Mismatched (16 page)

“Aye. I was just about to check on them before you arrived.”

“Don’t let me get in your way. Just do your thing. I’ll sit up here and admire the view.”

We continue on in silence until we get to the sheep. Normally I’d feel compelled to fill that void with words, but here in this place, it just seems wrong. I love the sound of Ireland at rest. Is that weird? Yeah, for me it is. Definitely. Maybe I have a fever.

When we’re close enough to the sheep to spit on them, I realize two things: first, there are some gnarly looking sheep vajay-jays hanging out, just like Erin said.
Ew
on that. And … there are babies! Fuzzy ones! One of them is super tiny, too!

“Oh my god!” I squeal. “Babies! Baby lambs!”

He turns his head to try and look at me. He’s smiling in a bemused kind of way. “You like lambs?”

“They’re so fluffy,” I say, all starry-eyed. “What’s not to love?” I look up at his impossibly green eyes, a shade exactly the same as the grass surrounding us, and fall a little in lust.

“Aye,” he says, his eyes never leaving mine. “We’re of a like mind.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ERIN

I GLANCE IN THE REARVIEW MIRROR and see Ridlee mounting…Is that a
chair? Okay, whatever. I really have to get my bag from the B&B.
I have a horrible feeling that I left it on the kitchen table, possibly open. I’d been looking through the before and after photos of the pub and got distracted. I know how small these small towns can be and
everybody
wants to know everybody else's business.

I wouldn’t put it past Mrs. O’Grady to go through my shit. Then it’ll be round the town in no time that I am the owner of a
newly renovated
pub in Boston and not — as I mean to make any interested parties believe — the unfortunate heiress to a piece of shit bar in Boston that is hemorrhaging money. If Padraig Flanagan gets wind of that little fact, my great plan will be well and truly scuppered.

I park the car a smidge too close to the front lawn, murdering a gnome holding a fishing pole. Quickly, I bury the gnome behind a large, leafy bush and run inside.

“Helloooo?” No sign of old Ma O’Grady, thankfully. My bag is on the table, just as I left it, the photos peeking out from the unzipped opening. Relief floods through me and I vow to be more careful. I shake off the idea that I’m being too paranoid by not trusting this nice little old lady. I know that in small towns in the west of Ireland gossiping is a bone fide past-time, enjoyed by all. To be fair, that’s probably true of the entire country. I also know that what Ma O’Grady doesn’t know about the inhabitants of this town and the next one over too, is
nobody’s
business.

I clutch my handbag to my chest and breathe deeply. The cat appears and starts to meow at me twisting its way through my legs continuously until I become dizzy watching it.

“Scat cat!” I hiss, just as Mrs. O’Grady walks through the door from the garden, a basket of vegetables in hand. “Ahhhh…” I bend down and rub the cat enthusiastically. “Such a lovely cat,” I purr. “Oh, hello there, Mrs. O’Grady. I didn’t see you there. I was just enjoying stroking your lovely pussy.”

“You found your bag then?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“You left it on the table for anyone to see.”

Did she
see?
Has she been going through my stuff? The photos?
Oh shit!

“Mmm, yes, well I didn’t mean to. Anyway, I’m sure that
no-one
around here would go through my personal belongings.” I figure I can shame her into respect for my privacy.

“I wouldn’t count on that, missy,” she says in a clipped voice.

What’s this, and admission of some kind?

“I can’t control the comings and goings of this house. It’s a Bed and Breakfast after all. There are people,
strangers,
in and out all the time. Your belongings cannot be the responsibility of the establishment.” She deposits her basket on the table in front of me.

“Oh, right, of course.” Somehow
I’m
to blame if my privacy is invaded. “Can I help at all?” I ask in an effort to curry favour.

“Well…,” she glances around the kitchen. Her eyes fall on a giant bag of potatoes in the corner. “You could peel a few spuds for the dinner.”

“Sure!” I say, way too brightly.

“I’ll get you the peeler,” she says shuffling off toward the kitchen sink. “Oh, and an apron. We don’t want you getting your fancy American clothes all dirty, do we?”

Is she being snide with me?

Two and a half hours later, I extract myself from Mrs. O’Grady’s kitchen, my hands blistered and bloody. Okay, well, blistered anyway. I have peeled countless potatoes, carrots, parsnips, turnips, shucked a squillion peas, or is it shelled? Who gives a schuck? And all of this was done to the drone of a priest saying Mass on the radio
in Irish!
Did we not drop that woman to mass this morning? What is she doing, overtime
? Probably to make up for the sins she committed taking advantage of my kindness and turning me into her indentured bitch for the afternoon,
I think rather un-Christianly.

“Wait, Dear!” she commands, and I turn around obediently. I am Ma O’Grady’s indentured bitch. I pause in the doorway, my bag possessively under my arm.
 

“I have a little something for you.” She starts rooting through her handbag, one of those old fashioned ones that Jackie O’ used to carry in the sixties, except this one is brown and not at all fashionable. Used tissues, rosary beads and prayer misselets are piled onto the table. At last she pulls out her purse. She’s going to pay me. I start to feel a bit brighter.

“I do have something in here for you…” She snuffles around in her purse and I shift from one foot to the other. “Aha! I knew it was there!”

I smile. Fancy that—money
in
the purse…

“Here you are, Dear.” She hands me a piece of paper that has been folded to within an inch of its life. It takes me a long time to open it up, but I manage it eventually. It’s a flyer.

I read aloud. “Henry O’Henry, the true matchmaker of Lisdoonvarna. Come and find love. You know you want to.” I look up at Ma O’Grady, confused.

“It’s for you. For helping me with the veg.” She shuffles closer to me and points at the flyer. “One free pass. Henry will help you find love. He introduced me to Mr. O’Grady. He’s dead now.” She beams.

I continue to stare blankly at the paper.

“Not Henry! No, he’s very much alive. Go over to Lisdoonvarna this evening. He’s expecting you. I saw him at mass and mentioned I had a lonely little wanna-be Yank that needed to find love.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mrs. O’Grady, but I actually have a boyfriend.” I say, somewhat stiffly.

“Really, that’s not what your friend, Ridlee, told me. She said that you’ve been celibate for a
really, really, long time.
She said that you were lookin’ for love, or at least a date.”

“Thanks, Rid,” I mutter under my breath. “No, really, Mrs. O’Grady, you’d be better off giving this lovely gift to someone else, I have a boyfriend.”

“Aragh, away with ye! Ye do not, and I won’t take no for an answer. Don’t be too proud to accept a gift. He’s expectin’ ye and I’ll be offended if ye don’t go. Sure, ye never know, ye might find yourself a nice Irish farmer and settle down here. There are worse things than being a farmer’s wife ye know?”

“Indeed, I just can’t think of any right now,” I mutter.

“What’s that?” She cups her hand over her ear. “Speak up!”

“And he might even have a few cows!” I yell in her general direction.

“That’s the spirit, Erin. Now, off ye go and get yourself ready. Ye look a fright. No one would have ye the state ye’re in now.”

She closes my hand around the flyer and steers me out the door into the hall. I glance in the mirror and almost recoil in horror. My hair is all over the place, and I have a potato mud smudge across my forehead. My fingernails look as though I’ve just recently buried a body. Guiltily, I recall the gnome.
Serves her right. She’s had her blood-money. Still, I guess she’s trying to be nice giving me the appointment with the matchmaker.

Wearily, I climb the stairs, wondering not for the first time, what
Micheál might be doing. I pull out my phone to see if he has rung, or at least sent a text message. It’s futile, really, as I had my phone right beside me on the table all afternoon in case he rang or texted and it did nothing.

I stand under the shower for a really long time allowing the water to wash over me. I recall Micheál’s touch and the sound of his voice and shudder with pleasure.

Cop on girl!
He probably thinks that I’m some kind of stalker, turning up at his house like that this morning. And what about that girl, Siobhán? Is she his girlfriend? Is he just some kind of playboy?

I think about his words and the sincerity I heard in them. Maybe I’m the easy touch. Maybe I’m just a naive little fool happy to be taken in at the first cute guy who pays me any attention.

I scrub myself clean and get out of the shower, resolving to never approach another man again, and to cut that prick Micheál dead if I ever see him again.

Just as I’m finishing dressing, Ridlee comes through the door flushed and happy.

“Well, well, well, no need to ask what you’ve been up to,” I observe drily.

She grins devilishly. “Who knew that farmers could be so talented with their hands?”

“Well, I think you’ll find that it’s a well known fact actually, Rid.”

“Mmm…” She flops on the bed, sighing dreamily. “What’s the plan, Stan? You seeing Loverboy tonight?”

“I hardly think so. He’s probably doing something with his girlfriend.”

Ridlee sits up on the bed and pulls a face. “So it is his girlfriend?”

“I don’t know. Who else could it be—his mother?”

“Looked a bit young to be his mother,” admits my friend ruefully. “Never mind, Erin, plenty more fish in the sea, and we’re on the coast, so cheer up!”

“Fuck it. I’m done with men.”

“Right. So, what’s the plan for this evening?”

“I’ve got an appointment with a matchmaker in Lisdoonvarna.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

RIDLEE

ERIN’S GRUMPY AND IN NO mood to hang out with old dudes making matches, but we go to the bar where Mr. O’Henry is holding court anyway and order a couple of pints. She slouches over her beer with a scowl on her face.

I nudge her on the arm. “Come on, cheer up. You don’t know for sure that’s his girlfriend. He didn’t look worried to me that you were standing there on the stoop, seeing her up there on his balcony.”

“He didn’t look worried because he’s probably used to it. He probably takes all the girls out on his punt and feels ‘em up on his little island.”

I lift an eyebrow, not sure whether I’m hearing about something that actually happened or some sort of Irish expression. “Punt? Island? Say what?”

She shakes her head. “Never mind. Forget I said anything.” After taking a long pull from her beer, she sits there like a zombie, not even bothering to wipe off her foamy mustache.

I use a bar napkin to clean her up and put my arm around her, squeezing her tight against my side. “Okay, you get ten more minutes of pity party and then you’re done.”

“I need more like ten days.”

I look at my watch. “Nine minutes. You have nine minutes left.” I let her shoulders go and leave her to wallow, knowing she just needs to get this battle over with in her head and then she’ll be back to her old sassy self. Erin never lets a guy get under her skin for long. I’m actually kind of surprised that she cares so much about this particular one. He is, after all, Irish, and she hates Ireland.

I feel a presence behind me before I hear his voice. Turning in my stool, I take in the cream-colored wool sweater and the jeans as his words come to me.

“Evenin’, Ridlee. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

My grin stretches from one side of my face to another. Man, he sure does clean up nice. “Hello, Donal. Are you following me?” I give him a saucy wink, sure we’re about to embark on a seriously fun flirting session. It’s so different, to be doing it with a man who always keeps me guessing like he does. Half the time I think he knows exactly what he’s doing and the other half I’m thinking he’s completely clueless. I cannot figure him out and that’s a first for me.

He smiles, a rare thing for him. And if I’m not mistaken, his face takes on a reddish tint. “Following you? No, not that I’m aware.”

“Would you like a Guinness?” I ask, holding up my pint as an example of the black goodness that could await, should he decide to stay a while and order one.

“Don’t mind if I do,” he says, taking mine from me and finishing it in one giant gulp. He looks off in the distance as he puts the glass down on the bar.

I’m left sitting there speechless.

“Well, hello, Donal,” Erin says, turning around to face us. “Fancy meeting you here. Is this supposed to be a date or something? Am I the third wheel now?” Her bitterness level has creeped up to nine at this point.

“A date?” he asks, sounding a little scared. “Me?” He looks at me. “And her?” He takes a step back, once more glancing around the bar. “No, there’s no date. Not for me.”

I frown at the hurt feelings that shoot through me at his full-force rejection. This is making no sense. I thought we were flirting. Weren’t we? I mean, we spent half a day together and had a ball. Or at least, I was having a ball. I rode on his Big Dick. He showed me his crops and his barn and his plans for expansion. I’ve never seen a gentler, sexier man than this giant before me, and now he’s acting like I’m some sort of stalker woman trying to trap him into a date? I look around the room, wondering what kind of witch is casting this crazy, effed up spell on us.

That’s when my eyes fall on Henry O’Henry. We lock gazes and he nods his head once.

I grab my purse from the back of my chair and slide off it to the floor. “Come on, Erin. Time to go make a match.” Escape is my plan. It’s not elegant, but it’s better than sitting here on this stool feeling like a desperate fool.