“I thought if ye were swearin’ it had to be serious.” The eye closed then and did not open again for the rest of the agonizing ride over the waves to the mainland. Pat couldn’t tell if Casey was unconscious or just ignoring him. Either way he was relieved in small measure, for he knew his brother was in very bad shape. But at least he was breathing now.
On shore it was twilight, coming on for a dark night with neither moon nor stars in the sky. That was for the best, for they did not need witnesses. They transferred Casey, barely conscious, to the car.
“I think it’s best if we get him to a safe house,” David said. Taking in the look on David’s face, Pat knew the man had good reason to suggest this.
“All right. I know where to take him, but he needs the attention of a doctor first.”
“I know someone who can take care of him and won’t ask questions.” There was a curious flush on David’s face.
“Do ye?” Pat said. “Ye’d best call him then.”
The ride to Kerry was the longest Pamela had ever undertaken in her life. It felt as though they would never arrive and that Casey might slip away while they were taking back lanes and stopping for cows and sheep to meander with maddening slowness across the roadway. Pat seemed to feel it too, for he used the horn more than once and cursed softly under his breath a time or two.
Pat had called her late in the evening when she had begun to truly worry why Casey had not come home. He had let her know her husband was still alive, but beyond that had not given details. She spent a sleepless night and left first thing in the morning while Conor still slept. Gert had come the night before and so she left her son in the woman’s capable hands.
Pat met her at an agreed-upon spot just as the sun rose. She left their car there, tucked into a swathe of hedgerow, and joined Pat in a car she did not recognize. He handed her a note that said they were going to Casey, in Kerry. She had merely nodded at him, understanding implicitly why they could not speak.
When they came up over the final rise on the looping road down to the cottage and the sea spread out before them, she heaved a sigh of relief. Her chest was tight with apprehension and it took everything she had to not get out and run the last few yards as Pat slowed the car.
Father Terry was inside, making tea in the kitchen. He still looked like a scarecrow, all angles and black cloth, but she had known few men in her life who exuded a sense of comfort the way this man did. She felt a little of her worry ease from the minute he hugged her and raised a grizzled brow at Pat.
“He’s alright, lass. He’s just woken up. He’s in the bedroom.”
She removed her rain-sprinkled jacket, put it over the back of a chair and took a deep breath before opening the door to the bedroom. The sight that met her eyes made her bite down hard on a gasp. It was as though a masterwork in oils had been desecrated in some way, a beautiful canvas that had been painted with heavy viscous oils in all the darker colors: the ebonies and earths, the cobalts and ochres and deep crush of violets. As though all those colors had been spread in plenty with a brute hand, and then smeared with water and oil. And amidst all this, the thin lines of alizarin crimson where cuts had only just glazed over, the skin so thin that the brush of a moth wing might open them up again, causing them to well with blood. A large bandage was wrapped around his ribs and his left hand was completely swathed in gauze and tape. The right had two fingers splinted. One swollen eye slitted open.
“Christ, Patrick, I told ye she wasn’t to come here.” The words cost him, she could see, for they came out slowly and slightly slurred.
“Aye,” Pat rejoined, standing with one hand on her shoulder to steady her. “Have ye tried to stop her from doin’ something she’s bent on recently?”
“Point taken,” Casey said, and attempted to sit up. She was at his side without even being aware of moving.
“What the hell happened? Jesus, Casey.” She burst into tears from the sheer relief of seeing him alive, but also for the beating he must have taken at those bastards’ hands.
“Patrick, Father Terry—could ye give us a minute?” Casey asked softly and the men melted out of the wee cottage.
“It looks worse than it is, darlin’. Come here. Let me hold ye.”
This was accomplished with no little shifting and a few muffled curses on Casey’s part as he moved over so that she could sit on the bed beside him and then pulled her into his arms. He winced as she touched his ribs but wouldn’t let her pull away despite his obvious pain.
“A few of my ribs are broken, so I feel like I’m made of shattered glass inside. God woman, it feels good to have you here, much as I didn’t want ye to see me this way.”
“Who was it, Casey?”
“I don’t know an’ that’s the honest truth. ‘Twasn’t the bastards that came to our home, but likely someone sent by them or whoever their boss is. They jumped me when I was lockin’ up on the site. They had to have been sittin’ there waitin’ for a bit to know I was alone.”
She sat back, careful not to jar him, wanting to assess the damage now that the initial shock had passed.
One eye was swollen completely shut and was the color of a plum. There was a nasty cut through the eyebrow above said eye and a split in his bottom lip that was going to leave a permanent scar. He had an ugly lump on his jaw but it appeared unhurt beyond that. His nose, by some miracle, was untouched.
Further assessment, which caused Casey to utter several very descriptive expletives, brought to light that he had three loose teeth, stitches inside his mouth, and a deep livid bruise inside his right ear.
“Jesus Christ,” she breathed out, trying to take in the extent of his injuries and deciding it could only be absorbed in small increments. There wasn’t an inch of him that wasn’t battered or bruised in shades the human body should never achieve. There was a particularly red-black one peeking out of the bandage over his ribs that made her draw her breath in, shaking with fury. How dare someone hurt him this way, how dare they take this body that she so loved, that she depended upon for so many things, and hurt and maim it. She touched the edge of the deep crimson bruise and he gasped, arching away from her.
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“Ye didn’t, it’s just that it feels like an ox stampeded over my kidneys an’ they’re a wee bit grumpy about it. At this point, I’m just glad I can still take a piss without bleedin’ to death.”
“What did the doctor say?”
“Well, he shook his head a great deal, but in the end he said I’d live, even if it seemed a somewhat undesirable state for the first few days. He’ll be back day after tomorrow to look me over again. He could save himself the trip. Time is all that’s needed. I do wish they hadn’t broken my damn fingers though. It’s hard to deal with buttons or zippers or anything else.”
She bent her head and kissed the back of his hand, though there was a good half inch of gauze between her and his skin.
“Ye seem very calm, Jewel. I was certain ye’d be furious with me.”
She shook her head. “No, not right now. Right now I’m just glad you’re alive, man. Later, I’ll probably be furious, but that can wait.”
She gingerly removed herself from his arms and stood, taking care not to jar the bed, no easy feat with how awkward her own movements were becoming.
“Do you think you might manage a wee bit of something to eat? Gert sent some of her beef broth along. I’m going to go heat some up for you and see if your brother is hungry.”
“A wee bit, maybe. The inside of my mouth still hurts like hell.”
She leaned down carefully, hands pressed to the round of her belly, and kissed him softly over each eye. He looked up at her, a battered warrior, bruised and broken in some places, but unbowed. It relieved some of the tension in her body to know that he would survive this with his
spirit intact. That, above all, was what mattered.
“Pamela, now that ye’ve seen me an’ ye know I’m goin’ to be fine, ye should go back home to Conor.”
“I am not going anywhere, Casey Riordan. I am here until you are well enough to be moved home. Pat can bring Conor here. But you are not moving out of my range of vision for the foreseeable future.”
Casey opened his mouth to protest, and then taking in the look on her face, promptly shut it. “Alright,” he said, in an unusually meek tone. She thought it was a measure of how weak he was feeling that he was so uncharacteristically agreeable.
A half hour later, she shut the bedroom door quietly behind her. Casey was sleeping heavily, though with a slight rattle to his breathing that worried her. He had managed half a bowl of broth before pushing it away and turning his head. She suspected what little nourishment he had been persuaded to take had been for her sake and not because he was hungry. He was also in a great deal more pain than he was allowing her to see. She suspected this was half the reason he wanted her to go back home.
In the kitchen, Pat sat by the table, looking at her questioningly.
“He’s asleep for now,” she said. “Pat, I need you to do me a favor.”
“Anything, Pamela, ye know that.”
“I want to keep him here for awhile. I—I can’t go back to Belfast. Will you bring Conor here to me? Gert won’t mind having him for a wee bit, until you can get back.”
“Aye, but d’ye think ye’ll be able to keep Casey here for long?”
Her voice was grim when she answered. “Oh, he’s going to stay whether he bloody likes it or not. I refuse to go back there until I’m ready.”
“And what if,” there was a deep sympathy in the dark eyes, “yer never ready?”
“Would that be so terrible, Pat? To live out here? Surely there are buildings that need repair and houses to be built? I can still work for Jamie. I don’t need to be in his house to sign papers and conduct meetings.”
He looked at her face for a long moment and nodded. “Of course I’ll bring the wee laddie here to ye.” He forbore to say anything else and she thought, not for the first time, that he possessed a quiet wisdom that his brother sometimes did not.
After Pat left, with assurances he would be back the next day with Conor and Finbar, she felt suddenly afraid, as though she did not know what to do, how to deal with the shattered body on the bed, a body that she knew better than her own in many ways, and yet frightening to her now with all its injuries. This sudden feeling of fragility had come upon her more than once during this pregnancy and she felt herself wanting to wrap herself around this person in her body and just hide away from the world that seemed ever more chaotic and frightening to her with each event that whirled out of the maelstrom of Northern Ireland’s politics and violence.
She set about tidying the cottage, washing up the few dishes from the meal she had managed to convince Pat he needed before setting off back toward Belfast. Then she swept the floors and contemplated washing them, though without a mop and with her stomach the size it was, it seemed unlikely that she could manage it. It was all in the cause of avoiding her husband, she knew, of staying busy enough with mindless tasks that she didn’t have to absorb what had happened to him, to them. Because it terrified the hell out of her.
She looked around the small room, taking in its corners and shadows, the cream colored dishes with their garland of blackberries and ivy, the deep stone sink and the ancient dripping tap. They had spent their first week as a married couple here, both euphoric and frightened by the bold, sudden step they had taken.Yet in many ways it had not seemed sudden at all, rather inevitable, for she had once told Casey she had been married to him from the minute she saw him. The ceremony had only made it a legal arrangement, for it had always been binding.
Outside, twilight had taken hold, softening the outlines of trees and plants, painting long watercolor blues and purples across the horizon. On a distant hill, she saw a man walking, the space between cottage and man rendering him small and still like a figure in a painting. Beyond was the sea. She could hear the shush and roar of it in her inner ear, feel it along her skin, a pricking awareness that called to her despite her worry.
“Ye’ve washed that countertop five times now, Jewel. Ye’ll wear it out if yer not careful.”
She started slightly, for she hadn’t realized he was awake. She could feel him watching her and knew that her tension was telegraphing itself to him despite the fog of the painkillers.
“Pamela, stop. Just quit bustlin’ about. I know what yer doin’, but it won’t help.”
She turned to find him braced in the doorway of the bedroom, bruises not as prominent in the dim light but the lines of his body speaking eloquently in the language of pain.
“I think I’m afraid to stop moving,” she said quietly, “afraid that I’ll fly into a thousand pieces if I stop to think, or breathe deep or truly look at you. I feel like I’m made of glass, very thin glass, that’s been blown beyond the limits of its strength.”
“Then come here an’ let me be yer strength,” he said.
She shook her head. “Look at the state of you, man. I don’t need you to be strong for me right now. I just need you to heal and be well.”
“I’m workin’ on that love, but in the meantime, d’ye think ye might come and lie with me? The pain eases when ye touch me.”
She helped him back to the bed, not an easy task as he shouldn’t have been up at all, and it took every bit of his strength to make his way back to a prone position. She knelt on the bed, still feeling as though she were porous material, something through which every wind and storm might easily pass, shattering her internal landscape beyond her control. Casey raised his right hand, thankfully the least damaged of the two, and touched her jawline, fingers tender despite the splints and bandages.
“Will ye do somethin’ for me?”
“Of course.”
“Take yer clothes off—an’ ye needn’t give me that look,” he said in response to her raised eyebrow. “I only want to look at you an’ the babe.”
She took her clothes off and put them on the chair beside the bed, then lay down beside him.
He did just look at her for a few moments, silent, his field of vision restricted to his left eye, and that only a slit through which he could peer. But flesh had a sight of its own, and so he touched the round of her breast, soft as a whisper, his hand coming to rest on the swell of belly under which their child stirred and turned, a small fist making contact with the bruised and broken bones of its father.
“Hello, wee love,” Casey said and bent his head to kiss the taut skin that lay between him and his child. “Daddy has missed ye.”
She cupped the back of his head, careful where she touched, hoping to impart through her hands some form of healing to counteract the hatred that had been inflicted on his body.
Beneath Casey’s lips the baby, butterfly-winged, fluttered softly and then stretched until it seemed the flesh that separated child from father must dissolve. She realized with shock that Casey was crying, the tears running hot and salty down the slope of her belly.
She reached down and laid her hand carefully over his, wishing she could grasp him tight to her body and keep him there, safe. But knowing also that she could not do that, and realizing it was this in part that made their love a thing of both painful fragility and overwhelming strength, like a butterfly that a light touch could damage, yet was strong enough to cross continents and oceans in order to find its way home.
“I thought I had died, Pamela.”
“What?”
“When I went down in the water, I blacked out an’ was certain I was dead. Only there wasn’t light the way people say, just all these stars, billions of them, rushing past me an’ a great wind, cold an’ streamin’. But none of that mattered be
cause I could only think of you an’ the babies an’ that I was leavin’ ye all alone. An’ I swear, mad as it sounds, I could feel the pain ye felt because I was gone, or maybe it was my own pain at losin’ all of ye. I only know I was as alone as I have ever been in this world, an’ I was afraid.”
She took a careful, quiet breath, fighting the tears that surged behind her eyes.
“They held a gun to my head for a good bit, even pulled the trigger, but the chamber was empty. I’m not sure why the man didn’t pull it again.”
“Oh, Casey… I wish I had been here right away. Pat said you made him wait the night.”
“I was afraid, Jewel, of what it would do to the baby, that maybe the shock would cause ye to lose her.”
“Her?”
“Aye, that’s my wee girl in there. I know it sure as I know the sky is blue.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, swallowing hard. Seeing him, normally so strong, broken down both physically and emotionally like this was almost more than she could bear. She wished she could cradle him in her body, keep him safe from the world the way she did their child.
“Just forgive me in advance, Jewel, because I’m goin’ to say all sorts of silly, sentimental things to both you an’ the babe. I’m still half off my head with painkillers an’ it’s all wantin’ to pour out of me, an’ I don’t think I’m able to stop it.”
“Say what you need to, man. You’re safe here.”
The night had risen up from the deeps of the earth and closed in around the cottage, soft and protective, as if the dark were a sea of safety and refuge and they here secure on an island of linen and pillows and woolen quilts. Pamela felt her anxiety ebb with the loss of the light and relaxed, breathing in Casey’s scent, a thing that always calmed her body, even now with its coppery salt notes of blood.
He did say a great many sentimental things to both her and to the shifting mound of her belly, but none of them seemed the least bit silly. She stroked his back softly while he did so, watching the play of firelight on his body, the bruises and the weals of blood, and thought, not for the first time, that love was a strange and mysterious force and that the weight of it could feel like salvation or damnation, changing from minute to minute.
Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series Book 3) Page 77