Authors: Glenys O'Connell
Walters
face broke into a wolfish grin. “That, my dear girl, is as far as we are asking
you to go. We’re not exactly pimps, you know.” Then, businesslike, he named a
figure that gave her a little adrenaline boost, and handed her a file stamped
“Confidential” in big, red letters.
“So, we’ll be hearing from you soon, I presume?”
he said, and left without waiting for a reply.
* * *
Jonathon Winters, a.k.a J.V. Winters, writer of
super-sexy
romance
novels and voted by his hundreds of thousands of fans as the Sexiest Date On
Earth, stretched shoulder muscles stiff from working all morning at his laptop
computer and wondered if he dared go out into his garden.
Word of his plans to leave his native America
behind, to immerse himself in the County Waterford countryside while writing a
new book, had spread like wildfire. The once quiet, rutted laneway in front of
his rented cottage had been turned into a freeway by hundreds of devoted fans
out for a glimpse of the man himself, but the brightly shining sun lured him
out. Tired of spending so much time at his desk, he grabbed a hatchet, whipped
off his flannel shirt and enjoyed the flexing of his muscles as he chopped some
logs into kindling.
As he was finishing, he heard the purr of a
prowling car stealthily passing his gateway. He roundly cursed his agent, who
he was sure had leaked information about his whereabouts as part of a
sales-boosting publicity stunt, then turned to see two middle-aged women gaping
through their car window.
He shivered, feeling suddenly naked under their
scrutiny without his usual disguise of dark glasses and Stetson hat that
protected his identity as a New York homicide detective.
* * *
“My
Lord! There is he, there he is!” The woman in the passenger seat squeaked as
she waved her arm excitedly towards the side garden of the property. The
shriek of brakes was audible a mile away. Winters looked towards the sound,
pushing his sweat-damp black hair from his face as, Peggy bravely decided to
stop by the gate.
Winters
ambled over to the two women, his strong, fit body clothed in casual cords;
sweat gleaming on his naked chest and shoulders. “Hello – is anything wrong?”
he asked.
Both
women stared at him, momentarily struck dumb. Then the driver, apparently the
braver of the two, replied: “No, nothing at all, Mr. Winters – Jonathon! I'm
Peggy O'Keefe, and this is my friend, Ruth Armstrong. We were just passing, and
saw you in the garden, and thought we’d be neighborly and stop by to say
hello!”
“Ah,”
Winters said. There was a world of meaning in the sound. Peggy and Ruth looked
at each other, embarrassed.
“I
have all your books, Mr. Winters, “Ruth said quietly, “And greatly admire your
work.”
Winters
felt his face redden under his tan. He hadn’t meant to be discourteous, but
he’d lately come to feel he was a prize specimen in a zoo. A description many
of his fans would have found apt, given that glorious physique.
“I
think, you know, we just wanted to see you. You are a celebrity and I suppose
every woman and girl from here to Cork is going to be passing this way when
word gets out,” Peggy told him.
“Word
must already be out, because this road is like a freeway. The real estate agent
told me it was so quiet, there was hardly ever a car by.” Winters softened his
words with that lopsided grin that appeared on most of his photographs and the
back cover of his books.
“We
didn’t mean to intrude,” Peggy said her round cheeks flushed.
“Not
at all. Listen, I was just stopping for a cup of tea and taking a stroll around
the garden. Would you ladies care to join me? To tell the truth, I have been
feeling a little isolated out here. It’s kinda quiet after New York, and I’d
appreciate a little company. Just a little.”
He emphasized that last word, wondering if he
wasn’t getting himself into deeper trouble. The writer in him was always on the
lookout for characters and story lines, and he found the world around him a
great source of inspiration. But he didn’t want to end up having to entertain
all the local ladies and their friends and relatives to tea. The women’s faces
were a picture.
He grinned to himself as he recalled a story
about a well-known Irish musician who held a tea party every year for his
thousands of adoring fans, and had a momentary vision of himself behind a
humungous tea-pot…
He stepped back gracefully, opened the gate and
invited the two still dumbstruck women into his garden. He seated them and then
went into the quiet house to fill the teapot. When the tea was brewed he
brought out the pot, cups and saucers, and a plate of cookies to offer his
guests.
“This is lovely, Mr. Winters – and so very nice
of you,” Ruth said as he placed the tray down on a small wicker table. The two
women became silent, nerves tying their tongues now they were finally in the
presence of the man himself.
Then Peggy grinned broadly. “Will you look at us,
sitting here like two leftover baked potatoes?” she said. “Do you have any idea
how many times we – and probably most of the women around here – have dreamed
of sitting down to tea with you?”
Well, maybe not exactly tea, but something,
the pink on her cheeks suggested
.
Winters, who had a fair
idea of what had caused the blush from some of the explicit fan mail he
received, tactfully ignored the faint rose color and began to ask questions
about the women themselves, their lives, and the area around Dunmore East.
The teapot finally emptied,
Peggy and Ruth got ready to leave. Ruth asked if she could use the bathroom,
and Peggy and Winters were left alone for a few moments.
“We’re really just very ordinary, boring people,”
Peggy said, continuing the conversation of a few moments earlier.
“Oh, I don’t think there is any such creature as
an ordinary, boring woman,” Winters replied charmingly, and he meant it.
Peggy threw back her head and laughed, a husky,
carefree sound in the birdsong-quiet garden, giving a swift glimpse of the
lovely young woman she had been.
Winters looked up as a car went by. His cop's
instinct picking up on the sudden sound of brakes, but the family sedan slowed
and then went on its way harmlessly, as Ruth returned.
“Well, if you ladies will excuse me, I've a
dinner appointment with my agent in Waterford tonight. It’s been a pleasure.”
“For us, too,” piped up Ruth, blushing in her
turn as her companion shot her a look.
# # #
Frank O’Keefe
climbed the steep and shabby stairs, hoping he wasn't making a fool of himself.
He'd never been to a detective before, but something had to be done or he was
sure he'd go crazy. Seeing his Peggy sitting in the sunshine with that Winters
fella had been the last straw. Especially when she hadn't told him about her
visit.
Lies of
omission. Weren't they the most damning?
Miracles never cease
,
Cíara
thought, studying the handsome middle-aged man perched on the edge of one of
the clients' chairs across from her
desk.
A walk-in male
client, and twice in one week!
She issued a fervent wish to whatever powers
that be that this client wanted a real detective, not a seductress, and that he
was a paying client. After the pathetic showing of her beloved little MG sports
car earlier that morning, she really needed paying clients.
A relic of the 1960’s, the
sporty MG had long ago passed its scrap yard due date, yet Cíara loved it.
She'd tenderly restored the bodywork herself to gleaming cherry red glory, and
loved to drive it with the top down in the summer and enjoy the envious glances
from all the lads in their sensible modern compacts. But keeping the little car
on the road cost a fortune.
That very morning, just
when she thought the car would run for a few months without visiting Harry the
Mechanic, she hit a bump while going through those damned construction works on
the North Circular Road and the muffler started to scream like an animal in
pain. Had screamed loudly, in fact, all the way to Harry’s garage.
When she left the little car in Harry's tender
care, he tipped her a wink and rubbed an oily rag over the black seams on his
face. “I can put an exhaust bandage on there, fix it up so it's not too loud
and you can drive it. But you'll have to have a new system, soon,” he declared.
After making notes with a stubby pencil on the
back of a crumpled envelope, he warned that the new exhaust parts were very,
very expensive because they had to come all the way across the sea from
England, and wouldn’t arrive for at least two weeks.
“Seven working days they say, but you know that
lot – seven working days plus tea breaks, plus supper and ciggie breaks, plus
the strike on the railways, I figure that makes up to at least two weeks,”
Harry said darkly.
Dragging her thoughts away from her own problems,
she focused on the middle-aged man fidgeting awkwardly on the other side of her
desk. His suit was expensively cut and he obviously wasn't short of a Euro or
two, although his hands were rough and workmanlike as if for part of his life
he’d worked the land. She pegged him as a farmer, probably gone on to other
things. There were a lot of wealthy business types with rough, work battered
hands in Dublin since the farm economy had gone to bits and they put their
survival genius into businesses like IT, land development, or import/export.
“Ahem, ah, it’s difficult for me, Miss Somers.”
Frank O'Keefe began hesitantly, looking like a man surprised to find himself at
a loss for words.
“I’ve found that it’s usually the difficult
problems that bring people to this office, Mr. O’Keefe. So don’t be concerned,
just fire away and tell me why you’re here. You won’t embarrass me,” she
reassured him.
“I think my wife’s having an affair, and I want
someone to find out,” he said, the words ending with a strangled sound like a
cross between a gasp and a sob.
“What makes you think that? Sometimes it's easy
to misunderstand people…”
“Oh, no, I don’t think there's any
misunderstanding.” The man looked even more miserable and, gathering his
courage in both hands, launched into his story.
“My wife's always been fond of books by
J.V.Winters – you know, the American fella that writes those books women buy.
Anyway, I saw her alone with him in his garden…”
“Slow down, Mr. O'Keefe. First of all, what's
this Winters guy doing in Ireland – and what's so wrong about your wife being
in his garden?”
“He's over here on a sabbatical to write another
book, and he's living near us in Dunmore East. Well, when I saw them in the
garden, the two of them alone and Peggy laughing like a schoolgirl, I nearly
drove off the road. At first, I told myself there was no harm in it, and waited
for her to tell me all about it….I thought she’d be so excited I’d be hearing
about Wonderful Winters for days….”
But Peggy hadn't told Frank about her visit to
the author, he contunued. He’d seen her there with his very own eyes, alone in
the garden with the man voted the sexiest man alive in some magazine he'd
glanced at a while ago. And not just in the eyes of other, anonymous women –
his wife had every book the man had written, and read them over and over again.
She kept a scrapbook of press cuttings about him
and only a few weeks ago Frank had had to get his own tea – the first time in
years – because Peggy and her friend Ruth had gone to stand in line at a bookstore
in Waterford, willing to wait in the rain for a chance to get a signed copy of
Winters’ latest offering. Come back into the house late they did, their eyes
shining, the pair of them chattering like magpies on a warm chimney pot…
“Of
course, I told myself there was sure a perfectly good explanation. Peggy was
probably collecting for some charity or something like that, jumble for the
church sale, or maybe selling tickets for the old people’s trip fund draw. And
she’d stopped by Winters’ house and the man offered her a cup of tea…and they
were, after all, out in public, out in the garden…even if it is a lonely
road...”
Cíara
wished he’d get on with his story. She managed a surreptitious glance at her
wall clock, struggling not to roll her eyes or drum her fingernails on the
desk. She'd have to leave soon if she was to make it to Waterford in time to
suss out the heiress's fiancé.
But
Frank went on. “I've often wondered why Peggy chose me, when she could have had
any man in the county. She's a lovely, energetic, intelligent woman and in
twenty-five years, she's stood by me.” Cíara softened when she saw that his
eyes were wet.
Still, she wished he'd get to the point. If
having a bit of a crush on a famous person were a crime, about eighty per cent
of the grown women in Ireland – and 100 per cent of the teenaged girls – would
be in jail.
The paragon Peggy had stood by Frank when farming
was down and he’d had to make the painful decision to sell up. She’d worked
part-time herself to support him through some college courses, and had been a
major cheerleader for him when he’d gone to work as a real estate agent. And
faithful all those years, he could swear it.