Selkie's Song (Fado Trilogy) (7 page)

Then she flushed at her own idiocy. For all she knew, Tynan was a married man with a brood of handsome children waiting for him back in America. Likely he’d come to catch up on old times…nothing more.

The road was dark as pitch and the downpour had slowed slightly by the time Muireann passed the petrol station. She turned to ascend the steep hill where the old abbey loomed stalwart and the ancient cemetery cosseted more stories than the stones would ever tell.

Headlights flashed as a car rounded the traffic circle, casting a mocking light on the high crosses guarding the souls of the departed.

Muireann expected to hear the rattle of Simon’s old clunker. He’s come to save me from myself.

Her heart thumped as a red compact pulled over.

“Lovely evening for a ramble,” he called through the rolled-down window.

“It’s a tradition here in West Ireland,” Muireann shot back.

“What’s that? Giving a man a tongue-lashing or walking home in the rain?”

“It’s only a heavy mist,” she called through chattering teeth and kept walking.

The car followed at her pace. “Want a lift?”

“No, thank you. I don’t mind the air.” She stopped beneath a large hanging basket of lobelia to deflect the chill and relentless downpour.

He pulled the car to the roadside, shut down the motor, and stepped out into the street, clicking the door lock behind him.

Muireann rolled her eyes. What was he doing?

He popped the boot and extracted an umbrella. “Since it’s just a mist and you seem to be enjoying the air…how would you like to show me around this old abbey?”

She should beg off. She should go home. Cú would be waiting. “I really need to be getting on home.”

He stepped to her and stood close, covering them both with his umbrella. The patter of raindrops beat in contradiction to her heart, and she wondered if he could hear the rhythm.

“Surely you won’t refuse me after I came all this way?”

“Took you a while,” she said before thought could stop her tongue.

“Most good things take some time to mature,” he quipped. “May I walk with you?”

The musky perfume of rain on stones and dampened flowers mixed with his scent triggered a shiver.

“Chilled?” he asked and put a protective hand on her shoulder.

The heat of his touch penetrated her thin shirt. Muireann flinched. He pulled his hand away and moved back a half step. “Sorry.”

“Listen,” she whispered and then held her breath. The call of a gull was the only sound to pierce the silence. “It’s stopped.”

He lowered the umbrella and his gaze followed hers. The clouds were moving to the east and a three-quarter moon fought for dominance of the night. “Are you sure I can’t give you a lift?”

“Why? It’s a brilliant night for a stroll.” And she needed a bit of a cooling off. This Ty, this man, was a stranger and yet not. His genteel ways were not that of an overly urgent youth. His casual touch ignited heat that would surely be responsible for more trouble than simple pneumonia.

He wasn’t quick to respond. The silence was uncomfortable, and Muireann danced a mental jig for something clever to say. She tried without success not to look in his eyes while she untangled her tongue.

“It’s late.” She felt herself starting to slip down a slope to loss of control. “And I’m in the opposite direction from where you’re headed.”

“I’m not in any hurry.” Tynan closed his umbrella and shook it out. Muireann almost laughed out loud. He was remarkably tidy for a man.

“Sure, you can drop me at my place,” she agreed and glanced down at her feet to make sure they were not really slithering out from beneath her.

As she reached for the car door, he stepped up and opened it for her. Polite, chivalrous, conscientious.

He arranged himself in the driver’s seat and reached with his left hand for something on the backseat. “Here, give yourself a rubbing off.”

“With that?” She accepted a T-shirt, a new, very clean one.

“I don’t have anything else, and you’re dripping wet.”

A smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. “Are you always this accommodating?”

Tynan chuckled. “Probably even more if you promise to treat me gently. You left your man back there spitting nails.”

“He’s not my man,” she clarified. “And I hope he chokes on his next pint.”

As Muireann took the shirt from him and blotted her face. The shirt sported a band logo, a stylized fiddle, a Celtic harp, and Fadό screen printed in black on bright green. She knew of the trad band based in Boston.

“You’re a fan, then?” she queried.

Ty gave a chuckle. “I’d better like that particular band. It’s bread and butter for meself and my sisters.”

“You’re Fadό?”

Ty just smiled as though she’d uncovered a hidden secret.

Moonlight illuminated half his face, rendering him in silhouette and triggering a bright bolt of electricity that traveled at light speed straight to her belly.

He turned to face her, but showed no sign of driving off. “Where to, Muireann O’Malley?”

“Uh…oh, yes. Straight on here to the edge of the village.” She adjusted her seat belt and snapped it. “So when you’re not making music or travelling the world looking up old friends, how do you spend your time?” With your wife, children, lover? She tried to nudge the truth out of him before she would have to wring it out of him.

“Oh, little of this, little of that. I’m soon to be the owner of one of the oldest public houses in America.” He sounded proud of that fact.

“Impressive.”

“Well, it won’t be so impressive if I go completely broke with renovations before I serve my first pint.” He glanced in her direction and smiled. “I’ll be begging for my librarian job back.”

A laugh bubbled to the surface and Muireann couldn’t hold it back. “You’re a librarian?” The only librarian she had ever known was Mrs. Murphy, with a voice never raised above a whisper, putrid breath, and glasses thick as fence insulators.

“Please don’t judge me by that,” he retorted with a grin. “I play a decent mandolin when pressed into service.”

“I seem to recall you playing the electric guitar and wanting to be the next Phil Lynott.” All else being equal, she’d always thought musicians made the best lovers. It must be about rhythm and timing.

“A lot less rock and roll in my life now,” he said with a chuckle. “I like to think of myself as a storyteller, a seanchaí.”

A seanchaí. A wandering teller of tales steeped in Irish lore. Gallant and clever as well. “Hang a left here.” She was forced to grip the dash as he whipped around a sharp turn. “Sorry.”

They passed the ruins of Bertie’s place and the notorious whitethorn tree. “I’m another kilometer straight ahead.” Now that she knew he was still into music and hadn’t become an investor from some European Union conglomerate, Muireann started to relax. “What really brings you to Ballinacurragh, Ty?” She had to ask, even if the answer would be less than she hoped.

“You don’t think I’d come all the way here to find a pretty girl from my past?” He cleared his throat. “Okay, in all honesty…partly on business, you might say.”

“Oh.” She wanted in a big way to ask what kind of business, but restrained her curiosity. “When I first saw you earlier today, I didn’t recognize you, but I knew you weren’t from around here.”

He glanced at her and back to the road ahead. “What made you so sure?”

Muireann couldn’t help but chuckle. “Possibly because you’re staying at my aunt’s B&B, you drive a hire car, you don’t dress like a culchie, and you have nice shoes.”

“Very observant.” He grinned and she felt fresh heat rise in her cheeks. “Anything else?”

“Certainly.” Muireann turned in her seat to watch his expressive face. “I didn’t know you.”

“And you know everyone?” He raised an eyebrow.

One eyebrow. Who can really do that? It gave a sexy tilt to his grin. She forced herself to look away. “Ballinacurragh has exactly two hundred thirty-five residents—that’s excluding the priest and the tinkers in the caravan parked at the traffic circle—and I’m related to two hundred thirty-two of them.”

“What about the other three?”

“Two of them are men I’ve dated. One is the banker.”

“Hmm. Then the man who you refused to talk to until ‘hell freezes over’ is either kin, an old boyfriend, or—”

“Give me a bit of credit here,” Muireann interrupted. “That shitehawk doesn’t share a DNA strand with me, and I’d have to be more than desperate to be shaggin’ him.”

“That leaves one option.”

“There’s my place.” She pointed off to the right. “You can drop me here.” No need for him to come all the way up her muddy, rutted road and give her an excuse to invite him in for a cup of tea. She was the first to admit her track record with men hadn’t been stellar. Today had been a long day and her judgment could suffer lapses.

Only a few hours ago, not knowing who he was, she had flaunted her naked body shamelessly for his viewing. Though he hadn’t mentioned it, Muireann was certain he remembered. But Ty was unusual, entertaining, and Muireann had a strong need to sort him out.

“I’ve come this far.” He turned up the lane and parked the car. Before she could jump out, give a quick thanks, and say “Slán,” he was at the passenger door.

Muireann tried to clench her teeth together to prevent herself from saying the next words. Call it force of habit, the deep-rooted Irish penchant for hospitality, or pure curiosity, she failed. “The least I can do is offer you a cup of tea” slipped out, sounding like someone else’s voice.

The moon rendered her garden in stark contrast to the whitewashed front of the cottage. Fuchsias as tall as a man, the blood-red blooms so heavy the branches bowed in homage to earth and rain. Muireann reached into a large flowerpot at the door and extracted a key so ancient it might have been forged by the heat of the earth’s first tempering.

She pushed the door open and flipped the light on. In the entry, sprawled across the tile floor, lay something that, if it hadn’t been snoring, would have been mistaken for a rug. “Who’s this?” Ty asked.

“Cú, wake up and say good evening to our guest.” She leaned down and nudged the sleeping giant with her hand, ruffling his fur. “He’s not much of a watch dog. He’s deaf as a post.”

The wolfhound stretched his long legs and stood, tipped his head and surveyed the intruder. He stepped forward and put his nose into Tynan’s crotch, took a sniff, and wagged a long tail in approval. “Not likely to nip my bollocks off?”

“Not as long as I’m here to tell him otherwise.”

“Cú? As in Cúchulain?” Ty scratched the wiry head behind a floppy ear. “So, Cú, a warrior are ya? Protecting your lady Muireann’s honor?”

Muireann laughed. “Too late.” She disappeared down a short hallway. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll put the tea on. And I think I should get out of my wet clothes.” Cú trotted at her heels as she left the room.

The inside of the cottage was classic nineteenth century. The low beamed ceiling and deep-set windows called from another era, but the plaster on the walls appeared new. Swirls, spirals, and triskelia emerged as though a shaman had summoned them from another dimension.

Oriental rugs over the stone floor, an enameled turf stove set into the old fireplace, and an overstuffed sofa with matching chairs spoke of an inhabitant for whom creature comforts held a high priority.

In one corner, a large ceramic vessel held dried herbs and willow branches. Handmade, with bold greens and blues intermixed, reminiscent of sea and sky. Set about were several smaller pieces with the same confident blend of light and dark, here a splash of yellow that mimicked sun on water, there a surreal moonscape, stark white on black. The work had a sensuality to it that brought Tynan’s blood rushing through his veins, warming him.

On the walls, mixed among photographs of family, hung sketches and watercolors. A theme of sea and sky threaded through them. As he studied the detail, Tynan started to see, almost hidden, as though a secret treasure to be discovered by an attentive observer, seals. The dark-eyed creatures were formed by the waves, rocks, and clouds, pulling his curiosity to the scenes even more intently. The artist had been more than clever. She had given the work a touch of whimsy.

Even the creator’s signature was woven, discreetly, into the lower right hand corner of each piece so it appeared to grow out of a clump of sea grass or bubble up from a wave licking the shore.

Muireann Ní Mháille.

Everything about her took his breath away.

A red glow lighted the leaded glass of the stove door. Tynan removed his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. He knelt and opened the stove a crack. The fire responded to the rush of air. He took the initiative to add two peat bricks, poking and adjusting the embers to encourage the heat to build.

The room was dim with only the light from one lamp and the fire. If he had not nearly bumped into the harp, he might not have noticed it. Draped in a vintage damask scarf, it made a haunting silhouette. He hoped Muireann wasn’t one of those people who forbade the touching of her instrument, because his hands were drawn to the silken wood. It felt warm, as though the oak were still alive. He was tempted to pluck the strings, hear its voice, let the vibrations travel from his fingertips through the still cool air of the room.

Tynan’s sister, Kerry, was a harper. He knew his way around these ancient instruments. In Irish legend, the first harp had been the rib cage of a whale. The wind off the sea sang through the matrix and produced a plaintive moaning that became the first harp song.

This harp maker had put imagination and skill into the carving of a figurehead where the pillar was jointed to the harmonic curve. A woman’s face, gently rendered, long hair streamed behind her to become tangles of seaweed blending into the natural grain of the timber.

Tynan scrutinized the detail in the face, its expression one of dreamlike wonder. He ran his thumb over the carved surface, memorizing the features. Familiarity held him captive. His mind begged for recall and would not allow dismissal until the puzzle was solved.

“Do you take milk?” Muireann called from the kitchen.