The Eden Tree (4 page)

“Will you be back for lunch?” Bridie asked.

“I don’t know how long this will take,” Linn answered.

“I’ll leave a plate in the icebox,” Bridie called after her. Linn shuddered to think what that might mean. The icebox was just that, an ancient relic that actually had to be stocked with ice.

Clay held the door for her, pausing on the threshold to look down into her face. Linn had forgotten how big he was, or else his size had registered obliquely in the confused passion of the previous night. His breathing was visible in the slight stirring of his chest and shoulders as he waited, motionless, for her to pass. Linn glanced up and met his eyes, feeling the impact of his gaze like a blow. The daylight was revealing and they were very close. His lashes were so long and thick that they tangled at the corners of his lids, curling in on themselves. His eyes, thus heavily and vividly adorned, had a startling effect in his roughhewn face; the contrast seemed to enhance his masculinity rather than diminish it. Linn was riveted; while he looked at her out of those extraordinary eyes she could not look away. She was pinned, like a butterfly to a mat.

Bridie stood quietly in the hall behind them, eyeing the two young people silhouetted against the brilliance in the doorway. Connor was frozen with his hand on the knob, and the girl was standing with her face turned up to him as if he were the sun itself, shedding light and warmth. They were absorbed in each other, oblivious for the moment of their audience.

Bridie hummed a little ditty under her breath and then paused, coughing loudly. The two figures jumped guiltily. Con flung open the door and Linn hurried outside. The man favored Bridie with one long, level glance before he closed the door behind him.

Bridie resumed her tune, smiling slightly.

It was going to be one interesting summer.

Chapter 2

Linn glanced at the man beside her as they descended the steps. I almost made love to him last night, she thought, incredible as that seemed. He moved ahead of her and she watched the play of sunlight on his hair. He wouldn’t be modeling for
Esquire
anytime soon; he was too primitive, too original for that. But Linn had the feeling that once you met him you never forgot him. He was definitely memorable.

She stopped short at the foot of the stairs. A comfortable Bentley was parked in the yard.

“Is that my grandfather’s car?” she asked.

He opened the door on her side and once she was seated, leaned in to reply. “It is not. Some things about the place are actually mine.” He slammed the door shut and walked around to the driver’s side.

Damn. She had said the wrong thing. She hadn’t meant to insult him.

He got in beside her and started the car, looking over at her. She couldn’t meet his gaze. She bent her head and her hair fell away from her collar. She almost jumped out of her seat when he reached across suddenly to touch her neck.

“I didn’t know I was so rough,” he murmured. “I’m that sorry.”

He had seen the marks on her skin. She recoiled from his touch as if burned. If he did that again she would make a fool of herself. But then, she had already accomplished that the previous night.

“It’s all right,” she said. She forced herself to meet his eyes. She would have to deal with this and now was as good a time as any. Pretending that nothing had happened between them was ludicrous.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” she went on. “Last night was as much my responsibility as yours. You didn’t force anything on me.”

His blue eyes were fastened on her face. The car idled beneath them. He didn’t move.

“You probably won’t believe this but I don’t do that sort of thing. I mean, that never happened to me before.”

His expression was unreadable. Did he believe her? Had it been the same for him, unequaled, unprecedented? She couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“Maybe it was because I was scared, maybe it was the fatigue from the trip, oh hell, maybe it was the moon. I don’t know. But can’t we just forget it?”

“
Can
we just forget it?” he asked. His voice was very soft.

Linn didn’t respond. His eyes moved over her, hot indigo, heavy, rendering her speechless. They harbored sensuality the way a scent laden summer breeze suggests a coming storm. No, they couldn’t forget it.

“I don’t want you to think badly of me,” she finished miserably.

“Why should you care what I think of you?” he said neutrally. “The good opinion of the groundskeeper can hardly matter to the owner of the house.”

Linn clasped her hands in her lap. They were shaking.

“Shall we be off?” he asked curtly. The wall had formed again.

She nodded, swallowing.

He put the car in gear and they drove away.

* * * *

Ballykinnon, County Clare, was nestled in the green rolling fields of southwest Ireland like the smallest jewel in a rich emerald tiara. The sea was not far distant and on days when the wind was right there was salt in the air. Ildathach was located about four miles outside the town itself. The estate was connected to the main road by a country lane, which wound through the trees up to the house. The entrance was guarded by a pair of wrought iron gates. Clay stopped the car and got out to open them.

Linn studied him as he lifted the crossbar and swung back the heavy metal barriers. He was turned to the side. His nose, like Barrymore’s or Redford’s, was not quite straight, not quite perfect, and all the more distinctive for the slight arch at the bridge. She had noticed that he had a habit of inclining his head which threw his chiseled profile into sharp relief, as if he knew the effect it created. Maybe he did. He was certainly aware of his physical appeal; he moved with the ease, the assurance, of a man at home in his body and accustomed to admiration. Linn watched the play of muscles across his back as he reset the lock, shoving the bolt home, and wondered where he had been wounded. She hadn’t seen any scars the previous night.

Clay slid in beside her and gunned the motor, sailing out onto the dirt road in a cloud of dust. Linn sat up and craned her neck at her surroundings. This was her first sunlit view of her father’s birthplace.

Farmland stretched in all directions. Sheep and cows and horses grazed in pastures the color of bottle glass and the rich texture of finest velvet. The sky above was an azure vault dotted with wisps of cotton clouds. Clay honked his horn as they passed a donkey cart on the road and the man leading the animal doffed his cap. Linn was charmed. It was a picture out of another age. The space age had made few inroads here. “Back of Godspeed,” they called it, and so it was.

“It’s all so beautiful,” she murmured, and then stopped when she realized she had spoken aloud.

Clay shot her a measuring glance. “Isn’t your country beautiful as well?” he asked innocently.

He was baiting her. “Of course it is,” Linn answered sweetly. “From Malibu to coastal Maine, from the plains of Montana to the Gulf of Mexico. It’s all beautiful.”

“Every bit of it?”

“In different ways. ‘From sea to shining sea,’” Linn responded with satisfaction.

To her utter surprise Clay burst out laughing. It was a delightfully masculine sound, reverberating in the car. His white teeth flashed as he said, “What an American you are. ‘Anything you can do, I can do better.’ Do they still say that in the States?”

“They do, when the occasion warrants it.”

“And is this such an occasion?” He was smiling. He had a dimple in his left cheek.

“I think it is.” She sensed that he enjoyed this verbal jousting and that was fine with Linn. She was good at it.

His eyes danced mischievously. “A curious thing I’ve noticed about Americans. All they do is criticize one another, on the telly and in the press, carrying on about this senator or that program, what’s wrong with everything and what should be done about it. But the minute somebody else dares to say an unkind word they turn on him with fangs bared. Now don’t you think that’s a bit odd?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Neither do I. I think it’s wonderful. I’ve always had a great admiration for that spirit. We could use some of it in this country. We’re divided here and it will be the ruin of us.”

Linn stared at him; this attitude was as unexpected as his laughter.

“I read something once,” Con said, “about Baron von Steuben. He was working with the Americans at the time of your Revolutionary War. He said that he could tell one of his soldiers, ‘Do this,’ and he would do it, but to an American he had to say, ‘This is why you should do this,’ and then he would do it. I love that story. It’s the key to your national state of mind.”

“You seem to know a lot about that,” Linn commented. “Were you ever in America?”

“I was,” he replied, looking straight ahead at the road again. “I spent a year as an exchange student, from Trinity College in Dublin to Fordham.”

His tone was flat, uninviting, and Linn got the impression she shouldn’t pursue it further.

They arrived in downtown Ballykinnon, which consisted of a single main street with a church at one end and a war memorial at the other. In between were various shops and several public houses, or “pubs,” the largest of which was the Kinnon Arms. Clay skirted the World War I monument, turning toward the church. Linn looked back over her shoulder at the two men who sat on the base of the stone structure, sunning themselves.

“The town layabouts,” Clay advised her, seeing the direction of her glance. “Both of them together not worth the powder to blow them up. The one on the right is Johnno Keegan. He was injured in an accident about twenty years ago and has been living off it ever since. If you should be so crass as to suggest that he might get a job, he has a sudden attack of limping and stumbling fit to wring tears from a stone. A sharp article he is, too; you’d best watch out for him. He’d skin a flea for its hide and fat.”

Linn coughed delicately, struggling not to laugh. He wasn’t trying to be funny.

“The other is Seamus Martin, the
schanachie
. He must be taking a break.”

“The what?” Linn inquired.

“Schanachie. Storyteller. This time of day he’s usually in the pub, spinning yarns for pints of stout. He hasn’t done a lick of work a day in his life, since one could not expect such a revered folk artist to soil his hands. At this point, the sight of him engaged in gainful employment would stun the population for a range of ten kilometers in every direction.”

“What sort of stories does he tell?”

“Gaelic folktales filled with
pookahs
and
dullaghans
and witches ripe for burning. For an extra grog he’ll throw in a heroic saga or two. He’s a spellbinder, I’ll give him that. His audience is rarely disappointed.”

“What’s a pookah, and a…dullaghan?” Linn asked.

“I see that your education is sorely lacking,” Clay responded. “A pookah is a spirit horse with breath of fire and crystalline eyes. And a dullaghan is a headless horseman. He brings the death coach for a departing soul to take it on the journey to the afterlife. Rumor has it that he carries his head on the seat next to him.”

Shades of
Sleepy Hollow
, Linn thought. “He knows all those stories by heart?” Linn asked.

“Hundreds of them, possibly thousands. His is an oral tradition passed down from father to son. Seamus has an amazing repertoire; it’s a wonderful thing to hear him.”

Linn sensed that Clay admired the schanachie no matter how he criticized his lack of ambition. She concealed her disappointment as Clay stopped the car in front of what was obviously Mr. Fitzgibbon’s office. “Lawrence Fitzgibbon, Sol.” was printed in gold letters on the window glass.

“There you go,” Clay said. He took an envelope from the seat next to him and handed it to Linn. “Will you give this to Fitz for me? He’ll know what to do.”

Linn nodded and took it. They looked at one another.

Linn seemed to be having some difficulty getting out of the car.

“Shall I come back to fetch you?” Clay asked.

“That would be nice. I don’t know how long this will take though.”

“I’ll stop off at four. You can have a look around the town if you finish early. Not that there’s much to see.”

“I’ve already seen the town characters,” Linn said, smiling.

“This town is full of characters,” Clay answered. “You’ve only seen two of them.”

Linn grinned and Clay smiled back. He looked over her shoulder at the window.

“There’s Fitz,” he announced. “I’d have a care if I were you. He looks ready to pounce.”

“Bridie said he was a blatherskite.”

Clay chuckled. “Did she indeed? You must consider the source of that information. Bridie has a tendency toward exaggeration.”

“What
is
a blatherskite?”

“Oh, a scoundrel, an opportunist. What you might call an operator.”

“I see. Like a shyster lawyer.”

Clay smiled sagely. “Very like.”

Linn was getting worried. “Is that true?”

Clay waved his hand, dismissing the notion. “You must overlook a great deal of Bridie’s blarney. She thinks silence is her mortal enemy; she’ll batter your ears ‘til they need a holiday. She had a bit of a romance with Fitz when they were young and it ended badly somehow. She’s never forgiven him. She takes every opportunity to blacken his name. He’s not above some fancy dancing but in his profession that’s almost a necessity. Just keep your wits about you, but don’t be put off by Bridie’s nonsense.”