Chapter Four
Deirdre
“Ooh!” Deirdre fumed as she stamped her foot. “That man!”
He was just as infuriating and enigmatic as he’d always been.
“Look what he made me, mam,” Mary Kate interrupted with a tug on her apron.
Her daughter was holding up a piece of burled oak. Cass had carved it into a fairy, with a piquant little face, dainty feet and wings that looked like a butterfly’s. It was so lovely it made her heart ache.
And that made her resent his sudden intrusion into her life again even more. She’d been over him - had only thought of him on fleeting occasions. She’d made peace with his absence and the wounds he’d left behind. Wounds she’d convinced herself were scarred over.
“She’s lovely,” Deirdre admitted.
“Can she sleep under my pillow? Mr. Cashus said she’d keep the monsters away.”
Deirdre crouched in front of her daughter and folded her into a hug. “There aren’t any monsters, remember Poppet?”
“There are, Mam. The fire monsters took Da away from us. And there are lions and bears.”
“Your Da died in a mining accident, not because of monsters. And lions and bears are wild animals - not monsters.”
“I want her to protect me.”
“You can sleep with her under your pillow, but there’s no such thing as monsters.” She scooped her daughter into her arms. “Are you ready for bed?”
Mary Kate yawned and rubbed her eyes before laying her head on Deirdre’s shoulder. “Mmm-hmm,” she mumbled.
“Let’s set out the apple tarts for Mr. Edmonds and Mr. Gilchrist and then I’ll sing you to sleep.”
She perched her daughter on her hip and made her way to the kitchen to retrieve dessert.
After scooping the tarts into a basket she set them between the two men. “Help yourselves, gentlemen. I must see that this one finds her bed.”
Mr. Edmonds leaned back, so his chair was tilted on two legs. He groaned and rubbed his stomach. “The roast chicken and potatoes was excellent, Mrs. O’Shaugnessy. I don’t know if there’s any space left for dessert.”
“I’m full as a stuffed turkey,” Gilchrist chimed in.
“I’ll leave this here. Whatever you decide you can’t eat will keep until tomorrow. I bid you good night.”
After two bedtime stories, both about fairies at Mary Kate’s insistence, Deirdre descended the stairs again to clean up the supper table and put away any leftover tarts.
One of the boarders, probably Mr. Gilchrist, had neatly stacked the dishes to the left of the sink.
The platter that had held the tarts was almost empty- there were only three left.
She stuffed one in her apron pocket to have with a wee dram of Guiness on the porch and bundled the other two in a napkin for James.
She decided the dishes could wait and poured some beer in her mug. When she stepped onto the back porch, the smells of late autumn surrounded her. Bonfires, dead leaves and ripe apples. She’d just settled onto the swing when a musty curl of cigar smoke drifted from the corner of the house.
“Who’s there?”
Deirdre shouldn’t have been surprised when Cass stepped into view and gave her a sheepish smile. “I didn’t feel like going back there. Not yet.”
The questions she’d wanted to ask about his stitches burned in her throat. “Does your reluctance have anything to do with the reception you received when you returned home?” She asked as she took the tart from her apron.
“It has everything to do with it,” he admitted. “Is that one of the tarts?”
She nodded before taking a bite.
“Are you truly going to eat it in front of me without offering to share?” He stubbed out his cigar and ground it with his heel.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because you know they’re my favorite. Just like they’re your son’s favorite.”
Deirdre shrugged. “I know they were your favorite seven years ago - but people change. And so do their tastes.”
“I’ll help you wash all of those dishes if you share.”
She lifted the mug of beer and took a healthy draught. His mouth was gaping open when she set the mug down. “Apple tarts and Guinness? You’re pure evil, Deirdre Flaherty.”
“No more than I’ve ever been. It’s been a long, tedious day. And it’s O’Shaugnessy, remember?”
His stride was determined as he made his way up the steps and came to a stop in front of her. “You’ll always be Deirdre Flaherty to me,” he said as he braced his hands on the back slats of the swing, caging her in. “Will you relent if I promise to wash and dry the dishes?”
This close, the faint scent of his cigar smoke, and the smell of cedar that always clung to his clothes, was almost too much to resist.
Wordlessly, she took another sip of her beer and handed him the mug.
He straightened, and with his eyes on hers the entire time, made sure his lips touched the rim in exactly the place hers had just been. Deirdre watched the bob of his throat as he tipped his head back and took a long swallow.
“Is there still a lack of spirits in the Trenton household?”
“The only drink my temperance loving father will allow in the house is my mother’s sickly sweet ratafia. I haven’t had a good swig of beer since my train stopped in St. Louis.”
“You’re welcome to share if you’ll tell me about what lies beyond St. Louis.”
He promptly sat down beside her and stretched his arms along the back of the swing. “The world is full of so many wonders beyond Willow Creek, Wildflower.”
Deirdre tipped her head back, so the crown of her head touched his forearm. “I’ve never been out of Virginia. Even when I was married. Patrick worked in one of the Adams Mines. When he was killed I came back here and bought this house.”
“He was killed in a mining accident?”
“Yes, he and seventy other miners. Because of safety violations. It’s why I’ve joined the Knights of Labor. Because I don’t wish my tragedy on anyone else and the exploitation of working men and women needs to stop.”
Cass snorted. “While I heartily approve of your rebellion, my father certainly wouldn’t.”
“And your father’s approval is important to you?” She asked as she handed him the apple tart.
“I thought it was. Until he made sure I’d never have the one thing I loved the most,” his fingers brushed her cheek.
Deirdre fought the urge to lean into his caress. “What was that? A deck of cards?”
“No, it was a red-haired Irish girl with sparkling green eyes.”
She gulped, because she hadn’t expected this conversation to come so soon. And because this version of Cass Trenton, charming and solicitous and penitent, could tempt the very devil.
She angled her head away from him and stared into the darkness.
“You broke me in more ways than one when you left, Cass. I mended things to the best of my ability, but I can’t afford to do it again.
We can sit here and share a dram and a tart.
I’ll even let you wash and dry the dishes on the sideboard as payment.
But we can never be what we once were. We’re too different now. ”
“Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
“But you still somehow mustered the strength to do it. And you don’t seem to be any worse for it.”
“Wildflower, you were everything to me. I left because of that.”
Deirdre turned to face him. “You could have deceived me. Not a word in seven years, Cass. Not a single word. When I stopped to think about you, I could do nothing but cry. Because I didn’t even know if you were still alive.”
It wasn’t until she’d settled back in Willow Creek and renewed her friendship with Perry that she’d discovered he was out west. And still alive.
Paddy had given her space when the tears came- he’d sensed she didn’t want to share her misery or doubt.
And he’d probably suspected that she was mourning her son’s father.
She wondered if Cass would have been as patient or understanding if the situation were reversed. If he’d wed her when she carried another man’s child. If he’d raise the child as his own without blinking an eye.
Her mother still said that Patrick O’Shaugnessy had been a saint.
When he’d proposed he’d told her he knew she didn’t love him as he loved her.
He’d said it didn’t matter because his love was so big it was more than enough for the two of them.
He said his love was big enough to keep her safe.
And it had been - until he’d been killed.
Now it was up to her to ensure her children were safe and secure.
She wasn’t going to jeopardize them by surrendering to the tender feelings of her foolish heart.
“I never forgot us.” He held out the last piece of apple tart- and closed his eyes when she took it, her lips brushing against his knuckles.
“You have a crumb. Here.” He gestured toward the corner of her mouth.
She licked her lips.
“It’s still there.”
The moment he dipped his head, Deirdre knew what he intended. She knew she should protest. Or move away. But it felt as if her heart had awakened in her chest after a long sleep. She felt pinned in place - like a butterfly she’d seen displayed in the naturalist museum.
When his lips landed on hers, it felt like coming home. She knew all the contours of his kiss. The soft sighs it evoked from her, the way it tickled the corners of her mouth as he licked away the crumb that had moved him to action.
His name was still written on her skin, his touch still painted there.
All the lines and curves that had shaped her since she cradled their son in her arms for the first time, belonged to him.
When she felt the strength of his long fingers against her scalp, buried in her hair to hold her in place, Deirdre knew she needed to break the kiss.
It was too fiercely violent and made her want things she could no longer run to.
“You’re dangerous, Cassius Hannibal Trenton.”
She felt his mouth curve into a smile against hers. “So are you Deirdre Elodie Flaherty.”
“I haven’t been a Flaherty in seven years,” she murmured against his cheek as she fisted his shirt.
“I know, but I can’t bear to think of you belonging to anyone else.”
She wrested away from the kiss and let her forehead fall to the space just beneath his collarbone.
“I am no longer a girl. Sometimes I wonder if I ever was.” She moved away and held her hand out, twisting it about in the moonlight.
“Look at the callouses on my fingers, how chapped my skin is. And this is only one of the things that’s changed on the outside.
There are hundreds of them. And I’ve changed even more on the inside - behind my skin. ”
He grabbed her hand before she could continue. He dusted his lips across every whorl of the pads of her fingers, and set his teeth on the mound of her palm biting it gently.