Chapter Two
Deirdre
Deirdre pressed the pedal and said a prayer to Saint Monica for patience.
Her youngest was hollering bloody murder at the top of her lungs -clearly in a battle of wills with her older brother.
Deidre needed to finish sewing on the sleeve that had already thwarted her three times before she set down her work.
The boarders would be back soon, and she needed to get supper started.
When the stitching finally lined up she breathed a sigh of relief and bit off the thread.
She’d just shut the door behind her when Mary Katherine’s plaintive wail echoed through the house.
It was no easy feat, because Deirdre had scraped together every last coin she owned, plus the hush money the mine had paid her after Patrick’s death, to buy the four bedroom house.
She’d bought it with the specific intention of letting rooms. She hadn’t had the resources to do anything other than plant a row of sweet pea along the south side of the house.
The grassy expanse at the back was enough to keep the children occupied and she planned on planting some oak trees for shade next spring.
None of those plans would come to fruition, however, if Mary Kate and Jamie couldn’t stay out of mischief long enough for her to finish the fine work she’d taken on for extra cash.
When Deirdre rounded the corner into the kitchen it was to find both of them perched precariously on the backs of ladderback chairs.
Jamie was stretched on his tiptoes, his fingertips nearly touching the jar of biscuits she’d stowed on the top shelf.
Mary Kate was tugging on his shirt, red-faced and demanding at the top of her lungs that he get down.
Deirdre was on the brink of interrupting them when Jamie lost the battle with gravity.
Both children went tumbling to the floor and Mary Kate immediately burst into tears. Jamie’s face was scrunched and his arm was bent at an awkward angle. As Deirdre rushed forward, he began caterwauling too.
“I should tan your hide into next Tuesday for this stunt,” she admonished.
“Mam, it hurts.”
She crouched beside him and carefully examined his arm. “I think it’s broken, boyo. We’ll need to visit the good doctor.”
After she righted them, she stood and held out her hands. “Come, it’s only a short walk.”
“Mammy, it’s wet,” Mary Kate protested.
“We’ll be fine. It’s only just around the corner.”
She bundled them into their coats, scarves, hats and mittens and after she’d left a note on the door for her boarders, they set off.
Both children were attached to her as if they’d just left the womb when Cass Trenton came around the corner whistling a jaunty tune. She thought her eyes surely deceived her.
“I didn’t know you were back.” Deirdre wished she was renewing their acquaintance under better circumstances.
Her soaked, bedraggled skirts clung to her legs and her children had wound themselves up in them.
Before she’d set her daughter down again, kicking feet had marked her bodice with dirty bootprints.
“I returned last night.”
Deirdre closed her eyes at the sound of his voice - as familiar as the sound of her own. A reminder of heartbreak and sacrifice. She opened them to his gaze scanning her so hungrily she felt like a mouse with its tail pinned beneath the paw of a cat.
“Who’s this you’re dragging about?” He asked as he squatted in the middle of the muddy street to peer more closely at her children.
Deirdre gently nudged her son and daughter forward. “My youngest, Mary Kate, and my eldest, James Aloysius. He took a tumble in the kitchen and I fear he’s broken his arm.”
“And my arm hurts too,” Mary Kate piped up.
Cass’s eyes flicked to hers. “Is Doctor Hampton your destination?”
She nodded.
“He’s not there. He just stitched me up,” his hand grazed the red line on his cheek she’d failed to notice. “He’s closed the office for the day because he said he had a dinner engagement he couldn’t afford to miss.”
Deirdre sighed. He hadn’t volunteered any information regarding the gash on his cheek, and knowing his tempestuous relationship with his father, she was afraid asking about it might stir up a hornet’s nest. “Well that leaves me in somewhat of a quandary.”
Cass rose to his feet. “I learned some things out west. Sawbones weren’t always keen on hanging their shingles in mining towns. Too rough and tumble for them. Maybe I can set it?”
As her stomach roiled, her eyes searched his. Should she trust him? He’d left without a word seven years ago - before she could tell him she was carrying his child.
It had been early in her pregnancy, and Patrick O’Shaugnessy hadn’t minded wedding her and claiming James as his own. Thank goodness her eldest took after her in coloring and complexion- he was nothing but a bundle of fiery hair and freckles. It erased the need for explanations both then and now.
Cass Trenton’s knight in shining armor offer seemed earnest and there was a certain irony to the situation.
When she’d needed him most, he was nowhere to be found.
Good Irish Catholic girls didn’t get knocked up, and rather than risk the shame of waiting for him to return, she’d accepted Patrick’s proposal.
He’d been pursuing her for months, whenever he was home from the mines, but she’d only had eyes for the man now standing across from her. Until he abandoned her.
He’d abandoned her.
The reminder felt like an ice pick to her heart.
Deirdre doubted Cassius Trenton had thought of her at all in the last seven years.
“You didn’t even say goodbye.” As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to take them back. She sounded too bitter. Too desperate. Like she’d been languishing in the same spot since the day he left.
“If I’d said goodbye, I wouldn’t have left,” he said as he pushed his cap from his forehead and raked his hair in agitation. “And I needed to leave.”
“Mam,” Mary Kate tugged on her skirts. “Do you know him?”
“Yes, poppet,” Cass answered. “Your mam and I have known each other since we were about your age.”
Mary Kate’s eyes went as wide as saucers. “You knew Mam when she was little like me?”
Deirdre frowned. She couldn’t afford for her daughter to become fascinated by Cassius Trenton - one broken heart in the O’Shaugnessy family because of his carelessness was enough. “It’s rude to ask Mr. Trenton so many questions.”
He gave her an amused look and inclined his head toward Mary Kate. “Well, little miss, it seems your mother is in a great hurry to be on her way.”
Deirdre frowned. “As a matter of fact, I am.”
James whimpered at her side, as if emphasizing the urgency of the situation.
Cass doffed his cap and swept into an extravagant bow. “As I said, I’m at your service.”
“I’m only considering it because I need the help and I have no other choice,” Deirdre said through gritted teeth.The last thing she wanted was to be indebted to him. Especially since she didn’t know where he’d been or why he’d returned.
“I won’t linger,” he reassured her. “I see my absence hasn’t made your heart fonder.”
His mouth quirked in a wry grin that just made her angrier. That grin seemed to imply that her anger was irrational, that their separation hadn’t cut her like a knife.
“You’ve been gone for seven years. That’s more than absence - that’s abandonment.”
“Wildflower,” his voice was rough and she closed her eyes to steel herself against the way those three syllables reminded her of the last time he’d said them. When he’d proposed.
“Let me help,” he insisted as his fingers stroked her elbow through the fabric of her muddy dress.
It’s only appropriate for him to help care for his son, her subconscious chided. Though James physically resembled her, he was all Cass in his temperament and daring.
“Fine. You may follow us.”
She heard his heavy sigh as she grabbed both children’s hands and whirled about.
Snow began falling when they were half a block from their destination, and their pace slowed as the cobbled sidewalk became less navigable.
“I’ll take the boy, you take the little one,” he said as he came abreast of them and scooped James up, gently cupping his broken arm.
Deirdre was too tired and too overwhelmed to protest his chivalry. The children’s steps were lagging, and if he carried James, she was that much closer to being rid of the reminder of her youthful heartbreak and folly.
When their ragtag company got to her doorstep, she retrieved the key from the pocket of her cape and unlocked the door with a flourish. “Take him to the bedroom on the right,” Deirdre told Cass as she pointed.
He obediently set off in that direction, and she searched the cupboard for something to use as a sling. After what felt like an eternity of fruitless searching, she grabbed one of her spare aprons from the hook by the door.
“Now, lad, you’ll need to bite down on this while I set your arm. It will hurt, but only for a moment.”
As Deirdre crossed the threshold, she saw Cass had handed her son a piece of half-whittled wood. James was clamping his teeth down on it as she took the sewing scissors from her pocket and cut the apron into one large piece of cotton.
“We can use this for his sling,” she said.
“I want a sling, too, Mam. And a piece of wood!” Mary Kate whined.
Before Deirdre had the chance to reprimand her for pouting, Cass set his hand on the crown of her head. “I don’t think your arm’s broken, Imp, but I’ll whittle you something of your own once your brother’s taken care of.”
She nodded solemnly, eyes shining.
For the second time in less than an hour, Deirdre rued her former lover’s ineffable charm. “Don’t encourage her,” she hissed under her breath as she made her way to his side.
“I can’t resist,” he said. “She’s the spitting image of you at that age.”
Deirdre merely rolled her eyes. “Then you should be tormenting her instead of indulging her. Because that was how you treated me until I turned sixteen.”
“What is it they say about tormenting the ones we love the most?” His eyes sparkled, but his tone was sincere.
“I wouldn’t know,” she primly replied as she turned to her son.
“Now, boyo, I’m going to hold you still so Mr. Trenton can properly set your arm. If you’re quiet, and keep the stick between your teeth, there’ll be apple tarts for dessert.”
Apple tarts were her son’s favorite, and she wasn’t above bribery to achieve her ends.
“Am I invited for dinner?” Cass asked.
“My mother would say it’s the least I can do.”
“Hmmm,” he murmured as he tapped his chin. “That wasn’t a yes.”
“It was a perhaps. You’ve yet to demonstrate your proficiency at bone-setting.”
As if to refute her claim, he lifted James’s arm in the air, his long fingers feeling for the location of the break. When he found it, he wrenched her son’s arm in a sudden movement.
James winced. “Ouch! That hurts like the dickens,” he said as he pulled the piece of wood from his mouth.
“I’m all finished lad, we just need to tie the sling around it so you can heal.”
Deirdre set his arm in the fabric and looped it around his neck. “I’d be remiss if I didn’t reward you for your ministrations. You may stay for dinner,” she addressed Cass as she knotted the fabric.
He sketched a bow. “You learned to cook from Brigid Flaherty, so it will not be a hardship.”
“My boarders will be back soon, so I must finish preparing the table. You may keep yourself entertained in the parlor until it’s ready.”
Mary Kate grabbed his hand. “Can you make me a stick while we wait?”
Cass pulled a piece of wood from the pocket of his overcoat. “I just happen to have everything I need, so yes, I’ll carve you one just like your brother’s while we wait.”
Deirdre held in her laughter as her daughter scrunched her face into a frown.
“I want mine, not his.”
“Understood, Miss Mary Kate. Let us adjourn to the parlor so I can follow your instructions.”
Deirdre watched them go, Cass obediently following where her daughter led. For a brief moment, as she gazed after them, she let herself wonder what would have happened if he’d known. If he’d stayed.