“Maybe so,” Emma said quietly.
Her grandfather caught up with them and paused at a barbed-wire fence, several brown cows coming up to him. “To think that my folks could have become farmers instead of moving to Boston when I was a little tyke. How different my life would have been.”
Lucas took in a quick breath, impatient, concerned, but Emma hadn’t spent the past few days with their grandfather, and smiled at him. “No regrets, Granddad?”
He patted one of the cows. “I don’t know that I’d have made a good farmer, but I’ve done all right as an art detective. Now as I retire, I have to decide what needs to be said and what doesn’t need to be said. I thought the tragic story of the young artist who helped me in Moscow twenty years ago was one that I would take to the grave with me.”
“I need to know everything, Granddad,” Lucas said without hesitation, then added, “And so does Emma. Sixty years is a long time, but I’m willing to listen. I want to, and if I’m to carry on your work, I need to.”
Wendell Sharpe stood back from the cow and motioned with one hand at the surrounding hills. “This area is filled with ancient Celtic sites. The Celts had no written language. They passed on stories, poems, history and knowledge orally. Nothing was written down.”
“The key word is ‘oral,’” Lucas said. “That means they talked. They didn’t die with the knowledge in their heads. Sorry, Granddad. I don’t mean to be so blunt.”
“I prefer blunt. You kids were always more polite than I ever was.”
The cows wandered off into the field, and he continued down the lane. Emma and Lucas glanced at each other, then followed their grandfather. The lane dipped down a hill and they crossed a small bridge, the air cool with the stream flowing under them. A holly tree branched out over a clear pool, and Emma stopped to take in the sight.
“I don’t know if I can do this anymore,” she said, half to herself. “It’s too messy, being an FBI agent and a Sharpe. That’s why Colin’s not here. He’s figured that out. He’s pushing me to figuring it out, too. He didn’t just go away for himself. He went away for me.”
Her grandfather eased in next to her. “Your experience as a Sharpe is one reason you’re as valuable to the FBI as you are. The people you work with, including Colin, must see that.”
Lucas, she noted, made no comment.
They followed the lane down the hill, then back along another lane below the ridge and up to Declan Bracken’s house overlooking the bay. Then it was on to a pub in his small village.
“My poor brother is digging bean holes in America,” Declan said cheerfully, sounding so much like his twin brother, “and here we are, enjoying ourselves. Then again, Fin does sound content when I talk to him.”
“The bean holes are all dug,” Emma said.
“Ah. Good to know.”
Emma smiled. “The supper’s on Saturday. I volunteered to bring pies, but my friend Sister Cecilia is making them for me. She says I can repay her by exercising patience the next time I try my hand at watercolor. Maybe you can come for a visit one day.”
Declan obviously liked that idea. “Perhaps at Christmas. I’d love to experience a New England winter, at least for a few days.” He leaned closer to Emma, as if he were about to tell a secret. “Finian says that he’s alive now because of you and Colin Donovan.”
“Your brother has good instincts. I bet he’d have dumped that cider down the drain.”
“What if he’d shared it with parishioners instead? Thank God he didn’t, and all’s well with Saint Patrick’s of Rock Point, Maine.”
Emma drank some of her Guinness. “And how is Colin?”
Declan sat up straight. “Why ask me?”
She peered at him over the rim of her glass. “Why, indeed?”
Her grandfather laughed. “She’s a Sharpe, an ex-nun and an FBI agent, Declan. You didn’t stand a chance.”
Declan was clearly amused. “Special Agent Donovan and I had a taoscán of Bracken 15 year old together this afternoon. I promised not to give away his location.” The Irishman poured a clear, caramel-colored whiskey from a debut “expression” of Bracken Distillers. “Finian oversaw it going into the casks before Sally and little Kathleen and Mary went to God. I believe you’ll taste their love.”
Emma held back tears as she, Lucas and her grandfather raised their glasses. “Sláinte.”
* * *
Finian Bracken noticed Julianne Maroney edge closer to the simmering bean holes behind St. Patrick’s Church. The supper had ended and the last of the sizable crowd had left. “Father, do you have a minute?” she asked, unusually tentative. She had her hair pulled back and wore a sweatshirt over jeans, and her L.L.Bean boots.
Finian smiled. “Of course.”
She hesitated, as if debating whether she should do an about-face and flee. It was a pleasant evening, the air dry, the stars twinkling above them as Finian waited for the bean-hole fires to die down. Then he would take a long walk in the village to burn off the meal, including two slices of Sister Cecilia’s apple pie. She had laughed, telling him he was in danger of becoming a true Mainer.
Julianne took a breath and said, “I came to tell you that I’ve accepted a marine biology internship in Cork next semester.”
“Cork?”
“Yes. Cork, Ireland. I’m a little nervous. I’ve never been so far from home, even for a vacation. But I’m excited, too.”
“Cork’s a lovely town. I have friends there.”
“Good to know.” She stamped out an ember that had escaped, then zipped up her jacket, although it wasn’t a terribly cold evening. “It wasn’t healthy. What I was doing with Andy. Not letting go.”
“A broken heart heals in time,” Finian said.
She raised her eyes to him. “Has yours healed, Father? I know it’s different, losing your family compared to a stubborn rake like Andy Donovan and me going our separate ways.” She paused, looking embarrassed. “I just wondered.”
Except for the Donovans, no one in Rock Point had ever asked him about his family, the depth of his loss. “I know my family is with God. Beyond that…” Finian searched for the appropriate words. “Some breaks don’t heal. Instead we learn to live with them, and trust in God’s plan for us.”
“I think that’s why my grandmother connected with you. You didn’t try to tell her how she should feel.” Julianne smiled suddenly. “She wants to come visit me in Cork. Ireland’s going to be great on so many levels.”
The note of defiance in Julianne’s tone suggested she wasn’t as over Andy Donovan as she thought, or wanted to be. Maybe in showing him what she could do and be without him, she’d show herself.
“I’m glad Andy wasn’t killed, though,” she added. “Rat bastard that he is. Sorry, Father.”
“No worries,” he said with a laugh.
Julianne thanked him, although precisely for what he didn’t know, and left Finian to his bean-hole fires. It was markedly colder when he was satisfied that the fires for his first bean-hole supper were out. He went into the rectory, and he sat in the kitchen. He had an email from Declan with a picture of him and the Sharpes, an Irish rainbow in the background.
Finian smiled, then poured himself a taoscán of Bracken 15, thinking not of the past but what was next for his little church in Rock Point, Maine.
28
THE COTTAGE WAS tucked on a hill above an inlet on an isolated stretch of the Iveragh Peninsula, far from any tour buses. Not that tourists were an issue so late in the season. Emma noticed that she wasn’t at all nervous or self-conscious when she climbed out of her rented car.
The wind blew across the water, straight from the Atlantic, with the promise of rain by nightfall. She had dressed for the conditions in her lined trench coat, her boots, wool socks, a wool scarf, a wool sweater and hiking pants.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d stay. A few minutes? A few days?
There was no car in the gravel driveway, but Declan Bracken had already told her—or at least
hinted—that Colin hadn’t bothered with one. The cottage was just a three-mile walk to the nearest pub and a short walk to the water. It was equipped with two kayaks, paddles and life jackets and two bicycles. On the drive down the peninsula and its twisting roads, Emma would catch peeks of glistening Kenmare Bay and picture kayaking with Colin along the shore.
The cottage was tiny, constructed of gray stones collected long ago from the surrounding lands. Its front door was painted a cheerful, glossy blue that she suspected Sally Bracken had chosen, along with the collection of colorful flowerpots on the step.
The door was cracked open, and as Emma raised her hand to knock, she recognized the smell of peat smoke.
A perfect afternoon and evening for a fire, she thought with a smile.
She heard the crunch of gravel behind her and turned just as Colin materialized from around back, carrying a bucket filled with small chunks of peat. He hadn’t shaved in several days and his face and corduroy shirt were smudged with black soot, his jeans hanging low on his hips.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The man was so damn sexy.
“I had to let the smoke get out of the house,” he said, his voice husky. “Took a bit to get the hang of the stove and managing a turf fire, but I’ve got it now.” He grinned. “More or less.”
“Nothing more romantic than a cozy fire.”
“Especially when it’s not blowing smoke in your face.” He pushed the door farther open with his foot. “It’s safe to go in.”
She angled him a look. “Is it?”
He winked at her. “For the moment.”
The cottage consisted of an open room with a loft, its thick stone walls painted white and a small cast-iron peat-burning stove the main source of heat.
Colin set his bucket by the stove. “We have to make good use of our time before Yank sends in a tac team to bring us back to work.”
“We complicate his life,” Emma said.
“He wouldn’t have it any other way. Lucy’s back from Paris. He’s marginally less cranky.”
“So you’ve talked to him.”
Colin opened the door to the stove, layered in some of the peat. “There’s no not talking to Matt Yankowski.” He shut the stove door and stood back from the fire. “We had to go over a few things.”
“Another undercover mission?”
His smoky gaze steadied on her. “No.” Then he winked at her. “Yank wants me to bring him back a bottle of Inish Turk Beg whiskey.”
“You’re not kidding, are you?”
“Nope. I’m making him pay. Damn stuff’s expensive.”
Emma stepped closer to the fire but she wasn’t remotely cold, nor could she imagine anywhere else she would rather be. “Finian wasn’t exaggerating when he said it’s a small cottage. There’s not much room in here.”
Colin slipped his arms around her, brushed his lips against hers. “There’s enough.”
* * * * *
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Heron’s Cove. It was great fun to write, and now I’m deep into Declan’s Cross, which is next up in my Sharpe & Donovan series. Saint’s Gate, where we first meet Emma and Colin, is out now in paperback. If, like me, you’re fascinated by Art Nouveau and Russian art and folk traditions, you might be interested in some of the books I consulted in researching Heron’s Cove. They include Artistic Luxury by Stephen Harrison, Emmanuel Ducamp and Jeannine Falino; Russian Fairy Tales, a collection by Aleksandr Afanasev (translated by Norbert Guterman); and The Frogs Who Begged for a Tsar (and 61 other Russian fables) by Ivan Krylov.
A huge thank-you to my editor, Margaret Marbury, and everyone at Harlequin MIRA, as well as to my agent, Jodi Reamer at Writers House, to Nancy Berland and her incredible team and to my friend Jennifer McCord.
Special thanks to my husband, Joe, to our wonderful family, and to our friend John Moriarty—our Inish Turk Beg Single Malt Irish Whiskey awaits us.
For all my latest news, please visit my website and sign up for my eNewsletter at www.carlaneggers.com. I’m also on Facebook and Twitter. I love to hear from readers!
Many thanks, and happy reading,
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ISBN: 9781459237827
Copyright © 2012 by Carla Neggers
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Author’s Note
Heron's Cove Page 28
