A/N: Almost twelve years ago, when I was quite young, I wrote a story for this fandom called Steele in Love with You. It featured the fraud squad and the INS finally catching up with the Steeles two years into their very happy marriage, forcing them to fake Remington Steele's death and split up with plans to rendezvous at Daniel Chalmers's newly discovered house in Ireland. It was one of my favorite pieces at the time, and, at the end, I hinted at a sequel that never came. Rather appropriately I suppose, I do still love that story, and after a recent rewatch of the series, I finally wrote that sequel. I realize it's unlikely anyone was waiting for it with baited breath all these years, but I hope you enjoy this return to Steele country as much as I did!
"Is it true?" Murphy asks. "Is the crafty bastard really dead?"
The line between Denver and Los Angeles is rough, and Laura can barely hear her old partner over the sound of Mildred shredding files in his former office.
"Is that any way to greet a grieving widow?"
She's aiming for sorrow in her voice, but she can't help grinning. Her mystery man isn't dead, he's just not Remington Steele any more. They have a whole future ahead of them across the globe, and if she's very lucky, she may even be able to call her husband by his first name of choice when they meet again.
"Widow my ass," Murphy says with a huff. "He almost got me, too."
"I don't know what you mean, but I'm sure he would have been touched, Murph."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Give him hell from me, Laura."
"Will do."
Bernice calls next. She's in Seattle with a pianist if the mournful dirge Laura can hear crescendoing in the background is any indication.
"Do I need to come home?" she asks, and Laura remembers why she still misses Bernice. Mildred's essentially family these days, and her administrative skills are second to none, but Bernice is the sister Laura always hoped for, and you can never have too many of those.
"No," Laura says. "You don't need to come to LA. I'm packing up, actually. We'd just bought a house in Ireland—I'm going to go there for a while. Learn something about sheep, maybe."
"Sheep." The word nearly drips with skepticism. "Right. Any lost lambs you're expecting to find over there?"
"Of course not," Laura says.
"Mmmm," Bernice hums to herself. "I guess he always was more of a wolf."
"So were you, Miss Fox."
Bernice laughs. "Oh I would have been his Mrs. Wolf any day. It's a good thing he only ever had eyes for you."
"He did, didn't he?" Laura remembers those early days—years ago now—when every look between them seemed to shimmer with possibility. Would he kiss her? Would she let him? And when she let him, where would it go? What would they become?
Partners was the answer. In everything. In life, the agency, crime. You name it, she would do it for him. And he would do it for her. Take his most recent swan dive off a waterfall into the jungle while evading the Mexican authorities. If she'd still harbored a doubt about his commitment to her, that moment he was suspended in the air, throwing her a wink over his shoulder, still wearing a three piece suit and Italian leather shoes—that moment would have ended her doubts completely.
And then there's the postcard in front of her on Mr. Steele's old desk. The one from a client in Chile. Mr. T.R. Devlin. (Notorious. Ingrid Bergman. Cary Grant. RKO, 1946.)
Thank you for everything, it says. Marry me?
There's a sheep on the front. It's the best love note she's ever received.
"Laura?" Bernice's voice calls her back, even while she strokes the picture of the little black sheep somewhere in the Andes. "Are you okay?"
"Yes," she says. "Come see me in Ireland sometime, okay?"
"Sure. They've got fiddlers, right? And those little drums. Very good with their fingers, I bet."
"You have no idea," Laura says and flushes red with mortification while Bernice's laugh peals out over the line.
"Okay," Bernice says, "I'll definitely come. Give my love to any wolves you meet."
"Always."
After hanging up, Laura tucks the postcard away and gets back to work. There are so many files to go through—so many financials to resolve. She calls the lawyer and the bank and several branches of the city, state, and federal government. The government might not have believed in Remington Steele towards the end, but now that he's dead everyone wants a piece of his estate and reputation. She promises a selection of his greatest case files to the library and a few of his legitimate artworks to the museum. She's about to call the police to see if they need anything, when the Huck Finn of homicide himself walks in.
"Detective Jarvis," she says, rising to greet him at the office door. "I'm so sorry, we're closed."
"I know. I was sorry to hear about your husband."
"Thank you."
There's a moment of cool silence while they stare at each other. He doesn't look too sorry, but then again, she doesn't look too sorrowful. The moment stretches, pulling like taffy until finally Jarvis takes a deep breath and shrugs.
"Forgive me, Mrs. Holt-Steele. I guess I'm just waiting for him to come sailing through that front door. Never did make a quiet entrance, our Mr. Steele."
"Oh, I don't know. He could tip toe, when he wanted to."
"Sure. Never quite managed to stay dead before either."
Laura's heart stutters and jumps. All this time spent tricking the feds and the INS and the fraud squad, and here comes good old Jarvis, ready to outsmart all of them, all over again.
"I don't know what you mean," she says, although the gritted teeth probably aren't helping her case.
"Easy," Jarvis says, raising his hands to ward her off. "I just meant I've worked his homicide before—and yours—and yet here you are. In the flesh."
"My husband fell off a two story waterfall, Detective Jarvis. I saw it with my own eyes."
"Of course. I'm so sorry for your loss. It's not going to be the same without you two running around LA, tripping over all the best homicides." He's grinning now—that goofy grin that could have been distracting in an attractive kind of way if another pair of dimples hadn't already conquered her heart years ago. "But still, if by some miracle he should be reincarnated into your life in the future—well. Say thanks, I guess. From me."
"I'm not sure I believe in reincarnation," she says, "but thank you. I'm sure he would appreciate the sentiment."
After Jarvis leaves, Mildred pops out of the break room, the shredder finally silent now.
"How are you holding up, boss?"
"I'm fine, Mildred." Where Jarvis brought cold silence, now there's only warmth and comfort here between them. Ever since Mildred held Laura's hand while Mr. Steele went over the falls, Mildred has called her by his epithet. Something to keep a part of him here between them while the man himself makes his way to the rendezvous point. Sometimes Laura misses being Mildred's kiddo, though. And as always, she misses the old boss.
"How are you doing, Mildred? Still sure you want to come to Ireland with me?"
"Are you kidding? Lush scenery, warm whiskey, and all the sheep you can shear? What's not to love? Maybe I'll even meet my own charming Irishman. Wouldn't that be a treat?"
"Absolutely," Laura says, thinking of her charming Irishman and his posh British accent. Will that accent have to go in Galway? Will he return to the Dublin accent of his youth? He'd always said the RP British accent was built to conquer, but historically speaking, it's never gotten too far in the west of Ireland. This might be one more thing that's different about her husband by the time they meet again.
"Coffee?"
Laura's been staring into space so long that Mildred's had time to fetch the pot and return. The smell of the coffee is rich and dark—usually so tempting—but now it turns her stomach, making her feel ill.
That unease must show on her face, because Mildred hurries away to grab a trashcan and thrusts it into Laura's arms.
"If you're going to be sick, do it in the can. Our lease is up next week, and we can't afford to lose any more of the deposit, boss."
"I'm fine," Laura says, struggling to swallow bile. "It's just the coffee—the smell made me gag."
"Really?" Mildred sniffs the pot, eyebrows furrowed in thought. "It's the same coffee—your favorite. I just opened a fresh bag of grounds."
"I don't know, Mildred, but it's making me sick. Could you take it away?"
"Sure." Mildred's already halfway to the break room before she halts—standing stock still in the middle of reception. Slowly she turns, and even before she speaks Laura has a sense of impending doom.
"Say, boss," Mildred says casually—too casually to really be casual. "You and the other boss… You weren't trying, were you?"
"Trying what, Mildred?"
"For a baby, kiddo," Mildred says, like she's explaining math to a grade schooler, and just like that, Laura realizes that kiddo is here to stay.
Three months after the death of Remington Steele, he finds himself reborn on a sheep farm south of Galway. He hadn't wanted the sheep, but between getting the hell out of Los Angeles, faking his death, and dismantling the agency, neither he nor Laura were able to spare a thought to the pesky matter of the rather inconvenient livestock left behind on the farm that against all odds had once belonged to Daniel.
After all these years, he still can't quite reconcile the memory of Daniel with the idea of his father. He'd never known much about his origins—just enough to be angry about, but never enough to satisfy his own painful, shamefaced longing for some kind of stability. Never enough to answer Laura's most important questions—just enough to keep raising more.
He always assumed his father was a scoundrel at best and a brute at worst, and the revelation that his father had actually been his best friend and mentor for nigh on twenty years had never quite solidified in his mind. Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if he hadn't met Laura all those years ago. Prison, probably. High stakes cons, certainly. Running into Daniel all over the continent, moving from score to score, each more daring than the last until finally they pushed each other too far and the whole game collapsed on itself, taking all their fleeting success with them.
That thought doesn't bother him. You don't grow up on the streets of Dublin and London without developing a healthy acceptance for the consequences of your actions. If anything, it makes you enjoy the game more—knowing that it all might end tomorrow. It drives you forward. If every score might be your last, then you better make it count.
So it's not the specter of another path ending in a jail sentence that keeps him up at night. It's Laura herself, of course. He can still remember the way she looked that first night he was called to the podium as Remington Steele. She was livid, and he was in love. Yes, even then. After so many years on the grift, he'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be surprised by another person. He'd always assumed the worst, and he was so rarely disappointed, but when he walked into Laura Holt's life, he was stunned to find the woman running one of the most breathtaking cons he'd ever seen. Three card monte on steroids—a real life shell game in which she kept the shadow of her imaginary boss two steps ahead of everyone while she solved some of Los Angeles's most exciting crimes.
He'd been smitten with her before, but catching a glimpse at her flare for the con had captivated him entirely. There she was—the one woman in the world with the vision to put even Daniel Chalmers to shame—one of the best con artists he'd ever met, even if she would have hated to think of it—and all of this in the service of helping more people solve their pesky little problems. He'd never seen anything like it—a woman with the brains and balls to be a master criminal equipped with a moral compass so strong even he had to bend to its will. He'd spent nearly thirty years shuffling from one morally moribund situation to the next, knowing he couldn't afford to trust anyone, not even Daniel. The old man had loved him dearly, but he never could be entirely reliable if, say, priceless gems were on the line. It had been a revelation then, to meet Laura and discover one person who couldn't be corrupted—someone who wouldn't betray her principles or her partners for any amount of fame or fortune. A woman so dedicated to the truth, she'd set out to tell the biggest lie of all.
To this day, he doesn't know why he stayed. Laura's always assumed it was the sex they weren't having—that he stayed for the chase and wound up caught. She forgets that he was caught in her orbit long before he realized that seducing Laura would be the work of a lifetime. It still is, only now he actually gets to do it. Or at least he did before Remington Steele's unfortunately necessary demise.
God, he misses Laura. Yes, the sex, and yes, the work they shared, and yes, even the way smoke would come out of her ears anytime a client made the outrageous assumption that the man whose name was on the door might be in charge. But even more than all of that, he misses the little pedestrian moments of their life over the past two years. He misses going to bed next to his wife and holding her through the night, knowing she's not going to leave him behind for a better score or a more powerful man or any of the other insidious little reasons all his previous lovers might betray him before the sheets even cooled. He misses Sunday mornings with her on the balcony, drinking tea and fighting over whose word might fit better in the crossword until they gave it up and snogged a little in the sunlight—happy to be alive and for once not working on the weekend. He misses arguing over the dishes and the laundry and all the little domestic things that she really cared about—that he was surprised to realize he also cared about the longer he stayed fixed in one place.
Maybe that was why he stayed, all those years ago. Maybe he needed to come to rest, put down some kind of roots, feel tethered for once in his exceedingly transient life. He'd been looking for a place to be and belong, and there was Laura. A woman so driven to help people, she was determined to lie, cheat, and con her way into doing more of it. She was that rarest of things—an honest person and an exquisite master of dishonesty. Standing at the podium that first night, he took one look at her flashing angry eyes, and he knew. That she was the one for him. That whoever he was, she would find him. His past, his present, his future—she would find all the answers that had eluded him all his life. She would be the making of him, or the breaking, and that either way, there was nowhere else he would rather be.
That's still true today, which makes her absence even more keenly felt. They'd had to part ways to sell this charade to the US government, and they can't communicate until she sells the agency and comes his way. He worries a little about that. He trusts Laura implicitly, but he knows how deep her connection to the agency goes. Part of him expects her to throw herself into one last case that becomes a slew of cases that becomes a cavalcade of cases that keep her in Los Angeles for five more years while he sits in this glorified cottage in the actual back of beyond with the godforsaken sheep until they all become so much mutton.
He takes a deep breath at the kitchen sink, looking out over the hill behind the house where the sheep might as well be frolicking for all he cares. They aren't though, they're just chewing cud—or is that cows?—anyway, they're chewing something and plotting, probably. The Great Escape. Steve McQueen, James Garner, Richard Attenborough. United Artists, 1963. He wouldn't put it past them to have a tunnel dug out to greener pastures, although mind you, this bit of western Ireland is looking a lot less rocky than he remembers it. They said the British never bothered to take the west because the land wasn't worth it. More rock than soil. There was something to that, but having spent many formative years in England, he'd always held the opinion that they'd simply had bigger problems closer to home. All those civil wars—not a lot of time to worry about people barely clinging to the rocky half of a very damp island next door.
But this particular property on the rocky half did at least seem to have grass and some soil for it to grow in. Whatever else you might say about Daniel, the man had taste. In fact the view from the kitchen window is a vivid, neon green, even now in September. The locals called it Indian summer. Or maybe they didn't. Trying to find anyone around here willing to speak to him in English was a challenge. Most of the village spoke Irish as a rule, and they refused to speak English to him on principle. His posh accent didn't help. He'd started to let a bit of the lilt he'd grown up with slip in when he went down the pub or the village store—just to see if it would help—but sometimes he thought that it might be worse. Being English in these parts was bad enough; being Irish without a lick of the language and the barest of accents—that was downright inflammatory.
The past few weeks had been lonely then, for many reasons. Missing Laura—missing Mildred and her bustling efficiency—missing Daniel in this house he'd once owned. When he first arrived, he went through the house from top to bottom, searching for some piece of his father within these walls, but, as Mildred would say, bupkis. No loose floorboards, no hollow paneling, no secret drawers. Nada. It was maddening, to be this close to Daniel's final secrets and yet so far.
And then there were the sheep. What he didn't know about sheep could fill the national library in Dublin, but he had the vaguest notion that he was meant to be doing something with them besides watching them uneasily from the kitchen window.
The knock on the front door is so unexpected he doesn't register it at first. There's no reason for anyone to come looking for him here, and, even in his wildest dreams, he doesn't expect Laura or Mildred for another month. Leaving the country before that would put the feds on high alert, and the whole point of this little charade is to lay as low as possible.
But still, someone is knocking.
Visions of the Guards at the door dance through his head. He'd come in at Shannon, where the border control barely warranted the name, but still, there was always a chance that someone might recognize him, or the name of a Cary Grant character on his passport, and that the Guards might be sent to extradite him back to the States for judgement.
He thinks about running—just for a moment. Considers escaping via the backdoor, parlaying his smile for a ride to Galway, taking a bus to Dublin, picking up his backup stash of a passport and cash from his old bolt hole north of Parnell St and then promptly catching the first flight out, next stop Paris and all points east.
All this flashes through his mind in an instant—a well worn track that he maintains vigilantly—always ready to depart for safer shores at the first sign of trouble.
Except now there's Laura lurking in his mind—arms crossed, lips quirking—larger than life and just as lovely as ever. A woman he hasn't been able to commit to leaving for going on seven years and who he won't be leaving today, either. He could have cooled his heels in any metropolitan capital in the world until the time came to meet her here for the rendezvous. He could have gone to Egypt—looked up the Five Nudes of Cairo again for old times sake. Could have hit the Louvre or cased the Hermitage—maybe even tracked down that pesky royal lavulite and proved to himself that sans one Laura Holt, he's still the best jewel thief in the western hemisphere.
But rather than do any of that, he made his way through South America as efficiently as possible and beelined it right here, to their new house in Ireland where, with any luck, he could stay out of trouble until Laura showed up to make getting into trouble worthwhile again. After all these years, this, he thinks, is what commitment really is. He doesn't even want to steal the royal lavulite now—not if Laura isn't there to catch him. It would feel like cheating, somehow. Maybe even worse than an affair. The only woman who gets to arrest him these days is Laura, and that's as sacred to him as his marriage vows. So he's not running today. He's staying in this blasted cottage in the blasted back arse of Ireland until she gets here and gives him a reason to plot again.
That requires answering the door, and when he does, he finds an old man hunched on the threshold, weathered face hidden behind a bushy, white beard that hangs down to the buttons on his flannel jacket.
"Ah now," he says, "didja never own a ewe before, lad?"
"I beg your pardon?"
He doesn't mean to slip into his best Remington Steele voice—switching accents at whim was a survival skill he mastered at the age of fifteen, and the thought that it might fail him now is absolutely bone chilling. Still, there's something about the man—a relic perhaps of some distant uncle in the corner of some long forgotten home in his travels through the Irish countryside as a child—that makes him squirm somewhere deep inside. It's the same place in his gut that gets a bit queasy when he thinks too long about Daniel—some lost little boy still hiding in there somewhere, hoping that his father will turn up on his doorstep and love him despite all evidence to the contrary. That feeling makes him sloppy and defensive, and in those moments it's Laura's Mr. Steele he reaches for. The man with a plan for everything and everything according to the plan. A man with the best woman in the world behind him.
"Ewes, lad. You've got a field of them, and they need a ram, so they do, or there'll be no lambs for Easter."
The man's mouth doesn't move when he speaks. Or rather, it must, somewhere deep underneath the beard. But there's no break in the shrubbery on the old man's face, and instead the whole beard waggles when he talks.
"Ah, right. Those ewes. Ah…"
"You'll want to be talking to Donovan, up the way. It's his ram you'll be wanting."
"Donovan, right… Large chap? Older? Ginger hair? One big freckle?"
"Aye, that's your man sure enough."
"Well, that might present a problem now, Mr…um?"
"O'Connell."
"Mr. O'Connell, pleasure to meet you. I've met Donovan, as it happens, down the pub last week. Wouldn't speak to me. Wouldn't even let me buy him a pint. I hardly think he'll be lending me his ram anytime soon."
O'Connell makes a noise, then. Something between a grunt and a harrumph. "Jackeens," he says, "can't live with 'em, can't shoot 'em."
"Oh—well—I'm sure Mr. Donovan has his reasons."
"Oh, aye," O'Connell says. "You're a fecking jackeen and no mistake. But sheep is sheep, and we'll all be glad of the lambs come April, mark my words. Come with me, Jackie boy. We'll get your ewes sorted, eh?"
"Oh, um…"
O'Connell is already marching away, up the garden path and out to the dirt lane, turning right towards town and, presumably, Mr. Donovan's waiting ram. The man formerly known as Remington Steele watches him go with the faintest buzzing in his ears. It's the same sixth sense he feels when a job is just about to get interesting. The faint hum of power in his bones that tells him he's close to something big—something life changing, if he's lucky. The last time he heard it this clearly, he was standing at a podium, looking out over a crowd and into the flashing eyes of a woman he'd spend the next four years chasing until she finally caught him. What he wouldn't give to have Laura with him now. If nothing else, at least she'd never let the locals shoot him first.
"This can't be happening," Laura says, pacing back and forth in front of the ensuite while Mildred hovers at the lobby door in concern. "I can't be pregnant. That wasn't part of the plan. What will he say? What will he think? We haven't even seen each other in three months—what's he going to do when I show up on his doorstep pregnant?"
"What's there to do?" Mildred asks. "You're already married, kiddo. It's not like we're gonna to need a shotgun."
"Oh God!"
"What now?"
"My mother. How am I going to tell my mother?"
"From Ireland," Mildred says. "We'll call collect."
"Oh God!" Laura wails. Honest-to-God wails, like a child. She hasn't felt this nervous since she met her husband—back when he was the dashingly handsome Ben Pearson, and she was the fraud, praying he wouldn't find her out. And then he did find her out, and she found him—the man behind the mystery. Harry, Mick, Dougie, the Kilkenny Kid, Xenos—a cast of thousands contained in one brilliant, beautiful man, who, against all odds, somehow came to be hers.
And now they're having a baby. Probably. Almost certainly, once the tests lying by the sink on the other side of the ensuite door finish cooking.
"Do you know when it happened?" Mildred asks. "How far along do you think you are?"
Laura blushes. If she was a betting woman—and let's face it, she is—she'd bet the house on that last morning before Mr. Steele went over the falls. They'd been desperate for each other. After four years of waiting, they didn't relish the prospect of four or more months apart. They'd had each other in bed, in the shower—very nearly on the balcony in front of God and a hundred tourists—and finally against the door on their way out to meet Mildred at the waterfall. It had been divine and also wildly reckless. Like everything else about them, really.
Historically, they'd been more careful on the birth control front than they had that morning. They'd never actually managed to have the talk about children, but by some unspoken agreement, they'd both sensed a base level reluctance to change their lives just as they were getting to the good part of it together.
Too late for that now.
"Three months, I think. Pretty much just before he left."
"That's some timing, boss."
"Oh, God. What if he hates me for this? What if he doesn't want us? What if he leaves me—for real this time? I don't want to do this alone! I can't do this alone. I won't."
"Of course you won't. He'll be thrilled. Shocked, of course, but ultimately thrilled, just you wait and see. He likes babies. You remember that mob case years ago. He likes to pretend he's above it all, but he's only human. He melts just like the rest of us."
"Yes, but we got to give that one back. This one belongs to us for good."
"And it'll be great. And you'll have me every step of the way, kiddo. I always wanted to be a grandmother. We'll spoil this kid rotten."
"Really?"
"Really. And if the boss tries to run…"
"Yes?"
"Well," Mildred says with her most dangerous little smile, "there's always the shotgun."
Donovan's shotgun must be a hundred years old if it's a day. O'Connell stands before the barrel like Connolly before the firing squad—although in retrospect Connolly might have had the benefit of a chair, given he'd already been fatally wounded at the time. It's strange how it's all coming back to him now—all the Irish history he'd pushed out of his mind for more profitable things like safe cracking and art history. The longer he's here, the more appears at the back of his mind. It's in the water, he supposes. The springs of Brigid all over the place, calling him home in a way he's never felt before. For all that he's a fish out of water in this country village, he's home, too. In his father's house, in his motherland. Eire. It's in his blood, buried so deep he doesn't even have to look for it to find him.
"Put the fecking gun away, ya eejit. He's not here to steal ya."
"How do you know that?" Donovan says, still looking out over the shotgun. "He talks like a Brit, and if he's not a protestant or MI5, he's still a flash bastard, and we want no part of him here, Eamon."
"He's me grandson, you gobshite. Jackie O'Connell, so he is. Over from London, where he grew up, like. He got lost as a babe, but he's home now, and it's a fine welcome, so it is, to have his father's oldest friend wave a shotgun in his face."
The gun drops an inch, maybe two, while Donovan peers out of the doorway. "You're Daniel's boy, then?"
The newly christened Jackie O'Connell can't speak for a minute. He's too busy processing. None of it makes sense. Eamon O'Connell must have some motive to claim kinship with him. Maybe he wants a share of the lambs. Maybe he wants money. Maybe he's just plain lonely. Whatever the reason, he can't possibly be any relation, can he?
But then Donovan knows about Daniel. Or at the very least, knows that Eamon has a son named Daniel, and really, what are the odds that Daniel Chalmers would buy a house next door to a man old enough to be his father who just happened to have a son also named Daniel. A man who took one look at the stranger who moved in next door and decided to introduce him to the village as his grandson.
A man with the same sparkling, dark blue eyes that have stared back at the former Mr. Steele in the mirror for nearly thirty-five years.
Oh God. He might actually be Jackie O'Connell. Daniel's real last name might have been O'Connell. After all of these years of searching for his name, for his family, or any sense of his past, here it is—unlooked for but spread out before him like a feast for the returning prodigal.
"Jackie," says Eamon, "your man asked you a question."
"Oh?" Jackie says, mind racing to catch up. "Oh, yes. Daniel was my father. You knew him, I take it?"
"Best thief this side of the Boyne," Donovan says. "I taught him everything he knew before he ran off to better pastures and changed his name, the bastard. I might have gone with him, only there was Aoife to think of. My missus, God rest her soul. She was pregnant when Daniel left, and I stayed. Loved her something fierce, I did. Still do, as it happens. A mighty fine woman, my Aoife."
"Aye," Eamon says, "enough of that now. The boy's only just come home, we can't expect him to keep up with all the village doings just yet. It's the ram we've come for. Usual agreement—stud and stew."
"It's a bit late in the year for all that, Eamon."
"Aye, well, the lad was late getting here, and he don't know shit about sheep. But don't you worry, Donovan, we'll make a farmer out of him yet."
This sentiment is less than inspiring to Jackie, who has never. in his many lives, in many interesting places, ever desired to be a sheep farmer But still, he's stuck on the grandfather part of it all. This twinkly eyed Methuselah may well be his grandfather. He might have an actual family in this town. And he might just have to raise sheep to be able to stay and join them.
Of all the towns in all the world…
"Just where the hell are we, kiddo?"
"I don't know," Laura says, looking up from the map spread out on the hood of their rented car. Mildred is sitting on a bench outside of the pub, nursing a lukewarm white wine and fanning herself in the almost unbelievably lovely sunshine. Above them the sky is a clear shining blue, unbroken by clouds from one horizon to the other. She'd been expecting rain in Ireland in October, but someone missed the memo today.
"I think we're in the sticks, Mildred. Somewhere outside of Galway."
"A long way out of Galway, I think. Did you see that flock of sheep a mile back? They nearly had the run of the place."
"It is the country, Mildred. Sheep are going to, well...sheep?"
"Nice one, boss. I'm sure we'll blend right in."
"Well, maybe not. But still, we must be close to the house. If only they were numbered. They must be, right? We just have to look closer as we go."
"Sure," Mildred says. "Are we in the right town at least?"
"I don't know. I'll ask inside."
"Be careful. I got the sense they don't see too many tourists in these parts. When I ordered the wine the barmaid's eyes nearly popped out."
Inside the whitewashed pub, it's cool and dark. Laura pauses at the door for her eyes to adjust and takes it all in—the old dark wood, the soft white plaster, the cobwebs draped between rafters in the pitched ceiling. The place is old. Ancient, probably. Older than the concept of the United States, maybe. Older than the idea of California, certainly.
She hoists her purse up on her shoulder and tips up her hat, heading for the bar. There are three people in the place—a barmaid, a redheaded gentleman and, from the looks of it, the original nine-hundred-year-old man.
"Hello," she starts, pasting on her best I'm-new-here, look-how-nice-I-can-be smile. "I"m looking for a house near here, and I think I'm a little lost. Would one of you be able to help me?"
"American," the redhead says to his friend on the next barstool. It's not a question.
"Aye, that'll be Jackie's lass, so it will," the old man says, taking a sip of stout through his impressive beard.
"Oh, no," Laura says. "There must be some mistake. I'm looking for my husband." Whose name I don't know just yet, she thinks furiously. Sometimes she just wishes the man she loves would pick one name and stick to it.
"Aye, Jackie O'Connell. Handsome lad. He gets it all from me, you know."
"Oh?"
"Oh, aye. He's my grandson, so he is."
Laura's heart skips and skitters. Grandson. Could it be?
And then she notices the eyes above the beard. The deep blue depths that promise mystery and mischief and more magic than she ever thought could be possible in this day and age.
"Oh," she says. "Yes. Please—where is he?"
"Rounding up the ewes, I expect. They're not going to take themselves to pasture now, are they?"
"Ewes? Oh, the sheep." What with one thing and another—the one thing being the departure of her husband and the other being the baby bump only just beginning to show beneath her sensible tweed blazer—Laura had forgotten that Daniel's old house came with sheep.
"Aye. He's taken over the flock at the farm up the road. Sure, you can't miss it."
"Right," Laura says, stunned. "Sheep." He's taking care of sheep, she thinks. The whole world to rob before their scheduled rendezvous, and here he is, in the middle of nowhere, taking care of sheep.
"You're looking a bit pale there, lass. Here, I'll go with you." He drains his pint in one long, practiced gulp and slides from the stool, presenting one crooked arm for Laura to grasp on their way out of the pub.
"Watch your step," he says at the threshold. "There's a girl."
Outside the sun is still bright, and the sky's still blue, and the world is completely new. She's married to a sheep farmer. His name is Jackie O'Connell. He has a grandfather who's older than God.
"You all right, kiddo?" Mildred asks, abandoning her wine glass to take Laura's other arm and lead her to the car.
"Mmmm? Oh, yes. Mildred, this is—" She breaks off, realizing she has no idea who the man propping up her left side is. "I'm so sorry," she says to him. "I didn't get your name."
"Eamon," he says. "Eamon O'Connell." She can't see his grin through the beard, but she can tell it's there. She'd know the sparkle in those eyes anywhere.
"Eamon," she repeats, grasping on to anything she can. "This is Mildred Krebs. She's family."
"Hi Eamon," Mildred says, chipper as ever. "Nice to meet you."
"Eamon's my grandfather-in-law," Laura says, and Mildred gasps and drops her arm, which is fair. It doesn't feel real to Laura, either.
Eamon takes this all in stride. "So you're Mildred," he says. "Jackie's told me all about you. Thank you for taking care of the lad in Amerikay."
"Jackie?" Mildred asks.
"Jackie," Laura says. "Jackie O'Connell."
"Well, I'll be damned," Mildred says. "Where is he?"
"Remember all those sheep we saw coming into town?"
"No," Mildred says with another gasp. "I'll be damned."
The ewes are in the far pasture when he hears the car pull up. He's just crested the hill and closed the gate, and below he can make out Eamon's long beard and a mop of curly blonde hair atop a plump figure that speaks to him of the only motherly affection he's ever known. Mildred is here, which means—
Yes.
Tweed. Fedora. Honey hair and creamy legs.
Laura.
His wife has finally come home.
He's running down the hill before it even sinks in, and by the time he reaches her, she barely has a moment to brace before he's sweeping her up in his arms, spinning her round, pulling her close for the kiss he's been dreaming of since the moment he stepped over that damn waterfall and dove into the deep water below.
"I missed you," he says, when they finally have to break for air. "Let's never do that again."
"I think I'm going to be sick," Laura says, and then she's pushing him away and running for the shrubbery in the lane just outside of the drive. He can hear her retching into the bushes, and he turns to Mildred with concern, verging on panic.
"What's wrong? Is she sick? Does she hate me? What happened, Mildred?"
"Nothing's wrong," Mildred says, patting his arm. "She's just a little sensitive these days. These bumpy roads and all that twirling—I'd be hurling, too, and I'm not even pregnant."
"Mildred!" This comes from Laura, wiping her mouth as she steps back into the drive, and the exasperation in her voice is so comfortingly familiar he almost fails to register the bombshell Mildred just dropped on the proceedings.
"Pregnant?" He can feel his eyes blow wide while his stomach plummets to the ground. "You're pregnant?"
"Uh huh," Laura says. She looks wary and unsure, which doesn't exactly fill him with confidence.
"Is it mine?" he asks, something like panic making itself known in the rapid beat of his heart.
"Of course it's yours!" Laura yells. "Who else could it possibly be?"
"I don't know," he yells back. "I've been gone for months!"
"Yes," she says through clenched teeth. "Meet any shepherdesses in your travels?"
"No," he says. "Pity, we could use the help with the ewes."
Without warning, Laura bursts into tears. Seven years he's known this woman, and he can count the times he's seen her cry on two hands, but here she is after months apart, bawling in the drive of their new, soon to be family home.
He reaches her in seconds—a few long strides that carry him until he finally has her in his arms again—cooing into her hair, whispering sweet nothings into her ear. She's never been one for softness, his Laura, but he's realizing quickly that perhaps some things have changed in the time they've been apart. She's carrying their child for one. That's a pretty big change.
"Shhh," he whispers. "Shhh. It's all right. I'm sorry, Laura. I'm so sorry. I was an idiot. I didn't mean it. I missed you so much, and I was upset to think I missed this, too."
"I thought you wouldn't want me," she says. "I thought you didn't want us."
"Of course I want you." He kisses her tears, each press of his lips softer than the last. "You're all I want these days. You and the baby and Mildred and Eamon and the goddamn sheep. This is our home, now, Laura. We're finally home."
"Okay," she says, sniffling a little with her eyes still closed. "Take me home, Jackie."
"Jack," he says. "I want a name that's still just for you. Call me Jack, Laura."
Her eyes open slowly—so very slowly. They're wet and red and the most beautiful things he's had the pleasure to see since Mexico.
"Jack," she says. "Your name is Jack?"
"Yes," he says. "It really, really is. And Laura, love—it's all yours."
And just like that, they're kissing again. It probably shouldn't be romantic—kissing a woman who just threw up in the bushes on the side of the road—but just now, he really couldn't care less.
"Are he and his missus always like this?" Eamon asks back by the car.
"Always," Mildred says. "That baby is an actual miracle, as far as I'm concerned."
Seven Months Later. Easter.
The babies come in February—all the lambs and little Nora O'Connell-Holt-Steele. At two-months-old, she's already a hellraiser—just like her mother—and Jack wouldn't have it any other way.
Eamon had wanted to butcher a lamb for Easter, but Laura and Mildred wouldn't hear of it. They'd compromised on ham, but Jack knows that's only because they haven't visited the Ryan's pig farm yet. He gives it a year before they end up vegetarian thanks to all this country living.
The work of the farm is constant. Sheep to feed and pasture. Wool to sheer. EU sheep subsidies to collect.
"Is that why Daniel kept the sheep?" he'd asked Eamon when he discovered the pretty lucrative clause in Ireland's EU agreement.
"Of course, lad," Eamon said. "Nothing like that government dole, aye?"
Nothing indeed. It made it all better, somehow, that the sheep were in on the con, too.
There's a knock on the door after Easter lunch, and Mildred disappears to answer it. She's not their secretary at all now, but she still likes to be their gatekeeper, even out here in the back of beyond.
Still, it comes in handy today.
"Boss," Mildred says, reappearing in the doorway, "could you come to the parlor for a sec?"
"Which boss?" Laura asks, stroking Nora's soft cheek where she's nestled in Jack's arms.
"Both of you," Mildred says. "Let Eamon take the baby and follow me, kids."
Laura looks up at Jack—little strokes of worry between her eyebrows. Mildred's tone reminds them both of another life, an ocean and a continent away.
"Take her upstairs," Jack tells Eamon, standing to pass him the baby. "Don't come down until we sound the all-clear."
"Where's the gun?" Laura asks. "I know I unpacked it somewhere."
"Our luck, the sheep probably have it," Jack says. "They've been looking positively revolutionary these days."
"That's because you wanted to eat them," Laura says, and she just might have a point.
"Well," he says, wishing for the first time in months that he was wearing an expensive suit jacket that he could button for dramatic effect, "shall we?"
In the parlor, they find a small man ensconced in front of the fire in Eamon's favorite armchair. Behind him stand the biggest bodyguards Jack has ever seen. The little man rises when they enter the room, bowing over Laura's hand and reaching out to give Jack a firm handshake.
"Thank you both for seeing me like this," he says with a soft French accent. "I was sorry to intrude on your holiday, but I have to be in Paris tomorrow morning before I'm missed."
"Oh, certainly," Jack says, slipping into his on-best-behavior client voice like an old shirt. "How can we help you, Mr—?"
"Devereaux," he says. "Pierre Devereaux. I'm a curator, at the Louvre. These gentlemen represent one of our donors—a man of considerable means and influence who lent us an irreplaceable Vermeer for an exhibit that opens in three days. That painting was stolen from our installation team yesterday, and without it, we will be the laughingstock of the museum community and targets for the ire of our donor's very large and very forceful compatriots."
"That's all very interesting, Mr. Devereaux," Laura says, "but why come to see us?"
"Because," he says with a sharp look that somehow manages to be down his nose even though Laura stands several inches taller than he does, "you are the best, Mrs. Holt-Steele. So good even the American government is willing to let you and Mr. Steele hide out here in the hope that you might be persuaded to aid your country in various delicate, international matters from time to time. So good that locating your new base of operations necessitated three calls to Interpol, two calls to the French security forces, one call each to MI5 and MI6, numerous calls to the CIA, and finally a direct call to the Irish Taoiseach, who made our ambassador promise that I wouldn't try to bribe you with a villa and recruit you for France. I'm told that your expertise in art theft is second to none, and I implore you to come to our aid in this extremely sensitive matter."
"Ah." Jack looks to Laura, one eyebrow raised in query. Laura shrugs. All of this is news to her, too. Just like old times—high stakes and not one clue between them. All systems normal, then.
"This Vermeer," he says, turning back to Devereaux, "there wouldn't happen to be a finders fee involved, would there?"
"Oh, yes," the curator says. "It's quite substantial."
Jack looks to Laura again, eyes sparkling. "What do you say, boss?"
She grins up at him, and—against all odds—he falls in love with her all over again.
"Allons-y, Mr. Steele."