seven

In the Plough and Trough Pub, wall lanterns cast a warm glow over shabby wingback chairs and the mourners who had gathered to toast Elder Joe’s life and early death. Merrit stooped to pet the pub’s mascot, Bijou, a drooling French mastiff with the personality of a lap dog. Next to them sat a pile of antique farm implements and faded photos of dour farmers from County Clare’s real plough and trough days. Normally they hung on the wall above Bijou’s dog pillow, but Alan Bressard, the pub owner, was sprucing up the place with a new coat of paint.

Merrit shuddered as she shifted a mean-looking pitchfork so its tines faced toward the floor. She hadn’t slept well the previous night, what with images of Elder Joe’s injuries beating against her inner eyelids.

“You found EJ, did you?” Alan said.

Merrit nodded and scratched under Bijou’s jowly chin while Alan observed her in his usual laconic way. French-born, he said much with his expressions, and right now his highly Gallic frown of distaste irked her.

“I didn’t find him on purpose,” she said. “And you can wipe that look off your face.”

With a shrug, he returned to the bar where the crowd congregated around the taps, growing larger by the second. Liam had educated Merrit about what to expect: enough singing and cheering to bring down the rafters. The Irish had a beautiful array of “drunk” phrases to choose from. Liam had used a new one to Merrit: “off their bins.”

Off their bins or not, Merrit didn’t feel comfortable within the crowd. Even from her stooped position against the back wall of the pub, she could see the curious glances that flicked in her direction.

She’d often seen Elder Joe here in the pub, in the center of it at the bar. One of those garrulous, red-faced men with a quick tongue and not a care in the world. His soulless view of a gravel quarry told a different story, though, and his invitation to tea still didn’t make sense unless his loneliness had overcome his reticence toward Merrit. It might be that simple.

With a final pat on Bijou’s head, Merrit stood. Across the pub, Nathan Tate, another relative newcomer to the village, entered and paused to prop the door open. A young blond woman bounced in after him and clapped her hands as she looked around the room. She wrapped her arm around Nathan in a quick side hug before stepping ahead of him toward the thick of it near the taps.

“Oh, that would be the daughter,” Mrs. O’Brien, local matriarch, said. She spoke to one of her church lady friends and hadn’t noticed Merrit come up behind her. She had an ample figure and enough money to buy shiny black dresses custom-made to fit her amplitude. “Zoe. Looks a lovely thing, no thanks to that deadbeat father of hers.”

Merrit imagined Mrs. O’Brien eyeing Nathan with the same curl of lip she bestowed on Merrit on a regular basis. The resemblance between Nathan and the woman, Zoe, was evident now that Merrit knew to look for it: both slight of build—Nathan compact, Zoe willowy—and with the same wide-set eyes and small noses. Nathan was small-boned for a man. On his daughter the same features had resulted in a woman of exceptional beauty.

Merrit tended to discount obvious beauty as a sign of superficiality, but that wasn’t fair. She scrutinized Zoe in an attempt to read her as Liam, the showman, had taught her when it came to his chosen profession, matchmaking. He called it “absorbing.” She was supposed to allow her instincts to take over, to let the essence of a person sink into her. Try as she might, she couldn’t get a feel for what he meant.

All she saw in Zoe were the romance-novel clichés: blond hair bouncing against her shoulders in soft waves, full lips, wondrous skin, crazy good figure. Her beauty drowned out everything else about her. So much for Merrit’s instincts. Liam insisted she had the makings for a good matchmaker, but Merrit had her doubts.

Mrs. O’Brien’s next comment caught Merrit’s attention again. “You watch, that Nathan Tate is hiding something. I’ve heard the rumors about him, anyhow.”

More like he’s guarding something, Merrit thought. His bloody privacy.

“Would you look at Zoe?” Mrs. O’Brien didn’t bother to lower her voice. “She could charm the hiss out of a snake. I’ve never seen anyone pull off a white coat like that, and at this time of year, too. Why, she could be Our Lady of the Spring leading us toward summer. I’m sure she would like to help with Liam. I shall ask her to join Team Liam.”

What the hell? “Excuse me.” Merrit stepped forward to stand beside Mrs. O’Brien. “I couldn’t help but overhear you. What are you talking about?”

Mrs. O’Brien rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “What else? Liam’s illness. Caretaking shifts.”

As ever, the way news spread through town caught Merrit off-guard, as if it travelled with the breezes that brushed over drystone walls and wended their way toward Lisfenora, gathering strength to blow the latest gossip into everyone’s minds at the same time.

“We don’t need help yet,” she said. “It’s premature. You should have consulted me.”

“Liam didn’t mind the idea when I talked to him.” Mrs. O’Brien smoothed down the front of her dress and turned toward her friend. “What was I saying? Oh, Nathan. He abandoned Zoe as a child, that he did. And his wife dead, too. An accident. Now he must face up to his paternal obligations at long last.”

Merrit stood there, feeling an unaccustomed sense of helplessness, as if she banged on glass walls, the community around her visible yet beyond reach at the same time.

Time for her to go. She’d round up Liam or arrange a lift for him, then she was out of here. She scooted past Mrs. O’Brien’s unyielding form and weaved her way through the crowd, catching a toast: “Cheers to EJ’s endless supply of ugly bow ties!”

“Sláinte!”

With a grumble, one of the regulars edged sideways so Merrit could squeeze in between him and Liam at the bar. Another Joe, nicknamed Joe Junior to differentiate him from Elder Joe. He was in his forties with weathered skin and white squint lines that radiated from the corners of his eyes.

“You found Elder Joe, eh?” he said.

“Sure did. Do you have something to say about it?”

He rocked back on his stool. “There’s plenty I could say, but never you mind.”

“Fantastic, thanks. If you really want to know, I was picking up eggs, that’s all. Organic eggs.”

“You’re a lippy one today. I don’t give a rat’s arse that you were the one to find him. Someone would have eventually.” He started to say something else but clamped his mouth shut and stared into his beer.

“Time for a distraction,” Liam said. “Meet Zoe, Nathan’s daughter.”

Hearing her name, Zoe excused herself from another conversation. Merrit turned and leaned back against the bar. Liam did likewise. Zoe held out her hand, the pressure of her palm against Merrit’s firm—a quick squeeze—and fleeting.

“Lovely to meet you,” Zoe said. “I was just after telling your father that I’d heard about him about two seconds after I arrived in Lisfenora. And you, too, of course. The local celebrities.”

A few snorts greeted the last statement, and Zoe blinked in confusion. She didn’t need eye makeup, Merrit noticed, what with her thick fringe of eyelashes and violet blue eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Zoe said, “did I hear it wrong?”

“I’m not a celebrity,” Merrit said. “Far from it.”

“You will be.” Liam jabbed a finger at each of the snorters. “You mark me. And sooner rather than later, too.”

Silence settled around the group.

“Oh dear.” Zoe tossed a swath of hair over her shoulder and held up her wineglass. “Enough of this. I’m new to town, and I’m here to meet my father’s friends. To new friendships. Sláinte!”

“And old friendships!” someone called out. “May Elder Joe rate a mansion in Heaven!”

“Have you moved here?” Merrit said to Zoe over the noise of the crowd.

A few feet away, Nathan leaned with elbows against the counter. He tilted his head in their direction with gaze fixed on the whiskey bottles that adorned the wall in front of him.

“Could be.” Zoe grinned. “I’m keeping my father in suspense, aren’t I, Dad?” She reached past Liam and hooked Nathan’s arm. She pulled him into their circle with a good-natured tut. “He moves around so much it took me ages to track him down. So I should at least give that decision some thought, right?”

A circle of welcoming nods met her question, but Merrit was struck by the tension around Nathan’s eyes, their black circles and veiny reddened irises.

“Dad, how could you not tell me how nice your friends are? You gentlemen will have to share him with me, you know that, don’t you?”

Joe Junior piped up. “Easy enough if you join us at the pub. You can fill in for Elder Joe, God rest him.”

“I accept your invitation,” Zoe said. “With pleasure.”

“What, nothing out of you?” Joe Junior said to Nathan.

Nathan’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Zoe is the life of the party, not me.”

“Aw, you weren’t so bad back in the day,” Zoe said. “When Mum was alive.”

Nathan slid out of the group. “Bladder the size of a pea, excuse me.”

“Stupid me. He’s a sensitive one, my dad.” Zoe stepped closer to Merrit, creating a small circle just for the two of them. “My mother died when I was thirteen, and then Dad … pfft”—she flicked her fingers—“gone by the time I was fourteen.”

“That sounds rough, but Nathan was friends with Elder Joe, right? Maybe that’s why he’s sensitive today.”

Zoe considered Merrit’s statement. “You’re right, of course. I only met Elder Joe once, when he grabbed up Dad for a jaunt to Galway and left me alone all day.” Her gaze clouded. “Anyhow, I was going to say—about my mother—that it was a terrifically difficult transition after she died. She was English. We lived in England at the time.”

“That must have been hard,” Merrit said.

Zoe adjusted her shoulders and swung her hair about in an exaggerated shake. “Don’t mind me. Everything’s grand. It’s nice that Elder Joe had so many friends, don’t you think?”

Merrit’s mind wandered back to the abandoned quarry in front of Elder Joe’s house. No neighbors or sheep or picturesque drystone walls or even the bright green of new growth. Instead, yellowish grass lumps under a grey sky and limestone terrain marred by gravel dunes. She hadn’t told Danny and O’Neil that she’d picked up eggs from him every week because, despite not wanting to share tea, she’d felt an odd kinship with him. And now she didn’t comment to Zoe that drinking buddies weren’t the same as true friends.