Page 1 of Over Verdant Irish Hills

CHAPTERONE

Bets O’Hanlon wished she could dig up her man problems with a trowel like she did the never-ending Irish weeds that kept springing up in her prized rose garden.

Every time she started to think she’d made peace with her shocking, unexpected feelings for Linc Buchanan—her friend, her business partner—another strong pull of longing or lust would flare up, as unwelcome as a rabid fox out for hens. Or so he’d say.

She loved him.

She had no idea how that had happened.

She missed him too. Knowing he loved her didn’t make it any easier. Neither did the fact that both of them were gun-shy about starting anything. Since they’d admitted they loved each other three weeks ago—to their friends, mind you, like kids in high school— their relationship had been strained.

Like last Saturday.

They had a wining-and-dining dinner with a prospective new artist for the Sorcha Fitzgerald Arts Center. It should have been like every other business dinner they’d had, but somehow it had become way more like a date than she was comfortable with.

First, she couldnotkeep her eyes off him in the sexy-as-hell dark gray suit that he wore casually without a tie.

Next, the flighty, social-media-crazed twenty-something abstract artist, who had done nothing but text and excuse himself to take one call after another from “a very important person,” leaving them alone.

Suddenly, it was her and Linc, the flickering candlelight, and his deeply seductive cologne.

And he knew it too. He’d leaned in and tickled her ear with his breath, saying, “We’re going to have to excuse ourselves if you keep looking at me like that.”

She took it as encouragement to look some more, of course.

Until they started the long drive home, which was fraught with skin-searing sexual tension. As Linc hummed to the radio in his seductive baritone voice, she began to wonder what the hell she was thinking. She’d just broken up with Donal O’Dwyer basically because she wasn’t ready to commit, and here she was, thinking of jumping into that pool again.

The love pool wasn’t the carpool, she reminded herself, as she tore into the dirt again, only to hit the roots of her precious rosebush. “Damn it.”

She suddenly smelled oranges instead of roses, and she instantly went on alert. Her only companion was the Irish wind, thank God, but she couldn’t help but think of the other complication. The local matchmaking ghost—Sorcha Fitzgerald, whom they’d named the arts center after—had shown up and told her that Linc Buchanan was her soulmate.

Her soulmate.

Talk about knocking a girl on her infernal ass. After hearing that, her head had turned fuzzy. Her heart had gone downright haywire. She still hadn’t fully recovered.

And then she hadn’t seen or heard from Linc all week. Sure, his daughter was getting married, but there hadn’t been one single peep from her infernal cowboy on even anything business related. For the entire week, Bets’ heart had rocked like a ship in a hurricane all over again.

Today she’d see him at the wedding, and she still didn’t have a plan.

Tongue-tied over a boy at her age wouldn’t do. Only her heart felt young and unsure again, like it was being pulled in opposite directions like the saltwater taffy back in her hometown of Baltimore.

What was she going to do?

She tunneled her trowel into the black soil with more care, knowing she was procrastinating. She should be inside this very minute, dolling up to go to the wedding where she would see her handsome, funny, smooth-talking cowboy. Her heart sighed in her chest. He would probably take her breath away as he walked Ellie down the aisle. Well, not an aisle exactly. Ellie and Brady were marrying in the back of her daddy’s new pasture, behind his new tricked-out motor home, and she’d be walking down a long trail of satin under the gift of the July sun.

Bets dug up another infernal weed in her rose garden, which she was tending like a firstborn baby in anticipation of her annual battle with her nemesis and sister-in-law, Mary Kincaid, in the competition at the county fair. If she tossed it in the rubbish bin at her side with more force than necessary, who could blame her? She had a lot on her mind. Even the delicious perfume coming from her glorious four- and five-inch roses couldn’t drag her out of her mood.

She tried to count her wins, as Liam would say. Her son would tell her to focus on what she had to be grateful for. Bets took in the roses Donal had given her. Her relationship with Donal was firmly behind her—and him. They had ended their time together more amicably and maturely than one could hope. They wanted different things, simple as that, but it had been complicated by her realization that she was in love with Linc.

She and Donal had slid easily back into friendship, which was perhaps another sign that they weren’t meant for each other. Both of them had grown from their time together; both had ultimately been ready to move on.

Score one for her.

But Linc’s handsome face rose in her mind again, so tangible she almost believed she could touch his strong jaw.

She shook her head to clear it as she yanked out a stubborn dandelion. That she was sitting here digging up weeds when she should be getting ready made her more stubborn than the dandelion.

“Mum, what are you still doing out here? We need to leave for the wedding.”

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