The Last Bride in Ballymuir (29 page)

“
Initiative?” Vi supplied
from her perch on the sofa.

Kylie nodded her thanks.
“Yes... a lack of initiative, that I’m sensing in you. Not that
it’s so uncommon in the men I know,” she added, and watched his
brows lower like a thundercloud rolling in from the sea, “but I’d
thought better of you. You want to be a furniture maker? Then be
one! And don’t go moaning about the poor lot you’ve been dealt in
life because I can tell you from vast personal experience, no one
wants to hear it. Take hold of that past and
shake loose whatever’s still got you frozen, then let
it
go!”

He couldn’t have looked more
shocked if she’d cocked her fist and landed one on his nose. She
circled closer for the knockout punch. “And if you’re worried
about the money, don’t bother with that,
either. Even if I didn’t teach another day, I could
find
a way to earn enough to keep food on
the table.”

He peered at her like she was speaking in
tongues.

Exasperated, Kylie flung her arms around his
neck and hauled his mouth closer to hers. “What I’m trying to tell
you, you great fool, is that I love you.”

She tilted her head and kissed him long and
hard. For once, he didn’t take over, but let her do as she would.
And she did, until she reeled away starved for air.

Kylie pulled back her
shoulders and stood as straight as she could. “So add that
little bit of
information
into your wanting and needing, and see where you come
out.”

She turned heel and marched to the door.
Pausing on the threshold, she swung back and added out of
automatic, ingrained politeness, “Grand to see you again, Vi. I’ll
ring you up about the student art show.”

Michael and Vi watched the closed door after
Kylie left, almost as if waiting for a curtain call. When it was
clear she wasn’t returning, Vi sighed, stretched out on the sofa,
and propped her feet on its arm. “Sounds like she’s willing to make
a kept man of you, brother. That is, if you’re so thick that you
don’t marry her, first.”

In response to his blistering curse, she only
laughed. Bloody awful rotten sister.

Chapter Eighteen

The three things Aristotle couldn’t
understand:

the work of the bees, the coming and
going

of the tide, and the mind of a woman.

─
Irish Triad

Kylie wasn’t surprised that giving Michael
words of love would send him fleeing into the hills. What amazed
her was that he’d managed to avoid her for nearly a week. Though
she’d been tempted to knock at—or down—his door once again, she’d
left him alone.

It was as much for herself as for him that
she’d done this. Except for lesson plans, paper grading, and being
sure she had a bit of food in the house, she’d never given much
thought to the future. She’d simply let it take care of itself.
Now, sheer uncertainty exhausted her. She was finding it hard to
wake and work each day.

Worn down from a long school day followed by
an interminable staff meeting and another stretch of time spent on
the student art exhibition, she had just crested the incline
between Breege’s house and her own when she saw him walking her
way. Her weariness evaporated, leaving anticipation in its
place.

“
Well now, if it isn’t
himself,” she murmured.

Michael’s hair was longer than it had been
when they’d first met, and she loved the way the wind ruffled
through its dark thickness, pushing it back from his brow. Even
now, when her love was meshed in a great knot of frustration, her
fingers tingled to follow the breeze’s caress.

As she drew closer she could
see that he was look
ing none too pleased.
His hands were jammed into his jacket pockets and his mouth set in
a hard, determined line. He was probably stewing on some way to
slip by without offering so much as a hello.

Kylie pulled to the side of the road. She
tried to roll down her window, then recalled she’d never had the
blasted window crank repaired. She switched off the motor, stepped
out of the car and closed its rust-raddled, groaning door.

“
My house is back up the
hill,” she said as he neared. “Or is it just a grand coincidence,
finding you here?”

He kept his expression impassive, but Kylie
didn’t miss how his gaze traveled over her, or the way he relaxed
almost imperceptibly when she softened her question with a
smile.

“
I was having a visit with
Breege. I made her a tea
tray and rounded
up some of those books she likes.”

He had a way of astounding her with simple
acts. Astounding her and leaving her wondering whether she
understood him at all. Still, books and tea weren’t enough to let
him off the hook.

“
And you had no thought of
staying to see me?”

“
I wasn’t sure when you’d be
back. I parked by Breege’s barn,” he added, as if that explained
everything.

“
And?”

He hesitated. “I need to be home before dark
falls.”

“
So Vi has you on a curfew
now, does she?”

He scowled, and Kylie knew that was all the
answer she’d be getting. The wind was coming faster now; rain was
on the way.

“
Well then,” she said,
looping loose strands of hair
behind her
ears. “We’ve a few hours before night. Plenty of time.”

“
Time for what?”

“
For whatever you wish.” She
tucked away her
own wishes. If she voiced
them, he would just disap
pear again.
Before she got back in the car, she said, “I’ll run you down to
Breege’s.”

Michael climbed in. They were well down the
narrow road before he spoke. “I finished up at Muir House today.
Jenna Fahey’s out of money at the moment, and I can’t finance
her.”

Her heart tugged at his bleak expression. She
turned between the boulders marking the entrance to Breege’s
property, then pulled up next to Michael’s car and switched off the
engine. They sat in tense silence as the first rain spat against
the windshield.

“
Well, if you’re done at
Muir House, then it’s time to be looking at the possibilities,
isn’t it?” she eventually offered. It wasn’t much, but it was all
she could latch onto.

His laugh held no humor. “Considering my
possibilities should take no more than a blink of the eye.”

Something snapped inside
Kylie. She almost heard
the sharp
ping
as it let loose with
lethal velocity.

“
I won’t have it! I won’t
have you tearing yourself down. I—I won’t have you acting as
though—” She couldn’t get anything else out before the tears
started. Not small, polite lace hankie sniffs, but a great
breathless torrent stronger and faster than the rain hitting the
window. She was beyond embarrassed, beyond anything but shock at
the sobs wrenching free.

“
Kylie?”

She wrapped her arms about
her midsection and leaned her head against the chill, damp glass of
the car door. It hurt terribly to cry this hard. Now she knew why
she’d avoided it for so many years. And
now
she knew she would never—could never—stop.

“
Love, I didn’t mean
to—”

She hunched down, trying to draw herself into
a ball, to disappear altogether.

Two strong hands hauled her out of the corner
she’d hidden in. She found herself wrapped in Michael’s arms. She
struggled to free herself, but he held fast.

She was filled with an
impotent fury that she couldn’t make him see his own worth. She had
been through so much, sliced to ribbons by her mother’s death, her
father’s sins, and the evil, soul-rending act
inflicted on her by a stranger, but this man whom she
loved with an intensity bordering on pain, he was
going to finish her off.

She was finally, indisputably broken.

Kylie cried for her youth
lost on that drawing
room floor, she cried
for Michael, for her mother, and
for her
weak, weak da, and the years she’d spent trying to right wrongs
that weren’t hers. Most of all, she wept for her bleak future, for
the green-eyed babies she would never have.

Michael held her. His weight shifted beneath
her as he fumbled about, then pressed a square of cloth into her
hand. He offered soothing words that only heightened her grief,
then told her to cry herself out, when she knew it was
impossible.

But it wasn’t, after all. A body could do
only so much to set free a lifetime of sorrow. The tears left
emptiness in their wake, emptiness and the knowledge that she’d
just burdened him with more guilt.

She scrambled back to her side of the car,
wiping her eyes with the crumpled white handkerchief she held
clenched in her hand, then blowing her nose.

“
I’m sorry,” she croaked,
then cleared her throat. “I shouldn’t have gone on like that in
front of you.”

He raked his hand through his hair and stared
up at the car’s dingy interior. “You should be sorrier yet for
feeling you have to apologize.”

Kylie stared down at her hands, still knotted
around the handkerchief. “I’m... I’m more tired than I thought.
Perhaps it would be best if we pretended this never happened.”

When he said nothing, she let her gaze travel
hesitantly up the tense lines of his body to a face that was tight
with checked emotion. “I’m—”

He cut her off. “Don’t tell me you’re goddamn
sorry again.”

Nodding, Kylie tucked away his handkerchief.
She’d wash it tonight, and tomorrow everything would be back the
way it should be—neat, starched, and orderly.

He scrubbed his hand over his face, blew out
a slow breath, then said, “You cried. It happened. You can’t go
about reinventing history to suit yourself.”

Of course she could. Until just a moment ago,
she’d been sure she was the high priestess of that particular
feat.

He hauled her back into his
arms. “Listen, dammit!
Everything I’ve ever
touched in my life has turned to
poison.
Plans, dreams, all of it.” His lips brushed the top
of her head in what she imagined was a kiss.
“What
you said the other night, that
you—that you love me, it scared the holy hell out of me. I don’t
want to drag you
down into whatever morass
I’m to sink into next.

“
I won’t let go of you, but
I don’t want you making plans. I don’t want you thinking that
things are going to go well for us, because I can bloody damn well
guarantee they’re not.”

She moved away slightly and
tilted her face up to
look at him. He must
have seen the lecture just trying
to slip
loose because he gave her a resigned smile.

“
That doesn’t mean I’m just
sitting about waiting for Flynn and his people to find the proper
excuse to haul me back in. I’ve been thinking, making some plans. I
spoke to Breege this evening. She knows she won’t be doing any more
farming, so she agreed to let me use her barn to start a
woodworking business—assuming I can find any work. She’s offered
the space at a fair rent, and I’ve promised to fix up a few odds
and ends about her house.” He stopped and frowned at her. “Unlike
your place— which I also plan to be fixing—Breege’s
electrical
service isn’t one spark away
from a fire. I can run the
tools I need and
have space to store my work.”

He drew back his arm so that
it rested on the door.
Kylie leaned on the
offered pillow and smiled up at him. So much anger and self-doubt
shadowed his
eyes, so much more than he was
willing to voice even
now. Still, she saw
something new. Something so small that it was nothing more than a
glimmer. Kylie saw hope, and her heart grew warm at the
sight.
Small steps, she told herself. Small
steps.

She drew his mouth closer to
hers. Before their lips
touched, she
whispered, “You might be careful. You have me thinking my nagging’s
done some good.”

He laughed, the sound free of bitterness.
What heavenly pleasure, Kylie thought as laugh and kiss came
together and made her whole. Whole and, a yearning voice whispered
inside, just perhaps loved.

As Michael kissed Kylie, he
knew this wasn’t lust
he felt. It burned
too white-hot for that. Some animal-
fast,
unfeeling shag wasn’t what he wanted. This was... this
was...

He dragged in a breath.
His
heart
slammed
against the wall of his chest as she murmured to him
in Irish, her voice smoky, smooth, and
intoxicating as
the best
whiskey.

This was beyond comprehension.

He held her full breast in his palm and
stroked his thumb over the nipple. He could feel it rise to him,
even under the thick weave of her pullover.

Her back arched. “Yes,” she whispered, making
it sound more command than plea.

He tried to pull her
closer,
but hit
his
elbow against the dash with a hard smack. He blinked away the pain
and concentrated on the warm and willing woman in his arms. He
followed the taper of her waist down the line of her thigh and
curled his hand around the firm curve of her bum.

Kylie wriggled on his lap,
making the already uncomfortable fit of his denims agonizingly
tight. She moved her long legs so that she straddled him, then
rocked her hips. He surged upward in response, his body more than
ready to reach the end of the dance right then and there. He tugged
at her clothes,
seeking even the smallest
patch of soft skin to caress.
When Kylie
leaned back to give him room to maneuver, she cried out. He didn’t
think it was from pleasure.