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Which didn’t mean he shouldn’t be.

Mike lurched for his handgun on the side
table by the couch and ran out the open door into the dark and the
rain behind Gavin and Declan, who now stood stock still in front of
him in the forecourt of the cottage.

Sitting before them was a large transport
truck, its high beams stabbing the little cottage like aliens
preparing to beam down. The engine was thrumming loudly in the
quiet of the camp.

Mike squinted to see if it was another US
military vehicle. He held his gun by his side. By God, US military
or not, he’d not lose his camp after he’d just gotten it back. He
strode purposely to the truck, blinded the whole way by the
headlights until he reached the driver’s side door.

“May I help you?” he asked loudly, feeling
much less sure than he sounded.

“Well, yes, as a matter of fact,” a familiar
female voice said, “you can help me unload the groceries.”

The minute Sarah saw him, it was all she
could do not to pop the clutch and lose control of the truck. John
was out of his seat belt and the passenger’s seat before Mike had
finished walking up to her window.

The look on Mike’s face was one she would
never forget. His mouth was open, his eyes large and unbelieving.
He stood there staring at her. Over his shoulder, she saw Fiona and
Declan running up to them. Gavin was swinging John in a wide hug
and pounding on his back in greeting. She could see lanterns
turning on one by one as more and more of the community members
came to investigate.

Sarah unfastened her seatbelt.

“I brought a few things,” she said, her
voice shaking. “I got wine, sugar, guns, bullets. There’s a
generator in the back for the refrigerator Fi’s always wanted…and a
refrigerator, of course. In fact, four of them.”

And still Mike just stood there, a gun
hanging from his hand, his mouth agape.

“I couldn’t remember everything you said we
needed. I guess I should’ve listened better. But I got peanut
butter, seeds, wool blankets, baby shoes, petrol…oh! And a
satellite phone. John tried to talk me into bringing his iPod but I
said no. You would’ve been proud of me, Mike, for acting the firm
parent.” She watched him drag his eyes away from her to look at the
seven thousand pound capacity truck. She could already hear the
sounds of John and Gavin opening the back hatch.

“I’ve arranged for a small air-lift of a few
more things I thought we might need, but that’ll be coming next
week. Mike? It would really help if you would say something about
now.”

“You brought wool blankets to a country
that’s four-fifth’s sheep?” Mike’s gaze returned to her, and when
it did, she grinned with relief.

“That would be an affirmative.”

Mike dropped his gun on the ground and
jumped onto the truck’s running board, where he gripped the rim of
the driver’s window and looked at her with wonder in his eyes.

“Sarah Woodson, I know you’re not telling me
you willing left the world of hot baths and fast food restaurants
to come back here and plant pole beans with us.” He reached through
the window to unlock her door and jerk open her door.

“Crazy, huh?” she said, her
eyes shining with unshed tears. To see him again, to hear his voice
after so many weeks…she was sure her legs wouldn’t hold her. “I
wonder if there’s any way I might get a commitment from you
somewhere
near
the same scale?”

He pulled her into his arms. “Marry me.”

Her heart felt so full she could barely
breathe. “That’ll work,” she said, gasping. She turned her face to
his and felt his mouth insistent and probing, sending tingles of
heat through her limbs. Then he stepped back to the ground with her
still wrapped in his arms and swung her wide off the ground. She
hugged him tight, not wanting to disentangle from him even for a
moment—she had waited so long to feel his arms around her
again.

She had given up so much to have it.

Somewhere in the background, she heard the
sounds of Gavin and John unloading the truck. Squeals of delight
from the growing crowd wafted back to her where she stood with
Mike.

“So you’re back, are you?” Fiona said,
throwing her arms around her. “I can’t wait to tell you how you
helped me save the camp today.”

“Is it anything like how the Irish saved
civilization?” Sarah asked, laughing and hugging her back. “Oh, my
God! You’re huge! How is it possible for the baby to have grown so
much in just three weeks?”

“Enough of that,” Fiona said. “For the love
of God, did you bring chocolate?”

“I did! Barrels of it.”

Someone in the gathering crowd yelled out,
“So you’re staying then?”

“Hell, yes, I’m staying,” she called back,
then turned to Mike and spoke just to him. “It’s my home, isn’t
it?”

He put his hand to her cheek and she could
have sworn he had tears in his eyes. “Welcome home, darlin,’” he
said.

“By the way,” she said, “did something
happened here? What is that big pile of boards for in the middle of
camp?”

“That
is a long story, which I’ll tell you later when I’ve given
you time to climb back into your clothes again.”

“Mike!” Sarah laughed. “John will hear
you.”

“He’s too busy playing Santa to care about
what his old da is getting up to with his mum.”

“
Where’s Caitlin?” Sarah
craned her neck to look past him. “And Aideen?”

“Everything in due time. I cannot believe
you’re here. I cannot believe you’re standing right in front of
me.”

“I almost wasn’t. They closed the window for
travel back to the States, Mike. I can’t go back now even if I
wanted to.”

“I’ll make you happy, Sarah. I swear on me
mother’s grave I will.”

“Just you being alive makes me happy, Mike.
Knowing you’re finally mine puts my happiness into orbit.” Sarah
grinned at him, her hands still on his arms. She realized for the
first time that she could touch him now whenever she wanted. There
finally was no one to be hurt or to care.

“How did you come to buy all these things?
Were you rich back in America and I never knew it?”

“I cashed out my retirement fund. And the US
government gave me a cash award for agreeing not to sue them. Now
we’ll be able to build a mill and grind our own flour. Plus, with
the generators we’ll have lights for the perimeter watchtowers. I
put the bulk of my funds in a US-secured bank in Dublin, so we
should be able to buy more petrol as we need it.”

“I can’t believe any of this.”

“The airlift will bring solar panels in case
the sun ever shines in Ireland. John said not, but I’m an optimist.
And I loaded up with antibiotics, aspirin and basic veterinarian
medicines, too. Oh! And there’s fifty miles of barbed wire in the
truck for reinforcing the camp perimeter. That’s an early Christmas
present for you. John said it would probably be enough.”

“
I…I just don’t know what
to say.”

Sarah stood on tiptoe and kissed him. “That,
my darling, is a first,” she said in a low, velvety voice, moving
his hand to her waist. “And we’ll drink to that and many other
firsts just as soon as I unpack the Bushmills.”

“Oh, dear God in heaven,” he said, drawing
her closer to him, “Irish whiskey? I really am going to cry
now.”

Epilogue

There had been no reason anyone could think
of to wait any longer. While Sarah wanted to ride to Limerick to
shop for Irish lace to wear on her special day, Mike made it clear
he’d rather marry her in a burlap bag than wait another day longer
than necessary.

And as it appeared that wearing a burlap bag
was becoming increasingly likely the longer she talked of Limerick,
she soon gave it up and found herself standing in the little chapel
in Ballinagh in Fiona’s mother’s wedding dress, altered to fit,
with every single person from Daoineville in attendance. In the
end, the community opted to stick with the name Daoineville and
hoped to erase all prior connotations in time.

There would be no aisle–walking or giving
away the bride today. Mike and Sarah had both done all that once
before. Sarah was glad that both their prior marriages had been
happy, loving ones. As she stood now in the cold little chapel, she
felt the approving presence of Ellen and David. As much as the two
had loved her and Mike, she couldn’t imagine them feeling any other
way about their union.

She held Mike’s hand in her own while
clutching a nosegay of late summer blooms. He was handsome in his
tweed jacket and Fair Isle vest. She knew she probably wouldn’t see
him dressed so smartly any time soon, so she would enjoy every
minute of him wearing it today.

It had not been two weeks since she’d
returned to camp. In the interim, the airlift of supplies had
arrived and the whole of Daoineville had been thrown into a whirl
of ebullient productivity and vitality. They were now the only town
outside of Limerick for over five hundred miles that behaved almost
as much as any town in pre-Crisis times did. They had working
electric interior lights, motion-activated flood lights, a
satellite phone for emergency contact with the outside world, a
small pick-up truck in addition to the larger one, C4 explosives, a
cache of semi-automatic weapons, and enough medical supplies to
outfit a small clinic.

Not all the camp’s changes were because of
her. Mike had assigned a small group of men to patrol the
perimeter, much like Brian Gilhooley had envisioned. The wolf
puppies, while still not effective as guard dogs, at least hadn’t
started eating the chickens and so judgment—and their fate—was
reserved.

In the silk purse that lay in the pew behind
her was the letter her mother had slipped into her bag before she
left America. Sarah’s eyes stung with tears remembering her
mother’s face when she told her she would go back to Ireland after
all. In the letter, her mother forgave her with love.

“I understand your decision
and I applaud you for doing it, my brave, brave girl,”
her mother wrote
. “You
have always given so much of yourself to others. I know I couldn’t
be truly happy knowing you walked away from this chance to be happy
with Mike. We’ll see you and John again one day, darling girl, I
swear we will. Until then, stay well, stay strong and know that you
go forward with all my love, Mom.”

The priest cleared his throat and nodded at
the gypsy standing behind him to begin the Irish wedding march. The
older cleric living in the Ballinagh rectory had been replaced by
Jamie Riley, a younger man sent by the Vatican to do missionary
work in the field which, of course, both Ballinagh and Daoineville
now definitely qualified as.

Father Riley nodded at Mike and Sarah as
they stood before him. Gavin and John, dressed in their finest and
stiff as starch, flanked them, proud and nervous, as if all four
were about to be joined together.

Behind them sat Fiona, Declan, Siobhan and
the rest of the community, gypsies included. When Sarah saw so many
of the women crowding the little chapel with tears in their eyes to
watch her marry Mike, she knew it was more than just baby shoes and
peanut butter that had softened their hearts toward her.

Coming back when she didn’t have to had
bridged the gap.

Mike looked down at her and smiled. The
sight of him made her breath catch. He was so handsome she
sometimes had to force herself not to look at him for fear she’d
otherwise get nothing done in her day.

Today, their wedding day, she looked at him
and felt her world fill with the pure joyous wonder of him.

“
Are you ready, then,
Sarah?” Father Riley asked softly.

Sarah tore her gaze away from Mike’s face
and nodded, finding her voice strong and clear.

“Yes, Father,” she said. “I’m ready. With
bells on.”

#####

Hang on for the first
chapter in the next book in the series, Blind Sided:

CHAPTER ONE

Sarah didn’t like being this far from the
compound.

At least not on foot. She shifted the bag of
bandages, antibiotics and pain meds on her shoulder and turned to
look at her sister-in-law Fiona who had stopped in the middle of
the dusty road to rearrange the heavy gun belt on her hips.

“Why don’t you just get Mickey to make you
one of your own?” Sarah said, frowning. “You’re about fifty pounds
lighter than Declan. You need your own holster.”

“This works fine, ta,” Fiona said, grimacing
as she jerked at the belt.

“I’ll bet your hip is rubbed raw with it.
Honestly, Fi, you are the stubbornest person I ever met.”

“I’m that sure you’re
talking about
yourself
,” Fi said. She hurried to catch up.

The road back to the compound was full of
ruts and holes. Four years earlier, before the EMP obliterated all
electronics in Ireland, this had been a well-maintained paved road.
Now, with horses and wagons the main mode of transportation, it was
often easier to walk on the verge of it or around it than actually
on it.

“We couldn’t have taken the horses?” Sarah
said.

“We probably should have,” Fiona admitted.
“I didn’t remember it was so far.”

It was Mike’s fault anyway, Sarah thought as
she stumbled over a rock in the damaged road. If he hadn’t had this
idea that as the inhabitants of New Dublin—or whatever the
villagers were calling the compound now—they were responsible for
those in the outlying areas, she and Fiona would not be spending
two days every month tramping all over the countryside dispensing
food and medicine to the poor. Not that Sarah begrudged that. Not
at all.