Luck of the Irish

Other Books by J. A. Ferguson

Call Back Yesterday * Daughter of the Fox

Dream Singer * Dream Shaper

Dream Master * Dream Traveler

Dream Seeker * My Lord Viking

Timeless Shadows * The Wrong Christmas Carol

Sworn Upon Fire

Writing as Jo Ann Ferguson

Regency Romance

My Lord Viking * Gentleman’s Master

Marry Me, Millie * Fool’s Paradise

Regency Yuletide

Regency Yuletide #2: One Winter’s Night

Regency Yuletide #3: When a Child is Born

Regency Yuletide #4: Mistletoe and Mayhem

Under Her Spell

Writing as Jocelyn Kelley

Regency Romance

Sea Wraith

Writing as Mary Jo Kim

Slice

Luck of the Irish

by

J. A. Ferguson

ImaJinn Books

Copyright

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

ImaJinn Books

PO BOX 300921

Memphis, TN 38130

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61026-031-2

Print ISBN: 978-1-933417-93-6

ImaJinn Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

Copyright ©2006 by Jo Ann Ferguson writing as J. A. Ferguson

Published in the United States of America.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

ImaJinn Books was founded by Linda Kichline.

We at ImaJinn Books enjoy hearing from readers. Visit our websites

ImaJinnBooks.com

BelleBooks.com

BellBridgeBooks.com

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Cover design: Debra Dixon

Interior design: Hank Smith

Photo/Art credits:

Man (manipulated) © Monkey Business Images Ltd | Dreamstime.com

Background (manipulated) © Specular | Dreamstime.com

Shamrock (manipulated) © Viktoriia Yatskina | Dreamstime.com

:Eilo:01:

Dedication

For Grandpa Loveland

who knew a few good stories of his own

One

YOU’RE OUR last hope.

Brian O’Rourke chuckled as he leaned back in the overstuffed chair that smelled of pipe tobacco and smiled. "Athair, he said, using the Gaelic term for father, you always exaggerate."

His father scowled, running his fingers through his graying beard, as he always did when he was upset. Which wasn’t that often because Athair usually was in a jovial mood, telling tales and overseeing their vast clan of cousins and aunts and uncles, all of whom addressed his father as Himself. That old custom Brian couldn’t quite bring himself to use. He called his father Athair, no matter what other titles he could claim.

Don’t try to get around me by using Gaelic, Athair said. You know you don’t have any use for the old ways. His green eyes narrowed. Just as well, because they’re about to come to an end.

I doubt that.

Do you? He rubbed his hands together and stood from where he’d perched less than ten seconds ago. Athair hadn’t sat still since Brian’s arrival. Odd, for his father had been known to sit a whole sunny day without budging while he counted out pots of gold. I can’t break this accursed contract, and now we’re all doomed to be cursed.

A curse? Brian got up and stretched. Riding on that blasted bus from Limerick to Dublin had left him aching. He wasn’t used to sitting still that long. "Since when have you worried about curses, Athair?"

Don’t you believe in curses?

Of course, I do. I’ve seen what Auntie Agnes did to Uncle Pat. Last time I went to visit, his ears were still shaped like a donkey’s, even though the rest of him had changed back.

A smile trickled across his father’s lips but vanished, astonishing Brian. Usually his father enjoyed reminiscing about his henpecked brother. Brian m’lad, this is serious. Locking his hands behind his back, he took a deep breath that threatened the shirt buttons already pulled tight across his full stomach. I must find my shillelagh.

Which one? He leaned on the wide windowsill and glanced toward the street, enjoying the sight of a pretty redhead. She had a nice motion in her walk. It created a musical rhythm that any man would be glad to turn into a duet. Not that he’d have a chance. With his father babbling about curses, this conversation wouldn’t be over anytime soon. He couldn’t believe Athair had called him home to talk about a ridiculous curse. This wasn’t the Middle Ages! Times had changed, and it was time his father changed along with them.

Brian!

What? he asked, still watching the woman as she paused to talk with Mr. McGregor, the greengrocer on the corner.

You aren’t listening. His father looked past him. Ah, now I see why.

With another chuckle, Brian faced him. "Athair, how many times have you said the O’Rourkes have a keen eye for women?"

Many times, and ‘tis sure to be the downfall of every O’Rourke male. Once I set eye on your mother, I was lost for all time. He sighed, and Brian knew he was thinking of the woman who’d left him more years ago than Brian wanted to count. Last time Brian had seen her, she was involved with someone else, someone who helped her walk the fine line between the old ways and the modern world. He’d never seen her so happy, but he knew better than to mention that to his father who preferred to think she was pining away without him.

I know, was his answer.

Something in his voice must have revealed the course of his thoughts because his father’s scowl drew even deeper lines in his brow. You must be wary, son, of what can be a curse.

I’ve got to admit I’ve never considered women a curse.

Women aren’t, but that one woman who steals your heart is. She’ll steal all the joy in your life, because you’ll find you can’t be happy unless you’re with her. Your joy she’ll share with you along with her special pleasures.

Brian rolled his eyes. No matter how old he got, he still didn’t like talking about sex with his father. Athair’s ideas of sex were as old-fashioned as his ideas of courting. Brian didn’t know anyone who expressed his interest in a woman by tying a knot in a rose stem, but Athair insisted that was the only way of showing a woman true love.

Maybe women can be a curse, but they’re a far better curse than some absurd contract you can’t get out of.

Be wary, son. There’s sure to be a woman out there who can beguile your heart with a magic stronger than any a leprechaun can call forth. He sighed. "And right now, you don’t have time for cailíns."

There’s always time for women. He wanted to keep his father from drifting off into Gaelic melancholy. If he didn’t, Athair soon would start singing about the sorrows created by women—for cailíns, as the old Irish songs called them.

I need your help.

To find an old stick?

You know my shillelagh is more than an old stick. It is the source of our magic, of everything we are.

Then you should not have risked it.

That’s easy for you to say, Brian m’lad, but what’s done is done.

Brian couldn’t argue with that. "All right. I understand, but why did you call me here?’

You need to find it.

Me? I’m not the one who signed some contract to give it away.

You are my son and my heir, Brian O’Rourke! When I need you, the least you can do is help without asking a thousand questions. After all, I’ve never asked much of you.

That’s true, he agreed, even though it wasn’t. His father had called on him to help escape many scrapes. There’d been the time when Athair allowed himself to be captured by a wise farmer lad and had nearly lost every piece of gold he’d ever dug up. And the time when Athair tried to trick another of the faery folk and had been embarrassed in front of his clan. And the time when . . . Counting the number of times he’d pulled Athair out of a sticky situation would keep him busy for hours.

Everything we are, his father said in the same grim tone, depends on finding my shillelagh before the church bells ring the last time on St. Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick’s? He laughed. Not very imaginative.

I didn’t pick the terms of this contract. Whistling a low note, he held out his hand. A bluebird flitted across the room and perched on his shoulder.

Brian watched as his father took the sheet of paper from the bird’s beak. He bit back his astonishment. Athair had chided him for years to be cautious about using magic where others might see. Not everyone guessed leprechauns were living among them, not wee people, but a branch of the faery folk who looked like humans. Something must be very wrong.

Taking the page his father held out to him, Brian read it. He swore when he saw the faded name on the bottom. Why did you sign this contract? How could you have been so stupid?

It was the only thing I could do at the time.

You made a bet while you were drinking, didn’t you?

Ah, Brian m’lad, you know your old father far too well.

Brian shook his head. And then you lost the bet.

I did, but who would’ve guessed I’d ever have to worry about anyone collecting on it? He shuddered so hard the bird nearly fell from his shoulder. Over its squawking protest, he asked, "That we would ever have to worry about it? But the shillelagh is gone, and you’ve got until midnight on St. Patrick’s Day to find it for me."

Or?

Or, Brian m’lad, every last one of us leprechauns will be gone forever.

Two

WHY WON’T YOU sell me this place? You know it’s a millstone around your neck. You’ve barely got time to look after your grandfather in his hour of greatest need. Why not accept my offer and make a nice life for you and your daughter?

Maggie Squires took a deep breath and counted silently to ten. It didn’t help. Millstone around your neck? Mr. Russo’s metaphors were as dusty as the antiques in his shop.

She clenched the washrag on the counter so hard that water pooled under it. She forced a smile. I’m sorry, Mr. Russo, but, as I told you, the decision to sell the diner is Gramps’s.

You know he has no head for business.

Again she counted to ten. How dare Gordon Russo come in here and insult Gramps! Not one of the sixty years emblazoned on Mr. Russo’s face had mellowed him. He was as arrogant as the first time she’d seen him nearly thirty years ago. Then he’d chased her and her friends out of his yard.

Mr. Russo, she said, struggling to keep her voice even, my grandfather has spent his whole adult life running this diner. Quite successfully, I may add.

With a terse chuckle, he glanced around. No one sat at the tables in the center of the cozy pine-paneled room or on the stools by the red laminate counter. The only sign of customers was a honeycomb of a dozen coffee cups on the wall by the front door. They waited for the regular patrons who stopped by each morning. There had been almost two dozen cups hanging by the door a year ago, but cups had been removed as people moved away or died.

Running it into the ground, it looks like. He leaned on the counter, the elbow of his thick navy coat close to the puddle of water. This is an excellent location for a shop. Right on the way to Whitetop Ski Lodge. A shop, Mrs. Squires, not a diner. Tourists aren’t looking to eat diner food when they come up here. They want the fancy cuisine they serve up at the lodge. I’ve made you a fair offer for the place. Why don’t you stop being a sentimental fool and take it?

Maggie went to the small grill behind the counter. Pulling out the grease drawer, she said, It’s Gramps’s diner. You’ll have to deal with him.

You know Henry won’t ever sell this place.

He’s the owner, so that’s his decision.

And you’ll hold onto it, knowing he’s not coming back?

She balanced one end of the greasy trough against the counter. Gramps is doing better. Don’t bury him before he’s dead.

Fools! All you Donohues are fools. He buttoned his coat and stuffed a gray scarf into the collar. Muttering, he left.

The bell tinkled merrily in his wake, and Maggie sighed, too tired to think. He’d be back. No matter how many times she’d told him that she couldn’t sell the place because it wasn’t hers, he came back and asked her to sell it to him. Next time, she hoped he’d come to the diner in the middle of the day instead of when she was ready to close. After working for sixteen hours, her wits weren’t sharp. She smiled wearily. That was most likely what he was hoping for. If she was exhausted from work and tired of having to put in long hours day after day, she might be more willing to consider his offer. Why couldn’t he get it through his thick head that she couldn’t decide anything about selling the diner? Mr. Russo never listened to anyone else. Otherwise, he’d have known when Gramps said he wasn’t interested in selling the diner, that was that.

She glanced toward the door and stairs to the apartment upstairs. If Cricket had heard—

No, she didn’t even want to think of that. Maggie had been honest with her daughter about how long it might take for Gramps to recover from his stroke, and Cricket didn’t need to endure Mr. Russo’s gloom. If she thought her beloved great-grandfather was about to die, Cricket would be shattered.

He’s not going to die! He’s going to get better! Mr. Russo was wrong. The Donohues weren’t fools. They were just pigheaded, stubborn Irish.

Grimacing as she balanced the grease drawer that was as long as her arm, Maggie edged into the kitchen at the back of the diner. They called it the kitchen, even though most of the cooking was done on the grill by the counter. Her nose wrinkled at the thick odor from the day’s scraping of grease from the grill. She hated this job more than any other at the diner.

Almost as bad was doing the dishes stacked in and around the sink. She’d be lucky to be done before midnight so she could get a few hours sleep before rising at five a.m. to have the grill warm and coffee ready. The diner opened at six, and Cricket had to catch the school bus at seven.

A cold blast of wind greeted her as Maggie opened the back door. Tensing her shoulders, she pushed out into the frosty March evening. Winter didn’t surrender easily in the Adirondack Mountains, but she kept hoping this would be the unusual year when spring arrived early.

She pulled the door closed behind her. The cold squeezed her in an icy grip as she cautiously slid her foot to the edge of the top step. Leaving the door open would have given her more light than what came from the stars, but the furnace would have grumbled all night to warm the diner up again.

And she didn’t really need light. After so many years of doing this chore every night, she should be able to find her way to the grease barrel blindfolded.

Which I might as well be, she mumbled as she eased down to the second step. There were only three, then the expanse of hard, bare ground to where a barrel sat behind the small barn. That barn was all that remained of the Camden family farm. The estate once had encompassed half the valley and the most of the mountain where the ski lodge sat like a glittering jewel on the night’s velvet cloth.

The sky was so silent and clear she was surprised she could not hear the stars twinkling. She glanced at the lights of Camdenville, farther down in the valley, but not even the sound of a car disturbed the quiet.

Reaching the barrel, she pried off the top. The metal rang when it fell. Good thing Gramps hadn’t heard. How many times had he scolded her for letting it drop like that? She hadn’t understood why it mattered if the lid was bent until a swarm of yellow jackets set up housekeeping under the lid the summer she was fourteen.

Her nose wrinkled as she tilted the drawer over the barrel. That summer seemed an eternity ago. Sometime, when she hadn’t been watching, her life had accelerated out of control. If she could find a couple of 28 hour days or a few 10 day weeks, she might get caught up.

Something rustled in the brush beyond the barn. She smiled. Every time she went to the rest home in Camdenville, Gramps checked to make sure she’d put out food for the deer.

A low growl came from her right. She spun. A black bear!

Run! her brain shouted.

Her feet didn’t move . . . couldn’t move. She stared at the bear rising on its back legs. It looked as tall as one of the mountains. She knew it wasn’t, but her fear wouldn’t listen to common sense. It looked huge! Its tiny eyes glittered like ebony stars. Sharp teeth glowed in the moonlight as its claws cut the air between them.

The bear lurched toward her, and then tilted its head as if listening. She strained her ears. Was someone coming? Someone with a big gun to fire a couple of warning shots over the bear’s head to scare it away? Slowly the bear dropped onto its haunches. Its tongue lolled over its teeth, and it abruptly acted like a dog welcoming its master home.

Maggie flinched when light splashed over her. She risked a glance over her shoulder and saw a tall silhouette on the back steps. The man’s arm was raised, and she thought she heard him say something, but the words made no sense in her petrified brain. She released the breath she’d been holding too long when the bear loped into the night.

Are you all right? called the man.

She nodded, and then realized he might not be able to see her. Yes, thank you, she said, although she wasn’t sure if she could move.

No reason to thank me. He came down the steps, hefting an overly stuffed backpack over his shoulder. She realized his height had not been an illusion. He must be more than six feet tall, and, if the thin glow from the back door wasn’t deceiving her, his hair was as black as the bear’s coat.

You scared the bear away.

Now there’s a fine compliment. His chuckle and his Irish accent helped slow her heart’s furious beat. I may not be the most handsome devil in the world, but that’s the first time I’ve been accused of having my face frighten a bear.

That wasn’t what I meant. I—

Just teasing. You look as if you could use some teasing. He put his hand on her arm. Are you sure you’re all right? You sound pretty breathless.

She’d been about to reply that she was fine, but every word she knew disappeared. His bare hand was not cold, although hers were icy. Warmth spread out from where he touched her, loosening the cramps of fear in her stomach. Closing her eyes, she let her shoulders sag, glad to be alive.

I’ll be okay in an hour or two or three, she said, her voice still shaky. I’ve never been that close to a bear before.

She was as scared as you were.

I doubt that. When she laughed, he released her arm. The warmth faded. Astonished, she wished she could wrap her arms around herself. Of course, she was glad to have those broad shoulders between her and a bear. There was no