Page 51 of Road Trip
Closing now, your loving sister, K
CHAPTER 22
Maeve’s hands were clammy and her pulse was racing as she walked down the stairs to the inn’s lobby. It had been more than two years since she’d been out on an actual first date, and her anxiety level was spiraling.
“Don’t be weird. Do not be weird. Don’t make it weird,” she chanted in her head with each step she took.
She took a deep breath and emerged into the lobby. Liam was standing near the fireplace. His face broke into a genuine smile when he spotted her.
“Hello there,” he called. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a button-down shirt with the cuffs rolled up, and weather-beaten loafers worn without socks. His damp hair still bore comb marks. Maeve immediately sent a prayer of thanks to Therese for insisting on choosing her outfit.
As she walked closer, she saw that he was holding two cut-glass tumblers half-filled with ice and something she suspected wasn’t tea. He handed her a glass.
“What’s this?”
“Think of it as an icebreaker. Literally,” he said. “I thought you might like to start the evening with a taste of my latest creation. It’s so new we haven’t named or started marketing it yet.”
Maeve raised the glass to her nose and inhaled as she slowlyswirled the liquid in the tumbler. It smelled of woodsmoke, and something earthy that she couldn’t name. Liam watched expectantly.
“It’s different than the whiskeys we tasted yesterday, isn’t it?”
“You’ve got a good nose on you,” he said.
She closed her eyes and took a sip of the whiskey, letting it linger on her tongue before letting it slide down her throat, enjoying the heat of the alcohol.
“Tell me what you taste.”
“Hmm. Well, caramel, I guess. It’s sort of smoky, but maybe there’s a hint of fruit too?” She took another sip. “Apricots? Is that possible?”
“Close. It’s pears. Finish up, if you really like it, and we’ll go experience your first Irish pub crawl.”
“I do like it,” she said. She drank the rest of the whiskey, enjoying the slow burn. “I’d say the ice is broken. And I’m ready to go.”
Liam took her glass and set it on the fireplace mantel. “Come along then.”
He held theJeep’s passenger door open. “I tidied it up a bit, just for you.”
“Funny. I did the same thing for you.”
“I did notice, but didn’t want to be accused of, what’s that word? Ogling? You look very nice, if I may say so.”
“True confession? This is all my sister’s doing. Clothes, makeup, even the boots, courtesy of Therese.”
“Edgy, would you call it? Is that the look?”
“I think that’s what Therese was going for. Not sure anyone who knows me would ever describe Maeve Dunagin as edgy.”
Liam started the engine and pulled the Jeep onto the roadway. It was dusk, and the purple-hued evening air was perfumed with the scent of roses and pine. Maeve leaned her head out the window and inhaled, filling her lungs, then exhaling slowly.
“Well now,” he said. “Since we’ve only just met today, maybeyou could tell me how people who know Maeve Dunagin would describe you.” He glanced over at her and a smile tugged at the corners of his eyes.
It took effort not to stare at him. Liam wasn’t handsome in the orthodox sense of the word. His nose was too large for his face, his chin a shade too pronounced, and he’d nicked his jaw while shaving and patched it with a bit of tissue. He had a faint scar on the left side of his upper lip. She had to restrain herself from reaching out to touch the spot. She realized, with alarm, how much physical attraction she felt to him. She liked that he already had a faint five-o’clock shadow, that the hands that gripped the steering wheel were the hands of a workingman, calloused, the nails clipped short.
“What would people say about me?” she said. “Probably that I’m loyal, to a fault. I care too much, take things too seriously. Mary Helen always said I was an old soul.”
“Mary Helen?”
“My mother.”
