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but along
the same lines.”
    Maeve’s nose twitched and a smile hovered at the corners of her
mouth. “Fing Shooey—not a lot of that in the village.”
    Georgia smiled at Maeve’s pronunciation of the design
philosophy, then said, “Doesn’t matter. Some will want help redecorating, and
there will be customers for me in Westport and Galway…”
    “True enough,” Maeve allowed.
    Georgia paused to take a look up and down the main street she’d
come to love over the past year. There really wasn’t much to the village, all in
all. The main street held a few shops, the Pennywhistle pub, a grocer’s, the
post office and a row of two-story cottages brightly painted.
    The sidewalks were swept every morning by the shop owners, and
flowers spilled from pots beside every doorway. The doors were painted in
brilliant colors, scarlet, blue, yellow and green, as if the bright shades could
offset the ever-present gray clouds.
    There were more homes, of course, some above the shops and some
just outside the village proper on the narrow track that wound through the local
farmers’ fields. Dunley had probably looked much the same for centuries, she
thought, and liked the idea very much.
    It would be good to have roots. To belong. After her divorce,
Georgia had felt so…untethered. She’d lived in Laura’s house, joined Laura’s
business. Hadn’t really had something to call hers. This was a new beginning. A chapter in her life that she would write in her own
way in her own time. It was a heady feeling.
    Outside of town was a cemetery with graves dating back five
hundred years or more, each of them still lovingly tended by the descendants of
those who lay there. The ruins of once-grand castles stubbled the countryside
and often stood side by side with the modern buildings that would never be able
to match the staying power of those ancient structures.
    And soon, she would be a part of it.
    “It’s a pretty village,” Georgia said with a little sigh.
    “It is at that,” Maeve agreed. “We won the Tidy Town award back
in ’74, you know. The Mayor’s ever after us to win it again.”
    “Tidy Town.” She smiled as she repeated the words and loved the
fact that soon she would be a part of the village life. She might always be
called “the Yank,” but it would be said with affection, she thought, and one
day, everyone might even forget that Georgia Page hadn’t always been there.
    She hoped so, anyway. This was important to her. This life
makeover. And she wanted—needed—it to work.
    “You’ve your heart set on this place, have you?” Maeve
asked.
    Georgia grinned at the older woman then shifted her gaze to the
empty building in front of them. It was at the end of the village itself and had
been standing empty for a couple of years. The last renter had given up on
making a go of it and had left for America.
    “I have,” Georgia said with a sharp nod for emphasis. “It’s a
great space, Maeve—”
    “Surely a lot of it,” the older woman agreed, peering through
dirty windows to the interior. “Colin Ferris now, he never did have a head for
business. Imagine trying to make a living selling interwebbing things in a
village the size of Dunley.”
    Apparently Colin hadn’t been able to convince the villagers
that an internet café was a good idea. And there hadn’t been enough of the
tourist trade to tide him over.
    “’Twas no surprise to me he headed off to America.” She looked
over at Georgia. “Seems only right that one goes and one comes, doesn’t it?”
    “It does.” She hadn’t looked at it that way before, but there
was a sort of synchronicity to the whole thing. Colin left for America, and
Georgia left America for Dunley.
    “So you’ve your path laid out then?”
    “What? Oh. Yes, I guess I have,” Georgia said, smiling around
the words. She had found the building she would rent for her business, and maybe
in a couple of years, she’d be doing so well she would buy it. It was