2 Chapter 2
Felix reconsidered getting into the truck once they’d climbed the slope and Ronan opened the passenger door with an alarming scraping screech. Felix looked inside and although the interior was mostly clean, it was confusing. Not only was the steering wheel on a different side of the vehicle than he was used to, but there was a large gear shift sticking out of the floor at an odd angle. There were also various knobs and levers that Felix could only guess their functions. “Uh.”
“Oh, get in ya ninny,” Ronan said with a laugh.
The dog squeezed past Felix’s legs and took her place in the middle of the bench seat and she also indicated her encouragement to get in with a happy yip.
Felix reluctantly slid in and Ronan slammed the heavy, solid-metal door behind him before getting in himself on the other side. Felix turned back to where they had been and gasped. He realized for the first time that he had been lying at the base of a limestone tower boxed in by matching walls. The hillside on which the tower stood continued gently toward a wild expanse of waves and rock
“Takes your breath away, doesn’t it?”
Felix once again found himself unable to speak around the lump in his throat but he wasn’t sure if it was caused by the vista spread out in front of him in all its impossible glory or the playful Irish brogue dancing along his spine as Ronan spoke with pride about his homeland.
* * * *
All Felix wanted to do was close his eyes and go back to sleep, but that was not going to happen. As the truck shambled along, Felix slid from gearshift to door on the broad bench seat. He cranked the window up as far as it would go, which turned out to be not quite all the way up, and wrapped his arms around the dog who was happily panting at his side.
“‘Fraid you’re gonna fly out?” Ronan asked with a wink.
“Yes, actually,” Felix said. “No offense.”
Ronan only chuckled as they rushed along a narrow road, low stone walls and hedgerows making it appear smaller still.
“Can you please slow down?” Felix asked.
“We’re only going twenty-five, friend.”
“That’s what, like sixty in American?”
With another good-natured bellow, Ronan said, “I have no idea. It’s not very fast, I can tell you that.”
“Well, we’re terrified, aren’t we…” Felix leaned down to read the name tag dangling from the dog’s grubby collar. Caoimhe was not a name he’d seen before. “Cow-eem-hay?”
“Try again.” Ronan smiled and shook his head.
“Cay-O-I’m-he?”
“It’s pronounced ‘kweeva’.”
“Kiva?”
“Close enough.”
“Well,” Felix said as he hugged the dog to his chest once again. “Kiva and I are terrified. Also, she’s says you confuse her by calling her Kiva but spelling it C-A-O-H—however in the hell you spell it.”
Ronan’s face clouded over. “It was my Gran’s name.”
“Oh,” Felix said. “Sorry. I’m sure she was a nice woman.”
Ronan’s playful eyes were the first to break, but he soon lost himself to laughter once again. “Just messin’ with you. My Gran’s name was Ruth. You shoulda seen your face though! Sputterin’ like a mackerel. ‘Oh no. Golly.’”
Felix tried to pout but Ronan’s laughter was contagious and he found himself smiling. “I have never said ‘golly’ in my entire life, thank you very much.”
It wasn’t long before the scant ribbon of a road slipped over one final hill and Felix let out a low whistle. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What?”
“This has got to be a movie set, right?” The road crossed over a stacked stone bridge before splitting off in two directions. On either side of that division were two-story shops and pubs with brightly colored facades and trim made of more of the ever-present limestone. A lively creek bounced from rock to rock in a wide channel slicing its way along the far side of the road. “How can this be a real place?”
Ronan stopped his truck on the bridge for Felix to get a good look. “Handsome, isn’t she? This, son, is Doolin, Ireland, in all of her glory.”
Felix mouthed a silent “Wow,” before saying out loud, “Is the whole town like this?”
Putting the truck in gear and idling forward, Ronan said, “This is the whole town, more or less. Don’t you recall seein’ it before?”
Felix shook his head as Ronan was pulling into a parking spot outside dark windows of a pub. “I don’t think it’s open.”
“Someone’ll be around. I’ve got some business here and I’ll ask after your friends. You comin’?” Ronan smiled and wiggled one raised eyebrow.
