Free Falling
Page 22
Sarah wasn’t sure when Mike had been granted family status by John but she liked the sound of it.
“I am. Dinner and biscuits are out of the oven. Where’s Dad?”
John jerked his head absentmindedly to indicate behind him. “Still messing with the fence,” he said. “It won’t close or something.”
How soon we take each other for granted, Sarah thought with a smile. The reunion, once all elements of danger had been removed, had been lengthy and exquisite. Just the sight of David at any odd time of the day was enough to fill Sarah with so much love and gratitude she felt overwhelmed by her happiness.
“You’ll freeze out here.” David spoke as he followed his son from around the house. He grinned at his wife. He had wire cutters in his hands which were covered by an old pair of Seamus’s work gloves found in the barn.
Sarah returned his smile. “I didn’t even notice,” she said.
“You would if you’d just spent two hours standing in the middle of a pasture trying to fix a gap in the fence. What is it with the Irish and no trees? Hey, Sport, take these into the barn for me, will you?” David handed the wire cutters to John.
“Mom, can I ride before dinner?” John said. His face was flushed from the cold.
Sarah shook her head. “No, sweetie,” she said. “Uncle Mike and Gavin will be here in a minute. In fact, if your chores are done, it’s time to wash up. You, too,” she said, turning to David. She cupped his cheek with her hand. He still hadn’t shaved but the look seemed to suit him and this new rugged life they had. He leaned over and kissed her.
“Yeah, yeah,” John said, turning toward the barn. “Come on, Patrick. It just gets worse from here.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever get over—”
“I know,” David said softly. “Me, too.”
He wrapped his arms around her and she let all the tension leave her body.
“Maybe after a few more decades of this, I’ll be able to once more tolerate brief separations,” she said.
He laughed. “I know what you mean,” he said, kissing her again.
Sarah caught the sight of Donovan’s wagon coming down the driveway.
“Oh! They’re here,” she said, not immediately moving from her husband’s arms.
“Great. Mike was supposed to see if he could do anything with the broken handle on the wood splitter I showed him last time.” David turned and waved to the two men in the wagon.
Dinner was roast lamb with biscuits and mashed potatoes plus preserved green beans from Dierdre’s root cellar. David and Sarah’s stash of Côte de Rhône had been destroyed in the fire at Cairn Cottage but Mike ususally brought poteen or whiskey when he came. Watered down enough, Sarah could just manage to drink it.
After dinner, Gavin and John played chess by the fireplace while the adults smoked and drank at the dining table. Sarah lit candles and kept the cook stove door open so the heat would fill the little dining room.
“I still can’t believe how he’s bounced back,” Sarah said, watching Gavin in amazement. “He was shot a little more than a month ago and here he is like it’s a sprain or something.”
Mike lit his pipe and waved out the match flame. “You’d know it when it comes time to doing any chores,” he said, looking over at his son.
“You know, Mike—” Sarah started.
“Sure, if this is another apology for nearly getting me only son killed, then please just stop there, Sarah,” Mike said. “Your scones are worth any number of dead or maimed sons, sure they are and I had no idea when I first met you that that would be the case.”
David laughed.
“We were so lucky,” Sarah said. “None of us got killed and it could so easily have gone the other way.”
David leaned over and took her hand. “But it didn’t,” he said.
Sarah looked at him and smiled.
Mike cleared his throat. “I’ve got news,” he said.
“I hate it when you say that,” Sarah said, gathering dishes to take to the kitchen. “Your news always sucks.”
“News?” David had been leaning back in his chair but sat up abruptly. “News about the crisis?”
Mike nodded solemnly. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a silver cylindrical object and placed it on the dining room table among the serving bowls, ashtrays and whiskey glasses.
“Jesus,” David said. “Is that what I think it is?”
John jumped up and ran to the table. “What is it? What is it?” he said. He leaned over and snatched it up. “A cell phone!”
“Aye,” Mike said. “That it is.”
“Doesn’t work,” Gavin called from the hearth. He was leaning back against an armchair, the bulky bandage across his chest making him look portly and uncomfortable.
“Well, it would work,” Mike said. “But its charge has run down.”
Sarah returned to the table. “This isn’t the news,” she said, looking at Mike.
“No, it isn’t,” Mike agreed.
“God, you two developed a secret language since I was gone,” David said. “Should I be jealous?”
“So what is the news?” Sarah asked, ignoring David.
Mike took a long sip from his glass of whiskey.
“Come on, Da,” Gavin said. “Or I’ll tell ‘em and I’m not as good a teller as you.”
Mike placed his whiskey glass on the table. “One of Gavin’s mates had gone off, same as poor Craig Cahill did, and he’s only just returned. He brought a couple of these back and when they were charged up, they worked fine.”
“The grid’s back on?” David asked, leaning eagerly over the table toward Mike. “The towers are back up?”
“Nothing near us right now,” Mike said, “but there’s hope it’s starting to come back. This tosser mate of Gavin’s—”
“Aw, Kev’s okay, Da. You’re too hard on him.”
“This mate of Gavin’s says there’s rumors that communication in London is restored and there are a few vehicles moving about there now too.”
Sarah covered her mouth. Was it over? Was the nightmare really about to be over?
“They got cars working again?” David asked.
“They shipped some in from Germany and Italy,” Mike said. “This bloke said Dublin’s got power on and off and he heard there was activity in Limerick, too.” He looked at Sarah. “United States military looks like.”
John put the cell phone back onto the table. “So,” he said, “we’re going home.”
Sarah looked at him with surprise as his flat tone. He met her eyes over the table and walked back over to where Gavin was sitting.
“I’m thinking the lad’s got the right of it,” Mike said, looking at Sarah. “You’ll likely be leaving soon. Probably don’t even need to bother planting. You won’t be here for the harvest.”
“Wow.” David sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. He looked at Sarah and smiled. “That is news,” he said.
“So I was thinking,” Mike said, speaking to David now. “It might make sense for the three of you to come into the community. No sense in making a go of it here. And you’ll be safer with us among a group.”
Sarah knew David had no intention of moving them into the community—temporarily or not. They’d had a few words about it but, in the end, the agreement had been to let David have his way. Her eyes flickered to Mike as he sat easily in the armchair drinking his whiskey.
In more ways than one, it might be safer for them to stay where they were.
“No, thanks, Mike,” David said, moving over to Sarah and draping an arm around her shoulders. “We’re just fine here until the US gets off its ass and comes to rescue us.”
Sarah watched something pass across Mike’s face but it was too fleeting to identify. He leaned over to refill all their glasses although Sarah hadn’t taken the first sip from hers.
“So, we’ll drink to it, eh?” He held up his glass: “To rescue and getting things back to normal. And to the Woodsons getting back home.”
“Cheers,” Sarah said in a whisper, but didn’t touch her glass.
Well, Mom, I haven’t written in so long but since you haven’t been receiving any of these letters anyway I didn’t think you’d mind. LOL. It’s been two months since we fought the gypsies and won and five months since what people around here refer to as “the Crisis.” The rest of our story isn’t brief and, except for the occasional terror with chasing down an errant chicken, life is actually a little boring here in a pleasant non scared-for-your-life sort of way. Ha ha.
When we found out last month that rescue might be imminent, it’s hard to explain but life actually got harder! Up until then, we relished every little pleasure or luxury we could get—whether it was a hot bath or a real chicken dinner instead of beans but as soon as we heard that this period of our lives really was temporary, it seems all we could do was focus on the things we were missing and were waiting for us back home. It’s hard to explain.
We’ve been happy here. I know that sounds bizarre and as I look back over it, I’m kind of surprised, myself. But we have. And honestly, except for missing you and Dad, our lives here have been much richer than anything we had back home. Crazy, huh? No electricity, no cars, no shopping! Doesn’t make sense to me, either.
Anyway, I’m beyond hopeful and anxious to see you and Dad again after all this time.
Love, Sarah
***
Three months after writing that letter, Sarah found herself standing by the fence behind Deidre and Seamus’s cottage and watching John trot his pony in the direction of Donovan’s community.
While the community was an easy two-mile ride on horseback across the pastures, the way John went, it was nearer to five by the road—a road already grown over with weeds and bushes after seven months of non-use by automobiles. Sarah always thought the Irish roads better suited to horses anyway. They wound and twisted in illogical gyrations that seemed to fit a horse’s meandering style of travel.
It had been four months since they found out that rescue was coming. Four months of letter writing and hoping and waiting.
But no one came.
It had been a hard winter—one in which, because they hadn’t planted anything—they had needed to rely on food and fellowship from Mike’s growing community. And while it kept them alive, the dependency did little to assuage David’s growing resentment and frustration as the months ticked by and no word of rescue came.
As Sarah watched John disappear from sight, knowing he would be safe once he got to Mike’s place, knowing he would be surrounded by his friends and watched over by Mike and Fiona, she wondered for the thousandth time why she and David needed to live so far outside the circle.
But, of course, she knew why.
“Anything in the traps?”
Sarah turned to watch her husband trudge up the hill toward her, his face slack and guarded against hope. It was only September, but already the traps were usually empty, the rabbits having tucked themselves up in their burrows until the Irish weather proved more accommodating.
She pointed to the trap at her feet, the body of the little rabbit ensnared in it.
“Thank God,” David said, bending down to pry open the steel jaws.
She looked over his shoulder at the expanse of pasture behind him. As far as she could see it was green, studded by one or two grazing animals.
“John just left to go over to Mike’s place,” she said, resting her hands on her hips. David made a face. She knew he was conflicted about their son spending so much time in the community. But the boy was fed and cared for there—something David and Sarah struggled to do on a daily basis.
“I know. I told him to be back in time for dinner,” he said. “And now there’ll be something for him to eat when he does.”
Sarah glanced at the trap, the spring still bloodied, then watched her husband pull out his knife and begin to skin the rabbit. It never ceased to amaze her how much their lives had changed. If you had told her a year ago this time that David would be able to skin a rabbit without even thinking twice about it…well, a lot had happened in a few short months.
Her gaze strayed again to the tree line at the end of the pasture, where she could just make out the fire of the main cook stoves, which always burned. She wondered what was on the camp menu tonight. Fresh rabbit or not, she wouldn’t blame John if he’d rather stay in the camp.
“Oh, my,” she said suddenly, “I just remembered there’s a council meeting tonight. I promised Fi we would come. Do you mind very much? We can bring the rabbit.”
David followed the direction of her gaze. “No. As it happens, I have something to say at the meeting for a change.”
Sarah turned to him and frowned. “You do?” She watched his fingers move quickly to strip the skin from the rabbit, turning it before her eyes from a furry woodland creature to a piece of steak ready for the grill.
He stood up and wiped his blade against his jeans. “I didn’t want to say anything before but I saw something when I was out riding the western pasture today.”
“Saw something? Saw what?” Sarah could feel the anxiety creeping into her arms and legs. She turned toward the community. The western pasture wasn’t any where near it but she suddenly didn’t like the feeling of John being out of sight.
“It might be nothing,” he said, following her gaze. “I found some cart grooves, like someone came through during the night carrying something heavy in the back. There were a bunch of cigarette butts on the ground, too.”
Sarah sucked in a breath. Cigarettes were the first things everyone ran out of after the bomb dropped. Everyone around these parts, any way.
“Is that all?”
He hesitated and Sarah realized he was trying to spare her. After everything they had been through, he was still trying to protect her.
“I found a stuffed animal on the ground. A teddy bear.”
When she didn’t respond he said, “It had blood on it. Fresh blood.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze and then turned to head back to the cottage. “I’ll get the wagon hitched. Be ready in fifteen.”
The wind caught the scent of the wood smoke from the community and sent it wafting toward Sarah at the edge of the pasture. She took two steps toward it before she realized what she was doing. With the wind came a chill that cut through her jeans and whipped her hair around her face. She turned and ran toward the cottage.
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Meanwhile, check out what happens next to the Woodson family with “Going Gone,” Book Two in the Irish End Game Series, and Book Three, “Heading Home.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, I want to thank my developmental editor, Alison Dasho, for her sharp insight and stellar advice on the structure and plot of Free Falling. She used encouragement and skill to show what the manuscript needed while keeping its tender author from throwing herself off a cliff at first sight of the sheer breadth of the rewrite—not an easy feat to pull off.
Thanks, also, to my husband, Del Kiernan-Lewis, who copyedited the manuscript with an impatient wife breathing down his neck. Any remaining gaffes in style or grammar are evidence of my perverse resistance to accepting perfectly logical input.
I also want to thank my brother, Terry Kiernan, who first inspired me to think about what my daily round might be like without all the conveniences of modern life when I spent a weekend with him many years ago in his hand-built Tennessee mountain home in an area inaccessible by road and untouched by electricity. Thanks also to my son, John Kiernan-Lewis, who enlightened me about the effects of EMPs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Kiernan-Lewis lives in Florida and writes mysteries and romantic suspense. Like many authors, Susan depends on the reviews and word of mouth referrals of her readers. If you enjoyed Free Falling, please cons
ider leaving a review saying so on Amazon.com, Barnesandnoble.com or Goodreads.com.
Check out Susan’s blog at susankiernanlewis.com and feel free to contact her at sanmarcopress@me.com.
Thisbook may not be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in any type of retrieval system or transmitted in any way or by any means: electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or recording without permission of the publisher.
Copyright 2012 by San Marco Press. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Acknowledgements
Author