Chapter 1

"Hey there, where ya headed?" I asked, rolling down the window.

"To Dublin, where are you headed?" her voice had a light Irish lilt, musical, like a gavotte.

"I'm not headed to Dublin until tomorrow. But I'll take you as far as Limerick, where I'll be spending the night."

"Thank ya, tha'd be very kind." She opened the door and stepped in. "And, by the way, my name is Erin O'Neil."

Erin was tall and thin, had pert breasts in a thin linen shirt, jeans, and long, wavy, bright red hair tied in a ponytail. Her features were classic - right out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting - and her eyes danced with pleasure. She dropped her backpack in the back seat and closed the door.

Hugh caught himself staring. "Oh ... and I'm Hugh."

"Well goodness, just like my ancestor, The Great Hugh O'Neill."

"Except it's just Hugh Johnson. Who was 'The Great' Hugh O'Neill?"

"Only the last Gaelic Chieftain of Ireland. But, alas, defeated by the English in 1600."

"Wow, that's some pedigree."

"Ohhh, just one of many exotic secrets in the O'Neil family tree."

"Well then, tell me all about all about it!"

Hugh drove on, completely taken with Erin and her lively talk. Her wild and free spirit maintained a deep sense of history and a fierce pride in her native Ireland. It didn't take long to discover that she was setting out from her remote home on the Dingle Peninsula, hitchhiking to Dublin as the first stop on her trip to the United States. Hugh also found out that Erin belonged to a family of farmers, that she helped her parents manage the herd, that her family tree had been traced back over 700 years, and that she was headed to Dublin as the first stop on a long vacation trip to the United States. She smelled strongly of wool, which Hugh found to be strangely intoxicating.

"So now tell me, mysterious Hugh, what are you all about?"

Hugh sighed. "Oh, I'm so dull compared to you. I live in Boston, I'm a manager, and I hate my life."

"Oh, Hugh!" Erin exclaimed, "how could ya hate your life when there are so many nice surprises left!" And with that, she leaned over and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Hugh looked at her, eyes wide, feeling the moist kiss on his skin.

"I ... uh ... um..." he tried, but just couldn't get any words out.

Erin smiled. "Well ... aren't ya goin' to thank me?"

"Thank you? Oh! Thank you! That was so, incredibly, sweet of you..."

Hugh blushed deeply.

"You're so cute. So, why do ya claim to hate this life so much?"

Hugh embarked on his life story. He and some friends from college had started their own company 5 years ago, which after just a couple of years had been bought out by a large Telecom.

But after the purchase, things just stagnated. The new company was too bureaucratic, miserly, and insisted they do nothing but service the existing customers. What had been a fun job with friends, turned into something boring and tedious. And just before vacation, he had been informed that his parent company planned to disband his group and fold them into another department. Hugh would be out of a job.