Chapter 28

On the coach to Dublin, Avery barely spared a glance at the pretty towns and rolling hills she’d sworn to explore in more depth on her return trip. Her neck was stiff from focusing down on her iPad, but the fans were ravenous.

-Will you go back and try again?

-What happened? Why did he give up?

Doing her utmost to remain upbeat, she answered, “Duty called. Cathal will try again soon and we’ll pick up the story then.” After a dozen such assurances, she logged off, fed up.

He couldn’t try soon—everything was booked until September. He’d have to wait until next year. He was back on his farm now, doing his thing with his pigs and hens and bees, probably already wringing his hands about his next opportunity to scatter his father’s ashes. Or maybe just getting ready for another day at the office tomorrow.

Dublin City should have been a highlight of her trip, but she let herself be dragged like a zombie along the tried-and-tested tourist trails, through the cobblestoned courtyards of Trinity College, down bustling Grafton Street with its buskers and riotous mix of people and cultures, across Temple Bar, the haven of hipster coolness, but everything seemed lacking in the wild magical quality that had imbued the cliffs of Kerry. Or maybe it was just her.

Instead of soaking in the atmosphere of the pubs and doing a live Facebook or Instagram broadcast like a good internet celebrity, she went into hermit mode and checked into her airport hotel for an early night. She resisted the temptation to call him. She wriggled under the covers, determined to sleep it off and restart her life tomorrow.

The sooner she was in the air, the better.

*

Avery had barely removed her nose from the window since takeoff. They’d be cruising over the west coast of Ireland in ten minutes if she’d calculated it correctly. The middle-aged lady in pink to her right must think her very antisocial, but she really didn’t want interaction of any kind right now. Which was why she was wearing headphones even though she wasn’t listening to anything.

She was mesmerized by how gentle the Atlantic looked from up here—azure blue under the morning sun, with its white-frilled edge lapping away at the jagged emerald coastline. They were over County Kerry, with its four oddly shaped peninsulas jutting like fingers into the sea. Skellig Michael was only a dot in the ocean and she couldn’t see it. But she imagined she could feel its power.

She located the M6 motorway, an artery running across Ireland’s midlands, southwest to northeast, and pictured Cathal yesterday, an agitated driver, racing along it to get home to whatever disasters awaited him there.

May the Force be with you, Cathal.

A tear trickled from the corner of her eye and made a path down her cheek. She rubbed it away with her fist. Last thing she wanted was to attract anyone’s sympathy.

The plane hit a wall of clouds so there was nothing more to see. The next clear view through that Perspex would be the lights of LA. Her Ireland trip was officially finito.

She forced her attention back to her cocoon of gadgets and in-flight services, but before long her thoughts homed in on him. She reminded herself of what she had achieved. Why couldn’t she enjoy the hard-earned pleasure of it all?

Moping wasn’t going to pay her bills. Now that she had an investor on her tail, she really needed to shape up. The first thing she needed for that meeting on Monday was an up-to- date killer business plan, drawing on everything she and Gordon had discussed. It was non-negotiable, especially the “killer” part.

She grappled for the laptop case under the seat in front. For the next few hours, she had internet downtime. That should give her time to sketch up the business plan and, if lucky, to catch up on some blog posts she’d been neglecting for the past two weeks.

Yeah, it was good to be busy again.

*

Avery had the same irritated, groggy, spaced-out feeling she usually got after a long-distance flight. With the stopover in Chicago, she’d been travelling for over eleven hours and felt icky. On top of that, she hadn’t got as much done as she’d have liked, so she felt guilty. She’d dozed off halfway over the Atlantic because of the stuffy air and sheer exhaustion.

As she trundled out of arrivals with R2-D2 and headed toward the taxi ranks, it felt like midnight but the local time was 2 p.m. It was a normal, busy, hot afternoon and everyone else seemed, unfairly, to have twice as much energy as her.

Everything was familiar and yet, changed. They said it didn’t matter where you went in the world; you always took yourself with you, you always felt the same. But here in the familiar dust of home, she felt different, as if inside her chest, underneath all the usual feelings of panic and inadequacy, two massive hands were cradling her heart that hadn’t been there before. And to make that heart squeeze, all she had to do was picture his smile.

But how long would that last?

She joined the ranks of resigned-looking travelers in the taxi queue. She’d have asked Jeremy to pick her up, but she didn’t want to be indebted to him. She wanted him under her thumb while she got this going.

So it was ironic that when the taxi pulled up to the sidewalk outside her apartment, Jeremy was sitting on her doorstep.

“What are you doing here?” She trundled up to him with R2-D2 and gave him a warning look.

“You didn’t answer your phone. I must have called you ten times. I thought you were home by now.”

“Well, I am now. What’s up?”

“Can I come in at least?”

She sighed. “Come on then.”

“Gordon called again,” Jeremy said. “He wants things moving fast. There’s another group vying for attention too, and he hinted it was winner take all.”

“He’s playing hard to get?” she said in disgust.

“They’re all snakes.”

“Yeah, but I thought he was different.”

“You’ve obviously softened up on your trip to Ireland.”

“No, I freaking well haven’t. You got your laptop with you? You ready to work right now?”

“Is the sky blue?” Jeremy tapped the laptop case by his side.

“Let’s see who these bastards are and blast them to another universe.”

Looked like it was going to be another long pizza-delivery night for them.