Read Online Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation by M. R. Sellars - Free Book Online Page A

answered, dredging up her inherent Celtic brogue with no
effort whatsoever. Truth was, it was probably more of an effort for
her to hide it.
    Felicity was second-generation
Irish-American, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her— or
especially at times, to hear her. In fact, one would think she had
just stepped off an airplane direct from the Emerald Isle.
    Her looks were straight out of Celtic myth.
She was petite, standing shoeless only slightly more than five feet
tall. Her complexion was milky white and smooth like porcelain with
the only exception being a light spate of freckles across the
bridge of her nose. Bright, green eyes peered out of her doll-like
face, and the whole package was framed by spiraling locks of fiery
auburn hair that hung down past her waist. If a toy company were to
produce a doll to represent Ireland, my wife would make the perfect
model for it.
    If the looks weren’t enough, she was also
possessed of the stereotypical temper that, whether politically
correct or not, was so often associated with both the ethnicity and
hair color. Fortunately, it wasn’t one that was easily ignited
although I had managed to spark it on a few occasions.
    Growing up, she had spent almost as much time
in Ireland as the United States, even attending college there;
hence, she was never completely devoid of a light, Irish lilt in
her voice. However, get her around her family, get a few alcoholic
drinks in her, or wait until she got overly tired, and her guard
would drop. The lilt would morph into a thick brogue, replete with
slang and colloquialisms the average American was hard pressed to
understand. We’d been married better than twelve years, and she
still came up with some that perplexed me.
    When she really got riled up, she would even
mix languages on you. While certainly not fluent in Gaelic, she had
more than a passing familiarity with it. That particular
vocabulary, however, consisted of innumerable curses and derisive
phrases born of the ancient language, and if provoked, she was more
than happy to use them.
    On the flip side, she even knew a few of the
endearments, and I’d had the good fortune to hear them whispered in
my ear from time to time.
    “I love it when you talk with an accent,” I
said, shooting her a grin.
    “Aye, what accent?” she asked, still laying
it on thick and laughing as she spoke. “You’re the one with the
accent, then.”
    “Right,” I answered. “Midwest plain and dull.
So what’s the name of this place again?”
    “Seamus O’Donnell’s.”
    “Sounds Irish,” I joked.
    “Well, duh,” she returned.
    “So it doesn’t sound familiar. Have we been
there before?”
    “No.”
    “Hmmm. I thought we’d been to every Irish pub
in Saint Louis by now.”
    “They’ve only been open a few months.”
    We had made the loop and merged into the
afternoon traffic. She sped up to the next intersection, just
catching the light before it switched and turned the vehicle to the
right from Kingshighway onto Oakland.
    “So how do you know this so called ‘pub food’
is any good if we haven’t been there?” I asked, shooting a glance
over at her.
    Her hair was pulled back, but loose strands
were whipping about her face as she looked over and smiled at me.
“I said we haven’t been there before. I never said that I hadn’t
been there.”
    “Oh,” I exclaimed playfully. “So you went
there without me, did you?”
    “Hey, a girl’s got to have lunch, doesn’t
she?” she laughed.
    “Yes, I suppose she does,” I replied. “So do
they have colcannon and Dublin coddle?”
    “Among other things, yes they do.”
    “And Guinness, of course?”
    She glanced at me and raised an eyebrow,
giving me an unmistakable stare.
    “Okay,” I held up my hands in surrender. “I
know, I know. Stupid question.”
    “Well, it IS an Irish pub, Rowan,” she
laughed.
    She downshifted as the traffic signal ahead
of us winked yellow, and we rolled to a stop at the white line just
as it