Chapter 23 Catherine
Catherine
The stew was mostly turnip, but Sully spooned it out like it was something you’d brag about to a bishop.
He set the bowl in front of me, careful not to spill on the linen—my old wedding cloth, pieced over, still with a rust stain from our first meal together, centuries ago, depending on how you counted.
The fire was going hard in the hearth, the light from the west window catching every fleck of floating ash and making the whole kitchen look smoky, holy.
Three-month-old Rory hiccupped in his cradle, fists up, already fighting the world.
He had my nose and Sully’s scowl. He also had a set of lungs that could challenge a cannon.
I’d set him down just long enough to cut bread, and he’d punished me with a howl fit for a Saint’s martyrdom, but now he’d fallen silent, probably dreaming of milk and the smallness of his world. I envied him.
Sully poured two mugs—one tea, strong as sin, the other boiled water with a splash of whiskey—and nudged mine toward my elbow. “You’ll need both,” he said. His voice was gravel dipped in honey, and even now, when I ought to have been used to it, it still got under my skin.
“I’ll need a new tongue,” I said, chewing the first bite. “You trying to poison me, O’Toole?”
He smiled, lopsided, all lines and intent. “That’s tomorrow’s plan. Tonight I’m building up your resistance.”
Rory coughed, then laughed in his sleep, a little snort that set his whole body jiggling. Sully reached out, one thick finger gentle as a feather, and tapped him on the nose. “He’s got your bite,” he said, “but my stubbornness.”
“God help us,” I said.
We ate in the kind of silence you only get after years of noise. Every once in a while, Sully’s knee would bump mine under the table, just enough to remind me he was there, solid and close, the best ghost a girl could hope to keep.
I watched the shadows crawl up the walls. Outside, a blackbird shouted warnings at something in the hedge, and I wondered how much of the world had changed, or if any of it did, really.
“He’s sleeping through the night now,” Sully said. “Mostly.”
“Mostly,” I agreed, rubbing my eyes.
“He’ll be walking in three months.”
“He’ll be terrorizing the market in four.”
He laughed, a real one, the kind that curled at the edges and let you know he hadn’t forgotten how.
I caught his hand, the one with the scarred wrist and the faded shamrock that still made my heart seize every time I saw it. The burn had healed, mostly, but the edges were ragged, the old tattoo a bruise under the new skin. “You ever regret it?” I asked. “The grave, the fire, the rest of it?”
He considered, then shook his head. “If it brought me here, it was worth it. Even the soup.”
He squeezed my fingers, then let go, reaching for the bread. “You think about them?” he said, not looking up.
“Every night.”
He nodded, not disappointed but not surprised. “You wonder what they’re doing?”
I did. I did, and I tried not to let it show on my face, but Sully always read me too well.
I finished my stew and drank the whiskey down, felt it burn in the hollow behind my ribs. “Maeve’s probably running a prison camp. She’s built for it.”
He snorted. “She’d unionize hell in a month.”
“Nora’s probably married a poet. Or a stray dog.”
He grinned, then went soft at the eyes. “You miss them?”
“Every second.” I bit the inside of my cheek. “But I’d have missed this more.”
He reached across and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, slow, as if the air might snap if he rushed it. “They’re alive,” he said. “They’re together. That was the whole point.”
I nodded, and for a moment, the warmth from the fire felt like it could last all night.
“Do you think,” I started, then lost the thread. “Do you think Maeve’s wrestled a patent-leather slipper yet?”
He choked on his tea. “She’d have killed a cobbler by now.”
“I hope it was worth it,” I said, smiling despite myself. “For all of us.”
He leaned back, chair creaking, and watched me in that way he had, like I was a puzzle he’d never get tired of working. “I’d do it again,” he said. “Twice.”
Rory stirred, a small whimper, then fell quiet as Sully touched the side of his head. “You know what the worst part is?” I said.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I want them here, in this room, right now. Even if they’d wreck the soup and fill the air with bickering.”
He thought about it, then said, “It’d be too loud. I’d have to eat in the barn.”
I laughed, and Rory startled awake, eyes wide and milky blue in the lamplight. I lifted him, settling his weight against my chest. His fingers tangled in my hair, and he looked up with a seriousness that didn’t belong in a face so small.
Sully wiped his mouth and pushed away from the table, then came around and pressed his lips to the top of Rory’s head. “You’re the future,” he whispered, so soft I almost missed it. “Don’t let anyone take it from you.”
The evening drew down, and the fire made patterns on the walls, twisting the whole room into something safe and secret.
I listened to the rhythm of Rory’s breath, the steady thud of Sully’s heart behind me, and for the first time in months, maybe years, I let myself believe we’d earned this.
Not by grace, or luck, but by sheer bloody refusal to let go.
Sully started clearing the table, stacking bowls and mugs, humming a tune that might’ve been an old club anthem or a hymn from his first life—I could never tell. I watched him, watched the way his hands never shook, not anymore, the way he moved around the kitchen like he’d been born to it.
I wanted to say something, to fill the space with words, but I didn’t have any left.
So I just rocked Rory and let the world outside the window fade to blue.
***
Bedtime was a ritual, but not the holy kind—no saints, no smoke, just patience and repetition.
The nursery was a box of old plaster and wood, whitewashed so clean you could believe nothing bad ever happened in the world.
Sully had built the cradle himself, sanding it so smooth you could skate a coin down the length and never catch a splinter.
I eased Rory into the crook of my elbow and hummed him a song my mother used to sing: “Seoithín, seo hó.” My voice was wrecked from crying and laughing and too many years of silence, but it steadied out for him, for both of us.
He blinked, and his fist caught the cord at my neck, yanking me in so close our noses bumped.
I kissed his brow, let him taste the salt of my skin, and rocked him until his eyelids sank heavy.
It was the only part of the day I felt calm, like nothing could get at us, not war or time or the ghosts in the fields beyond.
Sully stood in the doorway. He didn’t say a word, just leaned his shoulder to the jamb and watched us, eyes gone soft at the edges.
The light behind him made his shadow loom long on the boards.
Sometimes I wondered if he knew how easy it would be for me to love him, if I hadn’t done it already.
He watched every move I made, as if he were memorizing it for some test that only he would ever care to take.
When Rory started to drift, I tucked him into the cradle and drew the blanket up to his chin. The lullaby wound down to just breath and the beat of my heart, and I turned to see Sully still there, not moving, still as a prayer.
“You could’ve come in,” I said.
He nodded, but stayed put. “Didn’t want to break the spell.”
I crossed to him, felt the shiver of air as I passed the candle on the sill. The flame bent, nearly guttered, then steadied again. Sully reached for me, stopped, then let his hands fall.
“You miss it?” he said. “The old life?”
“No.” I pressed my palm to his chest, the heat of him all through my bones. “It’s gone. This is all I need.”
We stood there, the nursery behind me, the world behind him. I didn’t look back. He didn’t, either.
I brushed my lips over the raw skin at his jaw.
He made a sound, low and rough, and I slid past him into the hallway, letting my fingers drag slow across his chest as I went. The invitation was clear as sunlight. He followed, silent as a ghost.
The bedroom was all shadow, the candle’s stub throwing wild shapes across the sloped roof.
The air was damp from our breath and from the rain that had rolled in off the sea sometime after supper, pattering at the window with the slow persistence of regret.
Sully didn’t move at first, just stood there, his chest rising and falling, the muscles in his jaw working like he was trying to chew through something unspoken.
I sat on the edge of the bed and watched him, let him feel the weight of my attention. I pulled the pins from my hair, one by one, and let it fall down my back. He liked to see it loose. Liked to tangle his hands in it, tug gentle at the roots while I pretended to mind.
When he finally came to me, he knelt, which should’ve looked strange for a man like Sully O’Toole, but didn’t.
He slid his hands up my calves, over my knees, and stopped just below my hem.
The touch was careful, almost shy, and I felt the heat of it even through the cloth.
His eyes were dark in the candlelight, rimmed in gold.
“Let me see you,” he said.
I took my time unlacing the bodice, each tug slow, deliberate, the way he always told me drove him insane.
The laces caught, then slipped free, and I peeled back the linen, let my breasts fall into the air.
Sully let out a breath that was more a growl than a sigh.
He traced the scars on my belly, the stretch marks, the newness of the skin there.
His lips found the hollow above my hip, and he lingered, his stubble rasping over the bone.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, and I knew he meant it. Not as a joke, not as a line, but as a fact.
I leaned into his hand, guiding it up, under the edge of my shift.
He watched my face the whole time, waiting for the flicker that meant “yes, more.” When I gave it, his thumb found my clit, and the slow circle he drew there made me gasp.
It had been months, with the baby and the pain and the days so full of nothing but survival, but my body remembered.
It opened like a flower, a cliche, but true.
Sully’s breath hitched when he felt the slickness.
He stood and undressed, careless as always.
His shirt was off in a second, his trousers next, then the shorts, threadbare and soft as milkweed.
His cock was already hard, flushed at the tip, thick at the root.
I wanted to touch it, to taste him, but he pushed me back onto the bed, gentle but insistent, and climbed in after me.
We kissed then, mouths greedy, tongues sliding over teeth and old wounds.
He tasted like tea and smoke and the memory of rain.
His hands were everywhere, mapping the territory of my skin like he was afraid it would change if he looked away.
I arched into him, pulled at his hair, scraped my nails down his back.
He hissed, and I smiled, knowing he liked a little pain to go with the pleasure.
When he pushed inside, I nearly wept. The fullness of it, the relief. He rocked slow, careful not to hurt me, but I dug my heels into his ass and pulled him deeper, faster. He grinned into my neck, bit at the muscle there, and said, “You missed this.”
I nodded, and for once, I didn’t hide it. “I love your cock, O’Toole.”
He thrust a bit harder. “And it loves the warm, wet space, the feel of your parting walls, Cat.”
We fucked like it was the first time, all nerves and discovery.
I rolled him over, straddled his hips, and rode him until the world went white at the edges.
He let me set the pace, his hands gripping my thighs, his eyes never leaving my face.
When I came, it was silent, a quake that ran up my spine and shook the room, the candle nearly snuffing out from the sudden draft of it.
He followed after, his teeth buried in my shoulder, a sound somewhere between a moan and a prayer, his load spilling out of me as if a dam had broken.
After, I slumped forward, let my hair spill over his chest, and listened to the way his heart hammered beneath my ear. He stroked my back, slow and lazy, and I realized I’d never been happier, not even as a child.
“Was it worth it?” I asked, voice muffled.
He didn’t answer at first, just let his hand drift down to cup my ass, then back up to my neck.
“You’re my miracle,” he said, and I could hear the truth in it.
I rolled off him, curled into his side, and pulled the blanket up over us. The candle guttered, then steadied. The rain drummed louder at the window. From the next room, Rory let out a soft whimper, then quieted again, a promise of sleep.
Sully turned onto his side, spooned up behind me, one arm heavy across my waist. “I’d follow you through a thousand years,” he whispered into my hair.
I laughed, not because it was funny, but because I believed him. And for the first time, maybe ever, I wanted the future more than I feared it.
We drifted off, the sound of the storm and the baby’s sighs rolling over us, and the warmth of Sully’s body anchoring me to the earth. I slept like the dead, but better. Because I woke up with him, and that was all I’d ever wanted.