these days. "I wasn't that kind of girl."
She moved the carrots from her plate to his. Cheese was orange - that was good enough. "It's not our job to teach them about glitter and coordinating outfits. It's our job to teach them to be loved and have generous hearts."
He scowled. "Glitter might be easier."
Nell picked up the cookie that had shown up along with the carrots and contemplated the man who thought his heart was lacking. "I have three girls you can borrow any time you like."
He nodded, distracted, eyes back on Morgan.
And then turned to Nell again, eyes suddenly intent. "Thanks."
She blinked and chewed slowly on her cookie. Marcus Buchanan had figured out how to be a friend.
Miracles really did happen.
Cass sat quietly, Rosie on her lap. She'd heard the notes of a musician hard at work and wandered in, looking for some musical company.
And found a child playing.
Or not quite a child. Ellie Brennan had been a fixture at The Barn ever since she was a baby. Fastest toddler in the nation, her father had called her.
She wasn't a toddler now. Brown waves of hair haloed a face of beauty and fierce concentration. Ellie Brennan was growing up.
And if looking at her long, teenage legs and screaming pink fingernails hadn't made that clear, the music pouring out of her fiddle would have.
The talent wasn't surprising - not in this town. Musical genius flowed in the Margaree water. But the focus was, and the finger calluses that spoke of long hours with fiddle strings underneath them. Cass had noticed those the night before when Ellie had been keeping the fiddlers' glasses full.
Now she knew that Ellie had the talent to match her calluses, and something else as well. The girl had been aware of Cass's presence for almost ten minutes - and she'd stuck out her chin and kept fiddling. A very intentional performance.
Talent and ambition, living strong in the girl who played and the woman who listened.
For some, music was a hobby - a way to pass the time with friends and family. For Cass, it had always been a vocation, a calling, and occasionally a prison sentence.
Listening to Ellie play was like visiting a time warp.
Except Cass hadn't been that good at twelve. Or remotely that determined.
At twelve, playing her violin had been a very good way to get out of milking the cows, nothing more. At sixteen, it had been a way to avoid the overtures of Tommy Murphy, sixth-generation cow farmer and arrogant turd. And at nineteen, it had been her ticket over the waters.
Away from the cows. Which probably made her current location a bit ironic.
Ellie finished and set her violin on her knee.
Cass had no idea where to start. "You're very good."
A shy smile. "Buddy says maybe one day I'll be almost as good as you."
"You've done more practicing." Cass grinned wryly. "My double stops weren't that good for another decade."
"Is that all it takes? Practice?"
Most kids would have run screaming at the thought. And because this one hadn't, Cass tried to be honest. "Nope. You need raw talent, which you have. Not everyone who practices can be the best."
Ellie stared solemnly for a while. "And?"
The girl was no dummy. "And it takes some luck. The industry changes a lot. The audiences and the important people are a moving target."
"Buddy says smart people make their own luck."
That was an awful lot of support from the local legend. Buddy wasn't one for fawning praise. Cass frowned - she was missing something. "Do you play something besides reels?"
Now the nerves hit, great big waves of them. "Mostly I try to play what I hear."
A twelve-year-old virtuoso who couldn't read music. Ireland was full of them - this side of the waters, not so much. "Well, you have lots to listen to here."
More nerves.
Something else, then. "The first time I got up on a big stage, I thought I was going to puke." Cass settled into her chair more comfortably.
Curiosity poked through the nerves. "Did you?"
"Yup." Several times. "But not until I was finished." Cass eyed the girl - time to see what she was made of. Nerves could kill a career as surely as lack of talent.
Ellie stared. And then she picked up her fiddle, eyes flashing with twelve-year-old pride, and walked to the middle of the stage.
The first three notes would have made angels cry. It wasn't technique anymore, or the fiddling of a master rendered by twelve-year-old fingers. It was joy and yearning