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seeming to fail her for the first time.
    “Yes,” Jamie prodded.
    “Well actually, I could really use a job.”
    “And what is it, exactly, you think you can do for me?” he asked in a tone of dry amusement.
    “General dogsbody, Girl Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as well as a dab hand at poker.”
    “Admirable qualities certainly,” he said, “and not without their place in the universe, but I’m afraid I don’t see—”
    “I could use a hand in the kitchen an’ about the place,” Maggie said, grunting as she set down a tray with sausages, soda bread, eggs and fried tomatoes on the sideboard. “I’m not,” she said, treating Jamie to a gimlet glance, “so young as I once was.”
    “We’re none of us getting any younger, Maggie,” Liz Forbes, Jamie’s secretary, light and lovely in pale yellow, entered the room, poured herself a coffee and smiling in a thoroughly professional manner said, “And I could use someone to run the occasional errand to the banks, post letters, type reports. There’s certainly no lack of work to be done,” she sighed in a melodic fashion and sat down with her coffee.
    Jamie though young, was wise enough to know when he’d been outmaneuvered.
    “I’d no idea I’d so overworked you ladies,” he said pleasantly and then turned to the girl, eyeing him now with frank curiosity over the rim of her teacup. “I suppose that means, Miss O’Flaherty, that you’re hired.”
    He then sat, helped himself to a healthy portion of everything on the tray and tried to ignore the look of smug satisfaction now shared by the three women who’d appointed themselves guardian fairies in his life long ago.
    Moments later, absorbed in his sausage and vaguely disturbed by the bare foot that seemed to keep touching his in passing, he missed the wink, smile and nod that passed between his erstwhile fairies.
    Flora, Fauna and Merriweather indeed.

Chapter Three
A Hundred Thousand Welcomes Home
    At about the same time Jamie Kirkpatrick was having his grief compromised, Seamus McDowell was entering the doors of a public establishment. His ears were treated to the heartrending final notes of a Republican hymn of sorts called ‘ When Dawn Finds Her Way to Belfast’ offered up in the sweetest most melancholy tenor tones he’d ever had the distinct pleasure of hearing. His boy was home.
    “Will ye be doin’ us the honor of singin’ another selection, Father?”  a man called out, raising his half-empty glass in tribute to the priest’s talent.
    The ‘priest’, who stood atop Mr. O’Leary’s well-worn bar, winked in Seamus’ direction to ensure his compliance and said, with a note of genuine regret, “I’d love to oblige ye gentlemen as ye’ve been most kind but my pipes are a wee bit on the dry side an’ I’ve just seen one of God’s strayin’ lambs an’ must have a talk with him. So if ye’ll excuse me perhaps I’ll sing a song or two later when me equilibrium’s been restored, if ye know what I’m sayin’.”
    “Another round for the Father,” went up the cry and ‘the Father’ seating himself in the dark, shadowy corner table Seamus had indicated, found a frothing pitcher of warm, dark ale at his elbow. The priest thanked the serving girl with a wink and a barely discernible, but highly inappropriate, pat to her shapely backside.
    “Found God an’ the Pope in prison did ye, Father Riordan?” asked Seamus with a quirk of his sandy brows.
    “Ah, it’s all just a harmless bit of fun, they think I’m off for the seminary in the mornin’, feelin’ terrible sorry for me I imagine, this bein’ my last night of freedom an’ all.”
    “Yer first ye mean.”
    “Well first, last—a man certainly deserves a few free drops for either occasion, would ye not agree?” Casey Riordan asked with a boyish grin as he filled Seamus’ glass to the rim.
    “An’ who am I, bein’ a severely lapsed Catholic for more years than I care to count,