Page 1 of Irish Legacy

1

The front door of O’Shea’s swung open, letting in a bitter lash of October rain and another burst of noise from the street.

Trish O’Shea wiped the mahogany counter with a dry bar towel. It was only half past five, but the pub was already humming with the second day of the Sullivan wedding. Day two was always looser than the main event. Nobody had to suffer through church pews or stiff collars today. People had simply shown up in dark jeans, boots, and whatever jumpers felt comfortable after yesterday. They were back to cure yesterday’s champagne with pints of beer and plates of finger food, settling in for the long haul.

Down at the far end of the counter, Jack stacked empty tulip glasses into the plastic wash rack, his broad farm shoulders hunched against the heat of the dishwasher. He pushed his dark hair back, and caught Trish’s eye.

“Jesus, the Sullivans are drinking like they didn’t do twelve hours of it yesterday,” Jack said over the hum of the machine.

“They’ll still be here on Sunday.”

Over in the corner where the Thursday trad session usually sat, a lad in his twenties in a faded corduroy jacket was plugging his acoustic guitar into a small amplifier. No fiddles or bodhráns tonight. The bride’s cousin had promised music, which meant two hours of covers.

The door opened again, and Emma came through the door first, ducking her head against the rain. Her chestnut hair was up in a messy bun, the way she wore it when she wasn’t on shift at the hospital. Natalie was half a step behind her, dark hair damp where it hit her shoulders. She was barely back from a job in London, but she shook out her umbrella by the coats like she’d never been anywhere else. As they made their way to the bar, Natalie’s hand touched the small of Emma’s back.

Trish gave them a smile. “Crashing day two of a wedding?”

Emma laughed, leaning an elbow on the bar. “No, not exactly.”

Natalie slid her damp jacket over the back of an empty stool, tucking a wave of dark hair behind her ear. “I’m meeting Quinn Fallon here.”

“The actress,” Emma said. “Tony Fallon’s granddaughter.”

Trish’s mouth twitched. “I don’t live under a rock. I know who she is.”

Trish had spent the last three days listening to the lads at the end of the bar argue about the bronze statue waiting under a blue plastic tarp out on the village green. The council had finally scraped together the funds to cast Anthony Fallon in metal, and his granddaughter showing up to pull the string was all anyone had talked about since Monday.

“She just flew in today,” Natalie said, resting her forearms on the counter. “And I wanted to catch up with her.”

“They did a movie together a few years ago,” Emma said.

“A thriller in Vancouver,” Natalie said, looking around at the wedding guests shouting over a game of darts. “Four months knee-deep in muck.”

“Couldn’t be worse than here?” Trish asked.

“Well…” Natalie didn’t look so sure.

“Usual?” Trish asked.

“Please,” Emma said.

Trish took down two clean pint glasses. She tilted the first under the tap, pulling the black handle toward her chest. The dark, heavy stout fell down the inside of the glass, swirling into a dense brown cloud before she straightened it out and let it fill three-quarters to the rim. She set it on the drip tray to rest, then started the second.

The pub roared. Someone at the center table knocked back a shot of whiskey to a chorus of cheers that grated against the tired space behind Trish’s eyes. Outside, the rain drove hard against the front window, blurring the street lamps into smears of yellow across the glass. The guitar in the corner let out a sharp whine of feedback, loud enough that Trish winced before it settled into a slow, rhythmic strum, competing with the laughter.

A few minutes later, the creamy heads on both pints had settled into a sharp, straight line against the black stout, exactly a thumb’s width below the rim. Trish topped them up and slid them across the worn timber.

Emma tapped her phone against the contactless terminal on the counter. The machine let out a chirp, green light flashing, and Emma slipped the phone back into her pocket.

“The snug’s free,” Trish said, nodding toward the high partition tucked near the end of the room.

“Perfect,” Emma said, gathering both pints. “That’s where we’ll be. Come join us if you get a chance.”

“We’ll see,” Trish said.

Emma smiled, and Natalie looked back over Emma’s shoulder, a knowing, grateful little look that belonged entirely to two people who didn’t need to explain themselves to anyone anymore. They slipped into the dark booth, the paneled wood cutting them off from the rest of the bar.

Trish lifted the hinged flap at the end of the counter and stepped out onto the floor. She went over to the fire and crouched by the galvanized bucket beside the hearth. Her knees gave their familiar quiet click. She reached in, took three sods of dry turf in her hands, and laid them straight across the embers. The rough peat caught with a faint hiss, a thin curl of sweet bog smoke lifting up the chimney before the heat pushed back against her shins.