by Dorien Kelly
The corners of his mouth curved upward almost as if he were pleased at the thought. “I saw that one, you know.”
“I wasn’t meaning it as a compliment,” she hissed.
“But I’ll take it as one. And I’m shocked that you’d know about a movie like that, exotic dancers and all.” His deep voice carried easily over the music, and Kylie felt all the more frustrated because she could scarcely hear herself.
“I’m not here to talk about naked men!” she shouted, then winced as the last two words echoed around her. Fine timing Vi had in turning down her stereo.
“No naked men? Pity, that,” Vi commented, then flopped backward onto the sofa.
Kylie spared Vi an annoyed glance. Vi laughed in return. The woman looked as though she’d settled in to watch a show. Much as she wanted to ask Vi to leave her own house, Kylie knew better than to take on both Kilbrides at once.
She turned to Michael. He was grinning, too. “I suppose I should be happy you’ve given up on the self-pity,” she said, not quite willing to give up on the good—and totally justified—anger that had fueled her drive into town. “It was getting a little wearing, all that ‘poor me, I want and can’t have’ noise.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t start—”
“Don’t you dare be telling me what to start or not start, Michael Kilbride! This time you won’t stop me with either your threats or your... your suggestions.” She could feel the color rising in her cheeks, but refused to acknowledge exactly how those “suggestions” had rattled her. “I’m sorry you didn’t get apprenticed to the furniture maker years ago, but what’s stopping you now? In case you failed to notice, there’s a fine one next to your sister’s studio.”
“He turns bowls and candlesticks. Not quite furniture.”
“And a fat lot better than nothing,” she shot back, then took a deep breath and tried to calm herself. “At least you had noticed, even if you’d done nothing about it. There’s a certain lack of... ah, what’s the word I’m looking for here?”
“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 looking 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 disappear 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.
“Darlin’?”
“It’s nothing,” she said, sprinkling frantic kisses over his forehead, down his neck, and on his chin. “Just barked the skin on my back a bit, I think. Help me with this blasted thing,” she added, tugging at the hem of her fisherman’s jumper. “Hurry!”
Blood roaring in his ears, panting like he’d just run the length of the Slieve Mish Mountains, he tried his best and rammed his other elbow into the window for the effort.
“Hell and dammit! Why couldn’t you drive one of those tourist caravans with a bloody bed in it?”
Kylie collapsed against him and began to giggle. Since his face was more or less nestled between her breasts, he put aside any slight to his male pride. Truth be told, he wasn’t above a cheap thrill.
“Maybe you’d like to show me the barn,” she suggested. “Breege had a thought or two in that direction the other day.”
“B-Breege?” he stammered, not quite able to absorb the idea.
She leaned back and smiled down at him. “For us, of course. Did you think she’d be luring a man out here, while she’s encased in plaster from ankle to hip?”
He could feel his answering gri
n stretch from ear to ear. “She’s a game enough old bird.”
“Well, for tonight the barn’s ours.” She slid off his lap. Michael stifled a hiss of discomfort as she nudged close to places that felt hard enough to shatter. “We’d best make good use of it.”
She was out of the car and around to his side before he had time to blink. She opened the door and gave him a sweeping bow. He joined her, and took one kiss in the soft rain to tide himself over. Then he led her the few feet to the spot that he’d chosen to stake his future—such as it was.
Inside, the light was dim, so he switched on the overhead bulb. It cast a glowing, golden circle. Kylie stepped into the light. Smiling, she ran her fingers through her hair, pulled out the clip, then tucked it in her skirt pocket. She shook her head, and silky brown tendrils tumbled about her shoulders. His heart drummed faster at the sight.
She plucked at her woolen sweater and wrinkled her nose. “I smell like a wet sheep.”
She tugged the garment over her head. Standing there in her white blouse and blue skirt, a convent girl combination that he’d seen her wear time and again, she shouldn’t have looked as tempting as a selkie, that mystical seal turned perfect woman, come to land to steal his heart. But she did.
He wanted to take her down onto the damp earth and have her there, where he could watch every expression that crossed her face while he loved her with all the ferocity heating his soul. Instead, he took the sweater from her and set it on a low bench outside the stall that usually held Breege’s milk cow.
He needed to buy time to get hold of himself. He switched on the radio that sat on a dusty wooden shelf, then fiddled with its dial until he found music. Michael grimaced. All the talent God could bless an island with, and only “done my heart wrong” wailing semi-American ballads coming over the air.
He stayed to the fringes of the golden circle holding Kylie, closed his eyes, and inhaled the mingled scents of feed, hay, and dampness.
“I’ve got some money, y’know,” he said over the twang and moan of the music.