Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games (27 page)

D
ear Mom and Dad
,

As I write this, I have in front of me a letter that was delivered to me from you a month ago. As far as I can tell, it was written a month before that. I can't tell you of the joy and relief I felt when I saw your handwriting again, Mom! Knowing that you and Dad are alive and well, and that Jacksonville was not even touched by this international incident has given me more strength and hope than I can say.

John and I are both fine and I tell you that straightaway because I have some devastatingly bad news and I need you to brace yourselves. A little over two months ago, the cottage where David and John and I lived was attacked by raiders and David was killed. Even writing the words I have to stop and have a good cry. Maybe it'll always be that way.

It's hard for me to believe, even two months later, that David didn't survive this ordeal of ours. It's especially painful when I see signs every day that John and I may be able to go home soon—and yet David won't be coming with us. I don't know whom else you might notify about David. His parents, as you know, are both gone and he had no siblings.

In the interim two months, many things have happened, and not all of them bad. After David was killed, I travelled to a small town somewhere in the Cotswolds. In the column of “not all bad,” is the fact that I met many good people as I made my way back across the UK and Wales. One of them was a young gypsy girl who did everything she could to sacrifice her life so that I could get back to John in Ireland. She was more than just a brave, heroic girl, though. While we traveled together I found her funny, optimistic, affectionate and incredibly resilient. If I were to tell you what her childhood was like, you'd be amazed that she could even laugh, let alone be the plucky, lovely girl she was.

S
arah stared out the window
, the tears gathering in her eyes once more at the thought of Papin. She forced herself to turn away from the sounds of the children's laughter out her window to concentrate on her letter.

W
ell
, folks, the sun is starting to dip, which actually begins the busiest part of my day because it means dinner preparation. Sometimes I long for the days of a frozen peel-back carton and a microwave oven. Ha ha. Just kidding. What do I mean “sometimes?”

Anyway, love to you both. I can't tell you how relieved I was to get your letter and to know that all is well with you both at home. The helicopter the came for us last month gave me confidence that one day our trial here will be done and John and I will both be back home again.

In the meantime, please know that we are both well and we are happy.

Love,

Your daughter,

Sarah

PS - I forgot to mention, in case you were worried about where I'm living, that Mike Donovan, who runs the big community here, has moved me and John into a very sweet little cottage right in the middle of the community boundaries—in fact very near his own hut. So we are safe and snug amidst our friends and dear ones.

Until I see you again….

S
arah set
her pen down and carefully folded up the letter. She placed it inside the large wooden box that Mike had brought from the cottage she'd shared with David. The box had belonged to Deirdre.

Out the window, she could see John on his pony. He looked like he was giving riding lessons to some of the smaller children. It hadn't been that long ago—not quite a year—when he had climbed onto the back of a horse for the first time himself. She saw Mike join the group. He held a piece of a plough in his hands and she guessed he was on his way to the work shed with it.

Seeing him unexpectedly sent a tiny thrill through her that she had come to expect whenever she saw him. She didn't know what her life going forward in
Donovan's Lot
would be like, but she had a feeling it would always be strongly affected by the undeniable pull she felt in the big Irishman's direction.

While it had only been a week since she and Mike had made their way back to the camp, it had taken every ounce of self-restraint she had not to harangue him on a daily basis about going back to Wales to look for Papin.

Tonight was the night, she knew. After everything she had been through, the time for waiting was through. She straightened her back to physically steel her resolve.

A head popped up in the window outside Sarah's writing table making her jump, and then laugh when she realized it was John still sitting on his pony.

“Hey, Mom, Aunt Fi wants to know if we're eating communal tonight again. She's got a big lamb stew and I told her you baked today.”

“Yes, sweetie, of course,” Sarah said. “Go ahead and feed Star and put him up for the night. I'll be there directly.”

“Uncle Mike's coming, too, Mom. He's gonna show me and Gav how to do that disappearing card trick thing.”

S
arah was amazed
that she could find such pleasure after so many weeks of horror. The days and weeks of living like an animal—ready to kill at any moment, ready to distrust any kind face or motive—had disappeared after just a few days of being back in the loving embrace of her friends and family. As she looked around the dinner table she thought that tonight was a perfect example of that.

Fiona was as bossy as ever, instructing where everyone should eat and whacking reaching hands with a ready wooden spoon, but there was a glint of humor in her eye.

And something more.

The gypsy, Declan, had taken to spending more and more time at her table. And in her front parlor. And trailing behind her as she went to bring in the goats…

At first glance, Sarah thought they were the ultimate mismatch. The fisherman's daughter and the gypsy. But listening to them interact had changed her mind. And looking at Fiona's face when she watched Declan helped change her mind, too. It was hard to argue that something was wrong when it created such a picture of happiness in the beaming face of your best friend.

Mike sat next to Sarah, as he always did. Sarah knew there was a change in their relationship—although it was, of course, unspoken and as yet not acted upon. Partly it was because David was out of the picture, and Sarah knew that. But it was also because of what the two of them had recently endured—for the sake of the other. Now that Sarah was safely back at camp with John she realized she had been trying to get back to Mike nearly as much.

Which did not change the fact that she had a serious bone to pick with him.

After supper, Sarah shooed everyone out of Fiona's kitchen—except Mike—and turned to the sink full of dirty dishes.

“I'll be thanking you for recruiting me for the wash up,” he said drily, picking up a dishtowel. “I often wonder how I'll unwind after a hard day of mending fences, chasing goats around the pasture and breaking up fights in camp.”

Sarah laughed but didn't speak.

He sighed and reached for a dish. “Let's have it, Sarah. I know you've got something to say.”

“And you know what it is, too,” Sarah said, plunging her hands into the cold soapy dishwater.

He sighed again. “I was hoping you'd let it alone by now.”

“I have to know what happened to her.”

“Some things are best not known.”

“This isn't one of them.” She turned to him, her hands dripping on the floor. “I can't leave John again and he won't let me go alone.”

“And I won't let you go, period.”

“Oh, so is this Donovan's Lot the Dictatorship now?”

“My God, woman, it never ends with you, does it? We're all finally back in one piece and you're ready to go dig up more trouble.”

“That's just it, Mike. I'm
not
in one piece until I find out what happened to her.”

“Even if what you find out is…is…”

“Yes. Even then.”

“Da, let me go,” Gavin coming from the other room where he'd obviously been listening. “I can be to the coast and back in three days. Me and Benjy are dying to stretch our legs a bit.”

Mike hesitated just long enough. “God, the pair of ya, will be the death of me,” he said looking at Sarah and Gavin together. “But the answer's still no. It's too dangerous and I'll not have it. Everyone stays put where I can keep an eye on ‘em. And that's me last word on the subject.”

Sarah nodded sadly and turned back to the dishes. “I understand, Mike,” she said quietly. “I don't want to be any more trouble than I already have been. I'm sorry.”

“Ahhh, stop that, now,” Mike said throwing the dishtowel over his shoulder. “Bugger me if I can't get comfortable for five fecking minutes without someone wanting me to step in front of a bullet or put me hand up a cow's arse.”

“Well, I'm not sure about that last bit,” Sarah said, fighting to keep the amusement and hope out of her voice, “but I mean, you just said
I
can't do it. So…”

“Yes, fine,” Mike said. He looked at Gavin who seemed to be literally jumping up and down at the prospect. “We'll go. We'll go. Tomorrow at first light.” He tossed down the dishtowel onto the counter. “I assume this means I'm at least released from KP duty?”

Sarah dried her hands and slipped into his arms, resting her head against his broad chest. When she felt him pull her in closer with one large hand stroking her on her back, she forced herself to step away and turn back to the dishes. The warmth of emotion—and
desire
—that flooded through her body shocked her with its urgency.

More than that, she realized, blushing and breathless with guilt and longing, was the stunning realization that nothing in her life up to now had ever felt more right than the few seconds she had just experienced in his arms.

T
he ride
to Boreen on well-rested horses with a full saddlebag full of food and water made all the difference in the world, Mike thought bemusedly. He glanced over at Gavin who appeared happy just to be out in the world, regardless of the weather, the reason or errand. Mike had warned him they would likely come back empty handed—or worse, with news that would not comfort anyone, but the lad seemed as focused on the adventure of it all than the outcome.

They arrived at Boreen by midday and boarded the ferry to Fishguard by late afternoon. Once cross the Channel, Mike gave Gavin the reins to both horses and told him to wait for him. Although clearly disappointed not to be joining his father as he searched the bars and brothels of Fishguard, Gavin wisely, did not openly complain.

There were several reasons why Mike hated this errand, not least of which was the fact that if he found out what happened to the gypsy and it was bad, Sarah would be stricken. And if he found out nothing, the stubborn lass would likely never give up the search.

What do they call that? Lose-lose?

In the first two hours in Fishguard combing the harbor bars, he bought four beers with money he did not have to throw away and questioned dozens of fishermen, tradesmen, travelers and anybody else who looked like they might know something.

Before he stumbled, fuzzy-headed and discouraged, to where Gavin sat with the horses to find a place for the night, he'd been told by no fewer than three people that they'd heard of a little gypsy girl who'd been killed two weeks earlier.

One said he heard she'd been strangled. One said stabbed. The other couldn't remember.

“Does that mean we know what happened to her?” Gavin asked, finishing off the last of their grub as Mike untacked the horses and brushed them down for the night.

“It's not proof enough,” Mike said.

“Will you need to see the body?”

“I don't know what I'll need,” Mike said truthfully. “I just know that hearsay isn't enough.”