Page 22 of One Night Only
A worried-looking Paul arrives a moment before Annie does. “Everything okay?”
“Declan needs some air,” Mary says crisply.
“So let him get some air. He’s not sixteen Mam.”
“Then he should stop acting like it. I’m sorry for the trouble, Sarah,” she adds. “I just thought it would be nice for you two to get to know each other.”
“We already know each other,” Declan says tightly, ignoring my warning look.
“Just leave him be,” Paul says.
Mary looks annoyed. “I only thought—”
“You didn’t think,” Declan interrupts. I lay a hand on his wrist, but he ignores me, his patience gone. “You never think. You never ask.”
I pull on his arm, trying to get his attention. “On second thought, ice cream sounds great.”
“Maybe you should have checked with me first before you decided to play matchmaker,” he says, ignoring me. “Maybe you should have checked with Sarah to see what she wanted.”
“Declan—”
“Maybe then you would have realized that you didn’t need to go to all this trouble, seeing as how we already slept together.”
And there it is.
Paul grimaces as though he’s made a bad joke. Annie rolls her eyes.
“I can never tell when you’re joking, Declan.” She glances at me and her smile drops, no doubt seeing the alarm on my face. “What?”
A group at a nearby table glances our way.
“Two nights ago,” Declan says casually as if he’s reading out a dinner menu. I drop his wrist, slumping back in my chair. “Small world, right?”
If I didn’t feel so embarrassed, I would have found their reactions comical, so identical in their shock. Mary is the only one who doesn’t look horrified. If anything, she seems a little pleased.
“I thought we had an agreement,” I say under my breath.
“For dinner.” He glances at me and I swear I see a hint of an apology in his expression. “Dinner’s over.”
“It is now,” I mutter as Annie’s mouth opens and closes like she’s forgotten how to speak.
Only Declan looks lighter. As if a weight has just been lifted from his shoulders. “Thanks for the food,” he says. “Let’s try and coordinate schedules next time, Sarah.”
He kisses a still shell-shocked Annie on the cheek, hugs his mother and then he’s gone, strolling out of the room toward the lobby.
A second passes while we all watch him and then the three of them turn to me as if I can explain what just happened. As if I evenknowwhat just happened.
“Sarah?” Annie asks faintly. Paul looks like he’s still processing. Mary looks contemplative.
I decide not to answer and instead reach for the wine bottle, taking Declan’s advice.
I drink up.
6
The bright-eyed tour guide clasps her hands behind her back as she smiles at us. “Kilgorm Castle dates as far back as the fourteenth century,” she begins in her gentle lilt. “It was originally built by Lord Robert Fitzgerald to help fend off the native Irish from his land and housed many prominent Anglo-Irish families after him. Though it’s had multiple owners and seen its fair share of battles, the original structure remains, as stable as the day it was built.”
I stare up at the half-ruined castle before me and frown. It looks about as stable as I feel.
