‘I think I got the message loud and clear. I don’t suppose it occurs to you that I never thought I’d see you again and that what happened in Dublin was supposed to stay in Dublin. It certainly wasn’t meant to travel.’
‘Grand. So we’re on the same page.’
‘Yes. We can both be grown up about it and move on.’
‘That sounds like a good idea given we’ve got to share a home for the next week or so. Truce.’ He held out his hand. She took it deliberately, making her handshake firm and business-like, ignoring the persistent thought that these very hands had roved all over her body.
‘Fresh start,’ she agreed. ‘Dublin never happened.’
‘Dublin never happened.’ Conor nodded, putting the subject to bed once and for all.
When both of them exhaled a relieved sigh, they glanced at each other. Conor rolled his eyes and Hannah laughed at him.
They walked in silence until the cottage came into view, the yellow walls glowing in the evening sunshine.
‘Lovely night,’ she said wistfully, looking at the golden-tipped clouds strewn across the pearly-blue sky. For some reason she didn’t want to go inside just yet.
‘There’ll be a great sunset on the beach. Want to go down?’
‘Yes.’ Hannah said quickly, realising that she was delaying the moment they had to go inside. Perhaps spending time outside with Conor first might help her acclimatise to him being around.
‘Just let me drop my bag off.’
He let himself into the cottage – with his own key, she noticed – and left the holdall in the hallway, and then together they strolled down the path to the beach. Two birds took flight, their haunting plaintive cries echoing over the quiet fields.
‘Curlews,’ said Conor as she lifted her head to watch them, fascinated. ‘See the very distinctive long, curved beak.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘Don’t be. I’ve just picked it up living here over the years.’
‘Do you know what the birds on the beach are, the little long-legged ones that seem to run in and out with the tide?’
‘Probably redshanks. Funny things, you can watch them for hours.’
She nodded with a jolt of recognition; she loved their antics and had indeed watched them for a long time the other day on the beach with Izzy.
‘Did you miss all this’ – she waved her hand at the view – ‘when you were away? It’s a long way from New York.’ She wanted to ask if that was why he’d come back but it felt a bit too nosy and intrusive. She couldn’t imagine giving up somewhere like that to come back here to what seemed like… nothing. It was so quiet and she was guessing there wasn’t a 24/7 for miles.
‘Always. I loved the buzz of New York. It’s frenetic but I had to do it at the time to establish myself and there’s a love of the Irish in New York; they just hear the accent and they want to know you.’ He paused as he hauled himself over the fence and then waited to make sure she got over safely. ‘Then I moved to LA. In some ways it was more laidback, but I never really felt I fitted in. That was a means to an end and I didn’t feel at home there, not at all. And then I came back to Dublin, having made my name, and I got a backer who opened the restaurant. RTE asked me to do a cookery show for them which I thought would be great publicity for the restaurant, so I couldn’t say no and’ – he lifted his shoulders – ‘it all went wild.’ A musing smile touched his lips. ‘And I thought I could do anything. Have anything. But sometimes even that isn’t enough.’
‘Sounds a bit cryptic.’ She lifted her head, hearing the wash and rush of the sea as they came down to the road.
‘It’s all I’m saying.’
‘Do you miss it?’
‘What, cooking? Fame? Being a’ – he held up fingers in quote marks as they crossed to the track down to the beach– ‘“celebrity”? No. I love it here. And what about you? What’s your story? What’s a lawyer doing at a cookery school? Burnt out too?’
‘No. I’ve worked since I left school. I fancied a sabbatical.’
‘There must have been something that made you decide.’
She laughed. ‘It’s boring.’
They stopped on the edge of the beach. The tide was a long way out leaving a wide expanse of beach striated with patterns of shell fragments and darker sand. Shallow water rippled and undulated across the surface, sparkling with fractured sunlight.
‘Come on. Let’s walk as far as we can. We’ll head back as the sun starts to set.’
