Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy 3)

“It’s the law in a lot of places, and you make fewer ripples if you follow local laws. And a fractured skull wouldn’t kill me, but it fucking hurts.”

She strapped on the helmet. “Haven’t had the experience, but I bet.”

He swung on the bike. “Navigate.”

“You could just let me drive.”

“No. Lay out the route.”

“South on the coast road toward Spanish Point. Should be a sign about a half kilometer this side for Donahue’s Diving. Follow that down to the beach. I’m licensed,” she added, swinging on behind him.

“Nobody drives my bike.”

He kicked it to life. The dragon roar of bikes had always appealed to her, as had the sensation of speed and the freedom of blasting down the road open to the wind.

It all appealed less when riding pillion.

Still, his bike, his rules.

She set her hands on his hips, and imagined she was driving.

Down the bumpy lane, around the curves where Bran had let the hedgerows of fuchsia rise to form borders, and sassy wildflowers poked up to edge the dirt track. Around and beyond the forest where the track turned onto pavement.

While she enjoyed the speed and power, the smell of green still damp from the morning shower, she kept a sharp eye out for any ravens—for anything that struck her as off.

No need for conversation with the roar and buffeting wind, and no need to direct as Doyle wound them to the coast road. She imagined he’d made the journey on horseback or cart more than once.

Had he played on the beach as a boy, splashed in the waves, shouted out laughing as the chilly water rolled over him? Sailed out in a currach, fished the seas?

She could imagine it, she could see him—a tall boy with long dark hair, eyes green like the hills, running over shale and sand, through the shallows with his siblings as boys had and would.

A good life, she thought as she leaned with him into a turn.

She shifted a little, looked out over the water, a rough and ready blue with tinges of green. Gulls swooped, white or gray, and farther out she saw the roll of a white fishing boat.

He slowed through villages decked with flowers, slapped the gas again once they moved beyond.

She tapped his shoulder, pointed when she spotted the little sign up ahead. He only nodded, then slowed into the turn.

The wind kicked harder now, and brisker as they took the narrow ribbon of road down. She smelled the sea, cool and briny, and the roses from the garden of a cottage, the smoke from a chimney of another.

Chickens, she thought. Though she couldn’t see or hear them, the scent of their feathers tickled her nose. She smelled the dog before it ran out and along a tumbling stone wall to watch them.

She tapped Doyle’s shoulder again when she saw the blue building with the long pier. She spotted the dive boat, a fishing boat, and a sweet little cabin cruiser with a man on deck patiently polishing its brightwork.

Doyle pulled up beside a pair of trucks and a compact, cut the engine.

“I’ve got this,” she said, slid off the bike, and strolled toward the boat where the man stopped, put his hands on his hips.

Her deal, Doyle thought, and walked over the shale to the thin strip of dark gold sand.

It would be here, wouldn’t it? he thought. Fate’s quick poke in the ribs. Here, where he’d come as a boy—of nine or ten, if memory served. A cousin had lived nearby. Christ, what was the name? Ronan, yes, Ronan had been the boy about his age, son of his father’s sister. And they’d come to visit, barely a hard stone’s throw from this spot.

His two sisters nearest his age chasing birds. The brother who came after them splashing in the shallows while a younger sister clung shyly to his mother’s skirts. His young, doomed brother barely toddling. Another babe—though he hadn’t known it then—in his mother’s belly.

All there, his mother and father, his grandparents, aunt, uncle, cousins.

They’d stayed three days, fishing, feasting, playing music, and dancing late into the night. And he and Ronan had plied through the water like seals.