Briarwood Cottage Read Online Free PDF Page A

done.”
    “It was,” Duncan agreed. “And one of the few movies that lived up to the book.” He didn’t mention that the fictional lake creature was what had brought him to town.
    “I suspect that’s because Quinn was here in Castlelough overseeing every bit of the filming,” she suggested. “And staying in the Joyce house, as well, which was how he and Nora met…
    “You’ll be wanting a selection of scones.” She chose three, wrapped them in cellophane, and tossed them in with the salmon and eggs. “As well as our famous brown bread and butter.” In went a loaf of bread and a white box of butter bearing what he took to be a family crest depicting two red eagles.
    Remembering how Cass had loved the luxury of fresh juice while in the Middle East, Duncan bought Spanish oranges and a juicer.
    “The fact that you’re going to so much trouble to welcome your wife will make a grand impression,” Mrs. Monohan assured him as she rang up his order.
    Not nearly as optimistic, Duncan would settle for her not throwing a new set of divorce papers in his face.
    Although his career required being able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat, anywhere, anytime, he’d spent a restless night reliving every moment of their time together. Especially that last night when she’d coldly, remotely informed him that she no longer loved him and their short-lived marriage was over.
    After tossing and turning, he finally gave up on sleep, rose, and set the table with the earthenware dishes he’d found in a cupboard. Reluctantly deciding that meeting Cass at the airport might be pushing things, Duncan brewed himself a big pot of extra-dark roast high-caffeine coffee.
    And waited.

4
    F rom the air, Ireland looked like an emerald set in a gleaming sapphire sea. As the plane descended into Shannon Airport, Cassandra thought, just as she had the first time she’d been to the country, how all those green fields set apart by stone walls resembled an Irish tourism postcard sprung to life.
    Her nerves were tingling as she made her way through immigration. Not because the Irish officials were at all intimidating but because, soon, after these past three months, she’d be coming face-to-face with Duncan again.
    Unable to sleep during the flight over the Atlantic, she’d spent the night trying to think of what she’d first say.
    “Hi” was way too casual, given their circumstances.
    “Hello, Duncan” was better. But then what?
    Although they hadn’t been able to make their marriage work, he’d done his best to be a caring husband from the moment he’d shown up at the Cairo hospital. Unfortunately, his best hadn’t been able to break through the stony wall of Cassandra’s grief and guilt. The hard truth was that it had been a losing cause for him to continue to try, which was why, unable to bear his kindness, which, at the time, she’d believed that she hadn’t deserved, she’d forced him away.
    So, now, months later, she couldn’t just hand him the duplicate set of papers she’d had drawn up to replace the ones he’d never signed without some sort of lead-in conversation. What if he slammed the door in her face? She wouldn’t blame him. She had, after all, insisted that she no longer loved him.
    Which had been a lie. During their third session, Dr. Fletcher had suggested that the person Cassandra had no longer loved was not Duncan but herself. Something Cassandra had been unable to argue with.
    Given that Irish road signs could probably earn their own topic on Jeopardy (especially those in Gaeltacht regions where they were written in Irish), Cassandra was grateful for the rental car’s GPS as she made her way past hedgerows and pastures and through small market towns toward the coast. Rolling down the car windows, she breathed in the salty scent of the sea and the rich, coconut aroma of sunshine-bright yellow furze blooming on hedges, meadows, and along roadsides and felt a light easing of her tangled nerves.
    Her first trip