Murder in an Irish Cottage. Carlene O'Connor
that turned the back garden into a jungle if they didn’t keep up with it, and picking up after her siblings, and when that got old, nagging them to pick up after themselves. Blessed be thy summer days, but summer had a way of making everyone revolt. Alarms were ignored. Showers took longer. Even the rashers seemed to sizzle slower on the grill. Siobhán had just collected a pile of shoes and sunglasses, and was about to drop them in the lost and found bin, when a familiar knock sounded on the door. Three quick raps, a pause, and two more.
Siobhán dumped the gear and was already smiling when she opened the door. Macdara Flannery stood in front of her, his messy brown hair and smiling blue eyes a welcome sight. Her fiancé. Would she ever get used to that thought? They’d been secretly engaged since the spring, a delicious secret between the two of them. The gorgeous engagement ring he’d given her, an emerald set up high surrounded by diamonds forming a Celtic cross, was upstairs locked away in a keepsake box by her bed.
“Dara,” she said, leaning in for a quick kiss, “are you here for brekkie?”
It wasn’t until he stepped completely in that she saw his forehead was creased and his eyes weren’t as smiley as usual. He leaned against the door frame. “I have to go to Ballysiogdun.”
Ballysiogdun was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it type of village in rural County Cork. “Whatever for?” She waved him into the dining room. “Tea? Brown bread?”
“Cappuccino,” he said. “To go.”
“I like your style.” She set about making them both one, humming along to the whir of her favorite espresso machine. He was chewing on something and best let him spit it out for himself. She was on her summer break, an entire ten days off from garda duty. She wished she were going on a proper holiday, sunning in Spain, or even a few days in Dublin with Maria, but finances were stretched and a long list of family and bistro obligations dangled in front of her. How she missed the days when summer equaled freedom. When months were rolled out in front of her like a sun-kissed present. As an adult, it was just another season, hopefully with a bit less rain and an uptick in the temperatures. A time to weed the back garden and go for longer runs.
Macdara glanced around. “Where’s your brood?”
“Ann and Ciarán are having a lie-in. James and Elise are driving me mental with their on-again off-again romance and I have no idea where he is—”
The sound of heels clacking down the stairs startled them, followed by a flash of long black hair, a waft of perfume, and then the slam of the front door. Gráinne. Another one to keep an eye on. Siobhán looked out the window in time to see her sister wiggle off to Sheila’s Hair Salon. She was dressed in a short skirt, tights, heels, and her leather jacket. Was she getting her hair done this early? Did Sheila even wake up this early?
“Hiya,” Eoin called out with a wave as he ambled past Siobhán before disappearing into the kitchen. It took a moment for her to clock what was different about him. He hadn’t been wearing his Yankee baseball cap; instead he’d replaced it with a hairnet. Her brother was maturing. Seconds later came the smell and sound of rashers on the grill. Eoin had one more year until his Leaving Certificate, and after that hopefully university. For now, he was the main man running the bistro with their employee Bridie during the day, and working on his graphic novels at night. They starred, of all things, a superhero character based on her, frankly, and he’d made her into a redheaded Amazon lifting sheep over her head with one hand, but she wasn’t about to complain and stifle his creativity. On the surface, all was well with her brood. If only that meant peace of mind.
Siobhán found she worried even more when things were going well. She didn’t want to be a when-was-the-other-shoe-going-to-drop type lass, but with six of them, even if a shoe didn’t fall, there was at least always an untied lace to trip over. She was a proactive worrier.
She placed Dara’s cappuccino in a takeaway cup and handed it to him. “Brown bread?” She’d already made three batches this morning and was dying to dig in.
“I’m not hungry.”
She raised an eyebrow. Rare were the days when Macdara turned down any food let alone her brown bread. Enough stalling, he needed a push. “What’s the story?”
“My cousin Jane called. Aunt Ellen is in some kind of trouble.”
Siobhán knew that his mother had a sister and Macdara had one grown cousin, but she’d never met either of them. “What kind of trouble?”
“Jane wouldn’t say. It’s something bad. I could hear the terror in her voice.”
“Terror?” Macdara wasn’t a man prone to exaggeration unless he had a cold, and then he behaved as if the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were riding straight for him.
“She was on the verge of hysteria. Said she didn’t trust her local guards. I told her I would be there straightaway.” His eyes flicked to her right hand. Zoomed in on her ring finger. Not this again. He loathed that she wasn’t wearing her engagement ring. It was way too dear. There was no way she was going to wear it. Not while cleaning. Or jogging. Or working. Or riding her scooter. Or going out to the shops or pubs. Or baking brown bread. Or eating brown bread. Too risky. Each outing an opportunity to lose it. She’d rather die.
“It’s safe,” she said. “I’ll always keep it safe.”
“And secret,” Macdara said, sounding none too pleased about it.
“We can’t torture people with a long engagement. You know how nosy folks are. They’ll hound us nonstop.”
“Is that the real reason?”
She frowned. He wasn’t playing nice. It’s not like he had to wear a giant ring effectively announcing that he was off-limits. She was still the newest member of the guards. Before they revealed their engagement, they were going to have to confess their relationship to their superiors. They could even be assigned to different garda stations. He knew all this. Yet he was pouting. “Why are you meeting your cousin in Ballysiogdun?” Deflection was a trick Detective Sergeant Macdara Flannery knew well, but she was banking on him realizing the futility of grilling her any further.
She had never been to the village, only through it, but she’d heard tales. As “small world rules” would have it, a lad who was in her class at Templemore Garda College worked in that village. Danny MacGregor. He said the folks there had their own way of doing things. Was he one of the guards Macdara’s cousin didn’t trust? If so, she had the wrong end of the stick. Danny was a good man all around, and in training promised to be an excellent guard.
“It seems they moved there a year ago,” Macdara said. “I only get the news from my mam.”
Siobhán raised an eyebrow. “How old is your cousin?”
“She’s in her thirties. But they have always lived together.”
Given that she would live with her siblings forever if she could have her way, Siobhán wasn’t going to judge. “You didn’t know they moved?”
“Aunt Ellen and Mam had a falling out. Last I knew they were living in Waterford.”
Waterford was a lovely place to visit. Why couldn’t they still be there? “How can I help?”
He relaxed and a soft smile brightened his handsome face. “I was hoping you’d want to come along.”
“Really?” The long list of things she had to do scrolled through her mind.
“You are my secret fiancée, aren’t you?”
“I am.” She mentally crumpled up her to-do list.
“It’s time you met more of my family.”
“I agree. However . . .” He arched an eyebrow. “It doesn’t sound like this is a good time for happy introductions.”
He treated her to a sheepish grin. “I’m not good with hysterical women.”
There it was. The real reason he