The Last Bride in Ballymuir Read online

  “I won’t be keeping you from ... well, whatever,” she said, trying very hard not to glance Evie’s way. “But I do want to thank you for what you did on the playground today. You’re quite the hero for rescuing Alan ... at least, that’s what the children are saying,” she stumbled on.

  “Thank the children for me.” His green eyes remained perceptive, unclouded by whatever he’d spent his day doing. Maybe she’d been too hasty, assuming he’d drunk more than his share.

  “Would you sit with me a while?” he asked. “Please?”

  A note in his voice—yearning, yet hesitant—tugged at her notoriously soft heart. She was about to say yes when she noticed Evie’s crimson-painted nails possessively curled around his arm. It was too much for her, one more confusing detail in this odd landscape.

  “I’ll leave you to your friend,” Kylie said, then pushed her way back through the crowd and away from Michael Kilbride. As she neared Breege, a hand settled onto her shoulder. Praying it wasn’t Michael, she spun around.

  “We need to have a word, Kylie,” Gerry Flynn said.

  This was all the night needed.

  “Another time,” she answered, then tried to hurry past. He stayed her, keeping his hand wrapped around her upper arm. She was forced to stop and look at him.

  It amazed her how a man could change while his face remained essentially the same. Gerry still had hair that was not quite red, yet not quite blond. His eyes were the same almost-gray they’d always been. What had changed from the boy she’d known was the light that used to dance in those eyes. He’d always been full of laughter and smiles, just a bit of a devil when they’d been in school together. Now he was hard. From the grip of his hand to the set of his mouth, he had no lightness about him.

  “That man—Kilbride—you need to keep away from him.”

  After seeing Michael with Evie, she hadn’t considered doing anything else, but Gerry’s tone angered her. “Are you giving me an order?”

  “More a word of friendly advice.”

  “You’re not looking very friendly this evening, Gerry,” she said as sweetly as she could. “But thank you just the same.”

  His thick brows drew together over eyes carrying an edge of possessiveness that frightened her. “I’m telling you this for your own good. He’s evil, and you don’t want to be dragged down with him.” His fingers closed tighter. “You need someone to take care of you. To watch over you.”

  She wrenched free, but kept a forced smile on her face. “I can take care of myself.”

  Gerry muttered something under his breath and shoved off. As her heart slowed, she wondered what incomprehensible quirk of the human mind allowed Gerry to think she’d ever let him care for her. Not after he’d so thoroughly abandoned her years before.

  Relieved to see that Vi was deep in conversation with others, Kylie sat down on a tall stool next to Breege and waited for her frayed nerves to settle. The music began, slow at first as one musician then the next picked up the tune. She tried to take pleasure from it, but her gaze kept returning to Michael.

  It was no hard thing to spot him now that the crowd had settled. Though people were tight up to each other all the way down the bar, there was a telling gap around him. Even Evie had wandered off somewhere. From her vantage point at an angle from him, Kylie watched as he used the broad mirror to observe the activity around him. A whisper of sorrow touched her soul at the lonely sight.

  Her attention briefly slid back to the musicians. Showing all the concentration of a virtuoso, Breege played a brisk rhythm with a pair of spoons. The music grew more raucous, and even the patrons at the bar turned around to give an ear. All except Michael, Kylie noticed. He still watched through the mirror.

  Gerry Flynn nudged in next to him. When Michael recognized him, he tucked his elbows into his sides and closed himself off, staring down at the ashtray in front of him. Kylie watched as Flynn did the talking, a nasty sneer shaping his lips. Music and laughter prevented her from hearing what Flynn was saying to Michael, yet she knew it was no warm welcome.

  Flynn glanced around surreptitiously, then with one quick brush of his arm, he sent the ashtray and glassware in front of Michael flying across the bar. The music straggled off at the sound of shattering glass and raised voices.

  Incredulous, Kylie watched as Flynn shoved Michael off his stool and sent him sprawling onto the floor. Rory O’Connor rounded the bar and stood over the two of them. Kylie pushed through the crowd with a strength she didn’t know she had.

  “I’ve got him, Rory,” Flynn called up from the floor. Michael lay face down, his arm twisted back and upward at a horrible angle and Flynn’s knee digging in the middle of his back. “I’ve no idea what got into the stupid bastard.”

  Michael didn’t struggle at all. He lay there, passive and silent. Rory nudged Michael with his foot. “You’ll be leaving now, and not coming back.”

  Kylie looked frantically at the circle of faces around her. Surely she wasn’t the only one who’d seen what Flynn had done. Surely someone would step in. Someone else, please God. But almost to a person, they watched the action on the floor with avid and amused interest. All except Vi Kilbride, who gazed at her with a look of calm expectation.

  “Tell them what you know,” her green eyes seemed to say. “Stand up for the man.”

  But she couldn’t. She didn’t dare. Standing up for Michael Kilbride would be branding Gerry Flynn—a representative of the law, for God’s sake—a liar. And it would be attaching her name to Kilbride’s. Pub-brawlers—even those who rescued the occasional child—weren’t the sort of men welcome in the conservative fold of Gaelscoil Pearse. She’d fought so hard for her job, her little corner of this world, and she wouldn’t risk it now.

  Kylie turned and pushed through the crowd.

  Chapter Six

  A Kerry shower is of twenty-four hours.

  —Irish Proverb

  The rain had slowed, and fog hung thick and silvery in the air. Shaken and still feeling lost in her own land, Kylie drove from town. With Vi Kilbride’s disappointed gaze heavy on her, leaving the pub had seemed to take an eternity. She’d had to stop and be certain that Breege’s friend Edna could get her home later in the evening. Breege’s reassuring words that the pub wasn’t usually visited by troublemakers, such as the man Gerry had tossed out, only deepened Kylie’s remorse.

  She had betrayed Michael Kilbride tonight, and if faced with the same choice, she’d do it again. Weak, she was. Weak and selfish, all over a job she couldn’t afford to lose and a reputation she’d sacrificed everything to salvage.

  Dazed, with forbidden tears blurring her vision, she navigated a sharp bend in the road. Suddenly a tall figure loomed a heartbeat ahead. With a panicked cry she swerved hard to the right, waiting for the sickening thump she knew was to come. It never did, though. The little car spun on the slick road, skittered sideways, and stalled out. Other than the rasp of her own terrified panting, she heard only silence. Her mouth dry and coppery-tasting with fear, Kylie rested her forehead against the steering wheel and willed her stomach to stop lurching.

  A sharp rapping sounded beside her head. “Are you all right?”

  She lifted her head and stared incredulously at the face on the other side of the glass. He had a grand way of putting himself in harm’s path, this man. For one incredibly lucid moment thoughts of fate and impossible coincidence whirled through Kylie’s head. Then the heat of anger settled over her.

  Set on giving Michael Kilbride the sharp edge of her tongue, she grabbed the window crank and wrenched it downward. The knob came off in her shaking hand and for an instant she stared at it, nonplussed. Then riding the crest of the adrenaline wave that follows any truly dreadful event, she sprang to action.

  At least the door handle still worked, she thought with a sense of triumph as she flung herself from the car. “What were you thinking? Do you have no common sense, or is it some sort of mad death wish?” She clenched the thick weave of his sweater in two fi
sts and shook him, though she seemed to be the only one moving for the effort. “Walking down the middle of the road like that, I could have killed you, you big, bloody fool!”

  “But you didn’t,” he said closing his hands over hers. His touch was strangely calming, considering he was the one who’d put the fright into her in the first place. “You didn’t,” he repeated. “There’s not a scratch on me. In fact, all things considered, I seem to be doing a far sight better than you are at the moment.” He untangled her fingers from his sweater and gave her hands one last gentle squeeze. “Now let’s get your car set right on the road before some real damage is done tonight.”

  As his words sunk in, guilt consumed Kylie’s anger. The real damage had been done back at O’Connor’s, well before she’d almost mowed him down. The tears that had been forgotten with the scare fought their way loose. She held one knotted fist in front of her mouth and spun away from him.

  “Kylie?”

  Slipping back into her car, she slammed the door without answering. She wanted to be home, to have this wretched night at an end. Fumbling with her keys, she tried to restart the engine, but it wouldn’t even turn over.

  “Hurry... come on,” she urged.

  The car door opened, letting in the bite of the wind and Michael’s low voice. “Kylie?”

  She stared forward into the fog, wishing herself anyplace but here. Broad, strong fingers stroked the side of her face.

  “You’re crying,” he said, surprise in his voice as his palm cupped her wet cheek. “Out.” With a firm yet gentle hand he ushered her out of the car and around to the passenger side.

  “I’ll be doing the driving,” he added before closing her door.

  Overwhelmed, defeated, and knowing that the night hadn’t reached its end, Kylie slumped low in her seat. Michael closed his door and after muttering, “Still in gear,” started the car and turned them back around.

  On the drive home Kylie fervently wished for a handkerchief. Unwanted tears slipped silently down her cheeks, but the sniffling she couldn’t quiet. Outside, the rain picked up again.

  “Would it help to tell me why you’re crying?” Michael asked.

  It was tempting but very wrong to seek solace from her victim. “N-no,” she answered in a hoarse voice. “I’ll be fine in a... in a minute.”

  Kylie caught the movement of his head as he looked her way. “Sure you will.”

  “I don’t do this often, cry like this,” she offered as they pulled up beside her house. “And I don’t do it very well.”

  She heard him mumble something about her sounding like no amateur at crying, either. He switched off the car and came around to open her door, leaving her touched by this bit of gallantry she hadn’t seen practiced in aeons.

  For an awkward moment they stood looking at each other in the pelting rain. “Well, I’ll be leaving,” he said at the same time she began to thank him for seeing her safe home. They both straggled to a stop, Kylie realizing that he now had several miles more to walk in the dark of a wet night.

  “I’ll run you back to town,” she said.

  “Hold out your hands.”

  “What?”

  “Both of them. In front of you, like this.” He held out his own steady hands to show her.

  Kylie copied the action, but hers trembled like a sapling’s leaves in a strong wind. She quickly tucked them behind her back.

  “I’d be safer standing in front of your car again.”

  True, unfortunately. And she knew there was only one thing to be done for it, even if it did step outside the bounds of respectability for the local maiden schoolteacher. She took solace from the fact that, other than Breege, her closest neighbor was over a mile off.

  Tipping her face skyward, she said, “You can’t be walking home in this. Come inside, you can sleep on the couch. I’ll run you back to your sister’s early in the morning—before I go to work.”

  He shifted uncomfortably, whether from the rain or her suggestion, Kylie wasn’t sure. “I can’t be staying here. It’s not right.”

  “And you can’t be walking home, either.” She refused to add being the cause of a case of pneumonia to her night’s sins. When he stubbornly refused to follow her to the front door, she added, “Please, Michael. I’m out of strength to argue with you. Besides, no one will know but us.”

  “Famous last words,” he said.

  She stepped into the house. Her mouth curved into a fleeting smile as she watched him look about for spying eyes before following her. Once they were both inside, for want of anything else to calm her suddenly dancing nerves, Kylie started a kettle on the stove. Michael had slipped off his shoes at the door and laid his soggy sweater over the back of a kitchen chair. His timeworn U2 tee shirt was blotched dark with rain.

  She frowned. “I’ve a few of my father’s clothes stored away. He’s not quite your size, but they should do.”

  Before he could answer, she hurried to her bedroom. There she unearthed some garments from the back of her large wardrobe. She shook out the trousers and gave them an assessing look. Too short to be sure, but Michael was a fit man and Johnny liked his food, so there should be room enough, anyway. She grabbed an extra blanket and pillow, then returned to her guest.

  “Thank you,” he said, accepting the bundle. “You’ve been kind. One of the few tonight who have.”

  Kylie flinched at the unintended sting of his words. Stronger than ever, the need to confess was on her. Faced with either hurting him or being dishonest, she retreated. “I’ll be taking care of myself now,” she said, waving one hand at her wet hair and clothes. “Have an eye to the kettle, if you could.”

  The sounds of comfort, Michael thought as the kettle’s whistle gained his attention. Before that, it had been the music of running water as Kylie showered—just one rickety door sagging loose on its hinges between them. A feast for a starved imagination, the woman on the other side of that door. The imagination and nothing more, he reminded himself. He was beginning to sense his place in this town. It looked to be nose down on the barroom floor, and not at Kylie O’Shea’s side.

  By the time he heard the rusty protest of the shower valves being closed, he’d put together a pot of tea and found a couple of scones to add to the feast he could have. Sitting on the edge of the spring-shot sofa that was to be his bed, Michael waited for Kylie to reappear. His left shoulder still pounded from Flynn’s rough treatment, and his head was beginning to feel the aching effects of the whiskey he’d drunk. One hell of a day it had been, he thought as he absently scrubbed his hand over his eyes.

  When he brought his hand away, she was standing there. Slender bare feet peeked out from beneath a white nightgown covered by a too short blue velvet robe. Though it had seen wear, it looked to have been one fine piece of clothing in its day. Michael pictured a fifteen-year-old Kylie opening a gift box wrapped in beautiful paper while her loving parents looked on. Sitting in front of a grand marble fireplace they would have been, all rich and cozy, no worries at all.

  But no, he thought, shaking off the dream, that was his wish for her. Of the reality, he knew little—just that her father was a cheat, and she now lived poorer than he’d ever imagined a schoolteacher doing. He glanced up at her face, kissed pink from the heat of the shower or perhaps the intimacy of the moment.

  “Tea?” he asked, then at her nod, leaned forward to the low table in front of the couch to pour out a cup. “I’ve borrowed your father’s shirt,” he said, “but the trousers didn’t fit.”

  She perched next to him on the couch. The scents of soap and clean, flowery shampoo wafted his way.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” she said, her words rushed and anxious.

  Michael briefly tried to imagine what sort of confession could come from a woman who looked so pure and perfect, her damp hair pulled back into a schoolgirl’s thick braid.

  She looked down at her hands clenched together in her lap. “I saw tonight. I saw what Gerry Flynn did to you, blami
ng you like that, and I did nothing.”

  He paused, swallowing this bit of information. He’d rather she thought him a brawler than weak. And he’d die before accepting her pity.

  “I should have done something, stopped him somehow,” she said.

  He tried for a light tone. “Just what would you have done, collared him and dragged him to the door, with him twice your size?”

  “No,” she answered fiercely. “I should have defended you, told Rory O’Connor what Gerry did.” Her chin went out a notch. “I’ll do that. I’ll tell Rory tomorrow.”

  “You’ll not,” he said, working to control his embarrassment and anger. Anger at his circumstances, not at Kylie. Never that. He took one of her hands in his, tracing her delicate bones. “This is my matter to settle, and in my own way.”

  “That’s the thing of it... It’s not just your matter. Gerry went after you because of me,” she said, holding one hand to her heart. “I feel terrible for having drawn you into this. He’s had this—this obsession with me for years. When he turned on you, I should have stopped him, but I was too afraid of what the others might think of me. It was selfish, and I’m sorry.”

  She hadn’t cornered the market on selfish. Michael kept silent about Flynn’s other motives for giving him a hard time. “You’re worrying yourself over nothing, a bad moment and no more. I don’t want you to defend me, Kylie. I don’t care what they think” He paused, looking at the beauty before him. “But you, has no one ever stood as your hero? Has no one defended you?”

  Her blue eyes went wide and dark, and a sheen of moisture came over them. He could have drowned in her softness.

  “I—” She started to speak, then trailed off as she looked down at his hand still wrapped around hers. “There are no real heroes anymore,” she said in a near whisper.

  “Do you believe that? Really?”

  She nodded, her eyes meeting his. “I do. It’s easier that way.”