Night Of The Blackbird. Heather Graham

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      “No, not because of me at all.”

      “Why, then?”

      “He has beady eyes.”

      “Beady eyes?”

      “Dangerous eyes.”

      “Dangerous eyes? Well, how lovely. How wonderfully exciting—and sexy. I hadn’t realized just how much Michael has to offer.”

      “You should have married Josh. Now there’s a good fellow, and safe.”

      Moira took up scrubbing the perfectly clean bar once again. “Now that will be great for Josh’s ego—you calling him safe.”

      “What? A man doesn’t want to be dependable and safe?”

      Moira sighed deeply. “I don’t know, Danny, you’d have to answer that one. Have you ever been dependable—or safe?”

      “As dependable as a rock.”

      “A rock that skips all over the place.”

      He shrugged. “I love the United States. I was born in Ireland. That creates a divided heart, you know.”

      “I read somewhere the other day that there are far more Irish in America than there are in Ireland.”

      “Are you asking me to move here permanently?” he queried.

      “I’m merely informing you that since you seemed beguiled into coming to the States time and time again, you might want to consider immigration.”

      “If I did, would you put a cease and desist on the fellow with the beady eyes?”

      “No. And please, get going, grab those glasses and get them washed. I want to go up to bed.”

      “Ah, now, was that an invitation? In your father’s house? Moira Kelly!”

      “That was definitely not an invitation. What are you doing here now, anyway? Shouldn’t you be at home celebrating Saint Patrick’s Day?”

      “I’m visiting old friends,” he said.

      “Don’t you have any friends in Ireland who need to be visited?”

      “All over the island. I wanted to be here.”

      “Why? Will you be preaching to the Americans again? Do you have a new book out? All about the imperialism of the English and how the entire world should just stop whatever else it’s doing and force the unification of Ireland?”

      He arched a brow. “That’s a rather biased way of seeing the situation—and me.”

      “Oh, I agree, but isn’t it your way of seeing it?”

      “No, not at all. I think you’ve mixed up a bit of personal resentment with logical judgment. I was never a fire starter. I never claimed to have all the answers, and I don’t begin to claim to have them now. You’re American, right? You do insist that everyone knows that all the time.”

      “I am an American. I was born here.”

      “Okay, so you’re first generation. The ‘English’ in Northern Ireland have been there a much longer time. Centuries, for some families. The difficulties are easy to see. For so many centuries, the Irish people were reduced to second-class citizens in their own country. The English, the Protestants, had the power and the money, and vicious hatreds have been inbred into the people. But what to do now…well, that’s a very difficult question. In my mind, there has to be a reconciliation between the people there themselves, and only then can you ever have a united Ireland.”

      She stopped and stared at him. “You think that one morning all the people in Northern Ireland are going to wake up and say, ‘Hey, this whole thing has been ridiculous, let’s just get on with each other’?”

      “Things have been much better in the last ten years or so,” he told her.

      “Danny, I watched you speak once, after your first book was published, and your talk was about ancient history and all the wars the Irish have fought.”

      “I was young then, but you never heard me suggest that there was an easy solution, or that anyone should take up arms against anyone else. Yes, I was a student of Irish history, from the Tuath de Danaan to the Easter Rebellion and beyond, and in the middle of trying to decipher how such a mess between people came about, I discovered I loved both writing and speaking. I hope I’m not quite the total ham I was as a very young man, but I still love to lecture. Especially to Irish Americans. But never about taking up arms. You should know that about me.”

      “Danny, you know what? I don’t know you, or anything about you, any more. I probably never knew you. But I am an American. And I deplore violence no matter what.”

      “You haven’t been listening to me. What do you think I’m about? Carrying an Uzi in the street?”

      “I just told you, I don’t know. And I don’t care. I’m American to the bone, and we have enough of our own problems in this country. I’m going to bed. Good night. Finish up the glasses, since you told my father you were going to help.”

      She headed for the winding stairs to the house.

      “Moira.”

      “What?” She stopped. At first she didn’t turn around, but held still, her shoulders stiff. At last she turned to face him. “What?” she repeated.

      “You do know me. Deep inside, you do know me.”

      “Great. Good night.”

      “I’m still your friend. Whether you know it or not. And here’s a friendly warning. Watch out for men with beady eyes.”

      “Michael has beautiful eyes.”

      “Beautiful? If you say so. Rather hard for me to tell. So okay, beautiful, if you insist, but still beady.”

      She sighed with impatience. “Good night, Danny.”

      “Good night, Moira.”

      As she started up the stairs, she could hear the clink of glasses. She hurried to her home above the pub and quickly locked the door at the top of the stairs.

      The house was very quiet. Down the hallway, all the bedroom doors were closed. Her parents had taken Patrick’s old room and given him and Siobhan the master bedroom, with the little nursery off it for the kids, Brian happily taking possession of the air mattress. She had offered to sleep with Colleen, so the children could have her room and her parents could stay in theirs, or to take a room at the Copley with the rest of her crew, but her parents had wanted no part of that. They were too happy just to have their family together. Their children, their grandchildren and Siobhan, whom they loved like a daughter.

      She hadn’t seen her sister-in-law yet, she thought. Unusual. Siobhan had gone to visit her folks, but it was odd that she hadn’t taken the children or come into the pub when she returned.

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