The Irish Lover by Lila Dubois

music.
    “Just checking to make sure she survived the
trip.” Tim raised his precious fiddle, saluting his friend with
it.
    “I told you it would be fine. Let’s shove off,
then.”
    “Okay, let me…” But the girl was gone. Tim
stared at the empty stage. Her harp was there, which was a good
thing since if it hadn’t been, Tim might have wondered he’d just
experienced some jet lag-induced hallucination.
    “You play the harp now, Yank?” Paddy ambled up
the center aisle to stand beside him.
    “There was a girl.” Tim pointed at the harp
with his bow. In the few moments he’d been talking to Paddy, back
to the stage, she’d disappeared.
    Paddy rolled his eyes. He had an unremarkable
round face, curly brown hair and a voice that could make angels
weep. “Ah, sure there was.”
    Holding the neck of his fiddle and bow in one
hand, Tim rubbed the back of his head.
    “She was playing the harp, so I joined in.
There was a girl, I swear.”
    “Was she pretty?”
    “Gorgeous.”
    “Quiet-like?”
    “Yea, how’d you know?” Maybe she was a musician
who’d just been added to the program. That would make
sense.
    Paddy laughed. “Welcome to Ireland. We
specialize in beautiful, mysterious women.”
     

Chapter Two: The Cold
Within
     
    The first drops of rain and accompanying wind
followed Tim and Paddy through the front doors of Glenncailty
Castle. Outside it was raining and sunny at the same time. Tim was
beginning to understand why Ireland was famous for its
rainbows.
    “Is this the pretty girl you met?” Paddy’s
whisper was loud enough to carry, but the thunk of the doors
closing behind them drowned out the words.
    Tim blinked at the gorgeous redhead waiting in
the massive foyer beyond the castle’s double doors. There was no
doubt she was beautiful, but she wasn’t the harp player.
    “No, that’s not her.”
    “Well then, I think she’s mine.”
    Tim snorted. “You couldn’t get her.”
    “Put a guitar in my hands and I could have
anyone. When I’m playing, I’m quite the catch.”
    “What happens when you put the guitar down?”
They were almost to the redhead, so Tim kept his voice
low.
    “These fingers are still magic.”
    “Gentlemen, you’re very welcome to Glenncailty
Castle. We’re looking forward to hearing you perform tomorrow
night.” The look on her face said she’d heard some of their
conversation, and her small smile twitched with amusement. “I’m
Sorcha, guest relations manager here, and I’ll be helping you check
in.”
    She gestured to the left side of the foyer,
where a long reception desk waited. The foyer was almost square,
with a massive wood staircase opposite the double entrance doors.
The floor was black and white stone—not tile, Tim noticed, but
honest black and white stone—set in a check pattern, dull from
three hundred years of feet. The walls were mint green above the
waist-high paneling and the furniture heavy, dark wood. Wheeling
his bag behind him, fiddle case under his arm, Tim followed Paddy
and Sorcha to the registration desk, where an ethereally pretty
blonde with an accent he couldn’t place helped him. There was no
massive counter or huge computer terminal, just a laptop and a
printer somewhere under the desk. When he’d answered her questions
and signed the needed forms, she opened a drawer to hand him a gold
key. An actual metal key.
    “Never seen a key before?” Paddy elbowed him in
the ribs.
    Tim tossed it in his hand. “Never gotten one
from a hotel.”
    Sorcha came around from behind the desk. “I’ll
show you to your rooms and then we can go on a tour if you feel up
to it. Otherwise you can rest before having dinner. Mr. Wilcox, I
know you’ve come a long way.”
    “We already saw some of your beautiful castle.”
Paddy was laying it on thick. “Tim was worried for his fiddle, so
we went first to the barn.”
    “So you’ve seen Finn’s Stable? It’s a beautiful
venue, and its reputation for live music and performances has