Page 67 of Against Ebony Irish Seas

Her eyes met Jamie’s for a moment, her heart hurting in her chest, and then she made herself go over to the trio standing beside the car. Donal was taking them to Knock, where Linc’s plane was waiting. He nodded to her from the driver’s seat, the fatigue on his face evident.

She hugged Sandrine, her fingers gripping the older woman.

“We’ll take good care of her,” Sandrine whispered in French. “Like I did when you were that age. You be careful but you be strong too. You have it all in you.”

God, she hoped so. She blinked back tears before turning to Eoghan. “You enjoy the pool and the whiskey and anything else. Including the studio. You use anything you want.”

He touched her face gently, like she was precious. “But mostly I’ll be enjoying the sun and your beautiful flowers.Maireann croí éadrom a bhfad, Sophie. It meansa light heart lives long.If you’ll take an old man’s words to heart. Don’t let others weigh down that beautiful heart of yours.”

She rubbed her nose to hold back her rising emotion. “Thank you, Eoghan.”

“Like every Irish storm, this will blow over.” Then he picked up one of the stones in the driveway and held it out. “Even the wind and the sea have trouble moving the stone. Be the stone.Dia duit. Come, Greta. It’s time for our grand adventure.”

She watched as her daughter took the older man’s hand and gave her one last look before waving. Sandrine helped her into the back seat, and right before she alighted, their eyes met and held. Eoghan closed the door behind them and came around to the other side. The car doors slammed, a punctuation in the quiet front yard. Rocks crunched under the tires as Donal drove off. Sophie gripped the stone in her hand, the metaphor alive in her mind. Something might run over her. Push her deeper into the ground and make her cry out, but she would still hold.

Jamie’s hands settled on her shoulders. “I can’t imagine how tough it was to send her off.”

She turned in his arms and laid her head on his chest. “I never want to go through anything like this again, Jamie. God, I hope I’m making the right decision.”

“All we can do now is try to make things right.” He made a rude noise. “Better. I don’t know if ‘right’ is possible. Where do you want to work today?”

“You’ll be helping with the improvements at your house, and I have a bunch of calls to make.” She followed him to his car. “You’ll be hammering, so I should probably go to Linc and Bets or Summercrest. Although part of me doesn’t want to be parted from you. I feel all raw inside after sending Greta off and after last night. God, that’s silly, right? I’m thirty-six years old, for heaven’s sake.”

He cupped her cheek. “I don’t want to be away from you either, so I guess I’m silly too. But you might find it easier to make your calls way from the cottage today as you said. I’d also prefer you never see the words on that door again. I texted Liam when we left the cottage so he and the others could start on it right away.”

The words might soon be gone on the door, but they were etched in her mind. “I hate to say it, but you should probably tell them to take a picture we can give to the press.”

Jamie tucked his hands in his pants, narrowing his eyes. “I believe that’s been taken care of. Horrible enough to see it on the door, so I suppose it wouldn’t be much worse to see it in the papers.”

“It’s all worse at this point.” She blew out a breath. “All right, I’m going to head over to Linc and Bets’ and get going. Taylor is five hours behind in New York and still asleep, but my mother’s publicist will be awake. I think I’ll call my mother first. Greta, in all her wisdom, told me I should. Can you imagine?”

He opened the car door for her. “She’s a sensitive and intuitive child. It doesn’t surprise me at all. Put your seat belt on,mo chroí.”

She loved it when he called her endearments in Gaelic. When he came around and settled into the driver’s seat, she touched his arm. “You have any problem with me calling you something like babe or my love?”

His smile radiated joy—a first for him today. “You can call me anything you’d like. So off to Bets and Linc’s then.”

Linc was in full steam in the parlor when she arrived, already on the phone and pacing. He lifted a hand in her direction as Bets led her to a sunny room behind the kitchen.

“Make yourself at home,” Bets said, clearing a few paperbacks off the low-slung engraved table. “I’m holed up in my office, but Linc needed space to prowl today, so he’s taken over the parlor. He’s already hired those temporary security officers he mentioned. They’re from a company he used to tap when he was running his company. Who knew windows needed guarding? Bad joke. They’ll be here tonight. He’s still working on lining up an investigator, but he hopes to have that sorted out shortly.”

She watched as Bets wrung her hands together. “That’s great. Linc knows how to get things done.”

“Donal has a meeting set with Denis Walsh’s supervisors, likely in some pub. That’s where the men like to do their business. Always drove me a little crazy. How are you doing this morning? Or should I even ask?”

She uncurled her hands from where she was clutching her purse and set both that and her workbag down on the table. “About as well as you would imagine. You don’t look like you slept either.”

“Not a wink. But I had three boys, and the habit of going hard without the Zs comes back easily to me, even after all these years.” She made an attempt at a smile. “I want to tell you: I think what you’re doing is brave. I don’t know how I would have reacted if my boys were still little. I can’t imagine a harder choice.”

Her stomach was quivering again. She needed to start working and block things out for a while, or she’d be a wreck. “On that we agree. I’m going to reach out to the publicist after I call my mother. If she agrees to help us, and I think she will, given my mother is a long-standing client and friend, we’ll have a whole lot of items rolling shortly. She’s a whirlwind.”

“Great! We need all the help we can get. I’ll grab you some tea and let you make your calls.”

Sure enough, Bets returned with a tray arranged with a teapot covered with a yellow cozy, a cup and saucer, and a plate of fresh-baked bread. Laughing, she set it down. “I needed to punch something this morning when Linc finally let me out of bed. Hah! I’ll be in my office if you need anything, reviewing Linc’s list of people to approach for spots on our advisory board. We’re going after some big fish.”

“Smart.” She nodded. “It’ll help to have some big names on the board. Thanks for the tea and bread, Bets.”

Bets lurched forward and touched her arm in comfort before striding out, her tigerlike energy as palpable as Linc’s. Sophie felt more like a bedraggled sparrow with feathers missing after a serious plucking. Wouldn’t her mother love that analogy? If Sophie described the mental image to her mom, she’d probably encourage her to draw it. She’d always done that when Sophie was a kid—told her to draw her feelings. Right now, she felt like shit. Drawingthatwould probably be controversial. God, she was on her way to a pity party.

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