The Irish Lover (9 page)

“Rory Mac Gabhann.” Caera looked at the
television crew, who were a safe twenty feet away. “What would your
mammy think to hear you talk like that?”

“Want me to tell on him, Miss Cassidy?” Gerard
said, helpfully.

“Watch yourself, boy-o.” Little brother darted
out of the way of Rory’s swat, grinning.

“You watch, or I’ll tell Ma.”

“Both of you, stop.” Caera crossed her arms,
wishing once again that she were taller and more commanding. At
five-foot-four, she was shorter than everyone, even teenage Gerard,
and Rory towered over her. “Can we pretend we’re running a real
event venue, and not some country tra-la-la?”

Gerard had the grace to look sheepish, while
Rory just grinned. His gaze lingered on her a second too long, his
smile a fraction too intense. Caera turned away from it, as she
always had.

“Caera?”

The wide double doors opened and Elizabeth
Jefferies, manager of Glenncailty and Caera’s boss, slipped in.
Cold winter wind whirled in the door along with Elizabeth, catching
a few pieces of her blonde hair and making them dance.

Caera checked the TV crew, then made her way to
Elizabeth. As always, her boss carried what looked like an old,
hard-backed book but was really a case hiding her tablet
computer.

“Is everything in order?” Elizabeth’s words
were clipped, her English accent pronounced.

“We’re getting on well enough.” Caera checked
her watch. “We have twenty-four hours before the doors
open.”

“And ticket sales?”

“Sold out this morning.” With ten brilliant
musicians participating, selling the three hundred tickets Finn’s
Stable could seat shouldn’t have been a problem—if Glenncailty was
in a major city. They were in the countryside, two hours from
Dublin despite the new motorway, with only small villages nearby.
Cailtytown was the local village, and had a population of only five
hundred. Finding three hundred people out of those five hundred who
would pay the nearly €100 ticket price would be impossible. Caera
had thrown a lot into local advertising and marketing, and it had
paid off, with not a moment to spare.

“I’m pleased to hear it.” Elizabeth zipped open
her book-like case and started tapping on the flat screen of her
tablet. “Are there any other details I can assist you with?” With
her head bent over the tablet, Elizabeth seemed older than the
thirty-five she was rumored to be. Caera didn’t know much about the
Englishwoman, who never shared anything about herself or her life.
Whatever her personal story, she was a brilliant hotel manager and
had, in two short years, overseen the renovation and grand opening
of Glenncailty. She was also, as far as Caera knew, the only person
to ever have an actual conversation with Mr. O’Muircheartaigh, the
owner.

“Everything’s ready. Parking, signage,
photography for our website and promotional materials, and
accommodations for the musicians. The TV crew is handling the tech
work.”

“I spoke with Sorcha—it seems most of the
musicians have arrived and are checked in.”

Caera nodded. “Paddy Fish and the American, who
Paddy is picking up, are the last two. They should be here—” Caera
looked at her watch, running through the mental timetable she’d
been working out for months, “—in the next hour.”

“Brilliant job. I’m going to check with the
kitchens. I want everyone to have a choice of eating in the dining
room or the pub. If you see any of the performers, please apprise
them of our amenities. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to
help.”

“Thank you, Elizabeth.”

Caera watched her boss heave the
one-hundred-year-old wood door open, letting in another swirl of
February wind. It would rain tonight. She could smell it. She
turned back, tipping her head to the exposed rafters two stories
above. A combination of nerves and sadness filled her—nerves that
the event would go smoothly, that Finn’s Stable would show well on
television. Sadness because she could almost hear the music that
would fill it—the rill of fiddle, strum of guitar and the passion
of voices singing of times both good and bad, lost and hoped for.
Singing of the free birds that fly beyond prison walls.

****

“I want to do a pre-sound check test, to make
sure everything’s working. Go get one of the artists from the
hotel.” The producer, who was clearly talking to his sound tech,
was speaking just loud enough for Caera to hear. She was in her
office, a large square room off the dovecote-turned-storage, which
she shared with Rory and an odd assortment of supplies.

Jumping from her desk, she hurried into the
main building. “I have a few instruments here. I can test the sound
for you.”

Please, just for one moment, let me
pretend.

The producer and technician both looked over.
“Good enough, then we don’t need to bother anyone until sound check
tomorrow morning.”

Caera hustled back into her office, grabbing an
acoustic guitar. The wood was smooth and cool in her hands, the
tiny ribbing of the strings familiar but almost unfelt under her
heavily calloused fingertips. Pushing back the sleeves of her
sweater, she followed the technician’s instructions, moving between
the seats they’d set up on the stage, angling her body towards the
guitar-height mics so they picked up the simple tunes she strummed
out.

The mics were barely necessary. For a
rectangular building, Finn’s Stable had excellent acoustics—she’d
even had acoustic tiles strategically placed on the backsides of
the rafters to stop the sound from echoing. Since they were
recording the event for a TV special, they had to have the mics,
but Caera always liked it best when the music was natural, filling
the old stone walls with pure sound, unfiltered by
electronics.

“Everything’s working. Thanks,
Caera.”

“Happy to help.”

“You play well. Going to audition to play
backup for some of our stars?” The producer grinned at her. Caera
tried to return the smile, but it felt more like she was gritting
her teeth.

“No, I play for myself.”

“Ah, well.”

The TV crew headed towards the door and Caera
took her guitar back to her office. When she heard the door close,
she carefully lifted her harp from the space of honor and carried
it into the stable.

****

Tim looked up from where he knelt behind the
last row of chairs, his fiddle case open on the floor in front of
him. A dark-haired woman emerged from a side entrance, carrying a
harp. He rose, prepared to offer his help, but she carried it
easily, curled arms cupping the sides as she walked sideways. She
set it on the stage and took a seat. Now it was slightly taller
than her, but not nearly as tall as the massive orchestral harps.
Interested, he moved up the aisle that bisected the audience
chairs, focused on the shape of the harp and the intricate roses
carved into the base.

The first note hummed, vibrating with a purity
of sound only the harp could produce. Then she sighed, a soft thing
of pleasure.

For the first time, Tim focused on the woman
who played.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever
seen.

Waves of dark hair framed her face and fell
over her shoulders, mingling with the black wool sweater she wore.
Her skin was pale, her lips full. And her eyes, focused on the
middle-space beyond the stage, were a clear, pale blue. Late
afternoon sun beamed in the windows, highlighting the curve of her
cheek as she sat with one shoulder towards the floor to ceiling
windows behind the stage.

She ran through scales, her fingers plucking
the strings with ease. Scales turned into a melody, a song he knew.
“Lament on Con O’Leary’s Wife’s Death” was an old song and a sad
one for all its beauty. Sad and beautiful, just the way he liked
it.

The harp’s pure notes filled the air, but he
found himself watching her, almost forgetting the music. Her face
creased with grief, expressing the sadness of the song. Her body
rocked in time to the dirge-like pace, every fiber of her being
melded with the notes her fingers drew forth.

Retreating silently, Tim picked up his fiddle.
She was improvising some, adding notes and refrains to the simple
song. Tucking the fiddle under his chin, he forced himself to stop
ogling her and hear the music. Some part of his brain was
translating what he heard into letter-notes, the tempo into musical
beats, but when he lay his bow to the strings, it was instinct and
skill that let him join her. First matching her note for note, then
taking off on his own path, turning her solitary song into a
fiddle-harp duet as he walked the long aisle from the back of the
venue to the stage.

She looked up, blue eyes bright and sharp.
Their gazes met, held, and discordant notes sounded from both their
instruments as something passed between them. With the next breath,
she found the notes, brought them both back into the song. Shaking
himself free of the spell of her sapphire eyes, he joined her on
the stage, bending his body to her as they continued to
play.

Her eyes, which had been assessing him, slowly
closed, a faint smile curling her perfect lips as she rocked in
time with the music they made.

They reached a natural crescendo, Tim closing
his own eyes to focus. He didn’t need to see her, she was there in
her notes, the melody. The musical fever rose, then broke, slowly
fading to a smooth, sad finish.

Tim opened his eyes.

She had one cheek against her harp, her gaze
clear and steady on him.

“You must be the American,” she said, in a
sweet Irish lilt.

“Guilty.” Tim flashed her a smile, wondering
who she was. He knew, or knew of, all the other musicians
participating in Free Birds Fly, and she wasn’t one of them. At the
same time, she was too good a musician to be a tech or a roadie—not
that anyone playing this event had that kind of entourage anyway.
Maybe she was one of the TV crew who’d let him into the building.
That still didn’t explain why she was on stage playing a harp.
“What gave me away?”

“You fiddle like an American.”

“I don’t know if I should thank you or be
insulted.”

She rose, stroking her harp in a way that
brought his attention to her hands. “No insult.”

“Well, then thank you. I’m Tim.”

She didn’t respond right away, instead her
fingers crawled the strings, another scale. “I know.”

One of the main doors opened with a groan and
Paddy, his best and only Irish musician friend, strode
in.

“Yank, come on. We’re to check in, and I’m
famished.” Paddy’s entrance shattered the moment—his shoes were
clacking on the stone floor, his voice loud and boisterous after
the music.

“Just checking to make sure she survived the
trip.” Tim raised his precious fiddle, saluting his friend with
it.

“I told you it would be fine. Let’s shove off,
then.”

“Okay, let me…” But the girl was gone. Tim
stared at the empty stage. Her harp was there, which was a good
thing since if it hadn’t been, Tim might have wondered he’d just
experienced some jet lag-induced hallucination.

“You play the harp now, Yank?” Paddy ambled up
the center aisle to stand beside him.

“There was a girl.” Tim pointed at the harp
with his bow. In the few moments he’d been talking to Paddy, back
to the stage, she’d disappeared.

Paddy rolled his eyes. He had an unremarkable
round face, curly brown hair and a voice that could make angels
weep. “Ah, sure there was.”

Holding the neck of his fiddle and bow in one
hand, Tim rubbed the back of his head.

“She was playing the harp, so I joined in.
There was a girl, I swear.”

“Was she pretty?”

“Gorgeous.”

“Quiet-like?”

“Yea, how’d you know?” Maybe she was a musician
who’d just been added to the program. That would make
sense.

Paddy laughed. “Welcome to Ireland. We
specialize in beautiful, mysterious women.”

Chapter Two: The Cold
Within

The first drops of rain and accompanying wind
followed Tim and Paddy through the front doors of Glenncailty
Castle. Outside it was raining and sunny at the same time. Tim was
beginning to understand why Ireland was famous for its
rainbows.

“Is this the pretty girl you met?” Paddy’s
whisper was loud enough to carry, but the thunk of the doors
closing behind them drowned out the words.

Tim blinked at the gorgeous redhead waiting in
the massive foyer beyond the castle’s double doors. There was no
doubt she was beautiful, but she wasn’t the harp player.

“No, that’s not her.”

“Well then, I think she’s mine.”

Tim snorted. “You couldn’t get her.”

“Put a guitar in my hands and I could have
anyone. When I’m playing, I’m quite the catch.”

“What happens when you put the guitar down?”
They were almost to the redhead, so Tim kept his voice
low.

“These fingers are still magic.”