke.

Married to Ireland.

The truth was that she lived with one foot pointing back to her California homeland, telling herself that she was free to leave if things didn’t work out. She wasn’t wedded to Ireland.

The issue wasn’t dating so much as the eventuality of life, the way one event led to another that led to another until the day you woke up trapped in a life you’d never wanted. The issue, she realized, centered around life after Liam and her fear that being her father’s daughter—inheriting the matchmaking mantle—would be her trap.