The Last Bride in Ballymuir (25 page)

When he was deep within her and skillfully
teasing her to the edge of sanity, she gasped, “I’m glad one of us
has some idea what they’re doing.”

He paused and an odd smile
crossed his face. “But
you’re my very
first, love.”

Just like that, Kylie reached the edge of the
world she knew and arched into the hot, dancing starlight
beyond.

Leaving Kylie and returning
to his own lonely bed struck Michael as madness. Madness, but also
very
necessary. Rubbing his hands together
to fight off the
cold, he took one last
look at her bedroom light, still shining golden and inviting.
Kylie, wrapped in her threadbare robe, appeared in the opening
between the sagging drapes. She shouldered aside the hangings and
pressed her palm flat to the window. Her smile, rich with lovers’
shared secrets, drew him to a stop.

An icy wind hammered at him,
the beginnings of rain needled his exposed skin, yet he was wrapped
in warmth from the inside out. He returned her smile even though he
doubted that she could make out his
features in the inky darkness. She was the most
beau
tiful thing he could imagine, and he
wanted her more than he did his next breath. He watched her
smile grow to a laugh as she shooed him in the
direc
tion of his car.

He gave one last wave, then
dug his keys from his
pocket and climbed
into the mile-weary sedan. As he drove down the narrow lane, an
incredible thought settled on him: For the first time in his bleak,
god-and-family-forsaken life, he was truly welcome and wanted.
Michael smiled, then sobered as he imagined the reaction of his
old prison padmates to this new, soft and needy Michael
Kilbride.

They’d laughed enough at the reading he’d
done and the studies he’d pursued while they spent their days doing
as close to nothing as they could. Well, damn them all. Damn Brian
Rourke and the rest of those driven, devious bastards who had put
hatred above human life. And damn himself for letting them steal so
much as a second of his thoughts. He had finer things to think
about. Much finer, now.

Soon after he pulled onto the main road,
another car’s lights shone behind him. It would have meant nothing,
except that just there, he knew of no drive, not even the smallest
track for the car to have come from. He slowed, and the follower
did, too. He slowed more. The car lagged enough to be
conspicuous.

“
Flynn, of course,” he
muttered. “A slow learner, that one.” Any other time, Michael would
have been angry to see the man creeping along behind him. But this
wasn’t any other time; he’d just finished loving Kylie. He could
afford generosity of spirit, something he wagered Flynn knew
nothing about.

“
If it’s a morning’s drive
you’re wanting, that’s what you’ll be getting, me boy.”

So on he drove with no purpose other than
giving Flynn his day’s exercise. Eventually the rising sun washed
the dark from the sky. As it did, Michael got a bit of a surprise.
Gerry wasn’t in his official-issue white vehicle, but an older,
pale-tan one. Off duty, was he?

Keeping a decorous pace, Michael crept past
tumbled fences, stone skeletons of long-dead farms, craggy earth,
and blank-eyed sheep, their rumps painted bright blue with their
owner’s mark. He reached the top of a narrow pass. A small gravel
car park sat next to a stream that tumbled down the mountainside
before disappearing beneath the road. He pulled over, switched off
the car, and climbed out.

“
Just stretching the legs,
Gerry,” he called to Flynn, who hadn’t bothered to pull onto the
gravel. “And I thought I’d freshen up, y’know?” He
grinned, then finished with another one of his
grand
mother’s favorite curses, pure Irish
and anatomically accurate.

Flynn’s brows shot together, and his mouth
pulled tight. A slow learner, but not a bad lip-reader, Michael
thought.

Michael followed the
rain-heavy stream uphill,
then
bent down. Cupping his hands, he filled them with
a shock of icy water. He splashed his face, used his tee to sluice
himself dry, and checked on Flynn. Engine idling, the officer
waited.

Before returning to his car,
Michael picked up a bottle
that
had been left roadside. He hated the mess someone
would leave in the midst of pure beauty, hated the feeling that his
land was becoming crowded. He glanced back at Flynn. Too
crowded.

He walked to Flynn’s window and rapped on it.
After hesitating just long enough to give Michael pleasure in
knowing he had the boy rattled, Gerry rolled down the window.

“
Grand one, isn’t it?”
Michael said as he tossed the bottle among the food wrappers and
other detritus taking root in the back of Flynn’s car.

“
Grand what?”

“
Why, day, of course. But
then again, you might not be thinking that,” Michael commented.
“After all, a night spent sleeping in a car—which you must have
done in order to follow me—doesn’t put a man in the mind to enjoy a
day like this.

“
Now, me, I’ve had sleep
enough to be feeling generous, so here’s what I’m going to do for
you. My schedule, Gerry, in dull, deadly boring detail is this....
I’ll be taking myself back to my sister’s
house for a real cleanup and a bite to eat. Then I’m
off
to work at Muir House, out Slea Head
Road, though you’ve followed me there before, I’m sure. Tonight,
I’ll be going back to Kylie’s—and here’s the part I want you to
listen to very carefully.”

He leaned in the car window.
“If, when I’m looking out Miss O’Shea’s windows, I catch sight of
you in either this piece of shit or your official vehicle, I won’t
be a nice man, Gerry. You might say hostile, even. And since I’m
beginning to see you have no
idea where
your official duties leave off, I’ll be happy
to show you. And I won’t be rolling over and playing dead for
you like I did in the pub that night. Understand?”

Flynn’s knuckles shone bony white where he
gripped the steering wheel. “You were with her all night.”

Guilt arrowed through Michael. It wasn’t
wrong being with Kylie, but it wasn’t precisely right, either. He
shook off the feeling and reminded himself that none of this was
snot-nosed Flynn’s business. “And what of it?”

“
If—” He swallowed
convulsively. “If you—”

“
If I what?” Michael spat.
“Don’t send your thoughts or your imagination creeping past Kylie
O’Shea’s front door.”

Flynn stared out the front window of his car.
Something primal in his expression, in the way his chest heaved as
though he’d run up the mountain rather than drove, startled
Michael. He’d seen that set of face a dozen times and more in
prison—sometimes in his own mirror. Hatred layered over frenzy, a
murderous rage.

Flynn turned his glare to Michael, then his
hand shot out and grabbed hold of Michael’s jacket. Gerry’s voice
was low, hoarse. The words weren’t coming clearly ... until the
last.

“
If you’ve dirtied her,”
Flynn forced through a clenched jaw, “if you’ve touched her, I’ll
kill you for it. This time, I swear I will.”

This time?
An image—or was it someone’s
half-
memory?—seared Michael’s brain.
Kylie’s cries, and a
sick, seizing panic.

He wrenched out of Flynn’s grasp and
staggered back from the car. An angry buzzing sounded in his ears,
and the metallic taste of shock and anger sat on his tongue. Eyes
half-closed, he tried to draw in a clean breath and find his
bearings. It was still morning, they were still miles from town,
but the landscape had grown confusing, threatening. He looked back
at Flynn.

Gerry gave an inarticulate
cry, jammed his car into
gear, and left.
Gravel spit over the edge of the cliff in his wake.

Michael wiped one shaking hand over his face.
It came away wet with sweat and colder than the mountain water he’d
washed in. Carefully placing each foot, still not really feeling
the ground beneath him, he made his way back to the stream. There,
he sat on the hard earth and fought to calm his roiling gut.

Jesus, was this what Vi felt when she saw or
sensed evil? This icy sickness, this empty, silent scream welling
from somewhere just beneath conscious thought? If so, then God be
with her. He’d rather be struck dead than feel it again.

In time, he worked his way to his feet and
stared at the water as it raced by. His thoughts raced, too. Had
Gerry been with Kylie that night? Had he left her there to suffer?
Michael’s muscles knotted at the unbearable thought. If so, it was
a wonder she’d speak to any man, let alone honor him with her
trust. Impossible. She couldn’t have survived so much, and come out
of the fire so ... pure. So giving.

Michael shook his head, clearing it of the
last of that awful buzzing. Was he sensing a meaning to Gerry’s
words where there was none to be found? He wasn’t Vi, praise the
saints. He didn’t sense, or feel, or whatever the hell it was his
sister did.

Did Gerry and Kylie have
more of a past than Kylie had told him? He might well never know
the truth. Unless she told him willingly, it was none of
his business—even if it was his concern. But if
Flynn
had been there...

Michael looked at his
clenched fists. He was better
off never
knowing. And Flynn was safer that way, too. Much safer.

Kylie allowed herself the
luxury of an extra cup of tea before dressing for work. After
settling at the
kitchen table, she thought
of the night before. She felt
deliriously
tired, and so very pleased with herself. Smug, almost... if that
weren’t such an arrogant thing to be. She smiled at the way she was
cloaking herself in humility when she’d done a smashing fine job of
tossing it into the ashbin last night.

A humble woman wouldn’t have demanded the way
she had, wouldn’t have reveled in the things she and Michael had
done together. A humble woman wouldn’t want to do it all again.
Now.

Kylie looked at her watch, then stood.
Muscles she didn’t even know she owned protested the quick action.
She stretched, slow and easy, happy for the reminder of last
night’s passion. Well, then, she thought in answer to the lingering
ache, perhaps she wouldn’t do it all again this instant, but soon.
Very soon.

She walked to the cluttered kitchen counter.
For never actually having sat down to dinner, Michael and she had
managed to make a very impressive mess. She gave a sorry shake of
her head at the remains of the salad Michael had brought. She’d
been carried away with herself, indeed, to let good food sit out
all night. Pushing aside plates and half-finished glasses of wine,
she came upon an envelope addressed to her.

Kylie opened it and unfolded the note inside.
In a bold, angular scrawl Vi Kilbride had written that she’d
secured the Village Hall for the art festival. Kylie’s smile grew
to a jubilant laugh. It was a fine pleasure, bringing her students
the chance to shine in front of the village. Joy sifted down like
glittering fairy dust upon all of the other pleasures—great and
small, lasting and not—that she’d experienced over the last several
days.

She hummed as she tidied the kitchen, sang as
she made her bed, then buried her nose in the blankets for one last
bit of Michael’s scent. For so long she’d pretended to be
conducting her life out of the shadows, pretended that the
ugliness with her da—and with Gerry—had little bearing on her
present. Perhaps finally now, that game had grown into the
truth.

As she showered, energy seeped back into her
bones and marvelous plans came to her. Why just a children’s art
show? Why not dance and food and celebration? By the time she’d
dried and dressed, she had mentally dissected the affair into
committees, subcommittees and decided whom to approach for what.
She felt as though she could take on the world and win.

Still with a few minutes to
spare, she stopped to share her new plans with Breege, and enlist
her help in prodding the notoriously slow-moving village council
into a quick decision. Standing on Breege’s tidy whitewashed stoop,
Kylie rapped at the door. Her friend’s hearing wasn’t what it had
once been,
though she’d never say that
loudly enough for Breege
to
hear.

After counting to an
ambling, lazy twenty, Kylie
knocked again,
surely loud enough to be heard over
the
jovial noise of Breege’s telly, which yattered away
in the background.

Still, no one came. Kylie
opened the front door just
enough to stick
her head inside.

“
Breege? ... Breege, are you
in there?”

When no one answered, Kylie stepped the rest
of the way in, and made her past the empty sitting room and to the
kitchen at the back of the house. “Breege ... it’s Kylie. Have I
caught you at a bad—”

The rest of her words died,
for Breege Flaherty lay
facedown on the
kitchen floor.

Chapter Sixteen

The health of the men. And
may
the women live forever.

—
Irish Toast

Kylie hated hospitals. She
hated them for their antiseptic smell and for the undercurrent of
distress that eddied through the hallways. She hated them for the
waiting and for the times people she loved had entered, then never
came out. She wasn’t ready
for it to happen
again. But,
Not Breege, please, not
Breege,
was the closest
to a prayer she’d been able to form.