LITMIR.BIZ

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Oh, yeah—I dropped a full glass of Sam Adams. There’s glass and beer all over behind the bar.”He hesitated, as if wanting to say more, but instead, yanked open the pantry and hauled out a fifth of Bushmills Irish whiskey, then left by the back door.

      Brian Logan chased after his brother. “On second thought, Garret, if you’re right and it is Colleen Drake, I probably won’t be very nice to her. How could I after what you’ve been through? Give me the whiskey. Go back and talk to her yourself. Don’t let that woman drive you back into the bottle.”

      “I won’t. I need a little liquid courage, is all, before I tell her exactly what I think.” Garret wagged the bottle.

      “Dammit, you’ve been back to your old self this year.”

      Garret didn’t respond. He brushed past Sean, his brother closest in age, who was returning from a run to the bank. Along with Garret and Brian, Sean was part-owner of the pub.

      Without a word to Sean, Garret climbed into his Suzuki Grand Vitara and sent up a spray of gravel as he tore out of the lot.

      “What’s got his tail in a twist?” Sean gestured with an empty bank deposit bag toward the rapidly receding vehicle.

      Brian took the bag from Sean. “I need to attend to business inside. Go after Garret. Make sure he’s okay. He’s just had the shock of his life. I’m guessing he’s headed to his house.”

      “What kind of shock?”

      Brian glared angrily back at the pub. “I haven’t seen her yet, but apparently, Colleen Drake has returned from the dead. From hell, if you ask me, considering the basket case she left Garret.”

      “But…we all saw the news photo of Joe Drake’s car being loaded onto a flatbed truck. The article said the driver and passenger were pronounced dead at the scene. There’s no way anyone could have survived that wreck.”

      “Yeah, well, either Garret’s suddenly lost his mind, or the reporter got his facts wrong. Go. Make sure Garret doesn’t polish off too much of that bottle. And if he’s too rattled to come back and handle the afterwork crowd, see if Molly can come in,” Brian instructed, referring to their only sister.

      Sean struck out for his pickup. “I’ll phone Mom. Then Trish and Jaclyn,” he said, looking relieved that Brian would be the one dealing with their surprise visitor.

      Brian nodded. “I’ll see if I can find out why she’s here, and how long she plans to stick around. I wonder where she’s staying.”

      “Not too many choices. Trish is working the desk at the resort this afternoon. When I phone her, I can ask if Colleen checked in. If not, maybe it wouldn’t hurt for Trish to tell her they’re full up. She might just decide to move on.”

      “She’s Garret’s business, Sean, not ours. Maybe she has a good reason for being gone so long.”

      “What good reason could there be for letting Garret dangle for seven damn years? He bought land to build her a house, for cripe’s sake. He deserves an explanation at least, Brian.”

      “Right. You’re right. Our folks always treated Colleen like a second daughter. Like they treat my wife and Galen’s and now your fiancée. I can’t think of any excuse that’s strong enough for us to forgive how badly she hurt Garret. Go, do what you have to, Sean. I’ll see if it’s really Colleen at the bar, and not some figment of Garret’s imagination.” Brian returned to the pub’s kitchen where he grabbed a broom, bucket and mop and went to tackle his brother’s mess.

      A FEW TIMES on the drive home Garret considered turning back. Part of him knew Brian was right in saying he’d come a long way this past year. He was also right that Garret shouldn’t let Colleen send him into a tailspin again. But he couldn’t help it.

      There was the note she’d left with his dad shortly after he accompanied his mom on the trip to Ireland. In it she said she was going to Boston with her parents for a few days—strictly to pacify her mother. She said her mom had arranged for an audition at some highbrow music conservatory. But Colleen assured Garret that she had no intention of attending anymusic school so far away.

      Today she’d looked spiffy enough to have become one of the highbrows. What the hell had happened to her resolve?

      Garret pulled into his driveway but he didn’t get out. He gripped the steering wheel with both hands. A few weeks before Garret, and his mom, Clare, arrived home from three months abroad, the top real estate agent in White Oak Valley sold the Drake house, which sat next to the Logan family homestead. The story that circulated and had been accepted as truth was that Harvey Bolton had been contacted by a grief-stricken Sharon Drake and told to sell. Well, jeez, Garret had been grief stricken, too. And inconsolable, even though his family had banded together to try to ease his pain. Dropping his head briefly on the steering wheel between his two clenched hands, he realized the story could only have been a ruse.

      He beat his palms on the wheel and released a strangled cry. Then he grabbed the bottle of Bushmills and made his way into the house he and Colleen had planned together.

      JO HAD BEEN SHAKEN by the angry words flung at her by the bartender. She was half-afraid to meet him outside as he suggested. The pub was surrounded by forest. No one except a kid on a bicycle knew she’d come here looking for Garret Logan. How could she trust that surly, muscular bartender not to hurt her?

      Still, those people might be her only lead, her only way to sort out the past. She was unnerved by his behavior, but even more so by her own uncharacteristic request for sarsaparilla.

      As Jo hovered near the bar, undecided about leaving or staying in case the man came back, she sensed a bigger wall of hostility surrounding a second man who’d emerged from the pub’s back room. He carried a broom, a mop and a bucket. After pausing to check if the two guys seated at the bar needed anything else, he bent to the chore of cleaning up the mess left by the first bartender. If this was the Brian the other man had mentioned, he wasn’t familiar to her either.

      The two men, both quite good-looking with dark hair and coffee-brown eyes, shared a familial resemblance. Plus, they were the rudest people Jo had ever encountered. Her ego still smarted from the first man saying they had a score to settle. The only scores she knew anything about were musical scores.

      She supposed she could’ve explained her situation. She could’ve admitted her past was a blank. But a psychologist she’d briefly seen had cautioned her to be careful whom she confided in before she knew just how the person was linked to her past. The therapist said sometimes too much honesty allowed unscrupulous people to take advantage. She cited cases where men—especially—had claimed past romantic relationships with fugue victims, then cleaned out their bank accounts. And her mother, too, had urged Jo to be wary because she was so vulnerable.

      Not that Jo had money. What she did have, apparently, was some kind of history connecting her to this town. Already she’d experienced the anxiety that accompanied flashes of déjà vu. And, yes, she definitely felt vulnerable. The bartender had also called her Colleen. Jo didn’t know what to believe.

      Glancing around the pub, she felt as though she’d seen the paintings and photographs hanging on thewalls before. It was creepy, like walking into a stranger’s dream.

      Still unsure if she should wait for the first bartender to return, Jo crossed to a doorway shielded by strings of green crystal beads. She parted the tinkling strands and peered into a vacant room—and was flooded with images of a wedding. Or perhaps bits and pieces of several wedding receptions. The mental pictures were so clear they made her gasp and blink.

      She started to step into the room, but was blocked by a man’s arm. Jo fought the barrier momentarily, because she didn’t want to lose the moment. The blip—the wedding scene—was accompanied by raucous laughter, clinking glassware and the sounds of loud fiddle music.

      Not Jo’s kind of music—not Tchaikovsky, Schumann or Beethoven—but folk songs. How was it she recognized the bluegrass sounds when her mother refused to let anything other than classical music be played in their

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