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No pressure. No pressure at all to get his marriage straight. His mother wanted grandchildren, green-eyed grandchildren, which meant having relations with Maire, which meant falling in love with Maire.
Gerritt inhaled.
All he had to do first was sleep beside her in the same bed without coming apart.
Being reasonable, having relations with his wife was something he did want, but it was the motive behind it that stopped him. He should love her first. Right? Otherwise, his old argument returned ... otherwise, he felt no better than the man he’d saved her from in the first place.
He thought about her all the time. He wrote poems about her. But both only meant he was obsessed, not in love. Being in love would feel different. Wouldn’t it?
The strongest desire to bash his head against the wall rose in Gerritt’s being. Perhaps if he could, he’d smash some sense into himself. Other men wouldn’t think twice about this, so why was he struggling? Because Maire would know his heart wasn’t in it. She would know he wasn’t sincere, and he wanted her to have no doubt, no doubt at all.
He trailed after Anne O’Fallen toward the stateroom where the three others had retreated, dragging his feet more and more the closer they came. He had to look her in the eye now and not think of green-eyed babies, and looking her in the eye was already the hardest part of his day because his mind went where it shouldn’t.
He determined to pull himself together. He couldn’t think like that with her family around. He had to appear strong and able. Yet the minute the door opened, his mind went blank. She was humming a tune. Her hair, loosened from the nape of her neck, trailed seductively down her throat. Wrapping that tendril around his finger and running his lips along her neck would really be ...
Gerritt stopped himself, aware the entire room was staring at him. He looked down at his feet and turned to face the door as he closed it. There were simply too many green eyes in this room. How did Anne O’Fallen stand it?
Maire took his hand before he could face forward, and he glanced in her direction.
“Papa, are we done for now?” she asked without looking behind her.
“Aye.”
“Then Gerritt and I are going to retire for the evening.”
“Good night, love,” her father said.
She opened the door and pulled him out. When it shut behind them, he finally exhaled. “Thanks,” he said.
She put a finger to her lips and tugged him down the companionway. He stumbled along behind her until they entered their room. Barely inside, she mashed him to the closed door and laid her head on his chest. “Gerritt Finnegan,” she said with a laugh, “Are we still being honest with each other?”
He coughed lightly. “Yes.”
“That look you gave me ...”
His mouth turned up slightly. “What look? Did I have a look?”
She raised her face to his, her eyes sparkling. “Let’s say no one will doubt you now.”
They both laughed, but his laughter was short lived. She was here, in his arms. He wanted her there, but ... His hands began to shake.
She took them in her own. “Gerritt, what are you frightened of? It’s only me.”
He took a deep breath. “There is no ‘only you,’ Maire. I feel like I have to live up to something that I can’t.”
Her eyes softened. “I haven’t asked you to do that. Remember? We are starting over. There is nothing expected of tonight but lying together.” She compressed his fingers in hers. “I have to tell the truth anyhow. More than that scares me.”
“But I thought the dreams ...”
“Are gone, yes, but my reaction because of it is not. Certain words trigger negative thoughts ....”
He dragged his knuckles lightly down her face. “I didn’t know.”
Her smile weakened. “I didn’t tell you. We weren’t speaking.”
He tipped her chin and stared long into her eyes. What had made him not speak to her and leave her to deal with things alone, to overcome her fears and the doubts of their marriage without him? “I am very sorry, Maire. It’s just that ... I don’t want to become the very thing you seek to forget.”
The truth left his lips and the burden of it lifted.
Tears slipped down her cheeks, and she sought for her breath, sucking in great gulps of air. “Gerritt Finnegan,” she said at last, “that is one thing you will never ...” She laid her hand flat to his chest, and its heat washed outward and again inward. “... never, ever become. Let’s ready for bed. I want you to hold me and drive it all away.”
Holding her drove it all away for her, but brought it all back for him. However, he didn’t say so. Not after they had come so far back to each other.
She wedged herself against him, her head nestled on his shoulder, her legs fitted to his frame, and drifted to sleep within minutes. But he lay there, soaking up her body warmth, a strand of her hair tickling his nostrils, and argued with himself over the good and bad of it.
Good, because they were married and he cared for her. Good, because she was in love with him. Good, because her family needed to know he was responsible and took this seriously. But bad, because his fantasies gradually took over. But maybe that wasn’t wrong. Shouldn’t a husband be attracted to his wife? Shouldn’t he want to be together with her?
Because he did. He wanted to be her spouse in every sense of the word. He wanted to look at her and not have to fight himself first. He wanted to act, instead of react, to her presence. He wanted days and nights of wedded bliss, their hearts where they should be, nothing standing between them.
She grunted and wiggled, her breasts pushing round and enticing against his chest, and he dipped his gaze to see her face. Nothing between them. Not her fears or his. But getting to that point seemed like a long, difficult road, one they’d have to walk one step at a time ... together.
Gerritt shut his eyes, content right then to hear her breathe.
“Papa says we must work on this one.” Michael waved toward the agreed upon song list, the motion of his hand his usual peremptory one.
“But I don’t want to sing that one,” Maire replied. Her lips formed a pout.
He made a face at her, eyes rolling. “Why?”
“It’s ... slow.” It was a lame reason, but the only one she could come up with.
“It’s supposed to be slow. It’s a ballad.”
Maire leaned back in the armchair, her gaze rising to the ceiling. “You are singing ‘O Holy Night’?” she asked.
Her brother nodded. “I told Papa to sing it, but he refused.”
“That’s because you’ll hit the notes better, and besides it’s the closing song. It’s right for you to sing it.”
Michael shrugged. “But it’s his concert, so how is it right for me?”
“How about, I want you to sing it,” she said, “Is that better?”
He shook his head and laughed. “So I’ll sing it. Happy?”
“Very.” She sat up taller. “Are we done?”
Michael, for once, seemed not in too much of a hurry end their conversation. He leaned back on his bed, crossing his ankles. “I thought we’d rehearse ... you know, the song you don’t want to sing.” He smiled as he said it.
Maire pretended not to notice. “I can sing that song with my eyes closed, and I just might once we get in there and all those people are watching me.” She shivered. “I’ll be glad when this is over.”
“Oh, come, sis, you’ll be fine,” he replied. “You’ve got Papa’s lack of nerve, and look at how far he’s gone.”
Through obedience to the call God placed on his life, not through desire. She shoved her hair behind her neck. “Explain why you got all the nerve for everyone and he and I have none,” she replied.
“I,” he said with a flourish, “have Mama’s steel will.”
“But not her common sense.”
He tossed a pillow at her then, and she caught it with both hands.
“So where did your spouse get off to?” he asked.
She looked away. Michael always wanted to know about Gerritt. “He’s writing,” she replied. She sensed her brother’s next thought before he spoke it. He would ask how they were ... again.
“You and he ...?”
“Are fine.” It was her standard answer, and more true now than it had ever been before.
Michael rose from the bed and crossed into her field of vision. She couldn’t avoid him when he was determined. “Look me in the eye when you say that,” he said.
“Gerritt and I are fine. Satisfied?”
“Not really.”
She gave a huff. “No, and you never will be. What do you want from us, Michael? Does he act like he doesn’t do right by me?”
“How he acts is one thing. How he does is another.”
She threw a hand to her side. “What does that mean? And why am I supposed to run our relationship by you anyhow? What happens between Gerritt and I is between Gerritt and I. Period. Keep your nose out of our personal life.” With that, she flounced off.
He called after her. “Sis, stop. Please.”
She halted, her hand over the door knob.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But promise me if anything bad happens you’ll come to me.”
She sighed. “Nothing bad is going to happen, Michael. Nothing I can’t handle.”
Maire entered the hotel room and found Gerritt where she’d left him ... at a table in the corner. He had been writing a lot lately, pages and pages of notes in his slanted scrawl. He wouldn’t tell her what it was for, nor did he ever leave his notebook unsupervised where she could peek. Not that she would. But she admitted to being intensely curious.
She snuck up behind him and laid her hands on his shoulders. He startled. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
She gazed down at his upturned face. “No. I was quiet as a mouse.”
He shaded the pages with his arm. “I’ll be finished here in a minute.”
In other words, don’t spy. She twitched her nose and gave a sly grin, then moved to the opposite side of the room. The room fell quiet except for the persistent scratch of his pencil.
Staring out the hotel room window, she hummed the tune of a lullaby her father used to sing to her and then picked up the words.
“Bog braon, bog braon, bog braon don seanduine,
Bog braon, is blais féin, is é a thabhairt don seanduine.”
“Cuir a chodhladh, cuir a chodhladh, cuir a chodhladh an seanduine,
Cuir a chodhladh, is nigh a chosa , bog braon don seanduine.”*
“That’s beautiful,” Gerritt said from directly behind her. “What song is that?”
She flicked a glance over her shoulder. She hadn’t heard him get up. “It’s a lullaby. Papa sang it to me when I was small. It’s something about a warm drop and an old man.”
He wrinkled his brow. “Only the Irish could make that a lullaby.”
She laughed.
“I never did grasp hold of Gaelic the way you and Michael did,” he said. “But then I can’t sing a lick either.”
Turning around, she placed her hands behind her against the wall and leaned on them. “We lived in the same house.”
“Yes, but Mama didn’t speak it, and Papa never bothered,” he replied, “except when talking with your father.”
“How about this one?” she said, “It’s a poem I heard Papa say to Mama. Let’s see if I can remember it correctly.”
“Is é mo shámud re mnái
amal bís cámull hi ceó,
cen co hana lim is cet,
cet lim cid marb, cet cid beó.
Cett lim cía rabur 'na gnáis,
cet lim cía hanur dia héis,
is ed rofácabad do mnái,
is cet cía thái, cet cía théis.”*
She immediately translated it. “The way to get on with a girl is to drift like a man in a mist, happy enough to be caught, happy to be dismissed. Glad to be out of her way, glad to rejoin her in bed, equally grieved or gay to learn she's living or dead.”
“I like the happy to be caught part,” he said with a gentle smile.
She bit her lip offering a small smile. “Do you now?”
He stepped closer. “Mmhmm. I’m afraid I haven’t any good love poems save ones I’ve written.”
This brought her gaze upward. “You’ve written some?”
“Sappy stuff.” He placed a hand on the wall over her head and leaned forward.
The rate of her heart sped up to match the wings of the hummingbirds they sometimes saw in the garden. “About what?” This was the freest she’d seen him act when they were together.
He lowered his head. “About your eyes.”
“What about my eyes?” She lost herself in his tender gaze.
A shock of his ebony hair fell over his forehead. “It’s not only their color that gets me.”
“It’s not?”
“No.” He bent his elbows. “It’s the way they light up when you’re teasing me or become infinitely dark when you’re serious. They hold a hundred shades of green.”
“Wh-what ... else do you write about?” She concentrated on her next breath.
“Your neck.”
She flexed her neck as if in response. “What about it?”
“You know what I was thinking that day on the boat when you rescued me from infinite embarrassment?”
“What?” Her word was barely a whisper.
He lifted a curl of her hair and wrapped it around his finger, then bent over and planted his lips on her throat.
She gave a slight gasp.
“Doing that,” he said. “And then there’s your lips. They’re so ... perfect. Perfect for kissing.” His mouth hovered over hers.
“Gerritt,” she breathed. “Kiss me, or I’ll melt.”
“Will you?” he asked. “And then what will I do with you?” He laid his palm against her cheek and raised her chin. His lips brushed hers, so light she thought she dreamed it, a feather’s brush on the canvas of her heart.
He pulled away and stood straight, putting a hand in his pocket and some space between them “The rest of the poem I can’t tell you.” His mouth held a vexing grin. “Not yet at least.”
A man should romance his wife. In their relationship, they had skipped that part. His trouble was he couldn’t quote sonnets or sing love songs. In fact, her knowledge of poetry was greater than his.
Kissing though, kissing he could do, and also indulge himself in sampling her neck. He had wanted to do that for quite some time. Of course, he wasn’t helping himself with such actions, and when they went to bed, it was all he could do to not push things further. But he’d been thinking he ought to court her, do what he hadn’t before they’d wed. She was surprised, given her expression, but plainly happy about it.
She lifted her face to his, and he cupped her chin and kissed her once again, lingering on her lips until their skin stuck together. There were no words for what was happening to him, for this ardency that tied his mind all up in knots and splintered his ability to reason.
He became aware of the pleasant shape of her with each night that passed, of every muscle twitch, every prolonged stretch of her calves or flick of her wrist. And in some way, in his mind, they became one unit, her body an extension of his until it was as if he could breathe when she did, long and deep or slight and shallow.
He’d said he was obsessed. It had gone beyond that now. He was possessed, possessed by whatever spell she cast, and he no longer cared, no longer tried to escape it, but plunged headlong, body and soul into the blissful abyss.
Gerritt pushed through the doors into the hotel dining area and scouted the room for Maire’s father. Her mother, Anne, had said he was here, though with a questioning expression, and he hadn’t bothered to explain himself because what he wanted should be spoken to Michael O’Fallen himself.
He located him sitting relaxed at a table, a cup of coffee before him and several music sheets spread out.
“Mr. O’Fallen,” he said, his hand on the back of a chair, “Might I speak with you?”
Her father’s green eyes took on a certain sharpness, and Gerritt soothed himself with the knowledge that this time his inquiry was not what her father thought.
Michael waved him to a chair.
“It’s not about Maire.” He stated that up front. Maire was actually the last thing he wanted to talk about right now. “Though I should give her credit for the idea,” he added.
Her father leaned back in his chair, his ankle crossed over his knee.
There was no way to begin this but to state it out front. “I want to write a book,” he said. He ran his hand absentmindedly over the table cloth. “About you.”
Michael’s eyes widened. “Me?”
“Yes sir, a book about your life as you would tell it.”
“I don’t think ...” Michael began.
Gerritt held up his hand. “Please, sir, hear me out first. I want to tell your story, but maybe not like you think. I respect you, so whatever I write will reflect that.” He paused. “I want it to be about love and redemption.” He focused on Michael’s face. “It seems to me that these are the two things your life reflects – your mother’s love and all those things she taught you that, if you will pardon the gloomy thought, will be gone once you are not here; your love for your wife, which survived so much heartache and sorrow to become what it is; and the redemption of God, who was with you through it all.”
He roused to his topic. “Mr. Gray said something about you to me when we were on the train, which set me to thinking. He said, ‘It’s more than his singing. It’s the honesty within him. He speaks of God as if he’s the person right beside you, and before it’s over, you believe him.’”
“He said that?” Michael sat forward in his chair.
“Yes, sir, and that is what I want to reflect. I realize I am not a polished writer, but I think for anyone to tell this story it is most fitting for it to be someone who ...” He swallowed, “who has honor for your privacy.”
Consumed in his thoughts, Michael didn’t speak for quite some time, and the silence became troublesome. Then, he sat back and rubbed his hands on his pants. “Why do you ask me about this now?”
It was a good question, and the very one Gerritt had expected him to ask. He smiled. “Because we are in New York, the city where you grew up, also the city of my mother.” He paused. “She hates this city.”
Michael’s face grew long, evidence enough the feeling was somewhat mutual.
“But to understand her life,” Gerritt continued, “and by extension, my own, I want to see those places she’s spoken about. Take me to the spots you knew and tell me what happened there. You know she pulled me aside before we left?”
Michael shook his head. “She did?”
Gerritt nodded. “Yes, she was ... very emotional. She said she only agreed to this trip because it was at your instigation.” She’d actually been on the edge of tears, and he’d spent a good portion of his evening soothing her. Later, it had struck him how ironic it was that he had almost come here to study, and despite having turned that down, was here anyway.
“I’ve not been back there in a very long time,” Michael said. He ran a hand over his head. “It will be ... hard, and I’m not sure I want to do it. But ... why would people read about me anyway? I’m nobody.”
Gerritt returned his hand to his lap. That belief is what endeared people to him, his humility. “I disagree,” he said.
Michael swiveled in his chair, his brows drawn together.
“People will read because of your celebrity, sure,” Gerritt said. “That will sell the books. But what will they glean from it? Faith. Mercy. God. Heritage. Think of your children’s children reading about your life. You don’t want them to forget. I was talking to Maire. She sang something she learned from you, and I realized for all the Irish in me, I couldn’t translate it. You’ve poured into her so much of yourself. The proof is that you brought your children here to do this. At least, let me write it all down. If when I am finished, you are not pleased, I will pursue it no further, but your family will have it to remember you by.”
Michael stacked the music sheets, a nervous action. “Gerritt, I admire your courage. This is the third time you’ve approached me with something I didn’t expect. I think it’s beginning to be a habit.” He smiled when he said it. “I’m still not sure how I feel about the idea. But maybe ... since we are in town, a visit to a few spots would be all right.” He glanced toward the windows where the rising sun glared strong on the glass. “Maybe Michael would like to go as well.”
Gerritt stood to his feet. “If we have time now, sir, then I will go find him.”
“I am going, and that’s final.” Maire struggled into her coat, tucking her hair beneath the collar.
“Sis, these are places a lady shouldn’t be.”
Michael’s gaze was tight, so she fixed hers yet tighter. “These are places my father came from, and I am not staying behind because I’m a ‘lady.’ You know very well that Mama would go.”
“Mama doesn’t want to go, and you’d be safest to stay here.” Michael grabbed hold of her arm and tugged her away from the door.
“But I do.” She yanked her arm free of his grasp. “And I’m in the company of three competent males. What other protection do I need?”
“Pants,” he said.
She froze in place. “Pants?”
“And a hat.”
“Of all the absurd ...”
“Actually, it’s a good idea.” This comment came from Gerritt, posed in the doorway. “I told your father you’d do this.” He smirked.
“Oh? And you know me so well?”
“I think I do.”
“Gerritt Finnegan, you are ganging up on me with ... with him?” She pointed at her brother.
“Maire Finnegan, I am keeping you safe. Pants and a hat or you stay.”
She whirled around in a huff and met the laughing eyes of her brother.
“Say, this husband of yours is quite a guy,” he said. “I think I like him.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Men.” When they didn’t move, she flung her hands outward. “Well, give me the pants and then get. I can’t very well change with an audience.”
She steamed over the whole issue after they left her alone and struggled to don the outfit. When her mother entered the room and her eyes crinkled, it was too much. “You too?” she asked.
Her mother smiled softly. “I was remembering when I met your father. I hadn’t anything to wear but my night dress. Got married in it, in fact.”
Maire stopped in her fight with the clothing. “In ... your night dress?”
“Mmm. With a gun to my back.”
Maire had heard bits and pieces of the story, but her mother had never fully shared it.
“What ... what did you think about Papa, standing there like that?”
“That I wanted to go home mostly,” she said. She came up beside Maire and tugged on the waistband of the pants. “Also, how scared I was. I knew what marriage meant and I figured he’d do what married men did.”
Maire tucked the tail of her shirt into the pants. They were a bit big, and walking was very awkward. “What did he do?”
Her mother moved around behind and grasping hold of Maire’s hair, knotted it at her neck, sticking in pins to hold it in place. “Nothing. Well, I take that back. He cut his arm.”
“Cut his arm? Whatever for?” Maire’s face turned red at her mother’s expression.
“To make people believe we’d done what married couples do, although we hadn’t. He was a gentleman, wouldn’t take from me what I didn’t want to give.”
“Oh. Did ... did they believe it?”
“I don’t think so.”
Maire sat down sideways on the vanity dresser pushed up against the wall. “Mama. Can I ask you a question? A personal one?”
Her mother took her hands in her own and squeezed. “Always.”
“What ... what made you and papa ... you know, change your mind?” She ducked her head. She hadn’t any right to ask. But her own memories of the act stood in her way, and her parents had waited weeks after they were wed. There had to be some way to overcome her fears. For Gerritt. For herself.
Her mama didn’t appear disturbed by the question, though she was good at hiding her thoughts. “I loved him too much,” she finally said, “and decided the risk was more important than my fear. It was worth it in the end. It gave us Michael. Maire ...” She looked deep into Maire’s eyes, “when you love him and he loves you, there is nothing to be afraid of.”
Maire glanced away. If she kept looking at her mother, she’d tell everything, and she wasn’t ready for that. “You were saying ... about your night dress?”
Her mama released her hands and smiled. “Your father told me I’d have to wear his pants, and I refused. In the end, I wore them. There wasn’t anything else. Life comes full circle, I guess,” she said, patting Maire’s cheek. “Now, stick with the boys, and do not ... do not ... do anything foolish.”
Maire kissed her mother on the cheek. “I promise, Mama.”