Page 22 of Over Verdant Irish Hills

“It’s funny,” he said, scratching his head. “It gave me hope somehow. My soulmate might still be out there.”

She gripped her hands together. “She is, Donal, and I hope Sorcha helps you find each other.”

“From your lips to God’s ear.” He tipped his hand to his head like an old Irishman. “I’ll be seeing you, Bets.”

With a final nod of his hard chin, he departed swiftly. She rubbed her nose and spied the security cameras Donal had installed in the trees to cover the rose garden. God, the month before the county fair was going to feel like an eternity. The rose competition couldn’t come soon enough.

As she headed back to the house, she found herself looking over her shoulder. Her feeling of safety on her own land was gone, and that angered her most of all.

She made herself detour to the place where her front rose garden had been. The devastation rolled over her like a fresh rainstorm.

A woman in a white dress appeared before her, prompting her to jump.

Sorcha looked around at the freshly dug ground before shaking her head sadly and disappearing again.

Bets rubbed her arms as a damp chill covered her skin.

Even Sorcha—known for her beautiful poetry—didn’t have the words to make sense of this loss.

Neither did Bets.

CHAPTEREIGHT

Whiskey and good male company had a way of solving many problems.

This wasn’t one of them.

As Linc sat back in his pub chair at the Brazen Donkey, he was happy to discover gratitude wasn’t beyond him. His new cadre of friends had come out to keep him company and lessen his troubles. He’d been relieved to hear from one of the guys that the Lucky Charms had gone to Bets to help lessen hers.

He hoped they’d have better success than his friends.

Eoghan patted him on the back as the older man reclaimed his seat. In his hand was another bottle of Irish whiskey. Linc wouldn’t be sampling it—he’d reached his two drink limit—but he appreciated the thought.

The stories and whiskey had been flowing freely all evening. The Irish didn’t talk about their problems. They pushed them aside and tried to find some semblance of happiness and humor in the present moment. Linc took note. He’d learned a lot from these good people, and he clearly wasn’t done.

Still, in the back of his mind, his brain was processing the problem. For theydidhave a problem—of that there was no doubt—and he wasn’t going to let that slide. No, not one bit.

“You know the song, ‘The Humors of Whiskey’?” Eoghan asked him as his equally aged cousin, Fergus, cried out his recognition.

Linc shook his head. When he was working, he’d never had time to go to happy hour at an Irish bar. “Ellie probably does, but not me.”

“Let’s teach him then, shall we, lads?” Eoghan started humming the tune, and Brady’s father kicked off the first note from behind the bar. He was manning it while Brady was on his honeymoon with Linc’s daughter.

Gavin McGrath had a powerful voice, but so did the others—Killian, Seamus, Donal, Fergus, and Eoghan, of course. He knew the Irish called whiskey the elixir of life, and as the men sang, he could only smile. Here in this small village, he’d finally found good friends. None of them cared that he was a billionaire. In fact, they’d give him the shirts off their backs. That’s just who they were. And they’d done the same with his baby girl, God love them. He started humming with them, and from that song they shifted into another Eoghan declared he simply had to know: “Danny Boy.”

Hedidknow that one, although not enough that he could sing along. Donal slapped him on the back, looked at the others, and they began his education in Irish music. Gavin sang something called “Seven Drunken Nights,” which Eoghan declared was a song that hadn’t touched his lips since a fall night in 1976 when his now deceased wife had kicked him out of bed for accidentally putting sugar in her stew instead of salt. The men all had a good laugh at that.

Then Donal moved Linc to tears, something he would have declared impossible, by leading a ballad called “The Fields of Athenry” about the Irish famine. Eoghan and a few of the others were brushing away tears along with him at the end before declaring they needed a livelier tune. A heated debate ensued, and “Whiskey in the Jar” won out.

At the end of the evening, he walked out of the bar between Donal and Eoghan, heading to his Range Rover in the parking lot.

“Feel better, Linc?” Eoghan asked, patting him on the back.

He actually did. His chest no longer felt like he’d swallowed an old tire. “Yes, and if you’d told me that was possible at the beginning of the night, I would have called you a liar.”

“You stick with us Irish.” Donal pounded him on the back. “We know how to climb our way out of troubles. You need a ride?”

Linc laughed. “I have a two whiskey limit when I’m down in the mouth. Doyouneed a ride?”

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