LITMIR.BIZ

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huffed out a breath. “I’m telling you, Jefferson, unless things get straightened out around here soon, this shoot is going to go way over budget. Hell, even the weather’s giving us a hard time. I’ve never seen so much rain.”

      This didn’t make any sense. None of it. He’d thought everything was settled. Clearly, he’d been wrong. Looked like he was going to be heading back to County Mayo whether he had planned to or not. Time to have a little talk with a certain sheep farmer. Time to remind her that he had the law on his side and he wasn’t leery about using it.

      “All right,” he said. “The rain I can’t do anything about. But I’ll take care of the rest of it.”

      “Yeah?” the director asked. “How?”

      “I’ll fly over there myself and get to the bottom of it.” Something inside him stirred into life at the thought of seeing Maura again, though he wouldn’t admit that, even to himself. This wasn’t about his fling with Maura Donohue. This was about business. And she’d better have a damned good reason for being so uncooperative.

      “Fine. Hurry.”

      Jefferson hung up, shouted for his assistant and grabbed his suit jacket out of the closet. He’d already scheduled a trip to Austria to meet with the owner of an ancient castle to talk about filming rights. He’d just work Ireland into the trip.

      Shouldn’t take long to fix whatever had gone wrong in Craic. He’d stay in the village, talk to everyone, then remind Maura that they had a damn deal. If she was playing games, they were going to stop.

      Women were notoriously inconsistent, he reminded himself. God knew the actresses and agents he worked with could drive a man insane. Their moods could change with a whim and any man in the vicinity was liable to be flattened.

      Besides, seeing Maura would probably be a good thing in the long run. Give him a chance to look at her without the haze of great sex as a filter. He’d see her for what she was. Just a woman he was doing business with. They could meet, talk, then part again and maybe then he’d stop being hounded by his own memories.

      His assistant, Joan, an older woman with no-nonsense green eyes and a detail-oriented personality, hustled into the office.

      “What’s going on?” she asked.

      “I’m going to need you to contact the airport. Tell the pilot we’re making a pit stop in Ireland before we head to Austria.”

      “Sure, Ireland, Austria. Practically neighbors.”

      “Funny. Something’s come up.” He was already headed for the door. “I’m going by my house to pack. Tell the pilot I’ll be there in two hours. Have the plane prepped and ready to go.”

      One of the perks of being a member of the King family was having King Jets at one’s disposal. His cousin Jackson ran the company, renting out luxury planes to those who willingly paid outrageous amounts of money for comfort while traveling. But the King family always had the pick of the jets whenever they needed them. Which made all the travel Jefferson did for work a lot easier to take.

      Because of that, he could be in the air before dinnertime and in Ireland for breakfast.

      “I’ll tell him,” Joan said as he walked past her. “The jet will be ready. Should I fax you those papers on the McClane buyout while you’re in the air or wait until you return?”

      He thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. J. T. McClane was the owner of an actual ghost town just on the outskirts of the Mohave desert. Jefferson had the idea to do a modern-day western-gothic film set in what was left of that town. But the man had been dickering over the price for weeks. Wouldn’t hurt to remind the man that King Studios was going to remain in charge of the negotiations.

      “Just hang on to them until I get back,” he said finally. “Won’t hurt to make McClane sweat about this deal for a while.”

      Joan smiled. “Got it. And, boss…”

      “Yeah?”

      “Good luck.”

      Jefferson smiled and nodded as he left, and kept his thoughts to himself. No point in telling Joan that the only one who was going to need luck around here was Maura Donohue.

      Chapter Five

      Jefferson stopped in the village to book a room at the small inn that he’d stayed in on his last trip. He was jet-lagged, hungry and well past the breaking point. So when the innkeeper, Frances Boyle, was less than welcoming when she opened her bright red front door and gave him a grim glare, Jefferson’s hackles went up.

      “Well,” she said, crossing her thick arms over a prodigious chest covered by a shawl the color of mustard. “If it isn’t himself, come back to the scene of the crime.”

      “Crime?” One black eyebrow lifted. “Excuse me?”

      “Hah! A fine time to be beggin’ pardon and if it’s pardon you’re asking I’m not the one it should be aimed at.”

      He closed his eyes briefly. The older woman’s brogue was so thick, and she spoke so quickly, he’d thought for a moment she was speaking Gaelic. Then her words sunk in and he realized he was being scolded as if he were a five-year-old who’d thrown a rock through her window.

      “Mrs. Boyle,” Jefferson said, gathering the reins on his simmering temper and trying for a charming smile. “I’ve just spent too many hours on a jet, then driven here from the airport in a rental car that blew a tire on the road and now—” he paused to toss a hard stare at the lowering gray sky “—I’m getting rained on. I’m happy to listen to whatever your complaints might be after you rent me a room so I can change clothes and get settled.”

      “Humph.”

      Her snort was caught between a snide laugh and a jolt of outrage. “Used to giving orders, aren’t you? No doubt your lackeys jump to attention when you snarl. Well, I’m no one’s lackey, boyo, and I’ve no time for the likes of you, Jefferson King.”

      Lackey? He didn’t have lackeys.

      “The likes of—” What the hell had happened to this place in a few short months? Had he stepped into an alternate universe? He pushed his wet hair out of his eyes, blinked the raindrops off his lashes and asked, “What did I do? I haven’t even been here in months!”

      She huffed out a breath. “So you haven’t, when you should’ve been, I say. You’re a sad disappointment to me, Mister King.”

      “Disappointment?” Seriously, he felt as though he needed a translator. It was as if the older woman was speaking in code. “What the hell is going on around here?”

      “A decent man would already know the answer to that question.” Her features were hard as stone and her normally placid eyes were glittering. The toe of her practical black shoe tapped against the linoleum. “And I don’t appreciate you swearing at me in my own home.”

      “I’m not in your home,” he pointed out, as a cold drop of rain sneaked underneath his shirt collar and rolled icily down his spine.

      “And not likely to be any time soon, either.”

      So, he was getting a firsthand lesson in what his film crew had been experiencing. He couldn’t understand this. When he’d been here the last time, Frances Boyle had been warm, funny, friendly. He wasn’t used to being treated with outright disrespect.

      But whatever her problem was with him, he’d deal with it later. All he wanted at the moment was a room, a change of clothes and a meal. Once he was warm, dry and fed, he knew he’d be in better shape to handle not only Mrs. Boyle, but anything else that awaited him in this picturesque village.

      Then he’d be ready to head off to Maura’s farmhouse to settle whatever bug she had up her—He cut that thought off abruptly and tried one last time. “Mrs. Boyle. I just need a room for a couple

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