There You'll Find Me (31 page)

This called for a topic change.

“Are you going to leave with the crew when the movie wraps up soon?”

“I thought I’d stay on a few more weeks.”

“And then?”

He gave me a smile meant to reassure. “Then maybe a few more.” The truck splashed into a puddle as he made a left turn. “I deserve a vacation. I’ve been thinking of taking six months off. Get back to my roots. Hang out with you. The O’Callaghans. People who know me for me. People I trust.”

I should’ve been happy about this. Six months would have had him staying until the spring, when I left. But something about it snipped at my unraveling nerves.

Six months would also give him time to figure out that I was just a plain nobody. Time to fall out of love with the real world.

And time to realize I was not who I pretended to be either.

“Here we are now,” he said. “The lovely Mrs. Doyle’s house.”

The home looked the same, yet the urgency was so much more elevated than the last time we were there. My assignment with Mrs. Sweeney was almost complete. I only needed two more hours; I had to get this settled.

Beckett held an umbrella over us as we walked up the gravel drive to the front door and knocked. The smell of his cologne, normally bliss to my senses, danced on my gag reflexes and teased my empty stomach. Knowing dinner would be involved, I had skipped breakfast and eaten only some tuna and rice cakes for lunch, using that time to practice instead. But I’d make up for it at the restaurant. Maybe even go crazy and have some bread.

The door opened and a familiar face peeked out. “Yes?” Recognition dawned on Mrs. Doyle’s face. “What are you thinking, coming all the way out here in the rain?”

“We’d like to talk to you,” I said. “Please. It’s important.”

“I’ve nothing to say.”

“We’ve come a long way. This girl’s only trying to help.” Beckett turned up the voltage on his megawatt smile. “Please, missus.”

She huffed and stared at our drippy umbrella. “Be quick about it.” She held open the door. “You’re liable to catch your death out there.”

Shaking off the rain, we followed Mrs. Doyle into her living room.

“Sit down.” She swatted a small Yorkie off her couch. “I’ll get us some tea.”

“You can stop looking so arrogant,” I whispered to Beckett as I took a seat beside him. “You haven’t won her over yet.”

He looked down at me, eyes smiling. Then pressed his lips to my cheek.

And my bleak heart became a little more his.

Some time later Mrs. Doyle returned, carrying a tray she set on a cherry coffee table, and doctored up our teacups. “Well, get on with your news, so.”

Beckett held the dainty china in his movie hero’s hands. “We just wanted to let you know Cathleen Sweeney isn’t expected to make it much longer.”

Mrs. Doyle’s spoon paused in her cup. “So . . . Cathleen . . . she’s that bad, is she?”

“She sleeps a lot,” I said. “She’s in pain. She talks about the past some. Mentions you, of course.”

Mrs. Doyle sliced into a loaf of what looked like pumpkin bread, her hands slightly shaking. “And who did you say you were to her?”

“I go to Sacred Heart in Abbeyglen. I was assigned to visit Mrs. Sweeney for a project. She was my adopted grandmother, so to speak. She, um . . . there have been quite a few talks about her regrets. She told me about her marriage, her guilt, her anger . . . her bitterness.”

“
Her
bitterness?”

“Mrs. Doyle,” I said. “Your sister married Mr. Sweeney to protect you.”

She placed a piece of bread on each of the three plates and slid them our way. “I loved that man. I never understood how she could just take something so precious from her own sister.”

“She was protecting you.”

“She wanted him for herself.”

“He abused her,” Beckett said. “That wasn’t just village gossip. It was not a happy courtship or marriage. She was trying to spare you from that. She left him to save her own life.”

Mrs. Doyle sat still as a museum statue. “I . . . I don’t know.”

“It was in her letters to you.” I picked at a corner of the pumpkin bread. Half hour of running. A slab of butter added another fifteen minutes. “Didn’t you read any of them?”

“And why would I?” Mrs. Doyle’s voice lifted half an octave.

“Didn’t you want to know why she did what she did?” I asked.

“I saw it with me own eyes. Saw her flirt and finesse her way into his heart.”

“Your father was broke.” So weird to be giving a stranger such personal information about her own family. “And Charles Sweeney had a wretched reputation. He had banks to build, but the town didn’t trust him. So . . .”

“No.” Mrs. Doyle shook her white head. “No, me father would not have taken money in exchange for our marriage.”

“That’s exactly what happened,” Beckett said. “Money exchanged hands. You were wooed by Mr. Sweeney first. His first pick between you and your sister.”

White-faced, Fiona Doyle sat back in her chair, her hand clutching a napkin, as if the revelation was almost too much to bear. “I’m to believe me sister did this for me?”

“Cathleen asked around. Did some digging on the newcomer Mr. Sweeney,” I said. “Found out he had an ex-fiancée in Dublin. A woman he had treated miserably until she left him at the altar, causing a big scandal to herself and her family.”

“Then she begged your father to drop the arrangement,” Beckett said. “But your father wouldn’t hear of it. He was in too deep and Charles Sweeney was too dangerous to cross. So she convinced him to let her take your place.”

Mrs. Doyle’s eyes brimmed with tears and her lips quivered. “If that’s true, why didn’t she just tell me?”

“She wasn’t allowed to when Charles Sweeney was alive. He threatened her with your father’s farm and who knows what else. And then after he died, she tried to contact you.”

Taking off her rimless glasses, Mrs. Doyle gave a sigh and welcomed the dog into her lap. “I was so embarrassed that Charles tossed me over for Cathleen. Everywhere I went in town, people would look at me with such pity. The old ladies would point and whisper, ‘There’s that Fiona Higgins. She couldn’t hang on to one so fine as Charles Sweeney.’ I got my fill of it; I simply left. Father gave me money and I went to work in an office in Limerick and never looked back.”

“And you married?” I asked.

“Oh yes.” A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. “Two years later I met a man. He was a county doctor and stopped by to check on Mrs. Travis, the old woman who rented me a room. I saw after her in exchange for a place to stay and an evening meal. We were married until his death last year.” She gestured with her chin toward the mantel. “Those are our three kids. Ten grandchildren.”

“You had a whole beautiful life.” It was so unfair. “Your sister lost her awful husband, lost her one child, and never remarried. She spent the rest of her life writing to you and—”

“Finley.” Beckett’s hand on my arm stilled me. “Mrs. Doyle, your sister’s dying wish is that she would have your forgiveness. We think it would be a grand gesture if you’d come and visit her at the nursing home. Forgive each other.”

“Why on earth would she need to forgive me? Your story is quite . . . fantastical. I don’t know what to believe. Still so much hurt after all these years.” Mrs. Doyle sniffled into her crumpled napkin. “As for my visiting, I’m afraid that isn’t possible. Me children don’t live nearby. I, meself, do not drive.”

“Easily solved,” Beckett said. “I’ll send someone to pick you up. You need only call.”

She watched him with clear reservation. “I don’t know.”

“Are you a woman of faith, Mrs. Doyle?” Beckett asked.

“I’ve been a devout Catholic all my life.”

“Then think of it as blessing someone else.” Beckett regarded her with eyes as watchful as Steele Markov’s. “Or just doing the right thing.” He stood up and pulled me with him. “Thank you, missus. We’ll leave you to your evening now.”

She led us to the door, her face unreadable when she closed it behind us.

“How could she have any doubts now?” I asked as soon as Beckett started the truck.

“Nothing about the lives of those two women has been right. She has years of heartbreak to sort through. She’ll come around though.” The rain fell in sheets on the windshield, and the cold slipped inside and settled between us.

And though it was all so crazy, I wanted to believe him.

Because somewhere along the way Mrs. Sweeney had become important.

And she couldn’t go without knowing there were people in the world who loved her.

Like me.

I was seconds away from throwing Beckett’s phone out the window.

“You’re a popular guy,” I said as he ended his seventh call since we’d left Mrs. Doyle’s.

“Sorry. Business.” He sent me a sheepish grin as he drove. “And I realized I forgot something on the set. Do you mind if we stop by there before going to dinner?”

With the way he was looking at me, I’d have agreed to anything. “No problem.”

The familiar outline of Abbeyglen greeted us, and I felt a stab of disappointment. I had hoped our date would’ve involved Galway, some soul spinning music, and just enough dancing to have carried my heart away. But Beckett wanted to eat at one of his favorite pubs downtown.

I was too upset to eat anyway. How could Mrs. Doyle sit there and listen to all we’d said and not immediately race out to see her sister?

The truck came to a lurching stop, and Beckett climbed out and walked to my side with an unhurried stride.

“You want me to go in with you?” I asked as the door opened. The castle stood before us, almost hidden in the dark shadows. I could imagine it being a vampire’s lair.

“I don’t want to leave you out here alone.” His hand clasped around mine as he helped me down. “Something might get you.”

I was afraid something already had. It was six feet of enigmatic boy with a lethal grin and hypnotic eyes.

Holding the umbrella over me, Beckett pressed his hand to my back and guided me through the wet grass to the entrance of the castle.

“They forgot to leave the porch light on.” I smiled as Beckett stepped in front of me, his hands working on the latch of the door the set builders had created, as time had long ago done away with the original.

The door creaked on its large hinges as it swung open. Beckett took my hand, his fingers surrounding mine, and pulled me inside.

Darkness consumed us as we stepped into the entryway, and I blinked against the wave of dizziness that tugged at my head. Surely it was just my eyes adjusting to the dark.

“Just around this corner are the lights. Not much farther.” His grip tightened on mine. “I’ve got you.”

I shuffled my feet slowly across the uneven floor, wary of tripping and landing flat on my face. “What did you say you needed here?”

He pulled me closer to him, and I inhaled the warm scent of his shirt. “This.”

Rounding the corner, dim lights appeared. My sight returned.

And my breath suspended on a gasp.

In the center of the great hall, amid modern cameras and equipment, stood flickering candles covering the space and turning it into a magical dream. From the candelabras to the pillars on iron stands reaching from the floor, the tapers shimmied to their own rhythms as they formed a circle around a table with two seats just waiting for late-night visitors.