“No.” Duty? What someone? What duty? What the hell had happened in Ireland to turn an entire village against his film crew? The citizens of Craic had been nothing but excited about the prospect a few months ago. What could possibly have changed?
“What about Maura?” he asked suddenly. “Hasn’t she been able to help with any of this?”
“Help?” Harry laughed. “That woman would as soon as shoot us as look at us.”
“Maura?” Jefferson was stunned now and even more in the dark than he had been before. All right, she hadn’t been as thrilled with the prospect of a film crew being on her land as her friends and neighbors had been. But she’d signed the contract in good faith and he knew she had been prepared for all of the confusion and disruption. Her own sister was in the movie, so if nothing else, that should have garnered her cooperation. So what had changed?
“Yes, Maura,” Harry snapped. “She lets her sheep run wild through shots, her dog chews everything it can get its paws on—”
“She’s got a dog?” When did she get a dog?
“She says it’s a dog. I say it’s part pony. The thing’s huge and clumsy. Always knocking things over. Then as if that wasn’t enough, one of the cameramen was chased by Ms. Donohue’s damn bull.”
All right, something was definitely wrong. Whatever else he could say or think about Maura, she was nothing if not meticulous about caring for her animals and the farm itself. She’d shown him the bull, and had warned him away even though the animal was an old one. “How’d the bull get out?”
“Damned if I know. One minute we’re shooting the scene, the next minute, Davy Simpson’s nearly flattened under the damn bull. Good thing Davy’s fast on his feet.”
“What is going on over there?” Frustration spiked with temper and twisted into an ugly knot inside him.
His mind raced with possibilities and none of them were flattering to the woman who’d signed his contract. Was she after more money? Was she trying to back out of the whole deal?
Too damn bad to either of those scenarios, he told himself. He had her signature on a legal document and he wasn’t about to let her off any hook, nor was he going to be extorted for more money. Whatever she was up to, it seemed she’d gotten the whole village to back her play. What other reason would they have for acting as they were?
Well, it wasn’t going to work.
Jefferson King didn’t bow to pressure and he sure as hell didn’t walk away from trouble.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Harry muttered and the words were almost lost in the static of a bad connection. “The way you talked about this place, I thought it would be an easy shoot.”
“It should’ve been,” Jefferson insisted. “Everything was agreed on and besides, we’ve got a signed contract allowing you access to Maura’s farm.”
“Yeah, the production assistant tried to remind her of that the other day. Got the door slammed in his face.”
“She can’t do that,” Jefferson told him.
“Uh-huh. I know that. You know that. I don’t think she does. Or if she does, she doesn’t care.”
A hard punch of irritation shot through him again and this time it was brighter, fiercer. “She damn well should. She signed the contract willingly enough. And cashed the check. Nobody forced her to.”
Harry huffed out a breath. “I’m telling you, Jefferson, unless things get straightened out around here soon, this shoot is going to go way over budget. Hell, even the weather’s giving us a hard time. I’ve never seen so much rain.”
This didn’t make any sense. None of it. He’d thought everything was settled. Clearly, he’d been wrong. Looked like he was going to be heading back to County Mayo whether he had planned to or not. Time to have a little talk with a certain sheep farmer. Time to remind her that he had the law on his side and he wasn’t leery about using it.
“All right,” he said. “The rain I can’t do anything about. But I’ll take care of the rest of it.”
“Yeah?” the director asked. “How?”
“I’ll fly over there myself and get to the bottom of it.” Something inside him stirred into life at the thought of seeing Maura again, though he wouldn’t admit that, even to himself. This wasn’t about his fling with Maura Donohue. This was about business. And she’d better have a damned good reason for being so uncooperative.
“Fine. Hurry.”
Jefferson hung up, shouted for his assistant and grabbed his suit jacket out of the closet. He’d already scheduled a trip to Austria to meet with the owner of an ancient castle to talk about filming rights. He’d just work Ireland into the trip.
Shouldn’t take long to fix whatever had gone wrong in Craic. He’d stay in the village, talk to everyone, then remind Maura that they had a damn deal. If she was playing games, they were going to stop.
Women were notoriously inconsistent, he reminded himself. God knew the actresses and agents he worked with could drive a man insane. Their moods could change with a whim and any man in the vicinity was liable to be flattened.
Besides, seeing Maura would probably be a good thing in the long run. Give him a chance to look at her without the haze of great sex as a filter. He’d see her for what she was. Just a woman he was doing business with. They could meet, talk, then part again and maybe then he’d stop being hounded by his own memories.
His assistant, Joan, an older woman with no-nonsense green eyes and a detail-oriented personality, hustled into the office.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“I’m going to need you to contact the airport. Tell the pilot we’re making a pit stop in Ireland before we head to Austria.”
“Sure, Ireland, Austria. Practically neighbors.”
“Funny. Something’s come up.” He was already headed for the door. “I’m going by my house to pack. Tell the pilot I’ll be there in two hours. Have the plane prepped and ready to go.”
One of the perks of being a member of the King family was having King Jets at one’s disposal. His cousin Jackson ran the company, renting out luxury planes to those who willingly paid outrageous amounts of money for comfort while traveling. But the King family always had the pick of the jets whenever they needed them. Which made all the travel Jefferson did for work a lot easier to take.
Because of that, he could be in the air before dinnertime and in Ireland for breakfast.
“I’ll tell him,” Joan said as he walked past her. “The jet will be ready. Should I fax you those papers on the McClane buyout while you’re in the air or wait until you return?”
He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. J. T. McClane was the owner of an actual ghost town just on the outskirts of the Mohave desert. Jefferson had the idea to do a modern-day western-gothic film set in what was left of that town. But the man had been dickering over the price for weeks. Wouldn’t hurt to remind the man that King Studios was going to remain in charge of the negotiations.
“Just hang on to them until I get back,” he said finally. “Won’t hurt to make McClane sweat about this deal for a while.”
Joan smiled. “Got it. And, boss…”
“Yeah?”
“Good luck.”
Jefferson smiled and nodded as he left, and kept his thoughts to himself. No point in telling Joan that the only one who was going to need luck around here was Maura Donohue.
Five
J efferson stopped in the village to book a room at the small inn that he’d stayed in on his last trip. He was jetlagged, hungry and well past the breaking point. So when the innkeeper, Frances Boyle, was less than welcoming when she opened her bright red front door and gave him a grim glare, Jefferson’s hackles went up.
“Well,” she said, crossing her thick arms over a prodigious chest covered by a shawl the color of mustard. “If it isn’t himself, come back to the scene of the crime.”
“Crime?” One black eyebrow lifted. “Excuse me?”
“Hah! A fine time to be beggin’ pardon and if it’s pardon you�
��re asking I’m not the one it should be aimed at.”
He closed his eyes briefly. The older woman’s brogue was so thick, and she spoke so quickly, he’d thought for a moment she was speaking Gaelic. Then her words sunk in and he realized he was being scolded as if he were a five-year-old who’d thrown a rock through her window.
“Mrs. Boyle,” Jefferson said, gathering the reins on his simmering temper and trying for a charming smile. “I’ve just spent too many hours on a jet, then driven here from the airport in a rental car that blew a tire on the road and now—” he paused to toss a hard stare at the lowering gray sky “—I’m getting rained on. I’m happy to listen to whatever your complaints might be after you rent me a room so I can change clothes and get settled.”
“Humph.”
Her snort was caught between a snide laugh and a jolt of outrage. “Used to giving orders, aren’t you? No doubt your lackeys jump to attention when you snarl. Well, I’m no one’s lackey, boyo, and I’ve no time for the likes of you, Jefferson King.”
Lackey? He didn’t have lackeys.
“The likes of—” What the hell had happened to this place in a few short months? Had he stepped into an alternate universe? He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes, blinked the raindrops off his lashes and asked, “What did I do? I haven’t even been here in months!”
She huffed out a breath. “So you haven’t, when you should’ve been, I say. You’re a sad disappointment to me, Mister King.”
“Disappointment?” Seriously, he felt as though he needed a translator. It was as if the older woman was speaking in code. “What the hell is going on around here?”
“A decent man would already know the answer to that question.” Her features were hard as stone and her normally placid eyes were glittering. The toe of her practical black shoe tapped against the linoleum. “And I don’t appreciate you swearing at me in my own home.”
“I’m not in your home,” he pointed out, as a cold drop of rain sneaked underneath his shirt collar and rolled icily down his spine.
“And not likely to be any time soon, either.”
So, he was getting a firsthand lesson in what his film crew had been experiencing. He couldn’t understand this. When he’d been here the last time, Frances Boyle had been warm, funny, friendly. He wasn’t used to being treated with outright disrespect.
But whatever her problem was with him, he’d deal with it later. All he wanted at the moment was a room, a change of clothes and a meal. Once he was warm, dry and fed, he knew he’d be in better shape to handle not only Mrs. Boyle, but anything else that awaited him in this picturesque village.
Then he’d be ready to head off to Maura’s farmhouse to settle whatever bug she had up her—He cut that thought off abruptly and tried one last time. “Mrs. Boyle. I just need a room for a couple of days,” he said tightly.
“A shame for you as I’m full up.”
“Full? It’s not even tourist season.”
She sniffed and her voice was cold enough to drop frost on her words. “Be that as it may.”
Then she closed the door on him with a sharp crack of sound. So much for charm. Fine. He’d just stop at a B and B somewhere along the road. As he recalled, there was one not far from Maura’s farmhouse.
Still, it stung. Hardly the welcome he’d been expecting. Jefferson turned around on her porch and looked up and down the narrow Main Street of the village. It looked like a postcard, even in this miserable weather. Sidewalks were thin strips of cement that rose up and down as the road willed it. The shops were a rainbow of colors, and smoke drifted upward from chimneys to be caught by the ever-present wind. Doors were closed against the rain currently pummeling him and early-blooming flowers in pots bent with the water and wind.
Scraping one hand across his face, he stepped off the porch and headed for the Lion’s Den pub. At least there, he’d be able to get a meal and something hot to drink. Then he’d face the rest of the drive to Maura’s. As he jogged across the empty street, he told himself that Mrs. Boyle’s attitude was probably just a case of women sticking together. He already knew Maura was angry about something and the innkeeper was just showing solidarity. God knew every female he’d ever known would be willing to take the side of a fellow woman against a man no matter what the argument might be.
Jefferson stepped into the warmth of the pub and paused a moment to enjoy the glow of the fire in the hearth and the rich scents of beer and some kind of stew simmering in the kitchen. Then he nodded vaguely at a couple of men seated at a table, before taking a spot at the bar for himself. He’d barely settled himself when Michael came out of the kitchen, took a look at Jefferson and came to a sudden stop. His wide, genial face flushed dark red and his blue eyes flashed with trouble.
“We’re closed,” he said.
Jefferson muffled a groan. This he hadn’t expected at all and if he were to be honest about it, he could admit to himself that he felt a bit betrayed at the moment. He and Michael had become friends the last time he was here. And now, the look on the man’s face said he’d happily plant one of his meaty fists on Jefferson’s jaw.
“Closed?” Jefferson jerked a thumb in the direction of the two men, each sipping a freshly stacked Guinness beer. “What about them?”
“We’re not closed to them, are we?”
“So, it’s only me.”
“I didn’t say that.” Michael picked up a pristine bar rag and idly polished a bar that already shone like a dark jewel in the overhead light.
“Yeah.” Jefferson swallowed his anger because it wasn’t going to do him any good here anyway. Until he knew exactly what he was accused of, he couldn’t fight it.
He pushed off the stool, leaned both hands on the bar and met Michael’s heated stare with one of his own. “When we first met, you struck me as a fair man, Michael,” he said. “I’m sorry to be proven wrong.”
The man inhaled so sharply, his barrel chest swelled up to massive proportions. “Aye and you struck me as a man to do his duty.”
“Duty?” He threw both arms wide. “Is everyone in the village nuts all of a sudden? What’re you talking about?”
Michael slapped the bar with his palm. “What I’m talking about is you being nothing more than a rich American taking what he wants and never paying a mind to his leavings.”
Jefferson straightened up like someone had shoved a poker down the back of his shirt. He was trying to be reasonable here, but a man could only be pushed so far. “What leavings?”
“That’s not for me to say but for you to know.”
Great, he thought, disgusted. More code.
“Look, we obviously don’t know each other as well as I thought, Michael,” Jefferson told him, “so I’m going to let that insult go. But I can tell you I’ve never shirked my duty in my life—nor do I know anything about any ‘leavings’—not that I owe you any explanations.”
“Oh, on that you’re spot-on,” the big man muttered. “It’s not me you’re owin’, Jefferson King.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It’s time you found out, don’t you think?”
“And just who should I ask?” Even as he said the words though, he knew what the answer would be.
Sure enough, a moment later, Michael said, “Talk to Maura. She’ll tell you or not as she pleases. But don’t come into Craic looking for friends until you do.”
The men at the table behind him muttered agreement, but Jefferson paid them no attention at all. Why was the town one step short of a mob threatening to tar and feather him?
And why was he still standing there when he knew where he could go to get some answers?
“Fine. I’m here to talk to Maura anyway. I’ll settle this with her and then you and I are going to have a talk.”
“I look forward to it.”
He left the pub at a brisk walk and headed straight for his rental car. The rain pelted at him as if Heaven were throwing icy pebbles down just to elevate his misery. He felt the star
es of dozens of people watching him as he went and realized that he’d fully expected to solve this problem with ease.
He’d had friends here, damn it. What could have happened to change that so completely? And why was Maura the key?
He fired up the engine and steered the small sports car down the narrow road leading out of town and toward Maura. It was time to get some answers.
The muddy track was familiar, and despite the carefully banked anger inside him, there was something else within, too. A curl of anticipation at the thought of seeing Maura again. He didn’t want it. Had fought the very memory of her for months. But being here again fed the flames he’d been trying to extinguish.
Now wasn’t the time for that, though. He wasn’t here to indulge in his desire for a woman who’d made no secret of the fact that she wasn’t interested. He wasn’t going to walk blindly back down a path he’d already traveled.
Besides, he was wet, tired and just this side of miserable when he pulled the rental car into Maura’s drive. Through the heavy mist and low-hanging clouds, the manor house sat like a beacon of light. Its whitewashed walls, dark green shutters and bright blue door belied the gray day and the jewel-colored flowers bursting from pots on either side of the door valiantly stood against an icy wind.
On the far side of the yard, three RVs, a tent and the equipment that made up a film shoot were staggered. People bustled about, though Jefferson knew the actors would be tucked inside their trailers, waiting out the weather. Between the rain and the delays caused by an uncooperative Maura and friends, Jefferson could practically hear money being flushed down the drain.
Frustrated with the entire situation, Jefferson opened the car door to a fresh wall of wet, and once he was standing on the sodden gravel drive slammed the door closed again.
Heads turned. Worker bees, the PA, Harry the director, all looked at him, but when Harry made to walk toward him, Jefferson held him back with one upraised hand. He wanted to talk to Maura before he got any more information.
“And she’d better have some damn answers,” he muttered, soles of his shoes sliding on the wet gravel.
Wedding at King's Convenience Page 6
