The Girl from Donegal

THE GIRL FROM DONEGALCarmel Harrington CopyrightHarperCollinsPublishers Ltd1 London Bridge Street,London SE1 9GFwww.harpercollins.co.ukFirst published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023Copyright © Carmel Harrington 2023Cover design by Emily Langford © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2023Cover photographs © Mary Wethey/Trevillion Images (main image) and Shutterstock.com (all other images)Carmel Harrington asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.Source ISBN: 9780008528591Ebook Edition © February 2023 ISBN: 9780008528577Version: 2023-02-13 DedicationFor my last love, Roger EpigraphOh! The heart that has truly loved, never forgets,But as truly loves on to the close.‘Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms’Thomas Moore, Irish Poet, 1779–1852 ContentsCoverTitle PageCopyrightDedicationEpigraphPrologueChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenChapter SixteenChapter SeventeenChapter EighteenChapter NineteenChapter TwentyChapter Twenty-OneChapter Twenty-TwoChapter Twenty-ThreeChapter Twenty-FourChapter Twenty-FiveChapter Twenty-SixChapter Twenty-SevenChapter Twenty-EightChapter Twenty-NineChapter ThirtyChapter Thirty-OneChapter Thirty-TwoChapter Thirty-ThreeChapter Thirty-FourChapter Thirty-FiveChapter Thirty-SixChapter Thirty-SevenChapter Thirty-EightChapter Thirty-NineChapter FortyChapter Forty-OneChapter Forty-TwoChapter Forty-ThreeChapter Forty-FourChapter Forty-FiveEpilogueAuthor’s NoteAcknowledgementsReading Group QuestionsKeep Reading …About the AuthorAlso by Carmel HarringtonAbout the Publisher PROLOGUEKatePalm Tree Cottage, Horseshoe Bay, BermudaKate inched her chair forward and placed her hands on the vintage cookie tin. It was a rich chocolate brown, painted with decorative gold edges surrounding sugared fruit in ochre, russet red and burnt orange. Her fingertips tingled as she traced its contours. She wasn’t sure where it originated from, but it served her mother well as a sewing box for years.Now, it was the gatekeeper to Kate’s memories.Kate closed her eyes and searched her mind, looking for her mother. Ah, there she was. Her mom, with glasses perched on the end of her nose, shoulders rounded as she sat by the fire, the embers dancing behind her. She held the tin on her lap and opened it, ready to fix a patch on the knee of Kate’s jeans. Her mother found the end of a navy-blue spool of thread, licked it, and then carefully pushed it through the eye of a needle. Love and care with every stitch.Kate took a sharp breath as the pain of loss pierced her again, surprising her by its ferocity. Grief was its own mistress, coming and going as she saw fit, no matter how long someone was gone from you. And just when you thought you could bear the unbearable, she came back for more.Kate’s arthritic hands trembled as they clasped the container between them and her breath quickened as she used her thumb to attempt to flick the lid open. It was stubborn and refused to budge. The wear and tear of time.‘Let me do that for you,’ ONESaoirseOne week earlier … Palm Tree Cottage, Horseshoe Bay, BermudaAs Saoirse’s flight circled above L.F. Wade International airport, the first glimpse of Bermuda elicited a chorus of gasps from the passengers on board the airbus, the islands appearing through wispy white clouds, surrounded by the deep blue waters of the Atlantic Ocean.‘Paradise once more,’ Saoirse whispered, peering out the small passenger window.She watched the colours change below her. The sea became vibrant turquoise with highlights of emerald dancing through the surf. The landscape was a mix of verdant greens dotted with pastel-coloured buildings. Her heart began to race. Overwhelmed, not from the impact of the view, but from a memory that had pierced her, taking her back to another time, another her.Nine years ago, flying into this same airport, her eyes bloodshot from tears and her heart too broken to acknowledge the beauty of the islands below. On that trip, Saoirse had fled in desperation from Canada, where she’d been working as a ranch hand, to the arms of her aunts Kate and Esme. Her safe refuge as she tried to make sense of her devastation at the break-up of her marriage.Now, Saoirse shook her head, muttering a quiet ‘no’ to herself. She would not allow herself to relive those memories. She had moved on with her life.The plane landed with a gentle bounce, and she instinctively clasped the armrest. As she did so, Saoirse looked down to her ring finger, where a new emerald now sparkled. She slipped it off and looked at the faint white band that had already