1

Ann Arbor, Michigan

ANNIE RUTHERFORD always carried an extra five—okay, nine—pounds as though they were her insurance policy against quick starvation. That being said, she still couldn’t fill out the top of her sister’s best black cocktail dress. The bottom, unfortunately, was another story.

“Are you okay in there?” Elizabeth, her perfect elder sister, called from the other side of the bathroom door.

“I’m fine…just admiring the scenery,” Annie replied. And what scenery it was.

Elizabeth, a Harvard business grad who made major cash in the fast world of finance, lived in a gorgeous renovated Victorian on the fringes of the University of Michigan’s central campus. Her bathroom boasted French limestone floors, a steam shower large enough to host rainforest refugees, and a three-way mirror that amplified Annie’s attributes to a fault. Since she wasn’t a sucker for punishment, Annie averted her eyes.

“So does the dress fit?” her sister asked.

“Parts,” she hedged. The length, for example, was perfect. At least her hips and rear made up for the difference between Elizabeth’s five foot seven and her more pedestrian five foot five.

“Come on, let me in.”

Annie surrendered to the inevitable. Endowed Elizabeth entered, strolled an assessing circle around Annie, then stood beside her.

“Maybe a gel bra,” she suggested.

Annie met her sister’s matching gray gaze in the mirror. “Yeah, like a quart on each side. And what about the bottom half?”

A slight frown settled between Elizabeth’s brows. “It’s not that bad…nothing a good foundation garment wouldn’t fix.”

Now there was a thought to put a girl off her food. Maybe a girdle, or whatever, would thrill an eightynine-year-old named Tilda, but the hell if Annie would consider it.

“I think I’ll just hit the stores for something in my size.”

Elizabeth sighed. They both knew Annie couldn’t afford anything as elegant as Prada on her own. “I still think this could work. You’ve got a few days to straighten out the details.”

“Too bad we can’t just move my butt to my boobs,” she said, then ignored Elizabeth’s talk of “a consistent exercise program.”

Generally, Annie was no slave to fashion, but the company cocktail party she’d be attending on Friday merited a raid on her sister’s glamorous wardrobe. Word was that Hal Donovan, who had just returned from a month-long vacation in Ireland, planned to make a big announcement.

Hal was the elderly—but definitely not old—chairman of Donovan Enterprises, the parent company of Donovan’s Wood-Fired Pizza. When Annie joined the Donovan empire fresh out of her not-quite-Harvard graduate school program, Hal had taken a liking to her and stepped in as her mentor. After months of drifting, she had discovered that she possessed a surprising gift for forecasting and interpreting trends. Not that this crystal-ball talent did anything for her on a personal level.

At least she was vice president of long-range planning and the only non-Donovan in the company’s upper management. She had a great title and business cards to die for, but much to her regret, Donovan’s had already conquered its market. Her job was a fast trip to nowhere.

Given Hal’s fondness for nepotism, unless she married a Donovan—which was unlikely since the only single, nonjailbait one left was Annie’s best friend Sasha, and she just didn’t feel that way about her—Annie had reached the top of the ladder.

Maxing out at twenty-nine was unacceptable for a member of the Rutherford clan. Even Annie’s brother, Sam, the family nonconformist, had quit his band, followed an accelerated track and finished his doctoral studies in archaeology, then quickly snagged an associate professor’s position at a small college in Maine. All of which in Annie’s estimation made him a total show-off.

Since she was now officially the lone, clueless Rutherford, she had been working late into the night on an idea that would make her résumé as sleek as her sister’s dress—when her sister was wearing it, she amended, taking another glance in the mirror.

“Look, I can understand why you’re excited about this party,” Elizabeth said, “but from the stories you’ve told me, it sounds like old Hal can be—”

“Arbitrary? Quixotic?” Hal had grown a corner pizza shop into the largest privately owned carry-out and restaurant chain in the country. Annie figured he was entitled to be imperious.

Elizabeth nodded, then began to fuss with Annie’s uncooperative hair, dragging it into a knot atop her head. “Don’t get your hopes up. It’s just as likely that his announcement won’t be about your overseas franchise proposal.”

Annie shooed her sister’s hands away and stuck her hair behind her ears. She had slaved nearly every night for over six months on that franchise plan and figured it might well be her only shot at the big time. When she’d finished her proposal, she’d asked Elizabeth to vet it. For once, she’d received nothing more than a “great work” in response from her brilliant—and critical—sister.

If Annie had her way, Donovan’s would set up company-owned outlets in airports and train stations throughout Europe. Once their product was familiar to consumers, the organization would step into phase two and sell franchises. If the idea worked in Europe, next they could tackle Asia. Major exposure without major expansion in Donovan’s staff levels was a no-brainer.

She’d pitched the idea to Hal right before he’d left at the beginning of May to explore his roots. He’d seemed enthused. Or at least Annie chose to think he had.

“I have to get my hopes up,” she said to her sister. “That’s what life’s all about, right? Besides, Sasha managed to pry loose from Hal that I’d be ‘damn pleased’ with his announcement. A guy wouldn’t lie to his own granddaughter, would he?”

Of course, Hal wasn’t exactly fond of Sasha, which added a kind of troubling dynamic. Annie pushed aside doubt and struggled with the dress’s zipper. It had stuck at an annoying midshoulder-blade spot that only a contortionist could reach.

Elizabeth brushed aside Annie’s hand and eased down the zipper. “It’s a solid business plan. No matter what happens, you should be proud of it.”

Which was easy for Elizabeth to say.

“Thanks, but if it’s totally unproven, it does nothing for my résumé. Manhattan calls, and I need to be shopping myself with headhunters before I hit thirty. It’s just going to get tougher after that.”

“Relax,” her sister said. “Turning thirty means nothing. You have years to prove yourself.”

Again, easy words from Elizabeth, who never failed to excel. Annie, on the other hand, always scrabbled on the lower reaches of “almost outstanding.” Just once, she wanted to cling to the pinnacle. And she was determined to do it in the center of the business universe—New York City. She would move there, settle in, then never have to pack her belongings again. But without the international franchise deal up and running, she suspected she’d be lucky to hire in as a bottom-rung research grunt, let alone in the consultant’s role she craved.

Distracted, she began to peel off the dress, then paused. She really didn’t need to share every padded curve with her sister. Luckily, the phone rang.

Elizabeth glanced at her watch. “It’s almost seven, so that has to be Gordon’s nightly call,” her sister said, referring to her rich and handsome long-distance boyfriend. “He wants to fly me to London this weekend. I wish it wasn’t Mom and Dad’s anniversary dinner…not that I could take the time from work, anyway.”

Elizabeth rushed from the room, fleet on the wings of lust or love or whatever it was she felt for this guy she seldom saw.

Annie managed not to roll her eyes. She adored her sister, but it was depressing to be related to her. “Round-the-world popularity. Such a tragedy.”

Clifden, County Galway, Ireland

MIDNIGHT NEARED. Daniel Flynn drew deeply on his final cigarette, as would any condemned man. And as was the case with most poor, doomed bastards, he’d brought fate upon his own head. He tipped back his head and slowly expelled the smoke, savoring this final moment.

Finished, he stubbed the cigarette butt in an ashtray on the brown wooden pub table and made a silent vow that this truly would be his last smoke. Of course, that particular vow was well oiled, having been used more times than Daniel could count. Around him, friends and family laughed, sang and drank, always game for another party at Flynn’s Pub.

He loved this place, truly he did. It was peat-smoke scented, dimly lit, warm and comfortable, even more home than the house down the street where he’d grown up. Daniel tried to summon a decent level of enthusiasm for the celebration surrounding him, when all he wanted was to escape to his flat above the pub. This fest in his honor was sitting nearly as poorly as was the thought of no more cigarettes.

Thailand and Tibet had been grand adventures, last year’s autumn in Tuscany none too hard to take, but eight weeks in America? Agreeing to anything more than a month had made him a victim of his own bloody greed. To him, America was much like an amusement park. All the brash attitude and excitement were entertaining for a time, but then he found himself weary and looking for a hole to hide in.

“To Daniel,” bellowed his brother James over the noise of the crowd, “may you find all the American women you want, and may they not find you wanting.”

Daniel gave a sketchy smile and raised his pint glass in response. This trip was about refilling his bank account and nothing more. He didn’t regret for an instant offering up his life savings to help rebuild the family pub after last year’s fire. Still, a man needed to eat. He absently reached for his cigarette pack, found it empty, then recalled the vow he’d made seconds earlier. Aye, a man needed to eat…and not to smoke.

Just then, Aislinn O’Connell grabbed him by the hand and urged him up from his seat.

“One last dance,” she said, “to tide me over till you come home again.”

They’d no sooner cleared the tables and stools from the center of the small area than the music changed from hard-driving radio tunes to live music—a slow air, cloyingly sweet and romantic. Since he could hardly walk away, he took Aislinn in his arms and shot a glare at his other brother, Seán, on the fiddle, who laughed in reply.

Neither of Daniel’s brothers understood his need to wander. They could see no purpose in traveling farther than the few hours from their town, across the boggy green landscape of Connemara, to Galway. And all in the family had hoped that one day he’d marry Aislinn. True, they’d once been lovers, but it had never been serious for either of them. She would not venture out of Ireland, and though he always came home, Daniel would not stay.

“So two months this time, is it? And during tourist season, yet,” Aislinn said as they danced to the old melody.

“It was too good an offer to turn down.” He was sure that his mam—always on the lookout for a good meddle—had already given Aislinn the financial particulars down to the last jingle of pocket change.

“Are you not worried that old man Donovan’s mad?”

Daniel shrugged. “You met him during his visit. He’s opinionated, to be sure, but not mad.”

“Anyone offering his kind of money should be locked away.”

“And here I thought you knew my value,” he teased.

Aislinn laughed. “I do. That’s why I’m thinking he’s mad.”

He squeezed her tightly to him for moment, an affectionate hug for an old friend. Aislinn’s expression grew serious.

“What would have been wrong with staying for at least one summer?” she asked. “It’s not as though your family couldn’t use an extra hand. And of course there’s that book you need to be writing.”

“I’ve got conscience enough already.” Not to mention sufficient guilt being heaped on him by his mam and da, who were currently snapping pictures of the party as though it might be the last Flynn’s Pub would ever see.

He glanced again at Seán and James, and wondered how he, too, could be so strongly stamped a Flynn, with the family’s height, dark hair and the Flynn blue eyes, yet not be a Flynn at the same time. This much he knew—the life of a full-time publican wasn’t for him.

The fiddle music stopped, and over the applause one brother or another bellowed, “Give the girl a kiss, you fool.”

Aislinn flicked back a lock of her curly brown hair, called a tart “kiss yourself” to his brothers, then said to Daniel, “I’d make it worth your while if you’d take those two eejits with you.”

“You’d do better at getting me to stay here.”

“And that would be so bad?”

He shook his head. “Leave it be, Aislinn.”

To his brothers’ loud hoots, she rose on tiptoe and gave him a kiss that tasted of resignation. “We’ll all be missing you, Daniel.”

“And I’ll be missing you.”

But even as he spoke, his heart began to drum with rising excitement, a reaction that thrilled him none too much. He truly was one sad-arsed addict. Even a voyage he had no real desire to take was enough to prime him.

As he walked Aislinn back to the bar and his fool brothers, he wondered what he would do when he grew too old to wander. Perhaps one day, in someplace he couldn’t yet imagine, he’d find whatever it was that drove him. Maybe even in this Ann Arbor he’d consigned himself to.

And that wild thought gave Daniel Flynn his greatest laugh of the night.

Ann Arbor, Michigan

FOUR DAYS LATER, Annie removed her sister’s black Prada cocktail dress from sentinel duty at the refrigerator door, where it had stood as a reminder of why she’d opted to starve herself. The good news was that she’d lost three pounds. Four, if she exhaled and put more weight on her right foot than her left while standing on the scale. The bad news—after a couple of glasses of water, it would all be back. Such was her evil, betraying metabolism.

Dress in hand, she padded her way through her condo, ignoring the box of extraneous stuff she had readied for the local donation drop box. No matter that the NYC move was far off and far from a sure thing, it never hurt to prepare.

Once in her bedroom, she slipped on the dress and sucked in her breath while zipping. Thanks to super-elastic pantyhose that came perilously close to Elizabeth’s dreaded “foundation garment,” plus a gel bra that was a feat of engineering, the dress nearly fit. With the rearrangement of her internal organs, breathing was going to be a dicey thing, but breathing was overrated, anyway.

Annie turned sideways and examined herself in the mirror by her walk-in closet.

“Not bad,” she murmured.

If she could survive this evening’s cocktail party without fainting from hunger, she had it made. And if she did pass out, with luck Sasha would be at her side. Others among her co-workers would roll her inert body beneath a potted palm and rejoice. Being chairman’s pet was no more socially beneficial than it had been back in fifth grade when she’d been teacher’s pet. Still, it paid better than the teacher’s pet gig.

Annie applied her makeup, crammed her cell phone and lipstick into a tiny excuse for a purse and hit the road. As she traveled toward the sunset, Ann Arbor proper gave way to suburb, which quickly thinned to farmland. The drive was familiar. As part of upper management, she’d been to the Washtenaw Open Hunt Club for company gatherings many times before.

Annie hadn’t led a sheltered life. With professors for parents, she and her siblings had lived in Japan and traveled throughout Europe as extra baggage during their parents’ countless guest lecturer stints. Still, for all she had seen, something about the Hunt Club’s bizarre mock antebellum opulence always left her feeling edgy. And that was the last thing she wanted right now. She needed to be on, hot, dynamic…in sum, not your standard Annie.

She pulled her car to the peak of the circular drive in front of the ersatz Tara’s broad steps. The valet opened her car door, and Annie exited as smoothly as she could, given the constrictor-grip of her dress. Once standing, she wriggled the garment to its intended level and ignored the valet’s grin. She ascended the stairs, did her best to shake off her case of the creeps, then readied to seize her future.

Sasha stood just inside the open French doors to the ballroom. She handed Annie a glass of white wine. “It’s a decent chardonnay. Drink up so we can get another in before Gramps has the bar haul out the cheap stuff.”

Annie wasn’t surprised at her friend’s party-down attitude, which was totally at odds with her appearance. Sasha was small, ivory-skinned, black-haired and incredibly slender—almost a pen-and-ink of a woman. Yet beneath that ascetic exterior lurked a metabolism in overdrive. As Donovan’s head of community relations, she recreated with more enthusiasm and slept less than anyone Annie had ever known. Annie was content to draft behind her like the second-place driver in a grand prix.

“Here’s to good news,” Sasha said, raising her glass.

They toasted each other, downed healthy swallows, then pinned on matching corporate smiles and made their way into the throng.

Beneath the soft piano music, an undercurrent of anticipation hummed through the room. Then again, it might have been only in Annie’s head. She took another nervous sip of wine. The chilly liquid hit the bottom of her empty stomach.

As she glanced around, she noticed that a screen had been set up at the far end of the room. On it flashed photographs of crumbling stone towers, towering gray cliffs and whitewashed cottages, all set in a green and rocky landscape. Photos from Hal Donovan’s vacation, no doubt. Annie frowned. Sure, Hal could be a little odd, but he’d never held his employees hostage for a travelogue before. She took another swallow of smooth chardonnay as insulation against any upcoming lectures on leprechauns.

Hal stood nearly straight ahead, deep in conversation with Richard and Duane, two of his four sons involved in the family business, neither of whom looked happy. Of course, Donovans generally looked unhappy when in one another’s company. Not a whole lot of conversation took place. Mostly, Hal ordered his sons around, and they silently seethed with resentment, all of which made for some peachy management meetings.

As though they sensed her watching, Richard and Duane shot stern looks her way. She told herself that it wasn’t about the franchise deal, that she shouldn’t overanalyze what she saw, but that was pretty much like telling herself that a chocolate bar didn’t help PMS. She gulped the rest of her wine and thought nothing of it when Sasha handed her another.

One drink usually smoothed the edge off her nerves, but already Annie surfed a serious buzz. Food was necessary. While Sasha and she made nice to the guys on the corporate legal staff—who were people you didn’t want to cross—Annie tracked the progress of a scarlet-coated waiter headed in her direction. Whatever this guy was serving smelled like heaven, Annie-style—lots of garlic and butter. Ignoring the conversation buzzing around her, she willed him closer.

Annie and the waiter made eye contact. Just two steps more, buddy, and you’re mine.

As was the case with Annie and most guys, his attention strayed. He wandered to her left. She concentrated harder.

This way. R-i-i-i-ght here.

Time was seriously of the essence since his tray was nearly empty. She reached out a hand. Her mouth began to water. Just then, Sasha stepped in and took the last item.

“Shrimp scampi,” she said to Annie over a full mouth. “Primo.”

“Great.”

The waiter retreated. Annie felt a tragic emptiness second only to her brief New Year’s try at a carb-free diet. Well, hell, at least she had her wine to tide her over.

After another swig she said to Sasha, “I’ll be back. It’s time to stalk a waiter.”

She was about to turn away when a rusty-with-hard-living-and-whiskey voice came over the sound system.

“Glad you could all make it,” Hal Donovan said. Annie spotted the stocky older man at a podium near the grand piano.

“Better hang on,” Sasha murmured, briefly closing her fingers around Annie’s wrist.

Annie stilled. At least, that’s how it looked from the outside. Inside was another jangled, stressed reality altogether.

“I’m sure some of you thought that I’d brought you here tonight so I could announce my retirement. A few of you were probably even praying for it,” he added with a disgruntled glance at his sons standing in a row. “Earlier this year, you might have been right. Then about a month ago, I had a visit from our vice president of long-range planning.”

Sasha elbowed Annie. Had her glass not been nearly empty, she would have been wearing its contents.

“This is it,” Sasha whispered.

Annie noted in an abstract sort of way that the vice president of long-range planning had suddenly begun to feel a little dizzy. She focused on Hal, ignoring the daggers coming from nearby, where Rachel, her main competition at Donovan Enterprises, stood.

“Annie’s enthusiasm was contagious. She urged me to look at our business in a new way…not to rest on past successes. As you all know, I’m not much for listening to anybody, but I’ve begun to think she has a point. It’s time for Donovan Enterprises to become vital…hungry…”

Annie’s heart began to dance double-time. This wasn’t dizziness—she was giddy.

“We’re going to expand…reach for new horizons…”

She grabbed hold of Sasha’s hand and shot a lip curl toward Rachel, who was already sending Annie a pretty good one, too. For once, life was happening exactly as Annie had scripted it. Rachel was yesterday’s news.

“Breathe!” Sasha hissed.

“Donovan is a name that will soon be known…”

Throughout Europe, Annie silently prompted, gripping tighter to Sasha.

“…for its chain of Irish pubs across the country.”

Holy crap. Somebody had seriously jacked with Hal’s copy of the script. The one breath that Annie had managed to draw slowly hissed out, leaving her deflated.

Hal raised his whiskey glass and said, “To Annie Rutherford, for reminding me that there are still mountains to climb.”

Close, but no big, fat, stinkin’ Hal-type cigar. She’d meant the Alps, not the Rockies.

Sasha again planted her elbow in Annie’s ribs. “Raise your glass,” she ordered out of the side of her mouth. “Now.”

Annie did. At least, she was pretty sure she did.

“If she agrees,” Hal said, then gave a brief and-how-could-she-not? chuckle, “Annie will be spearheading this new venture. Let’s cheer her on!”

On cue, the pianist began to play something that sounded vaguely Riverdanceish. Annie watched in utter, dry-mouthed disbelief as a bunch of kids in blindingly loud embroidered velvet dresses danced their way into the room.

Sasha took her empty wineglass. “Let me get you a refill. You’re going to need it.”

Sasha might as well bring a damn case of wine. While putting together her proposal, Annie had survived six months of no movies, no fun, no friends and definitely no dates worth mentioning, and what did she have to show for it? Zip. And Hal was about to gamble a whole lot of money—not to mention her career—that he could succeed in a corner of the industry that was notorious for making bankruptcy attorneys fat, happy and well paid.

Annie shook hands and chatted with well-wishers and some clearly not-so well-wishers. Her face began to ache from her manufactured isn’t-life-wonderful? expression. She also had the eerie sensation that somebody other than she was making her lips move and platitudes come out. She hoped her responses sounded a whole lot more polite than “I’m so totally screwed,” which was reeling in her head. Her script had tanked, but a lot of these guys would kill for the opportunity she’d just been handed.

Hal stopped by long enough to issue marching orders. “Meet me at the office tomorrow morning at eight. And smile, Annie. This is supposed to be fun.”

Fun?

She took it all back, every kind word, every charitable thought. Hal Donovan was quite possibly insane. But she also owed him her loyalty, which meant that on a Saturday morning when she intended to be vilely hungover, she would be there for him.

She worked up a feeble smile. “Okay, Hal.”

He laughed. “See if you can produce something a little more convincing before tomorrow.”

And then he left her standing alone in a sea of people, none of whom, she was sure, could feel any more miserable than she. All was not lost, though. Her faithless waiter had reappeared. Annie took the offered cocktail fork and plate, then speared a bacon-wrapped scallop from the tray. The waiter readied to move on, but Annie had serious plans to blow out the seams of her sister’s cursed cocktail dress.

“Settle in, Ned,” she said, reading the name on the guy’s black plastic name tag. “You and I aren’t going anywhere.”