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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.

13

Sarah made it as far as Siobhan Murray’s
front porch when she saw the gypsies streaming toward the center of
camp. Siobhan came out of her front door squinting into the
daylight like a mole.

“What’s going on? Where are they going?”

“Go back inside,” Sarah
said over her shoulder as she turned back toward the camp’s
center.
Mike be damned
. If something was going on, she needed to make sure Papin
and John were safe. She caught up with one of the heavier-set gypsy
women struggling up the gravel path.

“What is it?” Sarah asked. “What’s
happening?”

“Gilhooley’s back,” she said, without
looking at her. “He’s brung his whole family and a wagon full of
supplies, maybe even booze.”

When she entered the camp, Sarah saw Brian
in conference with Declan, his head bowed and nodding seriously.
The wagon was indeed groaning with bags of rice, flour, sugar and
building supplies. Two men in their mid-thirties—looking alike
enough to be twins—sat silently on matching bay geldings, their
faces severe and closed. An older man sat stiffly in the driver’s
seat, the reins to the two draft horses looped over his knees.

Next to him was none other than Caitlin
Kelly.

Sarah ran up to Fiona and Mike where they
stood on the perimeter of the camp center.

“How can this be? How can she be here?” She
glanced at Mike to see if he was leaning toward manhandling her
back to the Widow Murray’s but he just shook his head as if trying
to wake up from a bad dream.

“Not just
here
,” Fiona said with
disgust, watching Caitlin. “But First Lady of here.”

Aideen slipped under Mike’s arm, claiming
him, and patted him on the chest. “Who is she?” she asked.

“My dead wife’s sister. Caitlin Kelly.”

Aideen looked at Fiona and then back at
Mike. “How in the world can that be? She’s married to Brian?”

“It appears so.”

“I thought his wife’s name was Katie?”

“Close enough.”

“So do you know the old man? The other
men?”

“My father-in-law and brothers-in-law.”

“Ex
-in-laws,” Fiona muttered. “Ellen’s gone. The tie to them is
broken.”

“Grandda!”

Sarah watched Mike close his eyes in
resignation and defeat.

“Not entirely,” he said as Gavin leapt onto
the wagon and threw his arms around the old man.

“The shite’s in the pan, Mike,” Fiona said
in a low warning voice. “Dec is filling Brian in on the jailbreak.
Don’t suppose you know anything about that?”

Mike didn’t answer but Sarah saw him shift
his attention from the wagon to where Declan and Brian stood
together. He noticed that Iain Jamison was near enough to hear the
two of them in conference. Suddenly, Brian threw up his hands and
twisted on his heel away from Declan. He marched back to the wagon
where Gavin sat with the old man and Caitlin and turned to face the
gathering crowd by the camp center.

“Greetings, good people of Daoineville,” he
said loudly. “As you can see, I have returned with my family.”

Sarah was annoyed and surprised to hear a
spattering of applause from the gathered people.

“While I hope you will take the time to get
to know each of them individually, I would like to introduce you to
my wonderful wife, Katie, before we go—”

“Only we know her by a different name!”
someone yelled out.

Sarah watched Brian’s back stiffen as he
stopped in his turn toward Caitlin. He turned back to face the
crowd. “Who said that?”

No one answered.

“Because if you mean she is also known as
Caitlin and known to you good people as well, I assure you, I am
aware of that.”

“Bloody hell,” Mike muttered. “What is that
feckin’ Caitlin up to?”

“I am aware that my lovely bride has once
lived among you and I want you to know that I am completely
prepared to forget and forgive any injustices she may have suffered
at your hands.”

Sarah saw Brian turn and look at Mike.

“So long as there is not a hint of
disrespect or ill will demonstrated in her direction. I hope I make
myself clear.” He paused and then turned to Caitlin. “Stand up, my
dear,” he said. “Let them see the mayor’s wife.”

Mayor?
Sarah shared a look with Fiona.
This
wasn’t good
.

Caitlin stood up on the wagon, placing a
hand on Gavin’s shoulder to steady herself. Sarah saw that she was
wearing a very conservative dress. The hem when past her knees and
the neck was buttoned to her chin.

She must be miserable in
all this heat.
Quite a change from the
micro-mini skirt and halter-top Sarah had last seen her in running
from camp and screaming like a demented woman.

When Caitlin leaned down to blow Brian a
kiss, Mike made a noise of disgust in his throat. Brian turned back
to the crowd. “So we’ll be getting settled in and there’s just one
or two things I need to attend to before I can address the camp
again tonight right here by the camp fire after dinner.” His eyes
strayed to Mike as he spoke and Sarah felt a clutch of fear.

Declan strode up to the four of them and
touched Fiona on the arm. “He needs you to bring his wife to their
new cottage and get her settled in.”

Fiona looked at her husband, appalled. “You
know who she is, Dec?”

“Yes, of course. I was here, wasn’t I?’

“I’ll not escort her to the feckin’ bog were
she exploding with the runs and putting out all the cook fires with
her piss!”

“You’ll do it, please, as I’m asking you to
do it,” Dec said, his eyes glittering with meaning.

“She is a loathsome skank
who nearly destroyed this community the last time she was here,”
Fiona hissed. “
And
she has vowed revenge on every one of us standing here,
including yourself.”

Declan glanced at Mike and
then took Fiona by the arm and led her away from the group.
“
We are holding our friends
close
,” he whispered meaningfully to her.
“Ya ken, darlin’?”

Sarah heard what he said and then saw Fiona
look at Caitlin who was watching the interaction with interest.
Fiona nodded solemnly, then turned and walked toward the wagon.

And our enemies closer.

“A word, Donovan?”

Mike turned to see Iain Jamison approach the
group. While the man spoke to Mike his eyes were on Declan, as if
he didn’t trust how the gypsy would react.

“Mr. Gilhooley would like to speak with you
at the jailhouse, if you have a moment.”

“And if I don’t?”

“I’m assured that you have plenty of time to
spare.”

Mike watched Iain’s face contort into a
facsimile of a smile. A very false one.

“May I ask what this discussion is in
reference to?”

Declan made a snort of impatience. “Can we
quit fecking around, please? Come on, Mike, let’s just get this
over with.” He pushed out of the group and began walking in the
direction Brian had gone with a few well-wishers moments earlier.
Mike shrugged and moved to follow him. He saw Fiona struggle with a
large suitcase as she trailed behind Caitlin in the direction of
Sarah’s old cottage. Before he passed them, Caitlin turned and
looked at him, her eyes full of malice and intent.

“Donovan!”

Mike turned to see the old man—Ellen’s da,
Archibald—standing up in the driver’s seat of the horse drawn
wagon. The last time Mike had seen him was seven years ago at
Ellen’s funeral. He looked like he’d aged twenty years since
then.

“Archie,” Mike said solemnly, nodding to the
old man.

“Caitlin told us what you done to her,”
Archie said, his face a mask of hatred and impotent violence. “What
you did to Ellen.” Mike saw his ex-father-in-law’s arms flex by his
side as if imagining the weapon in them that would take Mike down.
Long ropy veins crawled up his arms, a fisherman’s arms, used to
dragging in hundred pound nets from the ocean.

Mike turned away as the two men on
horseback, Caitlin and Ellen’s twin brothers Cedric and Colin
yelled to him, jeering.

“We ain’t done with you, Donovan! Not by a
long shot!”

Mike left the crowd ogling the newcomers and
focused on Declan’s back in front of him. He was aware that Jamison
followed close behind so that he was being escorted to Brian as one
might a prisoner.

14

Fiona sat by the main camp cook stove,
snapping a bowl of green beans in her lap. She liked sitting out
here. It gave her an opportunity to see the camp moving around her.
It made her feel a part of its inner workings. Besides, the cottage
was too depressing to be inside on such a beautiful late summer
day. Already she had felt the coolness in the mornings that
heralded the fact autumn would soon be upon them.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the
motion of John Woodson coming out of Mike’s cottage with one of the
little wolf puppies on a leather leash.

Now that really had been
one of more daft suggestions of Brian’s—if it was true it really
had come from him and not just John and Gavin wanting to have
dogs
. Fiona remembered that John had had
two dogs last year. One was killed in the attack that also killed
Seamus and Deirdre. She wasn’t sure exactly what had happened to
the other. She seemed to remember Sarah saying there’d been an
accident last fall.

“Morning, Auntie Fi,” John called to her.
“Lot of excitement today, huh?”

She smiled at him. She
would miss this lad when he left. “You could say that,” she
said.
If you call having the one person in
the world who’d like nothing better than to set a match to the
whole camp with everyone in it actually be in control of the camp
excitement.

“How you doing with the wee wolves?”

“They’re a little resistant at the moment,”
John admitted, tugging on the leash to try to pull the scampering
bundle of black fur back into line by his heels.

“That’s one way to put it,” Fiona said
laughing. A few of Declan’s cousins came to stand next to where she
was sitting by the cook fire to stir the embers and reignite the
blaze. She saw one of them had a large black cook pot he was
obviously thinking of putting onto the smoldering fire. She nodded
politely to them.

It wasn’t like they shunned her or anything.
It’s just that she wasn’t one of them. And marrying Declan—the
favored gypsy son—made no difference in her status as far as they
were concerned. Declan shrugged off their coolness toward her as
being unimportant and encouraged her to do the same.

Behind them she saw something that made her
fingers stop their constant activity on the green beans. It was all
she could do to stifle the involuntary gasp that came to her
lips.

Caitlin was coming out of Sarah’s old
cottage, her arm around the thin shoulders of Papin.

Fiona watched the two descend the steps of
the cottage together and she saw Caitlin put her hand into Papin’s
long hair as if she might be talking about hairstyles. Fiona
watched the two as they walked, their backs to her, into the
interior of the camp.