Hot Whispers of an Irishman

by Dorien Kelly

  Because she was ever-invincible Vi, she began to scramble to her feet. Liam grasped her by the upper arms and stilled her. “Slow now or you’ll be out again.”

  “I don’t faint.”

  She’d spoken with such dignity that he scarcely managed to quell his smile. “Then you’d best give me warning before you nap again.”

  Her exhaled breath was nearly a laugh.

  Liam looked for signs of color returning beneath her skin, but she remained too pale for his comfort. He’d take her in his arms if he didn’t think he’d end up with them broken for the effort. Instead, he reached out to smooth a lock of hair back from her forehead, but the obvious warning in her green eyes stopped him.

  “You’d best not. I’m not through being angry,” she said.

  Vi and anger were things not to be trifled with, even when she was at less than her best. He dropped his hand to his side. Knowing Vi’s inattention to matters mundane as food, he asked a logical question.

  “So tell me, she who does not faint, when did you last eat?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “At my parents’ house?”

  She nodded.

  “You didn’t eat. You chased a carrot round your plate.”

  “Close enough.”

  “Not when the carrot wins.”

  “It’s grand to see the years haven’t robbed you of your sense of humor,” she said quite dryly. “My father will be here soon with some food.”

  “Define soon.”

  She rubbed at her temples with long-fingered hands. “By teatime.”

  Liam glanced at his watch. “Nowhere near good enough. I’ll run you and your dog—”

  “Roger,” she corrected.

  “Fine, then, Roger—into town and get some food in you.”

  “I can wait for Da.”

  A faint tinge of pink had crept under her skin, making Liam feel better, too.

  “Don’t be stubborn,” he said, knowing he’d have a better chance in asking fire not to burn. “You can’t live on less than a meal a day.”

  “I can and have,” she replied. “But I suppose you can take me to town.” She ran her hands through her hair and then began brushing off her right shoulder and hip, which had been in close contact with the ground.

  “You’re welcome,” he replied with all the grace she was refusing to show.

  He stood, then held out a hand to her. She hesitated.

  “For God’s sake, Vi, I’m helping you up from the ground. You can shred me alive for trespassing after you’ve eaten.”

  She gripped his hand and rose. “Don’t think I’ll be forgetting.”

  Liam knew better than to even think that.

  “I’ll be right back,” she said.

  He shook his head as she marched shoulders back and head high in the direction of the house. He took a moment more to gather his gear. Vi had returned with a patchwork bag made of a mad jumble of fabric by the time he was saving the data he’d captured. She and her dog got into the car while he stowed the equipment. When he went to get in the driver’s side, the dog was sitting in his seat.

  “To the back,” he said to Roger.

  “I don’t know,” said Vi. “He could do no worse than you did yesterday.”

  A diplomat, the dog hopped in back.

  “Don’t be discussing driving or I’ll remind you of your first time behind the wheel,” Liam said once he’d climbed in and closed the door.

  That settled her into silence for a few minutes. He supposed it would have done the same to him, had he ended up going the wrong way round and round and round a rotary with a Garda hot on his tail. It had been ugly enough sitting in the passenger’s seat.

  Vi wasn’t daunted for long. “About being on my nan’s property…”

  “Yes?”

  Her hand shot out, and she plucked a few hairs from his head. Liam yelped and swerved, then rubbed at his scalp once he’d put the car back on course.

  “Jesus, Vi! Has no one ever taught you to leave the driver alone?”

  She smiled as she tucked the hairs into a smaller velvet bag that she’d pulled from her patchwork sack. “I will…now.”

  He shot her a baleful look. “What have you in mind, a voodoo doll?”

  She laughed. “An Irish voodoo doll? Never! It’s Nan’s recipes I’m thinking of. Somewhere in her writings is one fit for curing a trespasser. Something with tar to make you stick where you should be. A bit into your food or drink when you’re not looking and my problem will be gone.”

  Liam grimaced. “As would be my gut. I’ve run across her ‘recipes’ before.”

  Vi nodded. “Good, then. This one has done its job already, and you know not to wander.”

  A fine threat indeed from a woman who’d been in a faint not long before. Liam would have to weigh the risks of actually letting her get to full strength.

  “Pull in there,” she said when they were just down the street from his family’s pub. “That’s my car, which means Da must be near.”

  Liam did as asked. Once parked, he came round to her side of the car and opened the door for her, earning a surprised sounding “thank you.” Her dog hopped out and waited next to her on the curb as she slung her bag—and Liam’s pirated hairs—over her shoulder.

  “Did your father have any plans?” Liam asked.

  “Just to catch up on life in Duncarraig,” Vi said.

  “Then he’s sure to be in the pub.”

  When they were all inside, including Roger, Jamie came round the bar with a speed that could make him the first Irishman to win track and field gold at the Olympics.

  “Welcome to my pub, Vi,” he said, placing himself squarely in front of her and subtly nudging Liam aside.

  “Yours and Da’s,” Liam muttered while his brother kissed her on the cheek.

  Vi shot him an arch look. It wasn’t jealousy he was feeling, so much as what he usually did when in Duncarraig—that his place in the world was being trampled flat by others.

  He beat his brother to a table and pulled out a chair for Vi, who thanked him again. Thinking he must not have had the same manners fifteen years ago, Liam sat opposite her.

  “Vi’s in need of a meal,” he said to his brother, who lingered at her right hand.

  “We’ve a ginger carrot soup today,” Jamie said. “Would you like to start with that?”

  “Since I can catch them pureed, I will,” she replied, brows raised in Liam’s direction. Then she sent a sunny smile to Jamie. “After the soup, I think a toasted cheese sandwich. And have you some lettuce and tomato slices? No mayonnaise, though. Liam here was saying that I’ve put on weight.”

  He’d said no bloody such thing and was about to point that out when he saw the laughter in her eyes. Threats of being snuck one of Nan’s recipes weren’t to be his sole punishment.

  “He’s got no eye for beauty, then,” Jamie said.

  “I always did like you best,” Vi nearly purred.

  Liam was sure his brother’s tongue was going to be spiked with splinters from the wood of the floor by the time he rolled it back into his mouth.

  “Anything for your dog?” Jamie managed to stammer with a nod toward Roger, who had curled up in front of the fireplace.

  This time, Vi’s smile was enough to light the town for a week. “No, but it’s fine of you to have asked. I can tell you’re the sort of man who likes dogs. Unlike some,” she added, with a nod toward Liam.

  Grand, now he was a dog hater. Next she’d have him defrauding aged nuns. Wait…that had been great-grandda Seamus’s special talent.

  “I’d like a bowl of the soup, too, if you don’t mind,” Liam said to his brother with the thought of moving him along.

  “You know where the kitchen is,” Jamie replied, never taking his gaze from Vi. “So tell me, Vi, do you plan to be visiting Duncarraig more often?”

  Unwilling to listen to this exercise in flirtation any longer, Liam got himself a cup of soup, and one for Vi, too, so long as he was the
re. He and Jamie crossed paths as Liam returned to his seat. Jamie’s smug smile was a hard one to take.

  Once Liam had resettled at the table, Vi spoke. “Jamie says that my father has gone with yours to visit a bit.”

  Liam smiled. “My father’s idea of visiting a bit is like saying that it rains a bit hereabouts. He’ll be gone for hours yet.”

  “Then I’d say we have time for a chat,” Vi said. “Are you going to tell me now what proof you have of Rafferty’s gold?”

  Liam gave a quick look around to see who might be listening. “When we’re someplace with less ears, if you don’t mind.” He wanted his family as far out of his business as he could have them. Granted, when in the same town it wasn’t far, but a man could always hope. “After we eat, would you come back to my house?”

  “Would it be just the two of us?”

  The question confused him. “Your dog can chaperone if you’re worried about appearances.”

  She laughed. “They’ve never worried me overmuch.”

  With that, she lifted her spoon and made short work of her soup. Liam had nearly finished his when Jamie reappeared with the rest of Vi’s meal. After he’d set down the food, he pulled out the chair next to Liam as though he intended to stay. Liam hooked his foot round the chair’s leg and drew it flush to the table. Jamie called Liam a word that he’d not heard since childhood and walked off.

  “He’s grown up handsome,” Vi said.

  “And spoilt, too,” Liam replied, then softened his admittedly ill-tempered words. “But he’s always been here for our parents, so he deserves what they’ve given him. Even Cullen and Nora left town for a few years, but never Jamie.”

  She nibbled at her sandwich before asking, “And would you ever come back to stay?”

  “No,” he said automatically, until he recalled that he had little other place to be. “I don’t know.” He paused. “It’s too far from the sea, I’m thinking.”

  “The sea,” she echoed, and her smile stirred things in him that weren’t purely physical. “I love that about my home in Ballymuir. I’m never far from the water.”

  “You’re more beautiful now than you were at seventeen,” he blurted, not really intending the thought to escape.

  She laughed. “Flattery works better when there’s a seed of truth, Rafferty.”

  There was a full forest of truth in what he’d said, but she had never taken praise well. Instead of unsettling her more, he asked her if she’d gone to art school in Cork as she’d always intended. He was surprised to hear that she hadn’t. They talked a bit about his college experience in America, then Liam let her finish her meal in peace. She was almost done when Jamie came skulking back over.

  “Have you nothing better to do?” Liam asked.

  “No, but you do. I just took a call behind the bar. Meghan’s complaining of a headache, and the school needs you to come take her home.”

  She no more had a headache than he did a family that respected his privacy, but there was nothing to be done for it.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to Vi. “Would you mind coming with me to gather her up?”

  “Or you could stay here,” Jamie offered.

  “Go ’way, Jamie,” Liam directed.

  His brother shrugged. “Just offering a more pleasant alternative.”

  Vi stepped into the discussion. “Liam and I have some catching up to do, but thank you for the offer, Jamie.”

  “Might I at least keep your dog for you?”

  “That would be grand, actually.”

  Jamie puffed like an overproud bantam rooster. “My pleasure.”

  “Oh, and do you think you could give a ring to Liam’s house when my father reappears?” Vi asked while folding her napkin and putting it in the center of a plate that otherwise now held only a few crumbs.

  “On the second, as it will get you back to me all the sooner,” Jamie said.

  Vi laughed, and Liam worked on keeping down his soup. Wee toady of a brother.

  “Well then, my family’s fully tended. Shall we see to yours?” she asked Liam.

  “Let’s.” Liam stood and waited while Vi threw some quick praise Jamie’s way about the fine meal he’d provided. Liam reached into his pocket and smacked a small handful of crumpled euros on the table.

  “If it’s not enough, let me know,” he said.

  Jamie picked up the money and without counting it replied, “It should be enough, that with the five I borrowed from your jacket pocket yesterday. It’s not safe leaving money lying about like that. You never know where it might end up.”

  “I do, now,” Liam replied.

  Vi’s hand in his, he made for the pub door before his brother had picked him to the bones.

  As Vi sat in Liam’s car, she was glad for the meal she’d eaten, but not the way it was now lurching about in her stomach. Liam had gone inside the drab beige-painted parish school to collect his daughter while Vi focused on collecting herself. Earlier at the pub when she’d asked Liam whether they’d be alone, this was Vi’s concern, not some antiquated notion of propriety. Absorbing the knowledge that Liam had a child was a far simpler task than seeing her. Vi had faced down much in life, but never anything that hit quite so personally.

  She watched as Liam and his daughter walked down the steps from the school building. Meghan was petite, yet even in the school’s blue and green plaid skirt and oversized green jumper, she was far older looking than Vi had thought of a standard twelve-year-old as being.

  They were nearly to the car now. On the surface of things, Meghan looked very little like her father. She was dark blond where he was dark. Her eyes were brown and had only a hint of his eyes’ shape to them. All of this came as welcome news. Had Vi seen more of Liam, she’d have been less able to maintain the semblance of a pleasant calm.

  Meghan opened the back passenger door, flung her book bag inside, then followed herself. It was an act of high drama, with sulky glares and the car door slamming loudly behind her.

  “Meghan, this is Vi Kilbride, an old family friend,” Liam said as he started the car.

  A family friend? That would be poor news indeed to Liam’s mam, Vi thought. She moved the best she could in the confines of her seat belt and held out her hand to Meghan.

  “It’s grand to meet you,” she said, accepting Meghan’s limp and unwilling shake in return.

  Meghan’s mumbled response could have been a politeness or a go to hell, for all Vi could interpret. She turned back about, facing the windshield, satisfied that at least she’d done her duty.

  Meghan’s school had sat on the outskirts of town. Vi wasn’t at all sure where Liam might have a house, but in a matter of moments, they were slowing in front of a tall, three-storied home, the ground floor of which appeared to have once been a shop. Liam pulled down a short brickwork drive to the house’s left, then parked in a courtyard between the back of the house and a small two-storied carriage house.

  Liam scarcely had the car switched off before Meghan grabbed her bag and bolted for the carriage house. Liam flung open his door.

  “No running to your tower,” he called.

  Meghan pulled up short. She turned and glared at her father, who had exited the car. Vi had stopped, too, curious about this particular show.

  Liam motioned toward the house’s back door. “That way. And no foot-dragging, either,” he added when she apparently paused an instant too long for his taste. All three of them were in the kitchen when he gave his next edict to Meghan. “Two aspirin and then to bed.”

  “But I’m feeling a lot better,” his daughter replied. Vi marveled that she’d made the words sound so much like a threat. Amazing talent, that.

  “I’m sure you are. And from here on, unless you can produce verifiable symptoms like a burning fever or a missing limb, don’t be asking to come home again.”

  Meghan left the room. Vi hid a smile as she listened to the girl pound her way upstairs, feet dramatically heavy. Liam appeared less amused.

  “So
rry about that. I’m easy game, yet,” he said. “I figure we’ll have worked our way through her repertoire about the time her mother returns for her.”

  “A manufactured headache is nothing too dire,” Vi said.

  “Yet. She’s crafty.”

  This time Vi did laugh. “I wonder where she might be getting that? Speaking of which, now that your daughter’s settled, would you care to show me your grand treasure map? For all the good it will do you without access to the land.”

  “It’s no map,” Liam replied. “But come this way.”

  He led her from the crisp new kitchen to a combination dining room and living room that would be lovely, indeed, if someone introduced some color to it. The floors were pale wood, unrelieved by carpet, as was the open stairway leading to the upper floors. The sofa and chairs in the living room were square-edged and made of cold leather of a colder white.

  “So you like white?” she asked as he riffled through a briefcase on the dining room table.

  “I like it well enough,” he said.

  Vi rubbed the fingers of her left hand together as she thought how fine the room would look with a smoky crimson on one wall, and the ceiling a buttery color. She started as she realized that this was the first time in weeks she’d thought about color as though it was a living thing, something to be stroked like a sleek cat.

  Her mouth quirked at the image, for she’d always thought of Liam as a cat, too—cat’s eyes, agile body, and hot to her touch.

  “Ah! Found it.” He pulled out a sheet of paper. “Come here, Vi, and have a look. This one first.”

  Vi stood beside him, forcing herself to focus less on the inviting warmth she sensed coming off him, and more on what he wanted her to look at.

  The paper was modern, the same as what spat from her hated, eternally uncooperative computer back home. The contents of the paper, however, came from years past. Vi took a moment to adjust to the photocopy of a page from a ledger of some sort. The writing was strongly embellished, lovely in an illegible sort of way. A few things did stand out. The first was a date of 1837 and the second was a notation for a sum paid to…She frowned, trying to make out more. It appeared to be a sum paid to an Edward Rafferty.