Running Back (9 page)

I pulled away and shoved heavy strands of hair out of my face.
The wind had whipped it everywhere. “We better go. Paul is waiting.”

Chapter Nine

The next morning, I headed downstairs just past dawn. Kate O’Connor sat alone at a wicker table, her hand loosely clasped around a wide brimmed mug. She stared steadfastly through the alcove windows. The orange glow beat back the slate and coal, gradually lightening the sky behind the clouds and giving color back to the fields.

I wondered if she saw the sunrise or the past.

Eileen entered through another door, carrying a tray of white and blue porcelain dishes. “Here you go, love.” She set an omelet and hash browns before Kate, and then caught sight of me. “Ah, Natalie! What can I get you?”

“Good morning,” I said, sort of at both of them. Kate angled her body my way. “Um, just a cup of coffee, please. And maybe some shortbread?”

“How about a fresh scone now?”

My stomach rumbled at the thought of clotted cream and jam. “That would be wonderful.”

“Did you have trouble sleeping?” Kate asked after Eileen departed. “I know the time adjustment can be tricky.”

“Oh, I slept fine.” I’d actually slept perfectly, and woken with lingering dream fragments that featured her son. I tried to banish the memory and drum up something else to say. “Is this your first time in Ireland? Or did you meet—Mr. O’Connor—here?”

Kate smiled and took a long sip of her coffee. “No, I met him after he moved to Boston.”

“Why did he move there?”

“A lot of people did, then. More jobs. More opportunity.” The cup’s steam formed a veil before her face, gentling her features like a camera’s soft focus. “But Brian always said, ‘I’m going to die in Kilkarten.’ Like it was a foregone conclusion he’d come back.”

Yet he hadn’t spoken to his brother for twenty years after he left. “He must have really loved it.”

“More than anything.” She finally turned to look at me, her ethereal features firming up with attention. “We’re going to see Patrick’s widow today. You’re welcome to come, but don’t feel obligated.”

I didn’t; I felt awkward. “Oh. Thank you, but I actually saw her yesterday.”

Her brows rose and the silence lasted just long enough to feel strained. “And how was she?”

“Um.” Honestly, you’d think I’d never written ethnographic papers for cultural anthropology classes describing all sorts of relationships and behaviors. “She was—not very talkative.”

Kate nodded and pursed her lips like she was about to say something, but she changed her mind and stared back out the window. “Did you like her?”

The question struck me as peculiar. “We didn’t spend enough time together for me to form an opinion.”

She nodded again, and let out a deep sigh. Then Eileen reentered with my scone, and Kate switched the topic to my schoolwork and interests and other parental inquiries, and the odd moment passed.

After breakfast, I walked to the village while the sun finished rising, through floating sheets of mist and the spray of the sea and long, sharp calls of birds. I caught an extremely bumpy bus that carried me to Cork, and chatted easily with eighty-year-old Mrs. Buckley, who insisted that Mike’s grandfather had never really meant to marry Mike’s grandma or been interested in Eileen from the inn, but that he’d really loved
her.

Apparently Mike’s granddad really got around.

Cork felt like a massive city after several days in Dundoran, but I still wanted to stop every ten seconds and whip out my camera. I walked along the river, strolling across the bridge and admiring the colorful houses and the cathedral’s steeple. I got hungry again and settled in a tiny café for an hour, eating another scone accompanied by a mocha. I alternated between people watching and one of my comfort books on my eReader.

At ten, I headed over to Cork’s Central Library, located on the Grand Parade. I spent a happy afternoon buried in the stacks. I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted, so I pulled everything that mentioned Kilkarten, the neighboring farms, Dundoran Village, local archaeology, Iron Age Ireland, Rome... I ended up with stacks of books. I could access the digital newspaper archives for free from the library itself, so I delved into old articles.

Libraries were dangerous places. Start researching one topic, and the next thing you know it’s three hours later and you’re reading up on family feuds from two-hundred years ago. I did pretty well at staying on topic, but I was surprised to find it near seven o’clock when I left. I ate at a South Indian restaurant while reading a copy of the local paper. I thought about calling my mom, but decided I’d shoot her an email when I went back to the inn instead.

I got back just as the sun set, and after grabbing my laptop from my room, headed down to the inn’s library. It was a cozy room lined with books and a small fireplace. Lauren sat at a round polished table in the window alcove, typing away on a laptop. She looked up when I stopped in the doorway, and pushed back some of the bright corkscrews that had fallen loose from her messy bun. “Oh, hey. You’re back from...”

“I went into Cork. Did some research.” I dropped down at her table. “Where’re your mom and Anna?”

“Oh, back at the cottage. I needed to get away and relax.”

I laughed sympathetically. “Long day?”

She sighed and shook out her hair. “You have no idea.”

I studied her. Lauren wasn’t very forthcoming, but she seemed smart and practical and down-to-earth. I had no idea how she felt about Kilkarten or if she fully sided with Mike’s excavation ban, but I wasn’t quite ready to ask her that straight out.

“I think Mike mentioned you were meeting your uncle’s widow? How’d that go?”

Lauren shrugged and closed the laptop. “It was an experience.”

“Was it awkward? Mike told me a little about your family dynamics.”

Her brows rose. “He doesn’t usually talk about our family. But, yeah, it made it awkward. Mom and Maggie were polite but cold, and it kind of felt like they were taking digs at each other.”

Kind of like when my dad and his ex-wife were in the same room. “Did you ask your mom about it?”

Lauren nodded. “I tried to pry it out of her, but she wouldn’t tell me what the big deal was. Though I guess she did invite Maggie and Patrick to Dad’s funeral, and they didn’t come, so Mom thinks we currently have the high moral ground for coming out here at all. I don’t even know.” She shrugged. “But we’re going back for lunch tomorrow, to meet Maggie’s nephew, so it wasn’t an entire disaster.”

We spent the next hour chatting about innocuous things—mostly school. Lauren had just wrapped up her Masters of Public Health, and while that had no relation to archaeology, everyone in grad school had a small kinship. We had finals and capstones and defenses before panels or committees. We had undergrads and advisors and exhaustion and a deep disdain for everyone who kept telling us how much harder life would be in the “real world.”

It was Lauren who finally moved the topic closer to home. “Where did you grow up?”

“Just outside of the city.”

“So you’re actually a New Yorker. Leopards’ fan?”

“I’ve been a Leopards fan since I was little girl.” I relaxed back in the seat, loose and mellow. “There was a... I used to wear a jersey as my night-shirt. Dustin Jones, the QB before Carter. My dad got it for one of my brothers, and he forgot it at my house... God, they fought over who’d taken it when Evan couldn’t find it.”

“You must have really wanted it.”

I’d really wanted a present from my father about something he loved. That was the year I’d started doing my own laundry, because I didn’t want my mom to see it and make me give it back. Which, in retrospect, was pretty pathetic. “I was a weird kid.”

She laughed. “Weren’t we all.”

“Mike too?”

She wavered her head back and forth. “When we were little, sure. But after our dad died... He got really serious.”

“But now everyone describes him as charming.”

Her brows scrunched. “Don’t I know it.”

I blinked.

She sighed. “Sorry. More bitterness than I meant, there. I just wish he’d spend some time with this family. But—I don’t know.”

I suspected I did, if I saw the same things she did. That Mike’s charm was something of a façade, and that Lauren was worried about her brother. Hadn’t Mike said Lauren wanted their family to “fix” things? “Thus, the vacation.”

She smiled and waved a hand. “I’m forcing us to bond.” She paused. “So—just to clarify—how
do
the two of you know each other?”

I hesitated. “Did Mike mention the excavation at Kilkarten to you?”

She shook her head and frowned.

“I’d contracted the ability to excavate Kilkarten from your uncle Patrick, but when he died, the land went to Mike.” I felt like I was walking along a tightly stretched rope. “That’s right, isn’t it? The land
was
left to Mike?”

She transferred her gaze to me, just a hint of perplexity opening her features. “Well. I guess it wasn’t, really.”

I frowned. “Then why does he get to decide that the excavation’s cancelled?”

“Why did he decide that?”

“I don’t know. I know there’s some sort of family estrangement, but to stop it a month before the start date—to tell all the diggers and archaeologists and suppliers it would no longer happen after months of work... I don’t know. It didn’t really seem fair.”

Lauren’s poker face wasn’t as good as her brother’s, and I could see the unease in the furrow of her brows. “He cancelled the excavation? But—then why are you here?”

I shrugged. “I had the flight. My professor works here. And even if I can’t dig, maybe I can learn something from old records or by surveying the land in person.”

She nodded, her frown an exact mimic of her brother’s expression. “That’s weird.”

“That’s what I thought.”

We sat in silence for a moment, and then Lauren shook herself. “Well, I have no idea.”

“It’s okay. Anyway, I must still have jetlag. I should head up to bed.”

So we said our goodnights, but when I reached my door, I stopped, and turned to the one that faced it. It was just past ten, a little too late to go knocking on people’s doors.

Despite that, my hand reached out and tapped just below the dove decal on Number 12.

Chapter Ten

Mike’s door swung inward almost immediately. His eyes sparkled. “This is getting to be habit.”

Somewhere deep inside me, tendrils of heat uncurled and warmed my whole body. “Can I come in?”

He slowly stepped back and pulled the door open in clear invitation.

My arm brushed his as I entered. I felt the touch with the sharpness of an electric shock—except this awareness felt good, exciting. Still, I felt almost shy as he closed the door, and the room seemed to fill with possibilities.

I sat back in the mint green armchair. My tongue darted out and wet my lips, and his eyes fell to them. I swallowed, and his gaze traced my throat.

And then I broke the mood by saying, “I talked to your sister today.”

His expression cleared. “Which one?”

“Lauren.” I paused. Now that I’d opened the conversation I didn’t know where to take it. “About, uh, about Kilkarten.”

He groaned. “Seriously?”

“It just sort of came up.” I licked my lips nervously. “It kind of occurred to me that all three of you siblings own the land.”

“So?”

“So... Why didn’t you discuss it with them?”

“Look, all three of us need to sign for you to excavate there. Since I already knew I
wouldn’t
, it was a moot point.”

“Yeah, but... There are two of them.”

“This isn’t a democracy.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Do they know that?”

He took a step closer to me. “What are you doing here, Natalie?”

I had to crane my neck back to see his face. “What do you mean?”

“You did knock on my door. Was it to try to change my mind about Kilkarten?”

My breath came short and fast. “I wanted to talk.”

“You talked. Now what?” He braced himself against the armchair’s wings and angled his upper body toward mine. “Are you going to tell me that you should go?”

My mind blanked and I could barely consider his last words. Instead of thoughts, emotions filled me, warmth and want and joy, so powerful they drowned everything else out. I curled my legs beneath me so I could rise to meet him. He slid his hand around the back of my neck, leaned down and kissed me.

I wrapped my arms around him and leaned up into the kiss. He was warm and bright and untamed, and heat unfurled deep in my belly, spreading like wildfire all through my body. It consumed me, urged me closer to him, striking up a conflagration of desire that would destroy us both.

Which was why I had to draw back. I braced my hands against his chest and looked down. My breath came hard and fast from two sources of adrenaline. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

He lifted my chin and kissed my jawline. His breath sent shivers down my spine. “It’s a
great
idea.”

It was
very
hard to think with those warm, large hands slipping under my shirt and caressing my waist. Calloused finger pads dragged over sensitive skin. I sucked in a deep breath as his thumb stroked under my belly button. “
Mike
.” A shudder of pleasure shook me, and then I drew back. “I’m just not sure...because of Kilkarten.”

Now he drew away. “Why are we still talking about this?”

I shifted. “I don’t know. What if something changes?”

“What do you mean, ‘something’? Nothing’s changing. You’re not digging there.” His expression shifted to horror. “Wait, you don’t think that if you slept with me I’d let you excavate—”

“No!” I broke in, hot with embarrassment. He kept staring at me like I’d honestly just offered to prostitute myself. “No, I told you. I talked to your sisters, and they seem in favor of the excavation.”

“And I told
you
, this isn’t a democracy.”

I shrugged. “I just don’t want to make things messy.”

He lifted my chin. “Hey. Do you like me?”

I nodded as much as I could with his hand holding my head up.

“Good. Because I like you. So why can’t we just focus on that?”

“Because things don’t exist in a vacuum.”

“Can’t we say this room does?”

His eyes were so warm, so pleading, and filled with such heart that I had to close my own to shut them out. But deprived of one sense made me all too aware of the others, of his fingers slowly stroking my jaw, of his scent enveloping me. My body wanted to wrap around his. So, I was afraid, did part of my heart.

My brain was another story. “I should—”

“I know.” He withdrew, and the air around me went cold.

And then I left.

* * *

I spent the next morning talking with some neighbors that Maggie O’Connor had sent me pointers to, people whose farms bordered Kilkarten. They were lovely, interesting people, with wonderful stories, none of which included finding Iron Age artifacts on their lands—or even hearing any rumors about ancient Ireland.

I’d just wrapped up my last interview when Mike ducked his head into the library, where I’d been holding them. His brow looked tense. “There you are. Up for a run?”

“Now?”

“Now,” he said shortly. “I’ll be warming up outside until you’re ready.”

My brows rose at his curtness, but I headed for my room. It only took a few minutes before I was back downstairs, hair up in a ponytail, my
Archaeologists Do It in the Dirt
shirt pulled on. That made Mike groan. “Now you’re just taunting me.”

“It’s a
very
comfortable shirt.” I did one or two hamstring stretches before he kicked off. After a startled second I caught up to him. “Oh, hey. Thanks for waiting for me to warm up.”

“No problem.”

His strides were longer than mine, but he held back enough that I could keep up without dying. I rarely ran with other people, since I usually used the time to work through whatever issue I was dealing with, but I liked running with Mike. I liked the way our legs and breathing aligned, and how I could glance over and see his strong profile and the fine sheen on his skin whenever I wanted. I could’ve looked forever, if I wasn’t afraid of tripping.

We hit the coastal path and turned north. Stone stairs cut into the rising land, which fell away beside us in a sharp drop to the sea. Instead of the fields and long grasses to the south, we hit bushes heavy with yellow and orange flowers. They mixed with the sea air, making the oxygen fresh and bright.

The stairs brought us to a winding path at the edge of a cliff. It was barely wide enough for two abreast, and wound and bumped too much for a flat out run. Prickly yellow bushes crowded us on one side and short trees with wide leaves lined the other. I ducked my head under a low hanging branch.

When we started up a hill, I slowed. He came up beside me as our rate decreased, until we finally topped the crest and stopped by mutual agreement. Yellow flowers spread out on three sides, the blue above us skewing into gray over the water. My breaths came long and deep, and I could taste the wind in the back of my throat. I leaned my head toward the sky, cracking my shoulders as I raised my arm and circled my neck, and then fell into my stretches. “Okay. What’s up?”

He dropped into a lunge. “I’m a professional athlete. Got to stay in shape.”

I shook my head and sat down, curling my right leg as I extended my left, and bending in half at my waist to touch my forehead to the ground. “I’m not buying it.”

When I straightened, I found him watching me with that perfect crooked grin.

I raised my brows at him.

He shrugged unabashedly.

“Hmph.” In that case, he was just asking to be teased. I split my legs open and touched my forehead straight down in front of me.

Mike groaned.

I grinned as blades of grass tickled my nose, twisting my hands around my ankles. I knew starting something with Mike was a bad idea, but I wanted him so much that I didn’t mind making him want me.

I unfolded and smiled at him. He shook his head. “Are you trying to drive me crazy?”

“I shouldn’t, should I? But it’s turning out to be a lot of fun.”

He grinned at the sky. It was such a gorgeous, relaxed expression that I could feel my heart tumbling all over itself, which wasn’t a good sign. “We went to see Maggie and Paul today.”

Ah. So that was what had put him in a mood. “How was it?”

“Mom and Maggie were weird, just like they were yesterday.”

“Do you know what their deal is?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t think they’ve even met before this week.”

“So why would they dislike each other? Do you think it’s the same thing that estranged the brothers?”

He tilted his head as he considered it. “Like maybe she’s pissed on Patrick’s behalf? I don’t know... It seems weirdly personal.”

“Aren’t you curious? Old family secrets to uncover...”

He shot me a pointed look. “Not all of us dig just for dirt.”

I raised a brow. “No, some of us dig for the reality buried beneath it.”

He studied me with those steady brown eyes. I wondered if the reason he smiled all the time was to distract people from how much he watched them.

Then the intensity felt too intimate, and I turned away. “So what else happened? Your sisters met Paul?”

He watched me a brief moment more, and then switched gears to an irritated scoff. “Yeah, and fucking Paul made a pass at Lauren.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “I told you he was bad news, didn’t I.”

I held in a laugh. “Some people don’t actually mind being flirted with.”

“Anna also said that he was hot.”

The laugh burst out. “Well, she had a point.”

Now I had Mike’s full attention. “
You
don’t think Paul’s hot.”

I shrugged mischievously. “Dark good looks... Has that Irish brogue.”

Mike snorted. “You’re all crazy.”

I couldn’t resist needling him a little further, even though I didn’t actually find his cousin’s angry angst that attractive. “Cam—my best friend—and I even came up with an Operation Irish Boyfriend, and I’d say Paul’s a pretty good candidate.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He smirked at me. “Besides, if
that’s
all you’re looking for...”

Energy sizzled through me. I sucked in a deep breath and then tried to play it off casually. “You don’t have the accent.”

He faked one immediately. “Come on, love. Give a bloke a chance.”

My breath caught and my cheeks flushed, but not at the accent. No, it was Michael O’Connor calling me “love” that made my pulse race.

He scowled. “Unless you have something against redheads?”

I reached out and touched an auburn curl. “Not at all.”

He looked up at me and I realized how close we stood. I cleared my throat and stepped back. “So did you say anything when Anna mentioned Paul’s attractiveness?”

“I got in trouble because I said, ‘Don’t you have a boyfriend?’ and she got all pissed and ran off. Apparently they broke up because
I
made her come to Ireland.”

I smiled up at him. He looked kind of adorable when he was worked up over his sisters. “I take it you find fault with that version of the story?”

“Lauren’s the one who insisted we come. Called me up the second Patrick kicked the bucket and demanded I call it in as a family death to Coach and we take a vacation. Besides, it’s good for Anna to be away from him.”

I raised my brows. “You ever get tired of trying to control people?”

He sat up. “Not like it ever works.”

I rolled over. “You shouldn’t, you know. With your family.”

“Thank you,” he said dryly. “For that solicited and appreciated piece of advice. And I
support
them, I don’t control them.”

“Even your mom? Or do you have a tendency to forget she’s the parent?”

“I’m an adult. I should contribute.”

“And let me guess. You’ve been an adult since your dad died. You don’t have to try so hard to be perfect.”

He looked out at the sea. “That’s where you’re wrong. I just left. I wasn’t perfect at all.”

So he felt like he’d abandoned them after his father’s death and tried to sooth it over with money. God, families were the worst. I plucked up a flower and tugged off its petals. “My dad used to take me to Leopards’ games.”

“What?”

I scooted so I also faced the water. Above us, birds cried out, swooping and diving through the air. “He was always in such a good mood. Football was so unlike the rest of my life...where everything was quiet and tense, and if people were angry they wouldn’t talk about it. At games, guys would just beat the hell out of one another. It was very...cathartic.”

I shook my head. “I thought the game was wonderful. Dad would get
so
worked up. I’m sure you know. I remember—I must have been twelve, thirteen—he picked me up and whirled me around in the air. The whole stadium turned before me. That’s what I always associated football with. Magic.” Warmth.

“Do you still go with him?”

“Oh, no. It wasn’t really about us. It was really him and my brothers, and I tagged along.”

“The thing that you said wasn’t really a big deal.”

“Right.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Shocked, I turned to face him. He’d sat forward, propping his elbows on his knees, while his arms hung loosely between them. He had the same intensity as when we’d first met and he’d denied me Kilkarten, an intensity I never would’ve imagined just from seeing him on the screen. I slowly raised my gaze to his. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “You didn’t want to go home in New York. You don’t want to
have
a home. You’re bitter about your family.”

I stared at him, stunned. “And apparently I talk too much.”

He laughed. “So? You know all about my family. Now it’s your turn.”

What did I say to that? I took a deep breath, feeling wobbly and light. “I had a great childhood. Everything I ever needed. Everything anyone could want.”

“But...?”

I shrugged. “My brothers are great. Peter’s married and lives in DC, and Quinn travels almost as much as I do. Evan—he’s only three years older—lives in New York, though. But I always feel like I want to see them more than they want to see me.”

“But you’re clearly not happy.”

A small butterfly, with the coloring of a Monarch but different patterns, fluttered nearby, coming to rest on a purple thistle. Tiny blue dots fringed its wings. “Well. My brothers—half brothers—don’t get along with our dad. He left their mom. And he’s not easy to like—stiff and stuck up and homophobic, even though he pretends he’s not, but he and Evan barely talk anymore. But I didn’t know how non-functional we were when I was little. I just knew how happy I was at the games.”