Chapter 62
The owner’s suite at the Tarrymore Inn wasn’t what Maeve would call luxurious, but the furnishings were a bit more up-to-date than in the room she’d shared with Therese.
It featured a sitting area with two armchairs and a coffee table that faced a small fireplace, a kitchenette with a dwarf-sized refrigerator, the smallest microwave she’d ever seen, and an electric kettle.
The best feature, as far as she was concerned, was the king-sized bed.
She sprawled out on the bed and sighed with happiness and Sinead hopped up and joined her there.
There was a polite knock at the door, and when she answered she saw a petite middle-aged woman wearing the inn’s burgundy uniform blazer, holding a huge gift basket bristling with fresh fruit, cheeses, crackers, chocolates, and a bottle of wine.
“Ms. Dunagin? I’m Shawn. Mr. Mac called and told me you’d be checking in here and I wanted to give you a special welcome, on behalf of all our staff.”
“Hi, Shawn. Come on in. And please, call me Maeve.”
The woman stepped inside and smiled when she saw the cocker spaniel perched on the bed. “Ah, and I see you’ve brought our little friend Sinead.”
“Where I go, she goes,” Maeve said.
“I’m heartbroken about Esme,” Shawn said.
“I know she had a reputation for being difficult, but she was wonderful to me. I came here to Tarrymore after a nasty divorce, to work as a desk clerk, but Esme knew I could do more. She gave me the job and the opportunity to demonstrate my management skills.”
“That’s good to hear,” Maeve said. “Mac tells me you’ve done a great job here, and I want to assure you, my sister and I don’t plan on interfering with your work.
I’ll probably want to discuss the business with you eventually, but it’s early days yet, so for now, I’d say keep doing what you were doing while Esme was alive. ”
“We shall. And please let me know if there’s anything at all that you need.”
Liam arrived at the suite with her carry-on bag, explaining that she’d left it at his cottage that morning and apologizing for not calling first.
“I can’t believe I forgot my carry-on. It has my laptop. What a disaster that would have been,” Maeve said, showing him into the room.
“Not bad,” he said, surveying the suite. He held up a tote bag. “Lucy sent you a doggie bag—of dog food and treats for Sinead. Along with food and water bowls. We figured you wouldn’t have had time to get hers from the Esme’s place.”
“You’re a lifesaver,” she told him. “I’m still a newbie at being a dog owner. My parents had a schnauzer when I was really young, but I’ve never had a dog of my own.”
He walked over to the bed and pointed at Sinead, who was curled up on a pillow. “Such a princess. You’d think she owned the place.”
Maeve took a dog treat from the tote bag and tossed it to Sinead, who easily caught it. “Technically she does.”
“Can you stay for a glass of wine?”
“Don’t see why not.”
She found wineglasses on a shelf in the kitchenette, poured two glasses, and handed him one.
“Lovely,” he said, taking a sip.
“A gift from Shawn Davis. She seems nice. And competent.”
Maeve took a deep breath. “I called Mac a little while ago, to tell him that I intend to stay.”
Liam’s expression was neutral. “For how long?”
“I did a little research. I can stay for ninety days total, but after that I’ll need a work visa, or Mac has offered to help me apply for an Irish passport.”
Liam settled into one of the armchairs. “That sounds like you might be planning to stay on longer than just a few weeks.”
“I am,” she said simply. “Oh, and you’ll be happy to hear that you and Lucy won’t have to dog-sit when I go to the US embassy in Dublin.” She went to the nightstand and pulled out her passport and held it up for him to see.
“How did you find it?”
“It was here all along. When I called Therese today to tell her about our inheritance, and that I’d decided to stay, she admitted that she’d hidden my passport—in the inn’s safe—because she knew it would be better if I stayed right here.”
“Sounds like a total big-sister move,” Liam said, laughing. “Are you furious with her?”
“I wanted to be.”
“And why did she think you should stay on here at Tarrymore?”
Maeve pointed her index finger at him, and then at herself. “Lots of reasons. Mostly to do with my following the rules and being a good girl my whole life, which she considers to be a giant waste of time. But mainly, Therese thinks I need a grand romance.”
She knew she was blushing furiously but decided she didn’t care.
He leaned forward in the armchair, his hands braced on his knees. “What about you? Do you want a grand romance?”
“I didn’t think so, but maybe I’ve changed my mind.”
Liam held out his hand. She took it and he pulled her onto his lap. “Any thoughts on who you’d like to be romancing with?”
Maeve tapped his chin with her forefinger. “Now that you mention it, I was thinking it should be a handsome dark-haired stranger.”
“Eh. Two out of three.”
“With a beard. But not one of those scruffy neck beards.”
“I have heard rumors that some ladies do love well-groomed facial hair.”
“I was also thinking I could go for a romance with a man whose masculinity isn’t threatened by having a home that’s surgically clean—even though his vehicle is a rolling trash bin.”
“Oh now. This is getting dangerously close. I’m starting to feel targeted,” he said, as his lips found hers.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he picked her up and carried her over to the bed, pausing to give Sinead a gentle tap on the flank. “Sorry, girl, time to move along now.”
“Be nice to her,” Maeve warned. “That dog is officially my meal ticket.”
“Move along, please,” Liam said as he picked Sinead up and set her on the floor.
At some point, Maeve dozed off with her head resting on Liam’s chest and only awakened when she felt his fingers trailing down her spine in a leisurely fashion.
“I’m hungry,” she announced. “Are you hungry?”
“Famished. I’ve managed to work up quite an appetite with you.”
She grinned. “Me too. What should we do?”
He lowered the sheet covering them and kissed her breast.
“Not that. I meant for food.”
“Do you want to go out somewhere?”
“Not in the slightest. What I really want to do is stay right here in bed. With you.”
“Splendid,” he agreed.
She snapped her fingers. “Shawn did say to let her know if I needed anything. And since I’m an owner, maybe she’d let us have room service?”
Liam rolled onto his side and handed her the clunky telephone from the nightstand. “One way to find out. I like my steak rare, if you don’t mind, and plenty of butter for my jacket potato.”
Liam carried the dinner trays to the kitchenette, and when he came back to bed, found that Sinead had reclaimed her pillow.
“So it’s gonna be like that, is it?”
Maeve lifted the dog onto her side of the bed. “Come back.”
He sat beside her and kissed her again. “Can’t. I’ve still got some paperwork to do at the distillery, and besides, Lucy is going to be hugely jealous when she sniffs out another dog on my clothes.”
“Tell her I said she better get used to it,” Maeve said, handing him his shirt, which had landed on the nightstand.
“Can I ask you something?” he said, after he’d dressed.
She propped herself up on an elbow, facing him. “Is it something serious?”
“It is. Today, after Billy Mac told you about the inheritance thing, you seemed conflicted. Angry, even. And then you walked away. We were both sure you were going to come back and tell him to bugger off. That was only a few hours ago. What happened to change your mind? And don’t try telling me it was your irresistible attraction to me, or the dog. ”
“I’m not sure I can explain it,” Maeve admitted.
“I really had no intention of letting Esme Rossington, or anyone for that matter, have the final say in how I live my life. I went rage walking through the village, and a little ways out into the countryside I found myself standing in front of the church where my great-grandmother’s family were all buried. ”
“St. Bonaventure.” He nodded. “My mum and dad are there too.”
“The genealogist we consulted in Cobh told us Kathleen’s family was buried there, but I’d forgotten it until today.
So there I was, idly wandering through the gravestones.
Everything was overgrown. I had no hope I would find the Connors.
But then Sinead took off running after some deer, who bolted into the woods.
And she came back to the spot where they’d been grazing, and she was sniffing around at something.
I bent down to take a closer look and there it was—a marble marker, the headstone for Kathleen’s mother and father and baby sisters—all of them killed in a house fire not long before Kathleen left for America. ”
“And you had a revelation.”
“Don’t laugh. I really did.”
“My love, it’s the Irish in you. Embrace it.”
“I sat there on the ground. It was so peaceful, my mind finally got quiet. I tuned out all the noise, and I thought about the generations of women in my family; smart, capable, strong-minded women who’d lost so much, but who’d carried on and made a life for themselves.
I decided it was time for me to stop treading water, stop accepting the status quo and relying on the sure bet. Do you know the poet Mary Oliver?”
He shook his head.
“There’s a line from her best-known poem and she asks, ‘So what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.’ That’s always spoken to me, but today, in that beautiful graveyard, silent except for the buzz of bees on the clover and a wren singing from a rosebush, I asked myself that question, and it came to me that it’s not too late. ”
“Of course it’s not too late,” Liam said.
“No, I meant it’s not too late to let go of a life that’s not working and instead, try for one that might be wild. And precious, and amazing. And terrifying. I think I owe that to Kathleen. And Mary Helen. But mostly, I owe it to myself.”
Maeve sat up and swung her legs off the bed. She wrapped the sheet around herself and walked Liam to the door of the suite. “Those are the reasons I’m staying. And you, and Sinead? You’re what Southerners call a sercy.”
“Which is what?”
“An unexpected gift.” She gave him a lingering kiss and felt his lips beneath hers curve into a smile.