A Woman's Heart

Having tacked on the last without taking time to censor her words, Nora feared he’d take offense, but he surprised her by flashing a grin that came and went so quickly she thought perhaps she’d imagined it.

“Point taken.”

The brief argument, if it could, indeed, even be called an argument, appeared to have burned off his dark mood, like a July sun burns off cold morning fog.

“I think I’d like to see the lake,” Quinn said, “if you have time.”

Although holding a grudge was nearly a national pastime, Nora had never been able to keep a decent pique going. She smiled, pleased at the opportunity to share one of her favorite places with him. “We have a saying here in Ireland, Mr. Gallagher—when God made time, he made plenty of it.”

Chapter Seven

Whatever You Say, Say Nothing

Less than five minutes later Nora pulled off to the side of the road. “It’s a bit of a walk. But a lovely one, just the same.”

“I could use some exercise.” Once again Quinn figured the fresh air might help banish the remnants of his hangover and jet lag.

“It might help clear away any lingering Jameson fog,” she said with a smile, revealing similar thinking.

Quinn started to remind her she hadn’t locked the car door, then realized there was probably no need, which left him feeling a lot like Dorothy after the tornado had blown her out of Kansas. Ireland might not exactly be Oz. But it sure as hell wasn’t California, either.

They passed a cemetery like the ones he’d seen while driving around in circles, a somber place of high crosses standing like silent sentinels and rounded gravestones covered with pale green moss. A few of the more recent stones had been decorated with arrangements of colorful plastic flowers in domed containers.

The narrow well-worn path meandered through the hills like a tangled fishing line, crossing meadows lush with blue lupine, wild roses and strawberries. After climbing for about ten minutes, they came upon a mound of earth blanketed with yellow poppies and decorated with stones.

“It’s a cairn,” Nora explained, “built about five thousand years ago. There are quite a few of them around this part of the country.”

“It’s a tomb, right?”

“Of sorts. There’s probably a passage below leading to a central burial chamber. The early ones believed in an afterlife, so they often buried their loved ones with tools, weapons or household goods.”

Quinn, who always prided himself on his research, knew about the pre-Christian burial sites. But reading about something in a dry archeological text was vastly different from actually standing right beside it. This place hidden in the green folds of the mountain had gone unchanged for millennia; memories of that long-ago heroic time and shadows of a mysterious faith hovered over the site like ghosts standing guard over an ancient past.

He paused and drank in the atmosphere, breathing deeply of air scented with golden hollyhock and something else he could not quite define. Then he rubbed at the tingling sensation at the back of his neck.

“I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife,” he said. “But here…it sure feels as if some spirits might have lingered on.” He could almost hear the eerie sound of ghostly voices floating on the breeze.

Nora gave him a surprised look that quickly turned to pleasure. “Sometimes, you know, I come here and talk to the early ones. I tell them my troubles, and strangely, things seem better when I leave. Although I suspect it’s just the telling, getting it off my chest, as you Yanks would say, that lifts my spirits.”

“That, or magic,” Quinn suggested.

The soft color he was beginning to enjoy too much for comfort rose high on her cheekbones again. “Listen to me, going on so,” she protested with that soft cadence that strummed dangerous chords inside him. “You’ll be thinking I’m just a foolish culchie.”

Quinn lifted a brow. “Culchie?”

“It means a country person. Usually a daft or stupid one.”

“Ah.” He nodded and felt an unaccustomed smile tugging at the corners of his mouth again. “A bumpkin.” The breeze was blowing her hair in a wild tangle around her flushed face in a way that put him in mind of a Botticelli maiden.

“A bumpkin.” She appeared to consider that. “Is that how you see me, then? As a fanciful and foolish country bumpkin?”

Fanciful she might be. Foolish? Quinn didn’t think so. Although a more cautious woman would probably know enough to take off running right about now.

Some errant strands of fiery silk blew across her face. When he reached out to brush them back, she went as still as one of the stone crosses they’d passed earlier.

“I certainly don’t consider you a bumpkin. Although I have to admit I’ve never met a woman who had the imagination to carry on conversations with Stone Age ancestors.”

This time the color flamed to the roots of her hair. “We’d best be continuing on if we want to reach the lake before it rains.”

Unlike every photograph he’d ever seen of Ireland, there wasn’t a cloud to be seen anywhere in the robin’s-egg blue sky.

“Good idea,” he heard himself saying as she looked up at him, wary, but fascinated, the way one might stare at a pretty, poisonous snake. He watched her exhale a brief shuddering breath. Then, squaring her slender shoulders, she turned away and resumed walking.

They left the trail, Nora scrambling over rocks as nimbly as one of the black-legged sheep he could see grazing in distant meadows. The mountains they were walking over were ancient, headed toward dust. Although they weren’t as bold and breathtaking as the jagged mountains he was accustomed to, Quinn found them strangely soothing.

“Aye, they can be a solace,” Nora answered after he’d shared his thoughts. “Of course some people view them as prison walls. Keeping them locked into a place, or in a life that’s not all they’d like it to be.”

Quinn wondered if she might have just given him a little insight into her marriage to that hotshot rider on the European equestrian circuit Brady had told him about. Suddenly they came to a towering hedge ablaze with shocking pink fuchsia. The thick, seemingly impenetrable greenery extended in both directions for as far as the eye could see.

“Looks like we’ve just hit a dead end,” he said.

“Oh, there’s a passageway that leads to the lough. I like to fool myself that it’s my own secret entrance,” she added with a soft laugh.

Quinn followed her through the bright fragrant passageway, then stopped dead in his tracks as he gazed down into a valley of unparalleled beauty. The lake, surrounded by feather-crowned reeds that swayed in the breeze, was a splash of glistening sapphire satin on a mottled green carpet.

“It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

“Lovely doesn’t begin to describe it.” His voice was hushed, almost reverential, as if he’d entered a cathedral. “It’s stunning. And so…peaceful.”

The only sounds were the soft sigh of the breeze and the buzzing drone of fat bees flying from flower to vivid flower. Quinn could hear himself breathe.

“We have a saying—ciunas gan uagineas. It means quietness without loneliness. I’m always reminded of that when I come here.”

“Ciunas gan uagineas.” Quinn struggled to wrap his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables. “It fits.”

“Doesn’t it? I suppose you know the legend of how the Lady arrived in the lake in the first place.”

“Actually, I don’t. I just ran across a mention of her in an article about Irish mermaids and let my imagination fill in the blanks.” Besides, when it came to monsters, Quinn figured he had enough lurking in his own mind to keep writing long into old age. “But now that I’m here, I’d like to hear it.”

“Oh, it’s a lovely tale. And far better told by Da. But I’ll try my best not to disappoint you,” she said in the soft swaying tones that made him think of fairies dancing in the moonlight.

“The lake was once the site of a splendid kingdom ruled over by a beautiful benevolent queen,” she began. “She had long flowing yellow hair that fell down her back in waves and glittered like a leprechaun’s gold beneath a full summer sun.

“Because she was as good as she was lovely, the gods had rewarded the people of her kingdom by bestowing upon them a marvelous gift—a sweet spring whose waters brought youth to all who drank of it.”

“So this is where the Fountain of Youth’s been hiding all these years,” Quinn said.

“Aye.” Her eyes sparkled with humor. “It’s a secret we’ve kept well to prevent ourselves from being overrun by even more tourists.” She paused, then went on, “At any rate, the queen had instructed that the spring be capped every night with a large stone so it couldn’t flow out and flood the valley.