Irish Sex Fairy: Ellora's Cave Read online

  “Oh, Keara.” A heavy sigh came from the other end of the phone line. “What are you doing up again?”

  Keara swallowed and sank down onto her couch. “I just had an idea for what we can do for Monica’s birthday next weekend,” she told her friend Paige.

  “What! Why are you calling me about that in the middle of the night? You had another nightmare, didn’t you?”

  “No. I haven’t had one for a couple of weeks,” Keara lied. “You know me, I just get thinking about things and I…I can’t get back to sleep.”

  “Maybe you need to go back to that shrink…what was his name?”

  “I don’t need a shrink,” Keara snapped. “I told you that before.”

  “Then why haven’t you gone back to work?”

  Keara pressed her lips together. She’d tried to go back to work. She hadn’t even told Paige about that embarrassing incident. She’d really flip out if she knew about that. She’d be picking her up and driving her to the psychiatrist herself. Which. She. Did. Not. Need.

  Keara’s throat clogged and her chest tightened. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Keara…”

  “’Night, Paige.”

  She clicked the phone off and dropped it to the butter-colored upholstery beside her. She tipped her head back and blinked at the ceiling, eyes stinging. Damn.

  She could call Monica.

  But no. Monica had gone away to San Diego for the weekend with the new guy she’d been seeing. And she couldn’t call Essie. With her new baby, she might be awake in the middle of the night. But if she was asleep and Keara called and woke her up—again—she’d kill her. She’d made that mistake once before. Besides, if her friends all talked about how she kept phoning in the middle of the night, she’d never hear the end of it.

  She padded on bare feet out to the kitchen of her condo in the Los Angeles high-rise. She ran some cold water, then held the cool glass to her sweaty forehead. Her eyes fell on the bottle of pills sitting on the counter. She could take those and sleep. She picked up the container.

  There was no shame in using medication, the psychiatrist had told her. And yet, she really didn’t want to take drugs to solve her problems. Hell, she didn’t even understand what her problems were. God! She clutched the bottle in her hand and closed her eyes. She was fine. Totally fine. Tell that to her body, though, which betrayed her time and time again, with a speeding heart, tight and trembling muscles and a stomach constricted with nausea. And she’d been doing so well. No dreams, no flashbacks for a couple of weeks. What had triggered that nightmare tonight?

  A noise alerted her ears. A scrape against the glass doors leading out onto her balcony. She lived on the third floor of the building, which wasn’t likely to be a target for a break-in, but recently she’d found herself wishing she lived in the penthouse, twenty stories above.

  It was nothing. Wind or something.

  Then she heard it again.

  Her heart, which had been slowing its beat, picked up speed, blood surging through her veins. She stepped out of the kitchen and focused on the curtains drawn over the sliding glass doors—not opaque enough to completely blot out the city lights, nor the shadow moving on the balcony.

  Her stomach lurched. Oh dear God. There was someone on her balcony. Her living room shifted around her and adrenaline flashed through her body. She lifted a hand to her throat. Stared at the window. She had to be imagining it. Nobody could climb up three stories. Nobody would climb up three stories.

  But another scraping noise outside the window, like someone was working at the lock, had her reaching for the telephone. Crap, she’d left it on the couch. She scurried over and grabbed it off the sofa, then fled to her bedroom on trembling legs. She shut the door and leaned against it. Fingers shaking so hard she couldn’t hit the right buttons, she finally managed to punch in 9-1-1.

  “Nine one one, what is your emergency?”

  “Someone’s breaking into my condo!” she hissed into the phone, fingers gripping it so tightly they hurt. “Please, send the police, quickly!”

  The operator asked her questions and kept her on the line while she leaned against the door, shaking inside and out.

  “The police will be there soon,” the voice on the phone assured her. “Stay calm, ma’am.”

  Calm. Calm? Shivering in her sleep shorts and tank top, Keara kept the phone pressed to her ear. She moved silently to the far side of the armoire, slid down onto the floor where she couldn’t be seen from the door. She dropped the phone to the gray Berber carpet beside her, bent her knees, wrapped her arms around them.

  The marble floor of the bank lobby was cold and hard beneath her bottom as she slid her shaking arms around bent knees and hugged them …

  No! She wasn’t in the bank. She was at home in her apartment. She focused on her bedroom. The bed skirt was crooked. She’d tucked it up under the mattress on one corner when she was making the bed. She’d have to fix that. Hell, what was she thinking?

  With knees pressed to chest, her heart thumped painfully and her lungs expanded and contracted against them with every shallow breath. In. Out. In. Out.

  Please, please let them get here quickly. She laid her forehead on her knees, shoulders hunched up around her ears. And waited.

  She pictured someone on the balcony trying to get in, her ears attuned to the sound of breaking glass or the familiar scrape of the door opening.

  The security buzzer sent her nerves on another blastoff. The police. Please let it be the police.

  She scrabbled for the phone. The operator was still there. “Is that the police?” she demanded.

  “Yes, that’s the police. They’re at the entrance to your building.”

  “Thank God, thank God.” It seemed like an hour since she’d called them. She climbed to her feet on unsteady legs and stumbled to the security system, but as she went to buzz them in, she paused. How did she know it was the police? What if it was someone else trying to get in?

  She knew in her head that was crazy, but…she pressed the intercom button. “Who is it?”

  “LAPD.”

  She hit the button and let them in. Moments later they pounded on her door.

  She peered through the security peephole on her door and saw two uniformed officers. Fingers still shaking, she unlocked the door and let them in.

  “Someone’s on the balcony!”

  The female officer stayed close to Keara while the male officer walked straight to the doors and yanked the curtain aside. He peered outside, then flicked open the lock of the door and slid it open.

  Keara gasped and tensed. He didn’t even have his gun drawn. Who knew what kind of nutjob could be out there?

  He stepped out onto the balcony, turned his head from side to side, walked to the railing and looked over. Then he turned back into the condo.

  “There’s nothing here,” he said.

  Keara blinked at him. “Yes there is.” She looked down at the phone she was still holding. Was the 9-1-1 operator still there? She shook her head, dropped the phone. Whatever. “There was someone out there.”

  “No, ma’am, there’s nothing. Come look for yourself.”

  She followed him hesitantly out onto her balcony and peered around. The dark wind whipped her hair around her head, and she shivered.

  He was right. There was nobody out there.

  She peered over the railing, holding the cold metal tightly with both hands, and stared at the ground three stories below.

  “What if he’s on the balcony underneath?” She turned to the officers. They exchanged a glance. Keara pressed her lips together. “Well, he could be. He could have dropped down to the balcony on the next floor.”

  “I don’t think so,” the male officer said. “That would be pretty tricky.”

  “I’m telling you, there was someone on my balcony!” Keara pressed her fingers to her mouth. God. She sounded hysterical.

  “Come back inside,” the female officer said, her voice gentle. She put a han
d on Keara’s back as she stepped inside, then slid the door closed.

  “Why would someone climb up three stories to break in?” the male officer asked. “Unless it’s you they were after. Is someone stalking you?”

  Keara shook her head. “No. Of course not. My life is boring.”

  “Not that boring,” he replied. “Weren’t you just involved in a hostage taking a few weeks ago?”

  Her stomach tightened. They’d checked her out. They knew about the robbery. They probably knew she’d been seeing a shrink. No wonder they thought she was nuts.

  She answered a few more questions but she led such a vanilla life there was no reason for what happened. Which only made her feel even more stupid.

  “It’s pretty windy tonight,” the woman officer said. “Maybe something blew around on your balcony.”

  “Yeah.” Keara sucked in a long, restoring breath. “That must be it.” She’d been nervous because of the bad dream she’d had. Maybe her nerves and imagination were hypersensitive. Okay, that wasn’t a maybe, it was a definite, oh hell yeah. Plus she still felt shaky from that weird episode she’d had the other day. The doctor said it was a panic attack, but Keara wasn’t convinced of that. It had felt too physical—spinning head, dizziness, nausea—it was more likely low blood sugar or something, but whatever it was, she still felt the effects and it didn’t take much for her to get all agitated.

  The police thought she was crazy. Cheeks burning, she locked the door behind them, but when she turned back to her empty apartment, fear wrapped around her in such a ferocious grip she couldn’t move.

  She couldn’t stay there alone.

  She had to stay there alone.

  She’d already annoyed Paige, Monica was away and Essie had a new baby. So Keara sat up all night watching television with every light in the condo on, and a heavy trunk in front of the balcony door.

  All she wanted was to get better. She didn’t want to be like this—the nervous tightness in her stomach, the feeling of impending doom. What was wrong with her?

  She had to think. What could she do? Her friends weren’t an option for her right now. She had no family—her parents had died almost eight years ago. No siblings. The only family she had was Great-aunt Maeve in Kilkenny.

  Crazy Maeve. Seventy years old, never married, she owned a sex shop in the quaint tourist town just north of Santa Barbara. Keara used to spend part of her summer vacations there with her great-aunt. She liked Maeve, although as a teenager she’d been embarrassed by Maeve’s brilliant red hair, eccentric dress, and oh yeah, most of all about the way she earned her living. But everyone in the town loved Maeve.

  Maeve had called her, after the incident at the bank, to make sure she was okay. Keara had reassured her aunt that she was fine. Promised to keep in touch. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do,” Maeve had said.

  Well, maybe there was.

  Maybe she just needed to get away for a bit. A little vacation. Lord knew she never used all her vacation time, workaholic that she was. Maybe that was the problem.

  So as the sky lightened and the sound of morning traffic on the streets began to build, she picked up the phone and dialed her aunt’s number.

  Chapter Three

  Kilkenny, California

  “Keara! What are you doing here?”

  Keara stood in the middle of Maeve’s small shop, and stared back at her great-aunt Maeve, trying to be casual and unconcerned about the variety of sex toys and other accessories surrounding them.

  “What do you mean, what am I doing here?” She’d just talked to Maeve yesterday. “You said it was okay if I came to stay with you for a while.”

  Maeve’s green eyes filled with confusion and her slender auburn brows drew down over her nose. “That was next weekend. Wasn’t it?”

  Keara shook her head. “No, it was this weekend. Remember? I said I’d drive up tomorrow? Which is today.”

  What was going on? Had she screwed up the days when she was talking to Maeve?

  “Well, it doesn’t matter,” Maeve said briskly, throwing her arms around Keara. “You’re here, that’s what matters. I just…oh, never mind.” She gave her a tight hug and Keara hugged her back, her aunt’s bones frail beneath the sweater she wore. “How are you, muirnín? I’m so glad you decided to come and visit me. It’s been too long.”

  Despite having lived most of her seventy years in America, Maeve’s voice still held a faint Irish lilt.

  “I hope I’m not putting you out,” Keara murmured, breathing in the spicy, exotic scent of Shalimar. It had been a long time since she’d seen her aunt. At that realization a twinge of guilt snapped inside her like an elastic band.

  “Of course not!” Maeve smiled at her as they drew apart. “I told you on the phone, I’m thrilled to have you! It’s been far too long.”

  Keara studied Maeve. A few more lines framed her bright eyes. Her auburn hair—completely unnatural, Keara knew, but hey, it was the color she’d been born with nearly seventy years ago—stood up in short spikes around her head. Maeve still took the time to apply makeup, and still dressed like the fashionable eccentric she’d always been—slim black pants, a black turtleneck and, draped around her neck, a shimmery gold and orange scarf.

  Keara smiled back. “Thank you. I needed a vacation.”

  “A vacation, hmmm? Well. That is fine,” Maeve clucked, and tucked Keara’s arm through hers to lead her to the back of the store. “Come on upstairs. Jayla will watch the store for a few minutes, won’t you, a rún?”

  Jayla, standing behind the counter, nodded her purple-spiked head. “Of course.” Maeve quickly introduced them.

  “You actually have someone helping you now?” Keara said as they walked through the Staff Only door at the back, then climbed the stairs to the second floor where Maeve lived.

  “Yes. Jayla’s been working here for a few months now, part-time. It’s wonderful to have someone so I can take things a little easier.”

  Most people didn’t keep working into their seventies, but her aunt wasn’t like most people. She had more energy than Keara’d ever had, even when not drained by depression and stress, although Maeve took the stairs just a little slower than Keara recalled.

  Maeve’s apartment above the store reflected her eclectic style, with walls painted a deep green and mismatched furniture slip-covered in spicy shades of saffron, cinnamon and sage.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I can make lunch for you…”

  “No. I’m not hungry. I grabbed something in Santa Barbara a little while ago.”

  The drive from LA had gone quicker than she’d expected with light Sunday traffic on the Ventura freeway. When she’d arrived in Santa Barbara she’d stopped for coffee and a muffin before continuing on the last hour of her trip, north and inland to Kilkenny on that crazy winding road through San Marcos Pass.

  “Coffee, then,” Maeve said briskly, moving into her small kitchen attached to the living room. “Or maybe…you’d rather a wee bit of Jameson’s.”

  Keara laughed and shook her head. “It’s too early for whiskey, Maeve.” She’d never called her great-aunt by the title “aunt”, had always called her only by her first name.

  “It’s never too early for whiskey,” Maeve declared, but she began filling a coffee pot with water. “Later, we’ll be celebrating your arrival here with a little toast.”

  With amusement, Keara recalled how her very Irish aunt liked her Irish whiskey. “All right,” she agreed. “Coffee’s fine for now.”

  Maeve spooned coffee grounds into a filter. “I’m so glad you’re okay, after what happened to you. You’ll be telling me all about it.” She looked up at Keara, hands pausing.

  Keara’s body tightened. “There’s not much to talk about.” She hitched a shoulder and pasted on a smile. “It wasn’t that big a deal. I’m fine.”

  “All right. I just want you to know, you can talk about it anytime you want.”

  “Sure. Okay.” She nodded mendaciously.
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br />   “So, what do you want to do while you’re here? It’s been a long time since you visited Kilkenny.”

  “I know.” Keara’s smile softened. “You don’t have to plan things for me, I’ll just keep myself busy. Maybe I can help you in the store.”

  “Ach, that’s not necessary.”

  “I have to do something.”

  “I thought you wanted a wee vacation.” Maeve’s eyes narrowed.

  “I…uh…do. But…you know. I can’t just lie around all day.”

  “Well, if you want to help, of course you can, muirnín.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’ll find Kilkenny hasn’t changed much,” Maeve said. “Of course that’s because of all those laws. The town wants to stay as Irish as possible for the tourists.”

  “It looks exactly the same. As if I flew across the ocean to Ireland rather than just driving up the coast. Is the store is still doing well?”

  “The store is doing fine,” Maeve said, but she frowned as she leaned against the counter while the rich scent of coffee filled the air around them.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. Well. Business is still good. Not only do the tourists get a kick out of The Irish Sex Fairy Shop, the locals make good use of my products also.”

  “It amazes me that they’re not embarrassed to shop here,” Keara said. “Kilkenny is not that big, after all.”

  “Why would they be embarrassed?” Maeve demanded. “Sex is natural and healthy. Most people do it. And most people like to spice things up now and then.”

  Keara grinned. Her aunt’s refreshing openness and energy was just what she needed right now. “I guess that’s true.”

  Maeve shrugged, a smile playing over her mouth. “Of course it’s true. Nothing to be embarrassed about. But there’s this big new sex super-shop opened up down the coast near Santa Barbara. Right next to the Home Depot. Lots of people are going to check it out.”

  “A sex super-shop?” Wow.

  Maeve shrugged. “It’s huge, but very impersonal. I doubt if it will have a lasting impact on my business.”