He shook his head. “Must be our catchphrase.”

I paused halfway to the door. “What?”

“You said something like that when we first met. Then I tried to leave Ryan’s fast. But we never seem to get very far from each other, do we?”

I pulled the door open. “I am going.”

He nodded. “See you in the morning.”

I could feel the intensity of his gaze long after I’d tucked myself into bed and turned off all the lights.

I woke to birdsong. The sun had already risen, and morning light filtered through my window, lying in panels across my bed and the floor. I stretched and twisted and considered my jogging gear, but the time difference had thrown me off and I didn’t have time for a run if I wanted to meet with Maggie O’Connor in two hours. Still, I headed outside so I could get some fresh air and give my appetite time to wake up before breakfast.

I settled on a white stone bench under a cypress tree with my volume of Yeats, which to be honest I never would have read if I hadn’t been in Ireland. My last poetry had been along the lines of Dr. Seuss, who I held in great esteem, but other than him my attention usually drifted off during the first stanza of a poem.

I’d only been there fifteen minutes when Anna walked toward me, clearly coming in for breakfast from the cottage where she was staying. We both hesitated when we caught sight of each other, and then she angled her path to my bench.

I nodded at her. “Morning.”

She nodded back, and shoved her hands into the pockets of her faux leather jacket. The pockets didn’t look like they were actually built to support hands. “Sorry if I was kinda bitchy yesterday.”

I smiled. “We can blame it on jetlag.”

She grunted. “So. Are you a model or something?”

People had asked me that before—mostly because I’d inherited my mother’s height, cheekbones, and famous gray eyes—but I always hated the question. “Definitely not. I’m an archaeologist.”

“Seriously?”

I closed my book and slid over on the bench. “I study Irish history, from about two thousand years ago. I’m interested in the contact between Ireland and Rome, and your family’s farmland might cover an archaeological site that would give more information on that.”

Her jaw dropped open, and she fell onto the bench. “Seriously? Kilkarten? The farm? Are you going to, like, dig it up? That’s awesome.”

Something twinged in my chest, but I ignored it. “I don’t think so. I’m mostly going to be looking at old local records. Sometimes in these rural villages, papers don’t get digitized, so.”

Her brow scrunched up. “Well, why don’t you dig it up? Isn’t that easier?”

“Um.” I glanced back at the inn. So Mike hadn’t talked to his family about the excavation. “It’s complicated.” I shook the thoughts from my head and smiled at Anna. “So, how about you? You’re here to...” Oops. I’d just walked into depressing territory. “Because of your uncle?”

She shrugged and scowled. “Yeah, I guess. But seriously, who the fuck goes to Ireland because of some dude they never met?” She cut me a measured look, as though waiting for a reprimand, but I didn’t bite. She could curse her tongue off if she wanted.

“Did you have plans this summer?”

She snorted. “Obviously. I was going to work in Derek’s sister’s tattoo parlor.” She swung her foot impatiently. “But then they made me come here, so he broke up with me.”

I looked at her. “Because you weren’t going to work at his sister’s tattoo parlor.”

She shrugged. Her foot kept swinging. “Well. And I wouldn’t sleep with him.”

Shocking.

“I mean, I was going to.” She scowled. “Who wants to be a fucking virgin their senior year of high school?”

Fucking virgin was my new favorite phrase.

“Now he’s dating Kaitlyn Taylor.”

“On the other hand, Kaitlyn Taylor is stuck back home, and you get to explore all of Ireland.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

I leaned my head back, so I could admire the morning sky, and lowered my voice confidentially. “So my best friend and I came up with a plan before I came here. You want in on it?”

She seemed aware that she was too cool for plans, but still couldn’t resist asking, “What is it?”

“Operation: Irish Boyfriend.”

She threw a startled glance at me. “Wait, you want an Irish boyfriend? But what about—” She stopped abruptly.

My mouth twitched. “There’s nothing going on between me and your brother.”

“Why not?” She sounded almost defensive.

I jumped up from the bench. “I’m hungry. Let’s get some breakfast.”

And I headed back inside before Anna could press the issue.

The rest of the O’Connors joined us not much later, and when the three women moved to go to Cork for the day, Mike excused himself. “Natalie and I are going to head into the village.”

Kate agreed with such alacrity I suspected she still hoped Mike would be introducing me as his girlfriend shortly. Anna shot me a pointed look.

I turned to Mike after they’d left. “I feel like your entire family has some sort of agenda.”

“They usually do.” He stood and I followed. “Come on, let’s ask Eileen how to get into Dundoran.”

The coastal path from the inn to Dundoran Village curved along the shoreline. It rose and fell through the hills, but never touched the sand. Instead, we walked on flattened grass, while a haphazard stone wall herded us south. Pale green moss frosted the stones, and purple thistles fringed the bottom. Beyond the wall, wide green swaths rolled up into hills and sky, only interrupted by bushy trees and hedgerows.

I let out a deep sigh.

“You okay?”

I waved my arm expansively. “I’m just happy. It’s so beautiful. All these greens—all the colors.” The land rose slightly and the path followed it upward, giving us a splendid view of the heather covered green that sloped down to the shore. The water lapped gentle against the pale yellow strip of sand.

Mike stared at me. “You cannot get this turned on by nature.”

I tossed a grin back at him. “Why not? What else is this amazing?” I closed my eyes and inhaled a warm, fresh breeze, grass and blooming flowers, all underlain by the sea. “In Ecuador, you can smell the eucalypti. It’s sickly sweet. Heady. The bark peels off like paper, and it’s everywhere—the Spanish introduced the trees as a source of cheap firewood, and then it spread all over. I dreamed of those trees when I left.”

“Why did you leave?”

I opened my eyes. “Why? Well, the dig was up.”

“Hmm.” There was something in that noise, like I’d revealed a facet of myself I hadn’t intended to. “And what are you going to dream of here?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the sea. Salt and earth and wind.” I laughed. “Am I getting too fantastical?”

He studied me. I was learning that when Michael O’Connor fixed his attention on me, I felt like we were the only two people in the world. Out here in this rugged landscape, we could have been. “So you’ve lived in New York and Ecuador and now you’re here. You don’t put down roots, do you?”

I shrugged. “I put down enough.”

He lifted a challenging brow. “But you travel more than most people, don’t you?”

I’d always been proud of my travel spiel before, but now I wondered if he had a point. “I spent a year abroad in London. Did my field school in Greece summer after my sophomore year and then went back there the next season. Worked in the Great Plains for the summer after that. Did some work on Inka fortresses for one of my profs last year. My degree’s archaeology, so not place specific, though I’ll just be focusing on Ireland for my thesis.”

We kept walking, and he offered me a hand as we jumped over some mud. “Don’t you ever want to stay put?”

The idea of remaining in one place for a marked period of time gave rise to a fluttering anxiety. I pulled my hand out of his warm one as we walked on. Staying put seemed synonymous with being weighed down. Trapped. Suffocated. “No. That idea terrifies me.”