same rich accent she couldn’t seem to shake. She turned to face a tall, dark-haired stranger mounted upon a black horse. The man had fair skin and eyes the color of a summer sky. Her eyes traveled over his unusual dress, including the long cloak over his ornate coat with a high-necked collar and the sword at his hip. He looked like he had just vaulted out of a medieval painting, and wore a lopsided grin as he inspected her confused countenance with open curiosity. She was clearly not what he was expecting to find on his early morning ride. “Are you lost, miss?”
“You could say that,” she replied as she glanced over the horizon again. There was no noise from the city, nor push from the crowd. There were no tall buildings blocking the sun, which made everything it lit even brighter. It was so quiet she actually heard birds sing as they nestled in trees nearby, and the fresh green smell of nature perfumed the air. It was beautiful, but it wasn’t right. “Worst of all I don’t know how to get back home.”
He chuckled softly to himself as he dismounted. He patted the obedient horse before he turned his attention fully to Siobhan. “Why, you follow the same road that brought you here, of course.”
She had to laugh. “How many magical roads do you have here on the Emerald Isle?”
That brightened his expression. “It is magic you seek?” he asked. “There’s only one place you can go for that.”
He stepped closer and she could feel the heat from his body as his breath danced across her cheek. He was a real, a solid man of flesh and blood, one that she could have reached out and touched if she wanted. Her breath caught for a moment as she considered doing just that. Instead her eyes followed where he pointed, to a stone bridge that extended over part of the lake. “You see that bridge? You go out to the very center and you toss a coin over the edge.”
“A coin?”
He nodded, hooked one hand in the reins and motioned for her to follow him along the path down to the bridge with the other. “You see, legend has it a cranky old leprechaun lives underneath that bridge.”
She almost laughed out loud. “A leprechaun?”
He nodded, completely sincere. “Sorry old soul lost every bit of his treasured gold coins through theft and foolishness. So he made a deal with any human that he would grant one wish, bartered for every piece of gold.”
“Oh, of course,” she replied. What a strange and silly hallucination she was having. She must have slipped on some ice outside the bar and knocked herself unconscious.
“You simply go out onto the bridge, toss your coin into the water and then say your wish.”
Her voice was still laced with disbelief. “As easy as that?”
He grinned even wider. “As easy as that.”
She gave him a sideways glance. “Have you ever done this?”
He shook his head. “There has never been anything I wanted so badly I needed magic to bring it to me,” he replied.
She glanced over his clothes and figured that he was a man of means in this unusual plane. She was the one who was out of place. She sighed and followed him to the middle of the bridge. He turned to face her, his eyes dancing with interest as he stared down into her face. For a second neither said anything. Finally he cleared his throat. “I should leave you to it, then,” he said. “I reckon magic cannot truly happen if there is anyone watching.”
He turned to leave. “Wait,” she called out. He glanced back at her hopeful, upturned face. “If… if it doesn’t work… where can I find you?” His eyebrow arched. “You know,” she added, “in case I need your help again.”
He came back toward her and lifted her hand to his mouth. “My name is Sir Kian Mulcahy,” he introduced at last. His command of his station took her breath away as he held onto her hand. He glanced over her lips before he gestured his head towards something in the distance. His voice was smooth and warm, like that first taste of aged whiskey. “And that is my home.”
He indicated to a cliff overlooking the lake. There stood a large stone castle overgrown with ivy, surrounded by a dark forest on the peninsula where it sat. “Of course.” Even in her dreams her romantic heroes were out of reach. “Well, thank you, Kian Mulcahy,” she commented as she glanced up into his eyes.
If she offended him by improperly addressing him, she couldn’t tell. Their eyes met and for a moment her breath caught from the way he was looking at her, like she was the only woman he had ever seen or would ever see. His eyes traveled to her mouth and for a brief, insane second a kiss hung between them. She realized then he still held her hand in his, and for the life of her she couldn’t remember what wish it was she was supposed to make on the bridge.
“You never told me your name,” he reminded in a soft voice that drifted over her senses like velvet.
“Siobhan,” she replied with a crack in her voice. “Siobhan Flannery.”
His fingers gripped hers, which shot electricity to her toes. “May you find what it is you are looking for, Siobhan Flannery,” he said as he brought her hand once again to his soft lips, and let it linger there for a second longer than probably was proper. “And maybe we will meet again when you do,” he whispered.
With that he turned and walked away, only this time she didn’t stop him. Maybe they would meet again, she thought to herself. A concussion, a coma… surely she’d have this break in sanity again one day.
She watched him gently address his horse before he mounted. He sent her a salute as he smoothed his coat, then turned the horse towards home. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him until he completely disappeared from her sight. She glanced up at the castle, thinking about the nobleman who led her to the bridge. A knight of all things. Having him gaze intimately into her eyes even for a second was more romantic than anything she’d ever experienced before – like their souls had touched when their physical bodies weren’t looking.
Why on earth did she want to leave?
She glanced around her beautiful surroundings, which brought her all the peace and the quiet and the serenity she had been denied living in a big, modern city.
Yet, honestly, she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. She wanted the late night cable TV, the bustling deli where she bought her morning bagel, her beloved smartphone. With another sigh she made peace that she did not belong there. Though it drove her crazy she belonged in New York, fighting for a seat on the subway, running through the crowd on her way to her job as a lowly waitress at a neighborhood bar.
She was no lady of the manor. The notion was absurd.
“O’Shannon’s,” she whispered to herself. That reminded her that she did have one gold coin to offer to the cranky leprechaun who lived below. She withdrew the trinket the unusual customer left behind as her tip and flipped it end over end into the water below. “Take me home,” she said.
With that her eyes fluttered open and she realized she was snug in her bed in her tiny, studio apartment. With the wail of an ambulance nearby, she knew she was back in New York.
What a crazy dream, she thought as she snuggled down into her blanket. Funny, she didn’t even remember coming home. But she had been dog tired and it was the ass-crack of dawn when she finally left the bar. She could have made it home in her sleep, and apparently did.
This St. Patrick’s Day stuff was really doing a number on her this year.
As her eyes closed she remembered vividly the man from her dreams. “Kian Mulcahy,” she said softly to herself, in her familiar New York accent, and drifted back to sleep in hopes to see him again.
By the time she woke that afternoon to get ready for the late shift at O’Shannon’s, she barely remembered her dream at all. Like most, when she finally did get back to sleep she dreamed of strange, disjointed things that had nothing to do with the wonderful fantasy of an ancient Emerald Isle and a handsome knight who had escorted her to a bridge full of magic.
The whole thing left her feeling out of sorts as she headed for work. She stared at the tall buildings of the city and the dirty piles of snow and slush with more dissatisfaction than usual. It wasn??
?t green. It wasn’t beautiful. And it smelled like garbage.
That her least favorite new customer decided once again to camp at her most popular station that evening was just a moldy cherry on top of the crap sundae that had become her life. She begged Jeanne to switch tables with her but Jeanne just shook her head. “He wants you. Asked for your table specifically.”
“Great,” she grumbled. Handsome noblemen only happened in her dreams. In her real life she got an old, redheaded weirdo.
And just like the night before he spent hours playing Solitaire, communicating with her in grunts, and leaving well after closing with only a funny gold trinket as a tip. Just holding the coin in her hand vividly reminded her of her wonderful dream. Her breath caught once more as she recalled the look in Kian Mulcahy’s eyes as he stared down at her, a mere kiss apart.
This time she sent Gus on home on purpose and lingered longer than necessary over her closing chores. Her only hope of salvaging the day was to pray the dismal night would result in an identical dream.
Yet when she opened the back door, there was nothing but a cold, dark alley. She wore a bit of a pout as she closed the door and tried again. With an embarrassed chuckle, she finally decided that she couldn’t repeat that particular magic trick and headed home.
She was grumpy as she pulled open the door to her modest little dwelling that gave her about