by Zara Keane
“Don’t judge me before we’ve been introduced,” Jayme said coolly. “Which of the six siblings-in-law I never knew I had are you?”
His little sister’s lips quivered with reluctant amusement. “I’m Sharon.”
“I’m delighted to meet you.” Jayme gestured at a free chair. “May I join you?”
“Of course.” Ma was rapidly recovering her composure. “Make yourself at home. Can I tempt you with an Irish coffee? I think I need one.”
Jayme hesitated a fraction of a second before nodding. “All right. I guess I am on vacation.”
“Great stuff.” Ma leaped to her feet. “Will you join us?”
“I’m driving,” he said. “Should you be drinking, Ma? The doctor—”
“I’m dying, not dead. Let me live a little while I still can, eh? A drop of whiskey won’t make any difference to my prospects at this stage.”
Jayme sat poleaxed at the table, her normally mobile hands frozen in her lap. “You’re sick?”
“Did he not tell you?” Ma pulled a bottle of whiskey from the drinks cabinet and a carton of cream from the fridge. “Ah, why am I even asking? Of course he didn’t. Sure, that’s why he came back to Ireland.”
Jayme’s gaze bore into him. “He mentioned a family emergency, but he didn’t elaborate.”
“Men, eh? Typical.” Ma whipped the cream to a fluffy froth. Ruairí brewed the coffee. He poured a cup for himself and whisked it away before his mother could attack it with the whiskey bottle.
“Go easy on the whiskey in Jayme’s, will you?” he said as he eased himself onto one of the hard kitchen chairs. “She’s not used to your idea of a small drop.”
Jayme gave a small smile. “With the morning I’m having, I say bring it on.”
“That’s the spirit,” Ma said. “I’ve a feeling we’ll get on grand.”
“May I ask what’s wrong with you?”
“Cancer, love. I had a bout a few years back, and it looks like this time I won’t beat it.”
“Which treatments have you had?” He could visualize her brain cataloging various options with computerlike efficiency. “With all the new drugs available these days—”
Ma set a mug of Irish coffee before Jayme and reclaimed her seat. “No more chemo. No more radiation. I’m done with all of that. What I’ve got isn’t going away, no matter what fancy drugs they pump into my system. Now enough about my health.” She raised her mug to them. “Sláinte.”
“Sláinte.” The word sounded hesitant on Jayme’s tongue.
His mother took a sip of her fortified coffee. “What do you do for a living, Jayme?”
“I’m a doctor. A pediatrician to be exact.”
“Ah. That explains the medical questions. Well, our Ruairí was always the smartest of the bunch. I’m not surprised he found a smart woman to marry.”
Jayme blushed, and her gaze met his for the briefest of seconds.
“It’s a great comfort to me to know the pub is in good hands,” his mother continued. “If it was left to Colm to run—that’s my husband—it would be bankrupt in weeks. The pub was always my domain.”
Ruairí shifted uncomfortably on his chair. Jayme was studiously not looking in his direction, but he was cognizant of every breath she took.
“How long are you staying in Ballybeg?” Sharon asked, shoving a triangle of toast into her red-rimmed mouth.
“I’ve taken a week off work.”
“You should try and see a bit of the place while you’re here,” Sharon said. “The weather’s supposed to improve over the weekend.”
Ma pointed to a picture on the calendar by the door. “Take her to Blarney Castle. Let her see where our ancestors lived.”
Jayme perked up visibly. “Is that where the Blarney Stone is kept?”
“It is indeed. Get him to take you.”
Ruairí shot his mother a warning look. “I have to work, Ma.”
“I’ll cover for you on Monday,” Sharon said with deceptive innocence.
He eyed her with suspicion. “Don’t you have lectures?”
She shrugged. “I can always get the notes from another student.”
“I wouldn’t like to inconvenience you,” Jayme said quickly.
“It’s no bother.” Sharon wiped crumbs from her chin and shot her brother a wicked look. “Yeah, you should definitely get him to show you around Cork. No point in coming all this way and not doing something touristy.”
Ruairí swallowed a sigh. His mother and sister were lousy liars and unsubtle matchmakers. He watched Jayme’s hopeful face. She’d always wanted to travel, and she’d often talked about coming to Ireland. When they’d visited Mexico on their honeymoon, they’d vowed to vacation at least once a year. Thanks to their busy work schedules, it hadn’t happened. He could hardly deprive her of the opportunity to see a bit of Ireland now that she was here. “All right. I’ll take you to see a few tourist spots.”
She glowed with happiness. “Really?”
“Really. But in the meantime, we’d better go.” He rose and scraped his chair across the floor.
“So soon? But you only got here.” Ma’s look of disappointment needled his already guilty conscience.
“I told Marcella I’d be back at the pub before the lunchtime rush.”
“I’d love to come back to see you before I leave, Mrs. MacCarthy,” Jayme said. “If that’s okay.”
Ma beamed. “Of course it’s okay. And please call me Molly. You’re family, after all.”
They’d barely reached the mudroom when the back door swung open. In marched his little brother, Shea.
“Thank feck you’re here,” Shea said when he spotted Ruairí. “Come and help me. One of the cows is after bolting.”
“In this weather?”
Shea grimaced. “Exactly. It’s Daisy, too.”
“Feck.” Daisy was pregnant and known to be a bit contrary of late. “I’ll put on my wellies.”
“Let me help,” Jayme said, reaching for his arm. A familiar frisson of awareness passed between them. Having her in close proximity was rapidly shredding every vestige of self-control he possessed.
He glanced at her feet. “In those shoes? I think not. And I doubt any of us has wellies small enough to fit you.”
“Never mind my boots. I’m happy to assist.”
“Let her,” Shea said bluntly. “I need all the help I can get. And if she and Sharon come, Ma can stay in out of the rain.”
Jayme grabbed her raincoat from the coat stand. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Four
“WHAT DO YOU know about cows?”
Jayme wiped rain from her nose and looked at her handsome companion. He was regarding her with a cynical half smile. “I know that they moo.”
He laughed. “If you want to help us look for Daisy, that’s fine. But don’t go anywhere near her if you see her. She’s pregnant and irascible. Give one of us a shout, and we’ll deal with her.”
They’d parted ways with Shea and Sharon at the cowshed. Thankfully, the rain had dwindled to drizzle, but the ground was wet and slick with mud. She was grateful to have Ruairí at her side, deftly guiding them past the deepest of the puddles.
“I’m glad your family’s farm is on higher ground than the road. Otherwise, we’d have to swim.”
He grinned a slow, teasing smile that warmed her from the top of her scalp down to her ill-clad toes. “How are your feet holding up? Those boots don’t look waterproof.”
“My feet are a little damp,” she admitted, “but I’ll cope.”
He led her toward lush green fields separated by the old-fashioned stone walls she’d noticed on their drive. With each step, her boots sank deeper into the mud. “How long does your mother have to live?”
His face darkened at the question. “Initially, the doctors gave her six months. A year later, she’s still with us. She’s doing reasonably well at the moment, but they warned us her condition could take a turn for the worse at any moment.”
On instinct, she slipped her small hand into his large one. He didn’t resist. “Why didn’t you tell me your mother was sick?”
He turned his attention to the pasture. “I don’t know. The night I left, we were too busy fighting. To be honest, I half suspected it was a scheme cooked up by her and my sisters to get me to come home and reconcile with my father. Whatever Marcella says, it wasn’t my decision to cut ties with my entire family. When I left, my father forbade my mother to contact me.”
“And she obeyed?” She entwined her fingers with his, watched his Adam’s apple bob.
“Yeah.” He blinked a few times, failing to conceal the moisture in his eyes. “But it was a long time ago. I got over it and lived my life.”
“And met me.”
“And met you.”
They lapsed into silence. The tension of earlier had eased, but the connection between them remained tenuous. “Was it your mother who called you last year? The night we fought?”
He inclined his head a fraction. “She called me at work, out of the blue. I thought it was some sort of sick joke at first, but Ma was direct. Said the doctors didn’t give her long to live and that both the pub and the farm were in the red. Shea had taken over the running of the farm, and she needed someone to take charge of the pub before Da ran it into the ground.”
“Why didn’t she ask Marcella?”
“Marcella has no head for business and even less interest. She likes chatting with the customers when she’s in the mood. However, her real passion lies in the kitchen. She’s responsible for all our hot food.”
“What about your other brothers and sisters?”
“Sinéad and her boyfriend have six-month-old twins—with all that that implies. Sharon is still at university. She has a part-time job at the local bookstore to tide her over financially. While she works the odd shift at the pub if we’re stuck, I don’t want her chucking in her studies to work there full-time. Shea, as I said, is responsible for the farm. Our youngest brother, Mikey, helps him out.”
“What about your father?” she asked, then paused. “Wait… isn’t a brother missing from that list? You said you had three, right?”
“Yeah. Colm Senior—our father—and Colm Junior have more in common than their names. Let’s just say they’re both well known to the local police and have done more than one stint in prison. To put it bluntly, Colm Junior is currently incarcerated.”
She tried to wrap her mind around the idea of staid, sensible Ruairí having a brother in jail. “I see.”
“No, you don’t.” His laugh was bitter. “How can you? My family is a wild bunch. They never had an opinion they didn’t express. I left Ireland for America because I wanted a fresh start. To be someplace where no one knew my background or me. For a while, I lived the dream. And then my mother called, and my past and present collided.”
And the past had won. The hollow sensation in the pit of her stomach fed into her self-doubts. “Your mother said she was responsible for the pub until she got sick, hence the crisis.”
Ruairí nodded. “My father inherited the pub from his father. For a few years, he ran it with my Uncle Buck. When it became apparent Da and Buck were drinking more than the customers, Ma stepped in and took over. For years, the pub was her domain.”
“Until she got sick,” Jayme finished for him.
“Yes. Until she got sick.” He flexed his fingers. “With Ma out of commission, the place was going downhill fast. Colm Junior and a prison pal of his took over the day-to-day running of the place. The results were predictable. Within a couple of months, the pub had been raided twice. The second raid bore fruit—Colm and his pal were arrested for possession with intent to supply and sent down.”
Jayme whistled. “Wow. And then you arrived to save the day.”
“Yeah.” He halted, jerking his gaze away from the path ahead. He squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry, Jayme. I should have told you all of this last year. When I first came over, I had no intention of staying in Ireland. When I saw the state of the pub—not to mention the state of my family—I couldn’t up and leave.”
She swallowed past the razor blades in her throat. “You up and left me.”
“Sweetheart—”
“Did you really think I was so superficial that I’d reject you if I knew your dad and brother were jailbirds? Or that I’d object to you helping your sick mother? For heaven’s sake, I’m a doctor. I’m all too familiar with cancer and its ramifications.”
“Jayme, your mom is one of the most renowned pediatricians in New York, and your dad is the state attorney general.”
“So? I fell in love with you, not your family. You’re not a jailbird. What does my background have to do with you not telling me your mom was sick?”
“Nothing. You’re absolutely right. I should have told you straight out.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of black and white. Slipping her hand free of his grasp, she ran to the fence to take a closer look. “Ruairí, is that your missing cow?”
He fished binoculars from his coat pocket and peered through them. “That’s Daisy, all right.” He flipped open his phone and hit a number on the display. “Shea? We’ve got her. She’s down in the south meadow by the water trough.”
The cow was immobile, possibly mired in mud. “What do we do?” Jayme craned her neck to get a better view.
“You do nothing. Let me and Shea deal with her.”
A few minutes later, Shea ran down the track to join them, spraying mud with every step. “Damn,” he said, staring through the binoculars. “She’s stuck, but not too deep, thank feck.”
Ruairí turned to her, his mouth a hard line, and worry lines etched by the corners of his eyes. “Wait here. We’ll try to get her out.”
Twenty excruciating minutes later, Ruairí and Shea had part coaxed, part dragged a very reluctant Daisy back to the cowshed.
Sharon was waiting for them by Daisy’s stall. She fussed over the cow upon her arrival, cooing to her as though she were a baby. Within a few minutes, Daisy had been rubbed down, covered in a warm blanket, and supplied with food and water.
Outside the shabby cowshed, the gray sky showed cracks of blue. Jayme glanced around. The farmyard was small and consisted of four buildings in various stages of collapse. Snorting was audible from one of the smaller buildings. She wandered over to investigate.
The heel of one of her boots caught between the cobblestones. One second, she was upright. The next, she was nose first in the mud. Nose first in particularly foul-smelling mud… “Oh, fff—”
Twenty-four hours ago, she’d been dining on sushi in one of Manhattan’s most exclusive restaurants. Today, she was ass over heels in an Irish farmyard, her face stuck in a pile of cow excrement. How had this happened to her? Oh, yeah… a brush with death and a rush of blood to the head. In short, she’d lost what vestiges of sanity she still possessed.
“Cow shite,” said a thunderous voice from above.
Jayme pushed herself up to her elbows and sneezed.
A wild-haired man loomed over her, brandishing a walking stick. “Who the hell are you? And what the fuck are you doing on my farm?”
Ruairí emerged from the cowshed, Shea at his heels. “Back off, Da. Aren’t you supposed to be in Mallow?”
The man with the stick glared at them. “The roads were flooded. I had to turn back.” He gestured at Jayme with his walking stick. “I don’t like trespassers on my property.”
“She’s not a trespasser. She’s with me.” Grabbing her arm, Ruairí hauled her to her feet in one fluid movement. He fished in his coat pocket and produced a clean tissue. “For your face.” She noted both his protective stance toward her and the belligerent look he was directing at his father.
The older man spat on the ground. “If she’s with you, take her away. I don’t want any friend of yours on my farm. And take yourself away while you’re at it.”
“Steady on. Jayme’s my guest.”
“On my farm. You�
�ve stolen my pub. You needn’t think you’ll get the farm as well.”
Ruairí rolled his eyes. “I bought the pub off you and Ma—lock, stock, and Guinness barrel. And I paid well over the going rate.”
Colm Senior’s nostrils flared, and his bloodshot eyes bulged. “Get off my land, the pair of you.”
Ruairí’s grip on her shoulders tightened. “Come on. Let’s get you home for a shower.”
“Bye, Jayme,” Sharon said from the entrance to the cowshed. “Nice to meet you.”
“And you.” Jayme swallowed something and winced at the taste.
Shea nodded to her but remained silent, his wary eyes trained on his father.
When they reached the car, she turned to Ruairí. “Aren’t you going to tell your mother that Daisy is safe?”
He shook his head. “Better get going before my father comes up to the house. We can call in on her another day.”
Jayme slid into the passenger seat, still trembling with shock and fury. “What a horrible man.”
He gave a bitter laugh and started the ignition. “Believe it or not, you got him on a good day.”
“Seriously? How did you put up with such abuse?”
The SUV bumped back down the path and turned onto the main road.
He shrugged. “As crazy as it sounds, we were used to him when we were kids. As I grew up, I started to stand up for my mother, but it was usually a bad idea. That’s why I left. I couldn’t stand it any longer. If we’d all stood up to him, then maybe we could have gotten him to leave us alone. But I was the only one crazy enough to take him on. When the others refused to intervene, I’d had enough.”
On the dashboard, his phone vibrated. He switched it to loudspeaker. Marcella’s cheery tones crackled down the line. “You’re not going to believe this, but I’ve gone and got an interview for that cookery course I was telling you about. You know, the one in Cork City.”
“Yes.” Ruairí drew out the word in a wary manner.
“It’s the day after tomorrow. I’m really sorry, bro, but I’ll have to take a couple of days off work. I need tomorrow to get my portfolio together. The interview is the day after.”
