The Last Killiney (10 page)

“Let me ask you this, then,” his friend insisted. “Did you have a long way to walk when you rang me?”

There was a moment before his response, during which Ravenna heard the girl giggling. Then, under his breath, came the answer. “It was yer man’s phone behind the bar.”

His friends burst out laughing. Ravenna heard his voice over their onslaught of accusations. “If I’d have known you were gonna drink my pint,” he said, “I would’ve rang Deirdre. You wouldn’t take advantage of me, would you, Deirdre?”

“What do you mean, you
would’ve
rang me?” the girl’s voice chimed in. “You’re tellin’ me you don’t remember what you said t’me that night?”

Listening to them, Ravenna’s thoughts began to drift. His impish smile, his sparkling eyes, the way he pushed back his hair with a weary, practiced hand…she saw it all in her mind. As his accented voice wove through the music, through Peter Gabriel’s “Mercy Street,” she let go the thread of their conversation. Hearing only his familiar tone, she lost herself in the lyrics about dreams coming true, about kissing a girl named…

Mary
, she realized as she mouthed the words.
He sang about kissing a girl named Mary
. With no trouble at all, she heard Killiney say it.
My Mary
, he’d whispered, and in an instant she was with him again,
melting under his touch, his hands roaming over her, lingering, stroking, and all the while he kissed her with lips like watered honey
.

The memory stirred through her soul with a vengeance. The song was over, five minutes had passed, and she was completely encased within her own world while he sat just a few feet away.

Or did he?

Amid the sounds of debate, the layers of conversation drifting over the smoke and the tinkling of pint glasses, she no longer heard his affable voice. A shudder of fear ripped through her senses when she realized he’d gone, and she turned around. Her eyes swept the room. She searched the corners, the men near the door, hunting the crowd for his familiar face.

Then she saw him, not ten feet away. He’d been caught up by two teenagers, and where they gathered in a huddle, the man’s back was to her. He stood with his arm around one boy’s shoulder, and whispering urgently, seriously in his ear, the man was so close now that she could see the freckles under his eyes. She tried hard not to stare. But as he went on talking, Ravenna couldn’t help it; his build was stockier than she remembered. His eyes, even in the dimness of the bar, were bright blue and opened wide, and the dark circles under them and the given-it-all fatigue he projected did nothing to mar the beauty to his features, the innate friendliness to his expression.

For a long moment he stood there, leaning against the teenager, unmoving but for his lips. Ravenna couldn’t hear what he told the boy. Yet when he pulled back, concern showed in the man’s tired face. He patted the boy’s shoulder, and Ravenna’s knees were weak just seeing the warmth he gave off, the strength of his attention for the boy’s every word. In those few seconds she felt the reality of him, the soul behind Killiney, the very essence of the man she loved.

But he was leaving now, stepping away from the boys and nodding, saying his goodbyes.
Here’s your chance
, she told herself, getting to her feet.
Ask him a question, buy him a drink, anything to start a conversation and give him reason to
—

“Hey, I was just coming t’see you.” Soft voice, almost coddling in its gentleness. Ravenna looked up, frightened out of her wits.

Sure enough, he was staring right back at her.

Wavering before her, waiting, his eyes were uneasy for all the warmth of his tone.
Answer him
, she told herself.

“I was…You were talking to those boys, so I didn’t want to interrupt,” she sputtered, but he was holding out his hand to her. She took it, for a handshake, she thought. Yet he didn’t let go. He stood there and gazed at her, his hand clasped around hers, his butter-soft touch holding her firmly in place.

“Em, I thought of comin’ over and saying something to you when you first walked in, but…” He hesitated, eager and at once confused. “But you know, for the life o’ me, I’ve no idea where I’ve met you. Your name’s…”

She half expected him to say Mary, but he was obviously embarrassed and waiting for her to introduce herself. “Ravenna,” she said, and it was a touch too loud, the slightest bit apprehensive.

His expression brightened, his hand shaking hers in affirmation. “Yeah, Ravenna, that’s it,” he said with a smile, but even though he tried to conceal it, he was no less confused.

In the uncomfortable seconds that followed, his grin slowly diminished as he stared at her, searching her face. His eyes clouded over, and seeing that shimmer of memory in his gaze, she wanted to tell him why he felt the way he did.

But she didn’t dare. It seemed wiser to make his acquaintance gradually. “It’s been a long time,” she said.

“Must’ve been. I’ve usually got a good memory, but I must admit, you’ve got me going here.”

“But you
do
remember me?” she asked. “You feel like you’ve known me?”

“I do, yeah. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings an’ that, but…it wasn’t in San Francisco, was it? You’re not a friend of Skye’s?” Ravenna shook her head, glanced down nervously at his hand in hers. “Was it here in Dublin, then? You were livin’ at Trinity on exchange, yeah?”

“I don’t think I should tell you just yet.”

That grin flickered in the arch of his brow. “You’re going to make me work for it, aren’t you? Sure you know what you’re gettin’ yourself into? It could mean hours and hours of puttin’ up with me while I try to piece it together.”

“That’s OK,” she said, shrugging. “It’ll give us a chance to catch up on old times.”

He regarded her devilishly, and his grin broadened into a full-fledged smile. “Can’t wait t’learn what sort of old times we’ve had.”

Turning toward Sean and his pints behind the bar, he pulled Ravenna after him.
Hours and hours of putting up with him
. How was she ever going to explain that they’d been lovers in the eighteenth century? How long would she have before he learned the truth and denounced her as crazy?

“All right then,” he said when they’d reached the bar, “let me buy you a drink and we’ll see if I can’t solve this puzzle. Sean, you haven’t got any American beer, have you? Or will you drink a pint with me?”

“Dance with me, instead,” she said, squeezing his fingers.

It surprised her, the surge of emotion that came into his face then. His mouth opened the smallest bit. His jaw stiffened, and with almost a look of panic, his pale eyes blazed with a trace of desire. “Yeah,” he nodded slowly. “Right, that would be OK. Do you want to leave your coat with Sean?” He let go of her hand and, taking her jacket, he passed it over the counter to the barkeeper. “I’ve a date, here, Sean. The lady’s asked me to dance.”

Sean waved them away. “You’d best attend to her.”

The Peter Gabriel album wasn’t playing anymore. Instead, it was Sting, and slower, more romantic, it was a ballad they danced to, although Ravenna didn’t know the song. It hardly mattered. With a gentle grasp, he took up her hand in his. He slipped his arm around her waist and, drawing her close, laid his head next to hers until she felt the warmth and enticing scratch of his unshaven cheek. Breathless with the intimacy of it, aching with that slow rocking movement of his hips, she was instantly in shock when they danced. He was all clumsiness and ungainly steps, the worst dancer she’d ever seen, yet in his arms she felt complete, at peace, exactly as if she’d come home after two hundred years.

But behind the bar, Sean was calling over the crowd, his voice fighting to compete with the music. Beside Ravenna, the man stopped dancing. Soon the word was passed by several people, all hailing in their direction, until finally she was able to understand one woman’s shout amid the ocean of faces. “Paul!” the woman yelled. “Paul Henley! Telephone fer ya!”

The man put his hand in the air, made eye contact with Sean behind the bar.

She should have known it. It should have been obvious right from the start, yet in that instant, it seemed as if the whole world shattered around her.

This was Mr. Henley…
and he had a wife
.

The realization struck mercilessly hard. She’d been happy for perhaps fifteen minutes and now all the possibilities she’d seen in his eyes were out the door, washed away and hopelessly fading.

But with his brows knit together in bewilderment, he was staring at her. Ravenna couldn’t hide her tears. Still, she wiped at them, trying in vain to hold a normal expression as he drew nearer, his hands rising gently to pull hers from her face. “Have I done something wrong?” he asked.

Before she could answer, a chorus of voices demanded his attention, and he turned around angrily. “She knows I’m not comin’ home!” He looked back at Ravenna, waited patiently as she collected herself. “Tell me what I can do,” he whispered.

Her mascara was running. People were staring. “Get me out of here,” she said, cowering beside him.

He nodded, and with a firm hand, he turned her back toward the bar, calling for Sean to bring out her coat.

Walking her down the hotel steps, he tried to keep his gentle manner, but she couldn’t blame him for the glances he gave her. He was married. She had no chance at all with him now. Certainly she had nothing to lose by telling him the truth about how she felt, but before she could summon her courage, he spoke.

“It’s the woman, isn’t it?” He glanced at her nervously. “You thought I fancied you?”

As if it could still her vicious trembling, she wrapped herself tighter in her coat and nodded.

He swore under his breath. “I didn’t mean to be leading you on. If I’ve given you ideas an’ that, sayin’ you were my date the way I did…I mean, I’m a
married man
, for God’s sake.”

“Then why did you say that?” She sniffed back her tears. “How was I supposed to know you were married?”

“I’m wearing a ring, yeah?”

“I wasn’t exactly looking at your jewelry.”

“Well, I wasn’t lookin’ at yours.”

For an instant that expression came back into his face, the guilty burn of desire she’d seen him stifle so quickly in the bar. Then his eyes slipped away, forging straight ahead as she stared at him, astonished. “Why were you looking at me at all?” she asked. “If you’re married, why did you dance with me like that?”

His brows creased sharply. His gaze narrowed as he picked his way between parked cars, and the sound of his boots rang in the night as she waited, hurrying next to him, until at last he looked at her. Then the pain she saw tore into her heart. His eyes were sick with weariness. Just as he’d been when his friends had ignored him, when he’d lighted that cigarette so despondently, he seemed upset, exhausted. “It’s the woman,” he said soberly.

“Your wife?”

He nodded, forced a smile. “She thinks I should find a nice girl to settle down with. That’s what I meant by that. It’s sort of a joke around here.”

Ravenna slowed beside him, reached out to take his arm. “I don’t understand,” she said, pulling him to a stop. “Your wife wants you to have an affair? That’s why you flirted with me?”

His eyes rested heavily on hers. “She wants to go to London, she wants us to…We had a bit of a row two years ago. She wants a divorce.”

When he looked away, glanced down at her hand where she gripped his sleeve, Ravenna realized she’d caressed him ever so slightly, comforted him without meaning to. She didn’t take her hand away. “And you won’t go to London?”

His lips tightened. He shook his head. “I keep hopin’ she’ll come around someday.”

Seeing that love in his anguished eyes, that useless and bitter love for his wife, made the pain knot up in her heart.
She doesn’t love you
, she wanted to say,
but I do, God how I do
.

With an obvious step backward, he pulled out from under her hand. He looked around the parking lot uneasily. “Anyway,” he said, “I lost my head back there in the pub, coming on to you like that. It just never dawned on me that you didn’t know m’life story like everyone else. I mean, I’ve been married nine years now. I thought everybody knew that.”

“You feel like you know me, that’s why.”

“Yeah, and that reminds me,” he said, and gently he kicked her foot with his boot, “if you and I have been more than friends, you might at least fill me in.” He said this casually, even with a hint of a smile, but he was braced for her answer, she could see it.

“We were more than just friends, yes,” she said.

His features dulled instantly. His eyes darkened to guilty embers, and as if her answer could save his soul, he put out the question she knew would come. “Before Fiona, was it?”

“It was before everything,” she agreed. “You can feel it between us, can’t you? Don’t you feel it when you look at me?”

Hunching his shoulders, he leaned against a parked car as he considered. “There is something about you, I can’t…can’t quite put my finger on.”

“The way I look, maybe? What I’m wearing seems wrong?”

“It’s your voice, that’s what it is. Very low-pitched, very familiar. I ought to remember a voice like yours.”

She felt her pulses quicken.
He remembered their past life together
. Not just a talent for recalling twelve-year-old girls he’d once sat in an amusement park ride with, but he actually remembered Elizabeth as an adult. “I had an English accent,” she said, studying his expression. “Can you remember? My name was Mary Hallett, and we lived in a country house next to the sea. You took me to some ruins, and you and I were—”

“This was a schoolyard game?” Suspicious, the way he looked at her then.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean did you make this up? Little girls do things like that when they meet older boys. When I went to America in ’77, I was seventeen years old, and you must’ve been, what, half my age? Any eight-year-old girl would be impressed by a seventeen-year-old—”

“I was twelve in—”