The Last Bride in Ballymuir Read online

  “She’s a chef—runs Muir House, a fine new restaurant.”

  Now that gained his interest. Michael walked over to the article, skimming it while half-listening to his sister. An undiscovered gem run by a dynamic young American, the article said.

  “She’s needing a bit of help.”

  “I can’t do much more than boil water.”

  He glanced up to see his sister pacing the room. “She’d not let you into her kitchen, anyway,” Vi said. “But she needs a carpenter. The bloody house is falling down around her ears.”

  Food aplenty and carpentry to be done. Also enough to keep putting one foot in front of the other, Michael thought. Enough for now, at least.

  “Stop out to Muir House this afternoon,” Vi said. “I’ll tell Jenna you’re coming. Oh, and straightaway you need to see Padraig, the silversmith two doors down. He has a car he’s looking to sell. But go easy on him for price. He’s got no head for business.”

  Turning heel, Michael escaped before more orders could be thrown his way. He’d swallowed quite enough for one day.

  Gazing longingly at the imported tomatoes—too dear when out of season—Kylie didn’t even see Evie Nolan approaching her in the narrow aisle of Spillane’s. And if she had, Kylie thought as Evie sidled closer, she’d have run screaming from the store.

  Evie flashed sharp teeth in what Kylie supposed was to be taken as a friendly smile. She took it more as being sized up for the kill. From that long-ago day Kylie had arrived in town, a lonely thirteen-year-old who’d just lost her mother, Evie had tormented her. And taken pleasure from it, too.

  “Near miss we both had last night, wasn’t it?” Evie said in a chipper voice, tugging the vee of her dress back into the range of merely slatternly.

  Patience, Kylie schooled herself. Patience and kindness, even if it bloody well killed her. “What are you talking about?’’

  “You know—that Michael Kilbride. It surprised me at first hearing about him, but then I got to thinking about that sister of his. She’s always been an odd one, too, with those clothes she wears and that trash she makes. Sometimes a whole family just runs bad, if you know what I mean.” Her eyes widened with feigned embarrassment. “Not that I’m saying anything about yours, of course.”

  “Of course,” Kylie echoed with precisely the same amount of sincerity. “Now what is it you’re trying to tell me about Michael Kilbride, or am I to guess?”

  “You don’t know? Left early last night, did you? It was all over O’Connor’s.” She leaned closer as if about to tell a secret, but raised her voice. “That Kilbride’s an escaped prisoner. From the North,” she added in dire tones.

  Kylie just barely stopped from rolling her eyes. “Evie, did you see Gerry Flynn in the pub last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s with the Gardai, isn’t he?”

  “Of course he is,” Evie snapped. “But what has that to do with Kilbride?”

  “If Michael were truly escaped from the North, don’t you think Flynn might have detained him?”

  “Oh.” Kylie bit back a smile as she watched the air go out of the overpainted Miss Nolan. But malice had always sprung eternal in Evie’s heart. “Perhaps Gerry’s just waiting for some help. They say Kilbride’s a dangerous man—blew up an army barracks outside of Derry, with plenty killed.”

  Mr. Spillane came around the laundry soap to stand by them. “I heard it was a pub in Belfast.”

  “Could it be both, do you think?” Evie asked, sounding far closer to aroused than repelled.

  Kylie kept her voice level. It wasn’t easy, not with her heart grinding to a stop and her stomach churning. Talk came loose and free, but not without some seed of truth. “Knowing how word grows in this town, I’d say he once crossed a street against the light.”

  “But Flynn was telling everyone—” Mr. Spillane began.

  Kylie could take no more. “The same Flynn who didn’t arrest him?”

  Mr. Spillane gave her a paternal pat on the shoulder. Ironic, since that wasn’t quite the same kindly attitude he’d shown when he’d demanded that she pay back the thousands he’d invested in her father’s scheme.

  “Now Kylie, with your da in prison and all, I’m thinking that you need some guidance, so I’ll say what Johnny would if he’d seen you this morning. Michael Kilbride is a bad man, not at all the one for you. But that young Gerry Flynn has been sweet on you for as long as I can remember. And just the other day, Breege Flaherty was saying how she’s worried you’ll be the last bride in Ballymuir. Gerry’s the sort you need, and you should be starting a family soon, the way you love the young ones.”

  It hurt to smile when all she really wanted to do was stamp her foot down on his scuffed black shoe as hard as she could.

  “Thank you for your concern Mr. Spillane, but Michael Kilbride is just an acquaintance.” She glanced at her watch and feigned surprise. “Oh, my, look at the time. I’d promised to run Breege home ages ago.” She made good on her escape.

  Evie, of course, was hot on her heels. They’d both just reached the sidewalk when she started in. “So you were with Kilbride this morning? Must have been early, what with the time you start work.”

  Kylie drew to a halt. Lying to Evie Nolan didn’t seem such a big sin. “I saw him on the road to town, and offered him a lift.”

  “From out your way? Strange, since his sister lives in the other direction.” She paused, rubbing her hands up and down plump arms. “I wonder what he might have been doing?”

  “I drove the man to town, Evie. I didn’t interrogate him!”

  “Maybe you should have. But then maybe you know him better than you’re letting on. Much better.”

  Kylie resorted to the last bit of protection she owned: her saintly image in town. “Do I look the sort of woman to take up with a man like Michael Kilbride? Putting aside these absurd stories of yours, would a man of his looks waste a moment on a schoolteacher like me?”

  Evie assessed her with knowing eyes. “It seems to me you might be exactly his type. He was friendly enough with you in the pub last night.”

  “And with you,” Kylie shot back. “You should be more concerned with preserving your own reputation. Such as it is” she added, wincing as the costly words escaped.

  Evie let out a long hiss, turned heel, and left. Standing on the empty walk, Kylie knew she would pay dearly for this.

  Kindness and patience. Was it such a lot to ask of herself, and of this town?

  She was beginning to think it was.

  Chapter Eight

  Taste it and you will get a desire for it.

  —Irish Proverb

  It wasn’t bad, going back to life as it had been before Michael Kilbride came blazing over the horizon, Kylie decided; it was bloody awful. Three weeks, and she’d not heard a word from him. Three weeks, and she was ready to do the unthinkable and hunt him down—her reputation be damned. And it would be, based on the whispers and worse in town. Just yesterday she’d caught Mr. Clancy from the hardware store ripping down the flyers Michael had posted on the lightposts around town, offering handyman services. When she’d asked him what he was doing, he’d said he was keeping the place tidy. He hadn’t been very pleased when she’d pointed out that he’d left plenty of flyers from other people behind. According to Mr. Clancy, thieving, murderous bastards deserved no home in Ballymuir.

  Even if she taught at a school less stringent than Gaelscoil Pearse, she’d still be risking a lot to associate with a reputed killer.

  Kylie sighed and continued polishing her tiny bit of kitchen counter with a towel. As she realized what she was doing, her mouth crooked into a half-humorous smile. Cleaning had become her Saturday ritual, and the house was already as orderly as a nun’s quarters. Her life, too. Orderly and dull. Before, that had been the way she wanted it. Dullness had been an antidote for the horrible part of her life when she’d felt too much, and hurt too much.

  Now, though, she knew at least part of what she was missing.
The heart-stopping whirl of nerves and excitement that the sight of Michael brought was indelibly imprinted upon her soul. And the rest—to know what it would feel like to have her limbs tangled with his—God help her, as frightening as she found the idea, she was beginning to think about that, too. What she didn’t know was whether he thought of her at all.

  With a wordless sound of self-reproach, she tossed aside the towel and began to pace in front of her cold hearth. Pride and that damned caution, they kept her from calling him, kept her from asking his sister about him. They didn’t keep her from sleepless nights, though, or from making a futile search of the crowd at Mass each Sunday.

  It was as if Michael had been erased from everyplace but her thoughts. There, and in the town’s wild stories of murder and mayhem. For all the tales, each more blood-curdling than the last, she couldn’t forget him, or believe he was evil. Those few souls she felt sure enough about to ask a few discreet questions had known nothing of his past. And the night he’d slept on her couch, he’d been willing enough to talk about his childhood with Vi, but had said nothing of his adult years.

  She couldn’t forget him, but it seemed he had forgotten her. So she would learn to let go, and accept it again, this dull life of hers. And she would be thankful for what she had.

  Grasping for a bit of inspiration, she settled on the empty time she now had to finish righting her father’s wrongs. That was the true sting of Mr. Spillane’s demand for repayment; she would have done it anyway. The ledger would never be wiped clean, but she would be satisfied that she’d accomplished what she could. Over five years Johnny had been gone, and too soon he’d be a free man.

  Free to return and foul her life again.

  Kylie repressed a shudder. Father Cready once told her that God never gave more troubles than a soul could bear. In this instance she sincerely hoped the Divine Being might reconsider the nature of her burdens and give Johnny an overwhelming longing to live in Sligo, or better yet, even further north in Donegal.

  She’d fought hard for her tentative place in Ballymuir—sometimes more tolerated than embraced. If that was all she was to have, she’d cling to it till the bitter end.

  The phone rang, the sound as startling to Kylie as if a flock of tropical birds had perched outside and begun to chatter. Pausing a moment to smooth her hair, then shaking her head at the odd impulse, she lifted the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “Kylie, Vi Kilbride here. It’s time we met on our arts project.” All business Vi was, brisk and chilly as a hard wind curling off the mountains.

  “That would be fine. Your gallery today?”

  “No, I’ve appointments elsewhere. Meet me at Muir House for tea this afternoon. Do you know where the place is?”

  “The one run by the American girl—out Slea Head Road,” Kylie answered automatically, still half-waiting for a “please” or other evidence of courtesy from Vi. Not that she deserved it. Vi saw her for what she had been that night at the pub—a coward.

  “Muir House then,” Vi said before hanging up.

  “Well, the food should be good even if the company will need some warming,” Kylie replied to no one at all.

  Just after four, Kylie pulled down the narrow lane to Muir House. Even on a dreary afternoon, the house was a dignified, if down-at-the-heels, sight. Noting that there were only three other cars, Kylie pulled into the gravel lot and parked.

  She gingerly walked the rain-slick path, then climbed the steps to the front door. She was about to pull it open when she saw the small placard bearing Muir House’s hours. Saturday tea in the last days of February wasn’t among them. That, at least, accounted for the slow business. She paused, wondering whether Vi Kilbride had sent her on a fool’s errand, or if perhaps she’d misheard her. Not that there was much chance of mistaking Vi’s bluntly issued orders.

  Working up her courage, Kylie pushed the buzzer. Nothing happened. She tapped the button more heavily. Still nothing.

  “Broken,” she murmured, and somehow wasn’t surprised. She reached up for the large cast-bronze door knocker. Enough to wake the dead, that was.

  Nose pressed to the glass beside the door, she watched as booted feet came down the sweeping staircase and a man rounded into view. Her breath came out in a sharp puff of shock, delight, and sheer nerves as she realized that Michael Kilbride had trapped her in his deep-green gaze.

  The door swung open.

  Only a man like Michael Kilbride wouldn’t look out of place wearing faded work clothes in the midst of the rich wood-paneled walls and faded splendor of the front hall. She knew a moment’s urge to fling herself into his arms.

  “So you’ve taken a job as butler?” she asked, and was rewarded by a slight twitch of the mouth she chose to take for a smile.

  “I’m here to meet your sister.... Vi,” she added when he still said nothing.

  The corners of his mouth turned upward into a real smile. “I’ve only one sister.”

  Kylie fought for composure instead of blurting out how bloody much she’d missed him. “Tea, we were to meet for tea.”

  “I haven’t seen her.” He gave a disgusted snort. “No doubt she got caught up in one of her projects. Probably off counting the scales on fairy wings or some other such nonsense.” He looked at her, and the warmth of his expression kindled a fire deep inside her.

  “Perhaps I could step in and wait,” she suggested.

  “Of course,” he said with a slight wince at his bad manners. “I’m sorry to leave you standing here.” Then he moved scarcely enough to let her through. It took only the brush of her woolen coat against his side to send a tingle chasing to her fingertips.

  Michael closed the door. “You’re looking well... beautiful, in fact.”

  “Thank you.” If she weren’t so utterly thrilled by his compliment, she would have been laughing at the way they were dancing so carefully around one another. Perhaps if they focused on something other than themselves, they’d make it out of the front hallway.

  Kylie looked around. “It smells glorious in here,” she said with an appreciative sniff. “Almost as I’d imagined it, clean and full of spices simmering, and—” She trailed off at his bemused look.

  “You’d imagined how the place smelled?”

  “I do that,” she murmured while she busied herself with her coat’s fat buttons. “Don’t you?”

  Gesturing at the ridge of an old break running across the bridge of his nose, he said, “I’ve been spoiled for that sort of thing.” He brushed at some dust clinging to his sleeves. “Well, you smell the spices because the owner’s at work in the kitchen. Never leaves the place. She probably won’t even notice when the rest of it falls down around her.”

  As he spoke, Michael turned and started down a wide hallway. Not knowing what else to do, she followed. “And the clean,” he said over his shoulder, “that goes only as far as the restorations. You’d be smelling something else entirely on the second floor.”

  “Restorations—is that why you’re here?”

  ‘‘Well, it’s not to cook.” He stepped into a library filled with volumes of books and framed photographs. “You can wait here. I’ll have a word with Jenna and see if she’s heard anything from that fly-about sister of mine.”

  After Michael left, Kylie dropped her coat over the back of a chair, then settled onto a couch by the fireplace, where peat glowed orange and red and smelled like the comfort of home. Not any home she’d ever had, though. Certainly her father’s opulent tribute to poor taste—sold off to satisfy bilked investors—hadn’t been this welcoming.

  Not letting herself consider the coincidence—or plan—that had landed her in the same house as Michael Kilbride, she gazed at the fire, feeling her lids grow heavy and her mind calm.

  “Vi rang Jenna just a few minutes ago and asked that she make you at home.” Michael’s voice closed in on her as he drew near. She glanced up to see him holding a tray. “She wanted me to bring you tea. She’s busy wrestling with some grand, puff
y affair.”

  “A soufflé,” Kylie said.

  “You know about them?”

  “Enough not to try to make one.” She laughed at his poorly hidden look of relief. Tugging a low table closer to the couch, she motioned for him to set the tray down. “Do you think you could join me for a while? We’ve left matters, er, open between us.” She could feel her color rising as she spoke, but it was too tempting, having him here, not to ask.

  “I suppose we have.” He sat on the edge of the sofa and somehow managed not to look ridiculous though he was far too tall for the low, old-fashioned piece.

  “You haven’t been around town,” she began.

  “No, but I’m sure the stories have.”

  “I want to ask you something, and since I’m really little more than a stranger to you, you’ve every right to turn me down.” She gathered her courage. “Will you tell me about yourself, where you were just before you came to Ballymuir? In town, they say that you’ve done everything but cast spells to make the sheep barren. And I’m expecting to hear that no later than next week.”

  Silent, he stared down at his hands—an artist’s hands, Kylie thought, for all their rough skin, nicks, and scars. She shook off the fanciful image. It was Vi who was the artist. And Michael, she had no idea at all what he might be. Farmer. Businessman. Lover. Killer.

  “It’s not something to tell over tea,” he said.

  The need to know who he was, and what he had been, was as basic and insistent as the need to breathe. “Then tomorrow after Mass. I’ll meet you out front of the church and we can—”

  “I won’t be attending.”

  Kylie leaned back against the sofa’s soft cushions. “I see. I’ve asked too much, haven’t I?”

  “I’d guess in your entire life you’ve asked for too little. And now you start asking, here ... with me.” He gave a weary shake of his head. “I don’t have the heart to turn you down, Kylie O’Shea. One ‘please’ one look from those beautiful eyes of yours and I’m a lost man. I’ll come to your house tomorrow evening, if you’ll have me, and tell you then.”