Running Back (19 page)

I knocked my shoulder against him. “Smug’s not attractive, either.”

Mike kissed me. “I’ve been wanting to beat the crap out of this guy for ages. I’m feeling a lot better now.”

Paul grumbled. “You didn’t. I let you land that punch, because—”

I kicked him.

Unlike the O’Connors, he didn’t pretend he hadn’t felt it. “Jesus Christ! Does everyone in this family communicate by kicks?”

Mike took a swig of his drink. “We like to be subtle.”

“You’re all mad.”

Lauren dropped down beside him. “As hatters. Why is your cheek swelling?”

Paul leaned back and delivered a long look at Mike. “Ask your brother.”

Mike shrugged. “Ask Natalie.”

I widened my eyes at Lauren. “It’s totally not my fault. How did he not know you two were a thing?”

She let out a beleaguered groan. “Because he’s an idiot. They’re both idiots.”

We spent the next hour and a half needling each other and devouring an unseemly amount of fish and chips. At some point my gaze, now slightly fuzzier, fell back on Kate and Maggie, who still sat close. I shook my head. “They must have figured everything out.”

Mike ate a poor, innocent fry doused in vinegar and salt. “Figured what?”

“Any lingering resentment about your dad and uncle. Paul,” I said, remembering Patrick’s month mind, “you sounded like you knew what was between the brothers. What was it?”

He cut a derisive look my way. “None of our business.”

Lauren laughed. “So basically, you’re clueless.”

He scowled at her. “My mum said they all had a fight, that Brian was always a rebel but it worsened, and then he took off for America and never came back. And the next thing Maggie heard, he was married. Broke her heart.”

Mike snorted. “You make it sound like he married my mom as soon as he arrived.”

Paul shook his head. “Why don’t you think he did? Do you know how many undocumented Irish are in America? They can’t come home if they ever want to return to the States.”

Well, I didn’t know. “How many are there?”

“Forty, fifty thousand.” He scoffed at our astonishment. “Don’t any of you read the papers? There was a whole article this morning.”

Mike leaned forward. “What are you implying? He married my mom for citizenship?”

Paul leaned back. “I’m not implying anything. Just stating the facts.”

Mike shook his head. “They got married because they were in love.”

Paul laughed. “Ah, I’m sure of it.”

I squeezed Mike’s had so he didn’t leap up and attack Paul across the table. “He probably wouldn’t have left Maggie and Ireland if he was madly in love with her.”

“Unless,” Paul said darkly, “he had an excellent reason for wanting to get away.”

Mike’s grip tightened on mine, and I didn’t need to look at him to know his face had gone stony. He was thinking about his father’s involvement with the Nationalists again. “That’s possible,” I said quickly, “but instead of just conjecturing, why don’t we ask them?”

They all stared at me like the crazy bug had bitten me. Paul shook his head. “I don’t want to uncover that old shite.”

“We can’t ask them about their old romances,” Lauren added.

I shrugged. “Why not? What’s the worst that can happen?”

They were all silent for a moment, and then Mike stood abruptly. “I’m sick of only knowing half truths.”

Lauren sighed and also stood. “It’s on your head if she freaks out.”

They all started forward, but I tugged Mike’s hand to stop him. “Maybe I shouldn’t go with you guys.”

Paul raised his brows. Lauren leveled a look at me. But Mike was the one who spoke. “This is your crazy idea, Sullivan. So get your ass up.”

So all four of us crossed the room and ranged ourselves before the O’Connor widows. Mike took center stage. “What happened twenty-seven years ago? Between Dad and the two of you.”

Kate’s cup rattled against the saucer as she plunked it down. Maggie spoke sharply. “None of your business.”

Lauren looked mulish. “We’re curious. And everyone here loves to gossip, so if we buy enough pints, someone’s going to talk. But we’d rather you did.”

The women exchanged a glance, and then Kate sighed in defeat. Maggie scowled. “It was all bound to come out sooner or later. Come on, then. We’ll go back to my place.”

Chapter Nineteen

First, Maggie had to make tea for all of us. She poured for herself last, and then we settled around the low wooden table, warm mugs between our hands as the rain started to patter down. “We grew up together. Patrick and Brian and me.” She nodded at Paul. “I had a baby sister, you know, but she was ten years younger and quiet, so we never paid her any attention.

“Brian was the daring one. We’d go swimming at night or tell our parents we were on school trips and sneak out to parties. Stupid things. Patrick was a little older, and stubborn as hell. Came with us but would worry the whole time.”

She paused and turned her mug before sipping from it. “And I was...young. Not purposefully cruel, but I flirted with Patrick when I knew my heart went to Brian. Stole kisses from both. Still, I didn’t expect Patrick to be so shocked when Brian proposed and I said yes.”

Beside me, Mike shifted. Slowly, I lay my hand on his and our fingers entwined. Maggie pushed out a breath and continued. “We were going to live at the farm when he came back from university. But Brian—he was so rash. He wanted a united Ireland. He wanted to go off and fight.”

Mike jerked. “Mom—”

Kate pressed her lips together and looked down.

Maggie continued. “We tried to talk him out of it. I begged. Patrick forbade it. And yet Brian said, ‘I have got to do this. I love you, but this is bigger than us.’” She glanced at Kate and then pushed her shoulders back defensively. “It’s true.”

“So?” Lauren’s face was tight.

“So he left. Made some very unsavory friends. And when he came home, they came with him. All these angry young men. And then one night the farmhouse burned down, and there was insurance money, and where did it go? To the nationalists.”

Mike’s hand tightened on mine. “You’re not saying he did it on purpose.”

Maggie met his gaze straight on. “Brian wouldn’t. Those friends of his—I don’t know. It didn’t look good.”

“But why did he leave?”

She shook her head. “He owed money. He should have used the home insurance to pay off the bank, but it disappeared the same way the loans had. He thought he could make more in America. But if he did we never saw it. I think he mostly just wanted to wash his hands of it all.” She took a stoic sip. “And I did take up with Patrick while he was gone. I would have gotten over it, but Brian never asked me to.”

Mike focused on his mother. “Did you know all of this?”

“I learned.”

Lauren kept shaking her head. “So he just married you so he could stay? No. Dad wouldn’t do that.”

“I loved your father very much. And he loved me. It just took time.”

“And that was it?” Paul burst out, gaze locked on his aunt. “You never talked to him again? It was just—over?”

Maggie looked out the window. “Sometimes things are just over.”

Mike leaned forward, his hands pressed together between his knees. “But I remember that conversation, about there being trouble at Kilkarten. That was why I thought there was something buried. You were shocked. You cried. You didn’t know he’d married you for a green card until then? That was
ten years
into your marriage.”

“I know.”

Mike looked shaken. I squeezed his hand. It wasn’t easy, finding out something you believed so strongly in hadn’t really existed. “He should have told you earlier.”

Kate exhaled. “It’s all in the past.”

To her, maybe. But looking at Mike’s face, I could tell it wasn’t in the past for him.

We barely spoke until we’d closed the door to his room. He sat down on his side of the bed and fell backward. I lay down from my side, so that our heads touched each other. “It’s weird. Learning something about someone, when you thought you already knew everything.”

“Maybe it’s impossible to ever really know anyone.”

“But he was dead. He wasn’t supposed to change.” He reached his hand up, and I met it with my own. Our fingers tangled, his warm and strong. “I can’t imagine him loving anyone other than my mom. It feels wrong.”

I turned my head and smiled. “Because he had a life before her?”

He turned with a slight smile. He was upside down, his eyes turned the wrong way. “Okay, I’m being unfair. But I wish my mother had told me.”

“I guess she didn’t think it was any of your business. The nerve.”

He growled and then kissed me. Our lips met, upside down, almost unfamiliar, and then we were laughing and spinning and climbing on top of each other, seeking comfort and warmth and happiness.

* * *

On Friday it rained so hard there was no point going into the field. Drizzles were fine; deluges were not. Outside, the wind roared, like the inside of a seashell. I curled up against Mike’s chest and glared out our window. “Great. Now what?”

“I vote we stay in bed all day.”

“Vetoed. Too many people will know we’re having sex, and that’s embarrassing. Like my advisor. And your mother.”

He started to grin when I mentioned Jeremy, and then the smile flatlined. “Okay. Maybe not ideal.”

“I guess we can play more board games.”

“No. You cheat.”

Valid point. Two nights ago we’d been playing Stratego, and when it became obvious I was going to lose, I started moving the immobile bomb pieces.

Well, it made the game more interesting.

Someone pounded on the door. “Mike! Mike!” The knob rattled. “Open up!”

He groaned and rolled out of bed. “Go away, Anna.”

“Open! Now!”

He pulled the door open. “What?”

Anna threw herself on the loveseat, caught sight of me, and barely managed to restrain her eyes from rolling. “You
have
to drive me over to pub. The adults have been interrogating me for two hours about my college plans.”

Mike crossed his arms. “The pub where you’ve been underage drinking.”

She turned her eyes on me. “
Natalie!
”

I jumped up and headed for the shower. “Oh, hey. I am not part of this conversation.”

“Tell him it’s legal here!”

“Shirker,” Mike muttered as I closed the bathroom door.

When I came out, an agreement had been reached. It turned out no one wanted to stay indoors, so we all headed out to the pub. It was already packed, but Mike and I managed to squeeze in at the end of a table next to the O’Brien family and their four children. Five-year-old Kelly kept sticking her elbow in my side and stealing peeks at me, but other than that it was a pretty good fit.

As Mike spoke, Kelly stopped watching me and started watching him. Her little brother got jam all over Mike’s arm, which he absentmindedly cleaned off.

And then, in the middle of our happy, light-hearted conversation, he looked up with this half smile, like he’d forgotten it on his face. “I’m going back home in three weeks.”

“For another weekend?”

“No. For good. I have training camp on the twenty-sixth.”

I shook my head, oddly numb. Of course he had training camp. He was a New York Leopard. “Are you excited?”

He shrugged. “I’m always excited for a new season.”

Right. Right.

“If you find something, you have flexibility about where you’re based in your off-season, right? But what if you don’t find anything?”

“Then I’ll probably stay here and keep looking.”

He took a long drink. “Then I
really
hope you find Ivernis.”

A lump formed in my throat. I tried to clear it away with the same grace as a cat with a hairball. “I’ll definitely be back in New York late September, to present at the conference.”

“What will you guys give your talk on if you don’t find anything?”

Our talk was registered as a Field Report, and I was fairly certain the American Academy of Archaeology had accepted it because they figured Ceile and Jeremy’s feud would provide some much needed entertainment at the conference. “I was thinking about just crying for a straight hour if we have nothing to say. Or maybe Ceile will come and throw tomatoes at us.”

“Sort of like performance art.”

“Yeah. Maybe we’ll hold different tools as we do it. Trowel—tiny tears. Shovel—big wail.” I took a bite of my sandwich. “It’s funny—the conference is actually at the Javits Center, so right next to your stadium.”

He grinned. “The season will’ve started. You can come to a game while you’re home.”

Under the table, I hooked my ankle around his. “Without a doubt.”

That evening, Lauren and I were playing checkers before the fireplace when Mike came in with a slight smile. I rolled over and looked at him. “You know those charts where there’s a different smiley face for each emotion? We should have one of you, except instead of frowns and tears they’d all be different versions of you smiling.”

Kate made a mom noise. “That’s such a sweet idea.”

Well, I wasn’t sure about sweet. I was going for clever.

“We should have one of Anna,” Lauren said. “Except instead of smiles, it would be scowl variations.”

Anna demonstrated one. “You’re
so
funny.”

Mike sat down next to me. “And which smile is this?”

“You have a secret.”

He raised his brows. “Not a very long lasting one. Want to go somewhere this weekend?”

“Dublin?”

“Paris.”

Anna cried out, “
I
want to go to Paris!”

Her mother and sister swatted her.

“Ryan called and said he and Rachael are stopping by after her work trip in Italy, and that Malcolm and Bri might fly over as sort of a last fling before training starts. You in?”

Paris.
For a fleeting moment I juggled ticket prices, but then a line of can-can dancers kicked through my budget. “I’m in.”

* * *

Lauren stopped by the library the next evening while I went over data. “Hey. Just wanted to check—do you have a dress?”

I blinked at her. “What?”

“Thought not. My brother’s a space shot. You’re going somewhere fancy, right? He’ll almost definitely get a tux delivered to the hotel.”

“He didn’t say we were going anywhere.”

She just gave me an oh-poor-you look. “You’re meeting up with Rach and Bri? You’re going somewhere fancy. It’ll be for charity. But it will also be for dresses.”

I frowned uncertainly. “I have that black dress I wore for the month’s mind...”

She dropped down next to me, shaking her head. “Nope. Won’t cut it. Don’t worry, you can rent cocktail dresses online and have them delivered to your hotel. Easy.”

I stared at her. “Crazy.”

“Come on, it’ll be fun.” She pulled the computer toward her and started a search. “Look, this site has two hundred different options. And it’s in English.”

“I speak French,” I muttered. But I was already being drawn into the sparkly gowns, which Lauren clicked through without stopping, until we reached one golden ball gown that made us both
oooh.

“Maybe over the top, but see? You can find something nice.”

I suffered a thirty-second moral quandary about spending money renting a dress, and then the dress won.

Anna wandered in ten minutes later. “What are you guys doing?”

“Renting a dress in Paris for Nat.”

She plopped down beside us and tore open a bag of chips. Crisps. Whatever. “Sweet. Don’t get that one, it’s ugly. That one’s super skanky. No, that’s gross.”

Kate joined us after another twenty minutes. “What are you all studying so diligently?”

“Dresses,” we chorused, in what was possibly the twee-est moment of my life.

We narrowed it down to three choices—a long lavender gown Lauren thought would go well with my hair and eyes; a short black thing Anna favored, though I wasn’t so sure about the weird puff of fabric on the sleeve, and a short, simply cut silver dress with a boat neckline. It was kind of weird but appealing nonetheless.

“Hey, what size are your feet?”

I hadn’t even thought about shoes. “Nine-and-a-half.” They all made faces. “What? What sizes are you?”

“I’m a six,” Anna said.

I stared at her. “Are you serious?”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “They’re beautiful too. I have beautiful feet.”

“She does.” Kate smiled fondly. “She gets them from me.”

I turned to Lauren in astonishment. She shook her head. “I’m no Cinderella, but my feet are still smaller. Just think of it as an excuse to buy fancy French shoes.”

“But I don’t wear fancy shoes.”

Anna popped a chip in her mouth. “Now you do.”

Mike came in, and stopped when he saw the four of us gathered around my computer. “Breaking news?”

I looked up. “Are you getting a tux delivered in France? For any reason?”

“Oh, yeah. There’s some charity thing Friday night.”

Kate’s head popped up. “And when were you going to tell Natalie this?”

His eyes flickered back and forth between all of us and he started to back up. “I can tell when I’m not wanted. I’ll just...go disappear.”

“Go have a boys’ night with Paul!” Lauren yelled after him.

He ducked his head back in. “I’d rather be traded.”

I met his eyes. He grinned and wrinkled his nose at me and vanished.

The O’Connor women went with us to the airport, as they planned to do a little more exploring of the country while we were out of it. Kate gave me one last box before we left. “These are from Maggie. I know you said you could just pick up something in France, but Maggie had your size, and I thought—well, you don’t have to wear them if you don’t want to.”

“Thank you.” I took the box but didn’t look inside. “I’m sorry about digging up the past.”

She smiled painstakingly. “It’s time we got over it. We could have used you ten years ago.”