The Last Bride in Ballymuir (11 page)

She looked down at her hands clenched
together in her lap. “I saw tonight. I saw what Gerry Flynn did to
you, blaming you like that, and I did nothing.”

He paused, swallowing this bit of
information. He’d rather she thought him a brawler than weak. And
he’d die before accepting her pity.

“
I should have done
something, stopped him somehow,” she said.

He tried for a light tone. “Just what would
you have done, collared him and dragged him to the door, with him
twice your size?”

“
No,” she answered fiercely.
“I should have defended you, told Rory O’Connor what Gerry did.”
Her chin went out a notch. “I’ll do that. I’ll tell Rory
tomorrow.”

“
You’ll not,” he said,
working to control his embarrassment and anger. Anger at his
circumstances, not at Kylie. Never that. He took one of her hands
in his, tracing her delicate bones. “This is my matter to settle,
and in my own way.”

“
That’s the thing of it...
It’s not just your matter. Gerry went after you because of me,” she
said, holding one hand to her heart. “I feel terrible for having
drawn you into this. He’s had this—this obsession with me for
years. When he turned on you, I should have stopped him, but I was
too afraid of what the others might think of me. It was selfish,
and I’m sorry.”

She hadn’t cornered the
market on selfish. Michael kept silent about Flynn’s other motives
for giving him
a hard time. “You’re
worrying yourself over nothing, a bad moment and no more. I don’t
want you to defend me, Kylie. I don’t care what they think” He
paused, looking at the beauty before him. “But you, has no one ever
stood as your hero? Has no one defended you?”

Her blue eyes went wide and dark, and a sheen
of moisture came over them. He could have drowned in her
softness.

“
I—” She started to speak,
then trailed off as she looked down at his hand still wrapped
around hers. “There are no real heroes anymore,” she said in a near
whisper.

“
Do you believe that?
Really?”

She nodded, her eyes meeting
his. “I do. It’s easier
that
way.”

The heart that he was sure
had hardened until it was impervious to pain clenched tight within
his chest. Releasing her hand, he cupped her face
between his palms.
I want
to be your hero.
If he could
say those words, it would be the greatest truth
he’d ever spoken. It would also be the greatest
impossibility.

But he could kiss away the
hurt and sorrow. He brushed his mouth once, twice, gently against
her
full
lips,
closing his eyes with the intoxication of touching her, feeling his
heart ease with her indrawn breath of surprise and pleasure. He’d
lied to himself, he thought, as he moved to linger against her.
This kiss was for him.

At the shrill ringing of a telephone he
pulled back with a guilty start. Kylie moved away, nervously
smoothing the folds of her robe. She answered the phone, a bright
blush staining her face as she spoke to the caller.

“
For you,” she said, holding
the phone out to him.

He could think
of only one soul who’d know to look for him here.
And only one soul who cared enough to call, too.

“
Hello, Vi,” he said with
wry resignation.

“
You
might have thought of ringing me up and telling me you were
safe, after the way you left the pub.”

“
So much for giving me some
room.”

“
I’ve been worried, that’s
all. You’re safe now, and I’ll let you be.”

Michael relaxed; it appeared he was to be
spared prods at his conscience.

“
She’s a pretty thing,
though, isn’t she?” Vi added in a bright tone. “Innocent as a
child, I’m thinking.”

His laugh was deep and wholly involuntary.
“Very subtle, Sis. Very subtle.”

She laughed in return. “Subtlety is of no use
where you’re concerned. But a mallet to the head is.”

“
No blows to the head are
needed. You can consider the message received,” he said, glancing
over at Kylie, who sat on the couch desperately trying to look as
though she couldn’t hear his end of the conversation.

“
Good. Now stop by the
studio in the morning. Word about what happened in O’Connor’s
tonight is traveling fast,” she said in a troubled voice. “We need
to talk, to decide what to do.”

Michael knew what he intended to do: nothing
at all. After all, the tongues couldn’t be unwagged once they’d
started. He said a quick good night to his sister and then rejoined
Kylie.

Even when he sat next to her, she kept her
eyes downcast. He hated the distance that had grown between them.
The weight of the night was too heavy to be ignored, their private
time gone. He wanted it back, that quiet intimacy, the feeling that
they could push away the rest of the world. They couldn’t,
though.

“
Well then,” Kylie said,
“you know you’ve never exactly mentioned your line of work. If you
settle in Ballymuir, will you be able to pick it up
again?”

What she asked was harmless, the sort of chat
one might use to fill an empty moment. Except in his case, any
details would only beg questions he didn’t want to answer.

“
It should be no problem” he
said, offering nothing more.

“
I see.”

Searching for some part of himself that he
could safely give her, he settled on family. “Do you have any
brothers or sisters?”

“
None,” she
replied.

“
Then let me tell you about
Vi.” Michael knew of no topic better to remove the uneasiness that
hung over them like a somber gray pall.

“
When I was young, Vi was my
very best friend,” he began, then launched into stories of the
marvelous days they’d had at their nan’s and the mischief they’d
made at home.

After a time Kylie relaxed, laughing when he
told how their one attempt at shearing a sheep had resulted in Vi’s
being clipped instead. In time, she eased into sleep, and her head
rested against the plane of his shoulder. He held her, and wondered
that such a simple intimacy between a man and woman could mean so
much.

He’d have spent the night there, holding her,
feeling the softness of her hair against his cheek, except that he
worried for her comfort. She was a light thing, he thought, after
he’d stood and scooped her into his arms.

Though he felt like an intruder, he used his
elbow to push open her bedroom door the rest of the way and carry
her inside. A small lamp glowed on a nightstand beside what had to
be the most incredible bed he’d ever seen. He shook his head in
amazement as he took it in, all fanciful carved mahogany and lush
draped curtains. This was a fairy princess’s bed, and worth more
than the rest of her tattered belongings put together.

“
When you’re awake you might
not believe in heroes,” he murmured to the slip of a woman asleep
in his arms, “but I’m thinking you still dream of them.”

Chapter Seven

May our enemy not hear.

—
Irish Proverb

Morning had begun with a
call from Mam. In Vi’s book that was a portent only slightly less
dismal
than
finding
a grackle perched outside her front door. And unlike the bird, she
couldn’t just shoo Mam away.

Nothing said in a
straightforward way, that was
Mam, Vi
thought as she finished the last of her morn
ing tea and considered—then rejected—the idea of washing up
the dishes. Mam and her cowardly talk of “not being able to mend
the mistakes of the past” and “understanding what’s important
now.”

It infuriated Vi, seeing
Michael cast aside. Infuriated
her, and
made her doubly determined to help him
regain family and friends. It seemed family would take
care of themselves. The twins were already
chomping
at the bit to come visit, and Mam
was having a holy
seizure at the idea. Two
Bus Eireann tickets in the post
just might
be enough to send her over the edge, Vi thought with a fiendish
chuckle.

That left friends. She
considered young Kylie O’Shea, smiling that she’d immediately
appended
young
to
her name, when the woman was not so far from her own age. Bending
to fill Roger’s dish with
more kibble for
him to bolt, Vi wondered how far the
friendship between her brother and the schoolteacher had
progressed. And she hoped to God that
Kylie
O’Shea had the strength to hold fast in the teeth
of the storm to come.

It had been a dark night at O’Connor’s Pub,
and Vi could see no prospect for clearing. At least not until the
talk and rumors about Michael’s past had expired under their own
weight. And that could take years. The old folks in town still
talked of the 1916 Easter Uprising as if it had happened yesterday,
and a reference to the Queen could as easily mean Elizabeth the
First as the Second.

And as for the younger people, most of them
would prefer that the Troubles and the poor souls like Michael
ensnared in them, simply be wiped away. Or chased away, if
necessary. Northern political matters, after all, were bad for
tourism. And tourism put dinner on the table each night. Oh, things
looked bleak, indeed, for her brother.

The impatient jangle of the telephone cut
short Vi’s thoughts.

“
Bloody thing,” she said as
she walked to it and steeled herself to lift the receiver, “you’ve
already dragged Mam into my day. What have you in store for me
now?”

“
Hello?” she said, but no
one spoke in return. She drew in a breath and tried again, this
time in her most imperial fashion. “Kilbride’s Asylum for the
Artistically Impaired. Which inmate do you seek?”

She caught the low murmur of a man’s voice.
The sound was muffled, as though his hand was over the receiver and
he wasn’t speaking to her at all. Even that indistinct noise sent a
message. A shiver chased down Vi’s spine, and the fine hairs on her
arms rose. The line disconnected from the other end. Shaking, she
slammed down the phone and turned away.

Moments like this, when she brushed against
evil, made her wish she could give back the Kilbride gift of sight.
But she couldn’t, any more than she could lose her height or her
love of color. Vi rubbed her arms to restore some warmth and told
herself that the call meant nothing.

“
Courage,” she
admonished.

After giving Roger a few
moments to snuffle the last crumbs of his meal, she snapped on his
leash and announced, “Off to the studio with us,
a ghra.
We’ve work to
finish before the distractions begin. They’re going to be plenty
today.”

An idea that Roger relished, judging by the
spring in his step. Vi felt mightily less pleased with the thought.
Whether it be Mam or grackle, bad tidings were afoot.

It was a morning for more
subtle intimacies, waking and readying for the day in Kylie’s tiny
home. Michael had lived elbow-to-elbow before, but there
had been no closeness to it, only a maddening lack
of privacy. This was different; he liked it—too much, in
fact. It made him think of waking with Kylie in
that dreamer’s bed, and of staying there until the day had slipped
into night. Dangerous emotions, those were, and becoming harder to
ignore.

After a breakfast filled with talk and
laughter, he helped her pile an armful of bundles into the boot of
her car. When he asked her about them, she fluttered off some
embarrassed answer about things she no longer needed and help for a
family in town.

But they’d just made it back to the main road
when she pulled up in front of a cottage. Curious, Michael watched
as she hurriedly dropped a bag on the stoop.

“
And that was?” he asked
when she’d settled back into the car.

“
Reading materials.” Her
cheeks blazed crimson.

He grinned. “What kind of reading materials
might they be?”

“
Romance novels,” she said
in a way that just dared him to laugh. “Breege won’t buy them for
herself—she’s too old, she says—but she’s not against reading them
a dozen times through if they just happen to show up on her
doorstep.”

Books for a friend named
Breege, bundles for peo
ple in town. And she
lived like a pauper. “I don’t think you need look further than your
own mirror to find a hero, Kylie O’Shea.”

She gave him a startled glance. “I’ve done
nothing out of the ordinary. No more than anyone who wants to be a
part of this town would.”

He weighed that bit of unintended advice. To
his experience, books and bundles didn’t open arms that wanted to
stay closed. But taking in her shuttered expression, he decided to
let the matter rest.

Hungry as always, he asked Kylie to let him
off in front of Spillane’s Market. With Mr. Spillane peering out
the front window, he didn’t kiss Kylie, though he sorely wanted to.
She looked so smooth and pretty, a schoolboy’s—and this grown
man’s— fantasy. Instead he took a clumsy step toward getting that
kiss another time. “If I rang you up sometime, would you ... that
is ... ah, hell...”