For all her reluctance to suck up to the Crann Mor people, Maura found that she was nervous the next morning as she got ready for her lunch. She was out of her comfort zone in classy places. In Boston, she’d walked by the Ritz-Carlton and the Parker House and peered in the windows, but she’d always been afraid that if she walked in the door, a gang of bouncers wearing fancy uniforms with gold braid would grab her and escort her out again. She just didn’t belong.

She stared at her one pair of black pants, bought at a thrift shop in Skibbereen. With a decent sweater over it, they would have to do. And why was she even worrying? Crann Mor was nothing to do with her. Besides, she wasn’t planning to hang out there long—she had to get back to Sullivan’s. She had a business to run.

When she arrived at the hotel, she parked and turned off the car engine, then studied the place. It wasn’t exactly what she had expected. For one thing, it didn’t look like a hotel. Instead, it looked like the manor house it had once been. There was a wide graveled parking area and a two-story stucco house with three chimneys facing it—big, but not exactly a castle. A chunky covered porch sat at one end, and in the middle was a large arched window over an equally wide round window at ground level. No tacky signs, of course. No “Enter Here” or “This Way to Registration.” Maura couldn’t see anything except the hotel’s buildings from where she stood, although the place wasn’t far from Skibbereen. The driveway had to be half a mile long. How much property did the owners have here? And which fat-cat Englishman had owned it before it became a hotel?

Helen was waiting for her under the porch thingy—portico! That was the word she’d been looking for—and stepped forward, smiling. “Maura! I’m so glad you came!”

“I said I’d be here.” She had to admit that she still wasn’t sure what she was doing here. She could have said no and ended the whole thing before it even started, but no doubt Mick would have been disappointed, which seemed to matter to her.

“Well, please come in. Would you like a tour now, or would you rather go ahead and eat?”

“I can’t take too much time off from the pub. Maybe we should take a quick look around, then eat. If that’s okay.”

“Of course. Why don’t we go around the side?” Helen led the way around the end of the building. “I think I mentioned that this place has a long history. The property belonged to the O’Donovan family for a long time, although this house wasn’t built until the 1850s. You probably know something about the local O’Donovans, since you bear their name, although I must say, who is descended from whom is a murky mess that genealogists are still fighting over. But they go way back. This was kind of their last fling around here. Once they sold this place, it had English and American and even Swiss owners. It’s been a hotel on and off, but also a site for rock concerts, food and art festivals, and more recently weddings and public events.”

“And it’s a hotel now? Or again?”

“Yes, that’s right. It’s got twenty-five rooms in two main buildings, plus the lodge, and our restaurant features locally sourced food, much of it grown on-site behind that row of buildings there.” Helen waved vaguely at a long single-story building off to the right. “For those guests who are interested in fishing, there’s a fifty-acre lake down the hill there”—Helen pivoted and pointed past the main building—“and also some limited boating. And, of course, there are some wonderful walks, although it’s hard to appreciate them so early in the year. By summer they should be glorious.”

Sullivan’s was in no way in the same class as this mellow, gracious place, which clearly catered to people with money. Sullivan’s most definitely did not. “You sound really into the place,” Maura said. “Are you going to be based here permanently?”

“Oh, no, my home’s in Chicago—that’s where the company is located, although we all travel a lot. But I believe in doing my homework and in being thorough. There are so many wonderful options, both here on the estate and in the surrounding area, and I need to explore them all to know what we can offer our guests. Would you like to go in now?”

“Sure, fine,” Maura said.

She followed Helen through the main entrance, trying to maintain a neutral expression at the sight of soaring ceilings, elegant groupings of upholstered furniture, and a reception desk discreetly tucked into a corner. Helen kept going toward the back, then stepped through some multipaned glass doors into the restaurant, a large room with a bank of windows on the far side overlooking what were probably the gorgeous and famous gardens. It was barely noon, so there were few people in the room, and Helen guided her to a table for two near a window, apart from the other diners.

A waiter appeared as soon as their backsides hit the chairs, Maura noted, and handed them each menus printed on heavy paper stock, then retreated silently. “Would you like something to drink before we eat, Maura?” Helen offered.

“Coffee’s okay,” Maura told her. “Friday’s usually a busy day at the pub, and I’ll have to get back.”

Helen must have raised an invisible finger because the waiter reappeared in seconds. “Two coffees, please.” The waiter disappeared again, as though he was running on wheels.

“What do you like to eat?” Helen returned her attention to Maura. “The chef here is outstanding, and everything I’ve had is good.”

“I’m not picky. Why don’t you decide?” Maura watched Helen scan the menu. “Is this your first trip here?”

“Actually, yes. I wasn’t part of the initial discussions when we learned the site was available. But once we’d acquired it, I was promoted and joined the team.”

“You’ve run hotels before?”

“Oh, I don’t run them. I plan them. I coordinate the departments—hospitality, food service, promotion, event planning, and the like—and I keep a close eye on budgeting for each. At the risk of sounding crass, while we want to offer our guests a memorable experience in a small hotel, we also want to make money doing it. After all, we have investors to think of.”

The waiter reappeared, and Helen delivered their orders after a brief conversation. Maura waited until he had retreated to what she assumed was the kitchen. “It really is nice, and I could see why people would enjoy staying here, but what’s it got to do with Sullivan’s? We might as well be in a different universe.”

Helen studied her for a moment. “You grew up around Boston, right? So you know what a city is like. Our investor group does have city properties in the places you’d expect, including Dublin, but we know that isn’t what all people want. There are those groups who want to get their business done in a more relaxed setting, someplace removed from the usual busy corporate life. We’ve found that in many cases, that makes group meetings more efficient and productive. So here, we want to bring people to a reasonably luxurious place, which is what they’re accustomed to—but also to offer them a diversity of experiences. Like visiting prehistoric ruins or touring a distillery or whale watching. Or, as in your case, hearing contemporary music. We’ve done our research, and Sullivan’s is famous in its own way. Haven’t you had people coming in who talk about the good old days? And then stay to listen?”

“I guess. But most of the groups who come in are pretty young—more my age than yours.”

“Still, the tradition of music at Sullivan’s lives on, doesn’t it?” The food appeared, and the waiter distributed it carefully—no clanking of plates, all the silverware neatly lined up, water glasses topped off. Maura felt an urge to grab her napkin in case the guy took it into his head to tuck it into her lap for her.

“What about you, Maura? How did you end up here? If you don’t mind my asking.”

Maura didn’t like to talk about herself, but she thought it would be rude to just brush off Helen’s question. “Most people are pretty curious about that. ‘What’s a young American woman doing running a pub in West Cork?’ The basic story is that I was raised by my grandmother, who kept in touch with family and friends around here. Mick Sullivan, who owned the place, was some kind of cousin or something. He didn’t have any children or other close family, so he and my gran cooked up the idea to leave it to me. Gran told me that when she died, I should come over and say her farewells, and when I got here, some lawyer dumped the pub and Mick’s house into my lap, free and clear. End of story.”

Helen smiled. “Not exactly. You’re still here. You could have sold the whole lot and gone back to Boston.”

Maura shrugged. “I didn’t have any reason to go back, really. No family, no place to go back to, no job.”

“Did you have any business experience before you arrived here?”

“I had plenty of dead-end jobs, like waitressing, and a couple of night-school courses under my belt. Did I ever run anything? No way.”

“And now you’ve got a business and a staff. How many?”

Maura had a hard time thinking of her employees as a staff. “Well, Mick. And Jimmy and his daughter. They all came with the place, and they stayed on. And me. That’s about it.”

“Do you have a business plan?” Helen asked.

Maura snorted. “Yeah, staying alive. Paying the bills. Keeping the customers I’ve got.”

“But you added the music back, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Maura admitted reluctantly. “But it just sort of happened when this guy who used to be kind of famous showed up one day and said he’d play, and that attracted some of his old music buddies, and then people started showing up to hear them. I can’t take the credit for it.”

“But you went with it. I may sound like a corporate wonk, but that’s the kind of real experience I want our guests to have. Call it luck, serendipity, or magic. Anybody can call up a bunch of players who know all the old songs and sit them down together, and they’d probably produce a respectable evening of music. But what’s happening in your place is different. Can you see that?”

Maura took a moment to taste her lunch—and avoid Helen’s eyes. Damn, the food was good. She didn’t want to get used to it, because she knew she could never make anything like it. She wasn’t even sure what it was. Maura wondered if there was a way to get Rose into the dining room here to try this stuff. She could probably figure it out.

“Maura?” Helen interrupted her thoughts.

“Oh, right. Look, I’m the new kid here. We’ve made it through my first year, and even in that time, things have changed. I’ve learned a lot, but I’m still learning. Now you walk in and tell me you want to change things according to your own plan, and I’m just not ready for that. I kinda like things the way they are, and so do the people who come in to drink and talk. They don’t want fancy; they want comfortable.”

Helen nodded. “Maura, I understand. Really. Look, on our end, we’re still in the early stages here. We’re looking at all the possibilities. We don’t want to impose our changes on you, believe me. All I’m asking is that you think about it. If you don’t want to move forward, so be it. It won’t be the first time we’ve heard no.”

Mick’s comment rose up in her memory. “Say we did go ahead. How would I benefit—apart from a few more people buying drinks?”

“You mean, is there money attached? Possibly. For instance, we could ask that you guarantee two or three performances a month, maybe coordinated with events we might be planning, and in return, we guarantee to cover certain expenses—maybe a fixed stipend, or maybe we’d pay some or all of the bands’ fees up front. You wouldn’t lose, I promise, and we’d have to work out the details. But will you at least think about it?”

“I’ll run it by my staff,” Maura said, her mouth quirking in a half smile. “What’s your time frame with Crann Mor?”

“Maybe a soft opening in summer if everything works out.”

“Soft?” Maura asked, confused.

“Yes—we’d open the place to guests, but without a lot of fanfare. The grand opening could come later, after we’ve worked out any glitches.”

“If you and your guys are based in the US, who’s going to be running the show here?”

“Probably a mix of local managers and some of our own. Let me tell you, our people are eager to relocate, at least for a year or two. West Cork has a great reputation.”

“Well, then, I’ll think about it all. Look, I’d better get back to work. The food is really great here. Is there a separate bar?”

“Of course. We can walk out that way. Checking out the competition?”

Maura gave a brief laugh. “I don’t think I have to worry.”