Читать книгу The Favour - Cara Summers - Страница 7

Summer 1999

STEALING THE O’Malley necklace was going to be a challenge that would require all of the skills Harry Gibbs had honed to perfection over a long and successful career. The way Harry saw it, the risk itself was almost more important than whether or not he’d pull off the heist of what many in Ireland believed to be a national treasure.

Harry had done extensive research on both the family and Arden Castle, their ancestral home. The O’Malleys claimed they could trace their roots back to the Celts. The castle didn’t date back quite that far, but it was built like a fortress with high stone walls on three sides and a drop to the sea on the fourth. Harry planned to gain access by climbing up that cliff. He smiled at the thought.

When his horse shifted nervously beneath him, Harry lowered his binoculars and patted the animal’s neck, “Easy, Dracula.”

“That’s a nice horse.”

Startled, Harry turned to see a young woman with the greenest eyes he’d ever seen studying him through large, wire-framed glasses. She was slim, with a boyish build, and her long, straight hair was the rich shade of red that had been captured in all of the portraits Harry had found of the O’Malleys. He guessed her age at fourteen or fifteen, which meant she was probably Bridget, the youngest daughter of the current residents of the castle. And she’d sneaked up on him like a master thief. He couldn’t help but admire her for it.

“Dracula is a very nice horse,” Harry agreed with a smile. “Do you ride?”

The hand that she’d raised to pat the horse dropped without making contact. “No. I have asthma. I’m not even supposed to be out here on the hill. Too many allergens in the air.”

“Ah.” Harry nodded in understanding. “You’ve gone AWOL.”

“Yes.” She sent him the barest hint of a smile. “I do it quite a bit. You’re not supposed to be here, you know. The land is posted.”

Harry had thought that they’d get to that sooner or later. The sharpness and directness of the girl’s gaze reminded him a bit of his youngest daughter’s. Of course, Sierra was taller and her hair was Alice-in-Wonderland blond, but Sierra too had suffered from asthma, and her approach to life was as serious as this young woman’s seemed to be.

He tried his most charming smile. “I’m Harry Gibbs.”

She studied him for a moment and then moved closer to take his outstretched hand. “Bridget O’Malley.”

Harry lifted his brows. “One of the owners. I hope you aren’t going to report me to the authorities. There was a fence a ways back. Dracula and I were both irresistibly tempted.”

She met his gaze steadily. “I won’t tell. If I did, I’d have to admit I was here, wouldn’t I?” The small smile appeared again. “And if I could ride, I probably would have done the same.”

Harry tapped one finger to his riding hat. “Thank you, Bridget O’Malley. It’s been a pleasure meeting you.”

Her smile blossomed slowly, beautifully. “One favor.”

“Name it.”

“When you take that fence this time, think of me.”

“That I will.”

HARRY WAS still thinking of Bridget O’Malley that evening. He told himself that she’d stayed in his mind because she’d reminded him so forcibly of Sierra, and his youngest daughter had been weighing on his mind lately. He raised his snifter of cognac and took a sip, staring into the flames of the fire that he’d built. The cottage outside of Dublin was one of three places he kept, but it was the one he thought Sierra would like the most.

She was the youngest of his triplet daughters and the one he worried about the most. Spread around him on the floor were his plans for the O’Malley heist. To his right were the architect’s drawings of the latest renovations to the castle. They revealed the exact location of the safe. To his left were photos and sketches of the wall he’d have to scale, and in front of him was the plan, with the steps neatly listed on blue note cards. Since he suffered from color blindness, he’d always used blue so that his plan would stand out from the other papers.

The cards made him think of Sierra too. As a child, she’d imitated his habit of jotting things down on blue cards, and as he thought of her, his heart twisted a little. Each of his daughters had inherited something from him. Natalie, the oldest of the triplets, had inherited his gift for opening safes and his talent for disguise. Rory, his middle daughter, had inherited his love of risk-taking—for better or for worse. And Sierra—well, his wife claimed she’d inherited her father’s curiosity and analytical brain, and Sierra had definitely inherited his love of making lists.

Harry took another sip of his cognac. Lately, he’d been missing his family more and more, and he’d been feeling an urgent need to talk to them. But contacting them in any way would violate the promise he’d made to his wife, Amanda.

The girls had been ten when he and Amanda had separated. She’d wanted a normal life for the girls, and he’d agreed. When they’d been born, he’d retired from his profession and tried his best to provide his family with as normal a life as possible in the suburbs of DC. But it hadn’t worked out. He’d missed the risks, the adventure, the thrill of pulling off the perfect heist.

His wife had refused to go back to that life. The girls already idolized him, and she didn’t want them following in his footsteps. Neither did he. So they’d agreed that he wouldn’t contact them in any way until their twenty-sixth birthdays.

They were twenty now, and Harry was beginning to think that he wouldn’t be able to wait six more years. That was why he’d decided to write to them. He’d already written to Natalie and Rory. His attorney would deliver the letters to them if he couldn’t be there himself.

He glanced over at the photos he’d taken of the wall he’d have to scale to gain access to the O’Malley castle. Could be he wouldn’t have six more years. One misstep while climbing that wall would end his life.

Of course, that was part of what had drawn him to the caper—the risk. Natalie and Rory would understand that, but he wasn’t sure that Sierra would. Of his three daughters, he figured she was the one who would judge him the most harshly for the decision he’d made to leave them behind. That was why he’d put off writing her letter.

Rising, he took his cognac with him to the desk where he kept his collection of photos. Earlier, he’d taken out his three favorites of Sierra. Although she’d been unaware of his presence, he’d taken them himself. His promise not to contact his daughters in any way hadn’t prevented him from secretly being there at the important events in their lives.

In the first picture, she was giving the valedictory speech at her high-school graduation. What he hadn’t captured in the photo was the fact that beneath the podium, she’d held blue note cards in her hand—just in case she forgot her speech. In spite of her academic achievements, she’d never had the kind of confidence she should.

In the second picture, he’d captured her poring over books in her college library. From the time she’d been tiny, she’d loved books, and he’d read to her often.

The third one had him frowning. He’d taken it less than a month ago, and he’d very nearly broken his promise when he’d snapped it. She was sitting on a bench in Rock Creek Park watching the never-ending flow of runners, bikers and in-line skaters along a jogging path. The longing on her face had tightened a band of pain around his heart. It was the same expression that he’d seen on Bridget O’Malley’s face that morning when she’d looked at Dracula.

If there was one piece of advice he most needed to give to Sierra it was that she had to stop hiding away in her books and studies and take the risk of really participating in life.

Pulling a piece of blue paper out of his desk, he sat down and began: Dearest Sierra, my beautiful dreamer…