The Harp and the Fiddle: Glenncailty Castle, Book 1 Read Online Free PDF

of one of the counters, doing her best to stay out of the way as Jim, one of the chefs, worked.
    “I’ve never cut so many chips,” Jim said. He was the chef de partie of the fry baskets, or friturier , as the French chef de cuisine , Tristan, insisted Jim be called. It seemed like a fancy name for a man frying chips, but Caera had to admit these chips were better than most, so maybe the French titles helped. The whole kitchen glistened, not only with clean steel, but with the expectations and rigidity of Tristan. Caera usually hid if she saw him. 
    “You’ve peeled more spuds than this,” Caera said, looking in the garbage pail at the mountain of potato peels.
    Jim slammed a potato through a dicer, tossed the pieces with some floury substance, then added them to a bowl of raw chips, ready to be made into fried bits of heaven.
    “It’s been a fair while. I hear you’re to blame for this.”
    Caera shrugged and smiled. Free Birds Fly was her baby, the biggest thing she’d done thus far at Glenncailty.
    “Well, good luck to you. And tell Rory I’m going to Navan to watch the Meath-Galway game if he wants to come.”
    “I’m sure he will.”
    She saw another chef ladle up her soup, then fetch Rory’s steak from the restaurant side and slide it onto a plate. Jim added chips, Caera grabbed her own bread and, after stealing a tray to put them on, she carefully carried them back into the bar.
    “You’re a lovely serving girl,” Rory told her.
    “You’d do well to show some respect. I am your boss.”
    “You’d look fetching in an apron.”
    “Feck off.”
    “Nothing but an apron.” Rory’s brown eyes danced.
    “Now I’m telling your mammy.”
    “Ah Caera, why won’t you—”
    She didn’t hear the rest of what Rory said. The hair on her arms stood up, as if someone had let in the cold, but the doors were closed. She looked over to see the American sitting at the bar.
    He was looking at her.
    Their gazes met. Held.
    “Caera?”
    “Yea?” Caera ripped her attention from Tim and turned back to Rory, who was looking at her oddly.
    He followed her gaze to the bar.
    “Who’s that?”
    She wanted to say “no one” and tell Rory to mind his own business, but that made no sense. She had nothing to hide. “He’s Tim Wilcox.”
    “The American?” Rory turned to look again. Out of the corner of her eye Caera saw Tim studying Rory in return. “He dresses like an American.”
    Tim wore jeans, a T-shirt with a picture of what looked like Johnny Cash, a gray scarf wound around his neck and a black jacket. Among the trousers and jumper-clad Irish, he did stand out.
    Caera thought he looked a bit like a model, with his hair parted at the side, the forelock curling on his brow, his jaw square, lips finely cut.
    “He’s looking at you,” Rory said, voice deepening.
    Rory, I’m not yours to protect , Caera thought.
    “We met earlier. He came in to Finn’s to test his fiddle.”
    Rory turned back to her, the fight draining out of him at her words. He munched down a few fries, before adding, “That’s what she said.”
    “What?”
    “You said he came to ‘test his fiddle.’ That’s what she said.” Rory grinned at his own wit.
    Caera threw a hunk of brown bread at him. Lifting her bowl, she drained the last drops of soup. She was just in time. The shift must have been changing in the hotel, because a reception clerk and two parlor attendants were hovering, waiting to join their table. 
    She stood, giving up her seat and bussing her plate to the far end of the bar, away from Tim. Quick as she could, she pulled up the ticket for their dinner and paid, prepared to sneak out and away to home.
    She didn’t make it.
    The first notes of a strummed guitar quieted and then raised a cheer from the patrons in the bar. The pack of wily old gentlemen from Cailtytown had their instrument cases up on their table, pint glasses carefully pushed aside. Next came a fiddle and another guitar. A triangle and tin