You'll Always Have Tara

by Leah Marie Brown

  “Will you be happy to see the castle again?”

  “As happy as I can be without Aunt Patricia there,” I say, pressing a hand to my churning buttermilk belly.

  “I miss her,” Sin says. “She was quite a character, always planning her next adventure. Sometimes I reach for my mobile to call her and then remember she is gone.”

  “Me too.”

  He removes his hand from the steering wheel and grabs my hand, squeezing it gently.

  “Are you happy to be going back to Tásúildun?”

  “Of course,” he says, turning off the road and onto the gravel drive leading to our aunt’s castle. “I love the castle. It’s my second childhood home.”

  “Did you spend a lot of time there?”

  “Every Christmas and Easter break.”

  I turn to look at him. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “I had no idea.” I am astonished. “I thought you only visited the one summer.”

  Even though Aunt Patricia’s husband died a few years after they wed, she continued to forge a close bond with her sister-in-law, Sin’s mother. It makes sense—and fits with her warm, loyal character—that she would spend time with Sin. Yet, somehow, I imagined the bond between us to be unique and stronger than her bond with her other nieces and nephews. It’s selfish and childish, but I am jealous of the time Sin spent with our aunt.

  “Aunt Patricia knew things weren’t easy for me at home, so she opened her home and heart to me. I felt more like her son than her nephew. Tásúildun became my refuge.”

  “Mine too.”

  “I know.”

  “You do?”

  “Aunt Patricia told me a lot about you.”

  I am now beyond astonished. “She did?”

  He nods. “She used to say she believed you and I were kindred spirits and that our life circles would intersect again someday.” He makes a noise low in his throat, something between pain and disbelief. “Strangely prescient of her.”

  “Unless she added the proviso to her will years ago.”

  “Still strange.”

  We drive through the tunnel that runs through the middle of the medieval gatehouse in silence. I am trying to understand the logic in my aunt’s bizarre request—that I choose a co-beneficiary from either Aidan Gallagher or Rhys Burroughes—when Sin turns onto the drive leading to Tásúildun. I remember Sin for the awkward, shy boy he was and wonder if that is the way Aunt Patricia saw me, a misfit.

  “Why did Aunt Patricia think we were kindred spirits? What reasons did she give?”

  “She told me you weren’t happy in Charleston because you often felt lost between your sisters, overlooked by your father. She said when you learned your unique worth you would find your place, be it Charleston or Cairo.”

  I turn to look at Sin.

  “What did you just say?”

  “She said you would find your place in this world once you accepted that you were special and remarkable.”

  My place.

  You could knock me over with a chicken feather. I always knew my aunt was a clever woman, but—

  We reach the top of the drive and Tásúildun appears on the horizon. From this vantage point, with the sea stretching as far as the eye can see, it looks as if the tumbledown stone castle is perched on the edge of the world. It’s magnificent, even if it isn’t as grand as it appeared in my memory, with an outer wall and two four-story towers connected by a small rectangular main building that was once the great hall. Like Doe Castle, located up the coast, it is one of the few whitewashed castles left in Ireland.

  “Okay,” I say, pulling my jacket back on. “So Aunt Patricia thought we were kindred spirits. Why not just leave Tásúildun to the both of us? Why name Aidan Gallagher in her strange inheritance scheme?”

  “I don’t know”—he pulls to a stop in front of the southern wall—“but I think we will soon find out.”

  An Irish wolfhound comes bounding around the corner, a massive gray beast that could easily be mistaken for a small horse. He is galloping toward the car—as if he might leap onto the windshield and paw the glass—when he suddenly stops and whips his shaggy head around, looking back. I follow the dog’s gaze and that’s when I see him. A broad-shouldered, thick-necked beast of a man with a fierce scowl on his face. He’s wearing his sandy blonde hair in an undercut, the top longer and textured so it looks as if he just ran his fingers through it, the sides close-cropped like the GI Joe doll he used to play with when we were children. I don’t think I have ever seen a man with such a haircut, except on Peaky Blinders.

  I’m not gonna lie, y’all, he looks like he might sew razor blades into the band of his flat cap. I am about to ask Sin if he thinks we should lock our doors when . . .

  “Wait a minute!” I say, narrowing my gaze. “Is that—?”

  Chapter Nine

  “Aidan Gallagher!”

  We climb out of the car. Aidan continues walking toward us at a leisurely pace, shoulders back, head up, gaze fixed. At least, I think it is Aidan. This man is taller, bulkier than the boy who kissed me on a rickety rowboat in the middle of the lake. The muscles of his broad shoulders and massive biceps visible through his wool sweater. If he is smiling, that ready, dimpled smile, it is hidden behind his mustache and beard.

  When he finally reaches us, he crosses his arms over his chest and stares down at me with an unflinching, twinkle-free gaze.

  “Howahya, Tara,” he says, a toothpick—or is it a wheat shaft—dangling from his bottom lip. “Welcome back to Tásúildun.”

  There is a high-pitched ringing in my ears. My skin is flushed and clammy. My legs suddenly feel weak, too weak to support me. I feel as if I might . . .

  “Are you quite all right?” Sin reaches for my arm. “The color has gone from your face.”

  Heavenly Father! I didn’t expect Aidan to be such a . . . man. I might have just blacked out for a second.

  “I’m fine,” I say, pushing Sin’s hand away. “I think I just stood up too fast.”

  A twinge of a smile pulls at the corner of Aidan’s mustache and I have the distinct impression he is laughing at me, on the inside, like he knows my near swoon was a reaction to seeing him again.

  Arrogant ass. He was always arrogant, too cocky for his jeans. Lawd. That just came out wrong. You know what I meant.

  “Rhys,” Aidan says, nodding his head at Sin.

  They don’t shake hands. Tension crackles in the air like static electricity as they stand across from each other. It’s as if I am watching two fighters circling in a boxing ring. LET’S GET READY TO RUMBLE!! Good evening and welcome to tonight’s boxing match, which promises to be a classic in every sense of the word. In the British corner, weighing in at approximately 190 pounds, the man known only as Sin, a highly polished specimen of masculinity. And in the Irish corner weighing in at about 175 pounds of terrifying ferocity and chiseled muscle, Aidan “The Beast” Gallagher.

  If I don’t throw a metaphorical bucket of water on these two I am going to be standing on the shore of the lake, watching them engage in a grudge rematch. I move between England and Ireland and give Aidan a hug. He smells like wool, sea spray, the smoke from a burning peat fire, scents that always remind me of Ireland. I close my eyes and smile, because inhaling Aidan’s scent feels warm and familiar, like stepping through the front door at Black Ash and catching a whiff of Beulah’s biscuits baking.

  “It’s good to see you again, Aidan,” I say, pulling away and smiling up at him. “You’ve grown several inches since the last time I hugged you.”

  My cheeks flush with heat as I realize how flirty my comment sounded. Thank Jesus and the saints Sin doesn’t know the last time I hugged Aidan was in the old stables, when we fell in the hay and kissed until my lips were raw and I had straw sticking out of my hair. The memory makes me smile.

  Aidan isn’t smiling, though. Why isn’t he smiling? The Aidan Gallagher I knew always had a smile on his face and a twinkle in his sky-blue eyes. When
we were younger, I could take one look at him and read him like a well-thumbed Bible. I don’t know this Aidan. His stony expression and dead-eyed gaze tell me nothing. I am about to fill the awkward silence with pleasing chatter when I see a tiny spark flicker in his eyes.

  “I’m glad to see you, Tara,” he says, rolling the R in my name and pronouncing you as ya.

  We stare at each other. His gaze, flat and unreadable, mine searching for signs of the boy I once knew.

  Sin clears his throat.

  “Shall we go inside?”

  He pops the trunk and lifts my suitcase out, setting it down on the gravel drive. He is about to lift his suitcase out when his mobile rings. He pulls it out of his jacket pocket and looks at the screen.

  “Excuse me,” he says. “I need to take this. Go on ahead. I’ll meet you inside.”

  I am reaching for my suitcase, when Aiden grabs it by the handle and swings it onto his shoulder. He whistles and his dog stands up, alert, ears twitching.

  “Come Ailean.”

  “Your dog’s name is Alan?”

  “Ailean,” he says, pronouncing it the same way. Alan. “It’s Irish for rock.”

  I used to love listening to Aidan speaking Irish.

  “As in Dwayne Johnson, the Rock?”

  Aidan looks over at me, grimacing. He starts walking and I get a good view of the broad expanse of his back, the jagged, pink scar behind his left ear. I want to ask him how he got it, but our easy camaraderie seems to have vanished like a wisp of fog in sunlight.

  I follow him through the front door and up the stairs to the second floor, my footsteps echoing in the quiet house. I can’t stop staring at Aidan’s muscular back and shaved head. This intense, self-contained man bears little resemblance to the Aidan who has lived in my memory all of these years, the freckle-faced boy full of mischief and laughter. The sleeve of his sweater slides up his arm a bit, revealing part of a tattoo. This Aidan is nothing like the polo playing, Bourbon at the club, ex-frat boys I usually find attractive. This Aidan is dark and dangerous . . .

  . . . and sexy as all get out.

  Did I really just think that?

  He hoists my suitcase off his shoulder and puts it down in the hallway beside the tall-case clock, his biceps bulging with the effort.

  Hell, yes I did.

  “Mrs. McGregor thought ya would want to stay in your aunt’s room,” he says, pronouncing thought as taut. “Will ya be stayin’ in your aunt’s room, then?”

  “No!”

  Aidan frowns and his sandy blond brows knit together.

  “Moving into my aunt’s room and sleeping in her bed so soon after her death would feel wrong.”

  He crosses his muscular arms over his chest. “But Tásúildun is your home now.”

  I want to say Tásúildun is not my home, not really, not until I spend three months living with two men, and even then it won’t be truly mine. It will always be my aunt’s home.

  “I know this probably sounds silly, but”—my voice wavers with emotion—“if I moved into my aunt’s room right now, it would be like sweeping away fallen leaves. In the autumn, the leaves on the oak trees at my daddy’s home would turn the most beautiful colors. When they fell off the trees, the lawn would look like a carpet of yellow and orange. I always hated it when the gardener raked them up. I just wanted him to leave them be. That’s how I felt when we packed up Daddy’s things. I just wanted to leave them be.”

  Aidan is still staring at me. The expression on his face is inscrutable, but there is a faraway look in his eyes. I feel as if we are standing on opposing cliffs, separated by an ever-widening space. I want to fill the space with words.

  “I don’t want to accept two people I love are gone forever, swept off the face of the earth, never to be seen again, so I keep the ghosts of them near me. Does that sound crazy?”

  He blinks and shakes his head, as if an invisible hypnotist snapped their fingers to wake him from a trance.

  “No,” he says, his voice rough and low. “I don’t think that is crazy.”

  I look away, embarrassed and a wee bit ashamed at myself for having dumped emotional baggage on a man I haven’t spoken to in almost ten years. I listen to the ticking of the tall-case clock, counting the ticks until my shame fades, until Aidan says something to shatter the uncomfortable wall of silence between us.

  One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

  Aidan clears his throat.

  “Which room would ya like, then? Gráinne’s Room?”

  The room Aidan is referring to is magnificent, with wood paneling and iron-framed casement windows overlooking the sea. It is named after Gráinne Ní Mháille, a seventeenth century female chieftain and pirate whose legendary exploits inspired countless Irish folk tales. It is believed she spent several nights at Tásúildun, hiding out. There’s even a stairway concealed behind one of the panels.

  “I do love Gráinne’s Room, but it is so cold, especially when a gale blows off the sea and the winds howl through the window cracks.” I rub my forearms. “I am starting to shiver just thinking about it.”

  Aidan tilts his head to one side and looks at me through narrowed eyes, his gaze moving down my body, from my wool jacket to my thigh-high boots. I can almost hear him thinking, “Go on ya woman. Donegal is no place for a weakling.”

  “I see some things haven’t changed.”

  People in Donegal drop the h from their th words, a dialectic tic that makes me want to giggle each time I hear it.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing.” He lifts my bag by the handle. “Which room would ya like, then?”

  “I’ll stay in the Governess’s Room,” I say.

  Located at the end of the hall, away from the other bedrooms, the Governess’s Room is a cozy little nook of a room, with paneled walls painted robin’s egg blue and an alcove bed hung with drapes. It has a connecting door that leads to the old school room.

  “Grand,” Aidan mutters.

  “Which room did you choose?”

  “I moved my kit into the old stables.”

  “The stables? You can’t stay out there.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no heat.”

  “I like the cold,” he says.

  Aidan is not a normal Irishman. Complaining about the cold temperature is a national sport here.

  “But, it’s damp and dreary.”

  “I grew up in a cottage. I don’t require satin sheets and a fecking maid to leave a piece of chocolate on my pillow to fall asleep. Besides, I’ve slept in far worse places than the stables at Tásúildun.”

  I have a hunch the maid comment was a jab at me, but I let it go because I know Aidan didn’t grow up with most of the luxuries I took for granted until my daddy died.

  “Wouldn’t you rather stay in the castle with us?”

  “No.”

  “So, you would rather be alone?”

  He grits teeth.

  “I like being alone.”

  “Fine!”

  “Grand,” he says, grabbing my suitcase.

  I don’t know why Aidan’s choice to stay in the stables is rubbing my fur the wrong way, but right now I feel more riled up than an alley cat.

  “Only . . .”

  “What?”

  “Aunt Patricia’s said we have to live together under one roof. It was clearly stipulated in her will.”

  “God between us and all harm,” he mutters, dropping my suitcase again.

  The Irish are superstitious about many things, especially death. A true Irishman would do everything in his power to honor a loved one’s last wish and I know Aidan loved my aunt. They always had a special bond.

  “It was her last wish.”

  “Fine,” he growls, lifting my suitcase and striding down the hall.

  I follow him at a leisurely pace, my head held high as if I am queen of the castle, though I stop short of lifting my hand and giving one of those patronizing, cupped hand waves.

  That’s r
ight, Aidan Gallagher. Who’s the boss now? If I have to obey the dictates of this ridiculous inheritance scheme, so does he! After all, I gave up my job and rearranged my life to be here. The least he can do is move out of the damp, smelly old stables and live in a clean, renovated castle.

  He drops my suitcase at my door.

  “Thank you,” I say, smiling sweetly up at him. “Who says chivalry is dead everywhere except in the South?”

  “Cork?” He chuckles, deliberately misunderstanding me. “I’ve heard Donkey Aters described in many ways, but never as chivalrous.”

  “You know I was talking about the southern United States,” I snap.

  “Of course ya were.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “I think ya know what it means. Ya fecking Americans think your country is the center of the fecking universe.”

  His accent is thicker than molasses.

  “Oh, and I suppose you’re going to tell me that the Irish don’t know anything about nationalism.” My voice is raised to an unladylike level and my tone is dripping sarcasm like nectar from a honeysuckle. “God knows you’re not a patriotic lot.”

  He widens his stance and crosses his arms over his chest, scowling down at me, but I won’t be intimidated, not by a sinfully sexy Brit or a rude, unsociable Irishman. I mimic his stance and stare back.

  “I said thank you for carrying my bag and a chivalrous, well-mannered man would say, ‘You’re welcome. ’”

  “Go way outta that,” he says, which is the Irish way to brush off thanks. “Mrs. McGregor is making a special dinner. She asked us to be in the dining room by six thirty.”

  I open my mouth to respond, but he doesn’t wait to hear what I have to say. He does an about face and marches back down the hallway.

  Chapter Ten

  I unpack my suitcase and arrange my toiletries in the bathroom across the hall—littering the counter with my cosmetics, face lotions, body creams, perfumes, and myriad hair products. The governess’s room and the old school room are the only bedrooms in the castle that aren’t en suite, so I won’t have to share a bathroom with Sin or Aidan. Thank Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!