Chapter Twelve
Deirdre
When she opened her door at noon, her brother was standing there with a grim expression.
“Cass was shot during the standoff today. I thought it best to bring him here. The chance of someone from the other side calling him out as a traitor is less likely to happen if he’s here,” he gestured behind him.
Deirdre peered over his shoulder and gasped. Cass was laid out on a stretcher, his mouth slack and his features stark. “Bring him in. You can put him in his room on the second floor. First door on the left at the top of the stairs. I’ll damper the stove and be right there.”
“Doc Hampton will be here soon,” her younger brother called from the stairwell as he and Liam maneuvered the stretcher.
As she hurried through preparations for the midday meal, she pondered whether or not she should regret her harsh words from that morning. Whether she should let the holiday spirit of peace and goodwill that was fast upon them influence her behavior.
She’d only been seventeen when he left. Pregnant and scared.
She’d felt betrayed and alone in the world and when Patrick O’Shaugnessy had offered her his name and his protection she’d taken it.
Deirdre didn’t know where she’d be if she hadn’t.
She regretted nothing about that decision and the life she’d led until now.
She heard the front door open again, and her brother’s voices. Then the quietly confident baritone of Doc Hampton. “I’ll see to him, lads.”
When she emerged from the kitchen, the three of them were ascending the stairs. She took a deep breath and braced herself for what was to come.
Deirdre slipped into the room, and watched avidly as Dr. Hampton held a stethoscope to Cass’s chest and then his back.
He straightened and turned to them. “We’re lucky.
The bullet didn’t hit any major arteries and it exited through his shoulder.
The bleeding has stopped and he’ll heal.
From the looks of some of the scars he already has, he won’t be a stranger to the pain.
I’m going to clean it and bind it.” He flicked his gaze toward Deirdre.
“Mrs. O’Shaugnessy, I’ll leave you instructions for changing his dressing. ”
***
Deirdre fell asleep in the chair in front of the fireplace in his bedroom. When her eyes fluttered open, moonlight was streaming in the window and the hearth was nothing but embers. Cass was moaning softly.
She sat on the bed near his waist and turned up the lamp so she could pour some water into the tin mug on the bedside table.
He groaned again when she held it to his lips, and wrapped his hand lightly around her wrist to hold it there.
His eyes were still closed, and it made her feel braver. “I don’t know what I would have done if something had happened to you.”
He grinned wryly, his eyes still closed. “You mean besides getting shot? If I hadn’t taken that bullet it would have hit Seamus. Better me - a scoundrel who keeps disappointing the people he loves, than your brother.”
“I was scared out of my wits when they brought you here.”
“What happened after I got shot?”
“Both sides took a step back. And I realized something,” she set her hand on his cheek. “I could have lost you and all of the parts of us that are tangled up in here,” Deirdre placed her other hand over her heart.
He propped himself up on the pillows and pulled her hand away to place it against his chest. “You’re tangled up here too.”
“Let me check your bandage,” she nudged him on his side and brushed her hand over his back above the strips of cotton.
There was a round scar high on his shoulder that hadn’t been there seven years ago.
She wondered how many other scars there were. Scars that counted the moments and miles of the seven years they’d been apart.
There was a slashing one across his hip too.
“This isn’t the first time you’ve been shot.”
“No. They call it the Wild West for a reason. For the most part, it’s pretty lawless.”
“What happens now?”
He turned carefully and propped his head on his left arm. “Well, there are all sorts of things I’ve been wanting to do. But I don’t know if you want them too.”
“Like what?”
He tangled his fingers in one of the curls that had escaped her tidy chignon. “Like kiss you until you can’t walk straight and you forgive me for ever leaving you. Or for shaming you about the choices I forced you to make.”
She climbed onto the bed and spooned her body around his. “What else?”
His gaze dropped to her lips, and then lower, until he’d skimmed her entire body. When he raised his eyes to hers again, they were full of fire. “Like making love to you again. I’ve learned things, Wildflower.”
She reared back. “I thought you said you didn’t frequent those sorts of establishments,” she said half teasingly, half indignantly.
He slid his arm around her waist and hauled her closer, until their legs were tangled together. “A man can read.”
“So you’ve moved beyond Tacitus and Shakespeare.”
He lay on his back and pulled her over him. “I have. And I’m more than willing to demonstrate my vast well of learning.”
Deirdre dropped her head and giggled into his shoulder. When she’d finished laughing she pecked him on the cheek. “I’m more than willing to benefit from all your learning.”
“They stripped me of everything but my drawers.”
She raised herself to her elbows. “Are you asking me to catch up?”
“We’ll do it together. I can remove the last of my clothes if you help me stand.”
She gently scooped her arm around his neck. He grunted at the pressure applied to the wound, but managed to stand.
“If you’re shy, Wildflower, I can watch you in the mirror.”
There was a shaving mirror propped on the dresser, and Deirdre approached it in trepidation.
She watched as he stripped behind her.
His body was harder, leaner. Taut with a strength that hadn’t been there when they were young lovers.
Her body had changed too - two pregnancies and nursing her children had made her hips wider, and her breasts heavier.
There were rows of silvery white on the insides of her thighs, fanning from her navel.
As she slowly undressed, the mirror seemed to magnify all the changes that had felt minuscule a quarter of an hour ago, and she had a sudden bout of shyness.
When she turned to face him again, her hands flew up to cover those vulnerable spaces. He hobbled forward and tugged them away.
“You steal my breath, Wildflower. You always have,” he said as he kissed her knuckles.
The first time he’d called her that had been in Hayes Orchard. He’d picked a daisy, stuck it in her hair just behind her ear, and spun her into his arms. His voice had been soft and rough when he murmured his new name for her.
Now, when he called her that, she knew it was because he saw the life she’d built from her sorrow.
“Come to bed.”
She went gladly and when he pulled her on top of him again, she was determined to seek out all the marks the last seven years had left on his body.
He thwarted her exploration when he pulled her head down and began pulling out the long pins that held her hair in place. After he’d loosed it to cascade wildly over both of them, he sighed and rubbed their noses together.
“This is where we were always meant to be.”
“Yes,” she said as she dipped her head. When their lips met, she tasted a faint hint of coffee, and the peppermint tooth powder he’d used that morning. “No cigars,” she murmured.
“No, I know you don’t like them.”
“Not particularly,” she said as she nuzzled his collarbone. When she dropped her head further and grazed the coppery flesh of his chest with her teeth, he groaned and lifted his hips to grind against her.
“I should be the one doing the sampling, not you,” he protested.
“If you can do it comfortably, you’re welcome to indulge.”
He rolled them over, until he was the one leaning over her.
His mouth went to her breasts immediately, and he laved her nipples into tight points with his tongue and teeth.
When she was writhing beneath him, he skated his knuckles over her center, rubbing her in the place that was taut as a spring and begging for release.
She threw her head against the pillows and arched her body as he brushed her clitoris with his thumb before dipping two long fingers inside her body.
“I want to taste all of you, but I don’t think I can manage the position I’ve dreamt of. I’ll save it for our wedding night.”
“I haven’t said yes,” she gasped as he hit a spot against her inner walls that made her whole body quake. “You haven’t even asked me.”
He removed his fingers and lifted his body, taking himself in hand.
As he slid into her, he peppered her cheeks and nose with light kisses.
He pulled out and thrust home again. “Find your release with me, Wildflower. Marry me so I can make up for all the hurt I caused you. Love me as much as I’ve always loved you. ”
She brushed his lips with her own. “I do.”
“We’re getting married on Christmas Day,” he vowed as he thrust in again.
“And I want you to wear bells and holly in your hair. And I want our children to walk with us down the aisle. Right here and now I’m vowing to you that I’ll be a father to them both - that I won’t try to replace Paddy’s memory, but I’ll give them new ones. ”
Deirdre’s eyes filled with tears. “I love you so much.”
“Not as much as I love you,” he said as his lips claimed hers and his body tensed in release. “And I know you didn’t find your release because I was too impatient. I promise I’ll make it up to you,” he mumbled drowsily as he slid out and rolled onto his back.
As he fell asleep, she dropped a kiss on his forehead. “Even if you and your father never make amends, I’m glad you were summoned home and we got another chance. Nothing compares to you, Cass, or the way you make me feel. Merry Christmas.”