Chapter 1
One
While Connie and Ronnie were lying their asses off …
Sweeney Bailey saw the loom of the Welcome to Ballyshannon sign ahead and finally understood the term ‘to gird one’s loins’. Quite involuntarily, everything tensed. From her toes to her scalp and all places in between. Including her loins.
Yep, those suckers were fully girded.
It wasn’t that she disliked her home town per se. It was just that life had been so much bigger in the fifteen years since she’d left, and she preferred it that way. Did it make her a bad person to already be counting down the days until she could leave again?
One week. She could do one lousy week. Considering she had to fly halfway around the world to get here, coming for any shorter period of time made no sense. And it had been four years since she’d been home …
‘Almost there.’
She glanced at Fin, who’d also travelled from afar and looked about as happy to be here as she was. ‘Remind me again why you thought this was a good idea?’
‘Because they’re our mothers. And they’re sixty. And we’ve both been away long enough. You know they’ll love it. Sure, they’ll make out they hate surprises and make a huge deal out of us not telling them, but they’ll be secretly ecstatic. You won’t be able to wipe the smiles off their faces.’
Sweeney returned her attention to the view outside with a sigh. ‘True.’ They might protest too much but deep down she knew their mothers would welcome the presence of their absent progeny with open arms.
She’d been surprised last month when Fin had contacted her via Insta—their usual form of infrequent communication—with the plan. Given her unpredictable work schedule, attending their mothers’ combined sixtieth birthday party hadn’t been on Sweeney’s radar, but Fin had managed to convince her.
And she’d been pleased he had the moment she’d spotted him at Melbourne airport a few hours ago. Her heart had filled with a rush of affection for the person who had probably known her the longest apart from her mother—and his.
Fin was her oldest friend, the kind where lengthy absences didn’t matter because it always just felt like yesterday.
But, as they motored through streets still so familiar to her at six-thirty on this March evening in Fin’s hire car, Sweeney wasn’t so sure it had been wise to let him talk her into returning.
As a kaleidoscope of memories swamped her jetlagged brain, the multi-hued sunset over the lush, rolling hills in the distance was the perfect metaphor for her complicated relationship with Ballyshannon.
Some memories were bright, like the vibrant gilded streaks poking tangerine fingers just above the hill line.
Some were fading around the edges as the light dwindled a little higher up.
And others were in greyscale as the day leached to dusk directly overhead.
Sweeney turned from the sky and the memories to study Fin’s profile. They’d chatted about their jobs and their travels on the drive to Ballyshannon but, now they’d arrived, it seemed inevitable that things would turn personal.
‘I like the whiskers,’ she declared. ‘They suit you.’
She’d teased him about his not-quite-a-beard, not-quite-a-three-day-growth when she’d hugged him at the airport, but it had grown on her.
The scruff offset the dark swathe of his hair, which was no longer the unruly, untameable mop that had been the subject (along with his weirdly large head, gangly limbs and scrawny frame) of many angsty teenage conversations between them.
All these years later, his hair was pushed stylishly back off his forehead, sitting in thick waves.
In fact, his whole vibe was sexy Burberry banker.
‘You’ve also grown into your face,’ she said.
Maybe that was an added bonus of the whiskers?
Or a result of his LASIK surgery that had allowed him to ditch those geeky, maths-nerd glasses?
Or the way his head no longer seemed disproportionately larger than the rest of his body.
Whatever it was, he’d matured from the boy/man with the still pronounced Adam’s apple she’d last seen seven years ago.
There were fine lines around his eyes, a solemn kind of depth to his gaze, a … firmness to his mouth. His whiskery throat was more corded than bumpy and his frame had filled out. He was never going to be a muscle-bound hulk, but there was nothing skinny nerd boy about him now.
Not a single gangly, scrawny anything to be seen.
It was a shame they’d been friends since the cradle and their mums were besties, because Finley Murphy was exactly the type of guy she’d happily spend a night with before jetting off to the next place.
Which was such a weird thought.
‘You still really suck at compliments, I see.’
Sweeney smiled. ‘I just mean, you’re finally looking your age. I’m sure I’ve changed, too.’
‘Nope.’ He shook his head. ‘You were always thirty-two.’
She laughed. Fair. Her dad’s death when she’d been twelve had forced Sweeney into a maturity she hadn’t wanted.
And then, of course, at thirteen she’d suddenly sprouted a pair of C cups, which sadly hadn’t managed to balance out her much-cursed thick thighs but had managed to make her look ten years older.
‘You know your mum is going to try to set you up with Maria Jennings? According to her Insta, not only is she going to the party but her divorce is through and she’s finally single and ready to mingle.’
He shot her a horrified glance before returning his attention to the road. ‘Oh dear god, please save me from any and all motherly attempts at setting me up with anyone.’
Sweeney laughed. ‘Sure, if you want. But she’s still verrrry pretty.’
‘She barely gave me the time of day during high school—why would I go there?’
Maria had been queen of the cool/mean girls.
Not a group Sweeney had ever belonged to or one Fin had ever had a hope of infiltrating had he been so inclined.
She’d been the prettiest girl in their grade and scored the lead role in every school musical.
Not satisfied with that, she’d gone the full cliché, dating—then marrying—the captain of the Aussie rules team.
Maths nerds hadn’t been on her radar.
‘People change, Fin.’
God knew she had. On the inside anyway. And Fin too, although only, she suspected, on the outside—he was obviously still that guy who valued character over cool.
‘I’m not here looking for a wife. I’m here for one month then it’s back to Dublin.’
They turned into Kildare Avenue, lined with its crepe myrtles that would shortly be a blaze of reds, oranges and golds.
Flags flapped from the light poles on either side of the street, proudly advertising Ballyshannon’s Irish festival that kicked off next week.
Cars were parked bumper-to-bumper as they passed Murphy’s, the Irish pub owned by Fin’s parents and still going strong despite the death of his father two and a half years ago.
Tonight, like many nights in its sixty-year history, Murphy’s was party central.
Eventually Fin found a park at the end of the block and they exited the car, walking side by side towards the bar.
The evening was unseasonably warm and Sweeney was glad she’d bought the summery maxi dress on impulse at the airport while she was waiting for Fin’s plane to arrive.
She’d changed into it straight away and had been exceptionally pleased by the way it hugged her good bits and skimmed the rest.
Fin’s playful wolf-whistle had confirmed the miracle.
The drift of loud chatter and the occasional waft of soft music greeted them as they neared the heavy wooden door. Murphy’s Irish Bar est. 1962 was stamped in faded gold print on the frosted glass panel that occupied the top third.
‘Sounds like it’s jumping in there,’ Sweeney murmured on a surge of trepidation.
‘Ugh. There’s going to be that horrible needle-scratching moment where the talking cuts out and people will look at us like we’re aliens from outer space.
I don’t get people who like making an entrance. I mean, good for them, but …’
Reaching for the handle, Sweeney turned for the confirmation she knew she’d find in Fin, who’d never been one much for spectacle, either.
But he wasn’t hot on her heels as she’d thought.
He’d stopped a few metres away and was staring at the facade of his family’s bar as though he’d been punched in the gut.
Well, crap … Here she was prattling on when this was the first time Fin had been home since his father’s funeral.
‘Oh god, Fin, I’m so sorry.’ She hurried to his side, hugging him without a second thought. ‘I am so sorry about your dad.’
Sweeney had called him as soon as she’d heard the news, which had been the morning of the funeral. She’d been up a mountain in Latvia for ten days at an exclusive technology-free retreat when a massive heart attack had claimed Michael Murphy in the blink of an eye.
‘Your father was the kindest man who didn’t deserve to die so young.’
He’d been like a second father to Sweeney after her father—who also didn’t deserve an early demise—had died.
He’d been there for her birthdays and for Christmases, and taken her out at all hours of the day and night to photograph natural phenomena like meteor showers and cabbage moth swarms. He’d cheered in the crowd at her netball games and clapped the loudest at both her high school and uni graduations.
‘I’m fine,’ Fin said huskily, his warm breath caressing her temple. ‘It’s just … I can’t imagine walking in there and not seeing him behind the bar.’
‘Yeah.’ Sweeney was suddenly very glad that Fin had persuaded her into coming back to Ballyshannon. To be here for him right now, if for nothing else.
They lingered for a beat or two before Fin stirred, shifting out of the embrace and eyeing the door. ‘Well, there’s only one way through this.’
Sweeney nodded, her hand reaching for his, their fingers intertwining. Fin smiled at her, delivering a squeeze as he tugged her towards the door.
He pushed on the solid wood and they stepped inside, walking through the small alcove, festooned with Irish festival posters, to the edge of the packed gathering.
Sweeney had hoped they’d be able to meld in with the crowd and find their mums without too much fuss, but the universe had decided otherwise.
It could be a real bitch like that.
Fin’s Aunt Catherine—whose voice increased in ten-decibel increments with every glass of wine consumed—spotted him first. ‘Finley!’
And that was the needle-scratch moment. As predicted, the entire room hushed and every head swivelled in their direction. Including their mothers, who were holding court in the centre of the room, their smiling expressions dying a quick, horrified death as they stared aghast at their children.
Definitely not as predicted.