Read Online The Emerald Isle by Angela Elwell Hunt - Free Book Online Page B

surroundings. If not for the car we were driving, I could almost believe we had been zipped backward through time, like the characters in Meghann McGreedy’s books. Tall hedgerows lined the narrow roads and separated one field from another, and the few fences I could see were of gray stone, not barbed wire.
    “Good grief.” Taylor jerked the car to the left as an impatient driver blew past us on the right. “How can they drive so recklessly?”
    “See that?” I pointed to a sign with the number forty-five in a circle. “I heard someone in the airport say those weren’t speed limits, but speed
suggestions.
The general rule seems to be drive as fast as you dare.”
    Taylor relaxed his shoulders and settled into the seat. “Right now I’m not feeling very daring. The last thing Maddie needs is for me to crash the car. I’d be late for that shindig at her neighbor’s, and she’d never forgive me.”
    I stared at him. A frown had puckered the skin between his eyes into fine wrinkles. He was quite serious.
    I braced myself against the car door as I turned to face him. “You really love her, don’t you? This isn’t just a passing infatuation.”
    He took his eyes from the road long enough to give me a look of surprise. “Would I ask her to marry me if I were only infatuated?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve never seen you infatuated before.” I turned to watch the road as a stream of unspoken thoughts and feelings rose to the surface of my heart. Taylor could sense and address any one ofthem, for we were alone and we had always been totally honest with each other.
    A small smile tugged at his lips. “I was infatuated with you once.”
    My heart nearly stopped beating. “With me?”
    “Yes. Right after you read me your manuscript about Aidan O’Connor. There was something in the story, and something in the way you told it—something in
you
, Kathleen. I saw it and was drawn to it, but you kept pushing me away. It was pretty clear you thought we could be nothing more than friends.”
    I stared at him, baffled, as a tumble of confused thoughts and feelings assailed me. I had fancied myself in love with Taylor during that time, but then school began and our schedules filled up—
    “I didn’t know,” I said simply, studying his face. “I never meant to push you away. I always liked you. A lot.”
    Taylor smiled, but I thought I saw a faint flicker of hurt in his eyes. “I know that. We’ve always been great friends. But when I read what you wrote about Aidan’s great love, I knew you could never settle for anything less. Then you wrote about Flanna and Alden and all they endured to be together. And gradually I came to accept the fact that though we have a great friendship, we don’t have anything like the relationships you wrote about in your books.”
    “Flanna and Aidan lived in different times, Taylor.” My voice sounded strangled in my ears. “They were larger than life. I don’t think anyone finds that kind of love today.”
    Taylor continued as if he hadn’t heard me. “Whenever I tried to remind you that you are an O’Connor, you resisted so strongly that I knew you didn’t want to think of yourself——or of you and me—in such a romantic, dramatic light. It finally became clear that we were never meant to be together.”
    My tongue seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth, but I swallowed and forced the words out. “Taylor, those were novel manuscripts. Love stories. And I made half of it up! I took plain facts and wove stories around them—”
    “That’s how I knew what you wanted. Whether you will admitit or not, you want passion and love, Kathleen, and you never found that with me.” A trace of laughter filled his voice. “Frankly, I’m surprised anybody could find passion with dusty old me, but Maddie’s so different. She brings something out in me that I never knew existed.”
    I propped my arm in the open window and reached for the roof, clinging to it as a wave of bitter