Where the Streets have no Name (2 page)

Dedication:

To my lovely beta reader, Jennifer, for falling love with the characters and their story.

To my readers; each of you has a special place in my heart.

And to my husband. Sometimes you drive me insane but I love you like crazy.

“Beagán a rá agus é a rá go maith.”

(Say little, but say it well.)

~Irish Proverb~

Never pick up strangers from the side of the road.

E
ver.

N
o matter the circumstances.

U
p until this moment, Amelia followed the rule. But something about this particular person made her stop, pull onto the side of the road just outside of Dundalk, Ireland, and offer assistance.

Tall and broad and muscled, the man fit the description of an ancient Celtic warrior. The defeated slouch in his shoulders
stole her attention. Amelia spent a few days a week back home helping out with various local charitable outfits and she saw many people with the same posture as this man.

She looked his clothing over; a tattered navy blue sweater better suited for a younger or smaller man, grit embedded into the fabric
of his jeans, rips and tears from the rear waistband down to the frayed hems at his heels. Under his clothes was a body hardened by bulges of muscle. Each step he took, she saw him flex, watched the strain of his shirt over his shoulders.

In the time she spent studying him, the man never once turned around. He walked at a too-slow pace for a man his size. He seemed almost completely dejected. Emotion pinched
in her chest. What brought a person down so low?

Her
own heart broke into irreparable shards the moment she lost Poppa. The only man she ever loved was nothing more than a million memories and a handful of ashes filling an urn in the back seat of her rental car.

Maybe this man lost someone dear to him. While she held herself together to see to Poppa’s last wishes, she imagined the man walking on the side of the road gave up completely.

Amelia honked the horn once and waited. He paused, dropped his head lower, and continued on his trek. His feet dragged on the pavement, heavy with…what, grief?

What’s with this guy?

She tapped the horn once more and he repeated his actions.

Determ
ination squared her shoulders. If she had any purpose in life, this might be it, and Hell be damned if she’d let him suffer alone. Amelia shoved open the door, narrowly avoiding a car that whizzed past. Checking the way was clear, she hopped out, shut the door, and started after him.

“Hey!
” Amelia called out. “Stop!”

He did, hesitating
mid-step for just a second before letting his foot touch the ground again. He didn’t speed up his escape but kept the same crestfallen pace.

“
Wait up!”

Amelia ran to catch up with him,
snaring the toe of her sneaker on the uneven pavement. The ground came at her quick and unexpected. The sting on her palms from slapping against the pavement was nothing compared to the bone-jarring pain in her knee. A string of expletives shot from her lips on an exhaled breath as she tried to push herself up.

“You’re mad, you are,” a deep
, growling, and accented voice said from above her. “Bloody mad. Take my hand.”

Dusting away the few bits of rock and dirt stuck to her palms, she accepted the stranger’s
large, warm hand. He pulled her up like she weighed no more than a large bag of flour. On her feet, she cringed at the sharp pain in her right knee when the slightest amount of pressure was applied.

The man dropped his
shabby bag and helped her to stand with both of his arms. “Why are you coming after me? Want your pound of flesh, is that it?”

Thoroughly confused, Amelia gazed up into the face of a furious man, who looked as though he could use about a week’s worth of sleep.
“I-I’m sorry? Flesh? Wha– I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just pulled over to see if you needed a ride somewhere.”

His
irate mask faltered. “A ride?”

“Yeah.
I mean, I never pick people up on the side of the road like this, but…” She shrugged, tearing her gaze from his dark, guarded eyes. “You looked like you could use one.”

“So, you weren’t just…
” His expression changed to skeptical. “…following me?”

“I w
as trying to get your attention.” She laughed, looking back up. “You ignored my honking so I called out to you. Anyways, it seems now
I’m
in need of some assistance.” Amelia put some pressure on her right leg and winced.

“But”– His brow furrowed –“
don’t you know who I am?”

“Look, if you’re a local celebrity,
I’m sorry for not recognizing you. This is my first time in the country and I haven’t even been here for a full twenty-four hours yet.”

“No, I uh, I’m no celeb
ri– never mind. Let’s get you back to your car.”

“Thanks,” she
said.

He stood stock still for a moment. Wariness clouded in his eyes. A thousand expressions danced over his granite features.

Then he bent at the knees to retrieve his bag, slinging it over one shoulder. He walked around her until he reached her back. Amelia held her breath. Did she do the right thing by stopping? Had she read him correctly? Or was this a monumental mistake?

The man lifted her by the elbows. “Keep your shoulders locked, lass, and I’ll bear your weight.”

Her feet left the ground. Man he was strong! She wasn’t the skinniest of girls, nor did she fit the category of needing to go on a strict diet; Amelia had curves. Hours of sitting at a computer and writing code for her games, combined with a diet of take-out food helped see to that. When she wasn’t working, she tried to get some exercise in though.

During the
trip back to the car, Amelia tried not to think about the warm, sturdy abdomen pressed against her back, or the pair of firm arms holding her up. By some miracle, they arrived at the rental before her mind ran totally out of control. She felt enough pain when standing and it kept her head in check. Sort of.

Amelia groaned.

“I seriously doubt you’ll be driving with a leg as sore as that. Have you got anyone to call?”

“No, all my family is back in Canada.” Surely it couldn’t be so bad that driving was out of the question?

The man said something in another language – Irish, she assumed – and shook his head, sighing. “Where are you headed?”

“South.
Anywhere, really. Just exploring.” Amelia eyed the cars that kept going by as they edged closer to her rental. She didn’t think it pertinent to disclose the true nature of her round the country trip.

As if reading her mind, the man nodded. “Can’t stay here much longer. Besides, it’s not legal
to park here. I’ll drive you somewhere to stay for the night and we’ll get your leg checked, aye?”

“Thanks,” she sighed
, though he wouldn’t get her anywhere near a hospital. “I’m Amelia, by the way.”

Cautiously
, he offered, “I’m Daniel. Let’s get you into the car.”

A voice called out in her head
sounding too much like Nan’s. If her grandmother was here she would smack Amelia on the back of the head for being so thick-headed as to let this strange man into her car.

But she wasn’t here.
Nan stayed behind while Amelia saw to everything here in Ireland. Bad enough that she had to do this trip on her own, never having been to the country before, but the urn sitting in the back seat of her rental made Poppa’s death all the more real.

Settled in the passenger seat, Amelia watched the great
, hulking Daniel attempting to move the driver’s seat back. His legs were squashed up to the steering wheel column, making him look like a giant in a clown car.

After a minute of him muttering under his breath while sliding hands down the sides of the seat, Amelia giggled
. She leaned across the console between them to show him where the controls were located. His thanks came in the form of a relieved sigh when she pointed to the buttons.

“Electric,” he mumbled as the chair slid backwards. “Times sure have changed.”

That was an odd comment.

She stuck her nose in.
“What do you mean?”

Daniel’s head snapped to the left and he eyed her
with extreme caution. “Eh, nothing.”

She planned on pressing the issue.

Amelia shut her eyes for a second.

Just a second.

She was so tired. No rest on a trans-Atlantic flight and hours spent in a lawyer’s office dragged her into exhaustion’s abyss. Shortly after her arrival in Dundalk, Amelia met with Poppa’s lawyers to discuss his will. Nan said she couldn’t come back. She wanted to stay in Canada, said she couldn’t face Ireland without her husband.

Amelia would never see his smile again – the one that made his pale green eyes sparkle – or hear his laughter, feel his warm embrace. The man she regarded as her father was gone and all the money in the world couldn’t bring him back.

The lawyer gave her a list of properties Nan and Poppa owned, with instructions on what he wanted done with them. Nan didn’t want to have any ties to them, so Amelia transferred the account into her name and each set of tenants would pay rent into it.

From there, she would see that Nan got the money into an account in Canada. However, the final place on the list, a cottage up in the north of Ireland, near Malin Head, was a gift for
her
. This would be the last stop on her travels and depending on the state of the place, Amelia had a decision to make; set the cottage up as a permanent residence, or save it for a holiday home.

“Here we are.”

“What?” She rubbed her sleep-heavy lids then looked around. Amelia saw a sign for
Blackrock Bed & Breakfast
. A quaint little stone cottage painted white and green, with a perfect view of the sea.

How fitting for her very first night in Ireland
, she mused. Poppa would have loved it. That thought alone brought forth a sluice of hot, stinging tears. Tears she didn’t want to shed in front of a stranger.

“I’ll help you get inside then,” Daniel announced, removing his seatbelt.

She took her belt off and he came around the car, opening her door. For a man over six feet tall, he was fast.

Once she grabbed the zippered shoulder bag she kept her wallet and essentials in, Daniel
lifted her from the seat. He stood her on his left side, wrapping his arm around her waist to steady her on the way to the B&B’s door.

“She’ll be having a room for the night,” Daniel announced for her at the small reception desk.

The woman opened her mouth to reply but the phone rang and she excused herself to answer it.

Amelia glanced up at him, noticing the small spider web of a scar near his left temple. It looked like someone had thrown a rock at him and the resulting scar reminded her of a stone hitting a car’s windshield.
“What about you?”

His
dark brows arched in disbelief. “What
about
me?”

“Do you have somewhere to stay?”

Pursing his lips, Daniel made a few non-committal grunts. He shrugged. “Best for everyone if I continued on my way.”

Amelia didn’t know why she felt this incredible urge to help him, but it seemed like he needed a friend. In all honesty, she could use one too. The only people she called friends
, aside from Gabby, a fellow gamer, were her family. Everyone else was just a leech, sucking up to her in the hopes of getting something for free.

They ha
d been that way ever since she could remember; her recent accomplishments in the world of online RPG (Role Playing Games) brought forth more lecherous backstabbers from the shadows.

“I’m sorry about that,” the woman at the desk
said, replacing the phone. “So you’re wanting a room then? For just the one night?”

“Two rooms, if you have them,” Amelia replied.

“Now, wait just a–”

Maeve, as her nametag read, interrupted Daniel. “We’ve only got the one, but it has a big bed. And if you wanted, there’s a cot
-bed that could fit in there as well.”

He
stared at her, obviously torn.

“We’ll take it,” Amelia said, pulling out her credit card.