Chapter Fifteen

Never cross a woman who has been crossed in love.

—Irish Proverb

 

By early Thursday afternoon, a gray and sullen rain had settled over Muir House, driving in sheets off the bay. Sky, water, and building all held the same drab color. Even the vivid green of the hills was muted by a blanket of fog.

It would be an evening for comfort food in the restaurant, assuming much of anyone braved the elements. Kate Gilvane hadn't seemed slowed, though. She'd disappeared this morning before Jenna could even make her breakfast, leaving a note asking for an eight-thirty dinner reservation.

Just now Jenna, Aidan, and Saul were preparing ingredients for Jenna's delicate lamb tenderloin tribute to shepherd's pie. Throughout the kitchen tempers simmered—except Jenna's. She remained cheerful, almost to the point that she annoyed herself. Oh, she was sorry that Dev had left in a foul mood, and she supposed she could have handled him with more finesse last night when he'd come back to the room after finding his mother.

In retrospect, "The walls are thick, she'll never hear us," was probably not the best response. But Dev had his share of blame to shoulder, too. If he hadn't just spent hours showing her the incredible responses his body could finesse from hers, she might have thought in terms other than sex.

Too late, though. He had put back on his black, tailored businessman's armor and left just after sunrise, saying that he had to go to Wexford and would call her as soon as he could. When he did, she'd coddle him and commiserate over the unfairness of mothers showing up unannounced. And if that didn't do the trick, she'd wait until he was back in her bedroom, then make him moan so loudly that he'd be thankful for those stone walls after all.

As she worked, Jenna hummed the tune of a folk song that Vi sometimes sang on sessiun night down at O'Connor's Pub and laughed at Aidan's good-natured darts about his employer's relentless happiness. Then a rain cloud came storming in the doorway. Maureen stood with her arms wrapped about her midsection and her blond hair tumbling wildly over her shoulders. She looked to be only a fraction of a second away from tears.

"You have to make him go away," she said.

"Who?" Jenna asked, feeling as though she'd been dropped into a foreign land with no map.

"Sam."

"Sam?" The name was familiar, but after last night, her brain was as fogged-in as the weather.

"Yes, Sam," Maureen repeated. She waved one hand as though directing traffic through an intersection. "You know...me and Sam and the fish and the tramp."

Realization dawned. Jenna set aside her knife. "He's here?"

"At the front door and he says he won't leave."

"So you spoke to him?"

"Sort of." The sour cast to her sister's features made Jenna fairly certain that communication had been limited to hostile hand gestures.

"Just get rid of him," Maureen said.

Jenna walked to the sink. Buying time, she washed and then dried her hands.

"What if—" she began, but was cut off by the ringing of the kitchen phone.

"Don't answer it!" Maureen cried.

Giving a put-upon shake of his head, Aidan walked to the phone and picked up.

"What if I just come talk to him with you?" Jenna said, finishing her suggestion.

Maureen's eyes grew wide. "Are you crazy? I'm not going back there. This is your house. You throw him out."

"Mr. Olivera's personal assistant for Miss Maureen Fahey," Aidan announced in a voice dry enough to parch the River Shannon.

"Take the call, Maureen," Jenna said.

"No."

"Miss Fahey's gone round the bend, quite mad, serious meds needed, if you get what I'm saying," Aidan said into the phone, then hung up.

Maureen glared at him. "I'm not crazy."

"Come to the door with me," Jenna wheedled. "Aren't you curious about what he wants?"

"No."

She changed tacks. "Fine, then just cower here in the kitchen."

Her sister squeezed herself into the small space between Harold's tank and the start of the counter. "Works for me."

Jenna gave up and left to face the actor alone. When she reached the front hall, she peeked out the glass to the side of the door. She wanted a quick first look at the guy who had her bold sister hiding next to a lobster.

Sam Olivera appeared somewhat older and harder in person than he had in the photographs she'd seen. He was wetter, too. Arrogance and anger were stamped on his handsome face as he paced the covered portico, ignoring the rain blowing horizontally. Sam appeared to be a man accustomed to getting his way. Past Sam, down at the foot of the drive, sat a limousine with tinted windows, its windshield wipers battling the deluge. A smaller car waited behind the limo. She supposed she was lucky to be facing just one wet, angry actor.

"Hi, Sam. I'm Jenna Fahey," she said, opening the door. "Maureen has mentioned you."

"I'll bet she has," he said as he stepped inside. When he slicked his hand through his wet hair, Jenna hid a smile. She could almost hear Vi's appraisal. It would run something like "he's got a fair bit of Hollywood about him."

Just before closing the door, Jenna glanced outside. Two people had left the limo. One was an older woman, intently speaking into a cell phone. The other was a muscle-bound guy holding an umbrella over the female.

"Who are your friends?" Jenna asked.

Sam answered without looking back. "My assistant and my bodyguard. I'm assuming the babysitter from the production company hasn't gotten out of his car."

The assistant she had expected. The other two came as surprises. Jenna selected the one that most concerned her. "You have a bodyguard?"

"No threats, just groupie problems," he said with a shrug.

Hollywood all the way.

"Why don't you come into my office, where we can talk?" she suggested. Her best chance of getting this done politely was to do it away from an audience.

"Are you sure? I'm kind of wet."

Jenna smiled. "Trust me, there's no part of this house that can't stand up to rain."

He smiled in return, and her initial impression of hardness faded.

As she led him down the hallway, Sam asked, "Is Maureen hiding?"

"More or less."

"Figures. Your sister can be a real pain in the ass."

They stepped into the office, and Jenna closed the door behind them. "My sister seems to have been under a good deal of stress," she said, with gentle emphasis on the phrase "my sister." She didn't want him thinking that she might side with Hollywood over sisterhood.

Sam had the good sense to look contrite. "I'm sorry. And I hate sticking you in the middle of this. If you could just find Maureen..."

"I'd like to accommodate you, but I can't. She's not ready to talk."

Sam paced the room, glancing at the upholstered sofa and apparently deciding not to sit. "Look, I know Maureen. She doesn't cool down well. The longer I leave her alone, the more angry she'll get. It took me a few days to track her down, and I would have been here right after that, but it's a little complicated when I need to break from my schedule."

"Sam, you seem like a nice enough person, but Maureen's upset and I have to—"

He spoke, looking at the rug. "I love her."

Jenna's senses sharpened. "What?"

His gaze met hers, and she saw a mix of pain and humor. "I said that I love her. Really. Not that I want to. Or even that I feel real happy about it. But here's the bottom line—you need to tell Maureen that I'm not leaving until we have this fixed."

He was an actor, skilled and sufficiently famous to be tabloid fodder. If he chose, he could put out lines with the best of them, but Jenna sensed truth.

"Love changes things, doesn't it?" she asked.

"If by change, you mean totally screw up my life, then yeah, love changes things."

She thought of Dev and the course her life had taken over the past weeks. Her heart lurched, and she struggled to maintain a calm demeanor. She was in deep, deep trouble.

Immersed in his own troubles, Sam pushed back his sleeve and glanced at his watch. "I get the feeling I'm not going to make it back to the airport tonight. Or knowing your sister, maybe not even in the next week," he added with a quick smile. "Do you rent rooms?"

"In an involuntary sort of way, yes." The same way she had ended up with a room painted starlight blue.

"Maybe if I—" he began.

"Sam, I don't think this is a good idea. You need to give Maureen some space."

"She loves me. I know she does. She just needs me around to remember, so even if you don't rent me a room, believe me, I'm going to be here."

He had hurt Maureen. By bringing him into Muir House, Jenna might be risking the delicate beginnings of the relationship that she and Maureen had started. But if Sam truly loved Reenie, here was an opportunity for a Fahey sister to come first in a man's heart. She could think of no better gift to give the sister she'd overlooked for so long.

"I saw the pictures from Paris," Jenna said, testing.

An unwilling smile tugged at his mouth. "The fish, huh?"

She nodded.

"I deserved them."

"Really?"

"Okay, maybe not actually the fish. It's not like I asked Chloe to—" He stopped and seemed to consider his words before speaking again. "It was just a case of bad timing with Maureen coming to the table when she did. But I've done so many shitty things in my life that I've decided the fish were kind of a cosmic smack. And Maureen, that she had the guts to do what she did ... Well, I guess I don't have to worry about her being intimidated by my fame."

He'd passed the first trial—barely.

"What's your favorite color?" she asked.

He looked at her as though she'd just sprouted an extra head. "Blue, I guess. Why?"

And the second. "No reason."

"So, about a room..."

"And your entourage?" she asked, tacitly giving consent. "Where do you plan to stow them?"

"Here?"

"Impossible." She was willing to deal with Sam—and to make Maureen do the same—but the Fahey sisters needed to maintain the upper hand. "The bodyguard can stay, and only because I'm not in the mood to scrape groupies off the house. I'll give you the names of some bed-and-breakfasts in the area. The others can find rooms there."

"I need my assistant."

Faced with this Dev-in-training, she wanted to smile. In a few more years he'd be using the assistant to hunt down cases of organic butter lettuce. "Then I'm afraid you'll all have to go."

"Don't do this."

"Look, if you're tough enough to deal with Maureen, I think you'll survive without a personal assistant hovering over you. In fact, you might even like it."

His expression bordered on incredulous, but he managed a grudging, "Okay."

"Fine," she said, and went to her desk to dig for extra keys. "That will be two hundred and fifty euros a night per person for the rooms and breakfasts."

"Two-fifty each? Do I look stupid? That's blackmail."

Reenie wasn't the only one who could drive a bargain.

"That's my rate for guys who mess with my sister's heart. Want to add the annoyance surcharge, too?"

"Thanks, but no."

"Good, then we'll stick with two-fifty per person. The restaurant's open for dinner Tuesday through Saturday. You'll need to let me know at breakfast whether you want a dinner reservation for that night."

She held out the keys to him. Just as he was about to take them, she closed them back within her grasp. "And Sam, remember that while you're under my roof, you follow my rules. I'm in charge here. One step out of line, the smallest bruise to my sister's heart, and you'll have reason to know just how skilled I am with a chef's knife."

Sam's laugh was a little weary about the edges. "You Fahey girls don't mess around, do you?"

Smiling, Jenna tossed him the keys. "Damn straight we don't."

"About Maureen..."

"Why don't we just keep the rest of it between you and Maureen?" Now that she'd made the critical error of linking Dev and love in her mind, she had enough to handle in the way of emotional entanglements.

"Fair enough," he said.

The greater question was whether Maureen would see Jenna's meddling as "fair."

 

Stewing in sorrow, Maureen watched from a second-floor hallway window as Sam walked down Muir House's drive and out of her miserable, tragic life.

There. It was done. He was gone and she never had to see him again. This scary sound, kind of a muffled howl, worked its way up from her throat. She turned away, unable to watch him leave, but then turned back because she was so pathetically weak that she needed one last look. He was at the window of the car behind the limo, and it looked as if he was handing the occupant something. As he returned to the limo, not even bothering to bend or shield himself from the rain, her howl turned into a sob.

She'd never gotten to see him naked or even to touch him like Chloe-the-bitch. And even forgetting that stuff, which was like forgetting she had ovaries, she would never, ever again get to talk with him for hours. Or slow dance in his suite, just the two of them. Or go for a late night walk, just the two of them—plus Steve, Sam's bodyguard, who was really an okay guy, even if he didn't talk much. If life was like Shakespeare, she'd be jumping from the window about now.

The limo driver got out and opened Sam's door. Tears ran down Maureen's face. She'd screwed up and she had to pay the price.

"Goodbye," she whispered.

Sam was saying something to the driver, who then closed the door while Sam stayed in the rain.

Shit. She couldn't be seeing this right.

Maureen moved close enough to the window that her nose nearly touched the glass. Whether it was because he caught the motion or because he was one intuitive son of a bitch, Sam looked up. She froze as the cars pulled out of the driveway, leaving Sam Olivera behind.

Shielding his face from the rain with one hand, he used the other to wave at her. His smile was the classic "I've got you now, babe" grin she'd seen in every one of his movies.

Heart slamming, Maureen backed from the window, turned and dragged in enough air to shout, "Goddamn it, Jenna Fahey, what have you done?"

 

More than rain surrounded Muir House tonight, Kate Gilvane thought as she made her way downstairs. Emotion was thick in the air, swirling down the old house's hallways, seizing even her, when she'd reached a point in life that she had nothing left to speed her blood this way.

Perhaps it was walking into the midst of a Fahey battle royal this afternoon, with the sisters having a high-volume go at each other right in the front hallway. Lacking in propriety, to be sure, but ever so entertaining.

Or perhaps it was that handsome young Sam who'd been walking about the house in search of Maureen, who refused to be found. The actor put her in mind of Dev—before he'd started hiding the best of himself beneath that businesslike attitude.

Whatever had summoned the spirits, it was high drama for all tonight. Kate smoothed her hands over the pale lilac linen dress she'd chosen to wear—her spit in the eye of Nature, who'd deprived her of a day fit for much hiking. She knew she looked fine in this dress, the color bringing out the silver threads in her hair and complimenting the slight cast of gold her skin naturally carried.

"I'm Kate Gilvane," she said to the hostess.

The girl smiled. "And I'm Niamh Leary. You used to watch over my da after school, while my grandmother was still to work."

"Hugh Leary," Kate mused.

"He told me last night that he was mad in love with you when he was ten," Niamh said while pulling a menu.

Kate had been fourteen and found him a wonderful nuisance, the way he'd mooned after her. "Do give him my best."

"I will. Would you be liking a seat in the library before you dine?"

"Where's the most to watch? I've a mind for a show tonight."

"Well, right now that would be the dining room," she replied.

"Then the dining room it is."

Soon settled at her table, Kate looked about. Young lovers—honeymooners, no doubt—sat nearby. Not far away was Sam, alone, though seated at a table for two. At the setting opposite him lay a rosebud. Romantic boy, though she expected that a more assertive approach would be required to lure Maureen from her room tonight.

Disappointed that there was not more to watch, Kate took a glance at the wine list and smiled. It was grand news that Jenna carried her favourite Bordeaux by the glass. Kate summoned her waiter and ordered one. It appeared nearly like magic, and she settled in to read the menu. Only a few moments later, a soft American voice slipped into her thoughts.

"Do you mind if I join you for a few minutes?"

Kate smiled at Jenna Fahey, thinking that the girl grew prettier each time she looked at her. Even now, when dressed in the not especially alluring uniform of a chef, she sparkled.

"Please do," Kate said.

Jenna pulled out a chair. "I don't often get the chance to do this, but it's a slow night, which usually happens when it rains sideways." She hesitated before asking, "Have you heard from Dev yet today?"

Kate knew that Jenna joining her had nothing to do with being a charming hostess, and all to do with delving for information. Somehow it made her like the girl all the more.

"My son's been silent, though I'm not surprised. I'm sure he sees my being here as meddling." She paused to consider the concept and then laughed. "I've not been much for nosing in his business, but I have to say the sport could grow on me."

The chef was doing her best to tame a smile. "So," she said, "did you have a good day?"

"I did, despite the wet. I picked up some more practical clothes in the village, then had a visit with the ogham stone."

"Tennac's ogham?"

Kate smiled at the delight in her hostess's voice. "Yes, it was once a favorite spot of mine."

"Mine, too. It's kind of a hopeful place, if you know what I mean."

Kate nodded because she did, indeed.

"Dev mentioned that he attended school in England."

Ah, the expedition had begun.

"He did," Kate said. "I inherited money from an aunt and decided that a child as bright as Devlin needed more advantages than we could offer." She sipped her wine, swallowing some of the pain she would not voice. "He's done well for himself, degrees from Oxford and even one from Harvard, grand house, women..."

She paused just long enough to watch for Jenna's reaction and was pleased to see a flash of jealousy in the girl's eyes. "Yet sometimes I wonder if he wouldn't have grown up happier at home."

Niamh appeared with a bottle of still water and a tumbler of ice for her employer. Jenna thanked her, and Kate could tell that it was a sincerely given thanks, not the lip service one's superior frequently gives.

"You must have missed him very much," Jenna said after Niamh had left.

"He was my heart," she answered simply.

The chef looked down at the tablecloth, and Kate watched as color painted the girl's cheeks. It seemed that her son might have found his heart. The thought brought joy, but not without a nip of jealousy that Kate knew was wrong, but so natural.

Because both women were trained to be hostesses and gloss over the dark, they picked up the chat with ease. Kate asked of Jenna's plans for Muir House and learned that she'd like to run hobbyists' cooking classes during the off-season. Nothing as advanced as the professional courses offered at Ballymaloe up in Cork, but just for fun.

Pretty girl and a head for business, too. Muir House had always thrived best in the hands of a woman. It seemed that its time to rise had finally come again.

She was about to ask another question but stumbled over her tongue at the sound of deep laughter coming her way. The fine hairs on Kate's arms rose.

You're dreaming, she told herself. Over thirty-five years gone and you're still dreaming. She took a nervous swallow of wine and then picked up the frayed ends of the conversation.

"Well thought out, using both your kitchen and your rooms," she said.

"That's the challenge of having chosen an out-of-the way location."

"Filling the slow months?"

Jenna chuckled. "Actually, staying in business at all. I've been lucky, though."

Kate glanced over Jenna's shoulder. The spirits had come to call, for a ghost stood in the doorway.

"Dear God," she whispered, again reaching for her wineglass. Her knuckles brushed its side, and it spilled across the table. "I'm so sorry!" she cried, her voice sounding loud, humiliatingly loud. She began to blot at the spill with her napkin.

Niamh, who had been in the company of the ghost, appeared and efficiently took care of the spill.

Kate stared at her hands, fingers knotted together and shaking. Finally, though, she surrendered to the inevitable.

"That man over there." She gestured at a table for two in an alcove lined by books. "Do you know him?"

Jenna glanced over and smiled. "That's Brendan Mulqueen. He's a regular."

Kate permitted herself to look directly at him. Their eyes met, his seeming blank of recognition. She should have been relieved, but anger overrode all else.

How could he forget?

She looked no more different than he. Half a lifetime gone, and still she could pick him from a crowd, know him by voice alone. Did she merit no less?

Nearly dizzy with rage, she stood. "I'm feeling bit tired, I think. If you don't mind..."

Jenna rose, too. "Of course not. Would you like me to have Niamh bring a tray to your room? Some soup and bread, at least?"

Kate glanced over at Brendan. "No, you needn't put anyone out. Some sleep is what I'm wanting."

She was to the front stairway when the voice she'd never thought to hear again sounded from behind her. "You're as beautiful as the day I last saw you, Kate Connelly."

Bastard.

She swung around and gave him a cool, careful appraisal. "Well, Brendan, at least this time you have your trousers on and no girl hanging off you."

He tipped back his head and laughed, the robust, life-by-the-short-hairs sound she recalled.

"So are you still chiseling names on gravestones?" she asked, knowing far better.

"For friends and enemies, I do."

And am I either? she wanted to ask, but didn't, for then she'd have to decide what this man was to her. And though it was impossible, she'd much prefer that he remain a ghost.

"Come, Kate, don't run again. Join me for dinner."

She could refuse, but then she would merge back into that state of aloneness that had been eating her soul to nothing. Better angry and alive than polite and dead.

"I suppose I might, but if I'm to eat with you, spare me your lies, Brendan Mulqueen."

"Your luck is strong," he said. "I'm too damned old to lie anymore."

She rolled her eyes at this patent falsehood. And when Brendan laughed, Kate could do nothing but join in. Still, when he reached his hand for hers, she would not take it. She had stood well enough on her own.

"Let's eat," she said, "and you can tell me how you've passed a life."

He looked at her with surprise. "It's hardly over."

Was it not? Hers seemed to be frozen in ice most days.

As they walked back into the dining room, she saw that Jenna was still waiting, a concerned expression on her face.

Kate stopped. "Sorry for the bit of a scene."

Jenna smiled. "By Fahey standards, that was hardly a conversation, let alone a scene."

Kate laughed, recalling the afternoon. "Right you are. I'll be joining Brendan for dinner."

"Wonderful," she said, surprise well masked behind polite interest. "I'll have Niamh bring your wine over."

"Perhaps a full bottle of what Kate's drinking," Brendan said. "I suspect I'll be needing it."

The young chef's smile shone bright. "I see."

Kate and Brendan weren't long seated when he said, "So you're home to Ballymuir. I often wondered if you'd last in Dublin."

"Thirty-six years? I've lasted well enough," she replied before another thought occurred. "You knew I was in Dublin?"

He set his hands on the table and looked down at them. Kate looked, too. She could remember those hands when they were less scarred by work and age, when they'd touch her with a sureness that made her cry out. So many years gone...

"I've always kept an eye on you, Kate," he said, "and seen your son now, too."

There would be no talk of Devlin.

"And you, what are you doing here, Brendan? I'd heard you live in America." She'd also tracked his success through friends in the art world and lain awake at nights wondering what if she hadn't fled?

"I've kept a small summer house nearby."

She pointed out the obvious. "But it's not yet summer."

He laughed. "It was when I got here three years ago. I keep forgetting to leave."

The waiter arrived with their wine. Brendan ordered absently, requesting "the usual," whatever that might be. After he had, he looked across at her, seeming almost surprised. "I'm sorry, I should have waited. I mostly dine alone. What would you like to try, Kate? Jenna's a miracle in the kitchen. You'll not go wrong."

She ordered the lamb dish. If they substituted sawdust, tonight she wouldn't know.

"You never married," she said after the waiter had left.

He laughed. "Well, don't be thinking it was on your account."

Kate could feel her blush rising. "I didn't mean it that way."

He leaned back in his chair and took a sip of his wine. "I meant to marry, just never got around to it."

"Isn't that an Irishman? Gone past fifty and found no time to marry. What about that girl?"

"Nancy, you're meaning?"

"Yes, Nancy." Whom she'd last seen Brendan wearing.

He shook his head. "I've no idea. You well and truly caught me with her, though."

"Why?"

He didn't pretend to misunderstand. "You scared the holy shit out of me, Kate. I couldn't be the man you demanded I be."

"A simple 'we don't suit' would have sufficed."

He laughed. "Aye, it would have." He looked away for a moment, then back to her. "I didn't mean for you to see us, you know. She was an ego stroke, nothing more."

"You're not improving your situation, telling me this. I'd have found it more palatable were she your one grand love and you lived in bliss forever. But for a wee stroke of the ego or otherwise?"

He chuckled at her blunt assessment. "You had married Gilvane by the time I knew myself for a fool and came looking for you." He paused. "Were you happy?"

"Sometimes," was all she said.

James Gilvane hadn't been an easy man to live with, but Kate had entered into the marriage knowingly, willingly, and pregnant. James had said they would raise her child as their own, and Kate still believed he'd meant to do right by the promise. But he'd held himself distant from Dev, and the fact that she'd never conceived again had only made the divide deeper. And so she'd sent Devlin off rather than damage him more.

"Your husband, he's gone now?" Brendan asked.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry."

This is it, Katie me girl…

She leaned forward, took her old lover's hand, and said, "Yes, but as you've so well reminded me, my life's not over, Brendan Mulqueen."

In fact, there was a grand possibility that it had just begun.

 

Dark nights, dark truths.

Dev sat alone in a hotel in Wexford, which a resort owner desperate to sell had told him was like the Miami of Ireland. Of course, he'd also been desperate enough to make the journey. Wexford and Miami, then? True enough, if a man didn't let trivialities like location, weather, and attitude cloud his vision.

At the end of the day it had taken a phone call from Sid Barrett, of all people, to make Dev recall what was important. Sid had insinuated that Dev was losing his edge, and as one friend to another, maybe he should think of a vacation. Or even a change in career. Bullshit, all.

But that word Sid had used so deceitfully—friend—had given Dev pause. Did he even have friends? Like his mum, he had friends at work and friends at his club, yet had one of them even called him while he'd been in Ireland? Or had he thought to call them?

The answer was an indisputable no.

Dev pulled aside the curtain and looked out his window into the darkness. He longed to be in Ballymuir. Turning away, he checked his watch. It was nearly midnight, minutes ticking down in another meaningless day.

Tomorrow he would visit an estate being offered out Hook Head. He prayed to God that it would be the break he was seeking, but even if not, at least it was fractionally closer to Jenna and Muir House. He despised the thought of taking Muir House from Jenna, but there it remained, close and ugly, pounding in his head.

Over on the nightstand his phone warbled. He considered leaving it, dreading more prods from Sid. But at the last moment he answered, and the voice that greeted him pushed the darkness away.

"My heart," he said. "I've missed you."

And how he wished to never cause her pain.