“You’re too beautiful to have such small dreams, Maura.”
She blinked at him, surprised by the flattery and, at the same time, almost insulted to be told that her dreams were somehow lacking in imagination. She’d once had bigger dreams, as all young girls do. But she’d grown up, hadn’t she? And now her dreams were more practical. That didn’t make them less important. “They’re mine, aren’t they, and I don’t think they’re small dreams at all.”
“I just meant—”
She knew what he meant. No doubt he was more accustomed to women who dreamed of diamonds or, God help her, furs and shiny cars. He probably saw her as a country bumpkin with her worn jeans and fields full of shaggy sheep. That thought was as good as a cold shower, dousing the fire in her hormones until she felt almost chilled at the lack of heat.
Before he could speak again, she glanced to one side and announced, “Oh look! The Flanagan boys are going to play.”
“What?”
Maura pointed to the far corner of the pub where three young men with dark red hair sat down, cradling an assortment of instruments between them. While Michael finally made good on his promise and delivered their bowls of steaming potato-leek soup and soda bread hot from the oven, the Flanagan brothers began to play.
In moments, the small pub was filled with the kind of music most people would pay a fortune to hear in a concert hall. Fiddle, drum and flute all came together in a wild yet fluid mesh of music that soared up to the rafters and rattled the window panes. Toes started tapping, hands were clapping and a few hearty souls sang out the lyrics to traditional Irish music.
One tune slid into another, rushing from fast and furious to the slow and heartbreaking, with the three brothers never missing a beat. Jefferson watched the energized crowd with a filmmaker’s eye and knew that he’d have to include at least one pub scene in the movie they would be filming here in a few months. And he was going to put in a word with his director about the Flanagan brothers. Their talent was amazing and he thought the least he could do was display it on film. Who knew, maybe he could help more dreams to come true.
Once he finally got Maura to sign his damned contract.
Jefferson’s gaze slid to her and his breath caught in his chest. He’d been aware of her beauty before now, but in the dim light of the pub with a single candle burning in a glass jar on the table, she looked almost ethereal. Insubstantial. Which was a ridiculous thought because he’d seen her wrestle a full-grown sheep down to the ground, so a fragile woman she most definitely was not. Yet he was seeing her now in a new way. A way that made his body tighten to the point of discomfort.
You’d think he’d be used to it, he thought. He’d been achy for nearly a week now, his body in a constant state of unrequited readiness that was making him crazy. Maybe what he needed to do was stop being so damn polite and just swoop in and seduce Maura before she knew what hit her.
Then a whirlwind swept into the pub and dropped down at their booth, nudging her sister over on the bench seat.
“Oh, soup!” Cara Donohue cooed the words and reached for her sister’s bowl with both hands. “Lovely. I’m famished.”
“Get your own, you beggar,” Maura told her with a laugh, but pushed her soup toward her sister.
“Don’t need to, do I?” Cara grinned, then shot a quick look at Jefferson. “Have you convinced her to sign up yet?”
“Not yet,” he said, putting thoughts of seduction to one side for the moment. Cara Donohue was taller and thinner than Maura, with a short cap of dark curls and blue eyes that shone with eagerness to be doing. Seeing. Experiencing. She was four years younger than her sister and twice as outgoing, and yet Jefferson felt no deep stirring for her.
She was a nice kid with a bright future ahead of her, but Maura was a woman to make a man stop for a second and even a third look.
“You will,” Cara said with a bright, musical laugh. “You Americans are all stubborn, aren’t you? And besides, Maura thinks you’re gorgeous.”
“Cara!”
“Well, it’s true and all,” her sister said with another laugh as she finished Maura’s soup, then reached for her sister’s beer. She had a sip, then winked at Jefferson. “It does no harm to let you know she enjoys looking at you, for what breathing woman wouldn’t? And I’ve seen you giving her a look or two yourself.”
“Cara, if you don’t shut your mouth this minute…”
Maura’s threat died unuttered, but Jefferson couldn’t help smiling at the sisters. He and his brothers were just the same, teasing each other no matter who happened to be around to listen. Besides, he liked hearing that Maura had been talking about him.
“There’s no harm in it, is there?” Cara was saying, with a glance at first her sister, then Jefferson. “Why shouldn’t you take a good look at each other?”
“Pay no attention to my sister,” Maura told him with a shake of her head.
“Why?” he asked. “She’s not wrong.”
“Maybe not, but she doesn’t have to be so loud about it, does she?”
“Ah Maura, you worry too much,” her sister told her and patted her arm.
The music suddenly shifted, jumping into a wild, frenetic song with a beat that seemed to thrum against the walls and batter its way into a man’s soul. Jefferson found himself tapping his fingers on the tabletop in time with the quickening rhythm.
“Oh, they’re playing ‘Whiskey in the Jar!’ Come on, Maura, dance with me.”
She shook her head and resisted when Cara tried to pull her to her feet. “I’ve worked all day and I’m in no mood for step dancing. Most especially not with my big-mouthed sister.”
“But you love me and you know it. Besides, it’ll do you good and you know you adore this song.” Cara grinned again and gave her sister’s arm a good yank.
On her feet, Maura looked at him, almost embarrassed, Jefferson thought, then with a shrug she followed her sister into the cleared-away area in front of the tables. A few people applauded as Cara and Maura took their places beside each other, then, laughing together, the Donohue sisters leaped into action. Their backs were arrow straight, their arms pinned to their sides and their feet were flying.
Jefferson, like most everyone else in the world, had seen the Broadway show with the Irish dancers and he’d come away impressed. But here, in this tiny pub in a small village on the coast of Ireland, he was swept into a kind of magic.
Music thundered, people applauded and the two sisters danced as if they had wings on their feet. He couldn’t tear his eyes off Maura. She’d worked hard all day at a job that would have exhausted most of the men he knew. Yet there she was, dancing and laughing, as graceful as a leaf on the wind. She was tireless. And spirited. And so damned beautiful, he could hardly draw a breath for wanting her.
Without warning, Jefferson’s mind turned instantly to the stories he’d heard about his great-grandfather and how he’d fallen in love at first sight with an Irish girl in a pub just like this, on one magical night.
For the first time in his life, he completely understood how it had happened.
Cara left the pub soon after, claiming she was going to drive into Westport, a bustling harbor city not five miles from the village of Craic.
“I’ll be at Mary Dooley’s place if you need me,” she said as she left, giving Jefferson a wink and her sister a kiss and a smile. “Otherwise, I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”
When her sister was gone in a blur of motion, Maura looked at Jefferson and laughed shortly. “She’s a force of nature,” she said. “Always has been. The only thing that came close to slowing her