Many of the kiosks and a few restaurants were lifting shades, opening for business. The newsstand was setting out newspapers. The picture of a policeman on the front page made me think of Patrick.
Was I deluding myself? What would he want with a girl like me? I wasn’t worldly, and this flight was the first one since the age of six. I’d worked hard to blot out the memories of my past. The last thing I wanted to do was face it all now.
I found another seat although I doubted I’d sit still for very long. I took out a book and tried to read a few chapters. After ten minutes of staring at the same page, I decided to find a water cooler, when I saw something odd. Excited for something to investigate, I was in just the mood to check it out.
Someone had left a tablet on one of the chairs. The air from overhead was ruffling the pages. I picked it up, glanced up and down the corridor to see if anyone was watching, then decided it had been left behind. I read the note slowly.
“Wow,” I breathed. “It was a love letter.” How could anyone leave a letter like that in a public place like this? I hugged it to my chest, looked around once, then twice. Was someone about to run over to me, rip it out of my arms, and claim this heartfelt and personal message? It was obviously written by a man. Or so I’d decided. Had his flight been called and he simply forgot it? Was he wracking his brain trying to remember where he left it? People carried all sorts of things on their flights. Forgetting a pad of paper would be so easy.
My heart swelled as I read the last part. I felt touched and moved by the passion of the writer. If I had a man write something like this to me, I’d never let him go.
And Patrick... Not once had he spoken to me like this nor had he ever said he loved me. Maybe that was my fault. Was our romance a fantasy in my head? Did he feel responsible for me because he’d taken my virginity? God, guys were such dolts.
I rubbed my palm over the sheet of paper. Someday, and I’ll not settle for anything less, I told myself, a man is going to love me. Like that. With his whole heart. A man who knows when a girl is just feeling insecure. A man who knows when to fight for the woman he loves. A man who won’t back down. He’ll take me in his arms and never let me go.
A man like this one.
I ripped the letter off the tablet, dropping the pad on the seat. I folded the letter neatly, and stuck it in my purse.
Making the hardest decision of my life, I went up to the ticket agent and uttered the words, “I want a ticket back to the United States, please.”
CHAPTER 20
Patrick
“Bullocks!”
My poem was gone.
Just gone!
I was both shocked and more annoyed than I’d ever been in my life
Had it fallen on the floor? I looked all around my seat finding nothing. I realized the ripped paper shreds on the tablet meant someone had ripped off the page.
Someone had stolen my letter
I scratched my head, then decided I would recreate the letter from memory. It only took a few minutes. The poem wasn’t exactly right, but pretty damn close.
I looked at my watch. Three hours. I was flying standby today, awaiting a flight back to Boston.
An announcement sounded overhead.
“I have one ticket available on Flight 3678 bound for Logan International Airport. If you are interested, please see the ticket agent. I repeat, there is one last ticket flying from Dublin to Logan International, all parties interested, please see the ticket agent. This is on a first come first serve basis.”
“Shit!” I was at the opposite end of the airport.
I ran like my life depended on it, huffing and puffing and dragging a much too big carryon behind me. I needn’t have hurried because when I reached the desk, the ticket agent told me it was too late.
My ticket back to Boston was gone.
“Sorry. I got it before you did, Mr. Policeman.” Her hair was swept up in an attractive twist, strawberry blonde again, my favorite, but her beautiful blue eyes looked tired. Tired, but lovely. I’d never seen more lovely eyes looking back at me in my life.
“Delila,” I growled. “I can’t believe it’s you. You’re...you’re in Ireland. Any chance you came looking for me?” I asked hopefully.
“I...I was, but now I’m not. I’m going home, Patrick.” She stuck her hand out to me. “It was nice seeing you again, but I have to leave now. My plane is boarding.”
What the fuck!
Instead of shaking her hand, I clamped my own around it. There was no way I was letting her go again. “Wait! Will you just wait a second? You can at least talk to me.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, removing my hand from hers. “I know that now and coming here. Well, this was a mistake. A big one but my mistake. Not yours.”
“We need to talk. Something brought us together, sweetheart. Can’t you see that?”
She wasn’t budging. In fact, she’d aligned herself with the rest of the boarding passengers, her back to me now.
Shit, how did I screw things up so bad?
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing nor what I was seeing. Why was she here? In Dublin Airport. And at precisely the same time as I was.
“Tell me you didn’t come all this way to see me, Delila. Tell me that and I’ll leave.”
She turned around, tears brimming from her eyes. “I did come here to find you but.. I guess I thought...but now I know...It’s just not what I want anymore. You’re not what I want, Patrick. I know that now and I’m sorry. So very sorry.”
“But sweetheart?”
“Stop calling me that!”
“What? Sweetheart?”
“Yeah, that.”
“You don’t like it?”
“You’re such an ignoramus.”
“I’m a what?” I laughed.
“People don’t use that term when they’re just friends, Patrick and that’s all we ever were, friends.”
Brianna. “Remember, people say things they don’t mean when they’re hurting. Don’t let her get away.”
I was never good with words, myself. I needed to think about what I was going to say, hence the letter. Coward that I was, I actually planned on shoving it under the door of her apartment. But now... I didn’t want to say the wrong thing.
“Flight 3678 to Logan International will be boarding in fifteen minutes.”
My pulse quickened and a lump formed in my throat. I couldn’t speak. Hell, I couldn’t even breath.
“Patrick, we’re not right for each other. I don’t know what else you want me to say.” Her face was all blotchy from crying but she still looked beautiful. “I made a mistake. I never should have seduced you in the first place.”
“You...You think you seduced me?”
“Didn’t I?”
“I thought it was the other way around.”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. It was wrong.”
“But it...Tell me it meant something, Delila.”
“It...It did. At least to me, but playtime is over, Patrick. We can’t keep doing this to each other. I’m going back to Boston where I belong.” She sounded so certain. So...unwilling to change her mind. Brianna had said that when a woman makes up her mind there’s no going back. What if she did? What if she didn’t love me after all and this was all just an adventure for her. An excuse to visit Ireland one last time.
Panic!
The rock inside my throat lodged against my wind pipe. I had to say or do something fast before she boarded that plane, but no words would come out.
The line grew thick with people. More and more passengers rose from their seats, some hoisting bags up on their shoulders while Delila stared at me with those watery eyes.
Waiting.
“You have nothing else to say?” she asked, looking disappointed. Then she shook her head. “Yeah, I thought not. You never were good with words, Patrick.”
She turned her back on me, moved closer to the ticket taker. The note inside my pocket gravitated towa
rd my hand. If she was going to walk out of my life, at least she would know how I felt about her
Holding the l crumpled letter in my fist, I thrust it toward her. “Here...”
“What’s this?”
“Read it while you’re on the plane.”
No, you moron! Demand she read it now. Here... Right before you so you can see how it affects her.
“Please.” I wanted so badly to wipe those tears from her eyes, but I couldn’t make myself do it.
She took the letter, a hint of awareness crossing her face. “Okay.”
A man with golf clubs, a large duffle bag and two teenage girls with purple hair came up in the line, finally blocking her from my view.
As she moved out of my vision, I kept watching and waiting for the last person to board the plane. My heart was breaking in two and I wanted to cut off my tongue for failing me in my time of need. Why couldn’t I have done it? Told her with my words just how I felt about her. Why? Why? Why?
I couldn’t watch any longer. I grabbed my luggage, choked back the lump that now felt like a bowling ball, and left.
By now the airport was alive with sound. A woman’s choppy heels upon the hard, grey floor. A man playing guitar over by the windows. The intercom announcing arrivals.
People moved in chaotic rainbows, eager to holiday perhaps, filled with eager energy as they flowed through the gates and cafes, chattering brightly to one another in this huge cocoon of steel and elegantly curved walls of glass. And then there was me. Gloomy Gus. None of this excited me. I’d been everywhere and nowhere. All I wanted right now was to be in Delila’s arms but I’d blown it. Fucking blowing my last chance with her.
I was such a coward. A useless, disgusting coward. Maybe it was for the best, I told myself. She’d already decided, right? Who was I to try and change her mind about me? I was no one to her. Just a guy trying to do too much until it all blew up right in her face.
Finally, I’d made my way outdoors to be picked up. The air was crisp and a stiff wind was about. I texted my driver and within minutes he pulled up to the curb. The car was long, grey, and gleaning from bits of sunshine peaking through the clouds.
I bent my head, seeing a familiar face in the back seat.
Brianna.
She looked so happy, eyes wide and smiling, wearing a black velvet cape and gloves like she was ready to celebrate. When she saw my long face, the way I patted my coat pocket, her features rearranged themselves. Her beautiful lips turned upside down. Her brows rose. Brianna had had so much disappointment in her life; she couldn’t have children because of the beatings, she was abandoned as a child, that I’d forgotten how sad she once was. It made me feel even worse. She’d been so excited to help me pick out the engagement ring, said she’d finally have a sister.
She rolled down the window and stuck out her ungloved hand. I kissed it, knowing she was the one woman in the world who would never leave me. Never judge me. Accept me for who I was, flaws and all. “I should have married you a long time ago,” I said.
“Awe, Patrick. You’ll find another. I promise you will.”
“Maybe,” I said, walking to the back of the car. I placed my luggage in the boot, and then turned.
“If you’re going to run away every time we have a fight, we’re going to have a lot of making up to do.”
Delila.
She’d not boarded the plane. She was right here, before me. Eyes pink from crying. Strawberry blonde hair swirling about her head and gorgeous. Simply gorgeous.
She leapt into my arms. Her tongue wrapped round mine and claimed me as her own.
After we stopped kissing, her lips curved up into a smile
I wiped the tears from her face with my thumb.
“Do you really want to live alone?” she asked.
“What?”
“The poem.” She produced my lost letter.
“You? You took my letter?”
“My...letter, Patrick. You wrote it for me, right?”
“I did.”
“And yes. Yes I did steal it if you want to know the truth. How else was I going to get you to finally say you love me?”
I couldn’t argue with that. “The dilemma of love,” I said, reciting the name of the poem. I pulled her back into my arms, soaking in that lilac shampoo I liked so much.
“Fits us to a tea, don’t you think?”
I knew what I had to do and now I was petrified to do it.
“Patrick...?”
“I uh... Will you meet someone?”
“I already did. You never told me you had a brother.”
“Sean? You mean Sean?”
“How do you think I tracked you down?”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it.”
“Then can I introduce you to someone else?” I opened the back door of the limo and Brianna stepped out.
“Is this... Oh my God, tis her.” Brianna was one of the most enthusiastic people I’d ever met and unlike me, she always knew what to say to people. She pulled Delila out of my arms and into her own. “I’m pleased to meet you, lass. So pleased.”
When she finally stopped hugging her, Delila, murmured, a little startled, “Um, okay. I guess.”
Brianna pointed a finger in my direction. “Now Patrick, isn’t there something else you need to ask this young lady before you lose your nerve so?”
Delila looked completely baffled. “Something you need to say to me?” She took a step back and the two women grinned at each other.
“Oh he’s a shy one, lass. They all are in these parts so better get used to it. You’ll have to lead him around by the nose so you will.”
We all just stood there staring at each other.
“Patrick Michael Duffy, get on with it so, or I’m going to leave you two here on the curb until the cows come in.”
“All right, all right.” I took the small velvet box out of my pocket and got down on one knee.
Delila gasped and covered her mouth.
I flipped up the lid and held it out taking her other hand. “I’m an idiot for letting you go, Delila and if you’ll have me, I’ll never do that again.” I glanced over at Brianna, pleased with myself.
“Oh?” said Delila. “You’re admitting that now are you?”
“Um, yeah. Yes, I am.”
“Anything else?” she asked when I apparently had paused way too long just stroking the top of her hand with my thumb.
I glanced up at Brianna who jutted her chin encouragingly.
I began again. “I mean, will you do me the pleasure of becoming my wife? Be my Delila and I’ll be your Samson.”
Wow, I was on a roll.
I couldn’t stop grinning.
“Hmmm,” Delila said still smiling.
“What do you mean, hmmm?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Your brother is kinda cute. Maybe he and I...” Then she burst out laughing, apparently seeing the horror on my face.
“Promise to protect me forever,” she said.
“I promise.”
“And never let me push you away.”
“Aye.”
“Then it’s a deal. Besides, Sean is already married.”
We both laughed over that one.
Epilogue
March 18th two years later
“Uncle Pat! Uncle Pat! He came he came he came!”
We were vacationing at the castle with Susan, Aileen, Kyle, and Peter who was now four.
Peter was standing at the foot of our bed, grinning so hard I thought his face would burst from all the pressure inside it. He kept jumping up and down like his body was on fire. Then again, Peter was always jumping up and down.
I laughed. “You started this,” I said, nudging Pat beside me in the bed.
“Me!”
“You told them those stories about leprechauns.”
Patrick groaned and then sat up in bed. He’d started working out since going back to the force; his biceps were so ripped I felt like I was m
arried to one of those models on romance novel covers. I didn’t mind, but it made it impossible to keep my hands off him.
Patrick yawned. “Do yeh think, little guy, it be a good thing to wait until morning before yeh be bringing me this good news, little man?”
The child looked befuddled and said, “Uncle Pat, how come you have no clothes on?”
I laughed. Patrick did indeed have clothes on. He just didn’t have a shirt.
“Morning,” I explained. “Uncle Pat says wait until morning.”
“But Auntie Delly, its morning on my side of the castle.”
Patrick groaned again. “I see,” he said, knowing it was futile to argue with a four-year-old. “I guess we should go see what those little hooligans have done so. But first I need a shirt. Okay?”
“Okay.” Without waiting, Peter ran out of the room.
“Actually this is your fault,” Patrick said, shrugging into a Celtics basketball sweatshirt. “You are an evil woman.”
“I know,” I said laughing. I grabbed my chenille bathrobe, slipped into my slippers, and patted down the hall after the two of them. I knew where we were going because I was the one who had set the stage in this little play.
When we walked into the drawing room, the entire family was waiting for us, their shining faces making Patrick arch his brows and purse his lips with suspicion.
Patrick was no dummy. He knew when he was being had, and he knew when people were playing a trick on him. Still, I’d be willing to bet he’d never figure this little secret of mine out if his life depended upon it.
I pretended to be shocked and so did the rest of the family by what we saw. The lovely pink velvet loungers were turned on their sides, and all the china was out of the cupboard scattered about the room. The antique tapestry above the fireplace was completely upside down and gold glitter was everywhere.
“Holy crow, kids,” Susan cried, half laughing as she said it. “Do you see what those little guys did to Uncle Pat’s lovely castle?”
“They are naughty, naughty elves,” said Kyle. “But do you think they left us any sweets? Last year they left us sweets.”
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