The gypsies slept so soundly out in the open by the long-spent campfires that it made a person wonder how they lasted this long not falling prey to every highwayman, wild animal or natural disaster that could creep up on them in the night. Mike walked as silently as his size would allow, slowly picking his way past the recumbent forms of snoring men sprawled across the gravel path that led to the stables.
If he hadn’t known for a fact there was no real alcohol to be had in the whole camp, nor had there been for months, he could have easily believed they were all stone drunk. Certainly didn’t do much to fight the prejudice that the buggers were as lazy as sin, he thought as he stepped over the last somnolent body in his path.
The early morning was as dark as the inside of his hat. It was probably closer to midnight than to morning, if he had to guess. He was glad it was summer time. He wore a thin tee shirt and jeans. He didn’t need to be loaded down with a thing more than he already was.
And that didn’t even cover the hefty dose of shame he’d pulled on before his feet had even stepped out onto his porch this morning.
But even the guilt and the creeping sense of wrong doing was better than remembering the look on Sarah’s face last night when she realized she wasn’t going to be able to bring little Papin back to the States with her. For a moment, for one mad, crazy moment, Mike thought it might be enough to make her stay.
But no. It was just one more crippling heartbreak to add to all the rest of them.
There was no moon tonight, luckily for him. And of course, also going in his favor he knew was the fact that even if he was caught skulking about the camp at two in the morning, or whatever the hell time it was, no one would dream to think he was up to something he shouldn’t. Across his shoulders he carried a saddlebag crammed with corn bread, a water canteen and dried meat. He thought about slipping in a few apples but those were easy enough to come by on the road. A meal’s worth of jerky to fill an empty stomach wasn’t. And protein would give him strength.
By the time he reached the stables, Mike had broken out into a light sweat. Whether from nerves or the exertion of the walk loaded down as he was, he wasn’t sure. He paused at the stable door and listened to the silence of the early morning before sliding the door open and slipping inside. His first idea had been to saddle his own horse, Petey, but as he wasn’t absolutely sure what that wanker Gilhooley would do if the deed were successfully laid at Mike’s feet, he thought he wouldn’t do him any favors by making it so easy on him. Stealing a horse was a serious crime—a hanging crime, just like back in the days of the old Wild West in America—but at least it wasn’t a giant erected billboard pointing the way to the guilty party.
Mike grabbed his saddle and tacked up one of the young geldings.
In for a penny…
He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d gotten the idea that he needed to do this. Probably it had been building and festering ever since Gilhooley won the election. In any case, once he got the idea in his head, there was no way around it.
The young horse nickered softly and Mike patted him on the neck. How he would explain this if he were caught, he had no idea. He hadn’t gone far enough down that road to imagine it and now was probably not the time to start. He tied on the saddlebags and pulled the horse by his bridle out of the stall and into the dark morning air. Again, he was assailed by the perfect quiet of the camp. In a week’s time he’d never be able to do this. Nobody would. Gilhooley would have armed patrols combing the camp twenty-four seven.
He walked to the back of the camp, being careful to keep the horse off the gravel path. He wasn’t shod but the noise would be enough to wake everybody sleeping in the camp, and the Ballinagh graveyard twenty miles away, too. Now that he was moving and out in the open, Mike’s blood began to race in his veins at the thought of being caught in the act. Aside from swearing he was just running away from home or something near as daft, there was nothing else he could say.
And once he had Ollie mounted up and headed toward the camp exit, he wouldn’t be able to say even that.
At one point in his endless musings before he finally realized what he had to do, it occurred to Mike he could argue that, being the de facto community leader, he wasn’t actually breaking any rules taking an early morning ramble down by the jailhouse.
That was good for, if not a chuckle, at least a half smile.
There was nothing forgivable about what he was about to do. And there was no way he couldn’t not do it.
As he approached the ramshackle hut that served as the camp jail until the new one could be finished, he muttered a prayer of thanksgiving that Declan hadn’t bothered to post a watch. Mike knew Ollie was compliant—even ready to assist the hangman in any way he could—so it didn’t surprise him that Declan wouldn’t feel a need to stand guard over him.
Dec was going to be royal pissed off.
Mike dropped the reins and reached for the door latch. The smell of the interior of the place nearly pushed him back outside. The door creaked open wide and he saw young Ollie, on his feet and staring at the open door with eyes as wide as a child on Christmas morning.
I guess I made more noise than I thought.
Without speaking, Mike moved to where Ollie was tethered. He knew a knife cut on the ropes would reveal without a doubt that Ollie had an accomplice to his escape, but it couldn’t be helped. Mike didn’t have the patience to work out the knot. He drew his knife and cut the bonds. Ollie’s arms fell to his side. Mike saw the boy look past him to the outside, which gave Mike a little reassurance.
He wasn’t totally sure the stupid bugger would even agree to being sprung.
“Is it just yourself, then, Mr. Donovan?” Ollie said, breathlessly.
“Keep your voice down.” Mike grabbed him by the arm and pulled him out of the foul-smelling cell and led him to the horse.
Ollie looked at the saddled horse and then at Mike. Although most gypsies were good riders, it wasn’t common for one of them to actually own one. Ollie would have little to no expectation that he might some day.
“Is he…is it mine?” he asked as he touched the horse’s flank.
“Mind you don’t kill him along the way,” Mike said gruffly. As Ollie stood staring at the horse, clearly astonished, Mike took him by the arm and shook him to get his attention.
“You’ll lead him out on foot through the south entrance, you hear me?”
Ollie turned his stunned expression to Mike and didn’t answer.
“Once you’re clear of the camp, take the roads at a canter. Don’t go into the fields until it’s light, ya ken?”
Finally, Ollie nodded.
“If he hits a pothole in the dark that’ll be the end of both of you. Take the fields and head east if you’ve a mind to go to Wales, which I’d suggest. There are plenty of your kind living there. Or west if you think you can live off what you can pull out of the ocean.”
Ollie looked back at the horse, and this time his fingers wrapped around a stirrup as if to convince himself it was real.
“But whatever you do, boy,” Mike said, looking over his shoulder toward the center of camp, “don’t ever come back here again. Go away and start over fresh.”
“Why…why are you doing this?” Ollie said, his voice shaking.
Mike placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Consider it my last official act as camp leader.” Mike reached for the reins and handed them to Ollie.
“Can…can you tell me mum I’m sorry?” Ollie took the reins.
“She knows that, son. Now, go.”
Mike watched as Ollie walked away, slowly at first and then at a trot beside the horse. When he disappeared into the gloom, Mike waited until all sound of him was completely gone. And then he turned and made his way back to his own cottage, his heart lighter than it had felt in weeks.
***
“All I’m saying is maybe it’s better this way.” Fiona whispered as she closed the door behind her to Papin’s room. “She’s still asleep.”
“How can this be better?” Sarah spent the night sleeping on Fiona’s front parlor couch. She sat now with the ubiquitous cup of tea in her hands, and life not looking one bit better now that it was the morning. “You said yourself her problems would be best handled in the US.”
“I really just said that to make you feel better.” Fiona sat down on the couch and reached for her own teacup. “Papin’s problems have to do with the fact that you and Mike are imploding in front of her very eyes and she’s being taken from the only home she’s ever known.”
Sarah stared at her. She wanted to argue with her. She wanted to utter the one statement that would wipe that all-knowing look off Fiona’s face. But she couldn’t.
Fiona was right.
“She’s going to feel abandoned,” Sarah said, tears gathering in her eyes.
“We will do everything in our power to make sure she doesn’t.” Fi put her arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “Mike and Declan and I will love her and care for her—and her baby—and she will always know that you love her, too.”
Sarah shook her head. “How am I going to tell her?” she whispered.
“You’ll tell her there’s a wee snag on this end and that you’ll sort it out from the States and send for her.”
“That’s true. I can send for her.” Sarah looked at Fiona, her heart leaping with hope.
“Sure, Sarah. Only you have to know that isn’t likely. In the middle of an international crisis? What made you think in the first place the Americans would ever let her come?”
Sarah shook her head. “I just…wanted it so much, it didn’t occur to me. She’s my daughter.”
“Except she isn’t.”
“How am I going to tell her?” Sarah covered her face with her hands and slumped back into the sofa.
Suddenly the front door of the cottage burst open and Declan charged in. He looked at the two women sitting there and then went into the kitchen before coming back.
“Declan!” Fiona shouted. “Whatever is the matter with you? What’s happened?”
“He’s gone,” Declan said. “Ollie. He’s been let out.”
Sarah saw Declan’s face creased with anger and…relief. She had never seen this side of him, and she wondered if Fi ever had either.
“So you think he’s hiding in here?” Fiona said incredulously. “Does that even make sense?”
“It’s not Ollie he was looking to find here,” Sarah said calmly, her eyes on Declan’s face. Before he could speak, Gavin and John pushed into the cottage.
“It’s all over the camp, Dec,” Gavin said. “Jamie says his green colt, Bumper, is missing, too.”
Sarah was very aware that Declan had not taken his eyes off her. She stood up and straightened out the blouse she’d slept in. “Thanks for the tea and talk, Fi,” she said. “I …I should go check on the Widow Murray.”
“Okay,” Fiona said, frowning, still confused.
Sarah hurried past Declan and squeezed out of the door. From the porch she could see that the camp was aroused and active this morning. At least ten people were waiting outside Mike’s hut. A sick feeling slid down her throat. It was not like Mike not to be up yet. As she jogged down the porch steps, she saw Aideen striding across the camp center toward Fiona and Declan’s cabin. She looked bewildered.
“Sarah!” Declan’s voice was harsh, and for a moment Sarah couldn’t believe he was directing it at her. She slowed her steps but didn’t stop.
“Mind if I ask you where Mike is this fine morning?” He called to her, his voice sarcastic and commanding.
Well, there it was. If Ollie was sprung then who the hell else could it have been? Mike had spent more time arguing against hanging him than he had campaigning for himself.
“Well, how would I know?” Sarah said without turning.
Aideen moved swiftly in front of her and put a hand against her chest to stop her forward moving. “I, for one,” she hissed, “do mind very much you asking Sarah where my fiancé is.”
“Get out of my way.”
“I don’t think so, Yank,” Aideen said. “Is there a reason why anyone would think you know where Mike is before me?”
“If you don’t move your hand, you’re going to be pulling it out of your butt in about two seconds,” Sarah said, her eyes hard as flints.
Aideen gasped and dropped her hand but didn’t move out of the way. “Why are you still here? You’re living on the couch of an old addled widow woman! How much bigger a picture do we need to draw for you? It’s time to go!”
“I’ll go when I’m ready, Aideen.” Although several inches shorter than Aideen, Sarah pushed past her, nearly knocking her off balance. Sarah continued walking until she felt a hard hand grab at her shoulder and twist her around. Before Sarah could say another word, Aideen backhanded her across the mouth, knocking her on her butt in the dirt.
“Fight! Fight!”
Sarah heard some of the gypsy men yelling and she was aware of a small crowd beginning to hem her in as she scrambled to her feet. Aideen stood facing her, her expression contorted into an ugly mask, her hands held up in front of her like claws about to slice pieces off Sarah if she dared to come at her.
Before Sarah could take a step toward her, Fiona was between them, her arms outstretched.
“Ladies, ladies!” she said breathlessly. “This is not the sort of camp entertainment we like to encourage. Both of you take a breath. Now Dec has gone off in search of Mike and he—”
“The bitch slapped me!” Sarah said hotly, her face stinging and the feeling of blood seeping into her mouth where a tooth had cut into her lip.
“I know and I’ll be needing you to say sorry, Aideen,” Fiona said, looking at Aideen and trying to smile encouragingly. “If you please.”
“Bugger that!” Aideen said. “She’s dragged this goodbye out so everyone in camp can’t wait to see the back of her! I’m not a bit sorry.”
Fiona turned to Sarah. “Now Sarah, you’ll not want to be carrying on like this in front of John, am I right?”
Sarah glanced away from Aideen for a moment to see if John was near. She glared at the gawking bystanders, most of them men.
“Why is she still here?” Aideen said to Fiona, clearly not ready to let it go. “Can I hitch up the team for you?” she shouted at Sarah. “Or do you need Mike to do that for you? Piss off, you!”
“I’ll leave when I’m ready, or not at all,” Sarah said. “How about them apples, sister? How about if I just stay right here? You know, the more I think of it, the better I like that idea.” Sarah knew she’d hit pay dirt. The light in Aideen’s eyes turned into something wild and chaotic.
“You’re leaving!”
“No. I don’t think I am!”
The urge to pound this creature with her fists, to rip the smug, self-satisfied smile from her face was overwhelming. For over a month now, Sarah’s world had been a festering pile of ugly glances, harsh words, and disappointment. She’d hurt every single person who loved her and been thoroughly trounced in return. And now she was going to hit this woman who Mike had chosen over her, hit her until—
Aideen held her hands up with her jagged talons poised to rake Sarah’s face, her eyes when Sarah pushed Fiona out of the way and hit the taller woman around the midsection bringing her crashing down under her in the dirt. She could feel Fiona slapping her on the back to get her off of Aideen but she ignored her, clutching at Aideen’s deadly nails to keep them from reaching her throat. She felt the anger and the frustration pump through her arms, as if she had every person in camp who’d ever turned on her beneath her. Her arms shook with the exertion and the need to hit something.
Somewhere in her head she heard Fiona screaming and the gypsy men howling with delight, but all she saw was Aideen—the face of every broken promise and good thing that had turned sour in her whole life represented in one snotty Irish woman who had pushed every one of her last buttons. She was milliliters from smashing that nasty, gloating face. And then she was being jerked up and away. Her hands windmilled in the air for purchase, grabbing at Aideen’s jacket or hair, but Aideen’s reach was longer. She lashed out with a fist that caught Sarah on the ear before Sarah was wrenched away.
When Mike set her down, her ear stinging and seeming to vibrate such that all the noise seemed to make no coherent sense, she lurched back at Aideen but was caught by Mike again. He grabbed her by the middle and this time carried her several steps away from the fight. When they stopped, she could see Fiona helping Aideen up from the ground.
Sarah turned on Mike. He was breathing hard and clearly trying to get himself under control. She knew she had never seen him so furious. Not even when Gavin knocked over the milk shed the day he tried to get all the goats in one harness. Her eyes flicked back to Fiona leading Aideen away. Aideen was watching her over her shoulder.
“I assume that was all bullshit just then to get a rise out of Aideen?” Mike bit off every word as he spoke, his hands on his hips and towering over her.
For a moment Sarah couldn’t imagine what he was talking about and was seconds from reminding him that she was the wounded party in all this when her words came back to her. She licked her lips and looked away.
“That’s what I thought,” he said.
“The bitch is crazy,” Sarah said, her ear stinging like mad but the frustration at not having gotten off a single punch slowly receding. “But if that’s the kind of woman you want—”
“She is exactly the kind of woman I want,” Mike said, narrowing his eyes. “Or I wouldn’t be engaged to marry her. See, that’s how that works.”
“Fuck you, Mike.”
“Well, we tried that now, didn’t we, Sarah? And I can see you’ve a mind to haul off and slap me and I’ll remind you of how that turned out last time too.”
“You are the absolute lowest of the low.”
“And you will stay in the Widow Murray’s cottage until it’s time for you to leave.”
“You’re not the boss anymore, Herr Commandant. You can’t order me.”
He leaned over until his face was close to her. “You’re not in the US of A, now, darlin.’ I’ll carry your ass over there and throw you in her cottage myself.”
His eyes glittered with fury and it occurred to Sarah that she wasn’t the only one looking for an excuse to vent a little pent-up frustration.
“I’ll…I’ll just leave again,” she said, trying to sound more sure than she felt.
“You can try.”
Sarah blinked at him and then looked across the camp where Aideen sat with Fiona. She looked down at her hands. “Fine,” she said and then looked up at him. Her anger was still there but checked, finally. “Fine,” she repeated before twisting on her heel and marching off in the direction of the Widow Murray’s.
Aideen watched Mike and Sarah part company like two toddlers stomping off to separate corners. Sarah marched away, obviously heading back in the direction of the Widow Murray’s cottage, and Mike just lumbered… away.
Fiona was doing her best to soothe the situation and for that Aideen was grateful, but she noticed she also followed Sarah with her eyes until the American disappeared from view. Likely she’d run over to the Widow Murray’s the first chance she got to see how Sarah was, too.
“I know it’s a difficult situation,” Fiona was saying. “They have a history and you have unfortunately overlapped that by a bit.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Aideen said. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt so angry in my whole life. I honestly don’t know what came over me.”
“Well, love makes you do crazy things.”
“Then how do you explain Mike coming here and taking off with her and not saying word one to me?”
Fiona gaped in surprise. “But, he broke up the fight. He rescued you.”
“Then why doesn’t it feel like a rescue? Why does it feel like he didn’t even see me?”
“That’s ridiculous,” Fiona said, but Aideen didn’t think she argued the point very forcefully.
“I’m serious, Fiona. Did you see them over there? The way they looked at each other? I thought he was going to…I don’t know, turn her across his knee or throw her down and do her right there in the center of camp.”
“I can honestly say I didn’t see any of that. He was just really angry—”
“They act like they’re still lovers.”
“Now that’s an exaggeration. They’ve barely exchanged a word in a month—ever since Sarah announced she was leaving.”
“Let me ask you—do you know what the opposite of love is?” Aideen continued to look in the direction where Mike had disappeared.
Fiona frowned and then shrugged. “Hate?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But it’s indifference. Trust me, Fi. Mike is not indifferent to Sarah Woodson. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Did you see how she got him so riled up? People who don’t matter to you can’t do that to you.” She shook her head sadly. “I’d love to have that kind of effect on him.”
“Well, Sarah is a strong woman, and she’s brutally stubborn,” Fiona admitted. “I personally have wanted to whack her with a crop between the eyes on more than one occasion.”
“Except that is not what it looked like Mike wanted to do to her.”
“Best not to let your imagination get carried away. She’ll be gone soon.”
“Will she?” Aideen glanced again in the direction that Mike had gone. “Seeing them fight was worse than seeing them kiss. It was just so…intimate.”
“Well, Mike has a temper on him and you’re best knowing that going in.” Fiona put her arm around her. “Come on, Aideen. You and I are going to be sisters, and what with Papin staying and both of us expecting at the same time, I’m going to need all the help I can get from my new sister.”
Aideen took a deep breath and shook off the emotions as best she could. Fiona was Sarah’s best friend in camp. For her to take Aideen under her wing was just about the best thing short of Mike getting short-term amnesia that Aideen could hope for. She leaned in and gave Fiona a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Thanks, Fi,” she said. “I couldn’t ask for a better sister or a better friend.”
Mike needed to hit something.
Hard.
He removed himself from the cluster of people—and particularly Sarah—before he did something he knew he’d regret. He literally felt his hands tingle with the need to put his hands on her.
Damn the woman! When the feck was she leaving? I’m not sure how much more of this I can take.
He took a long breath, knowing Aideen was watching him, knowing how upset she was after her tussle with Sarah—especially after witnessing his own set-to with Sarah. Thank God for Fi. He knew he didn’t have the stomach for reassuring Aideen at the moment.
The way he was feeling—the way his body was feeling—he didn’t think he could stand near her and pretend he wasn’t furious and aroused and fit to be tied all at the same time.
Not believably anyway.
“Da!”
Mike heard Gavin yelling his name from through the cloud of anger and frustration that enveloped him and turned toward its source. There, past where Aideen and Fiona sat huddled on the center bench near the cook fire, he could see his son cantering his pony into the clearing. Riding at any speed more than a walk inside the camp was strictly forbidden. Mike felt his insides clench at what could possibly have made Gavin break the rules.
Within seconds, he saw what.
Pulling into the center of camp was a large work wagon hauled by two older draft horses. Gilhooley rode the horse he’d borrowed from camp for the trip back to Dublin. Mike saw the man looked positively buoyant, as if he were a part of some kind of ridiculous cavalcade.
Flanking the horse-drawn wagon were two riders on nearly identical bay geldings. Their matching red hair prompted a sudden twisting sensation in Mike’s gut.
He knew them.
He walked slowly toward the advancing wagon as he searched the driver seat for the man he now knew—incredibly—would be there: his father-in-law, Archibald Kelly.
And next to Archie, dressed in a long woolen suit buttoned to her neck and tucked under her prim, severe mouth, sat his daughter, Gilhooley’s bride, and Mike’s own ex-sister-in-law…
Caitlin.