by Jill Myles
Not that it mattered, I supposed, since it was still looking as if we'd be the first ones kicked off of the race anyhow. We'd had the bad luck to have seats in the very back of the airplane since we'd arrived last at the ticket counter, and Liam wasn't the type to shove his way to the front of the plane in a hurry to get off. He'd simply sat in his seat and waited for his turn, and I'd followed his lead. By the time we'd gotten off the plane and found the rental cars marked for the racers, we were the last ones to leave the airport.
"There," I said quickly, pointing as we drove over a tiny bridge. "Parking is in that direction." The castle was a fair distance away, the tower of it on the horizon. "Looks like we hike it from here."
"Looks like," he agreed, and then gestured at the line of identical silver hatchbacks already in the parking lot. "All the others are already here."
"Not surprising,” I said. We’d known we were in last place and nothing had happened to change that.
We parked our vehicle and grabbed our backpacks out of the trunk. To my surprise, he grabbed my pack and swung it onto his back next to his own, doubling up.
I gave him an odd look. "I can carry my own bag."
"I know," he said easily. "But it's a long walk to the castle and we can make up time if I carry it."
I hesitated. "I'm not helpless."
Those dark eyes lit on my face. "Never said you were."
Okay, then. I nodded and we sprinted up the winding path toward the castle.
Ireland was really, really green. I'd expected that, but I was still surprised at how brilliantly pretty the grounds of the castle were. Abundant plant-life was everywhere, and flowers were blooming - a wild contrast from the cold snow of Greenland. As we arrived at the front of the castle, The World Races mat and flag came into view. A man in a black jacket and a short green kilt with white socks was there to greet us. He held out a disk as we approached.
Liam gestured that I should take it, so I did, and flipped it over. "Blarney Castle is known for two things - its remarkable gardens and the Blarney Stone,” I read. “As a team, your task is to plant an appropriate item in each of the four main gardens of the Blarney Castle gardens. Only plant in the marked sections. Once you have planted all four items in the correct spots, a gardener will give you your next task." I flipped over the disk to make sure I hadn't missed anything else, then looked up at my partner. "Ten bucks says that someone has to kiss the Blarney Stone while we're here."
"I'm not taking that bet," he told me, and his mouth curled on one side in a hint of a smile. He really did look like a rock star just then, especially with the lip piercing.
I found myself smiling back, and I tucked the disk under my arm. "Well, let's find these gardens, shall we?"
We followed the marked path, and there was a spot with another World Games flag flying overhead. There were rows of potted plants lined up, guarded by a pair of gardeners in the same green kilts that our greeter had worn. We set down our backpacks next to the pile of the others, and I tucked the disk into mine, then we each grabbed a potted plant to start the task.
I stared down at my pot. Mine looked…well, like weed. I giggled and showed it to Liam.
"Pretty sure that's illegal in most states," he murmured to me as we walked to the nearest garden. His was a plain fern of some kind. "Hope there's not an Irish cop around to watch us plant that."
There were signs all over the extensive grounds, and from what I could tell, there were four main gardens - the Fern Gardens, the Poison Gardens, the Irish Garden, and the Bog Garden.
"No smoke garden," I joked. "Maybe we should plant yours first. It's obviously the one that goes in the Fern Gardens."
We headed for the Fern Gardens and found a pair of shovels, the marked area, and two other teams still digging away at their marked plots. I got excited at the sight of that, especially when I realized that one team had no clue what they were doing, since they were planting their cannabis in the Fern Garden.
I set my pot of, well, pot down next to Liam's fern and grabbed a shovel. "Come on," I told him in a low voice. "We can catch up right here." I pushed ahead and began to shovel dirt. It was soft and loose, not hard packed, and already wet. This wouldn't be hard to dig at all. I tossed the shovel full of dirt to the side and stuck my shovel in again.
"I should be the one digging," Liam told me.
"Why's that?" I asked, even as I hopped on the edge of my shovel to dig it into the ground even deeper.
"Because I'm…bigger than you."
"You were going to say 'because you're a guy,' weren't you?"
He said nothing.
As if sensing an argument, a cameraman zoomed in on us working.
“Admit it,” I told him. “You think I’m weak because I’m a girl and that’s why you’re being all weird.”
“I never said you were weak or girly. You’re just…short.”
I tossed the shovel-full of dirt on Liam's buckle-covered, expensive boots.
He snorted. "Fair enough. I deserved that."
"You did," I said in a cheerful voice. "And you can dig the next one. Now, hand me your plant."
"Yes, ma'am," he told me, and he sounded almost amused at my bossiness.
We planted our first two quickly, electing the Poison Garden for the cannabis, and then heading back for the last two. We planted something that looked like a water lily in the bog garden, and the last plant, I had no idea what it was, but we just guessed at that point, and then flagged over a gardener.
Apparently we'd guessed right, because the gardener immediately handed over a disk. “Congratulations.”
Whooping with excitement, we quickly flipped over the disk and read it, heads bent. My hand brushed over Liam’s as we flipped, but I didn't have time to focus on that. We read the next clue together.
"Make your way to the Blarney Stone," the disk read. "One team member will need to volunteer for the kiss, and receive the gift of gab."
He glanced over at me, and I noticed how close our faces were for the first time. "Well, you called it."
"I did," I told him, unable to stop looking at his mouth, so close to my own. "I figured they'd use every opportunity to make someone kiss in this game." Abby's comment about making good TV was permanently stuck in my head. I began to get flustered as I thought about kissing him. He was tall, and, okay, if I admitted it to myself, good looking. Sure, he had tattoos and piercings, but he was pretty hot if I was paying attention to that sort of thing.
Which I wasn't. Theoretically.
"Do you know much about the Blarney Stone?" he asked me.
"Just that it involves kissing. Maybe you have to stand on it and kiss someone for this gift of gab thing," I told him, and felt my body get all flushed again. Was I going to have to kiss him for the next clue? Why did that make me feel all weird and kind of excited instead of reluctant and unhappy?
"Only one of us is mentioned, though," he said thoughtfully. "What if we have to kiss a stranger?"
"Oh," I breathed. I hadn't considered that. I elbowed him in a playful manner. "Well, you're the one that could use the gift of gab, if you ask me."
He stared at me, eyes narrowing. "Fine. I'll do it." Then, he turned away, clearly angry.
Guess I'd ruined our easygoing mood. Way to go, Katy, I told myself. We grabbed our bags - though he insisted on carrying mine - and followed the signs back to the castle itself.
I guess when I’d pictured the whole Blarney Stone thing, I thought it would be a big rock in a field that everyone went to and kissed. To my surprise, the Blarney Stone was just a stone set in the middle of one of the castle walls, nothing particularly special about it. I watched as one of guys from another team - Derron - laid on his back and grasped a pair of ropes attached to the wall. Two men held his legs as Derron lowered himself backward and kissed the stone while upside down. As soon as he was done, someone reached down with a scrub brush and cleaned the wall.
Okay, that was…not what I had been picturing. I looked at Liam s
heepishly. "I guess I was wrong about the Blarney Stone."
"Guess so," he said in a bland voice, and I frowned. I'd hurt his feelings with my comment about the gift of gab. Now I was the bad guy.
He set down his backpack against the wall and got into line behind another team. I studied him, then noticed a camera hovering nearby.
Make good TV, Abby had warned me. They'll fix stuff in your direction to keep you on.
And the silent treatment between us? Not really good TV. Plus, it bothered me that Liam and I had come to a sort of understanding earlier, and we had almost had…fun.
Except I'd gone and blown things by making a comment about how quiet he was. So I needed to fix things, and I needed to make good TV. Somehow.
I considered this as I waited with our bags. The other person finished smooching the rock, and then it was Liam's turn. They carefully lowered him backward to the stone and he kissed it, then came back up a moment later. He got to his feet in an easy, fluid motion, and someone handed him a disk. Instead of reading it, he immediately headed for me so we could read it together.
He was like night and day from Brodie, really. And for the first time, I really, really wanted to make this work. And make good TV. And I kept thinking about how I'd misinterpreted the whole Blarney Stone thing, and how I'd been a bit disappointed when I realized that we wouldn't be kissing after all. And that was a little weirdly disappointing. I mean, wouldn’t a kiss make great TV? I thought so.
He came to my side and held his hand out for his backpack.
I threw my arms around his neck and planted my mouth on his.
It was impulsive and a little crazy. Okay, a lot crazy. But I didn't care. I kissed him, pressing my lips against his and feeling the bite of metal at the edges of his mouth. For some reason, that was a bit erotic, and it distracted me.
It was, however, not half as erotic as when his tongue snaked out and brushed against my lower lip.
I was so startled by that, I almost stopped kissing him. Instead, I made a small noise of surprise in my throat, and my mouth softened. His tongue dipped into my mouth, and I felt a tongue stud brush against my own smooth tongue. And oh god, that was…really good.
"Guess he's sharin' his gift o' gab," someone called out merrily behind us, accent thick.
"Sharin' somethin'," someone else commented.
I broke apart from Liam, my face flushing. "Um…good job," I told him, brushing my fingers along the edges of my lips thoughtfully.
He stared down at me, as if trying to figure me out. After a long moment, he said nothing and simply handed me the disk.
I took it in trembling hands and flipped it over to read. "Drive your way," I began, but I noticed he was leaning in close, and I could practically feel his breath on my skin. My voice was squeaky and weird, and I had to clear my throat and start again. "Drive your way to Trinity College in Dublin. Head to the College Library and you will receive your next task there."
"Shall we go, then?" Liam's voice was low, and just a bit husky.
"Sure." I didn't know what else to say, and there was the weirdest blush on my cheeks. "Sure," I repeated, and didn't protest when he grabbed my backpack again.
~~ * * * ~~
The drive to Trinity College took a few hours, and they were weird hours. Neither myself nor Liam were in a chatty mood. We'd gone back to our efficient sort of quiet, speaking only when directions needed to be given or to speculate about the race.
I didn't know what to say, so I didn't blame him for being silent. We'd gone from hating each other last night in the igloo to practically making out atop Blarney Castle this morning. He probably thought I was nuts.
Hell, I wasn't sure that I wasn't nuts.
I did keep playing with my lip as he drove, though, thinking of the feel of the metal in his mouth against mine. His lips had been soft in contrast to that. The lip ring on his lower lip had pressed into my skin, and I'd felt that tongue stud graze against my tongue in a way that had made me dazed. I'd known that he'd had it, but I just hadn't thought about it when it came to kissing.
And now I couldn't stop thinking about it.
"Almost there," Liam told me in his quiet voice, breaking my reverie. His dark gaze locked on my face via the rearview mirror.
I put my hand down, realizing with a slight flush that he’d caught me playing with my mouth. “Great.”
"I see two other cars," he told me as he pulled into parking.
"Maybe we'll see Tesla and Brodie," I told him. And then a horrible thought occurred to me. What if Liam and Tesla were an item? Oh god, and I'd kissed him on national TV. No wonder he'd stiffened up like that. No wonder he was acting weird now.
But…I was also pretty sure he'd kissed me back. It was mystifying.
We grabbed our bags, and he carried mine again, despite my protests. With our gear in hand, we hiked across the campus, following The World Races signs toward the library. Several red-brick structures surrounded us, and as we headed to one massive building, I wasn't sure that it was the right place. It seemed too large to be a library.
Of course, as soon as we opened the doors, I changed my mind.
The breath escaped me. Holy cow, that was a lot of books. I stared in fascination as I walked in, surprised at just how many books were in this building. Row after row after row of bookshelves lined up as far as the eye could see, neatly cordoned off by red velvet ropes. Each aisle had a bust of someone old or famous at the end, and when I looked up, I could see that there was a second floor of even more books.
"Wow," I said.
"I hope you don't have to find a particular book," Liam told me in a quiet voice, staring around us. He looked equally impressed.
"Oh god, I hope not, too. I'm a baker, not a librarian," I told him.
"A baker, huh?" He seemed amused by that. "I'd have guessed camp counselor with the pigtails."
I rolled my eyes. "The pigtails were a casting decision."
He chuckled. "They're cute."
Cute? Was he flirting with me? I cast him a look, but he was pointing down the long alley of bookshelves. "I see our guy."
I followed his gaze and sure enough, there was The World Races flag. We picked up the pace, stepped onto the mat, and retrieved our next disk.
"This challenge is mine since you did the last one," I told Liam, and began to read the disk. "The Trinity College Library is home to the famous Book of Kells, one of the most ornately decorated manuscripts ever found. Using the materials provided to you, you will recreate the page that the book is currently open to. A judge will decide if your copy is worthy. When you are approved, you will receive directions to the finish line for this leg of the race."
"You good at painting?" Liam asked, glancing down at me. I could have sworn there was a hint of an amused sparkle in those dark eyes.
I rolled up my sleeves, grinning. "Dude, I frost cupcakes on a regular basis. I am ace at painting. Just watch me."
"Don't get cocky," he told me, but there was a teasing note in his voice.
I simply grinned and headed for the roped off area. There were three other contestants there, and as I watched, Steffi from the purple team handed her page to the judge, who laid it down on the table, scrutinized it with a magnifying glass, and then shook his head. "No."
Okay, so this wouldn't be easy. I headed to the table set up for me and peered down at the materials, taking a quick assessment of things. Paints in small pots were neatly lined up on the far end of the table, along with multiple brushes. A long piece of thick, weird paper had been laid out on the table, and as I leaned over it, I saw that a drawing had already been done on the paper. It was crazy ornate, too, with a jillion lines and swirls moving back and forth, all in black and white. Obviously our job was to color it to match the Book of Kells. I studied it for a moment, and then looked around for the book.
Off in the distance, there was a roped off section. I watched as Summer got in line again, headed straight to the glass-case covered book, stared at it for a
long while, her lips moving, and then raced back to her table to return to her page. So this was coloring and memorization. There had to be a smart way to do this. I stared down at the paper a moment longer. It reminded me of paint by numbers. All right then, I'd treat it like that. I raced to get in line to view the book, and when the contestant in front of me was done, I moved up to the podium.
And stared. The book was gorgeous. Illuminated by a soft light, the book was opened to a page of one of the Apostles, his head crowned by a golden glow. He held up a hand and cupped an object in it, and his robes were a heavy blue. I studied the colors for a moment, then decided to tackle it one color at a time. I'd start with gold. Crown, I told myself, then looked for other bits of gold. Sandals, sparkles in the sky, and the border. Repeating this to myself, I ran back to my page and dipped a paint brush, then blobbed the appropriate pieces.
Each object in the picture had been broken into several different sections - no doubt to try and throw us off, so I dabbed a bit of the appropriate paint color in each section, then set my brush down and returned to the painting. I'd do blue next, and then work my way through all the colors, so I'd know I was right. It'd take some time in advance, but it'd pay off when I only had to do it once. Even now, I watched another person - Myrna - call over the judge, only to be told 'no' right away. This challenge was about accuracy.
So I returned to the book and looked for blue. Then red. Then green. Then black. Then the smaller, less numerous colors. I took my time, carefully dotting each color on my page. Sometimes I had to return once or twice to the book, unsure of the block I was looking at, so I just skipped that and checked it the next time I went. By the time I had most of my picture blocked out, the three teams that had started at the challenge were still there, and the last two had arrived.
I wasn't flustered, though. I had this. I leaned over my table and began to carefully paint in the boxes I had marked, taking my time with each one. I had careful, steady hands, thanks to my practice icing and decorating delicate cupcakes and wedding cakes. I was fast, and I was steady, and I was totally rocking this challenge. When my back began to cramp up from leaning, I got up and headed to the book again, filling in the last few blanks.
