Page 42 of Road Trip
“There were a lot of Connors from these parts,” Liam said with a vague wave of one hand. “One on every corner, you might say.”
He pulled theJeep up in front of the inn just as the sun was starting to set. “Well now,” he said, turning to her with a mischievous smile. “You’ve had a look at how the Anglo-Irish aristocracy got on at the grand estate, and on the other side of the coin, how the common folk lived back in the olden days. But what are your plans for gettin’ out and about in the every day?”
“My plans for tonight are a quick dinner, a nice hot bath, and an early bedtime,” Maeve said ruefully. “I’m afraid the jet lag has finally caught up with me.”
“You’ll not be leaving tomorrow, right?”
“No,” she said quickly. “My sister and I want to do a little family research. We’re here for a few more days.”
“That’s grand. Why don’t I come by tomorrow night and take you pub-crawling? You’ll need to hear some authentic Irish folk music, and I know just the place.”
Was he actually asking her out on a… date? Or just being exceptionally kind to a stranger in a strange land? Maeve was almost afraid to ask.
“Well, maybe I should see what Therese has planned…”
“Tell heryouhave plans,” Liam said. “I mean, if you’d like to go, of course.”
There was that damn smile again. The one that made the corners of his eyes almost disappear, and gave her an unaccustomed flood of what—butterflies?
She exhaled slowly. “Since you put it like that, okay, yes. I’d love to go pub-crawling and hear some Irish music.”
“Tomorrow, then. Seven o’clock, all right?”
She nodded and stepped out of the vehicle. He gave her a thumbs-up and pulled away in a swirl of gravel dust. Maeve walked slowly into the inn. “I have a date,” she whispered to herself as she opened the heavy glass door.
It had been nearly two years since her on-and-off-again relationship with Blake, the man she’d met at a William Faulkner symposium in Oxford, Mississippi, had permanently flickered off. They’d burned up the roads between Savannah and Oxford for six months, but then he’d accepted a teaching position in Oregon and time and distance had ended things.
Maeve had buried her disappointment, first in work, then in taking care of Mary Helen during her illness, and romance had taken a back seat, again, to life. But now, as she walked slowly up the stairs in a jet-lagged daze toward her room at the inn, she whispered to herself, “An honest-to-God date.”
CHAPTER 19
“What the f…?” Therese sat up slowly, and in her half-awake fog, tried to center herself in the darkened room.
As a vagabond actress and road warrior, she’d woken up in many strange budget motel rooms over the years, so many that they all tended to blend into one sad, blurry, Holiday Inn/Days Inn collage.
But this room was different. There were two suitcases on two folding luggage racks. The closet door was ajar, and she recognized familiar clothes and shoes neatly organized there.
Now she remembered. Ireland. She was at a place called Tarrymore, with Maeve, and they were going to find out—definitively—the truth about Mary Helen’s, now theirs, portrait of Lady Geraldine.
But where was Maeve? She picked up her phone. Dead. She’d forgotten to charge it, and of course, despite the detailed packing list her sister had so “helpfully” provided, she hadn’t brought a 240-volt charger adapter, and Maeve’s wasn’t in sight.
She tossed the useless phone onto the bed and walked to the window. Parting the drapes, she looked out over the parking lot and saw that it was probably late afternoon. No idea the time, but she was starving.
The man atthe reception desk did not look impressed by her outfit, red Chuck T’s, Seven for Mankind jeans, and her favorite blackSmashing Pumpkins rock concert tee, when she’d stopped to ask about dining options. Screw that guy, Therese thought. She’d picked a similar shirt years ago from a dollar table at a Daytona Beach swap meet. Condition wasn’t perfect, but this same Mission to Mars shirt, from the Pumpkins’ 1991 tour, could easily sell for six hundred dollars on her Poshmark storefront.
The shirt represented her first foray into the world of online reselling. On a whim, she’d looked up the price on eBay and was stunned to find someone, lots of someones it turned out, would pay big bucks to relive their rock ’n’ roll years. She’d flipped that shirt, on the spot, for seventy-five bucks. Criminally underpriced. It had taken two more years of digging through yard sales and thrift stores before she’d found the same shirt again. This one she would never sell. She was sentimental like that.
“The pub doesn’t reopen for dinner until six, but you could possibly find tea and a sandwich at the Willow Tree,” he allowed.
She wrinkled her nose. “Okay, not really a fan of tea, but if there’s food, I’m in. Where’s that? Can I walk there?”
“Out the door, turn right, past the distillery, less than a kilometer.” He glanced down at her unlaced Chucks. “I should think an easy walk in those trainers.”
“Listen.” She leaned in toward the desk. “I’m American, as I’m sure you already guessed, and I flunked metrics. So, are we talking a mile, two miles, or what?”
“Less than a half a mile,” he said, and he turned to pick up the phone, effectively dismissing her.
The Willow Tree,she was grateful to discover, was not a tearoom at all, just a pub with a fancy-sounding name. Therese found a seat at a small table near the back of the room.
