Trish Wylie - Bride Of The Emerald Isle

‘I’ll drive you back.’

‘That’s not necessary.’

‘You already know how much of a stretch of the legs it is to get back there. Don’t be daft.’

‘The walk will do me good.’

‘Tough.’

She was still frowning when she looked back at him, the city-girl confident façade back in place. ‘Are you always this bossy?’

‘Yep.’ He flashed a half-smile at her. ‘You’ll get used to it. Most people do, given time.’

‘I won’t be here long enough to get used to it.’

‘Well, then, consider this a one-shot deal.’

While she opened her mouth to answer that he took his hands out of his pockets and pointed a long finger at her. ‘Don’t move and I’ll go get my keys.’

‘I can walk.’

‘You could try. But I’ll catch up with you in about a minute flat. So you may just think of this as a way of getting rid of me sooner. Otherwise I’m going to wind down the window and annoy you the whole way back. And I’m better at annoying than I am at bossy.’

By the time he had her seated in the passenger seat of his Range Rover, still scowling at him, Dermot had reappeared.

He tapped on Keelin’s window, and Garrett hit the switch to wind it down.

‘It took me a minute to find them. I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.’

Another bunch of letters was handed through the window and Keelin looked down at them as she took them from his hands, her face then rising, brows lifting in question.

Dermot smiled sadly. ‘Call me sentimental if you like, but I kept hers, too. You should have them. So you can see both sides of the story.’

Keelin’s voice was a low whisper. ‘Thank you.’

A hand came through the window and squeezed her shoulder. ‘Come back for dinner later. Garrett will come down and get you. I’d like to get a chance to know Breige’s daughter, if that’s all right with you?’

Garrett didn’t realize he was holding his breath until she nodded. Then he smiled inwardly as he started up the engine and turned out onto the laneway.

‘Told you he’d be back. Now you’ll have a chance to get used to me being bossy.’

‘I doubt one meal will do it.’

‘Well, then, maybe I’ll have to get Dermot to ask you to stay longer. You like him better than me.’

She rewarded him with a small, mischievous smile. ‘He’s better looking than you.’

Garrett shook his head as he looked out the windscreen. ‘Nah, he’s not.’

When she didn’t argue his smile made it onto his face as he gave into a sudden pleasure that her mood had brightened. What man was ever comfortable with a crying woman, after all?

As they got closer to Knightstown he glanced across at her, where she held the bundle of letters hugged against her lap.

Garrett wanted to know the story behind those letters.

And not just because of the mystery that surrounded her mother and his father.

He needed to know why it was that a second generation of Kincaids was suddenly so fascinated by a second generation of O’Donnells.

Even though the second generation of Kincaids had no business being fascinated by a woman who came from the city. A woman who had no place on an island like Valentia. The two were like oil and water, Garrett knew. Because he’d already been badly burned once before.

So, the way he saw it, once his fascination waned with a little taste of familiarity, he could let it go. He wasn’t about to be burned twice. No matter how beautiful Keelin O’Donnell was, or how drawn he’d been to hold her and offer her comfort.

No. He wouldn’t put himself through it again. Casual and un-involved worked much better for him these days if he felt the need for a female on his arm. And even if he was stupid enough to be tempted by anything more, he had responsibility for more than his own welfare now. He had Terri’s to consider, too. And she was more important to him than anything else ever could be again.

Fascination, or no fascination.

KEELIN considered packing her bags and getting on the next ferry. But there was still a part of her that wanted to stay, to know, one way or the other. So she could put it behind her, close off another chapter before she moved on with her life.

She just hadn’t factored a Garrett into the equation.

He had to be, what, early thirties? Which meant Dermot Kincaid had to have been a married man when her mother had met him. And, despite her mother’s bohemian approach to life, that just didn’t sit well on Keelin’s shoulders.

Any more than being so attracted at first sight to someone who might be her half-brother did…

But then she had no way of knowing for sure that Dermot Kincaid was her father. Except that the dates were close enough to match. Well, at least that she could tell from his letters.

Her mother’s letters might tell a different story.

But even as she sat on a bench overlooking Valentia Harbour, the vast panorama of the lush green countryside laid out before her like a painting her mother might have created early in her career, she couldn’t bring herself to reach into her bag for them.

To have a direct line into a part of her mother’s life that she hadn’t known about.

It was just too glaring a reminder of how lacking their relationship had been while her mother was alive. Of what Keelin had missed out on by carrying around a sense of something major missing from her life, due to her mother’s lifestyle and ‘artistic’ temperament.

Keelin had been so angry at her growing up. But even though they had made their peace before she’d left, Keelin was left with a hole inside, a hole she had hoped to fill with the things she had never known. As if somehow that could make it easier to move on…

This journey had been her attempt at trying to put the pieces together. To try and make sense of everything that had gone before so she could put it aside and move forwards. So she didn’t feel as if she was drifting through life, filling in time, waiting for something she hadn’t put a name to. While not really living at all.

‘You’re more like your father than me,’ her mother would say to try and justify the glaring differences in their personalities when Keelin had been a rebellious teenager, determined her mother’s way of living had ruined her own life in some way.

‘How would I know that when you never talk about him?’ had been Keelin’s defence mid-argument.

She reached into her bag and took out the bundle of letters. They were her only chance to try and understand the woman who had never understood her, not really. And to try and put together the missing part of the puzzle that had led to her own existence.

She promised herself it didn’t matter what Garrett thought about how she looked that evening. Even though she had taken an inordinate amount of time getting ready.

Living up to the memory Dermot had of her stunning mother would be difficult enough.

But the glow in Garrett’s dark sable eyes when he turned to look at her in the tiny hotel foyer still brought a rush of welcomed self-confidence.

He didn’t make a comment, though. Just slowly looked her down and back up.

And in that second she sent up a silent prayer that she could manage to control how attractive she found him, how he could have such an effect on her with just a glance. He took her breath away. He really did.

‘I have to make a stop along the way.’

‘No problem.’ She pinned a bright smile in place as he eased his long legs in through the driver’s side door.

‘Just get ready for about a hundred questions.’

A rueful smile caused his dimples to flash briefly her way as he turned out onto the narrow street, executing a U-turn at the harbour. ‘Terri is going to find you fascinating as all hell.’