Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games (26 page)

Sarah knew she and Declan didn't stand a chance against them. She closed her eyes.

Please, God, take care of my boy. Give him strength and solace for a life without me and his father. Watch over him.

She took a breath and held it, waiting.

Finally, she opened her eyes to see Denny's men, one by one, lowering their weapons. One even dropped his in the dirt.

She turned to Declan. His face was streaked with blood and one eye was closed. There was an open gash on the side of his head and the hand that gripped the gun was caked with dirt and blood. “What's happening?” she asked hoarsely. “Are they giving up?”

The big gypsy glanced away and Sarah followed his direction to see Denny, walking with difficulty between Mike and one of Declan's gypsy brothers. As they approached, Sarah could see that Denny wasn't walking at all. Nor would he ever again.

Mike heaved Denny's body on the ground. Denny's neck flopped at an unnatural angle. As Sarah turned away, her stomach roiling, she saw Denny's men move in to look at the body of their fallen leader.

“Head of the snake,” Declan muttered. “They're not going to fight on if he's not here to make ‘em.”

Declan stepped over Denny's body and held his hand out to Mike. “Met your Sarah on the road. Said if I was ever in Ireland, I needed to come look up Mike Donovan. Didn't expect to have to work for my supper, though.”

Mike grinned and clasped the gypsy's hand before Sarah launched herself into Declan's arms. “Thank you, Declan,” she said, tears streaming down her dirt-streaked face. “Thank God for you.”

S
arah knelt by Angie
. She could see there was nothing they had in the way of first aid that was going to make any difference but she couldn't let her die alone. She eased Angie's head onto her lap.

Around them, the camp was noisy with people righting carts, and bandaging wounds. The laughter that floated over the noise told Sarah that none of their own had been seriously hurt. She could see Mike and Declan, shoulder to shoulder, as they labored to put the camp back to order.

Denny's men had melted into the woods.

“I always wondered if they'd fight on without Denny,” Angie said, grimacing against the bleeding wound in her middle that she clutched with both hands. “If I'd only killed the bastard myself. I had plenty of opportunities. I can't believe it's going down like this.” She coughed and cried out. Sarah didn't speak. She hoped it was enough that she was here. She wasn't sure she had the stomach to offer anything more.

“You were right, Yank.” Angie's eyes fluttered and finally closed. “I have a little girl. Named Dana.”

Sarah scanned the camp. It was still smoking in spots from where the cairn had exploded.

Angie coughed again. “I was just trying to give her a chance to grow up, same as you and your lad.”

“Angie, I…” Sarah stopped talking when she realized Angie had had the last word. She touched the woman's no longer tortured brow. “Sleep now, Angie,” she said. “It's over.”

M
ike sat
on the top porch step and surveyed the cleanup while Fiona wrapped a clean bandage around his head. It still hurt like bloody blazes, but his eyesight had at least returned to normal and he could only hope the pain—if it was just a concussion—would soon abate.

“You sure you're okay, Fi?”

“Sure, why wouldn't I be?”

“Okay, very funny. Just trying to be brotherly.”

“Well, at least you can feel a little less guilty about young John not being anywhere near all of this.”

“That thought did run through my mind,” he admitted, “in my ever-ongoing quest to think on the bright side of things while people are trying to kill me and mine.”

“Speaking of which, you seen Caitlin recently?”

He winced as she tied the knot to secure the bandage. “I'll deal with it, Fi.”

“You know it had to be her told them all our secrets.”

“I said I'd deal with it.”

“Well, you'd best get ready to do it because here she comes as bold as chalk,
and
with one of ‘em!”

Mike looked up to see Caitlin walking down the center path of the camp, hanging on the arm of a large man with an ugly cut across his forehead. It was the man who'd attacked him in the woods.

She must have been waiting in the woods until the battle was over, Mike thought as she and the English wanker stood in front of him.

“I'll be needing Fiona to tend to the injuries that your
bowsies
gave me Aidan. He'll be staying with me in me tent.”

Had the daft bitch gone mental? Maybe Fi was right and she really was insane.

Mike stood up, feeling the sky sway just a bit. “Take this piece of shite and piss off, Caitlin. You're not welcome here. Be glad I don't dip you in tar first.”

Her mouth fell open in astonishment. “You can't throw me out! I'm your kin!”

“You're nothing to me. Now bugger off. Don't make me lay hands on you.”

Aidan snarled at him. “I'd like to see you try, you big Irish bastard.”

Before Mike could respond, Sarah, who he'd last seen sitting with the woman Declan had shot, stepped forward. She must have come over as soon as she saw Caitlin return to camp.

“A word, Mike,” Sarah said turning to stare at Caitlin and Aidan. “Do we have laws in Donovan's Lot?”

He frowned. “Aye. We do.”

Sarah pointed to Aidan. “This man aided in the murder of my husband, David Woodson.”

Aidan dropped Caitlin's arm. “She lies!”

Sarah stepped up to him and put her face into his. “I
saw
you.”

Mike jumped down from the porch and pulled Sarah back as he bellowed out, “Jimmy! Patrick!”

Aidan whirled and ran four steps before two men standing nearby tackled him.

“Tie him up,” Mike said. “Throw him in the granary. I'll deal with him later.”

Caitlin flew at Mike, her fists pounding his chest until he pushed her away and she fell in the dirt. “You can't do this!” she cried as Aidan was dragged away cursing and fighting.

“I can. And you've got two minutes to leave on your own steam, Caitlin. After that I'll lock you up so you can answer for your hand in today's events.”

Caitlin looked at him, disbelieving, then climbed to her feet. She gave Sarah a look of loathing.

“Sixty seconds,” Mike said.

“I'll see you in Hell, Mike Donovan! You and your Yankee whore!”

Sarah watched until Caitlin disappeared into the woods and then she turned to Mike. “What will you do with him?”

“There's no traveling magistrate to hear the case, Sarah, if that's what you're asking,” he said wearily. “I'm the law here. He abetted in David's murder.” He sat down heavily on the porch, as if standing were suddenly too taxing, and looked into her face, his expression stern and unrelenting. “So he dies.”

Suddenly, Fiona jumped down from the porch. “It's Gavin!” she called. “He's safe, Mike. Thank the Lord.”

Mike looked up to see the miraculous sight of his only child loping into the center of camp on Sarah's horse, beaming and looking very much like he had something to do with today's victory. A wave of relief cascaded over him. Now he could relax. Now he could finally rest.

Fiona ran up to Gavin when he dismounted and he picked her up and swung her in a wide arc. She squealed.

“We did it, Auntie!” he said. “I just wished I coulda seen the expressions on those bastards' faces.”

Fiona laughed. “Was that
you
made all those explosions and saved our lives you big gobshite?”

Gavin walked over to where Mike and Sarah waited on the porch steps, both of them smiling to see him unharmed and well. “You know,” he said, grinning, “much as I'd love to take the credit, I reckon that mostly it was all John.” He looked at Sarah and grinned even more broadly.

Mike watched as Sarah looked at Gavin and then, her hand covering her mouth to stifle a gasp. Immediately over Gavin's shoulder, jogging up the main center of camp, was twelve-year-old John Woodson, grinning from ear to ear.

S
arah knew
that no matter how long she lived she would literally never get her fill of looking at him. She gazed at her son as he sat at the dinner table, laughing and shoving with Mike's boy, Gavin, and she knew she hadn't stopped smiling since the moment she had seen him trot down the center aisle of camp, his face filthy, his hair wild around his head, straight for her. For the time it took for her to see him coming toward her—unharmed and jubilant—and then feel him in her arms again, Sarah knew she would never ask for more in this lifetime.

Like most miracles, how it all came about was as thrilling a story of luck and happenstance combined with the stubbornness of the human spirit as there could ever be.

“When the pilot told me they had news of a VIP they needed to stop for in Limerick, I could see by the way he was looking at me that if I wanted to wander off from a bathroom break when we stopped they wouldn't look too hard for me.” John bit into his third sandwich as he told his tale.

Sarah kept one hand on his arm the whole time, as if to confirm to herself that he was really there, flesh and blood.

“Who was the VIP?' Gavin asked.

Fiona slapped him playfully on the back of the head. “What does it matter? Let him tell the story!”

“Oh, no, Aunt, Fi,” John said. “That's the cool part.” He looked at his mother. “It was Prince William. He was on a fishing trip in Ireland and was in a hurry to get back to London.”

“Mercy,” Fiona said. “You gave your seat up for the future King of England? Well done, lad!”

“Yeah, well, I would've given it up for a French poodle if it meant I could get back home.”

“So you walked all the way from Limerick?” Declan asked. He sat beside Mike as the two smoked and sipped whiskey. Sarah was delighted, but not surprised, to see the obvious beginning of a strong friendship.

John shook his head. “The pilot put me down nearer to Adare. It's only twenty miles or so and the weather was fine.”

“You just slipped away?” Mike was shaking his head, either at the simplicity of it all or the grotesque priorities of the pilot choosing a celebrity over the young American who had been his first responsibility.

“Yeah, and when I got nearly to camp I ran into Gavin who told me what was happening.”

Mike looked at his son. “Is that why you weren't where you were supposed to be?” he asked pointedly.

“Sorry, Da,” Gavin said, and there was something about the way he answered that told Sarah that Gavin had grown up since she'd last seen him. “It's true I wasn't where you told me to be, but I reckon I was exactly where I was
supposed
to be.”

“What riddle is this?” Mike growled.

“It's on account of me, sir,” John said, looking at Mike. “And I'm sorry for making Gav disobey you. But I had to.”

“Go on.”

“Well,” John said, reaching for a small sugar cake from the plate Fiona extended to him. “I figured I knew better ‘coz I had intel that you didn't.”

Mike snorted but didn't respond.

“So
why
did you not want Gavin in the tree his da told him to be in?” Fiona asked.

John put the cake down and wiped his fingers on his sleeve. Sarah could see that, although he was still the same size since she last saw him, his eyes seemed to belong to a much older boy.

“Uncle Mike wanted him in a certain tree as a sniper, but I needed him in a different tree so he could detonate the landmines.”

“You replanted the landmines after I told your father to dig them up and remove them?” Mike spoke evenly, but Sarah could tell there was no heat in his voice.

“Yes sir, I did,” John said, meeting his eyes. “My dad was right about needing those mines to defend the community. You must've thought the same thing when you found out we were under attack, ‘coz my mom said you went looking for them.”

Sarah stole a glance at Mike. He didn't say anything.

“The weeks you were gone, Mom, I did a lot of thinking about a lot of things. I figured Dad was right about us needing the explosives, but Uncle Mike was right, too, about not wanting people to accidentally walk on ‘em. I figured, since they could be detonated by any mechanism that could activate their blasting caps, we didn't have to use them as somebody stepping on ‘em.”

“A bullet would work,” Gavin said.

“Right. So I buried ‘em in the cairn where nobody goes and under the stonewall by the eastern pasture.”

“And then forgot to tell anyone about it,” Gavin said, elbowing John good-naturedly.

John grinned. “Yeah. I meant to tell Gav, but next thing I know I'm on a helicopter and nobody knows but me that the whole place is rigged to blow with two well-placed hits.”

“How did you know when to time the explosions?” Declan asked.

John shrugged. “I didn't. The first one, we just let ‘er rip. We didn't have a plan at all. The second time, though…” John stopped speaking and Sarah found herself holding her breath.

The second time, Sarah knew, John had seen the three men exit the camp and saw that they would walk right by the cairn where the explosive was planted.

What he
didn't
know, she thought as she watched him struggle with the thought of what he had done, was that he had given the signal that killed the man who murdered his father. She didn't know if she would ever tell him that.

“Well,” Mike said, finishing off his whiskey. “I'd like to raise a toast to young John, here, and Declan and his family, without whose help in defending Donovan's Lot we'd none of us be here to give a toast.”

Everyone seconded the toast and drank. Sarah's eyes stung with tears as she watched her son.

“And I'd also like to raise a glass to the memory of David Woodson,” Mike said. Sarah picked up her glass again and felt the tears streak down her face. “Who was right, when I was wrong. And being right helped save us all on this day.”

“Hear, hear,” the room chorused as everyone drank.

Sarah saw Mike exchange a look with John over the cheers and conversation of the group. She saw Mike nod and John smile in response.

T
hat night
, as Sarah sat next to John on his bed in Fiona's cottage, she felt a warmth radiating throughout her body that left her tingling with joy. To touch him again, to watch his expressions, to hold him just by reaching out…she couldn't remember a time when she felt more grace than she felt right now. It had been a long day and they were both exhausted, but still she hesitated to leave him to go to her bed, even as weary as she was. And so she sat near him as he talked, his eyelids growing heavier and heavier.

“I knew you weren't dead, Mom. I mean, if you were dead, I know I'd have felt it.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “I just knew you were somewhere in the world. You know what I mean?”

Sarah leaned over and kissed him, a vision of dear Evvie coming to mind and prompting an exhausted smile though her tears. “I do, sweetie,” she said as she watched her boy fall into sleep before her eyes. “I know exactly what you mean.”