by Dorien Kelly
“You’ve not talked to your da, have you?”
“Not precisely.”
Vi simply looked at her, brows raised in the inquisitive curve of a mother confessor’s. She was obviously itching to say more.
Kylie watched dust motes drift and dance in the glow of the overhead light. The expectant silence grew too thick to be ignored. “Go on then, before you explode.”
“It’s not my business to be telling you anything, but since you asked. You owe your father and yourself the truth,” Vi said.
She’d been short and sweet, at least.
“I’ve known I do, but it seems that every time I get a grasp on happiness, Da finds some way to wrench it free. He doesn’t mean to hurt me, but he always does. As much as I can’t bear the thought of having Da under my roof, I feel even worse for depriving him of a place.”
“So scrabbling for a home of your own while trying to repay his debts wasn’t quite enough?”
She shook her head. “He’s my father. That’s something, even if it no longer seems to be quite enough. And you’re a fine one to be arguing this with me, anyway. You took in Michael, didn’t you?”
“It’s not at all the same thing. He’s with me because it’s where he’s meant to be, how he’s meant to start. Now, your father, he chose his path long ago, and stuck to it even when he knew it would leave you living in ruins. Michael, he’s—”
The front door’s rusty hinges squealed, drawing Kylie’s attention. “Walking in the door right now,” she quickly cut in.
“The hall hasn’t seen this much traffic since old Aislinn Greavey’s wake. Evening, brother,” Vi called across the room. “And how are you?”
“Better, now that you’re through gossiping about me,” he replied before giving Kylie an all-too-quick kiss in greeting.
He kept his hand resting on the curve of her waist, and she leaned into that casual touch, imagining how it would feel against her bare skin. Elemental emotion jumped and sizzled between them, almost a palpable thing.
Michael swallowed once—hard—before adding, “And I’d be even better yet, Sis, if you’d kindly clear the room and leave the keys to the place.”
Vi jingled a keyring between her fingers. “And risk having my first niece or nephew conceived in the Village Hall? On behalf of Miss O’Shea, here, I’ll hold out for silk sheets at the Connaught following a proper ceremony in front of Father Cready.” She nudged Kylie. “Quit your swooning or he’ll think you’re easy.”
Easy didn’t begin to describe it. A week of deprivation had done its work. She felt rounder-heeled than Evie Nolan. She stepped away, but the current between herself and Michael arced the distance.
Michael shot his sister a gimlet stare. “You’ll pay for this, sweet Vi.”
“You’d best ask Kylie what happened to the last soul who crossed me.”
“He’s not wearing spike heels,” Kylie pointed out.
Vi’s smile was positively feline. “But men have certain inadequacies in their armor, so to speak.”
Michael took a sharp breath and clutched Kylie’s hand. “To the door.”
“And be quick about it, before I toss a bucket of cold water over you both,” Vi said.
Once they were safe outside and had finished a good laugh at Vi’s audacity, the pull between them seemed stronger then ever.
“Walk with me,” he said, and she looped her arm through his.
The village streets were quiet, and the air damp with the rain that had fallen all day. Kylie’s fingers rested against the hard muscle of Michael’s upper arm. Without paying any attention to their route, they strolled down the hill and along the edge of the quay. A breeze carrying the fertile scent of sea eddied around them. The water lapping against the stone seawall seemed to surge in time to Kylie’s heart.
They reached the end of the pier. Michael cupped her face between his palms. Just as she rose on her toes, he leaned forward to kiss her. A chorus of male laughter sounded from a boat in the harbor. They both started, and Michael pulled away. He drew her from light they’d been standing near, and into the protection of last twilight. Kylie knew the laughter had nothing to do with them. Still, the moment was lost.
“We can’t go on this way much longer,” Michael said. “I’d sell my bloody soul for the chance to kiss you as you’re meant to be kissed. And to get my hands on you....” He drew a ragged breath.
Kylie nodded, her throat tight with emotion.
He moved closer, but didn’t touch her. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while now. I want you to come away with me. Not some weak excuse for privacy like the cinema in Tralee, but someplace so far that we don’t stand the risk of running into anyone from Ballymuir. I want to be more than passing acquaintances in public. I want to be free of all this— this—goddamn worry of what being seen with me might do to you.”
He touched his fingertips to her cheek, and she shivered at the heat his caress carried.
“And those silk sheets Vi spoke of,” he said in a low, thick voice, “I want to see you on them with nothing but my body to cover you. I want to make love to you until neither of us has the strength left to move. Then I want to sleep and do it all again.”
Once, not so very long ago, he’d said things less explicit than this to her, and she’d been silent with apprehension. Now, she wanted it all. And more.
She found her voice. “When?”
“W-when?” he echoed, looking as though it had never occurred to him that she’d fall in with his plan.
“Yes, when?”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Well now, love, I guess that’s the one part of this scheme I haven’t exactly got down.” His smile was endearingly crooked. “I guess I was too wrapped up in what we’d be doing.”
“Understandably so,” she said, then gave him a smile of her own. She sobered as reality came crashing in. “It’s a grand idea, truly it is. But with the art exhibition coming up, and no break in school till June, I don’t see much hope for us.”
“Have faith,” he said, then laughed.
“Care to share?”
A conservative slice of air between them, he led her back toward the low, sloping roofs of the village. “Well, I was just thinking how Vi insists if you want something enough, and visualize it down to the smallest detail, you can nudge it down the path to reality.”
Kylie smiled at the fanciful idea, then considered its wise-beyond-her-years source. She stopped walking, hauling Michael up short. “Close your eyes.”
She waited until he’d complied before closing her own. “Now give it a try.”
They stood there at the edge of the quay, two village lunatics, eyes tight shut.
“Do you think we’re visualizing the same thing?” Kylie eventually asked.
He chuckled. “Variations on a theme, I’d imagine.”
Smiling, she opened her eyes, then immediately wished she hadn’t. For one instant she wondered if through amateurish magic, she’d somehow conjured this specter.
But, no, it was just Johnny O’Shea, that last bird come home to roost.
She saw nothing of the dapper man she’d once known. Her father looked and smelled as though he’d drunk his way from prison to Ballymuir.
“Haven’t you got a kiss for me?”
“Hello, Da,” she said, and hated the way her voice wavered. She wanted to be strong, firm.
“I was telling the blokes down at the pub how busy my own child was. How she couldn’t even come to the phone when I called. And now I see that you’ve been busy, indeed.”
He eyed Michael, who had taken a firm grasp of her hand. Kylie held on as if he were her only lifeline.
“I’m Michael Kilbride, a friend of your daughter’s. Welcome home.”
“Did ye hear that, Kylie? A welcome from a perfect stranger and nothing from you. No welcome, no home, not even a place to lay my head.”
“Sorry, Da, but—”
Michael squeezed her hand and cut in. “She’s got nothing
to be sorry for. Kylie’s given up her own bed, caring for an ill friend.”
Her father stuck out his chin and his eyes narrowed. She’d never thought him a mean drunk, but the possibility was evident.
“I’m better than a friend, I’m family. The only family she’s got.”
“Well now, Da, that isn’t exactly true anymore. I have Breege Flaherty for a grandmum and Michael’s sister, Vi, for my own. I’m sorry I don’t have a place for you, but it’s not as though I could afford much after trying to take care of your debts.”
He looked truly shocked. “But I’ve already paid with years of my life and every pence I couldn’t get offshore.”
Explaining honor to Johnny was like discussing the sanctity of human life with an assassin. Kylie skipped the impossible and gave in to the inevitable. “I’ll get you home, Da. You can have my spot in front of the fire.”
“Well, if I can’t be having a room, I suppose that will do,” he said grudgingly. “Do I at least get a private bath? I could do with a little freshening up.”
“I’m not running a bed and breakfast—”
“He’ll sleep in Breege’s barn,” Michael cut in. “The boys left their bedrolls there. It’s warm enough to get him through the night. And if he wants to freshen, he can use the hose.”
Johnny puffed up like a bantam rooster. “Who are you to be giving my daughter orders?”
“The man who will see that you never take advantage of her again,” Michael answered in a flat tone.
Kylie sensed a tension in the air she didn’t understand. It seemed more than male territoriality, and whatever the source, it sent a chill curling through her.
Johnny slowly deflated. “A barn, you say. Jesus and Mary, I’m glad your poor, sainted mam didn’t live to see this. What would she say?”
“I’d wager she’d think you’re getting more than you deserve, O’Shea,” Michael answered. “You’ll come with me, and can visit Kylie tomorrow.”
Kylie knew she should be objecting to this bit of blatant, take-charge, know-it-all chauvinism, but all she felt was relief.
After Michael had finished questioning Johnny on the whereabouts of any belongings he might have, she drew him aside.
They both looked back to Johnny, who bent over to tie his shoe, then tumbled to the ground. Before Kylie could voice her concern, he gave a wave, stood, and stumbled to a bench.
“Just havin’ a little sit-down,” he called.
“Better a sit-down than a fall-down,” Michael said, and Kylie laughed.
She tugged his hand and moved him a few more steps down the road for discretion’s sake.
“You know that event we were envisioning?”
He nodded.
“I want you to envision me showing my gratitude for tonight in some very creative ways.”
He grinned, then brushed a brief kiss against her cheek. “You won’t know the meaning of grateful until I’ve had my way with you on those silk sheets, love.”
Arrogant man, she loved him so.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Drunkenness hides no secrets.
—Irish Proverb
Michael had decided he didn’t like Johnny O’Shea long before the man puked in his car. The sour scent of vomit, though, wasn’t helping matters.
“This time, O’Shea, you’ll be cleaning your own mess.”
Johnny moaned and shifted in his seat.
“And I get the feeling that you’re not a man for the aftermath.”
O’Shea told Michael to go commit certain indecent acts, then way bloody late, stuck his head out the window. It was tempting to swerve too close to the hedgerow lining the road and take the little bastard’s head off. Only the fact that this was Kylie’s father—a miracle of genetics, there—and that another little bastard, Gerry Flynn, was on his tail, stopped him.
By the time they’d pulled onto Breege’s property, O’Shea seemed to have tossed himself dry. Gerry Flynn had faded away, probably satisfied Michael wasn’t continuing up the road to Kylie’s. Michael aimed the car’s headlights at the barn and then hopped out.
Once inside, he switched on the lights, took a second to be certain that the boys’ bedrolls were where he’d last seen them, and exited to gather up his charge.
O’Shea was asleep—or unconscious. Since leaning over the man wasn’t worth considering, he walked to the driver’s door, slipped in, and turned off the beams.
“O’Shea, wake up.”
His mouth hung open and his eyelids were at half-mast.
“C’mon, little man, up with you.”
O’Shea’s head lolled to the side.
Michael scowled. There was no hope for it. If he had felt any compassion, he would have carried Johnny O’Shea to the barn and let him sleep it off. But more than the vomit stopped him. It ground at him, the way the man had treated Kylie tonight, as though she lived solely to serve him.
Michael thought back to when she’d told him of her rape, of Johnny off drunk, leaving her to fend for herself. Hearing the story, he’d had his doubts about Johnny’s lack of complicity.
He looked at the man in the car beside him. Clearly, tonight was not the first time Johnny had used his daughter to suit his ends. His lines had been too well rehearsed for that. Even so, could the man truly have been evil enough to trade Kylie’s innocence for debts forgiven? That it was even remotely possible sent a shot of pure venom to Michael’s heart.
He climbed out of the car and slammed the driver’s door, then stalked to the tap and filled the rusting bucket beneath it with water. Icy cold, please. Then he returned to the car, opened Johnny’s door, and let fly without a moment’s hesitation. O’Shea awoke gasping and sputtering. Michael looked at his car’s interior and shrugged. A little water was nothing compared to its other contents.
“You’re home,” he said.
While Michael removed the standard prisoner’s release duffel from the boot of the car, O’Shea staggered toward the barn. Michael pulled abreast of him in the entry.
Johnny squinted into the interior. “You really think I’m sleepin’ here?”
Michael gave him a firm push. “And d’you really think I’ll be driving you anyplace else?”
He tossed O’Shea’s belongings onto a chair, then grabbed rags and detergent from a shelf. “The bucket’s by the car. Fill it and get busy. And you’d best put on something dry after you’ve finished cleaning. Wouldn’t want you to catch a chill.”
O’Shea snorted. “How do you plan to make me clean your car?”
He had to give the runt credit for a huge set of balls. He rolled his shoulders like a fighter readying for the ring. “I’ve found that people never argue with me more than once.”
O’Shea sized him up, then stuck out his chin. “And if I do, they’ll find me beaten to a pulp in the morning?”
“No, just a bit worse for the wear.” As he looked at the man, Michael felt a grim smile fight its way out. A bucket of water looked to be the gentlest greeting the little rooster had received tonight. “What the hell is that on your forehead anyway, a rug burn?”
“Nothin’ at all,” O’Shea muttered, then thrust out one shaking hand. “Just give me the goddamn stuff and let me get this over with.”
When the car was at last cleaned to Michael’s satisfaction, and sat doors open, airing out, he prodded O’Shea back into the barn. The hard work seemed to have had a sobering effect; O’Shea began to settle in with minimal complaint. Michael permitted himself to soften—marginally. This was Kylie’s father, he kept reminding himself. And anyone who had contributed to such a wonder had to have some good.
O’Shea stepped out of a stall, dressed in dry clothes. Michael acknowledged him with a nod.
“It’s not a far walk uphill to Kylie’s,” he said. “If you get there early enough in the morning, I’m sure she’ll be glad to give you a bite to eat.”
“And will I be finding you there?”
“If you’re asking whether I live with your daughter,
the answer is no. I will tell you this, though,” he said. “Don’t get comfortable with the idea of not seeing me around. I know Kylie’s wishes, and I’ll do what I have to, to see that you follow them.
“And since I’ve got you alone, and you’re not nearly as sotted as you were earlier, I’ll add this, too. At the risk of your health, you’ll do nothing to disturb your daughter’s life. No complaining and whining until she feels honor-bound to let you live with her. No more references to her ‘poor, sainted mother.’ None of that shit or you’ll answer to me.”
O’Shea’s brows rose. “Answer to you? Now, there’s a rich one. Think I haven’t had a word or two dropped about you already? Think I don’t know exactly who I’m talking to? Christ, I might be a bit poor with the numbers when it comes to money, but I’m no murderer.”
The blow scarcely hurt anymore, and Michael knew he had Kylie to thank for starting the healing.
“That’ll teach you to listen to pub gossip, because I’m no murderer, either. And as for you, I’ll grant you a certain amount of deference because you’re Kylie’s father. But for the very same reason, I need to know exactly what you are.”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at, Kilbride.”
“You’ll know what I’m getting at when I’m ready to get there,” he said. The man would show his true colors in time. “For now, be the soul of respect to your daughter, and I promise I won’t rearrange your face. Sleep well, Johnny,” he added over his shoulder as he left. “And be ready to find yourself a new roof come morning.”
Full dark had fallen by the time Kylie neared Breege’s property. Though she’d intended to leave straightaway and be sure her father was tucked away for the night, Vi had caught up with her outside the Village Hall. A minute of chat turned into more as they covered the last details of the art exhibition.
Kylie turned into the drive, then hesitated. Her da was probably asleep by now, and what a blessing that would be. As she fidgeted in her seat, debating whether to continue up the drive, the whitish glow of a pair of headlights came toward her, then stopped. Michael, of course. They climbed out of their cars, leaving engines on and headlights shining.