Loving Irish

by Katy Regnery

  But it wasn’t Britt who rounded the truck and stood on the other side of the gate, hesitant to step through it.

  It was Ian.

  And her heart—her stupid, ridiculous, pathetic heart—leapt, as it always had, as it likely always would, at the mere sight of him.

  He held up his hand. “Hi.”

  “Hey,” she said, stepping out of the house and crossing her arms over her chest.

  “You’re still up.”

  She nodded. “Night owl.”

  “Me too.”

  “Did you, uh…” She saw his jaw flex and tilted her head to the side. “…forget something today when y—?”

  “I’m sorry,” he blurted out.

  Her breath caught. Her heart galloped.

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I never got to say that to you—that I was so sorry, so fucking sorry, for what happened between us.”

  “Oh,” she murmured, clasping her arms so tightly her shoulders brushed her ears. “Okay.”

  “By the time I got here that morning, you were gone.”

  “Yes.”

  “And I…God, I just wanted to…to…” He was still standing on the other side of the gate, his eyes intensely focused on hers. “…die.”

  She gulped, looking away from him as her own eyes flooded with tears.

  “You need to know that, Halcyon. You need to know that I never meant to betray you.”

  But you did.

  “I never meant to hurt you.”

  But you did.

  “If I could go back in time and do it all over again, I’d—I’d—”

  “You can’t,” she said softly.

  She heard him take a deep breath, the sound accompanied by a small whine of pain in the back of his throat that sounded like a wounded animal, like a creature caught in a trap. It fisted around her heart, that small, sad sound, but the same heart had also learned, long ago, not to trust him.

  “You should go,” she said. “Our agreement—”

  “This is penance,” said Ian, gesturing with both hands to her house. “You see that, don’t you? I’m making amends.”

  She looked up at him and nodded. “I see that.”

  “I can’t take money for it.”

  “But we agreed—”

  “I can’t,” he insisted. “I won’t.”

  She would find a way to pay him later. For now, all she could do was gulp softly and nod.

  He continued. “I’m making amends to show you that I’m a changed man, but also because it’s all I can do. I can’t change my wrongdoings. I can admit them. I can apologize for them. But that’s not enough.” He stopped for a moment, as though to gather his thoughts before continuing. “If I stole twenty dollars from you when I was drunk, it’s not enough to say I’m sorry for stealing. I need to make a commitment to myself, and to you, never to steal again. And then I need to return your twenty dollars to you, no matter how many years have gone by since I stole from you.”

  She stared at him, trying to follow what he was saying but having trouble. He hadn’t stolen money from her. He’d broken her heart.

  “I’m saying I need to…to…fix things between us. To repair them…as much as I can.”

  Repair them? How? What did he even mean by that? Was he saying that he wanted to somehow work toward restoring the same level of love and trust that they’d shared the day before her seventeenth birthday? Did he actually think such a goal was within the realm of possibility? It was such a ridiculous notion that a small, bitter chuckle escaped from her lips.

  “Impossible,” she murmured, her nostrils flaring as hot tears slipped from her eyes, rolling down her cheeks.

  “Nothing’s impossible,” he said simply, dropping his hands to the pickets at the top of the gate and resting them there. “I’ll start with your house, but I want to fix more than that, Halcyon.”

  “I appreciate your sentiments, Ian, but life doesn’t work like that,” she said, trying to stay calm.

  “Why not?”

  Anger ignited inside of her, joining the rest of her roiling feelings. “Because you can’t go back. You can’t change the past. We live with our mistakes. Big or small, they’re ours.” Yours.

  “I know that,” he said. “The past is the past. Of course. But I can change the future. I can…I can change the now.” He reached up and rubbed his beard, his eyes glistening in the moonlight. “You hate me, right?”

  “Yep.” She stared at him for a moment, then shrugged. “Less today than when I arrived here, maybe. I’m grateful for your help, and you’ve been kind to my daughter. But by and large? Yes, Ian. I hate you.”

  He nodded slowly, and suddenly it occurred to her how far away they were from one another. Her gaze fell to the flat piece of slate at her feet, counting the twelve flagstones between them, until she reached the gate again and slid her eyes up to his. They were shiny and black in the darkness, though she knew that when morning gilded the skies, they’d be emerald green in the sun.

  “I don’t want you to hate me,” said Ian softly. “I want to heal us.”

  Then maybe you shouldn’t have betrayed me with Vicky-fucking-Lafontaine, her heart screamed, the many impenetrable parts of that organ single-minded in their protection of any softness that remained.

  She was silent.

  And sometimes, she had learned, silence was the strongest voice of all.

  She didn’t believe him.

  She didn’t want to believe him.

  “I have to go,” she said, stepping back, inside the doorway, into the house that had offered childhood joy and a shabby harbor for her battered soul. This was all too much. She’d been stalwart throughout her divorce, but now? Now she just wanted to curl up on the couch and cry.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Of course. It’s late.”

  “So um…good night.”

  “Good night,” he said.

  But as she was closing the door she heard him add soft words—“Oíche mhaith agus codladh sámh, grá gael mo chroí”—said plaintively into the night.

  Good night and sleep well, bright love of my heart.

  The same words he’d said to her every night when they’d parted that summer so long ago.

  “Halcyon days are golden days,” he’d once explained to her, playing with the literal meaning of her name. “The brightest of my life.”

  The door clicked shut, and she leaned back against it, closing her eyes and forcing air into her lungs as she rested her head against the door.

  Her heart raced, sprinting as she recounted their conversation as best she could, but the words jumbled in her mind, boiling down, like simple sugar, into the words: I don’t want you to hate me. I want to heal us.

  She recalled the promise she’d made to herself last weekend on her drive to New Hampshire: to hate men—all men—until the end of time.

  But the righteous indignation she’d felt then escaped her now, and more than anything, she just felt…sad.

  Once, during a fight with Sergio, he’d said to her: “Sometimes I feel like you don’t love me, meu amor. Sometimes I feel like you wish you could love me, but for some reason, you can’t.”

  Since February, Hallie had felt furious with her ex-husband—angry at his betrayal of their marriage and family, and the way he ran away from their divorce, leaving her with his debt—and filled with righteous indignation, but as she thought about his words now, they rang with so much truth, she couldn’t deny them.

  She couldn’t truly love Sergio, of course, because she’d never stopped loving Ian.

  Pressing her hand to her heart, she took a shaky breath, because she knew—in the most profound reaches of her soul—that it was possible to love someone but not to have him.

  Opening her eyes, she stuffed that useless, stupid, blessedly torpid, love back into the deepest vestiges of her heart, shook off their conversation, and resolved neve
r, ever to fall for Ian Haven again.

  “Fool me twice, Irish,” she said aloud, turning off the light and heading to bed, “shame on me.”

  CHAPTER 6

  “Headed to Hallie’s today?” Finian asked Ian. “Or needn’t I ask?”

  Fin sat down at the table on Saturday morning without scratching his balls, buíochas le Dia, likely because Brittany had come over earlier to make pancakes.

  Brittany was good for Finian, Ian observed, the same way she’d been good for him. There was something about her that felt like a sister, even before she’d starting dating Rory, and her gentle, playful presence softened the rough edges of the Haven men.

  “Yeah, Ian,” said Rory with a shit-eating grin. “Headed to Hallie’s?”

  Ian grunted, picking up his coffee and taking a long sip to avoid the question. Since his visit to her place on Wednesday night, Hallie had become even more scarce than she’d been before.

  While Jenny, wearing hot-pink rubber rain boots decorated with ladybugs, followed him everywhere, Hallie went out of her way to avoid being near Ian, even for a moment. He’d sort of hoped that sharing his need to make amends would make things more comfortable between them, but it didn’t necessarily surprise him that it had backfired. He’d churned up hurt feelings in confronting her with his intentions.

  That said, he remained undaunted in his designs. Making amends required an attitude of humility, and Ian was ready to face and absorb whatever pain she still carried. And he wouldn’t stop in his pursuit of peace for both of them until he’d exhausted every avenue.

  Placed in perspective, he reminded himself, she had a right to her anger. Not only toward him, but toward her husband, and maybe even toward men, in general. The last six months of her life sounded pretty miserable, though the majority of his information was coming from his four-year-old, omnipresent sidekick.

  “Hey, ladybug,” he’d said on Friday morning, striking up a conversation with Jenny, who pulled weeds while Ian hammered down the loose flagstones on the front walkway with a rubber mallet, “you’re a pretty good worker. Did you help your daddy with chores like this?”

  “Nuh-uh,” she said, pulling up some more of the unruly pachysandra. It had taken over every available inch of ground space in front of the cottage, but between his efforts and Jenny’s help, they were getting it cleaned up so no one would trip and fall walking to the front door. “We didn’t have a garden. We had a sidewalk.”

  “Well,” said Ian, positioning the fourth piece of slate in the fresh dirt and hammering it into the dark soil. “What did your daddy like to do?”

  “He liked to give me candy.”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “And he gave me Luna,” she said, holding up the dark-haired doll she always had under her arm. “They play Luna on TV in Brazil. That’s where Papa is. Brazil.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Once he met me to his special friend.”

  Startled by this unprompted revelation, Ian stopped what he was doing for a second, looking down at her. “His special friend?”

  She didn’t look up at him, just pulled another handful of pachysandra from the ground, tugging on the root. “The lady with the black hair. Like Luna.”

  “Oh. Huh. Where did you meet her?” asked Ian, swiftly gathering that her shit heel of a father had introduced his daughter to one of his girlfriends.

  “She had a ice cream with us. She laughed at everything Papa said and smelled like a bathroom candle.”

  “Where was Mommy?”

  “At work,” she said, putting the pulled pachysandra in the black plastic lawn bag behind her. “At the hoppitul.”

  “What did Mommy think of your visit with the special friend?” asked Ian.

  “Papa said Mommy would feel sad that she missed ice cream. So it was a secret.”

  “Huh.” Wow. And he made his daughter keep his tawdry affair a secret? Cac ar oineach.

  “Brazil is far,” said Jenny, sniffling as she stood up and wiped her hands on her blue jeans.

  A misty rain was falling, and Ian let his mallet fall to the ground, kneeling down in front of Jenny and reaching around her head to pull up the hood of her ladybug raincoat. It’s not that he had any experience with kids, really, but common sense said that it was better for someone’s head not to get wet and cold. Especially someone as little as Jenny.

  He grinned at her gently. No matter who her father was, he was still her father. “You must miss him, ladybug.”

  She nodded, her blue eyes sad, her face way too serious for so young a person. “Mommy fighted a lot to him.”

  “They fought a lot, huh?”

  “She yelled a lot. And then she cried loud at the bathroom.”

  Ian winced, imagining all the times that Hallie had stood in the shower, her tears mixing with the bath water and slipping down the drain.

  “Adults can get sad when they fight,” said Ian. “I bet it made you sad too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know your mommy’s trying to make a nice life for you here, right?”

  Jenny shrugged.

  “Hey,” said Ian. “Did you know I knew your mommy when she was a teenager?”

  Jenny shook her head. “No.”

  “Sure! We were good friends.”

  “Like Auntie Britt?”

  “Different. But yeah. A little like Auntie Britt, I guess. We were all friends.” And we both loved your mom, though one of us really let her down.

  “I gotta tinkle,” Jenny said suddenly.

  Ian had blinked at her. “Well, I guess you better go, then.”

  As Jenny ran to the door, she turned around. “I’ll tell you when Mommy makes the samiches, okay?”

  Ian had grinned at her, nodding as he stood back up.

  Noontime peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with Jenny was a daily occurrence.

  On sunny days, they’d sit on the small patch of grass behind the cottage that looked out on the lake. And on rainy days, like today, they’d sit side by side in the director’s chairs that Hallie had placed on the screened porch. Hallie never joined them, of course, though it felt sort of nice that she made him a sandwich too.

  “It’s a date,” he’d said, and she beamed at him before slipping into the house to pee.

  “…Ian?”

  His head snapped up at the sound of Brittany’s voice. “Huh?”

  She was holding out a plate of three pancakes. “You were a million miles away.”

  “I was just…thinking.”

  Brittany searched his face, her eyes soft. “You’re doing a kind thing for Hallie.”

  “It’s the least I can do,” he said, looking into Brittany’s eyes and knowing that she remembered—as well as he did—the pain he’d inflicted on Hallie. He opened the maple syrup and tipped it, letting the amber goodness stream slowly onto his pancakes.

  “You’re making amends,” she said.

  Ian lifted his head to look at her. Had Hallie talked to Brittany about their conversation on Wednesday night? From the slight way Brittany’s lips tilted up before she stepped back over to the stove, he guessed she had.

  For a second, it irritated him that what he’d said to Hallie had been shared with Brittany; for him, their conversation had felt somehow…sacred. He shrugged off the thought and rejected the feeling. It wasn’t his place to be annoyed. And it didn’t change his commitment to showing her that he’d changed.

  When he’d asked her if she hated him on Wednesday night and she’d answered that she did, it hurt more than he’d anticipated. It’s not that he didn’t deserve her hatred. He did. But it still hurt to hear it articulated. That said, it gave him a starting place. Hate. Nowhere to go but up—all the way from loathing to healing.

  Although his heart clamored every time he caught a glimpse of her face, he wholeheartedly believed that she could never love him again, and he’d never expect it. That ship had sailed a long, long time ago, and there was no getting it back. Any yearnings in his own heart would be
borne, would be silenced, were not her problem, and would never become her burden.

  But healing could take many forms, couldn’t it? Hate was a corrosive that ate away at the vessel that contained it. If he could find a way to change her hate into acceptance, into peace, he’d be content. He’d have helped her. He’d have made his amends, and if she wanted him to leave her alone for the rest of their lives, he would.

  “Ian? Ian?” Rory nudged his elbow. “Hey! Can you save some for the rest of us?”

  Ian looked down at his plate, which was swimming in maple syrup, and quickly righted the bottle. “Sorry.”

  “Off in dreamland,” observed Finian with a musical lilt. “Dreamin’ of his lost love.”

  Ian sighed. “Jaysus, Fin. Dún do bheal, huh?”

  “Ah, sure. I’ll shut up.” He threw his balled-up napkin at Ian. “Yer no fun anyway.”

  The kitchen was quiet for a few minutes—the smells of coffee, pancakes, and syrup mixing for a pleasing aroma. Ian thought about the day ahead, mentally answering the question Finian had asked before. No, there wouldn’t be time to work on Hallie’s cottage today. Tierney’d skin him alive if he missed the plans she’d made.

  “Are we still on for today?” he asked no one in particular, spearing another bite of pancakes with his fork.

  Rory nodded. “Family day for the Havens and Rileys. Should be interesting.”

  Before moving up to New Hampshire, Tierney’s boyfriend, Burr, had invited his sister, Suzanne; brother-in-law, Connor; and young niece, Bridey, to come up for a weekend of fall fun.

  “Are they here yet?” asked Ian.

  Brittany nodded as she slid a plate of pancakes in front of an appreciative Finian. “They got in last night. Staying in Lady Margaret, of course.”

  “Yer a grand woman,” said Fin, smacking his lips together.

  “Yes, she is.” Rory grabbed Britt around the waist and pulled her onto his lap, then turned to Ian. “We haven’t met them yet.”

  “So what’s on the agenda?” asked Ian.

  “Oooo!” said Brittany, who loved planning anything. “Lots of fun stuff! There’s a Pumpkin Fest down in Laconia with humungous pumpkins and crafts and kiddie rides. We’re going for apple picking and hayrides at Stony Brook Farm in Gilford, and Rory said we could take out the pontoon boat to see the foliage.”