Did it matter?
Maybe not.
Or maybe it mattered a great deal.
Chapter 22
“Does fun with you have to be so painful?” Griffin patted the bandage over his shoulder and upper arm where he’d gotten a new tattoo.
“Pain is the prelude to pleasure.” Clare shrugged her jacket over her own bandaged arm. “It’s going to look epic.”
He opened the red-painted door to a nearby pub. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into it.”
“It’s for your own good.” She wagged her finger. “The next time, you forget your password, you’ll be glad we did it.”
That was because they had matching Crosses of Brigid tattoos with two halves of a password embedded on the four legs of the spirally crosses.
“Bet you didn’t know this tattoo binds you to me, little fairy.” He slid into a booth after she selected one. “Are you sure you’re up to it?”
“It’s the same in reverse, my big griffin guy.” She picked up a plastic menu card and swatted him. “You have to come to me if I need you.”
“Joined by Celtic knots, and let no man cut us asunder.” He made a fist and bumped it with hers. “Will we go to the abbey tomorrow? I’m sure the guys following us are lost by now.”
“Let’s go about it in a roundabout way,” she said while her eyes focused on the menu. “I want to show you more of living in the present. You must be hungry. What is the sensation you feel? What makes your mouth water? A boxty or a burger? What about the crisp, fresh coolness of a salad? The creaminess of a hearty stew. The bitterness in a draught of stout.”
Was she delaying or reneging on giving him back the Heart of Brigid? While he looked forward to new adventure and a life without regrets, his family treasure still belonged to him.
Griffin felt a prickly sensation between his shoulder blades. What if Clare was trying to make off with the Heart of Brigid?
Whether it was magic or not, it was a large diamond and quite valuable. She could be distracting him with this day of fun while her friends hid it in a better location.
“Remember our deal,” he reminded her. “If you prove to be my Brigid, I promise to fund your movie. It means you have to have my best interest in everything you do.”
“Haven’t I shown that to you?” She pressed her body against his side. “I’m helping you with life and living in the present. We’ll take off for the countryside tomorrow morning. For tonight, let’s make believe we’re in love. Wouldn’t that be fun?”
Call him easy. He was like a teenager who’d never been let out, only because he didn’t remember being in love or doing anything daring.
He had to love a crazy woman—especially one who practically sparkled and made his heart bubble like shaken champagne.
“Sure, little fairy. I’ll gladly stay in the moment with you. Tonight. One night. Completely together in every way.”
He waited for her answer with a galloping heart. He’d never, at least in his memory, propositioned a woman. Heck, he’d always held out for his beloved Brigid.
But this Clare Hart, who seemed determined to tie herself into the knotty problems of his life, wanted to prove she was Brigid.
Would she actually put herself out for him? Or was it all a big bunch of blarney in search of a love story?
“Will a single night lead to another?” She pressed her hand on his forearm.
“Now, who’s not living in the present?”
Clare wasn’t sure what had gotten into her. Had she agreed to sleep with Griffin? Take him on for his single night? Tonight?
She couldn’t concentrate on the food she’d ordered, and she spoke and laughed on autopilot. Griffin took up all the space in the booth and sucked up all the oxygen in the entire pub.
He seemed relaxed and was relishing his bowl of ramen noodles with slabs of pork belly. He surprised her with his deft use of chopsticks and his obvious enjoyment of Japanese beer, and he looked as calm as a barfly at his favorite watering hole.
She’d thought of him as an old-fashioned Irishman, and it hadn’t occurred to her until he propositioned her that he was very much a twenty-first century male.
So much for courting and chaperones. But then again, they had spent the night on a twin bed together, and even though he wasn’t handcuffed, he had kept his hands to himself.
Maybe she was reading too much into his single night statement. Pretending to be in love didn’t mean sex. It simply meant sharing and caring, right?
Her traitorous body shivered with a web of tingles, and she couldn’t help wondering whether being with a man who owned a castle was epic enough for her first time.
“You must not like the seaweed salad,” he said, gesturing with his pointy chopsticks at her pile of seaweed, edamame, carrot, and mountain yam salad.
“Actually, it’s delicious, and very healthy. A little bite of spiciness, but it’s great,” she said. “We should bring some food back for Maeve and Sorcha.”
“Good idea,” he said. “We can drop by your apartment and pack.”
“Why would we need to pack?” Clare’s pulse skittered on high alert. “Where would we go that needed packing?”
She was definitely chickening out. They’d already had a memorable day. The burning sensation of the fresh tattoo was proof. She’d also seen the inside of a Victorian jail and taken many pictures she wanted to put on her social media.
Besides, Griffin’s Green Notebook was burning a hole in her purse, and she needed a minute to herself to toss it in the trash, never to be referenced again.
“You seem distracted,” Griffin said, stirring his chopsticks among the ramen noodles. “Tell you what. Let me take over the planning for our memorable evening. You can relax. Let’s drive to a fantasy location. In fact, you can wear all of the fairy gear you want.”
“You want me to dress up and draw attention to us?” Clare’s stomach dropped and butterfly wings of confusion swirled in her chest. What was Griffin up to? Was he trying to lure the bad guys who were after the Heart of Brigid? Flush them out in the open?
“Yes, you should be yourself.” He swept his eyes over her conservative clothes. “Choose whichever goddess you want to be tonight and make it real. Don’t tell me which one. It’ll be my honor to escort you.”
“Uh, we’ve had a long day already,” Clare said. “Aren’t you exhausted from your doctor appointment and all the touring? Have you thought about the treatment options?”
“Treatment, schweetment.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Tonight is our last hurrah, wouldn’t you say?”
He was up to something. Possibly dangerous. Was he already in cahoots with someone to try and kidnap her? Or force her to reveal the location of the diamond?
“Why don’t we go to the abbey and fetch your family treasure first?” she offered, now that warning bells clanged in her mind and the color of blood washed over her visual field. Once he had it, she could put her guilt feelings away. She could also escape before he remembered what dire things he was supposed to do to the changeling.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Griffin said. “Bronagh Abbey isn’t far from where we’ll spend the night.”
“Why don’t we call it an early night, stay at the apartment, and start fresh tomorrow morning?”
“Don’t tell me my fun and high-energy fairy maiden is tapped out.” Griffin tilted his head back and smirked. “Can’t keep up with an old man?”
“You’re not old,” she countered. “I bet you’re not yet thirty.”
“You forget, I’m over a thousand years old, but tonight, I’m going to make a big decision.” He clasped her hand and bumped shoulders with her. “My dear beloved Brigid, I would like you by my side when I embark on a completely new life. Will you be my bride tonight?”
“Buh-bride?” Clare’s tongue refused to work. He had to be joking. She hadn’t known him long enough for him to fall in love with her. They hadn’t even been dating or courting or whatever thousand-year-old epileptics did.
“You promise?”
“Swear on my grandfather’s life.” He feathered his lips over the shell of her ear. “Think of the love story you could write from your own experiences. Think of the movie we could produce.”
“Okay.” The word was barely out of Clare’s mouth when she wanted to take it back.
What had she agreed to? There was no way she could trust him. What if everything written in the Green Notebook was coming true?
What if she was the sacrificial victim and not Brigid the Bride?
“Promise I won’t get hurt.”
“I promise you won’t get hurt.” He patted the bandage over her tattoo. “We’re in this together. Do you trust me?”
“Sure,” she said. “I trust you.”
Not at all. She was going to have to give him the slip as soon as she could burn the Green Notebook. She wasn’t one of her too-stupid-to-live heroines. She was, after all, a diabolical romance author, and she could spot tricks as far up a man’s sleeve as his armpit.
Humpf.
Chapter 23
Griffin sat back and slurped his noodles while watching Clare amble to the ladies’ room. As soon as she disappeared behind the restroom door, he pulled out his phone and called his grandfather.
“Where the heck did you go with that woman?” Grandfather barked.
“I have to keep her close. She hasn’t told me which fairy mound she’s hidden the Heart of Brigid in.”
“Then you must make her fall in love with you,” Grandfather said. “A woman will do anything for a man she loves. How is that coming along?”
“She cares about me. Wants me to have the surgery for my memory lapses.”
Grandfather sighed loudly over the phone line. “You’re moving too slowly. Ask her to marry you. Every minute she keeps the Heart of Brigid from you is a minute too long. We need to restore old Ireland before climate change raises the sea level and sinks our fair isle into the ocean depths.”
“I’ve already asked her to be my bride tonight,” Griffin reassured. “I’m planning on taking her to The Four Hallows after the wedding.”
“That’s my boy,” Grandfather said approvingly. “I shall call the O’Munsters and make sure you have the proper reception. When will you two be there?”
“We’re finishing up in Dublin and should be there by eight or nine.” Griffin looked up from the table and spotted Clare staring at the floor as she walked back and forth near the back of the pub. She had a scowl on her face, and she was pawing through her purse frantically. “I think I’d better nab her before she takes off.”
He hung up and left several large euro notes on the table to cover the tab.
“Looking for something?” he said smoothly as he sidled up next to her. She looked as skittery as a spooked pony.
“No, nothing.” She clamped her purse shut and pinched it under her arm. “Let’s call it a night. I have to go back to the apartment, and I’m sure you’re missed at the castle.”
“You promised to take me to Bronagh Abbey to find my family treasure.” He took hold of her by the elbow. “After we’re married, it will belong to you, too, and you would be the lady at Gallagher Castle and share in my wealth.”
“This is too much, too fast,” Clare said. Two spots of red splotched over her cheeks. “I want to be your Brigid but only in pretend.”
“Who said I’m not pretending?” he asked, steering her toward the bright-red doors of the pub and onto the sidewalk. “Where’s your spirit of adventure? Your zest for the unreal? Your imaginative muse?”
“I, uh.” She hesitated, her eyes large and round. “If I give you the Heart of Brigid back, will you let me go and forget about everything that happened?”
“Even the movie deal you wanted?”
“I might get the money another way,” she stuttered, and her eyes darted toward a bus lumbering down the street.
Griffin’s gut tightened at the realization she was trying to double-cross him despite her affirmations and fake concern over his health.
He also tightened his grip on her arm. “Why wouldn’t you want to stick around with me and see how the story turns out?”
She gulped, her head jerking back, and blinked fast. “I might not like the ending.”
“There will be no ending.” He flashed her a reassuring smile he hoped wasn’t too creepy-looking. “Only the present, and the present, and more of the present. Come with me, my love, and see how your life unfolds.”
Or not.
Clare felt like a too-stupid-to-live heroine.
Here she was, sitting inside Griffin Gallagher’s Ashton Martin DB11 Volante convertible, this time with the top up and her in the passenger seat. Because of his medication, he wasn’t supposed to drive, but how could she stop him when it was his car?
She was trussed up in a low-cut evening gown sparkling with white sequins, wearing a tiara festooned with cubic zirconia crystals, with the purplish-red Heart of Brigid replica on a chain over her cleavage—the perfect image of the Brigid Bride Barbie.
Griffin, on the other hand, looked dashingly handsome and Roaring Twenties wealthy—like an Irish Jay Gatsby, complete with a windowpane wool vest, watch chain, a gold silk pocket square, driving gloves, and two-tone brown-and-white vintage wingtip shoes.
Clare was still worried about losing Griffin’s Green Notebook. She could have lost it at the doctor’s office or at the tattoo parlor where she’d placed it underneath the artist’s workstation. There was also her episode of being carsick on the ride to the Gaol where she’d dug in her purse for an airsickness bag. She couldn’t recall if it had been there then or not.
Why hadn’t she tossed that dastardly thing in the trash when she had the chance? What was wrong with her?
Well, duh. She wanted to keep it as a source of inspiration for future love stories, and the notebook was a primary source from a family steeped in Irish lore.
She inhaled and exhaled, hoping to calm her mind and be focused on the present. There was nothing she could do about the lost notebook now. Nor could she let Griffin know she had anything to do with finding it on the airplane.
All she could do was direct him to Bronagh Abbey and hope to con her way in so she could search the fairy mound.
What story would she give the abbess? That she was getting married tonight and would like a blessing?
As usual, Dublin traffic was dense until they reached the outskirts. Once they hit the open road, Griffin raced the convertible on the winding road through a range of mountains and down into the valley.
In the last light of dusk, Clare lifted her eyes and glimpsed the abbey high up on a ridge several switchbacks away from them. A dark mist swirled around the watchtower and hung over the tumble-down wall where vines and bushes peeked from between the rock piles.
A foreboding chill raised all the fine hairs on her skin, and she wrapped a white fur stole tighter over her shoulders.
Abbess Aisling was not likely to look kindly on the so-called changeling she took in one cold winter day. Clare had been left in a basket with no note—nothing but a crying baby girl with flaming-red hair.
“Almost there,” Griffin said, swerving around a hairpin turn. “I can’t wait to meet the people who raised you and marry you in the abbey’s chapel.”
“I don’t know if anyone there is authorized to perform a wedding,” Clare said. “I thought we were going only to look for your family treasure.”
“When we have the Heart of Brigid, we won’t need anyone to officiate,” Griffin said. “The laws of the Tuatha Dé Danann will cover our union, and we will be married in the land of the Fae.”
“You’re sounding like you’re off your meds,” Cla
re said, still kicking herself for not escaping out the back door of the pub.
“Clare, Clare, Clare,” he said. “You’re my best friend, and you’ve been so helpful to me. I promise you I’ll support your movie efforts if you give me back the treasure you stole from me. Isn’t cooperating with me better than if I went to the Garda?”
That was definitely a threat.
“I’m getting weirded out,” she said, her words slow and measurable. “If we’re friends, shouldn’t you be concerned about how I feel?”
He took his foot off the accelerator, and the car lurched. “If we’re friends, you would have given my property back without trickery and games.”
The jig was up. He’d just taken off the mask of all pretense.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “I’m sorry I took your Heart of Brigid and swapped it for a lump of coal. I’ve been wrong to try to wring a movie deal out of you, and all I can do now is to lead you to the Heart of Brigid. Will you let me go, please? Instead of calling the Garda?”
He pulled off the road and shut off the car but left the headlamps on. “I’m amazed that you’re finally fessing up. I promised I would not hurt you, so if you give me back what’s mine, I’ll let you go. Although, you’ve been the most fun I’ve ever had since returning from my last seizure.”
“It’s only been a little over a week.” She looked over at him in the dim light. “I’m sure you’ve had more fun in your last life.”
“I don’t know. I’ve lost my Green Notebook where I kept the plan.” He shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter. After spending today with you, I’ve decided to take you up on your offer. We created good memories today. I’ll have the surgery, and I hope you will stay friends with me.”
Wow. They were truly having a heart-to-heart after all the make-believe. Clare felt herself lightening up and breathing easier. This version of Griffin was both easy on the eyes and easy on the heart.
“I can do friends,” she said, although her heart clenched at the setback. Hadn’t they almost been ready to marry? Although that had been pretend, she hadn’t even had time to fantasize. Lady of the Castle Gallagher. Her love story made into a movie. The dashing Griffin Gallagher taking her as his bride. But then, it had all been fake.
Lucky Like Love: The Fae Legacy #1 Page 16
