The taxi cruised slowly along Niagara Street, the lights of Christmas trees in the red-bricked apartments twinkling into the snow-swirled night. Marie-Claire felt the tug of longing for Ireland, and home. Three hours ago she’d been a woman with plans and an idea where her future lay. Happy. Secure. Ambitious. One short, clandestine phone call had changed all that. Now she was in a maelstrom; shock, sadness, bitterness and rage tossing her on their churning seas. It was that roiling rage that would get her through dinner with Marc tonight.

She paid the taxi driver and wrapped her heavy green, faux-fur-trimmed cape around her. Marc had made a fool of her. Her anger was as much directed at herself as him, but he would never know what lay behind her decision to split, she decided with steely resolve. Let him think she was leaving him because she’d decided it was time to move on. Let him be the one questioning her decision. Let him be the one asking why. Whether Amelia was a mere distraction, fling, whatever, she didn’t care. There would never be trust in their relationship if she stayed. And anyway, now she didn’t want to.

Something unexpected solidified within Marie-Claire as she took a deep breath and walked towards the inviting lamp-lit entrance. What had happened today was life-changing. A kick in the ass! A wake-up call, her mother would say.

Was she to give up her life in Toronto and the career in sound engineering that she’d worked so hard to build? Running the Radio & TV Voice-overs department in a busy audio post facilities company that was going places. Marc’s company, unfortunately. She’d have to go looking for another job. But where?

Right there, on that freezing night on a dark Toronto sidewalk, Marie-Claire knew exactly what she wanted and where she wanted to be. She wanted to go home. Back to the Four Winds and her snug little room in the eaves to take time to think and evaluate.

She’d even be able to go to Great-Aunt Brigid’s surprise eightieth birthday party. An invite she’d reluctantly had to say no to because she’d originally been scheduled to be in New York.

Marie-Claire opened the restaurant door and walked in, preparing to put on the act of her life.

CHAPTER TWO

KEELIN

Keelin Durand stood at her bedroom window looking at snow-adorned Mount Canigou in the distance. The mountain seemed to shimmer in the early morning sun, a paler blue than the azure December sky that almost overwhelmed the vast plains of Roussillon and the lavender fields below. Canigou, the sacred mountain so beloved of the Catalans.

Keelin turned from the window. She and her husband, Armand, were closing up the house for two weeks to fly to Ireland to spend New Year with family. Her aunt, Reverend Mother Brigid, would be turning eighty and the family would be celebrating.