I didn’t think he was one of the resort people—oh,but he could be, couldn’t he?They may have sent him over to spy on us.
That thought amused me. The resort people,thoseYankees, didn’t think we were enough of a threat to mount such a stratagem.
Jax and I climbed the stairs, and they creaked, just like they’d been for the past hundred years. My mam, God rest her soul, had started to rent out the rooms upstairs when she and my da bought the farm—so we became The Banshee’s Rest Pub& Inn.
The inn had housed drunks, husbands who were kicked out of their homes, lost tourists, and now, apparently, a professional golfer.
Unlike Paddy, I was familiar with golfing being a popular sport, especially with all the golf courses we had in Ireland, but then our Padraig lived in his bubble. Ask him about a car engine, and he’d talk your ear off. Ask him about beer, and he’d be able to tell you the hops, the malt, and the exact year the brewery changed their feckin’ formula—but ask him about anything else, and you’d get a grunt and a shrug if you’re lucky.
As we reached the landing, I saw his shoes.
Designer sneakers? Really? The brand was Balenciaga. That pair could probably pay my farm mortgage for a few months.
It wasn’t like I had a problem with wealthy people. I liked money just as much as the next person. I just didn’t understand why a body would need so much of it. I mean, just enough to have a home, eat and drink,and maybe go on a vacation here and there—what else was there?
Apparently, designer shoes, I thought caustically.
And he called mema’am, like I was somebody’s granny shuffling around in orthopedic shoes…or the feckin’ Queen. But he said it with an American accent, so it sounded extra weirdandmaybe just a little charming. Only a little!
I glanced over my shoulder as I shoved open the door to one of the four rooms we had.
“Here we are.”
He stepped inside, looking around like he was touring a bloody museum.
The room was small, sure, but it was clean.
A queen-size bed sat against the far wall, its quilt patched with a hundred shades of green and blue.
A small dresser sat under the window, and a framed photo of the Cliffs of Moher hung on the wall, slightly crooked because I hadn’t gotten around to fixing it.
“This is very cozy,” he said, sounding like feckin’ Rhett Butler fromGone With The Wind.
He walked past me to the window and looked out. For a moment, he didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t help but wonder what the hell he was thinking.
“Wow,” he murmured, almost reverently.
I rolled my eyes, though my heart fluttered with pride.
“It’s just a view,” Iremarked flippantly.
But I knew that it wasn’tjustanything.
The room looked out over the rolling green hills of Ballybeg, dotted with dry-stone walls that zigzagged like old scars across the land. In the distance, you could just make out the edge of the cliffs, rising against the crashing waves of the Atlantic.
The sea shimmered like silver in the late morning light, the kind of wild beauty that made you catch your breath no matter how many times you’d seen it.
Wow,was indeed right.
“It’s stunning.” He glanced back at me.
“It’s raining.”
“And yet, I could sit here and stare out of this window for hours.”
I snorted, though warmed by his compliment. “Some of us have work to do and not just push a ball around on the green.”
I had no idea why I was being such a bitch to him.
