Page 40 of Arse Over Irish Teacup
“I don’t see how. Unless you know a way to get me back to Minnesota today.”
The poor woman was clearly done in. Aside from being a sopping wet mess, her eyes had circles black as the ace of spades. “No, but I have a house that’s sitting empty. My grannie died a couple of weeks ago and she left me her cottage. You could stay there for the night. It’s just down the road. You would have passed it. The blue one on the right.”
Beth’s head knew to be skeptical but every other sense was screaming to take the place for the night, lock all the doors, bolt the windows, and sleep with a knife at her side just in case.
As water dripped down her hair, over her shoulders, down her back, and into her lap she nodded and agreed. She looked around the kitchen and on the wall was a picture of him with a woman who could only be his grandmother. Any man who kept a portrait like that couldn’t possibly be dangerous. And if he was, she prayed he killed her quickly. “I haven’t looked at your back yet.”
“I have a confession to make. I lied a little bit about my back. I just wanted to get you out of the rain is all.”
If he was a killer, he was smooth.
“You can follow me over there in your car now, if you like?” Roan went to the pegs hanging beside his front door and seeing as an umbrella would fold in this rain, pulled down a dry jacket for her to wear.
Throwing caution to the wind, Beth unwrapped the towel around her hair and set back out into the rain with Roan.
True to his word, there was a bright blue cottage with a bright yellow door, smiling in the rain, just down the road.
“What a charming home,” Beth said as she passed through the front door into a room brimming with memories.
“Charming? You really think that? I always thought the place looked like the airport lost and found.” Roan shook off his wet coat so as not to track water everywhere then turned up the furnace.
“Are you kidding? It’s beautiful.” Beth eased out of Roan’s jacket and handed it over to his waiting hand. “Are you sure about this?”
“Sure. You look honest enough. You could have driven away after hitting me but you didn’t.”
“I’m really sorry about that.”
“No need. I was in the right place at the wrong time. Anyway, I think you’re safe. There’s not really anything of value here so I doubt you’ll be sacking the place.”
Funny, he’d been sizing her up like she had him. Beth turned a full 360 degrees, gazing at the room. The love this woman had had for her family radiated from the colorful walls adorned with family pictures mixed with various works of art, mostly of Irish landscapes. The pictures were vibrant and stirring with their sweeps of green and waves of blue. They were also a big sham. It was amazing how an artist could take such a dismal place and make it look like the Garden of Eden.
“Grannie was an artist. Many of the pictures you see are hers.”
A painting of a long-haired white cat made her smile as the memory of rambling to Aidan about becoming a crazy cat lady played in her memory.
“That’s her most recent cat, Mr. Jameson, he ran away the day she died. We tried to catch him but he didn’t like anyone but her. He’s deaf, so couldn’t respond to our calling.”
“And now he’s missing? The poor thing must be scared to death.”
“Yeah, that’s if he’s still alive.”
Beth didn’t want to think of the innocent, lonely pet wandering around in this perpetual rain. “Deaf? Really?”
“That’s right. Can’t hear a thing. He enjoys singing and playing the piano though.”
He’d said it with such a straight face. Beth wasn’t sure if he was kidding but either way it was funny.
Roan stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked around the ever so familiar room. “Grannie never made any money from it. She painted for herself.”
“Your family didn’t want her paintings?”
Roan chuckled as he crossed the living room into the kitchen, filled the teakettle with water, and turned it on. A hot cup of tea would see her right. “Each of us have all her paintings we want. I have at least a dozen myself. My mum must have over twenty, my sister the same.”
With exhaustion creeping up her spine, Beth made her way to the kitchen and sat down on a stool at the island in the center of the floor. From there she had what might be a pretty view of a garden if it weren’t for the weather. A large glass sliding door led onto a small patio and from there it was one step before one would be enveloped in flowers.
“I never got around to disconnecting the house phone and that should work fine. You can use that.” He wrote the phone number and address of his grandmother’s house and his own number and drew her a map to the nearest grocery store. Of course, he wanted to know more about her, for more reasons than one, but she was dead on her feet. Best to let her rest.
Before leaving, Roan brought in her suitcase and surprisingly, didn’t remark how heavy the case was, and started a fire, then ducked out the front door into the storm.
