Chapter Two #4
“I remember Father Finnegan telling me after it happened that it was God’s will, and thinking to myself that it didn’t seem right. It still doesn’t.” She sighed and looked up at him. “I’ll never be able to figure it out, will I?”
“No.” He took her hand in his. There was a part of him that wanted to gather her up and take her away from the grief. And a part of him that understood she’d been strong enough to deal with it years before they’d even met. “I wish I’d known them.”
“They’d have loved you.” She let the tears come, but smiled with them. “And the children. They’d have fussed over the children, spoiled them. More than Hannah does. It comforts me that they’re together. I believe that, you know. But it’s painful that they missed knowing you and the babies.”
“Don’t cry, Momma.” Keeley slipped a hand into Adelia’s. “Look, I made a flower. Burke showed me. He said they’d like it even though they’re in heaven.”
Dee looked at the little wreath fashioned of twigs and wild grass. “It’s lovely. Let’s put it right in the middle, like this.” Bending, she placed it between the graves. “Aye, I’m sure they’ll like this.”
What a strange man he was, Erin thought as she sat beside Burke in the van and listened to Brendon’s chattering.
She’d seen him sit in the grass and twine twigs together for Keeley.
Though she’d kept herself distant enough that she hadn’t heard what he’d said, she’d been aware that the girl had listened attentively and had looked at him with absolute trust.
He didn’t seem to be a man to inspire trust.
She knew the road that led to the farm that had been the Cunnanes’.
She remembered Dee’s parents only as the vaguest of shadows, but she did remember Lettie Cunnane well, the aunt Dee had lived with when she’d been orphaned.
She’d been a tough, stern-faced woman, and because of her Erin had kept her visits to the farm few and far between.
That was behind them now, she reminded herself as she gestured toward the window for Brendon.
“You see, just over this hill is where your mother grew up.”
“On a farm,” he said knowledgeably. The patches of green pasture and yellow gorse meant little to him. “We have a farm. The best one in Maryland.” He grinned at Burke as if it was an old joke.
“It’ll still be the second best when I’m finished,” Burke answered, willing to rise to the bait.
“Royal Meadows has been around for gener… gener…”
“Generations,” Burke supplied.
“Yeah. And you’re still wet behind the ears ’cause Uncle Paddy said so.”
“Brendon Patrick Grant.” It was all the warning Hannah had to give. She turned her stern eye on Burke. “And you should know better than to encourage him.”
Burke merely grinned and tousled the boy’s hair. “Doesn’t take much.”
“Burke won his farm in a poker game,” Brendon supplied as the van shuddered to a halt. “He’s teaching me to play.”
“That’s so when Royal Meadows belongs to you, I can win that, too.” He pushed open the sliding door, then grabbed the giggling boy around the waist.
“Did he really?” Erin asked in an undertone as Hannah took Keeley’s hand. “Win his horse farm gambling?”
“So I’m told.” Hannah stepped a bit wearily out of the van. “Rumor is he’s lost and won more than that.” She glanced over as Burke settled Brendon on his shoulders. “It’s hard to hold it against him.”
She wouldn’t, Erin thought as she joined the others. She was too Irish to turn her nose up at a gambler, especially a successful one. Trailing behind Dee, she looked over the rise to the farm below.
It hadn’t changed much, not in her memory.
Oh, the milking parlor was new, and a fresh coat of paint had been slapped on the barn a year or so before.
It was the only farm in sight. To the east, the hills rose up and blocked the view.
The vegetable garden was already tilled and planted, and a smattering of the dairy cows could be seen in the strip of pasture.
There was smoke spiraling out of the chimney of the little stone cottage, which was a great deal like her own.
The good, rich smell of peat carried on the wind.
“The Sweeneys are a nice family,” she said at length because her cousin stared down so long without speaking. “I know they wouldn’t mind if you wanted to go down and look about.”
“No.” She said it too quickly, then softened the refusal with a touch of her hand.
“I don’t mind looking from here.” The truth was she couldn’t bear to go any closer to what had been and was no longer her own.
“Do you remember, Erin, when Aunt Lettie was so sick and you and your mother came visiting?”
“Yes, you gave Ma one of the roses from the bush there.” The bush had been her mother’s, Erin remembered, and she linked her fingers briefly with Dee’s. “The roses still bloom every summer.”
She smiled at that. “Such a little place. Smaller now than even I remember. Look, Keeley, see that window there.” She crouched down to show her daughter. “That was my room when I was your age.”
Adelia stood again. There was only her and Travis now as the others strolled down the side of the road. “Dee, I’ve told you before, you can have it back if you want. We can make the Sweeneys a good offer for it.”
She continued to look down, remembering. Then, with a little sigh, she slipped an arm around Travis’s waist. “You know, when I left here all those years ago, I thought I’d lost everything.” She tilted her head back and kissed him. “I was wrong. Let’s walk a little ways. It’s such a beautiful day.”
Erin watched them. There was a small meadow that was green now but would be choked with wildflowers in only a matter of weeks. She heard Burke behind her and spoke without thinking.
“If I were to go, to leave here and find something else, I’d never look back.”
“If you don’t look over your shoulder once in a while, things catch up with you faster than you think.”
“I don’t understand you.” She turned, and her hair fluttered around her face and shoulders, free of bonds. “One minute you sound like a man without any roots at all, and the next you sound as though you’ve just transplanted them where it’s convenient.”
“But not too deep.” He caught the ends of her hair in his fingers.
He was becoming more and more fascinated by it.
It wasn’t silk; it was too wild and untamed for silk.
“Maybe that’s the trick, Irish, not letting them sink too deep.
You can yank yours up because you’ll damn well strangle if you don’t, but you’ll take some of this with you. ”
He reached down and took up a handful of soil. “Seems like a good enough base.”
“And what’s yours?”
He looked down at the rich dirt in his hand. “Have you ever seen the sand in the desert, Irish? No, no, you haven’t. It’s thin. It’ll slip right out of your hands, no matter how hard you hold on to it.”
“Grains of sand have a habit of clinging to the skin.”
“And are easily brushed away.” He glanced around as Brady let out a squeal of laughter at a gull that had glided in from the sea.
“Why did you kiss me before?” She hadn’t wanted to ask. Rather, she hadn’t wanted him to know it mattered. He smiled at her again, slowly, with the amusement only a hint in his eyes.
“A woman should never wonder why a man kisses her.”
Annoyed with herself, she shrugged and turned away. “It wasn’t a proper one, anyway.”
“You want a proper one?”
“No.” She continued to walk, but the devil on her shoulder took over. She glanced around, a half smile on her face. “I’ll let you know when I do.”