Until You

"You know who! Where's Conor O'Neil, that no-good, fast-talking, sneaky son of a bitch!"

"Miss Beckman, I must ask you to calm down or I shall be forced to call Security."

"You're all in this together," Miranda said furiously. She leaned over Mrs. Tully's desk. "Well, you can just tell O'Neil that it isn't going to work!"

"Security," Mrs. Tully said in a quavering voice. She picked up her telephone. "Security," she said again, and hit a button, but Miranda was already marching out the door of her office and towards the exit.

"O'Neil," she muttered, and punched open the door, "O'Neil, you bastard!"

A couple walking past the embassy looked at her in surprise as she came down the steps.

"Mademoiselle?"

"You heard me," Miranda said. "Conor O'Neil is a sleazy bastard!"

The man and woman looked at each other.

"L'Americaine, elle est folle," the man murmured, his eyebrows lifting.

"I'm not crazy," Miranda shouted to their rapidly retreating backs.

An angry sob caught in her throat. She wasn't. It was Conor who was crazy, thinking he could pull this stuff and get away with it...

Her shoulders slumped. "Damn you, O'Neil," she whispered.

Eight years ago, she had taken a vow. Now, she had no choice but to break it.

Like it or not, she was going home.

Chapter 13

Blue Ridge Mountains, Virginia

Spring, 2011

Tucked back against a stand of old-growth oaks, the log cabin sat snugly protected from the late March wind that swooped and whistled just outside.

Harry Thurston, seated at one end of the rough pine table that marked the boundary of what he called the kitchen, looked up from the brook trout he was filleting and smiled.

"Weather can't make up its mind," he said.

Conor, who was trying to scale their catch without also removing all the skin from his hands, nodded in agreement.

"Spring in the East. One minute it rains, the next the sun's out."

"We had snow in these mountains this time last year."

"You better hope history doesn't repeat itself," Conor said wryly. "A day's fishing is one thing, Harry, but a snowbound weekend with you doesn't exactly turn me on."

Harry chuckled. "Relax, my boy. They're predicting clear skies through tomorrow. We'll fry our trout, open a couple of those beers you so thoughtfully provided, sit around the fire and relax, then head back to town. You done with that fish?"

Conor nodded and shoved the trout towards the older man. Then he bundled up the newspaper that held the messy results of the past hour's work, dumped it into a bag of trash, wiped his hands with a couple of paper towels and leaned back against the wall, arms folded, watching as Harry deftly filleted the last of their afternoon's catch.

"There," Harry said, "that'll do it. Now we're ready for some of Thurston's Magic Dust."

"Magic Dust, huh?" Conor grinned. "Sounds like something left over from the sixties."

Harry laughed as he began taking canisters from the shelf behind him.