Bride Of The Emerald Isle. Trish Wylie

of the lush green countryside laid out before her like a painting her mother might have created early in her career, she couldn’t bring herself to reach into her bag for them.

      To have a direct line into a part of her mother’s life that she hadn’t known about.

      It was just too glaring a reminder of how lacking their relationship had been while her mother was alive. Of what Keelin had missed out on by carrying around a sense of something major missing from her life, due to her mother’s lifestyle and ‘artistic’ temperament.

      Keelin had been so angry at her growing up. But even though they had made their peace before she’d left, Keelin was left with a hole inside, a hole she had hoped to fill with the things she had never known. As if somehow that could make it easier to move on…

      This journey had been her attempt at trying to put the pieces together. To try and make sense of everything that had gone before so she could put it aside and move forwards. So she didn’t feel as if she was drifting through life, filling in time, waiting for something she hadn’t put a name to. While not really living at all.

      ‘You’re more like your father than me,’ her mother would say to try and justify the glaring differences in their personalities when Keelin had been a rebellious teenager, determined her mother’s way of living had ruined her own life in some way.

      ‘How would I know that when you never talk about him?’ had been Keelin’s defence mid-argument.

      She reached into her bag and took out the bundle of letters. They were her only chance to try and understand the woman who had never understood her, not really. And to try and put together the missing part of the puzzle that had led to her own existence.

      

      She promised herself it didn’t matter what Garrett thought about how she looked that evening. Even though she had taken an inordinate amount of time getting ready.

      Living up to the memory Dermot had of her stunning mother would be difficult enough.

      But the glow in Garrett’s dark sable eyes when he turned to look at her in the tiny hotel foyer still brought a rush of welcomed self-confidence.

      He didn’t make a comment, though. Just slowly looked her down and back up.

      And in that second she sent up a silent prayer that she could manage to control how attractive she found him, how he could have such an effect on her with just a glance. He took her breath away. He really did.

      ‘I have to make a stop along the way.’

      ‘No problem.’ She pinned a bright smile in place as he eased his long legs in through the driver’s side door.

      ‘Just get ready for about a hundred questions.’

      A rueful smile caused his dimples to flash briefly her way as he turned out onto the narrow street, executing a U-turn at the harbour. ‘Terri is going to find you fascinating as all hell.’

      Meaning he didn’t? Not that it wouldn’t be better if he didn’t, but, surely, having been on the sidelines earlier, he couldn’t help but at least be curious?

      As she was now about the mysterious Terry. ‘He doesn’t get off the island much more than you do I take it?’

      ‘She. And, no, she doesn’t. No matter how much she bugs me on a daily basis about it.’

      Not Terry, then. Theresa.

      Keelin was suddenly ragingly curious about the kind of woman that Garrett spent time with. She was probably some excruciatingly pretty island girl who loved the outdoors and had wellingtons in one of the prerequisite colours. At least if she was interested in city life Keelin would have something to talk to her about.

      Keelin the outsider might find a way not to feel so awkward in the company of two enigmatic Kincaid men that way. And with a girlfriend in tow then she could concentrate on trying to view Garrett as a friendly brother-figure rather than anything even resembling gorgeous male.

      ‘You should take her for a nice romantic getaway in the city. She’d like that.’

      Garrett laughed a low laugh beside her. ‘Somehow I don’t think dragging her old dad along on the trip would be part of the plan.’

      Keelin gaped at his profile. ‘You have a daughter?’

      ‘Yes, that I most definitely do.’

      ‘What age is she?’

      ‘Fourteen.’

      She gaped even more. He was obviously ageing better than she’d given him credit for.

      When she didn’t say anything, he glanced across at her, chuckling at her expression. ‘Why do you look so surprised?’

      Maybe because she was. ‘You just don’t look old enough to have a fourteen-year-old.’

      ‘Careful now, that’s almost a compliment.’

      ‘What age are you?’

      ‘Why is it women are always so quick to ask that question and never that keen on having it asked?’

      ‘Twenty-seven in two months’ time.’ She smiled sugary-sweet when he glanced her way again. ‘See, I have no problems with my age.’

      ‘That’s because you’re only twenty-seven.’

      ‘Still twenty-six, thank you.’

      He chuckled again. ‘Yep, no hang-ups about age there at all.’

      She lifted her chin when he glanced across after turning onto a narrow lane. ‘Spoken by the man who still hasn’t fessed up to his. Having a fourteen-year-old ages you, you see.’

      ‘More than you’ll ever know.’

      They made a right-handed turn and he slowed down to get through a set of gates. While Keelin smiled wistfully at his confession. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a teenager. Or a child, for that matter.

      Even though for a while she had ached for one, so that she could do a better job with it than her mother had with her. But having a child involved a father in Keelin’s mind. One that was there to watch his child grow.

      And Keelin had never cared about any man enough for that to happen. To commit herself to a lifetime in his company. Which was the way she still believed it should be. Maybe that made her old-fashioned. But having grown up without one, with only the odd ‘uncle’ as a stand-in…

      And Keelin didn’t believe she should even start to look for a suitable candidate until she had sorted out her own life. It would hardly be fair on him, would it? No one should rely on someone else to sort out their problems, to take on their responsibilities for them. Not in this day and age. No, she would walk into a relationship a whole person or not at all. That way she would have equal footing with the man who would be a father to her children.

      It took two people to make a marriage work.

      They pulled up in front of a two-storey red-brick house and Garrett sounded the horn as he swung the Range Rover around.

      ‘I was twenty when she was born.’

      Keelin looked at him in surprise, again. Her mind immediately thinking back to the person she had been at twenty. She’d had enough of a problem dealing with herself without the added responsibility of a baby.

      His eyes flickered briefly over her face again as the front door of the house opened. ‘I’ll let you do the maths.’

      But, even while she worked it out, Keelin was already looking out of the side window to catch a glimpse of his daughter. She was the walking female version of her father. No denying her parentage. And she was tall, even for her age. Not quite as tall as her father, but certainly taller than Keelin. Not that that was difficult.

      Though she had felt a little better in the hotel foyer, that, wearing heels, she at least made it to Garrett’s shoulder. He just