by Lila Dubois
She ignored him and cleared a place on the table to set down the book. Mary scooted her chair so she could see better. Michael could feel himself going pink with embarrassment.
“Here's Michael, wasn't he a nice fat baby?”
Mary's lips twitched and she looked at him under her lashes. “He certainly was.”
With a groan Michael dropped his head onto his hands.
“Elbows off the table, Michael Baker.”
“Sorry, Ma.”
Mary made a choking sound as she held back a laugh. If Rose noticed, she didn’t comment, busy with the album.
“Here we are.” She flipped through the pages until she came to one near the middle of the book. There was a series of photos of three-year-old Michael sitting in the grass with a younger child leaning against him. The little girl had curly red-brown hair and wore a pretty green dress.
“That's you, Mary.”
Mary looked at the photo and then at Michael, surprise writ large on her face.
“What?” Michael was as surprised as Mary looked.
“That's the both of you. When you were small, your hair was more your father’s, Mary. I wouldn’t have guessed it would get so dark or lose the curl, but you’re your mother’s daughter. Cailtytown isn't such a big place that there would be many babies at any time, so the two of you played together.”
Michael knew he'd seen the pictures before, and his mother must have told him who the little girl was, but he hadn't remembered, or associated the little curly-haired baby with the dark-haired beauty he'd met in the pub.
His mother turned a page and there they were, toddler Michael's arms around the little Mary, whose eyes were closed, baby lashes crescents on her chubby cheeks.
“Michael was quite in love with you, and you were smitten with him, sure you were.”
Now it was Mary's turn to blush, and Michael couldn't keep from grinning. It was strange and almost comforting to know that they'd met before. Maybe that was why he was drawn to her.
“You would have been eighteen months here, and Michael is just after turning three.” His mother’s lips pressed together. “Six months after this, your parents were gone and your grandparents had closed the shop and gone off to America.”
Mary touched the photo album. “It must have been hard for them, after.”
“It was, it was. We thought we were far enough south that the Troubles wouldn't touch us.” Rose touched Mary's hand. “We all mourned for them, and for you, to lose your parents so young.”
“Thank you.” Mary took a breath, and Michael's heart clenched when he saw the tears in her eyes. “My grandparents are wonderful, and I loved growing up in Chicago.”
“Sure enough, sure enough, but this is your home. Now tell me, what are your grandparents up to over in America?”
The conversation lightened as Mary described her life growing up. Her grandfather had worked as a carpenter, and her grandmother a bank manager. They were comfortably retired in a suburb of Chicago.
“And what do you do, Mary?”
“At the moment, nothing. I worked in TV, producing a local interest show called Chicago's Time. Due to the economy, there wasn't funding to keep the show going.”
“In TV you were; tell me, do you know Oprah?”
Mary laughed. “I did meet her once. She's very nice.”
The conversation turned to her work in TV. Michael had always assumed people who worked in TV, especially American TV, would be wild and egotistical, but as she spoke with calm assurance, he could imagine Mary in command of people, directing a program.
His mother rose from the table, carrying out the tray with the teapot and plate of scone crumbs. When the door closed behind her, Mary smiled.
“Your mother is lovely.”
“I'm quite fond of her myself. Though I cannot believe she showed you baby pictures.”
Mary shook her head, a half smile on her face. “We were babies together. That makes me wonder if it wasn't fate that you invited me into the pub last night.”
Michael raised his teacup, gaze locked with hers. “To fate.”
His mother returned with a tray laden with brown bread, cold sliced ham, relishes and salad. “I saw the time and thought we might need a spot of dinner.”
Mary looked at the food, then her watch. “I’m so sorry, I didn't mean to stay so late.”
“Not at all, not at all. Now Mary, did I tell you that your grandfather made this furniture?”
“Really?” She swiveled in her seat to look around the room. “It's beautiful.”
“Does he still make it?”
“Not like this. He's done a few things, but most of his work was repairing and replacing wood pieces in historic homes. He did make me a doll house.” Her smile was soft with remembrance. “It was beautiful, like this.”
“I remember your mother coming with your father and grandfather to assemble it. That piece over there is too big to come in the door, so they put it together right here.”
“I know my mother worked for Grandpa.”
“She stopped teaching when they married, but went right into the shop, whipping that place into shape. By the time you were born, she was as good as your father at putting pieces together, and small enough that her hands would go places your father's couldn't.”
Mary's eyes were tight with sadness as she stroked the curve of the table. “I wish I'd come back before this, to hear these stories about them.”
His mother was blinking and Michael put his hand on her arm, more grateful than he could say to have her.
She pulled a tissue from her sleeve and wiped her nose. “You're here now, and that's good. Michael, why don't you take Mary for a walk? When you come back, I'll have a bit of sweet stuff for us.”
Jackets and scarfs on, Mary and Michael headed out for a stroll. He took her arm, the movement as natural as if they’d done it a thousand times before. There was an easy silence between them, broken only by the sound of their footsteps over stone footpaths.
“How are you, Miss Mary Callahan?” They were wandering along a narrow road lined with tidy cottages. The sun was low in the sky, and the wind was cold. Michael wrapped his arm around Mary’s shoulders when she shivered.
“That's a loaded question. I don't quite know what to feel.”
“Fair enough.” He kept the silence as they walked on. He’d guided them out of the town, and they were now walking down a winding road that snaked between fields ripe and ready to be harvested. Michael opened a gate in the stone wall on their right and led her off the road. A path bisected the field of knee-high grass. Slowing their steps, they wandered slowly amid the lake of green. When they were midway down the field, Michael stopped her. “If I were any kind of gentleman I wouldn't do this.”
*
“Do what?” But she knew the answer, even before his hands cupped her cheeks, and his lips met hers.
The kiss was soft, gentle. A breeze swirled around them and Mary leaned into Michael. His arms came around her, cradling her body.
Mary pulled back, looking up into his blue-green gaze. Soft as the kiss had been, its effect on her was anything but. She felt alive, every inch of skin tingling and sensitive. A kiss hadn't affected her that much in a very long time, maybe ever.
Michael was smiling, rubbing her arms, and a horrible thought struck her.
“Michael, I'm only here for a few days, and I’m sorry, but I don’t do vacation flings.”
“Who said that’s what I’m interested in?”
Mary didn’t trust the warm feeling in her belly, didn’t trust Michael, though he’d given her no reason to distrust him.
“As far as I know, you might have a wife and two kids in Dublin.”
Michael’s lips twitched. “A wife and two kids?”
“Maybe.”
“And my mother wouldn’t have said something?”
“Why would she? We were just there having tea.”
“No man can bring a pretty woman to tea without his moth
er making a guest list for the wedding.”
“That’s…that’s…”
“That’s Irish mammies for you.” A gust of wind made her shiver and Michael pulled her against his chest. Mary went willingly. “I want nothing from you, pretty Mary, that you aren’t willing to give. I felt the need to kiss you. Nothing more than that.”
“This is nuts, but that makes sense to me.” She curled her fingers into the fabric of his jumper. “Why do I feel like I’ve known you forever?”
“Clearly you’ve been madly in love with me since before you could talk.”
She laughed. “What a strange small world it is.”
“The world is not so small, but Ireland is.”
“The past few days have been a bit surreal. Everything that’s happened…it’s crazy.”
“It may be, but there’s something about you that calls to me. I’ve not felt this before, and I’d be a fool to ignore it. I’d like to spend more time with you.” Michael tipped her chin up, their gazes locked. “I want to do far more than kiss you.”
* * * *
They walked back to Mrs. Baker’s house and would have gone straight to the car if Michael’s mother hadn’t called them in for sweet mince tart. As soon as the plates were cleared, Michael jumped up, telling his mother Mary was jet lagged and needed to rest and that he was headed back to Dublin. Before she could say anything they were out the door.
When they reached Glenncailty, she ignored her misgivings and took his hand, leading him through the castle to her room. At the door she fumbled with the key, too aware of Michael’s hands on her hips, his body warm and solid at her back.
She wanted to feel his solid warmth against her bare flesh. She wanted to be connected to him in the most primal way possible.
“Let me.” Michael took the key from her, slid it into the lock. The door opened.
Mary walked into her room, tugging on his hand. Michael didn’t move.
“Michael?”
His face was pinched with regret. “You’ve had quite a time since coming to Glenncailty.”
Mary bit back a groan. “I’m okay.” She smiled and tugged on his hand again.
Michael’s gaze stroked her, from head to toe. “I won’t take advantage of you.”
“You’re not taking advantage of me.”
“You said not more than two hours ago that you didn’t want a vacation fling.”
“And you said you wanted to do more than kiss me.”
“I shouldn’t press you. It wasn’t fair of me to say anything. You have more than enough to be worrying about.”
“Are you going to get all high-minded and noble on me, Michael?”
“I am. More the fool am I.”
As her desire cooled, Mary felt something else—a tender warmth. He was a good man, a man who said no to a very willing woman because he didn’t want to take advantage of her.
“You’re a good man, Michael Baker.”
“And a stupid one.”
“I wasn’t going to say that…but yes, a bit dumb.”
“This isn’t over.” He braced his hands on the doorframe and leaned in, capturing her lips in a kiss.
Mary nipped his lower lip and pulled back. They were both breathing hard. “No, this isn’t over.”
“Spend tomorrow with me.” His gaze was intense, his words more command than request.
Mary slowly took off her sweater, revealing the lacy tank she had on under. Tossing the sweater on the bed she took hold of the door. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Probably,” she amended.
“Definitely,” he countered.
“Goodnight, Michael.” Mary closed the door, leaning back against it. When she heard Michael’s low curse she smiled. She stayed by the door until she heard his footsteps walking away.
Chapter 5
A knock on the door the next morning shocked Mary from her lazy stupor. She hadn’t slept much—frustrated desire had kept her awake. She wasn’t great at relationships, but she enjoyed sex. In fact most of her relationships had been based around some really excellent sexual chemistry, meaning delayed satisfaction wasn’t something she’d dealt with before, and she’d been up half the night, tossing and turning as she imagined what kind of lover Michael would be. She’d gone from imagining he’d be a simple, almost novice lover to picturing him as a kinky sex master. What was it they said about still waters running deep? Did deep mean kinky?
Belting the plush robe more tightly around herself, Mary answered the door. The blonde front desk clerk was there.
“Good morning, Miss Callahan. These were delivered for you.” She held out a vase of pretty green flowers.
“Thank you.” Mary cleared her throat and hoped she wasn’t blushing.
Closing the door, she inspected the arrangement for a card, but there wasn’t one. Not that she doubted who sent them.
Quickly getting dressed, Mary headed to the foyer, expecting to find Michael there, but it was empty. They’d hadn’t made any specific plans, but it was almost lunchtime. He was probably around here somewhere. Frowning she poked around a few of the other rooms, but the cute blond Irishman was nowhere to be found.
Struggling to hide her disappointment, Mary perused the library shelves, trying to pretend the reason she’d come downstairs was to find a book. Her fingers bumped over the spines of history texts, memoires of famous Irish politicians and poets and books of photography.
She pulled a hardback book called “Melancholy Witness: Images of the Troubles” off the shelf. Running her hand over the glossy dust jacket, she took a seat in one of the pretty armchairs. It was a photo history of the Troubles.
Page by page she went through the book, looking at the black and white images of violence and suffering. She didn’t linger, didn’t read the text accompanying the pictures. Mary’s stomach knotted and her fingers shook. When she reached the end, she quickly flipped back through the pages, looking for one image in particular.
It was the aftermath of a car bomb. Flames licked at the roof of the mangled compact and the street around it was chaos. This was how her parents had died—they’d been walking down the street outside a row of shops when a car parked on the street exploded. It was bad luck, or a cruel joke of fate, that they’d been there. During the Troubles, bombers often warned when and where the explosives would go off, allowing the areas and buildings to be cleared of people, and limiting casualties. But for her parents, for that row of shops, there’d been no warning.
Mary closed the book for a second time and sat back. What the hell was she doing?
She’d come to Ireland to learn about her birthplace, to try to understand the parents she’d never known. She wasn’t here to hook up with guys she met in bars, no matter how nice they were. Despite her token protest about “no vacation flings”, that was exactly what she’d almost done last night.
It was much less painful to focus on Michael and some easy pleasure than to think about what she’d lost the day her parents died.
“You’re thirty, Mary.” Standing, she shoved the book back into place on the shelf. “Too old to use a relationship as an excuse to not focus on important things.”
Angry with herself, Mary headed for her hotel room. Cold air washed over her, making her shiver. Looking at the glass walls of the hallway that lead to the east wing, she rubbed her arms to get warm. She needed to remember to take a coat if she was going out. Thought it looked warm and sunny, the air was cold.
In the bright sunlight, Mary couldn’t see the figure who stood, one hand outstretched as if to stop her.
* * * *
Michael was running late. It was his own fault. He’d gotten caught up fixing the shelves in the hot press, a chore he’d been promising his mother he’d do for months. Luckily the sound of hammer and nails had made conversation almost impossible, which saved him explaining why he’d slept in his childhood room last night, rather than in his house in Dublin.
By the time he’d escaped his mother,
he’d had to listen to gentle reprimands about lying, pointed comments about how pretty Mary was, and even more pointed comments about how heartbroken his mother would be if he were to move away. Clearly Rose Baker had already decided that her son was going to marry Mary Callahan, and that if he did, they’d better not plan to live in America.
As he maneuvered his car down the narrow streets of Cailtytown to the main road, he fervently wished that he’d met Mary in Dublin. Drinks and dinner were far safer than tea in the front parlor for getting to know a woman.
His irritation with his mother and her lack of subtlety faded the farther away from her house he got. Grinning, he wondered if Mary had gotten the flowers he’d sent, wondered if she knew they were Belles of Ireland. There was little hope that the florist would keep her mouth shut about the fact that he’d sent flowers to a woman staying at Glenncailty Castle, which would only fuel his mother’s fantasies.
And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Michael had always assumed that he’d meet the right woman eventually. While there’d been a few women who interested him, he’d spent most of his twenties consumed with building his career and his savings. After-work drinks with his mates had occasionally led to quick, passionate affairs, but there was never anything more.
Mary felt like the right woman. It was hard not to think it was the hand of fate at work bringing them together. If her parents had lived, if she’d grown up here, would they have gotten together in secondary school? Would they have married after graduating from Uni, as so many others he knew had?
Grinning, he parked in the hotel lot and headed for the front doors, a smile on his face.
*
Mary pulled open the front door of the hotel and stopped. Michael was coming up the steps.
He looked devastatingly handsome. The wind blew his hair across his forehead, and the sunlight painted it with gold highlights. His shoulders were broad and straight under his brown wool jacket, and a deep blue scarf was looped around his throat.
“Mary.” He smiled as he said her name.
Mary bit her lip to hold back the answering smile. “Hello.”
