Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Exit Unicorns Series Book 2) Read online

  Also by Cindy Brandner

  Exit Unicorns (Book 1 - Exit Unicorns Series)

  Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears (Book 2 - Exit Unicorns Series)

  Flights of Angels (Book 3 - Exit Unicorns Series)

  Cindy Brandner

  Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears

  Starry Night Press

  Copyright © 2007 Cindy Brandner

  The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the author is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Cover design by Stevie Blaue

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published in Canada by

  Starry Night Press

  Rev. 09/16/2012

  For my own Patrick,

  without whom there would be no words.

  Acknowledgements

  A book this size requires the efforts and expertise of far more than one person and I am deeply indebted to the following.

  My patient and supportive family- my daughters who never complain about takeout because mom forgot to cook yet again! My wonderful husband who puts up with all sorts of artistic moaning and whinging and supports me one hundred and fifty percent.

  The ladies and gent of Shamrocks and Stones, my online social club- you all are the best and I thank you for all the laughter, tears, encouragement and fun that we have together on a daily basis. Peggy Busby who runs the place with a firm hand and a kind heart- thanks for the world’s only bottling of ‘Connemara Mist’ – I’m saving it for a truly special occasion.

  Michelle Moore for giving me what is surely one of the most beautiful websites on the internet- you are an amazingly talented lady Michelle. Do go check out her work- www.exitunicorns.com. Thank you also for all the lovely designs for the mugs, mousepads, t-shirts etc for all the ‘Exit Unicorns’ paraphenalia that is out there.

  Shannon Curtis- aka ‘Jamie’s girl’- my gratitude for your beautiful Chapter Charms that honour the spirit of both ‘Exit Unicorns’ and ‘Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears’.

  Lee Ramsey for her endless well of patience with the job of editing such a large manuscript, Carla Murphy for her clear eye for what works and what does not- you bring the spirit of Newfoundland to all you do and it’s a lovely thing woman. Jane Hill for double checking all those Boston scenes and for making certain that my hooker sounded suitably low class. Tim Crowley for his expertise in all things Boston.

  My circle of ‘first readers’- Fran Bach for reading the whole thing in a few days and for loving every page of it. Dorine ‘Dreen’ Lamarche- honey you are the world’s worst critic and for that I just loves ya. Elaine Pontious- you are my Anam Cara woman and I thank you for all the hyacinth. Mahri Newton for all the inspirational pics of our Col- keep ‘em comin’. Noelle Delieto- part of my Irish posse, with you at my back I cannot go wrong in this world. Sallie Blumenauer for reminding me every now again that the words alone are, indeed, worth it. Tracy Goode- you have the world’s best heart girl.

  Mick O’Neill for showing me a side of Republican Belfast that few outsiders are ever allowed to see. It was an amazing day and I will be forever grateful.

  Bobbie Thornton and Rhonda Rawling for being my friends for oh so long now and always encouraging me on this journey of mine.

  My parents Marvin and Wanda Brandner for teaching me to follow my dreams no matter how long and bumpy the road.

  My grandmother Violet Brandner who loved words as much as I do. I miss you Grandma, and I thank you for always being so proud of me.

  Last but never least- I thank the readers for all your letters, gifts, cards and mostly for loving these characters of mine and taking them into your lives and hearts as friends. I know the wait was long for many of you and I thank you for your patience. I hope when you turn the last page you will feel it was well worth the wait.

  Until next time,

  Rath Dé ort

  Cindy

  www.exitunicorns.com

  [email protected]

  Table of Contents

  Praise for Exit Unicorns

  Praise for Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears

  Praise for Flights of Angels

  Acknowledgements

  Part One - If This is Love...

  Part Two - A Little Irish Homestead

  Part Three - Nothing Sacred

  Part Four - When the Dark Night Seems Endless...

  Part Five - An Aran Idyll

  Part Six - History’s Prisoners

  Part Seven - The End of Ordinary Life

  Part Eight - How Fragile is the Heart

  Part One - If This is Love...

  Chapter One - Conversations With a Gull

  Chapter Two - True Love

  Chapter Three - Agent Gus

  Chapter Four - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

  Chapter Five - Judas Kiss

  Chapter Six - Priest and Friend

  Chapter Seven - Devil’s Deal

  Chapter Eight - The Whale Road

  Chapter Nine - The Nature of Love

  Chapter Ten - Mermaid in a Bowl of Tears

  Chapter Eleven - Tales From the Fourth Dimension

  Chapter Twelve - Emma

  Chapter Thirteen - After Camelot

  Chapter Fourteen - In the Blink of an Eye

  Chapter Fifteen - Caught in the Crosshairs

  Chapter Sixteen - All the Way Home

  Chapter Seventeen - Into the Mystic

  Part Two - A Little Irish Homestead

  Chapter Eighteen - Scotsman’s Lament

  Chapter Nineteen - Home Again, Home Again

  Chapter Twenty - Kirkpatrick’s Folly

  Chapter Twenty-one - Deuces Wild

  Chapter Twenty-two - The Boys of Summer

  Chapter Twenty-three - The Travellers

  Chapter Twenty-four - Nine Tenths of the Law

  Chapter Twenty-five - Hollow of Flowers

  Chapter Twenty-six - The Boy

  Chapter Twenty-seven - When the Evening Falls

  Chapter Twenty-eight - Lucky You, Lucky Me

  Chapter Twenty-nine - Paddy’s Lament

  Chapter Thirty - A Little Irish Homestead

  Chapter Thirty-one - ... And Everywhere that Mary Went

  Chapter Thirty-two - The Tears of Saint Lawrence

  Part Three - Nothing Sacred

  Chapter Thirty-three - With Extreme Prejudice

  Chapter Thirty-four - And Justice For None

  Chapter Thirty-five - Pat

  Chapter Thirty-six - The Devil and Mr. Jones

  Chapter Thirty-seven - Zorba and Company

  Chapter Thirty-eight - The Maidstone

  Chapter Thirty-nine - The Music Room

  Chapter Forty - Nothing Sacred

  Chapter Forty-one - Traveller’s Prayer

  Chapter Forty-two - In the Watches of the Night

  Chapter Forty-three - History Lessons

  Chapter Forty-four - An Examination of Conscience

  Part Four - When the Dark Night Seems Endless...

  Chapter Forty-five - Letter from Beyond

  Chapter Forty-six - Truth and Consequences

  Chapter Forty-seven - All Hallowtide

  Chapter Forty-eight - If I Were a Blackbird

  Chapter Forty-nine - Midnight Secrets

  Chapter Fifty - Fire, Flee
t and Candlelight

  Chapter Fifty-one - The White Doe

  Chapter Fifty-two - Visiting Day

  Chapter Fifty-three - Phouka

  Chapter Fifty-four - Christmas on Board

  Chapter Fifty-five - Moth to a Flame

  Part Five - An Aran Idyll

  Chapter Fifty-six - The Fabulous Five

  Chapter Fifty-seven - I Will Lead You Home

  Chapter Fifty-eight - The Morning After

  Chapter Fifty-nine - Nuala

  Chapter Sixty - All That You Can’t Leave Behind

  Part Six - History’s Prisoners

  Chapter Sixty-one - Butcher’s Dozen

  Chapter Sixty-two - No Place for Love or Dream at All...

  Chapter Sixty-three - Brick Walls and Broken Doors

  Chapter Sixty-four - Beyond Borders

  Chapter Sixty-five - Neither Friend nor Enemy

  Chapter Sixty-six - Happy to Be Alive

  Chapter Sixty-seven - The Brotherhood of the Ring

  Chapter Sixty-eight - Childhood Ghosts

  Chapter Sixty-nine - What Remains...

  Chapter Seventy - Cara

  Part Seven - The End of Ordinary Life

  Chapter Seventy-one - Just Another Day in Paradise

  Chapter Seventy-two - Hard Man

  Chapter Seventy-three - Misses Robinson

  Chapter Seventy-four - God and Green Apples

  Chapter Seventy-five - On the Craic

  Chapter Seventy-six - The Stardust Sea

  Part Eight - How Fragile is the Heart

  Chapter Seventy-seven - The Lost Boy

  Chapter Seventy-eight - Englishman

  Chapter Seventy-nine - Blood Brothers

  Chapter Eighty - The Butcher’s Bill

  Chapter Eighty-one - In Sunlight or in Shadow

  Chapter Eighty-two - Requiem

  Chapter Eighty-three - Brother’s Keeper

  Chapter Eighty-four - How Lonely People Make a Life

  Chapter Eighty-five - Here in the Dark

  Chapter Eighty-six - The Tenth Commandment

  Chapter Eighty-seven - Good Night Moon

  Epilogue

  Part One

  If This is Love...

  Chapter One

  Conversations With a Gull

  WHAT’LL YE HAVE?” The bartender, clothed like an impeccably starched penguin, looked as though he’d rather be anywhere than stuck behind the bar at a three hundred dollar a plate political fundraiser. Casey Riordan, bowtie and top stud of his crisp white shirt undone, knew the feeling all too well.

  “Have ye got any Connemara Mist?” Casey asked, as he sat on one of the highly cushioned brass stools next to the bar.

  “Aye, ten year malt, sixteen year reserve, an’ the special blend.”

  “Give me a double of the single malt,” Casey said, rummaging in his tuxedo jacket for a cigarette before remembering his wife had rather pointedly removed them, saying they ruined the line of his suit. He sighed audibly, and the bartender set a pack of cigarettes in front of him.

  “Thanks,” Casey said gratefully, tapping one out and sliding the pack back.

  “Take a couple,” the bartender said, “ye’ll need the fortification.”

  “Look that thrilled to be here, do I?” Casey asked.

  “About as thrilled as I feel, an’ I’m gettin’ paid,” the man replied, setting a generous tumbler of whiskey on the polished wood of the bar.

  Casey picked the glass up, sniffed appreciatively, and took a sip. It slid gold and warm down his throat, leaving tendrils of fire in its wake.

  “What bit of Belfast are ye from?” the bartender asked, opening a split of champagne and setting it in a silver bucket of dry ice.

  “The Ardoyne,” Casey said, and swallowed the remainder of his drink, closing his eyes around the taste, feeling the welcome heat in his belly. “An’ yerself?”

  “Donegal, little village up near Malinhead, population of about eighty an’ that includes the sheep,” the bartender replied with a wistful smile. “How long have ye been over?”

  “A few months,” Casey said. “How about yerself?”

  “Three years.”

  “Do ye get homesick?”

  “Sometimes,” the man shrugged, “though when I was home I couldn’t wait to get over here an’ now that I’m here I wonder what the rush was. How ‘bout yerself, longin’ for the old sod?”

  “Aye,” Casey looked down into his empty glass, “at times.”

  “The land of milk an’ honey not all ye expected?”

  “Not entirely, but then I suppose home would not seem the same to me now either.”

  The bartender set the bottle of malt whiskey in front of him. “Have another—it’s on the house, least I can do for a fellow countryman.”

  “Thanks, man.”

  The bartender whisked a rag over the spotless gleam of the bar. “I went back home the once, an’ it was as if I belonged neither here nor there. I’ve a foot in both worlds but I’m not standin’ firm in either, if ye’ll know what I’m sayin’.”

  “Aye, I’ll know,” Casey agreed, “yer a man without a country.”

  Just then, a voice at his left elbow said, “Cognac. Hennessey if you’ve got it.”

  “Boring crowd,” drawled the voice, and Casey knew without turning his head what he would find—floppy blond hair, long thin-bladed nose, ice blue eyes and a jaded, world-weary expression. He poured himself another two fingers of whiskey and stared straight ahead at the vast array of bottles lining the mirrored wall of the bar.

  “Say, can I just have the bottle as well? Good man,” he said, as the bartender, now expressionless and silent, placed the cognac at the man’s elbow. “Good turnout, though, and plenty of old money; Eliot should do well for himself tonight.” A long, slender hand, pale and refined, stuck itself in front of him and Casey sighed.

  “Charles Reese-David, though everyone calls me Chip.”

  “Of course they do,” Casey muttered, giving the hand the briefest of shakes and then, taking another swig of his drink, turned most reluctantly towards the voice that had already saturated the floor with its dropped r’s.

  The man looked exactly as he’d predicted to himself—hopelessly overbred English, though his ancestors had likely come over with the Mayflower. Casey wondered if everyone on that particular boat had looked this way, bloodless and effete, yet somehow still managing to convey an innate superiority.

  “You look familiar,” the man continued as Casey turned back to his drink. “Were you at Harvard? I was in Law there. Went to Choate as a boy, is that where I know you from?”

  “Don’t think so,” Casey said with as much politeness as he could muster, hunting in his inside pocket for his wallet. The bartender shook his head at the bills and Casey returned the money to his pocket with a nod of thanks. He was just sliding off the stool when the man next to him let out a long, low whistle.

  “Get an eyeful of that will you?”

  Casey turned and saw the object of the man’s interest making her way across the floor of the ballroom. In a roomful of heirloom jewelry she wore only a pair of tiny ruby earrings and a plain silver band on her left hand. She stopped to have a word here, two there, smiling and charming the people who’d paid and paid well to get on the political express train of Eliot Reese-David.

  “She’s my brother’s PR person if you can believe it. Bastard’s always been terrifically lucky with women. Even he couldn’t believe his luck, though, when Love Hagerty gave her to him for the campaign.”

  “Gave her?” Casey said raising his eyebrows, his tone causing the bartender to look up warily from the case of Cristal he was unloading. Charles Reese-David, however, had no such instinct, and continued heedlessly on.

  “Yes. She’s Love Hagerty’s piece on the side, apparently. She’s married to one of his thugs. Eliot’s had no luck with her at all. He’s hoping to change all that when he goes to Washington, though. Thinks maybe she’s afraid of Love Hagerty; i
n Washington she’ll be at a safe remove. Even that backroom-dealing Irish crook’s tentacles can’t stretch all the way there.”

  “Mr. Hagerty’s a born an’ bred Bostonian, I believe,” Casey said lightly.

  Chip snorted derisively. “There’s an old Beacon Hill saying about that—‘you can take the mick out of the bog, but you can’t take the—”

  “Bog out of the mick,” Casey finished coldly.

  “Heavens, is she coming this way?” Chip straightened up, shooting his cuffs and casting a surreptitious glance in the mirror over his shoulder. “Met her at Eliot’s office a few weeks ago. Apparently,” he smiled creamily, “I left an impression.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Casey said, his voice coming as close to friendliness as it had all night.

  The object of Chip’s interest reached them a moment later, gave him a polite ‘hello’, and sliding her arms around Casey’s neck, tucked her face into the curve of his shoulder and said, “Casey, take me home will you?”

  “Aye I’ll take ye home. Are ye all finished with yer business for the evenin’, then?” he asked, sparing a sideways glance for Chip, who was looking even more bloodless than he had a moment before.

  “Mmhm,” she said sleepily, “Eliot can manage on his own, it’ll only be the stragglers left soon anyhow and I’m exhausted by this crowd.” She slid one hand inside his loosened collar and whispered silkily, “Take me home to bed.”

  “Yer goin’ to cause a scandal woman, can I not take ye anywhere?” He said with mock sternness.

  She whispered something else in his ear and he found to his consternation that he was blushing.

  “Is that even legal in Massachusetts?” he asked. “Ye have to remember this place was settled by Puritans.”