The Wild Mountain Thyme

by Kathryn Scarborough

  She tossed her head and her hair swung hypnotically over her shoulder. She stopped and pulled it back as though she thought better of the gesture.

  “That’s the way Irish writers sign their names, regardless of gender,” she said with a tilt of her head.

  At this moment she really couldn’t remember how other Irish writers, women or men for that matter, signed their names. The only writer she could think of inside her fuzzy brain at the moment was W.B. Yeats. She tried hard to quell the flurry of butterflies crowding about her stomach. Ah bollocks! Seeing this gorgeous man quite made her brain stop. This is not how a professional writer behaves.

  “And sometimes it helps if you can be mistaken for a man—at least until they can read your piece. Before they reject it,” she said very quietly. Being taken seriously as a woman wasn’t the problem, not in this day and age, it was the fact that since she was, well, pretty and a blonde to boot that everyone assumed she was an airhead.

  “Ah,” Jim replied, as he pulled off his overcoat and draped it over a nearby chair.

  Megan took her butterfly-filled tummy and thumbed her nose at her silly self as she looked him over. He was quite dapper in a bottle-green turtleneck sweater and gray slacks. Her gaze stopped at his waist and jerked upward, coming to a slamming stop at those eyes, those blue as glass eyes; eyes that could probably cut someone to the quick if that’s what he wanted to do.

  Megan shook her head, hoping to dispel the hot flush she felt on her neck and cheeks. Now, what had she been doing looking at his…waist? Wasn’t it vitally important right now to see through the man, and not really see him? Not drool over him anyway. She cleared her throat and held her hands together in her lap, leveling her gaze somewhere between his eyebrows and the top of his head.

  “I didn’t think the weather would be warmer here. I guess it kind of surprised me,” he said. Jim put his hands in his pockets and looked around the room idly. She was utterly gorgeous, and she could write. He’d just have to keep his libido on a leash when he was working with her. He smiled quickly and then focused his gaze at the top of her head, deliberately avoiding eye contact.

  “Oh…uh.” Megan stopped and started, looked at her desk, and fiddled with the pens and pads, straightening, realigning, picking her little clock up and looking at it, and then her stomach growled. She placed the clock down hard, a little harder than she’d planned and cringed at the sound it made hitting the desktop. She looked up at him. “Fancy something to eat?”

  “That would be great! We’ll charge it to the Globe. They can afford it more than we starving writers can.” Jim grinned at his own stupid joke hoping to lighten the tension. Megan looked as flustered as he felt. Sharing a meal would help them get acquainted with one another. “And while we’re at it, can you direct me to the Ramada Dublin?”

  Megan laughed in spite of herself as she escorted Jim down the stairs. “I’ll show you a better place after we’ve eaten. The Ramada is clear across town.” They stopped at the outside doors as Jim helped her on with her coat.

  Jim tried to mask the shock of finding that M.E. Kennedy was a woman, and what a woman! She was tall, probably close to five feet ten inches, and stood up straight and proud, not diminishing one whit from her height as some women might choose to do. Her long, reddish-blonde hair cascaded past her shoulders in waves. Her face had high cheekbones, and her small chin was slightly pointed with a deep cleft that broke up the perfect oval of her face. Her skin was flawless, and her eyes were deep green.

  No wonder she signed her name like a man. No one would take her as a serious writer if they saw her first. He’d like to take her seriously, he thought, as his fingers brushed her arm as he helped her on with her coat.

  Now, where had that thought come from?

  He would not allow himself to get involved in any way with this woman. His story would stink, and his butt would be really sore when he continually kicked himself for about a year. It wasn’t hard to remember the fresh wound that had yet to begin to heal was there because of Angela.

  Jim grabbed the suitcase he’d left behind in the office’s main entrance check-in desk, and they walked out into the misty, damp night.

  “There’s a grand little pub not far from here. We can get some hot food and ale there, Mr. O’Flannery,” said Megan as she indicated the direction to walk.

  “Call me Jim please, and that pub sounds great, Miss Kennedy.” Jim said, waiting for the reverse invitation to call her by her first name. He was disappointed when it didn’t come.

  “Is this your first trip to Ireland?” she asked.

  “Yes, I hadn’t really planned to come at all,” he said in order to make idle chitchat.

  “Not even to visit the auld sod?”

  “Now how did you guess I’m of Irish decent?” He quirked a smile at her and the dimple peeked out. “No, I’m an American, plain and simple. Glad of it, too. This ancestral home stuff keeps a person from focusing on what’s important.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “Anything: wars, kids starving, the latest football stats, anything is probably more important than that to my way of thinking.”

  Megan laughed as she nodded her head.

  “The young woman doesn’t want to hear a discourse on political science, me boy-o. Talk about the weather, books you like, anything but that. She’ll be liable to turn around and run.”

  Jim put his finger in his ear and waggled it back and forth. There was that voice again giving him advice, telling him what to do. Maybe it was his subconscious trying to help him stop being such a dimwit. But, his heart chimed in, maybe, just maybe, you’ll find your soul mate yet. Jim shook his head and immediately changed the subject telling his heart to go stuff it.

  “Gee, the weather is so mild for January. We’re usually up to our hips in snow about this time of the year in Boston. We did get a little thaw for a few days. I heard about a blizzard on the way when I left,” Jim said and then realized he rattled on like a twit so he shut up.

  Megan glanced at him. She had to admit that the man did rouse her curiosity. Writers should not grope about for words now should they? The Globe wouldn’t have sent an inept numskull, would they? He blundered on about the weather and then stopped talking as though all the air had gone out of him. Well, if he turned out to be a lousy writer, then for sure she’d get the byline.

  Don’t count on it, Kennedy, and maybe I should tell him to call me Megan; if he wants me to call him Jim, she thought, walking along in companionable silence. Megan stopped at a building with glassed doors framed in Kelly green-painted wood and huge ornate brass door pulls. They walked inside a noisy, smoke-filled room, and Jim stopped inside the doors and gawked. Megan pulled on his arm to get his attention.

  “And here’s the pub,” she said as she looked around and nodded at a few of the patrons.

  The large room had a wooden bar stretching across the width of it, as well as tables and booths. People moved about quickly, visiting from table to table. They drank their ale from huge beer glasses while eating from plates piled high with delicious smelling foods, or nibbled on the pretzels and crisps from bowls strategically placed around the long mahogany bar. The talk and laughter filling the room almost drowned out the background music.

  “Miss Kennedy, and how are ya?”

  “Fine, Bob,” Megan said to the barkeep. The fellow was a tall, thin man with a scant bit of red hair covering all but the very top of his head.

  “This is James O’Flannery, just come from America. He’s doing a story for our paper and his,” said Megan as she took the pint Bob had drawn for her.

  “Have a half and half, Jim. You’ll like it, I promise.”

  “Thanks.”

  She watched Jim sip his beer for a moment and then looked about for several acquaintances. Megan spoke to a few people while they moved through the throng toward a booth near the windows. Jim put his suitcase under the table and helped Megan out of her coat.

  Jim pushed up the sleeve
s of his sweater and looked around, trying very hard not to let his mouth gape open as he absorbed the scene around him. Men and women were talking, laughing, drinking, all quite reminiscent of after work patrons in any bar in the States. “Well, I guess it’s a little like I thought it would be. Maybe, except for—”

  “What did you think it would be?”

  “Old fellows in tweed coats and soft caps, with canes and pipes, talking about their sheep.”

  “St. Joseph! You’ve been watching too many Bing Crosby movies. Dublin is as cosmopolitan as any city in Europe. Some people still live on the islands in stone huts with thatched roofs, but I suppose you could find an American counterpart to that in your rural south.”

  “Well said.” Jim raised his glass in a toast to her.

  Megan was suddenly conscious of Jim staring at her, giving her a good looking over, and she felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment. He was a man and she was a woman and—wait, what was she thinking? She sipped her beer again, and glancing at him from under her lashes, noted that O’Flannery looked terribly strong and good-looking from where she sat.

  Physically strong and…she looked down to stare into her beer and then glanced at him unobtrusively under her lashes. Their waitress came to the table and Megan ordered for both of them. Megan looked at Jim and he shot her a smile, a real smile that started somewhere inside of him and traveled all the way to his very brilliant blue eyes.

  Thoughts of that nature will land you in no end of trouble, my girl, said the levelheaded part of her that always tried to keep her out of trouble and zap her back into reality, even though sometimes she wouldn’t let it.

  In short order, the waitress brought their dinner, and Jim looked askance at what appeared to be beef in gravy with some kind of green mashed potatoes.

  “Okay, okay, what’s the green stuff?” He looked with apprehension at his plate.

  “It’s colcannon. Finely shredded cabbage and potatoes are mixed together as they are cooking. It’s really good. Try it.”

  Jim lifted the fork and sniffed before he tried the mashed potato mixture. Hmm, he quite liked it, and in short order, the potatoes began to disappear.

  “Tell me something.” Jim put down his fork and turned his full attention on Megan. “What was that you told the bartender?”

  “Told him about what?”

  “You said something to him about me writing the piece for the Times?”

  “Didn’t you know? You’re to write both pieces, and the Times is to give you a write-up and a byline.” Megan tried her best to unclench her teeth and smile as she spoke.

  Jim put down his beer and leaned forward, his brow pulled down in a frown. “That’s ridiculous,” he said with a puzzled look. “You aren’t a stringer, are you?”

  She knew he meant the freelancers who often write single articles for newspapers. “No, full-fledged, and who the hell knows why I’ve been excluded from the articles.” Her voice snapped with anger and Megan tried not to growl at him. Venting at O’Flannery for the total injustice was easy but hardly productive. Megan shrugged her shoulders. “The powers that be, I suppose.”

  “I’ll talk to your editor. That’s crazy to have you do the legwork and then not get credit for it. Don’t they have any work support groups with lawyers here? There are all kinds of organizations and unions in the U.S. so that maniacal editors can’t run you over. Slave labor, that’s what I call it.” Jim continued to eat, but his body language gave away his annoyance.

  Jim’s rant pleased Megan. So he was a pen-waving champion for newspaper journalists. Good. She leaned back in the booth and looked at the strong jaw, and the sexy cleft in Jim’s chin. Too bad she wasn’t in the market for a man. It would take at least another decade for her bruised heart to heal, so off the market she was. Back to matters at hand.

  “Listen, O’Flannery. I appreciate your concern, but I can take care of myself.”

  “It’s a wonder you didn’t attack me with that hairbrush when I walked in,” Jim said with a chuckle.

  Megan dropped her gaze to her plate. Having a pretty face in this business had always made her wary of men offering anything to her. Could he really be different? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, she hoped so.

  Chapter 4

  Jim wished that she’d look up at him, but saw only the top of Megan’s head. He longed to see those pretty green eyes again. How was he to make things friendly between them? It would be a real drawback to his creativity if he had to stay around a cold brick wall and not an involved and yet friendly colleague. And Megan’s attitude right now seemed just like that, a cold brick wall. He’d really like to see that smile.

  “Do you have a file I could look at?” Jim hoped to change the subject and get her mind off the last bit of conversation.

  “Sure.” Megan dug into her briefcase and tossed the manila folder across the table to Jim.

  “Now, boy-o—now’s the time to tell her how lovely she is.”

  “What?”

  “You want to make her swoon, and her toes tingle, don’t ya?”

  “Get lost.” Jim hadn’t meant to, but his jibe to the leprechaun out of the side of his mouth was only too clear and easily understood.

  “Well, if that’s the way you feel about it,” sniffed Megan. She started to shrug into her coat.

  “No—no, I wasn’t talking to you, I promise.” Jim touched her arm, but then quickly withdrew his hand. She gave him a cold-as-ice glare so glacial he almost shivered.

  “Listen, we have lots of work to do,” Jim said. He felt the blood rush to his face. Damn. Could he ever get this blushing under control? It happened at the oddest times and always embarrassed him, no end.

  “Would you direct me to the Ramada Dublin? The Globe made a reservation for me there. We could get to work by nine tomorrow and start in on the groundwork.” Maybe if he changed the subject, he could cover up his remark to Seamus and she’d think nothing of it.

  “If you weren’t talking to me, then who?” Megan had her coat half on and she leaned across the table, one brow raised prettily in question.

  “Only myself, I assure you. Maybe it’s jet lag.” Good grief, talk about stepping in it.

  Megan cocked her head, looking hard, trying to read right into him. “You know what they say about people who talk to themselves, O’Flannery?” She shrugged out of her coat and took a long draw on her beer, watching him intently over the rim of the glass the entire time.

  “Yeah, and they might be right.” He pushed his hand through his hair and then sat back and looked hard at Megan. He hesitated for a moment, wondering how weird his next line would sound. He hadn’t convinced himself he could talk to anyone about this leprechaun business. They’d probably lock him up in the nearest mental institution. But this woman was Irish. Maybe he could talk to her. It’s not like he could ask Karen at the Globe about it. He’d be locked up then for sure.

  Jim turned his head slightly and watched the leprechaun’s rear end waving back and forth over of his beer glass. The whateverthehellitwas had leaned over so far to reach the last bit of beer in the bottom of the glass that all Jim could see was his little behind sticking up in the air. Seamus was sucking away at the bottom of the beer glass with great relish, making all kinds of slurping noises that, it seemed, only Jim could hear. Then Seamus sat on the edge of the glass, crossed his legs, and in a melodious tone, began to sing.

  “Oh, the summer time is come,

  and the birds are sweetly singing,

  and the wild mountain thyme grows around…”

  It is so grand to be home!” Seamus crowed with delight as threw his arms out wide and hugged himself.

  Seamus had no memory of how long it had been since he’d tasted anything so very grand, this miraculous brew that Jimmy boy was wastin’. “More’s the pity, it is.”

  “Ah! And don’t ya know that youth is wasted on the young! Aye, more’s the pity.”

  Jim stared for a second and then turned his head away from the apparition. He�
�d ignore that voice. It was probably the break-up with Angela and the long flight that was sending him to the precipice and—hell, he was almost over it. Jim looked into Megan Kennedy’s eyes, opened his mouth to speak, and stopped. A warm tingle started somewhere in his middle. This had to stop. No time for women and their nonsensical little games. Maybe if he talked about the apparition slurping beer from his glass he could get his mind off his, well…other parts of him.

  “Can I ask you a question?” He paused and looked at her sideways for an instant. “You have to know that I really am not crazy. A little stressed maybe, but not crazy.”

  “All right, what is it?” Megan sat back and crossed her arms, her face blank, not giving an inch.

  “Do you believe in leprechauns?” Jim almost whispered the question. He felt ridiculous, especially since he knew his blush had turned up so high it could be measured in megawatts. “I know that sounds completely insane but…”

  “No, no,” said Megan, looking at him strangely for a moment. She leaned forward and assessed him coolly.

  Something, some emotion played across her face. She restrained a smile, and that little smile made Jim feel the dumber. “You know what they say about the Black Irish.”

  “Black Irish?”

  “Haven’t you looked in a mirror lately?” She said it very softly and leaned to him, the corners of her mouth twitching like mad.

  “Is that what I am?” This tidbit of news was interesting, although he was a whole lot more interested in looking at that twitching mouth.

  “The Black Irish come from the outer islands where there is said to be lots of magic, and if that is indeed what you are…”

  “Jeez.” Jim sat back and looked at everything but Megan.

  “No, really. Druids and fairies and—”

  “Listen.” Jim turned to her, an all business look on his face. “I have nothing to do with fairies—”