“And what?” Kate felt a sad inevitability. “You think he pushed her in a fit of jealousy?”
“That’s my take on it.”
ON THE WAY BACK to Cragg’s Head to meet Niall, Kate got lost. Through the windshield, she peered at the row of small cottages. Had she seen them earlier? According to her directions, she should be back in the village, but something didn’t look right. Either she’d taken a wrong turn, or had fallen victim to the infamous signpost twisting. A man standing outside one of the houses waved as she passed and she slowed the car and backed up next to him.
“Hi.” She smiled. “Can you tell me how I get to Cragg’s Head?”
He leaned into her car window, his eyes on the map at her side and appeared to give the question great thought.
“Cragg’s Head, is it?”
“Right.”
“It’s not around here.”
“You’re kidding.” She showed him the map. “I didn’t think I was that off. How far is it from here?”
Pulling at his earlobe, he thought for a minute, appearing perplexed by the dilemma her question presented.
“Well, I wouldn’t start from here,” he began, then interrupted himself. “See there’s a wee wudden brudge… Ah, no, the road is closed up, you see. With all the rain. It’s all bog holes.” Another pause. “Of course, you could go on up a bit and go left where the road turns. There’s a bit of a sign, you’ll see just down from there. Not much, mind, but if you go left there, you can’t miss it.”
Kate thanked him and drove on, shaking her head. Exactly two miles down the road, no wee wudden brudge in evidence, she found herself on the road leading into Cragg’s Head. He could have just pointed directly. But then, this was Ireland. Nothing was straightforward.
CHAPTER NINE
NIALL SAT in the car looking out at the harbor. Or what he could see of the harbor through the fog. An hour ago, he’d driven past the Pot o’ Gold and he’d been driving around ever since. Up and down the high street and Market Street, down by St. Joseph’s, along the seafront, past the Pot o’ Gold again.
He had to see Kate. It was like a fever burning in his brain.
He listened to a tin can clatter past the car. This wasn’t like him. He could block anything out when he needed to. Banish those thoughts he didn’t want to dwell upon. Kate would not be banished. She stayed in his brain. Talking, laughing, demanding his attention.
Another tin rolled by. Probably from the Travelers’ camp up the hill. The village regularly got into an uproar over one transgression or another committed by the Travelers. Gypsies or tinkers, as they were still called by a lot of old-timers. Lawless vagabonds, the grumbling went. Niall had been out at a camp a couple of weeks ago on a photo shoot. A small girl with a mop of curly red hair had tried to convince him to have his fortune read. He’d declined.
Out on the water, the fog muted the painted hulls of the fishing boats. Much farther out, but invisible in the fog, a cluster of small islands, some little more than rocks, strung out like the beads of a necklace. Legend had it that one of the islands in the chain had disappeared in a dense fog and was never seen again. Moruadh had written a song about it. “Gossamer Island,” it was called. It involved, naturally, star-crossed lovers. The girl poisoned herself with hemlock. Grief-stricken, her lover walked into the sea and drowned.
Niall’s thoughts turned to Kate. What he couldn’t be sure of was her true motivation. Up there on the cliffs, of course, there’d been no doubt. But later, after he’d told her his name, he couldn’t help wondering. His blathering on about destiny. Would it wind up in print? Eccentric widower bares his soul. Discerning a woman’s real agenda had never been his strong suit. None of which lessened his desire to see her again.
And then, as though he’d summoned her, she appeared.
She stood at the sea rail, her back to him, red hair billowing around her shoulders. He blinked, for a moment not believing she wasn’t just a figment of his imagination. But it was Kate. In the same green anorak she’d been wearing when they met on the cliffs. He was out of the car in an instant.
“Kate,” he said over her shoulder, “I was just sitting here in my car thinking that if I tried hard enough, I could conjure you up. It worked.”
Kate turned, her eyes wide. Then she smiled, a polite formal smile. A smile that suggested that today she wore the reporter’s hat. “Niall. Hi. How odd, I was just thinking about you, too.”
“May I ask what you were thinking?”
“You may,” she said. “Actually, I just drove back from Ballincross where this musician who used to tour with Moruadh seems to think you pushed her down the cliffs.”
He stared at her, stunned into silence. “I have to keep telling myself,” he said a few seconds later, “that you’re in Ireland for a reason.”
“I’m sorry but that’s true.” She frowned. “And even if I were just here on vacation, I’d still be a little disconcerted to know there are people who think you murdered your wife. I want to believe you, but you’re not exactly forthcoming.”
“If I said let’s find somewhere quiet, and get to know each other over a pint or two and you said yes, would it mean that you wanted to be with me, or that you wanted material for your story?”
A strand of hair blew across her face and she brushed it away before she answered. “The truth?”
“I’ll be brave.”
She hunched her shoulders against the cold. “Months from now, when you probably won’t even remember my name, I’ll still have bills to pay, so it is kind of important that I turn in a decent article. You’re pretty pivotal to getting the information I need.”
“Months from now, I don’t think I’ll have any difficulty at all remembering your name,” he said. “But I understand your position.”
“Good.” A moment passed. “But on the other hand…”
“A beer sounds like a good idea?”
“That and the getting-to-know-each-other part.” She grinned. “Purely for personal reasons, of course.”
“YOU KNOW SOMETHING?” Kate asked a little later as they nursed their beers. “I’ve changed my opinion about you so many times in the last few days, I’m getting dizzy. All the talk about you being a womanizer, for instance.” She pointed in the direction of a well-endowed waitress with a low-cut Lycra top. “Every guy in the place has been eyeing her boobs and you haven’t looked once.”
He laughed. “I’m a bit shortsighted. Where is she? Point her out.”
“No way. I love having a man’s undivided attention.”
“Well, you’ve got mine.” He glanced around the bar which, ten minutes earlier, had been empty, but was now filling up. “Although this lot is giving you some competition.”
Kate grinned and leaned into him slightly, enjoying the contact even through layers of clothes. They’d found a spot in one corner and they stood, backs against the wall, holding pints of Guinness, watching the action.
He’d told her about growing up on the family estate. An only child who spent much of his time with the children of the housekeeper and gardener, Hugh Fitzpatrick and Moruadh. Was tutored with them until he was sent away to boarding school. She heard no animosity when he mentioned Fitzpatrick, which, perhaps, wasn’t surprising since Niall hadn’t been the one forced to wear castoffs. They hadn’t talked about his adult relationship with Moruadh, and Kate didn’t push it. In fact, she kept forgetting her reporter’s hat. She liked this guy. A lot.
“About this womanizing reputation I seem to have acquired,” he said.
She turned her head to look at him. “Yes?”
“It’s absolutely true. Every word of it. A different woman every night. Sometimes two, or even three in one night. I can’t help it, it’s a terrible sickness I have.”
“Yeah.” Smiling, she drank some beer. “I kind of figured that.”
“As you might imagine, my work often involves taking shots of models. I’ve dated a few of them, but nothing serious. And then there was Sharon wh
o you met the other night and that’s about it.”
“Listen, Niall. You don’t have to do this. I mean you don’t owe me any explanation.”
He nodded, his face suddenly serious. “It’s important to me that you don’t get the wrong impression.”
“It’s funny you should say that. You don’t want me to get the wrong impression and yet you can live with everyone seeming to believe you murdered your wife?”
A few moments passed, and she thought he wasn’t going to answer.
“I’ve been accused of living in my head,” he said finally. “Often to the exclusion of people around me. A woman I know once told me that I only ask questions to get people talking so that I can escape to my own thoughts.” He swirled the beer in his glass. “It’s a protective thing, I suppose.”
“So you can just shut out all the talk, is that what you’re saying?”
“Right. I’m aware of the gossip, of course, but in a distant, unfocused sort of way that doesn’t really touch me.”
“Have you always been this way?”
“I think it started with my father. He had a knack for cruelty.” He set his beer down on the bar. “Have you had enough of this place yet?”
She nodded. Outside in the cool dark night, Niall took her hand and they walked through the narrow streets to the harbor where she’d met him. Whatever doubts remained were like tiny shoots, withered by the warmth of his hand in hers and, she had to admit it, by the fact that she just plain liked him and wanted to believe whatever he told her. At the door of her car, he caught the ends of her scarf.
“I felt awful when you left last night,” he said. “It had been so good. Seeing you again, making supper together.”
“We didn’t do a very good job with the bouillabaisse, though, huh?”
“We could try again,” he said, moving closer. “Want to?”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she said softly. “Let’s.”
And then he kissed her, and it was so magical to be standing in the cool foggy Irish air, with the sound of water lapping and his arms around her and mist beading on their skin and hair, that nothing else really mattered. And they kept on kissing, trading places after a while so that she was leaning back across the car with Niall almost lying on top of her, kissing so hard she felt his teeth against her lips.
“You have far too many clothes on,” he whispered. “I’m convinced there’s a body under this padding and I’m determined to find it.”
“You’re definitely headed in the right direction.” He’d found the skin beneath the layers needed to keep out the Irish weather, and worked his way up to her left breast. With his thumb and forefinger, he very gently squeezed her nipple. They both felt the spasm that shuddered through her body.
He smiled at her.
“You are very wicked.” Arms locked around his neck. Jelly legs, her heart a drum gone berserk. “I like wicked.”
“Good.” He flattened his palm into the waistband of her jeans and down over her stomach. A tight squeeze, but easier once he’d unfastened the top button and easier still with the zipper down.
“Niall. What if someone sees?”
“It’s pitch-dark and quieter than a tomb.”
“I guess.” Her brain wasn’t thrilled with the metaphor, but her body was indisputably in charge and doing all it could do to help his fingers slide under the crotch of her panties and up inside her and… “Oh my God.” She dug her chin harder into his shoulder, felt the sheepskin against her face. “Oh…” she said again.
“More?”
“Yeah.”
He removed his hand, made a halfhearted attempt at zipping up her jeans and kissed her on the nose. “I’ve had enough of all these clothes, but I think Brigid Riley might hear about it if we disrobed right here.”
“Yeah, and it’s way too cold,” she said.
“So I see no alternative but to take you up to the castle.”
“Absolutely no alternative.” Weak with anticipation, she smiled at him. “Take me to the bedchamber.”
Halfway up the hill to the castle, she remembered Annie’s supper.
THEY WERE ALL SEATED around the dining table when she walked in. Annie and Patrick, Rory and Caitlin. And next to the place that had been set for her, Hugh Fitzpatrick. All looked up expectantly when she walked in. Her mouth felt bruised, her bra a little skewed, and for one horrifying moment she couldn’t remember whether she’d finished zipping up her jeans. Hey, guys, look at me. I’ve been making out with Niall Maguire.
“We were about to call out the Gardai.” Annie disappeared into the kitchen, then returned with a covered dish. “Sit down, Katie. Where were you, love? I thought you were coming straight back here from Ballincross.”
“Mam, that’s her business.” Caitlin shot her mother a disapproving look and winked at Kate. Her hair had been cropped even shorter and newly dyed a bright orange. “As long as she was having fun. Right, Katie?”
“Listen you guys, I am really sorry. I went down to the harbor to think things over and then…” God, she did not want to bring up Niall’s name. “I just completely forgot about supper. I apologize, Annie, for keeping you waiting. It was just that—”
“Well, not to worry,” Annie helped her off with the parka. “Sit down, love. Next to Hughie,” she said with a smile. “The two of you can natter about writing. Now help yourself to some ham, Katie. And there’s soda bread I just made. More ham for you, Hughie?”
Kate slipped into her seat next to Hugh. His hair looked newly washed and he’d tied it back in a neat ponytail. He wore black dress pants and a safari jacket with a black silk scarf tucked into the neck. She felt a stab of guilt. Something told her he’d dressed carefully for the evening. Perfecting his wardrobe, while she’d caroused with Niall. His chair was so close that when she reached past him for bread, her arm brushed his.
“Sorry.” She withdrew her hand. “Boardinghouse reach.”
“Not at all.” He leaned slightly in her direction. “Work progressing well?” he asked in a low voice.
“Not bad.” She glanced over at Annie who was hovering over Rory, urging food on him. Under the table, Hugh’s leg brushed hers. This was going to be a long evening.
“Have you met Maguire yet?”
“I have.” She drank some water.
“And?”
Irritated, she turned to look directly at him. “And what?”
“Is he being helpful?”
“Not particularly,” she replied truthfully.
“And have you been able to resist his boyish charms?”
Kate speared a slice of tomato. “Annie, these are fantastic tomatoes,” she said in a voice that carried over all the others around the table. “A hundred times better than anything we get in California.” Everyone stopped talking to look at her. She smiled. “Really delicious.”
“Well, help yourself to all you want, love.” Annie beamed. An expectant hush settled, as though the real show was about to begin. A loooong evening. Kate buttered some bread and tried to think of something to say. Moruadh, as a topic, would set Hugh off on a Niall hate fest. Niall was obviously off-limits. Annie cleared her throat. Caitlin whispered in Rory’s ear. Hugh’s thigh moved suspiciously close to hers.
“No word from Elizabeth yet?” Dumb question, she realized. If they’d heard anything, she’d know about it, but the spotlight was uncomfortable. “It’s been, what? Five days now?”
“She’ll turn up,” Rory said quickly.
“Of course she will,” Caitlin agreed. “Doesn’t she always?”
Hugh piled lettuce and tomato on his plate. “Still, it’s a bit funny that she hasn’t phoned.”
“There’s nothing funny about it.” Rory shot Hugh a thunderous look. “It’s the kind of girl she is.”
“Well, you’d know that better than I would,” Hugh said.
Kate watched Rory’s face darken. The atmosphere was suddenly tense and she wondered if Hugh knew more than he was letting on.
Patri
ck, in an obvious attempt to change the subject, mentioned the music festival in Ballincross. Kate tuned out. Thoughts of Niall drifted in. His face, his voice. The things he’d told her. His openness. Openness? the cynic inquired. How much more do you really know about his relationship with Moruadh? And what about Elizabeth? What about the little rendezvous they were supposed to have had Monday night? What about the picture he took of her? How come you didn’t ask about all that?
“Katie’s woolgathering.” Annie smiled at her across the table. “Where are you, love?”
“Sorry.” Kate shook her head. “Just drifting. No reflection on the company.”
“I was asking what you think of Irish music,” Patrick said. “I’m partial to the Saw Doctors myself. Ever heard them? They’re a local group, from Tuam, not far from here. Making it big in Europe, they are.”
“I’ll have to check them out,” she said. “Maybe I’ll pick up a CD.”
“The thing with Elizabeth is she has no thoughts in her head for anything but having a good time.” Rory stuck his finger in his collar. “No concern for who might be worrying about her. She does it all the time.”
Beautiful and very naive, Niall had said. A bit of a wild girl. Kate took a sip of water and set the glass down too hard. Water splashed onto the tablecloth. She looked up to see Annie watching, an anxious smile fluttering around her mouth.
“When was the last time?” Hugh leaned forward slightly to address Rory. “Just wondering. Months? Weeks?”
“How would I remember that?” Rory threw down the knife he’d been using to smear mustard on a slice of ham. The clang of metal against china hung in the air for a moment. “What is this, a bloody inquisition?”
“Rory.” Caitlin put her hand on his arm. “What’s the matter with you? Hughie just asked a simple question.” She smiled at Hugh. “He’s a bit tense tonight. Problems down at the station.”
“Leave off, Caitlin.” Rory pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “I don’t need you fighting my battles for me.”
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