Mistletoe and Mr. Right (7 page)

Mr. Donnelly and his crotchety father shuffle off to bed after hanging up coats and scarves and boots in the foyer and Molly bids us all goodnight at her mother's prodding. It's late—after midnight—and Katie's yawning. I'm past tired, too, but Brennan pulls me aside when his mother slings a fleshy arm around her hero of a guest and sweeps her away.

“I have to tell you something,” he says, making a face that says he thinks I'm going to freak out.

“Let me guess. Katie's your gorgeous first love and your parents are still secretly hoping the two of you will work it out, get married, populate the island with beautiful babies, and live happily ever after?”

He eyes me, not sure what to think if his expression is any indication. “Pretty much, yeah. How do you know that?”

“Lucky guess.” I sigh at the flash of annoyance on his face. “Grady.”

“You two just keep running into each other when I'm not around, huh?” Brennan gives me a thin smile. “Don't believe everything he says about me.”

“But his assessment of your past with Katie is spot on?”

“Yes and no. It's true my parents love her and things were serious for a while. But we were kids, Jessica. People grow up. Apart. Move on. You know the drill.”

Even though everything he's saying makes perfect sense, it doesn't sound as though Brennan's fully convinced by his own argument. There's nothing to be done about it now, though, and everything will look better—or at least clearer—after some shut-eye. Maybe.

I fall asleep thinking that even though I took Grady's advice about speaking my mind with Brennan—on accident, mostly—it did not, as predicted by the rugged farmhand, bring the Donnellys any closer to acceptance.

*

The time change plagues me into the following morning, my screwy internal clock rousing me as soon as the sun peers over the horizon and leaps into my room. My eyeballs might as well be on fire, the lids weighed down like lead, but try as I might, sleep dances just outside my reach.

My stomach growls, reminding me there had been no dinner last night. Even if breakfast is still a little ways off, maybe I can scare up some more of that soda bread. Or I could make something for the Donnellys—something American to show them that fitting me into their family could be fun.

The idea takes root as I tug my unruly—and apparently Scottish—hair back into a braid. All of the loose pieces stay put with the assistance of a half a sheet of bobby pins. Jeans and a clean sweater, plus water splashed on my face and a good toothbrushing, almost make me feel like a human being.

Since my watch claims it's only a few minutes past six, it's no surprise that the hallway that leads from my first-floor guest room into the kitchen is dark and quiet. In my daydreams mothers are up the day before Christmas Eve, putting last-minute touches on cookies and pies, but six is probably pushing it, even for daydreams.

Which is why the sight of Katie McBride at the kitchen's island, her feet dangling from a bar stool, takes me by surprise. She's clad in pajamas and thick wool socks that look homemade, hair mussed, one hand wrapped around a steaming mug of tea and the other holding a ratty paperback of
Wuthering Heights
.

The girl looks for all the world like she's never belonged anywhere but in this kitchen.

She looks up, her bright green eyes hardly hindered by the glasses she must have swapped for her contacts, and smiles. “Good mornin', Jessica. I've wet the tea if you're interested.”

“Thanks.” I'd still rather have coffee but the scent of the tea as it pours into the sturdy mug is different than what Mrs. Donnelly whipped up yesterday—all honey and cloves and cinnamon—and my mouth waters.

Taking the tea and shuffling back to my room is more than a bit tempting but that would seem like running away. For all of her beauty, for all of her history with my boyfriend, Katie probably knows Brennan better than anyone else. I'm not above picking her brain under the guise of friendliness.

And yeah, maybe I want to see if
she
thinks it's over.

When I slide onto the stool at the end of the counter, she puts down her book without marking her place, takes a lazy sip of her tea, and cocks her head toward the paperback. “Have you ever read it?”

“
Wuthering Heights
? Sure. It's one of my favorites.” I've always wondered what it says about me that the stories of tragic love speak to me more than the sweet kind. Another one of those questions best left unexamined.

Katie nods. “I read it every Christmas.”

“Me, too,” I allow, even though admitting we have anything in common makes me want to scoop my eyeballs out with a melon baller.

“And want to give Heathcliff a good smack as a holiday present,” she laughs, the sound tinkling off the china in the cabinets. “But I have a feeling he's the kind of guy who never learns.”

“I'm pretty sure Catherine knew what she was getting into, anyway.” I take a sip of my own tea, which is lovely on my tongue as it was in my nose, and can't help but smile.

“I suppose you're right. Women know what kind of mess they've gotten themselves into with the man they choose. Or gotten themselves out of,” she finishes in a softer tone, eyes faraway now, like they've taken a train ten years into the past. She looks so sad sitting here in the misty morning, like a leprechaun kicked out of the hive for giving away one too many pots of gold.

A droplet of sadness splashes into my curiosity. There's no good reason that I, Brennan's current girlfriend, should be interested in the regrets of his former, but who am I to argue with my gut?

I'm not willing to give up Brennan, but I am willing to let her talk. Weirdly enough.

The far-off expression dissolves with her next drink of tea, replaced with a conspiratorial grin and an impossibly charming accent. “So, Molly says Grady Callaghan's been bailing you out of trouble right and left since you got here. What do you think of Ireland? And the Donnellys?”

“Gosh, that is so true about Grady. What's his story, anyway?” I almost bite my tongue trying to stop the question before it escapes. I'm supposed to be finding out more about Brennan. My boyfriend. Not indulging my increasingly hard to ignore obsession with his childhood friend.

The glint in Katie's bright gaze says she didn't miss my flash of horror. “Grady's story is a sad one, I'm afraid, and he's pretty private about it. He's stuck in Fanore but he has his reasons. He and Brennan have always been competitive, but he's a good guy. A
really
good guy, actually.”

“Ireland is lovely,” I say to change the subject, cautious of my choices now. “I mean, even covered in snow and freezing cold.”

“But you're from Missouri, yeah? It's one of the few places in the States that I haven't visited,” she comments easily. “But I imagine you get plenty of winter.”

My heart perks up at the mention of home. I hadn't expected to miss it quite as much as I do, especially since there's no Christmas-scented kitchen waiting for me there. “You've been to the States often?”

“Yes. My parents are both international teachers, so we've moved around a lot, and on our summer holidays we almost always spent time in the States.”

“That's nice.” Totally lame response, but I just don't care to hear about how much more well rounded and courageous she is than me.

“Have you traveled much?”

“Nope. This is my first time abroad.”

“Really? Wow. I could make you a list of places you've just got to see, but it would be a hundred cities long.” Excitement peels off her in wisps, trying to infect me.

I'm so jealous my hands curl into excited fists. Not because she's been there, but because it's hopeless to think I ever could. “I don't know if I'll make it much farther. I'm a bit of a nervous traveler.”

“Really? I thought Brennan said you wanted to be a journalist.” She sits slightly forward, watching me over the rim of her mug. “Won't you have to pay your dues covering international stories for a few years?”

It crosses my mind to be pleased that Brennan was
actually
talking about me in the car and that wasn't just something she said to appease me after her sudden appearance. But there's an edge to her words. A challenge, one that I'm more than willing to take. If things aren't going to work out for Brennan and me, fine. It won't be because of this girl, though.

“I do want to be a journalist but I'm afraid the boring kind that sits behind a desk on a network affiliate is more my speed.” I smile, softening what could sound defensive. She can't know she gets to me with her perfect face and her happy laugh and the years of history in this house. “Brennan doesn't really get it, I don't think.”

“Jessica, he's a guy. If their mickeys had ears everyone would be better off.”

“I'm assuming a mickey is a penis,” I choke out.

She nods and we dissolve into genuine laughter. It leaves me missing my sorority sisters, a raw ache that throbs a bit in my chest. Katie refills our tea, and even though there's a lull in the conversation it's not uncomfortable at all, at least not considering we're two girls who barely know each other.

I squash my instinct to like her, remembering why I'm here in Ireland. “So, tell me about you and Brennan.”

She waves a hand, her eyes sad again like maybe they've been that way underneath all the time. “You don't want to hear about that. Ancient history.”

I roll my eyes. “Come on. We're barely twenty. It can't have been more than three years ago.”

“Not quite a year, actually.”

Surprise nips at my neutral expression. I assumed they had broken up before he left for the States for college. If she's telling the truth they were dating when he decided to leave. “Wow. So he decided to study abroad while you were still dating.”

Her face shutters, closing me out, but it's feels as though I hit a sore spot. Katie obviously holds her relationship with Brennan close to her heart, as though she's determined to keep the truth of their romance a private memory shared by only two. When she responds, the familiarity between us has evaporated, her tone detached. “We gave it a go, although I'm not sure either of us really thought it would work out.”

“Why's that?” I prod, even though the way she's biting all of the color out of her bottom lip betrays her discomfort.

“The typical long-distance stuff. We're young, it's a big world, you know. We were too in love to say good-bye without a good reason, though, and I know I always thought we'd find our way back to each other in the end.” She shrugs, her chin jutting out. “No offense.”

“It's not your fault. I guess it must have come as a shock when he broke up with you, then.”

“Oh, he didn't break up with me. I broke up with him.”

The development saps all of the hope from my blood. Leeches away the expectations I've harbored the past four months. It's the worst possible scenario—that he's not in love with me because he's still in love with Katie.

The land mine in question slides off the stool and wanders over to the counter, putting away the utensils and ingredients she used for her tea with a bounce in her step that says she knows she won this round. A vibration sets me on edge, as though someone plucked an invisible, taut guitar string that's stretched across the center of the room. How much more don't I know about Brennan?

“Why did he go all the way to the States for college in the first place?” The words stick in my throat, losing confidence as they peel off, thinner than when they formed.

“It was my idea, actually, but his parents definitely supported it. Brennan's never been off the island and is sure he wants to take over Grady's job and the farm. We thought he should experience more first.”

The guy who majors in business, minors in German, and has never once said a single thing that made me think farming and Ireland had sunk so deep into his blood. The fact that he'd never talked about applying for a visa to stay in the States after graduation hadn't escaped my attention, but we've only been dating four months.

“Some people don't need to travel to find what belongs to them,” I murmur, my heart in pieces because it knows what I can't say, what Katie McBride doesn't want to admit. I feel it in my bones, the connection between the two of them. It's not gone, and the strength of it fills me with an envy I didn't even know I possessed.

She laughs at what must be a sick, serious expression on my face. “Come on, Jessica MacFarlane. We're young. There is plenty of time to worry over the future.”

The painful vibration increases, spiking my irritation.
Why
are people so intent on spouting that stupid mantra?

Instead of losing it in front of Saint Katie and giving the Donnellys one more reason to look at me as the intruder, I smile and hop off my stool as well, rinsing my mug in the sink.

“I'm going to go make myself presentable,” she announces, smoothing her near-perfect bed hair. “I didn't expect to meet anyone else in the kitchen so early.”

“Okay. I think I'll make breakfast. Try to ingratiate myself.”

“Don't try too hard. The Irish hate that,” she replies with a sour smile before sweeping out of the room.

Hmm.
Whatever I make is going to have to be easy because too much of my brainpower is mulling over this morning's conversation with Katie. I'd be inclined to like her if she didn't have obvious plans to end up with my boyfriend.

Waffles. Everyone has the ingredients in their kitchen cabinets and the Donnellys are no different. I don't know if Irish people eat waffles, but it's batter and syrup. Who doesn't like that?

The answer is the Donnellys, apparently. Brennan and his grandfather seem to feel different, at least managing to get forkfuls of breakfast past their lips. Mr. and Mrs. Donnelly pick at the pastries, which admittedly would have been better if they'd had syrup in the cupboards—or the
press
, as I've learned. I didn't think about that, but with fruit, whipping cream that no longer has a pie to call home, and fresh honey as choices they aren't terrible.