Two steps out the kitchen door, she let out a muffled squeal.

The man wore Wellingtons like hers, rough brown trousers, and a work jacket. Tufts of gray-streaked yellow hair stuck out from under a blue cap.

He was bigger than a leprechaun, but not by much, and his round Irish face, merry blue eyes, and pug nose made her think of one.

He tossed a handful of what she assumed were weeds into a black tub, then tipped his cap at her.

“Good day to you, miss! I’d be Seamus, here to see to the garden if it pleases you.”

“Yes, of course. Finola said you’d be by. We must have missed you before.”

His smile, charmingly crooked, beamed warmth. “It would seem so. And how are you enjoying your stay?”

“Very much. I—I just dropped my friend off at the airport for his flight home.”

“Ah, and that makes you sad, of course. Friendship’s the bread of life, isn’t it now? Well then, I wish him a fair journey.”

“Thank you. The gardens, they’re just beautiful.”

“Flowers are one of the gifts the gods give us, and tending them a pleasure and duty.”

“I’ve been trying to learn about them—flowers and plants.”

He just beamed at her again. “Have you now?”

“Yes, I have a book.”

“Books are fine things, one of the finest for certain. But then doing’s a good teacher as well.”

“If I wouldn’t be in the way, could I ask you some questions?”

“Sure and you can ask all you please. The roses there need deadheading. I can show you how it’s done, and you can have a go at it if it pleases you.”

Between Seamus and the rainbow, her mood lifted. “I’d love to try.”

He spent a patient hour with her, naming flowers and plants, explaining growth cycles, guiding her hands to pull a weed or deadhead a spent bloom.

He showed her what flowers to harvest from what he called the cutting garden to make a nice display inside.

When she offered him tea, he thanked her but said he had work elsewhere. So he tipped his cap again before he walked away and left her with a handful of flowers and a feeling of fresh optimism.

She went inside to arrange them, thought she had a decent hand at it. Then looked around the empty cottage. The sad wanted to come back, but she shook her head.

Marco told her to have fun, and she’d already started. She could write. Maybe it was late in the day to begin, but it was her day, after all. Her time.

So she opened what she thought of as a writing Coke and settled in at her desk.

She wrote—maybe not a flood, but a decent stream—until hunger stirred. Grateful Marco had seen she had leftovers so she wouldn’t have to dive right into cooking, she warmed up a meal. And thought of him flying over the ocean.

She hoped he drank champagne and watched movies on the smoothest air imaginable.

She did her dishes, then took her delayed walk along the bay in the long summer evening.

When she looked back at the cottage, glowing in the lights she’d left on, she felt wonder, and she felt comfort.

“Right again, Marco. I’ll be fine. This is what I want. It’s what I need. I miss you, but I’m happy. I’m going to work on staying that way.”

She took her time walking back while the moon rose over hill and water.

The water of the bay held a stream of the moonlight, and the breeze murmured of promise. She heard an owl, maybe just wakened, call out.

“Who?” she responded. “Who am I exactly? I’m going to find out.”

She went back inside, remembered belatedly to lock up. And prepared to spend the first night of her life completely on her own.

Or so she thought.

Sleeping, she didn’t see the lights dancing outside her windows, keeping watch. Or the hawk perched on a branch nearby to guard Eian Kelly’s daughter.

She woke once when the phone in her hand signaled a text from Marco.

Smooth flight and ur boy’s back in Philly. Thanks to the best pal in the world 4 an awesome trip. Now go back 2 sleep and text me tomorrow.

Glad you’re home, she texted back. Give everyone a kiss from me. Going back to sleep as ordered.

Nearly there already, she set the phone on the bedside table to dream of rainbows and dancing lights.

CHAPTER TEN

She found a rhythm.

Always an early riser, Breen usually woke at dawn. Her reward: a misty bay, a shimmering eastern sky. Fueled with coffee, she wrote her daily blog in her pajamas—and considered it her warm-up for the book.

She changed into workout gear, got her body moving before she took a second cup of coffee and whatever came easiest to hand for her morning walk by the bay.

She learned to recognize the birds, the whooper swans, the kestrels and reed buntings, and looked forward to watching them glide and soar while the mists thinned over the water.

She wrote in the quiet, just the breeze and the birds, and was always astonished how the day slid by.

A late afternoon or evening walk with the magpies and wildflowers in the woods. She kept her phone handy for photos, and once marveled at herself for framing a shot of a doe and her fawn who looked at her with more curiosity than alarm.

In a matter of days she realized being alone didn’t mean being lonely. She missed Marco, but found the challenge, and the freedom, of being truly on her own satisfying.

She could handle making a meal—especially if it happened to be frozen pizza. She had scores of books to choose from, and hours and hours to write, to walk, to consider what she wanted to do with the rest of her life.

On the last, she made a list.

I’ll keep writing, whether it’s the blog or a book or just stories for myself. I won’t give it up.

I’ll find a job I actually like, and one I’m good at.

I’ll buy a house. A small house, but with room enough for me and Marco, and a little office for writing. Must have a yard.

I’ll plant a garden.

I’ll get a dog.

I’ll keep trying to find my father, and when I do, I’ll find a way to forgive him for leaving.

I’ll figure out how to talk to my mother, and find a way to forgive her for . . . everything.

One day, she imagined, she’d start crossing things off that list. When she did, she might add more—big things, small things. But for now, the list encompassed what she most wanted, and that was enough.

At the end of her first week, she drove into the village for supplies, and reminded herself she had to get out and about at least now and again. After a week of near silence, she found it jarring to see all the cars, the people—and admitted she was working herself into becoming a hermit.

To counteract it, she walked through the village, browsed the shops, and by taking the time came across a music store—with an Irish harp in the front window.

It drew her inside, where a woman about her age with a short wedge of black hair sat behind a counter and played a dulcimer.

She stopped, smiled. “Good day to you.”

“That was lovely. Please don’t stop.”

“Oh, just passing the time. Is there something I can help you with?”

“The harp in the window. It’s beautiful.”

“Ah, the Irish baby harp. It’s a lovely piece. Would you like to see it?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“And do you play then?” she asked as she came around the counter to walk to the display window.

“No. It’s for a friend, a musician.”

“Well now, a finer gift you couldn’t find.” She set it on a table in a room full of mandolins, banjos, accordions, flutes, drums.

Breen wondered how both she and Marco had missed the shop on their earlier visits. It was Marco heaven.

“It’s beautiful,” Breen said again, “the wood, the shape.”

“Rosewood, it is.” The woman trailed a finger over the strings and produced a sound, angel pure.

“Was it made in Ireland?”

“Not only in Ireland, but right here. In the back. My father made it.”

“Your father?”

“Sure, he builds instruments, repairs them. Oh, not all of these,” she said with a smile as she gestured around. “But quite a few of what we have now. You said you don’t play, but would you care to sit and get a feel for it?”

“I . . . Yes, actually, I think I would.”

“Here then, have a chair, won’t you? I’m Bess, by the way.”

“I’m Breen. I appreciate this.”

Breen sat, and Bess brought her the harp, showed her how to hold it on her knee.

Breen had a flash, clear as glass. Her hands on the strings of a harp, her father’s over hers, guiding.

“My father had a harp like this,” she murmured.

“Did he now?”

“I remember how he started to teach me . . .”

She put her fingers on the strings, closed her eyes to cast her mind back. And played a melody.

“‘The Foggy Dew.’” Bess clapped. “And you remember very well indeed.”

She didn’t know why or how she’d forgotten.

“I—I want to buy it.”

“For yourself?” Bess asked with a smile. “Or your friend?”

“For my friend. And I wonder if your father has a minute.”

“Sure he does. I’ll just go fetch him. Play more if you like. I’ll just be a moment.”

She would play more, Breen thought, but not here. At the cottage, alone, where she could let the emotions out—all the joy and the pain—with no one to see.

But she ran her fingers over the wood, remembering so well how her father told her it wasn’t just the playing but the caring. An instrument was a garden, needed love, needed tending.

The man who came out had silver shot through the black of his hair. He wore a brown carpenter’s apron over a tall, robust frame.

“Well now, it’s pleased I am to see my darling there go to someone who knows what she’s about. You hold her with love.”

As my father taught me, Breen thought.