Chapter One
The Atlantic never quite left her alone. Even on still mornings the wind brought salt and the sound of waves on the rocks below the village. Claire Brennan had picked this place for that reason. Far enough from what had broken her that the quiet might finally feel like hers.
She was twenty-five, American, light brown hair streaked by the sun, emerald green eyes that still made people look twice. Strong from college volleyball and lacrosse — real strength in her legs and shoulders, an ass and a body that drew attention without her asking for it. She hated that it still did. She was smart. Guarded. She did not trust men, and not because she had never wanted to.
She had been with one man in her life. It had not been her choice. The memory sat under her skin like a bruise that would not fade. No family left. All alone. She had come to Roundstone, Connemara, County Galway, to disappear. She could write anywhere, so she took the farthest edge she could find on short notice.
The cottage still smelled of someone else’s life when she unlocked the door. Damp stone, old turf smoke, salt that got in no matter how hard she shut the windows. She put her two bags down in the middle of the kitchen and stood listening to the wind against the glass. This was far enough. It had to be.
She told the letting agent she was a writer who needed quiet. That part was true. The rest she kept to herself. By the third day she had a routine: walk the narrow road past the fields in the morning, laptop open at the kitchen table until the light changed, another walk into the village if she needed milk or bread. Head down. Speak only when spoken to. Leave before anyone asked the usual questions.
The children in the village would have liked her if she had taken the school job she first imagined. She had changed that on purpose. Writing could be done from a locked kitchen. Teaching meant faces every day. She wanted neither questions nor kindness she could not return.
