Running Back

“Did you have plans this summer?”

She snorted. “Obviously. I was going to work in Derek’s sister’s tattoo parlor.” She swung her foot impatiently. “But then they made me come here, so he broke up with me.”

I looked at her. “Because you weren’t going to work at his sister’s tattoo parlor.”

She shrugged. Her foot kept swinging. “Well. And I wouldn’t sleep with him.”

Shocking.

“I mean, I was going to.” She scowled. “Who wants to be a fucking virgin their senior year of high school?”

Fucking virgin was my new favorite phrase.

“Now he’s dating Kaitlyn Taylor.”

“On the other hand, Kaitlyn Taylor is stuck back home, and you get to explore all of Ireland.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

I leaned my head back, so I could admire the morning sky, and lowered my voice confidentially. “So my best friend and I came up with a plan before I came here. You want in on it?”

She seemed aware that she was too cool for plans, but still couldn’t resist asking, “What is it?”

“Operation: Irish Boyfriend.”

She threw a startled glance at me. “Wait, you want an Irish boyfriend? But what about—” She stopped abruptly.

My mouth twitched. “There’s nothing going on between me and your brother.”

“Why not?” She sounded almost defensive.

I jumped up from the bench. “I’m hungry. Let’s get some breakfast.”

And I headed back inside before Anna could press the issue.

The rest of the O’Connors joined us not much later, and when the three women moved to go to Cork for the day, Mike excused himself. “Natalie and I are going to head into the village.”

Kate agreed with such alacrity I suspected she still hoped Mike would be introducing me as his girlfriend shortly. Anna shot me a pointed look.

I turned to Mike after they’d left. “I feel like your entire family has some sort of agenda.”

“They usually do.” He stood and I followed. “Come on, let’s ask Eileen how to get into Dundoran.”

Chapter Seven

The coastal path from the inn to Dundoran Village curved along the shoreline. It rose and fell through the hills, but never touched the sand. Instead, we walked on flattened grass, while a haphazard stone wall herded us south. Pale green moss frosted the stones, and purple thistles fringed the bottom. Beyond the wall, wide green swaths rolled up into hills and sky, only interrupted by bushy trees and hedgerows.

I let out a deep sigh.

“You okay?”

I waved my arm expansively. “I’m just happy. It’s so beautiful. All these greens—all the colors.” The land rose slightly and the path followed it upward, giving us a splendid view of the heather covered green that sloped down to the shore. The water lapped gentle against the pale yellow strip of sand.

Mike stared at me. “You cannot get this turned on by nature.”

I tossed a grin back at him. “Why not? What else is this amazing?” I closed my eyes and inhaled a warm, fresh breeze, grass and blooming flowers, all underlain by the sea. “In Ecuador, you can smell the eucalypti. It’s sickly sweet. Heady. The bark peels off like paper, and it’s everywhere—the Spanish introduced the trees as a source of cheap firewood, and then it spread all over. I dreamed of those trees when I left.”

“Why did you leave?”

I opened my eyes. “Why? Well, the dig was up.”

“Hmm.” There was something in that noise, like I’d revealed a facet of myself I hadn’t intended to. “And what are you going to dream of here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the sea. Salt and earth and wind.” I laughed. “Am I getting too fantastical?”

He studied me. I was learning that when Michael O’Connor fixed his attention on me, I felt like we were the only two people in the world. Out here in this rugged landscape, we could have been. “So you’ve lived in New York and Ecuador and now you’re here. You don’t put down roots, do you?”

I shrugged. “I put down enough.”

He lifted a challenging brow. “But you travel more than most people, don’t you?”

I’d always been proud of my travel spiel before, but now I wondered if he had a point. “I spent a year abroad in London. Did my field school in Greece summer after my sophomore year and then went back there the next season. Worked in the Great Plains for the summer after that. Did some work on Inka fortresses for one of my profs last year. My degree’s archaeology, so not place specific, though I’ll just be focusing on Ireland for my thesis.”

We kept walking, and he offered me a hand as we jumped over some mud. “Don’t you ever want to stay put?”

The idea of remaining in one place for a marked period of time gave rise to a fluttering anxiety. I pulled my hand out of his warm one as we walked on. Staying put seemed synonymous with being weighed down. Trapped. Suffocated. “No. That idea terrifies me.”

“What’s the longest you’ve ever spent in one place?”

I smiled grimly, picturing the silent, echoing halls of my parents’ house. “Eighteen years.”

“And since then?”

I shrugged. “Nine months, tops? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere longer than that.”

“Why?”

I shrugged, staring ahead. The land turned back in on itself, the coast curving and forming small coves. Yellow gorse carpeted the fields to the left. A hedgerow wound closer, enough that I could see the fuchsia flowers tangled in the green. “I don’t know. I just get such wanderlust, and if I can’t go I feel empty and constrained and whenever I move I feel like I can breathe easier. Don’t you feel...exhilarated when you make the perfect drive, and you didn’t think you were going to but you do, and everything is just perfect for a moment?”

I glanced sideways to see if he thought that was silly and mad and impractical, like most people did, but a small, crooked smile lifted the corner of Mike’s mouth. He stopped walking and regarded me with those warm brown eyes. “Yeah.”

I took a step closer to him. I could smell his aftershave, a scent already becoming familiar to me. “That’s how I feel when I’m in a new place. When I excavate a new site.” I hesitated. “That’s how I feel about Ivernis.”

His throat and jaw worked, his brows tensing, but he didn’t look away. “Why can’t you just go back to Ecuador? Why does it have to be here?”

I smiled a little wistfully. “Don’t get me wrong. The Inka were badass. I mean, they conquered most of South America. They had an advanced road system and they drafted soldiers intelligently and they had the most gorgeous ashlar masonry you’ve ever seen.

“But it’s not the same. I know that’s silly, and part of it is just me...anthropomorphizing the site, but it doesn’t get to me the same way Ivernis does. It doesn’t sing. Sure, I would be happy working there—I was happy, it was amazing—but Ivernis— This is the only thing I want to do for the rest of my life.”

“I understand that.”

I glanced over at him. Most people I knew cared about what they were studying, maybe even loved it to a degree, love mixed with irritated and aggravation—but they didn’t obsess. But Mike O’Connor... “You do, don’t you?” I looked out over the endless fields. “What would you do, if you couldn’t play football? How would you feel? Like a musician with broken fingers? Like a runner who’s lost her legs?”