The woman, who was probably in her forties and looked like she was in better shape than Irina herself, hooted and echoed the steps, then said, "Do you know this piece?" as she signaled something to the musicians.
Irina gasped in both anticipation and horror when a familiar piece of music rose. She did know it: it was from the tv broadcast that had thrown Irish dancing onto the world stage. She and half her step-dancing friends had learned it from watching it online millions of times, and then from nagging teachers to show them the steps they couldn't get on their own. It was complex, fast, and not the kind of challenge she would have expected to encounter in a pub. "Oh God, no, I can't."
"Can you not?" The woman certainly could, throwing herself into the dance with a confidence Irina could only dream of matching. She raised her eyebrows at Irina, then beckoned her.
With a faltering laugh, Irina joined in, rough on the first few steps, but…well, her feet knew what to do, and within a few seconds they were dancing together, breathless with concentration as the whole pub began to clap in time with the music, cheering and calling out support. When the music ended, Irina and the other woman more or less fell over on each other in a hug, both laughing. "Brilliant! You're very good! I'm Fiona O'Rourke. It's lovely to meet a fellow dancer."
"Irina Zarabaka," Irina said shyly. "You're fantastic. I couldn't really keep up."
"Ah, well, old age and treachery will beat youth and enthusiasm every time," Fiona said with a grin. "Nah, it's just loads of practice. You were very good. But I don't know you? You're American, is it? Or Canadian?"
"American, yes. I'm here for the dance competition at the opera house this week."
Fiona's eyes narrowed. "Ah, yes. Bit of an old boy's club there like, but I'm sure you'll do well. Can't ignore talent."
"There are an awful lot of very good dancers there," Irina said dubiously. "I thought I'd done well in the first round, but my scores weren't great."
"She was robbed," Mick put in. Irina hadn't realized he was close enough to hear over the din that had arisen after their dance, but sent him a grateful smile.
"He's very nice, but I'm not sure he's right."
"If you danced like that, he is," Fiona said. "I'll see if I can't come by to watch you at the finals. Best of luck, yeh?"
Irina brightened with another smile. "Thank you. That would be amazing. And thanks for letting me try to keep up with you!"
Fiona laughed. "Any time, pet. You're only brilliant, and don't you forget it!" She merged back into the crowd, shouting at somebody to pass her drink back to her, and Irina turned to Mick, smiling.
"Thank you for stopping to talk to me this evening. I would have gone home and had a miserable night, but you've turned it into an amazing one."
"Any time, macushla. Do you want to close the bar down, or get some sleep before your photo shoot tomorrow?"
Irina groaned. "I'd forgotten about that. I'd better go back to the hotel and sleep. But you meant it, right? About dinner?" She bit the inside of her cheek at her brashness in asking, but she really wanted to see this giant, kind man again.
"Wild horses couldn't stop me," Mick promised. "Let me walk you home, and then—oh, I should give you my number."
"Or we might have a hard time hooking up," Irina agreed. "Meeting!Meeting up!"
Mick, with some visible effort, managed to fight down a laugh. "It would be, yeh. All right, c'mere to me then." Irina changed her shoes and they left the pub with as much ease as they'd gone in, Mick cutting through the crowd like the prow ofa ship. The street outside was shockingly quiet, and Irina's ears suddenly rang from the change in intensity.
"That's part of why we wear headphones," Mick said with a smile as she opened and closed her mouth like that could clear the ringing from her ears. "All right, not to be a creeper, but where's your hotel, macushla?"
"Just up around the block, actually." Irina tried one more time to clear her ears, gave up on it, and went up the block, away from the river and around the corner to the hotel that was less than a three minute walk from the Sin É pub. "Convenient, isn't it?"
"In all ways except for letting me spend more time in your company," Mick said gallantly. "No, though, it's grand, and all but straight across the river from the opera house. You couldn't ask for better. What time are you in Kinsale tomorrow?"
"I think we're leaving at ten? The photo shoot is at noon, but aside from that it's a day off."
"Brilliant. I'll see you there and then it's sailing and supper. Oh, my number." Mick rattled it off while Irina put it into her phone, then held the hotel door for her like a perfect gentleman.
Irina glanced back once she was in the hotel, and saw him still watching, like he wanted one last glimpse of her before they parted ways. She waved, he smiled, and that, Irina thought, made for a pretty perfect night.
CHAPTER 6
Mick was fairlycertain Irina had said the competitors' bus left Cork at ten, which meant they wouldn't be in Kinsale until eleven.
He was in Kinsale by ten o'clock, himself. Just in case. He drove out to Charles Fort, a spectacular fort built in the shape of a starburst. There was loads of parking available at that hour, so he parked and he took himself for a walk through the fort while waiting for the dancers to arrive. It had been ages since he'd walked through the place, not since he was a kid. It was in better nick than he remembered. Last time he'd been through, the restoration of the fort had been underway, but loads had been accomplished since then, and it was both easier and more difficult to see how people had lived and worked in the space for centuries. Literally centuries—it had been built in the late sixteen hundreds, and used up until the Irish Civil War not much more than a hundred years ago now.
He climbed up to the Devil's Bastion—one of the bits of the fort that pointed out toward the ocean—and grinned into the brisk morning wind and the soft light falling over the sea. Gulls screamed as they rode the updrafts and dove for fish, sometimeslooking as if they'd dive straight into one of the sailboats spilling out of the town's protected harbor. This was what he missed, traveling around Europe. The cool fresh sea air and the scent of salt and fish. That and the cadence of the Irish accent.
