Page 1 of Beneath Pearly Irish Skies
Chapter One
The greens and blues of the curved ceramic pitcher reminded her of the rolling Irish hills outside her pottery studio.
If Megan Bennet weren’t so sick to her stomach, she might have laughed at herself. She could still talk like a potter, even after a ten-year hiatus from teaching and practicing her craft. And she could certainly appreciate others’ work, as evidenced by the pitcher sitting a few yards from her. She’d bought the piece at a secondhand shop, savoring the longing it had stirred for her last art. Before, the only thing she’d longed for was her lost husband. But all the talking and appreciating in the world wasn’t going to get her anywhere because she wasn’t able toworklike a potter.
Her first ceramics classes started a week from today, so that was a problem. Students from surrounding villages in County Mayo were going to show up at the new Sorcha Fitzgerald Arts Center in Caisleán, expecting to be taught, and the view from the ceramics studio, however breathtaking, wasn’t going to distract them for long. Her students would be more focused on what was between their hands: clay primed for molding.
She looked at the deflated blob on the pottery wheel in front of her. This was her twentieth attempt at throwing a bowl.A simple bowl. Before her now-deceased husband had told her to stop working, she’d formed a million of them. Back then, she could have done it in her sleep.
Now it was as hard as pulling herself out of the depression she’d been mired in since her husband had been killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan.
How was she going to show people how to throw clay if she couldn’t do it herself?
She had a lot riding on teaching again. She needed to make it work because ceramics was the only thing she’d ever been good at. It was also the only way she could give back to her cousin, Betsy O’Hanlon, for allowing her and her eight-year-old son, Ollie, to live rent free in a cottage on her property. Sure, Bets seemed happy enough to host them, but Megan hadn’t forgotten that it was her sister, Angie, who’d been issued the original invitation to teach at the arts center, not her. Megan had tagged along.
Coming to Ireland had jarred her out of the misery she’d felt after losing Tyson and their life ten months ago, but while Angie had found herself—and an incredible Irishman to marry—in Caisleán, Megan had a long way to go. Financially, there was no rush since she had Tyson’s death annuity, but she wanted to make something ofherself. She needed it, for her and for Ollie.
Pottery had given her a sense of purpose once. She hoped it would again.
No pressure, right?
Her ceramics mentor, Barry Travers, used to say the clay was a reflection of what was going on inside a person. As she glared at the misshapen lump she’d just been trying to center, she had to be honest. The buff white mangled mess looked pathetic. Unrecognizable. Just like her.
She’d lost her center. These days, she wondered how much of one she’d ever had.
When Tyson had told her she didn’t need to teach ceramics anymore because he would take care of her when they got married, she’d agreed. She’d never wanted to displease him, and deep down, she’d loved hearing him talk about “taking care of her.” She hadn’t known what it would actually mean: giving up parts of herself. Now she knew what folly that was, and she refused to fall into that trap ever again.
“There you are,” she heard a familiar voice say from behind her, the lilting accent as soothing as a gentle Irish breeze. “I was on my way to the farm and thought I’d see how you were getting on with the clay.”
Turning on her stool, she tried to smile at Kade Donovan. Since the day she’d met him at his pony therapy farm, she’d thought him the kindest man she’d ever met. He’d given her son pony rides, shared his beloved Jack Russell terrier, Duke, with them, and taken them both under his wing. In doing so, he’d become one of her best friends.
She’d started helping him at his farm occasionally now that Ollie was back in school. Being with Kade had become her favorite new pastime, whether it was mucking out the stalls, feeding the animals, or leading his gentle ponies that healed children as well as adults.
She could tell him anything, she knew, and because she could, she let her shoulders slump in defeat. “Not good. The clay and I are more adversaries than friends right now. I’m trying not to freak out.”
He shrugged out of his fall navy jacket and set it on one of the nearby stools. The tempestuous wind making the verdant green grass dance outside the studio windows had played with his dark mop of hair in an appealing way. His brown eyes were as warm as the full smile on his face. “Talk me through the problem. Step by step. We’ll figure it out, Megan.”
There it was again. His solid, reliable support. From the first moment he’d shown up at her cottage to give her son a pony ride, he’d been there with a willing ear to listen and a shoulder to lean on. No one she’d ever met could calm her nerves the way he did. “Kade, I can’t center the clay, and that’s the building block to throwing pottery. When you and the six other students show up for the evening pottery class next Tuesday, how am I supposed to teach you anything?”
“Have you ever had this problem before?”
She sputtered. “Ah… I don’t think—”
A sharp pain shot through her head as a memory flashed into her mind, one of gripping a messy blob of clay on the wheel. She’d just met Tyson while waiting for a friend at a crab shack. He’d asked her out, and she’d been so nervous leading up to their first date, she hadn’t been able to center the clay. The same thing had happened after he asked for a second date.
Her chest grew tight as the past washed over her. She’d been an emotional wreck, not knowing why someone like him would want to go out with her. He was a hot, cocky, handsome soldier on the rise. Later he’d told her the reason was because she was a lady, the kind of woman a man wanted to come home to and make a family with—a very different woman from the troubled single mother who’d never been there for him.
The pressure to be what he’d wanted, something she’d chased with her own father, had been excruciating. There could be no slipups. Pretending to be an elegant vase when all she considered herself to be was a serviceable mug had made her spine rigid and her heart cold.
Only recently had she finally admitted to herself that their marriage hadn’t been perfect like she’d pretended, and it had hurt. Bad.
She fisted her hands, trying to hold it together.
“You’re remembering something.” Kade’s voice was quiet, yet compelling.
Her throat was suddenly sore, and it demanded she rub its length. She didn’t talk about Tyson much—not even to Ollie. Until Ireland, the memories had been too painful. Here, she’d finally broken out of her depression and started working through her grief. Although she’d admitted her grief wasn’t just for Tyson but for the woman she’d become. “It happened when Tyson and I first started dating.”
He walked over until he stood before her. “Can you tell me why, Megan?”
