“Won’t be long now, love,” Mike said as he walked beside her. His long stride made it impossible to keep up with him but he slowed his pace for her. If he felt even a tenth of the anxiety and impatience that she did, she could only imagine what that must have cost him. He’d said very little since the horror in the little house above the beach. They’d worked silently to bury the Donovans then simply turned without a word and made their way south.
Now they were nearly there.
“Do you remember exactly where?” Sarah asked. She didn’t think she could bear another night of sleeping in the woods.
“Never fear.”
She didn’t want to tell him she could feel the warmth between her legs that told her she was bleeding.
If only they could get to the Jeep, everything would be all right…
They walked another hour, unmindful of the concern that they hadn’t stopped to find and cook a rabbit. There was food in the Jeep. They walked as the light began to fade from the sky as the late winter afternoon descended upon them. It didn’t matter. They were nearly there and that was all that mattered.
Mike saw it first. He sped up as he turned into the woods and slid down a small incline. She could see past him and glimpsed the metal of the vehicle glittering out from under the bough of tree branches he’d covered it with. Before she got thirty feet from it she knew there should have been more branches, more leaves…
She approached the Jeep after Mike and touched the back fender. All four tires had been slashed. The cloth roof looked like someone had taken an axe to it. The seats were gone entirely and so was everything they’d left in the back.
“I hid our guns in the woods,” Mike said grimly, looking at the ruined vehicle.
Sarah looked at him in shock.
“Why? Why would someone do this? What possible reason would someone want to do this?”
It made no sense. Steal the seats, fine. But slash the tires and destroy the roof?
“People,” Mike said with disgust.
Sarah’s legs gave out beneath her and she sagged to the ground, not caring that the sharp stubby stumps of damaged trees cut into her thighs.
“Sarah?” Mike was by her side, a steadying hand on her arm as if to pull her upright again.
“I needed it to be here,” she said, sobbing. “I needed to drive away from this nightmare! This fucking, monstrous excuse for a life!”
Mike knelt beside her and wrapped his arms around her. At first she struggled, so angry with the world and God and Mike that she wanted to hit him or scream until her vocal cords were raw.
Her sobs came pouring out of her. Mike tightened his hold on her and she let the tears and the sobs wrack her, not caring, never caring again. When she was finally quiet, she simply lay limp in his arms until the cold from the oncoming evening slipped between her and the ground and gently, insistently urged her to move.
“I’m okay,” she whispered unconvincingly to Mike. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry, darlin’,” he said softly. “Never be sorry to me. I love ye so much, Sarah. It breaks my heart. But we can do this. You know we can.”
Don’t tell me to be strong for the baby. Don’t make me tell you that the baby is gone. I can’t bear any more today.
There was no sense camping near the Jeep. It offered no protection against the elements and it served to remind both of them of the evil that dogged their steps. Mike left Sarah leaning against the front fender to see if the hidden guns had been found. Sarah watched him go and listened as the woods became quiet once he’d left. It was as if the woods had swallowed him up and now she was alone. All alone with no food, no water, no hope. She stared into the dark gloom where Mike had gone and allowed herself to think for a moment of what she might do if he never came back.
The minutes stretched into an hour. Something was wrong. He hadn’t hidden the guns that far away. She looked around the Jeep. He’d left the rifle with her and she went to it now and picked it up, and checked that there was a cartridge in it.
She moved away from the Jeep into the woods in the direction Mike had gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Gavin leaned over the back of the wagon and pulled out the frying pan. The Italians had five wagons and ten horses. As a wedding gift to the happy couple, Antonio had given Gavin and Sophia their own wagon and one horse. That was a big deal. The wagons and horses were the only thing that allowed the big family to move about at will. Antonio said they represented their freedom and Gavin could see that. What he didn’t understand was why Antonio was so keen on keeping on the move.
Whenever Gavin suggested he’d like to bring Sophia to the compound to meet his family, Antonio was all in favor of it. But there never seemed to be a good time.
“Did you find it, Gav?” Sophia called to him.
Five days married and she still hadn’t realized what a terrible mistake she’d made, Gavin thought to himself, grinning.
“I’m coming,” he said as he moved toward their campfire in front of their tent. He had to admit he liked camping out. Always had as a kid or with John. A shadow of melancholy passed across his brow as he thought of John—which in turn led to him to think about this da. He hated that he hadn’t gotten word to them yet. Worse, he’d actually left John a note when he’d gotten to Cashel and had a wild hair about going across to Fishguard to see his grandda. He’d run into Antonio not an hour later and then once he’d clapped eyes on his future bride, well, the idea of running back to fetch a note that John probably would never find anyway seemed a little crazy.
But he did need to get back to the compound to let everyone know he was all right—and to tell them what a bleeding lying wanker Father Ryan was. Hopefully, the bastard hadn’t pulled anything else in the meantime.
He tried to imagine how furious his family would be when he came back to the compound. On the other hand, da will have to pull his punches when I waltz back there with my beautiful Sophia.
He handed the pan to her as she stood by the campfire, her hands on her hips. She wore jeans instead of dresses as some of the other women in the camp did and he loved that about her. As gorgeous as she was—especially on their wedding day—she seemed more comfortable in pants. And as Gavin was particularly fond of how she looked in pants, it all worked out. He leaned over and kissed her neck which made her squirm away from him.
“I was just trying to imagine what my da will say when I bring this home.” He patted her bottom and she turned and raised up the frying pan over her head, laughing as she did.
“He’ll think what everyone else thinks round here,” she said, letting him draw her into his arms for a kiss. “That you’ve lost your damn mind.”
“Then let me be crazy,” he murmured as he kissed her. “Let me die crazy in that case.” She deepened the kiss. The sound of a harsh throat clearing made him lift his head and he felt Sophia stiffen in his arms.
“Not to interrupt anything,” Benito said as he came from the bushes. Gavin wondered how long he’d been standing there. “Papa says to pack up. We’re moving.”
“Again?” Gavin said in astonishment. “We just got here day before yesterday.”
While he wasn’t familiar with these woods, and they hadn’t gone near a town since he’d travelled with the Borgnino’s—nearly a month now—he couldn’t shake the feeling that he wasn’t far from the compound—maybe a day’s walk. The idea of moving again, possibly away from the compound, made Gavin realize fully for the first time that he was ready to go home.
“I guess marriage suits you,” Benito said to his sister. Sophia scowled at him. Gavin knew the two didn’t get along. He considered that a character reference in Sophia’s favor. Benito was hard to like. He was fat and unctuous and he was forever sneaking up on the two of them as if trying to catch them in the act. “Guess he’s better’n me?”
“Screw you, Benito,” Sophia said, her voice low.
Gavin didn’t know what made him do what he did next. He’d certainly heard lad
s say worse in his life and all of it in fun. But the words were barely out of Sophia’s mouth before he took two steps and buried his fist in Benito’s stomach. Maybe it was the way she said it, in a tone of deep-seated loathing but a feeling overtook Gavin as powerful as any he’d ever felt.
Revulsion. Fury. Protection.
As Benito hunched over on the ground, vomiting and holding his stomach, Gavin stood over him, his fists still clenched.
“If you ever talk to my wife like that again,” Gavin said, panting, his face flushed with fury, “I’ll make you eat your foot.”
“Papa will kill you for this,” Benito wheezed, looking up at Gavin.
Sophia spat at her brother. “Papa prefers my husband to you and you know it.”
Gavin pulled Sophia back from Benito as her brother fought to get to his feet and scramble away. After Benito staggered away, Gavin pulled her into his arms and felt her tremble.
Was there truth to what Benito said? Had he known Sophia in that way? Gavin’s stomach turned and he rubbed Sophia’s back as if to erase the image. She pulled back and held him with both hands to force him to look her in the face.
“He lies, amore mio. He is just a rodent trying to poison our happiness.”
He nodded and drew her in close.
“It’s time for us to find our own home,” he whispered into her hair. “It’s time to go.”
That evening, the whole tribe gathered around the center cookfire. There were twenty-five people in all—uncles, aunts, cousins, and siblings. Antonio was the eldest and the unmistakable patriarch. As Gavin and Sophia settled into their places by the fire, Gavin noticed Benito sat with some cousins the furthest distance from the group. Sophia was right. Although Antonio’s only son, Benito was a clear disappointment to his father. At first Gavin hadn’t noticed it because he’d been too focused on Sophia. But now that he held his beloved every night in the privacy of their own snug bed in their own tent, he began to relax and look around him at his new world. The things that he’d been so grateful before—a hot meal, a coat—he now expected as his right as a part of the family.
In fact, now that Gavin thought of it, almost since he’d arrived he’d been treated as nothing less than the heir apparent. Whatever role Antonio had been attempting to groom Benito for had been passed to Gavin. Antonio stood in the center of the camp and lifted his hands to his family.
“Everybody have enough to eat?” he asked, as he always did before starting a family meeting.
“Si, Papa! Si, Antonio!” the gathering chorused back to him good-naturedly.
Antonio was a good leader. He always made sure they camped someplace near natural water or in a forest where they were protected and could trap or hunt something to eat. Nobody ever went to bed hungry and nobody ever found a reason to question Antonio on any of his decisions. He worked for the good of all. Gavin saw many similarities between Antonio and his own father. Both Antonio Borgnino and Mike Donovan were natural born leaders. Both bristled when their word was questioned or when their orders weren’t followed immediately and without question.
The difference between the two that Gavin could immediately see was Antonio’s natural sense of pleasure in life that he didn’t see in his father. Da was always busy putting fires out or ripping someone’s head off for fecking up. When he drank, he glowered and went to bed early. Whereas Antonio was gregarious and talkative. When Antonio drank he sang and he danced. If there were grumblings in the family about Antonio’s style of leadership Gavin didn’t see it.
Gavin grinned while remembering how many times the compound considered voting out his father out of power.
Practically on a weekly basis.
“Happy?” Sophia said to him. She sat so close her hip was nearly in his lap. Her hands were entwined over his knees. As cold as it was, she wore her blouses low to show as much cleavage as possible. Even shivering wouldn’t deter her. Gavin ran a hand down her back and cupped her bottom.
“So happy,” he said.
“Tomorrow we go toward the coast again,” Antonio said. “The game is scarce and we go where the fish never let us down.”
“Which coast, Antonio?”
“I’ll tell you tomorrow!” he said, laughing. The crowd laughed with him.
“Are we really not going with them?” Sophia asked in a soft voice.
“Would you mind?”
“Well, they are my family,” she said, biting her lip.
“How about just for a visit then? We’ll go to the compound and you can meet my lot…they have hot baths there, you know. And electricity.”
“I know. You told me. It sounds wonderful.”
“They are going to love you, Sophia.”
“I hope so.”
The two of them stayed just long enough to joke around with some of Sophia’s cousins. Sophia’s mother Bianca must have been beautiful once. She was taller than Sophia and more feminine but also much quieter. Gavin thought she and the vivacious Antonio were an odd pairing but maybe they balanced each other out. He rarely saw them connect in any way although they shared the same tent. He vowed to himself that he and Sophia would never act like they didn’t belong to each other.
“Ready for bed?” he asked her.
“For hours now,” she said teasingly as she slipped an arm around Gavin’s waist. They walked away from the heat of the main fire and back to their tent. They’d let their own fire go out.
“Don’t bother with it,” Sophia said when he stopped to kick at the embers. “I’ll keep you warm, amore mio.”
He turned and scooped her up in his arms. She squealed with delight as he carried her into the tent. The smell hit them both immediately. For a moment, Gavin stood, holding Sophia, stunned and unsure what to do. When she started gagging, he swiveled around and stepped back out into the cold evening.
If he’d thought for a moment that that little turd Benito had taken his licking like a man, he was way wrong. The pile of animal feces heaped on their marriage bed told a very different story.
*****
Gavin waited for the next morning only because Sophia begged him to. To confront Benito now, in the middle of the family gathering, would only make it worse, she said.
“And not just for him, amore mio. It would be giving the little verme exactly what he wants, to have disrupted our love.”
So they cleaned up the mess, tossed the bedclothes in the bushes to be dealt with later, and snuggled down into each other’s arms in a pile of all the coats and clean blankets they owned. After an exquisitely exhausting night spent in Sophia’s arms, Gavin had to admit that leaving the unsavory business of dealing with Benito until morning had been the right thing to do.
But the next morning, he took the soiled bedclothes and found Benito eating his breakfast in front of the cookfire. He was sitting by his father who was talking seriously to an older cousin. Gavin knew the cousin, a tall man with a lazy eye named Paco who had two teenaged daughters who caused him no end of pain and trouble. Clearly, Paco was going for guidance to the head of the clan.
Gavin stomped over to Benito and dumped the sleeping bags and duvets on the man’s head. Benito fought his way out of them and, in the process, dropped his piece of rabbit pie in the dirt.
“Hey! Bastardo!” Benito yelped.
Antonio whirled around to watch the two, his face a growing thundercloud.
“What is the meaning of this?” he said, between clenched teeth. It occurred to Gavin that he’d just been in the process of telling his poor unfortunate cousin how to handle his family when his own family imploded on his doorstep.
“Benito left Sophia and me a pile of raccoon shit on our bed last night,” Gavin said heatedly.
“He lies!”
“If not you, then who? After I punched you in the stomach yesterday—”
“Che cosa?” Antonio said, looking from Gavin to Benito. “He hit you? Why?”
“A misunderstanding!” Benito said.
Antonio backhanded his son so hard
the boy fell down. He sat in the dirt holding his cheek and glaring up at his father.
“You will clean Gavin and Sophia’s bed clothing and I will inspect it to ensure it is done properly. You will apologize to both of them tonight at the campfire. Capito?”
“Yeah, sure,” Benito muttered, not looking at either of them
“Now!” Antonio roared. Benito grabbed the soiled bedding and fled the campfire.
Gavin really wished Antonio hadn’t done that. Not that he was ever going to be friends with Benito but now it was looking pretty much impossible. The cousin Paco had stayed just long enough to see the show and then disappeared into the woods. Everyone was dismantling and breaking down camp for the trek to the coast. Gavin figured this was as good a time as any to tell Antonio that they wouldn’t be coming with them.
“I am sorry for that,” Antonio said, waving in the direction that Benito had gone. “He is a serious…delusione…disappointment to me. His mother’s child.”
“Look, Antonio. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you took me in. I mean, if it wasn’t for you, I’d probably still be wandering shirtless through the fecking woods.”
Antonio slapped Gavin on the shoulder and laughed. “Not to mention enjoying the warmth between my bellezza daughter’s thighs, eh? Have you thanked me for that yet?”
Gavin was momentarily speechless. He didn’t know if Antonio was joking or if what he said was a cultural thing that didn’t translate in Ireland.
“In any case,” Gavin said, “we’ve decided not to go with the rest of you to the coast. Mind you, we may catch up with you later.”
The smile on Antonio’s face looked frozen, as if someone had taken a still shot of him. His eyes lost all merriment.
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 35