Page 13 of Beneath Pearly Irish Skies
Chapter Four
Megan slowed her car to a halt on the country lane. “What in the world?”
The cows had words spray-painted on them.
Date.
Ask.
Cute.
But these weren’t poetic words like the ones her future brother-in-law, Carrick Fitzgerald, used to spray on his sheep to honor his late wife’s poetry.
Ollie pressed his face against the window. “Someone stole Uncle Carrick’s idea! On cows. Ugh! Uncle Carrick should never have stopped doing his sheep. Mom, does that cow saySteak? That’s so wrong. I can’t wait to tell the guys at school.”
Megan wished she could wash her eyes out.Steak?Was that supposed to be a bad joke? She looked at a few more.Savage. Biscuit. Teatime. BBQ.
What was this farmer thinking? She racked her brain to see if she could remember whose fields these were, but she only had a vague recollection of it being a young farmer.
She grimaced as she scanned the thirty or so black cows clustered together in the center of the field. They weren’t cute or cuddly like the sheep. In fact, they were a little scary as they stared back at her. Were their eyes red? Or was the red spray paint on them somehow making it seem that way? “I like the sheep better.”
“Me too.”
She saw a motorcycle coming on the road behind her and recognized it as Liam’s Triumph. No one but Liam had one in the whole of Caisleán. The village said it was because he had an unearned optimism about the weather. Megan thought he had a positive view about everything.
He pulled up behind her, took off his helmet, and dismounted as she and Ollie exited the car.
“Oh, Jesus!” Liam lamented, slapping his hand to his forehead. “He’s done it! He’s done it but good.”
“Who did?” Ollie asked, racing over to stand beside their cousin. “It’s awful, isn’t it, Liam?”
“It’s a disaster! But why anyone would expect anything else from Keegan O’Malley, I wouldn’t know.”
Megan stilled completely. There was a Keegan O’Malley signed up for her pottery class!
“Wetser? Beor? Diger?” Liam stalked the road, gesturing to the cows.
“What do they mean, Liam?” Ollie asked, extending his little arm out in a mirror image of his hero.
“They’re—” He pursed his lips and shook his head.
Megan knew what that meant. “Irish words you probably don’t want to learn, Ollie.”
Liam patted the brown mess of hair Ollie hated to use a brush on. “At least not until you’re older. Oh, he’s ruined it! I can hear every heart in Caisleán and the surrounding towns breaking once they hear about this. Everyone loved Carrick’s spray-painted sheep. That was Sorcha’s poetry. This is pure rubbish.”
Megan grimaced. She was still trying to recover from learning the owner of the cows was going to be in her Tuesday evening class.
“Rubbish means garbage, Mom,” Ollie said, taking her hand as the entire herd started to stalk toward them. Sure, there was a barbwire fence between them and the cows, but still. Full-grown cows in Ireland were huge. Eight hundred to a thousand pounds huge.
“Thanks for telling me, Ollie,” she said although she’d known the meaning. “Maybe we should get back into the car. They look menacing.”
“Ah, they’re only having a look at us,” Liam said, putting his hands to his waist. “Nothing to be worried about. My dad had cows. He’ll be turning in his grave at this monstrosity just like the other farmers we’ve lost. I know Keegan wants to make a mark on the village, but this wasn’t the way of it.”
“Just how old is he?” Megan asked, wondering if he’d joined her class hoping to meet girls.
Her pottery mentor, Barry, had confessed at the studio one night, when they were all loose from drinking wine and throwing some big pots, that he’d taken his first class for the girls.Who knew my center would be the clay and not the chicks?
She suddenly remembered Barry’s final words to her. Since she’d been journaling and opening up her mind, more and more memories had been resurfacing.Isn’t it interesting that me and the clay are losing you to a guy?Barry hadn’t said anything else about her decision or her relationship with Tyson—he was a “live and let live” kind of guy—but his final hug had been heavy with goodbye. They’d never seen each other again, and she’d missed him. They’d been…friends. All her fellow potters had shared that connection. She hoped her students could become a community like she’d had back then, but people had to be there for the right reasons.
