Mistletoe and Mr. Right (9 page)

My breath plumes out past my lips harder and harder, clouds of wispy white dissipating before Grady can notice, but we've only gone about five hundred yards before he looks back to check on me. He slows his pace without comment, and I would breathe a sigh of relief if I had any extra air.

“Thanks for at least trying to prepare me for Katie,” I start, feeling like chatting even though an hour ago I just wanted to be alone. And okay, wondering if Grady might be able to give me something—anything—that makes me feel better about Brennan having kept his past from me.

“Nothing can prepare a person for the loveliness that is Katie McBride,” Grady replies, eyeing me. “And your boyfriend should have done that, not me.”

Everything may not be wine and roses at the moment, but I'm not going to bad-mouth Brennan behind his back. “She
is
lovely. I even like her.”

He snorts. “Of course you do. Everyone loves Katie. Literally everyone.”

“She grew up here, too?”

“Yes. We all threw her in the mud when we were little, all chased after her when we got a little older. But she only had eyes for Brennan. Always.”

“Is that why you get little lines around your mouth like you tasted something sour when you say his name?”

Grady stumbles a little, surprise raising his eyebrows. “What? No. I mean, I don't do that.” It's the first time he's seemed out of sorts or less than confident. It's sort of endearing. “I don't have a problem with Brennan. I certainly never had any illusions of dating Katie.”

“Oh yeah, why would you?” I toss back, sarcasm spicy on my tongue.

“Trust me, we've all had certain thoughts. But the two of them were inseparable.”

“So what happened?” Our pace slows to a stroll.

Grady has professed a love of plans that rivals mine, and at the house he acted like he had so many chores on his plate for the day they couldn't possibly get accomplished in time for drinks tonight. Yet here we are, two uptight people with deadlines on the brain, taking our sweet-ass time.

It's enough of an accomplishment to make me step back and marvel, but the expression on Grady's face says I've breached an unseen boundary, circled wagons around lifelong friends.

“She decided it was over, for Brennan's own good.”

“You sound like you don't think it was. Over.”

Grady gives me an exasperated look. “Why do you want to talk about how things may or may not be over between Brennan and Katie? Are you intent on making yourself miserable instead of enjoying your trip?”

“I don't. I just . . . I'm curious about your little town and Brennan's life before I knew him. That's all.”

“Well, it's not whether it was over that I was disagreeing with,” Grady explains, his voice softer now. Pliable. “It was her deciding without him.”

There's a suggestion running deep under the words, hidden extras that promise Grady knows more than what he's saying. Maybe more than he wishes he did, about what went wrong. The whiff of mystery flutters on the wind before dancing away.

We walk the rest of the way to the McCormacks' barn in companionable silence, with Grady stopping to point out nuances in the landscape every once in a while. The neighbors' llamas. The rainbow in the distance. The giant-placed boulders on the hillsides. It's all new to me, all fascinating, and for the first time Ireland grabs onto my heart.

The McCormacks' sturdy barn is as weathered as the Donnellys', more gray than brown and just as warm on the inside. The difference is that the stalls here are filled with half a dozen beautiful horses—three brown-and-white fillies, two male palominos, and a gorgeous black stallion.

Grady stops outside the last stall and turns around, crossing one ankle over the other, and leans back against the bowed wood. “Tell me, Jessie. How long has it been since you've ridden?”

I glance up, wondering if I'm hearing a double meaning that isn't there, and choke on my tongue at the twinkle in Grady's eyes. Instead of shying away I let a teasing smile onto my lips. “Too long, Mr. Callaghan. Too long.”

*

Grady took the news that it's been years surprisingly well and coached me along the way as we saddled the horses—okay, he did most of the lifting and saddling—but now that I'm standing alongside a palomino named Bach with one foot in the stirrup, nerves start dancing in my stomach.

“You're not going to puke, are you?”

“No.” I reconsider, holding the reins tighter as the horse shies away from me, nervous because I am. “Probably not. Although you've already seen me do that once and the second time isn't nearly so embarrassing.”

“Just as disgusting, though, I'd wager.” He grins, dimples catching the light from the midday sun. He settles his hands on my waist and any other thought drops straight out of my head. It's so oddly natural. “You've got to be calm, because horses are jittery dicks when they freak out. On the count of three, yeah?”

I barely manage to nod before he gets to the assigned number and gives me a boost that leaves me sitting upright in the saddle. I take a deep breath that's too shaky and it has nothing to do with the horse.

“There, see? Grand.” He swings up onto Garth, the second palomino, settling in with an ease that's both impressive and attractive. Which is weird because finding a man who could sit a horse has never been on my list of must-haves when it comes to a guy. “Hold the reins looser—there you go. Dig your heels in to go forward, the firmer the faster.”

“Got it.” Maybe. “Where are we going?”

“Out to the pasture, up a hillside or two. I wish the snow had held off because we could have seen some great ruins.”

“That would have been nice.”

I set off, letting Bach saunter a head or two behind Garth, trying not to let my horse feel how he intimidates me. Garth could splatter my brains with one well-placed hoof if he decides he fancies such a thing on this beautiful morning, but Grady's easy confidence settles my fears. By the time we hit the bottom of the first hill and start upward, I feel good in the saddle. Good enough to look around, breathe in the air, and answer Grady when he asks how Brennan and I met.

“At a frat party.”

“You don't seem like the frat-party type.”

The comment almost sounds like an insult wrapped in a compliment, as though he can't decide which he means. I decide to hear the compliment because the day is too perfect. “You don't have to drink to have fun at parties. News flash.”

“I'll have you know that I don't drink all that much, either. For an Irishman.”

I laugh in spite of myself. “Oh my goodness, Grady Callaghan—did you just make a joke?”

“It's been known to happen.” He laughs, too, that honey sound that sticks to my skin.

“You know why I don't drink much—what's your excuse?”

He shrugs, that closed expression fighting for purchase on his face again. The pause goes on so long it seems like he might not answer, so when he does, there's no doubt the response isn't going match the lighthearted tone of my question.

“My pa drank. He drank so much he forgot the way home one night and never came back.”

My heart climbs into my throat, beating fast in response to the anger rolling under his words like thunder. Katie had said Grady's story wasn't a happy one. “I'm sorry. That must have been hard on you growing up. A dad is someone you should be able to count on.”

My dad had been that way. For a while.

“It was better without him, at least for me. My mam could have used him after she got sick, though.”

Now my heart throbs, lanced open by the pain in his quick glance. It's all starting to make a little more sense, why a guy that's smart and young would hang around a town as small as Fanore. It's noble, which isn't a description most people earn in the world today.

“How is your mother now?”

His reaction is a jerk of the muscle in his jaw, as though he clamped down his teeth in an attempt to bite back the truth, and a tightening of his fingers around the reins. “She died last summer. Rare vascular disease.”

The quiet truth sends my heart crashing into my stomach. Of course he's close with the Donnellys, since they've been a constant in his life since childhood. Working for them must have allowed him to make money while staying close enough to take care of his mom, but none of that explains why he's still here now.

“I'm sorry you had to go through all of that by yourself, Grady.”

His half smile, content somehow, breaks my heart. “I wasn't alone. I was with my mam.”

Tears prick my eyes and I smile, too, because it's so clear in this moment that beauty lurks in everything, even in loss. I'm inclined to analyze, to ferret out potential pitfalls or roadblocks in the future, but some things can't be planned. But if Grady can cast his horrible light in a sort of thankful glow, what else might be possible?

“You're lucky that you had a mom who loved you.” The words breathe out in a whisper, pried loose from somewhere inside me that's rusted away over the years. There's hope underneath it. Raw, painful, hard to see. But there.

The glance he shoots my way is wide with surprise. “I'm sure your mam loved you, Jessie.”

I shake my head, taking a few minutes to swallow the wet lump in my throat. The kindness in his words, the surety buffeting his tone, are hard to take. “In her way, maybe.”

“What about your pa?” Grady nudges his horse through a gap in one of the piled stone walls and up a graceful hillside, checking to make sure I'm following.

Bach navigates without help from me, his nose a couple of feet from Garth's tail.

“He died when I was eight. Cancer.”

“I'm sorry.”

I shrug. “It was a long time ago. So, I can promise you it gets easier.”

“Did it kill your mam? Him dying?”

He's pushing. Lifting up rocks with gentle fingers, hoping there isn't a snake coiled underneath, and even though it normally bugs me when people pry, I
want
to tell him everything.

“It killed her when he got sick—the dying took the better part of three years.” I swallow, forcing myself to feel it again for the first time. The one or two times the story spilled out of me it's felt mechanical. A well-oiled tale of the destruction of a happy childhood. “Things were great. My dad made tons of money as an artist—he was a sculptor—but my parents weren't exactly responsible. They had so much money they didn't know what to do with it, so they spent it all on nothing. When Dad got sick there was no more money coming in, no savings. No insurance. No way to take care of him.”

I look over to find Grady's horse standing still atop the ridge. Grady is staring at me with a mixture of understanding and empathy, and the combination bolsters my spirit in a way I've never experienced. As if he's stitching together the holes in my soul just by listening. It's been . . . forever, really, since anyone came at me with advice that isn't to just get over it and live, already.

A deep breath of clean air fills my lungs. There's nothing to see from up here but more hillsides, more sturdy and winding walls, more little farmhouses belching plumes of smoke from teetering chimneys. Ireland is like a promise that life doesn't have to be complicated. That a roof and family, some land and friends, are all a person needs to be happy.

“After he died we had nothing. Mom had never worked, never thought for a moment about what she wanted to do with her life. We didn't have anywhere to live. She sat me beside her on street corners begging for food, dragged me from shelter to shelter when it got too cold out, until a teacher in ninth grade finally called social services.” I keep my eyes on the horizon, familiar shame coating me like black oil. “It helped, even though none of my foster parents were the best. They weren't awful, and I studied hard in high school, got a scholarship to college.”

“Where is your mam now?”

“I don't know.” I swallow hard, finding the courage to look at him again.

Grady does the oddest thing in that moment—he smiles. Dimples crease in his cheeks and he reaches out, palm up, asking for my hand. The reassurance in his expression sends my hand searching for his and our gloved palms tough, fingers interlocking, until he gives me a tight squeeze.

“To surviving in the world without parents. You're an inspiration, Jessie. Damn strong woman.”

Nothing about bucking up, about letting it all go and moving forward. Just a confirmation of all I've been through, of how sort of amazing it is that I've gotten to where I am. It's hard to think about my own life in those terms—I've simply done what I have to do to survive.

For the first time pride swells within me instead of shame. It puffs out my chest and before long I'm smiling, too.

“We should head back down and grab two more horses. It's going to get cold fast once the sun starts going down.”

“Sure.”

And Bach follows Garth back down the hill, the day normal and happy in horse land. In Jessie land, everything is topsy-turvy. Upside down and backward, but turned in a way that makes me think I've only assumed it was right side up for the past decade.

The warmth of the barn washes over me, making me realize for the first time how chapped and cold my cheeks feel. Grady takes pity on me, unsaddling both horses, while I wander, my mind too full to be anything but blank. Excitement tumbles through me and right out of my mouth at the sight of an honest-to-goodness
sleigh
in the back corner of the room.

“Oh my laundry, can we hook up the horses and go for a ride?” I squeal, pointing when Grady looks up.

He gives me an incredulous look. “Do you know how long that takes?”

“No.”

“Well, it's no simple trick, and it would only exercise two of the horses and we've got three left. Plus, the snow's not deep enough yet. Maybe after one more storm.”