*“Well, mate.” Jamie slapped Aaron on the shoulder and grinned. “It’s great you’re here, but I have to finish mowing the lawn. Fiona handles the rooms, so I’ll leave you in her capable hands.”
Aaron focused his gaze on Fiona and decided he’d rather enjoy being in her capable hands. Either she’d grown more beautiful since he last saw her, or his memory hadn’t done her justice.
Jamie’s boots thumped on the wooden floorboards as he headed out, then silence descended on the room.
“I won’t be long,” Fiona said, her voice high and brittle. “Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll show you where Jamie’s room is.”
“No hurry.” Aaron remembered the location of Jamie’s room, but he was more than happy to watch Fiona while she finished up with her craft stuff. She tied another ribbon around the top of the jar she was decorating. Her slender hands and tanned arms moved with confidence as she tweaked the flowers and bows until she was satisfied.
He’d forgotten how stunning she was. She wasn’t just pretty; it was as if she had an aura of energy around her that mesmerized him and drew him in like a trout on a line. In the heat of the airless wooden building, sweat prickled Aaron’s skin, and he stepped closer to Fiona.
During the bleak times while he was working undercover, he’d struggled to remember the good times he’d spent here. Now memories flooded back. Aaron rested a hand on the sun-warmed wooden workbench, and the cat wandered closer and rubbed its head on his arm. “Hey there, kitty. What’s your name?”
“You don’t recognize him?” Disappointment tinged Fiona’s voice.
Aaron concentrated on the cat, noting the green eyes and the tiger-stripe pattern on its fur. A flash of intense emotion passed through him, remorse mixed with longing. “It’s the kitten I gave you, isn’t it?”
That day flashed back in his mind—her sixteenth birthday party, the music, the dancing, the kiss. That whole summer had been building up to that moment and he was nearly crazy with desire for her, hormones clouding his judgment. But she was too young for him. Her father had warned him off, and looking back, that had been wise.
The only way Aaron could maintain his sanity was to get away from her. So he’d left, promising to return when she was older. Then life happened and too many years passed. Now here they were.
“Do you think he remembers me?” he asked.
“I doubt it.” Fiona turned her gaze on him, and the simmering hurt in her blue eyes stabbed him in the chest.
“He’s ten. That’s a long time for a cat.” A long time for her, too, hung unspoken in the air between them.
She slipped off the high stool and sashayed across the room in her wedge-heeled sandals. The skirt of her blue-and-yellow summer dress swung around her tanned legs as she walked and Aaron followed, that invisible thread pulling him after her, helpless to resist.
“So, what are all these jars for?”
“I sell them.” She glanced over her shoulder at him, then added her jar to a display set out for sale. “When Dad died, we nearly lost the castle. We had to come up with ways to make money. Jamie suggested we open the spare bedrooms for bed and breakfast, Ewan holds folk music festivals in the grounds twice a year, and I came up with the idea of the wishing trail.”
She waved her arm towards the door. “You remember the winding garden path in the old walled garden? Well, we made a feature of it. Now it’s a tourist attraction. We have busloads of tourists come to make wishing jars and walk the wishing trail. I’ll show you sometime. Now we’d better get you settled in.”
The soft tone of her voice and the way her long silky hair slid over her shoulders as she angled her head mesmerized Aaron. She had changed in the last ten years. She was more confident and curvy—more desirable than ever.
He dragged a hand over his face. In the back of his mind, the tiny voice grew louder that whispered in his dreams, the one that told him he’d made a mistake by not keeping his promise to her.
He’d planned to return to Ballyglass after college to work with his granddad and to catch up with Fiona. Yet when his father told him that messing about on boats during the summer vacation was fine, but it was not a long-term career choice, he’d bowed to paternal pressure and let himself be talked into joining the Garda.
Not only had he let down his granddad, he’d given up any hope of returning to claim Fiona. Maybe that had been the biggest mistake of all.
*
Fiona folded the fruit scone dough on a floured board, then patted it into a flat round shape. As she plunged the cutter into the dough to make the scones, footsteps sounded behind her. Streaks of electricity raced up and down her spine. She was so sensitive to Aaron, she didn’t even need to turn around to know it was him.
With a resigned sigh, she glanced over her shoulder. He rested his hands on the back of a kitchen chair and grinned at her. “Something smells good.”
“These aren’t for you. They’re for my cream teas.”
He gave an exaggerated pout like a small boy and Fiona laughed; she couldn’t help herself. She didn’t want to feel this way about Aaron, but her skin tingled with awareness of him just like it used to. He looked so gorgeous in a clean blue T-shirt, cargo shorts, and deck shoes.
“You planning on sailing somewhere?”
He laughed wryly. “Unlikely. All my granddad’s boats were sold off. No, I just needed to shower and put on some clean clothes. The last few days have been difficult, and I haven’t had a chance to wash and change for a while.”
“It sounds like you’re in trouble. I thought you were in the Garda.”
Aaron’s smile dropped away. Taut lines of tension framed his mouth and radiated from his eyes, making him suddenly look older and a little fierce. “I am.” His curt tone signaled an end to the discussion.
Not sure whether to be worried about him or offended by his tone of voice, Fiona returned to her work. She pressed the dough back into a round shape, cut out some more scones, and laid them on the baking sheet. The timer on her oven dinged, so she put on the oven gloves to take out the cheese scones she’d made earlier.
Aaron wandered up beside her and grabbed a hot cheese scone, juggling it as she swiped at his butt with the oven gloves. When he was a safe distance away, he took a bite. “Mmm.” He closed his eyes as he chewed. “Good.”
“Hands off, O’Malley. I need these for the tourists this afternoon. I offer a wishing trail package, a wishing jar and a pot of tea with freshly baked fruit scones with jam and thick cream, or cheese scones and butter. And ice cream for the kids.”
“I think you might have persuaded me to stay for tea.” Aaron grinned as he sidestepped her attempt to block him, snatched a second cheese scone, and dashed behind the table where she couldn’t smack him.
Fiona rolled her eyes, but she was relieved that he was back to the Aaron she knew. The ten years he’d been away faded and it felt like just yesterday they’d been together, working at his granddad’s place, cleaning the boats, messing about in the water, fishing, and eating ice cream. Those summers when Aaron came to stay in his granddad’s cabin were the best days of her life.
Fiona sobered at the thought of his granddad. They’d all loved old O’Malley. He was the kindest man she’d ever known. It had broken the old man’s heart when Aaron didn’t come back to see him before he died. In fact, Aaron seemed to be an expert at breaking hearts.
She put two baking sheets of fruit scones in the oven and grabbed the paper bag of baguettes that had been delivered that morning. “I’m making Jamie a sandwich for lunch. I suppose you don’t want one now you’ve stuffed yourself with cheese scones.”
Aaron wandered closer as he rubbed crumbs off his hands, his grin back in place. “I think I could manage a sandwich. You know me; never say no to food. What fillings have you got?”
“Jamie has egg salad.” She raised her eyebrows, daring him to ask for something different.
“That’ll do me. Thanks.”
As Aaron swept his fingers back through his hair, combing the disheveled strands, Fiona paused to watch, her heart giving a little kick as if to remind her to keep breathing. Why did he have to be so…so…annoyingly attractive?
Tearing her gaze away, she put together the two sandwiches, then stepped out the back door to ring the bell on the wall. A few minutes later, Jamie jogged up. The two men sat together at one of the round garden tables the tourists used and tucked into their lunch.
The two teen girls from Ballyglass village who regularly helped out arrived and claimed chilled sodas from the fridge before Fiona sent them to do their favorite job, make wishing jars.
Both girls giggled when Aaron smiled at them. Fiona shook her head in reprimand, but she couldn’t blame them. He’d had the same effect on her when she was fifteen—and he still had that effect on her now.
Grabbing an apple, cheese scone, and soda for herself, Fiona joined the men at the table.
“When do you want to start clearing out old O’Malley’s cabin?” Jamie asked Aaron, obviously continuing a conversation they’d started earlier.
“Whenever you can spare the time.”
“This afternoon is good. I have things to do, but nothing that can’t wait.”
Fiona’s heart plummeted. Although she told herself she didn’t want to be around Aaron any more than necessary, her head and her heart didn’t agree. Her heart longed to help clear out the cabin. The three of them could work together like they used to, but she was busy with the wishing trail tourists this afternoon.
“Actually, before we start I need to arrange for a large metal skip to put the rubbish in.” Aaron pulled his phone from his pocket. “What’s your Wi-Fi password?”
Fiona told him. He keyed it in and searched the Internet. Then he called a skip rental firm and booked for one to be delivered the following morning. “Not much point in starting the clear-out until the skip arrives. I suggest we leave it until tomorrow.”
“Suits me,” Jamie said. “I want to take a branch down off the old oak tree in the far corner of the meadow, and that’s a two-man job. How about giving me a hand this afternoon?”
“Sounds good.” Aaron shoved the last of his sandwich in his mouth.
“I’ll lend you some boots,” Jamie said.
The two men wandered off while discussing the merits of different brands of chain saws, absorbed in their world of guy stuff just like they used to be all those years ago.
Fiona closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the sun, her mind drifting to the first wishing jar she’d ever made, the one that had given birth to the wishing trail idea. As a heartbroken teenager, she’d done everything she could think of to persuade fate to send Aaron back to her. She’d prayed, wished on stars, kissed the Blarney Stone, and thrown coins in a magical fountain. When she’d read about wishing jars, it had been one more project to take her mind off her heartache and make her feel as though she was doing something positive.
She’d searched her bedroom for treasures that reminded her of him, and filled a bottle with her hopes and dreams. That first wishing jar was still tucked down by the fountain at the end of the wishing trail. Had it finally worked its magic after all these years, or was it merely wishful thinking?