Page 43 of Over Verdant Irish Hills

“Sorcha, thank you,” she said, surprised to realize she was a bit saddened by the news. “I wish you could take the rose with you.”

She smiled again. “But I will, Bets. In my heart, where all the truest of roses reside. Be well, my sister. And don’t look now. Your man is coming for you.”

With that she disappeared from sight.

“Were you talking to Sorcha?” Linc called out. “Bets, I leave you alone for a few minutes, and then I hear you’re out alone in the pasture talking to yourself. Clearly, the person who told me couldn’t see Sorcha. Where did she go?”

Bets lifted shoulder. “I came out to thank her with a rose. She said it was the last time we’d speak. Only… Linc, she said some tough things are coming. That we have to hold on tightly to each other if we’re going to make it through them. You and me. And the village.”

He brought her to his chest. “Then we will. As tightly as we can. Don’t worry, Bets. We’ll weather through it.”

Sorcha had used the same word, Bets realized. Somehow it didn’t make her feel better. “Here I was celebrating the news that they’d canceled the rose competition since no one but Mary had entered. Linc, everyone in town stood with me. All the usual contestants.” And wouldn’t that have put Mary into a rage? Bets didn’t want to think about that right now.

He kissed the top of her head. “I’d say that’s one hell of a victory, wouldn’t you?”

“I won’t even let myself think it’s a little petty how happy I am about it.” She fought a smile and lost. “You know, I’m not going to let Sorcha’s warning dim my day. It’s been a grand day, as the Irish say.”

“It has indeed.” He brought her close to his body as a gentle Irish wind rushed around them, making the wild grasses sway in the fields. “Now, seeing as we are alone, how about we use this time to do a little something we both enjoy?”

Her body skyrocketed with lust. “Kissing?”

“Yes, ma’am, and a little later, we’ll do that and more.”

She was already shivering with delight.

He laid his lips over hers, and the glorious ache inside her spread low in her belly as she poured herself into their kiss. When he lifted his head, his blue eyes were lit with desire.

“Fancy a dance back at the shindig? Growing up, folks used to say ‘dancing was a vertical expression of a horizontal urge.’ It was in Paris that I learned that bit of wisdom came from none other than Oscar Wilde.”

“It all goes back to Paris, doesn’t it?”

He kissed her again. “Perhaps for us, but I’d say we’re setting new roots here in Ireland.”

As the leaves of Sorcha’s sycamore rustled in the wind, Bets had to agree. She was about to do something she’d thought impossible.

She was having Linc move in with her, and deep in her heart, she finally believed she’d found—and deserved—a love for the ages.

CHAPTERSIXTEEN

Jamie Fitzgerald always made a point of not being alone at the arts center named after his deceased sister-in-law.

He’d seen her on the premises before, and in the pub’s parking lot and at a friend’s house, where he’d embarrassed himself and fainted, God preserve him.

Today was going rather well. The weather was glorious. The company entertaining. The drink plentiful. But he’d smelled oranges a time or two, and every time, he’d made a beeline for a different friend. Some would call his evasions desperate. But those same people probably hadn’t seen their dead sister-in-law in ghost form. He dared them to judge.

The party at the arts center went late, under a blanket of diamond-bright stars. Jamie helped clean up, reluctant to leave, well aware that Sorcha could appear at any moment. He planned to cut her off at the pass.

If he heard a woman’s eerie laughter, he dismissed it. Surely she would let him celebrate this fine day, here at the center carrying her name.

He was stowing away yet another metal chair in the storage closet off the main hall when she appeared in front of him out of the blue. The chair clattered to the ground between them. His knees grew weak, and he had to lock them as his ears roared with a buzz, the first sign he might faint.

“Avoiding me, are you, Jamie boy?” she asked with her hip cocked.

A clammy film covered his skin. His heart started to pound. Since he was a child, he’d been scared of ghosts. She damn well knew it too. “It doesn’t speak well of you to torment me so. Was I not a good brother-in-law to you?”

Her dress swayed, making him feel seasick. “You were the best of men, which is why I’m here to help you with your soulmate. I told you I’d come for you at the summer tide.”

He’d thought of little else. “I can do my own romancing, Sorcha. If I have a mind to.”

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