The Last Bride in Ballymuir (14 page)

Silent, he stared down at
his hands—an artist’s hands, Kylie thought, for all their rough
skin, nicks,
and scars. She shook off the
fanciful image. It was Vi
who was the
artist. And Michael, she had no idea at all what he might be.
Farmer. Businessman. Lover. Killer.

“
It’s not something to tell
over tea,” he said.

The need to know who he was, and what he had
been, was as basic and insistent as the need to breathe. “Then
tomorrow after Mass. I’ll meet you out front of the church and we
can—”

“
I won’t be
attending.”

Kylie leaned back against the sofa’s soft
cushions. “I see. I’ve asked too much, haven’t I?”

“
I’d guess in your entire
life you’ve asked for too little. And now you start asking, here
... with me.” He gave a weary shake of his head. “I don’t have
the
heart
to turn
you down, Kylie O’Shea. One ‘please’
one
look from those beautiful eyes of yours and I’m a
lost man. I’ll come to your house tomorrow
evening, if you’ll have me, and tell you then.”

“
Tomorrow?”

He nodded. “And when I’m
through talking,
I’ll
leave it to you to decide if you want to see me
again.”

A moment passed before Kylie found what was
implicit in his words. “So you want to see me?”

He seemed to speak almost
unwillingly. “I’ve
tried not
to, but I can’t seem to turn away. It’s
wrong
of me, though.”

“
And why is it
wrong?”

“
You deserve
better.”

“
Really? How would you know
what I deserve?”

“
It’s
not so much knowing that, as it’s knowing myself. And you
should be more careful in your
choices. I’m
not the sort to take home to Mam and Da.”

She’d been through too much
in her years to tolerate being spoken to like a child. “Since my
father’s hardly available for visits, and my mother died some years
ago, I’ll not be worrying about that. And I’m
growing very weary of being preached to. I know my
own mind, and I know what I want.”

In the face of her anger, his mouth curved
into a full, honest smile. “And what is it you’re wanting right
now?”

“
To take you by that ragged
shirt of yours and shake you,” she answered, actually enjoying this
opportunity to let her emotions run free. “Though it would do me no
good at all, with the size of you.”

He looked her up and down, sending another
type of primal tingle through her. Taking one hand, he uncurled her
fingers and measured them against his own much larger hand. “I
might have the edge on size, but you seem to have me beat in
determination. I’d not bet against you in a fight.”

Slowly, lazily, he rubbed his thumb in the
middle of her open palm. As he lingered, she could feel her eyes
grow wider, rounder, and the breath leave her body. “In fact, I’m
sure I’d soon be begging for your mercy.”

She came closer, her free hand drifting of
its own volition to touch his dark, thick hair.

“
I’ll tell you what I want,”
he said, his voice low and raspy. “I want to kiss you
again.”

His lips brushed her palm. “And I don’t mean
one of those, but a real kiss.”

She swallowed hard.

“
I’m out of my bloody mind
with wanting, but that kiss—the real kiss—won’t happen until we’ve
had our talk. And then if you still want me...”

“
I— I—” was all she could
seem to manage to get out.

“
Hello, Kylie. I see you
found some company while you were waiting.” At Vi Kilbride’s voice
sounding from the doorway, Kylie hastily pulled her hand away from
Michael’s. She scooted over on the couch, the wool of her skirt
tugging beneath her.

Michael, on the other hand, sat where he was.
“You’ve been busy today, haven’t you, little sister?”

Vi settled herself in a wing chair at an
angle to the couch. “I’m a bit late, if that’s what you’re
meaning.”

He smiled at his sister, and
Kylie marveled at how
much younger and more
carefree he looked in that instant. “You know well enough what I’m
meaning.” He stood and nodded at the two of them. “I’ll
leave
you to your tea.” To Kylie he added,
“Tomorrow, and
I’ll bring dinner if I
might.”

Thinking she’d not have been
more amazed if
he’d offered to take a hand
to her mending pile, Kylie
murmured her
thanks and a good-bye.

After he’d left the room, Vi spoke. “And
that’s why I asked you here.”

Still struggling to gracefully reseat
herself, and to get through the delicious haze that spending time
with Michael brought, Kylie said, “I’m not following you.”

“
One smile.” Vi put a sugary
raisin scone on a
plate, then poured
herself some tea. “He hasn’t smiled
in
weeks. Oh, he puts on a good show, coming out
here and working, then walking his miles. But not one smile
until today. You’re good for him, Kylie. I should
be feeling some guilt for dragging you back into
his troubles, but I don’t. He’s family, and I’ll do what I
must to see him happy.” She paused and took a sip
of
her tea. “And I think you know that
sooner or later you’d have ended up seeing him again.”

Kylie didn’t argue the point.

“
The two of you have far to
go, but if you decide to do this, to stand by him, be sure that you
stand strong. We both know I saw what happened at the pub that
night. To turn your back on him again, it would be beyond
cruel.”

“
I know, and I’ll never
betray him again.”

A shadow, a whisper of some ineffable
sadness, passed across Vi’s face. “That’s a fine promise, and one
far more easily made than kept. But I’ll be holding you to it.”

“
No stronger than I’ll hold
myself,” Kylie answered, suddenly feeling cold. So very
cold.

Chapter Nine

Two-thirds of foolishness is youth.

—
Irish Proverb

Michael bolted upright in
bed. Clammy with sweat and shaking, he tried to sort dreams from
reality. The luminescent hands of the old windup alarm clock next
to his bed told him that it wasn’t much past two in the morning.
His lurching stomach carried the news that he’d been dreaming
of
her
again.
Dervla.

Switching on the light, he
rose from bed and walked to the bathroom sink, where he filled and
then quickly drank a glass of cloudy tap water. He’d had
these dreams before. Too often, in fact. In prison
he’d
awaken, hard with wanting, hating her
and hating himself even more for being aroused by the image of the
woman who’d destroyed him.

He supposed it was progress of sorts that his
dreams were no longer of the touch of her hands against his skin.
But having her there at all—still inside his head—God in heaven,
how he resented it. She was a ghost now, dead these fourteen years.
Couldn’t she leave him alone?

After setting the glass back
on the shelf above the
sink, he turned and
made his way back to bed. There,
dreams
became reality. Instead of finding sleep, Michael found himself
eighteen again, sweaty and panting in Dervla McLohne’s rumpled bed,
trying
his best to get the one thing he
desired above all else.

“
Please, Dervla. Just this
once,” he moaned, insinuat
ing his fingers
under her skirt.

She squirmed away. “It would be a sin, you
know that.”

A sin he was almost certain
she’d committed at least
once in her
twenty-five years. “I’m sure they’d forgive you
in confession.”

She kissed him long and
hard, and no one was a more
skilled or
exciting kisser than Dervla. He toyed with the
buttons of her blouse, overjoyed when she let him free
them. She reached back and unhooked her
brassiere. He
pushed the red fabric out of
the way and cupped her full
breasts in his
trembling hands.

It still amazed him that a
woman so much older and
more sophisticated
than he was would be interested in him.
He
was beginning to think he might love her.

“
Oh, Mickey,” she gasped as
he ran his thumbs over her
rosy
nipples.

“
Michael,” he
corrected.

“
You know I want to let
you, but it just wouldn’t be
right.”

He kissed her, then pushed
her dark, curly hair away from her forehead. As he caressed his way
down to her
breasts, he said, “Ah, but I’m
not quite through per
suading.”

She arched and gasped as he
closed his mouth over one
nipple. “And you
are quite the persuader.”

Later, when the need was
pounding through him so
hard he could hear
little else, she rolled him onto his back
and worked down the fly of his jeans.

“
Can we compromise?” she
offered, running her fin
gertips over his
erection.

Mouth too dry to speak, he
nodded, then closed his eyes
as she peeled
his clothes away.

Afterward, when he’d
calmed, and she lay against him,
one leg
draped across his thighs, she said, “Remember my
brother Brian from Derry? You met him here
once.”
Fingers drifted downward and softly
sifted through the
hair at his groin. He
couldn’t help the moan that escaped.
“I’m
going this weekend to celebrate his birthday. Drive
up there and be with me, Mickey. We’ll have a
room of our
own, and I promise this
time…
”

Michael wrenched himself from a bed miles and
years removed from Dundalk, Dervla McLohne, and her compatriots.
Not quite far enough, apparently. Two showers later he felt almost
clean.

At four in the morning, having read the last
of the books in his room and discarded the possibility of sleep
without Dervla there to haunt him, Michael crept downstairs. He’d
just made the landing when he was greeted by the click-clack of
Roger’s toenails across the tile floor. The dog trotted over to the
hook where his leash hung and waited expectantly beneath it.

“
There’ll be no peace if I
don’t take you out, will there?” he muttered to the dog.

As they walked the still-dark streets of
town, Michael thought of the evening to come. He had to believe
that telling Kylie the truth of his past was the surest way to send
her running. Still, he hoped—no, prayed, in his fashion—that he was
wrong, for Kylie O’Shea was beginning to mean more to him than he
dared admit.

“
God help me,” Michael said,
the words echoing down the narrow, empty street.

Roger, who had been trotting happily
alongside him, halted dead in his tracks and lifted his leg.

“
And that’s pretty much what
God’s been telling me, too.” With that, they turned back toward
Vi’s house, where a certain beast could be shut into his owner’s
bedroom.

By the time Vi wandered out
of bed and into the kitchen, Michael had read through, then hidden
back in his car, the raft of cookbooks Jenna Fahey had loaned him.
It was sheer self-defense, his sudden interest in the culinary
arts. He couldn’t face another
of Vi’s
dead-by-neglect meals, or one of Kylie’s, either.

“
You’ll be coming with me
this morning, won’t you?” his sister more demanded than asked.
“Father Cready’s been asking after you.”

“
Tell him my soul’s too
black for cleansing.”

Vi gave a disgusted growl and turned her back
on him. Muttering about clot-headed men, she pulled open the
refrigerator and gasped. “What in heaven’s name is all of
this?”

“
It’s called food,” he
helpfully supplied. “Yesterday
after I left
Muir House, I drove to that bloody huge supermarket in
Tralee.”

“
And did you leave any food
in the market?”

“
Enough to tide them
over.”

Vi didn’t comment. She was,
Michael saw, too busy stuffing her gob with strawberries he had
plans for. He wrenched the container from her hands,
tucked it back in the refrigerator, and closed the
door.

“
So you’re planning a
regular feast for that O’Shea
girl?”

He arched his brow. “Feeling deprived, are
you?”

Vi shoved her hair out of her eyes and
squinted threateningly, not that he was the least impressed by her
show.

“
Just hungry,” she
clipped.

“
In that case when you come
back from church, I’ll have a full breakfast waiting for you. Eggs,
toast, and maybe I’ll even pop over to a neighbor’s to see if I can
chase up some rashers and a nice blood pudding.” The last was a
brilliant touch, perfect to keep his strictly vegetarian sister
away from the kitchen. He hid a smile at her answering
shudder.