Page 4 of Against Ebony Irish Seas

She didn’t question the rightness of it. She reached out and hugged both women. “This is the best welcome ever.”

“You’ll have to tell us all about your last few years in Provence,” Ellie said as they started walking toward the car park.

When they reached Jamie and Greta, he was on his haunches again, talking to her on her level in front of a black SUV. Greta was still clutching her cards, a bright smile on her face. When she sighted them, she waved and ran over. “Mama, did you know there’s a pony farm in our village? Mr. Fitzgerald asked if I liked animals, and when I said yes, he told me our class is going to take a trip to visit it. Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Beyond wonderful,” she replied as her daughter raced back to her new friend.

Wonderful was a word she’d taught her daughter straight off. As a child, her famous artist parents had thought it too banal a word to describe reality. But if you couldn’t find wonder in life, why bother? Artists didn’t need to suffer to be better artists. She’d dealt with plenty of misery in her marriage, and it hadn’t improved her art or her life.

Every day with Franz had been a mercurial minefield—as a piano maestro, he’d gone on tour frequently, and she’d found his absences a relief. Leaving him two years ago had been one of the best decisions of her life, even though Greta was still young. Franz had never planned to be a hands-on parent, which had made the decision easier. He rarely saw his daughter, and in many ways, that had given them both time to heal.

Having put her divorce behind her, now she wanted to find a supportive community where she could raise her daughter. The quaint town of Caisleán more than fit the bill, especially since her old friend Linc Buchanan had settled there too and was playing a crucial role at the arts center. It had seemed like a further sign that Sandrine had so quickly and thoroughly fallen for Eoghan.

Being in Ireland would also breathe renewed life into her work. Ellie was right. She’d been famous for her flower sculptures since she was barely out of the Pilchuck Glass School, but she was thirty-six now. She needed a new direction for her work, like glass needed fire to melt. And she knew she would find it among the verdant Irish hills in the countryside where she would live. Her glass would breathe and shimmer like Irish rainbows.

Her initial proposal for her first glass installation was the Celtic Tree of Life, a beautiful center point for the museum the arts center planned to build. Over the next month, she would fine-tune her design to make it sing. Being here was going to give her additional inspiration—she just knew it.

The sound of Greta giggling reached her, a sound as rare as one of Greta’s favorite birds, the puffin. She looked over to where her daughter was standing, talking to her new teacher with none of her usual shyness.

Jamie.

His head turned a fraction, and their eyes met. He was still listening to Greta. That she knew. But when he smiled, she knew it was for her.

Her heart expanded again, until she was sure her lungs had no room for breath.

She wanted him.

The shock of it had receded. Now there was only surprise. After her divorce, she hadn’t felt a ping for anyone. It had never dawned on her she might meet a man here. Certainly not one who made her heart and body react with the kind of epic swings so powerful only artists could capture them. But she knew this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance, the kind of attraction that could define one’s life—like Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning or Dorothea Tanning and Max Ernst.

When he finally stood, studying her, his cobalt blue eyes seemed to darken. He liked her too. There was no mistaking the signs. The slight curve of his mouth hinted at his regard. Her gaze dipped to his ring finger, looking for a wedding band, and found none. As she’d thought.

She told herself to be smart. He was Greta’s teacher. She was new in town. She had a daughter to see settled. A new community to learn. Her own art installation to create.

But those were excuses for a woman who didn’t know herself. Didn’t trust herself.

She could not pass up this chance or this man.

But she was wiser now. She would approach it in the beginning like she would her own work.Theywould be the glass heated to perfection and then shaped with passion and tenderness. And afterward, she would make sure that whatever happened between them cooled slowly—just like her sculptures—to prevent anything from cracking or shattering.

Their love affair was going to be a masterpiece.

She would make sure of it.

CHAPTERTWO

She was here at last.

Sophie.

Her name might still be new to lips, but his heart beat steadily when he thought of her, and he had since his former sister-in-law Sorcha—now the unofficial matchmaking ghost of Caisleán—had told him a few weeks ago that he and Sophie were soulmates.

He believed it without doubt. Before and even more so now, having seen her.

Sorcha’s track record was true. One by one, his boyhood friends had all found their soulmates in the women Sorcha had named for them.

He’d volunteered to be part of the greeting party for Sophie and her daughter today, wanting to be one of the first people to welcome them to their new home. Some might say he was putting the cart before the horse, but ghosts were always right in Ireland. And, indeed, he’d felt something in his very being when he first met her—the kind of slow falling a star makes through the dark sky on a cold Irish night.

She was his.

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