Mistletoe and Mr. Right (14 page)

*

If I could put the ingredients together that create the word stunned, it would include everything in this room right now. The tension in the air. The way all the color drains from Brennan's face. The slight gasp that emits from Molly, the quick movement of Mrs. Donnelly's hand to cover her mouth. The twist of my heart.

The horror on Grady's face at the realization that his spontaneous joke became the catalyst of this eruption of emotions, the loss of a secret that maybe has been waiting to escape for months.

His expression convinces me that he's known all along that Katie had been pregnant, but maybe he
didn't
know she'd never told Brennan. The gruff distaste for the guy he'd grown up with could be easily explained by thinking he'd abandoned his girlfriend in her moment of need.

The silence, the lack of reaction from Brennan, goes on a moment too long, and Katie stumbles to her feet. Brennan makes a grab for her hand but misses. The sound of her sobs echo from the foyer, where she pauses—maybe to put on her boots—before the front door slams.

Brennan looks lost. Like a statue that someone put down in the wrong place.

“If you don't get off your arse and go after her, man, I am going to smash your face,” Grady growls.

The threat spurs my boyfriend into action and he leaps from the couch. He turns in the doorway, gaze ending its search when it lands on my face. He's asking silent permission—I've seen the request a million times when he wants to stay late at a party or go to a game with his friends, but this time it's more than that.

He's asking for permission to go after Katie, but I know, in reality, I'm granting him permission to leave
me.

It's harder than I think it will be, maybe harder than it should be given the situation, to give him that nod. But I do. And then he's gone.

“Did you know about this?” Mr. Donnelly asks his wife in a soft voice that's full of more reproach than he's used since I've met him. Even over Nanny Goat.

“No, of course not. And there's no way she confided to her parents. Poor dear.”

“Her parents are missionaries,” Molly explains softly, for my benefit. “Super strict.”

I'm honestly surprised that the Donnellys aren't more upset to find out their son's been violating God's laws, but they love Katie like a daughter. They might be disappointed later but right now they're worried about her.

“You knew,” I say to Grady, more a statement than a question.

He nods, still pale. “I knew about the baby. That she lost it. I caught her tossing drinks in the trash a couple of times and she refused to ride in a really big horse show, so I put it together.” He cuts a glance at the Donnellys. “I thought she told Brennan, though.”

“That poor girl,” Mrs. Donnelly reiterates, wiping tears from her eyes.

We sit in silence, nothing left to say. After a few minutes, Molly starts stuffing discarded wrapping into a giant trash bag, the bright paper and stringy, happy bows out of place now that the family has been rocked. No one feels much like celebrating, Jesus's birthday or not.

Everyone slowly drifts from the room, Mrs. Donnelly and her daughter to the kitchen to see about breakfast, Mr. Donnelly to check on the animals, Grady in tow. I don't have anything to do because this isn't my house. Isn't my family.

“Aw, c'mon lass. No one looks good with a face as long as a horse's.”

I've almost forgotten Granddad Donnelly is here, too, but there he is leaning on his cane and looking at me with the kind of exasperation I reserve for my roommate when she barfs peppermint schnapps into the sink.

“I'm worried, is all.”

“
Humph
. Worried about yourself.” He shakes his head at me. “Sometimes roads in life don't lead the place you think when you set out. Don't be too daft to realize when you've gotten to where you belong, anyway.”

He clomps off, back into the front room. A moment later the sounds of wrapping paper being torn finds my ears. I can't help but smile at the thought of him in there tearing into his presents alone, even if he did just call me a horse face and spout nonsense.

Anyone can see Brennan and Katie aren't done. So obviously this road has led me to a very pretty dead end.

It's hours before Brennan comes back. We didn't even eat dinner together; Mrs. Donnelly left it all out in the kitchen for people to come through and fix plates, but Mr. Donnelly and Grady haven't returned, either, not that I've seen. Maybe they're avoiding the excess of estrogen.

I'm sitting on the porch, bundled up in coats and hats and blankets, reading
Wuthering Height
s in the last rays of Christmas Day sunshine. It glints off the melting snow, little drops forming the soundtrack of my day as they fall off the gutters and splash into puddles. The wind has started to pick up, another storm brewing on the horizon, when Brennan traipses up and sits next to me on the padded porch swing.

He's soaked through and vibrating with tension, his fingers twisting together, knee jiggling, My boyfriend is normally as put together as I am, but right now everything about him is askew—hair out of place, dirt smudged on his pants and face—and my heart goes out to him.

I cover his big hand with mine and he grabs onto it for dear life.

“I was going to be a father.” The softness in his voice, the wonder, can't overtake the raw edge of loss. There's nothing to say so I don't speak, just squeeze his hand tighter. “How could she not tell me?”

It's a real question. He turns his head toward me, searching for answers I don't have. Can't fathom. “I don't know. It's a pretty personal thing and it sounds like you had already decided to go to school in the States. She didn't want to ruin that for you.”

“That's what she said, too, but it doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel damn well worse, to know that she didn't think I could handle it.” His fingers tighten on mine. “I would have done the right thing.”

“Exactly. Katie knows that, too. She wanted you to live your life.”

“She can't decide that for me!” He pulls away, running his hands through his hair so hard it stands up everywhere. “I never wanted to leave Fanore, to leave her. I only went abroad for school to get everyone to shut up.”

I swallow hard, because only the most terrible sort of person would make this about her. But it stings, to hear that he'd be better off, happier, if he'd never met me at all.

Brennan seems to realize the way his statement might affect me and turns, horror hanging on his already ravaged face. “I'm sorry . . .”

He trails off, because we both know there's nothing else to add to the sentiment. He's sorry that he hurt my feelings, that the truth spilled out with no filter. Sorry that things have turned out this way.

He's just sorry. But it doesn't change anything.

“I'm sorry, too.”

An understanding stretches between us, an acknowledgment that this thing we had was real but it's over, that maybe it was never going anywhere, anyway.

“You know why I really came here?” I ask, still holding his hand.

“Why?”

“I was worried we weren't moving fast enough. I wanted to make you see that I'd make the perfect wife after graduation.”

The glance he gives me is full of his trademark amusement tinged with exasperation. “Oh, chicken. You had to know I wasn't even on that wavelength.”

I nod. “I think I did. It was desperation, flying all the way out here to surprise you. Because that's how I get when things start to derail. When I can't predict the outcome.” I bark a short laugh. “I certainly couldn't have planned for any of this.”

“Well, I might not have been ready to go ring shopping over the summer, but I never expected any of this to go down, either, I can promise you that.” He turns and our eyes meet, then he pulls me into a hug.

“It's over then, I guess?” I mumble against his shirt. It smells like sweat and some other girl's tears.

He pulls away, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I'm not going back to school. It's hard to say how things will end up with Katie and me at the moment, but she's a mess. Never dealt with the whole thing because nobody knew the truth, and her parents are going to take it rough. She needs me.”

My heart twists. Someday, I'll find a guy who feels this way about me. Who understands what I need and is willing to give it to me no matter what I've done to hurt him.

The thought makes me smile. “You're a good guy, Brennan. She's lucky to have you, and I'll eat my hat if you two don't end up together. So will half the people in this town, from what I hear. Maybe more.”

He smiles back, but it's sad around the edges. Distracted. “You're going to find someone way better than me, I promise.”

It's odd that Grady's face flashes in my mind at that moment. I take it inside with me and lay it beside me in bed, letting my tears fall. Grieving for the loss—not of Brennan, but all of my plans. I don't have any backups in the works, but for the first time I think maybe that's okay. I'm smart. I'm getting a college degree.

Everything will be fine.

*

It takes me a few minutes to change my plane ticket to the earliest flight out the next day. It's leaving from Knock, not Shannon, which is farther away, so I'm up and out the door before anyone else is awake. I leave a note for the Donnellys, thanking them for their hospitality. Last night I'd told Brennan I was leaving early, and he hadn't argued except to tell me to be careful because a storm was blowing in.

All the more reason to get out of here now.

The rental car is right where I left it, and the dogs run off when the engine turns over, breaking the stillness of the snowy morning. I have to wait while the car warms up and melts the snow crusted on the windshield. A brief thought of staying crosses my mind, reinforced by the memory of navigating these roads in the rain the other night, but the weather could get worse. The snow started not that long ago—if I wait it out, I might not be able to leave at all.

Decision made, I back out of the spot and step on the gas, navigating my way down the winding lane toward the main road with care. The livestock stay clear of my car but my tires slip off the lip of the road and into thick drifts more than once. My hands sweat on the wheel and I pray that the main road shows up sooner rather than later.

When I reach the road, the snow isn't any shallower. It was stupid to think that in a town this small someone would be out plowing roads the day after Christmas.
Main
is an arbitrary word around here.

The GPS on my phone can't find a signal, so I pull over and snatch a map out of the glove box. To get to the airport in Knock I'm supposed to go back through Ballyvaghan, so I take a left on the road out of Fanore.

I'm taking a curve as slow as humanly possible when the tires slide again. The brakes lock up when I step on them, and my heart jams into my throat.

“Shit, shit,
shit
.” I chant, twisting the wheel right, then left to no avail. On one side of the road is a rocky hillside that goes pretty much straight up, and on the other, one of those now-depressing stone walls is the only thing separating me from the shoreline.

The thick snow on the side of the road stops the front of my rental car from smacking into anything hard enough to crunch it, and for a moment I sit there, limbs trembling with adrenaline, swallowing my heart back into my chest.

My worst nightmare comes true when I put the car in reverse, step on the gas, and . . . nothing happens. The tires spin over and over but they're off the road and deep in a snowdrift, so I finally give up and wrap my hands around the useless steering wheel while the heater blows stuffy air in my face.

Tears sting my eyes but I blink them back, rolling my eyes at my own drama. I put my shoulders back and my mind to the task at hand. The car will run out of gas eventually, and once the heat goes off it's going to get real cold, real fast. My suitcase is in the trunk, which means I've got more layers of clothes. A few packages of crackers and at least one bottle of water are lurking in my carry-on bag in the backseat, so I won't starve. The snow outside will melt in an empty bottle, too, if it comes to that.

My heart rate slows as confidence builds up from my center. I've got this. The plan to spend an Irish Christmas winning over my boyfriend might be a bust, but this place sure as hell isn't going to kill me on the way out.

I get out of the car and dig through my suitcase, dragging out a second sweater and a warmer pair of gloves, then wrap my red pashmina around my neck and face. I crouch down to inspect the back set of tires. Given that this tiny little toy of a car is likely rear-wheel drive, they've got to be my problem.

I'm thinking that maybe I could dig out some snow, or maybe use the car's floor mats underneath them to gain some traction, but even those long shots are decimated when it becomes clear that the rear axle is high centered on something—snow, a rock—and the tires aren't even touching the ground.

“Well, fuck a duck,” I tromp back to the driver's side—then around to the
actual
driver's side—and kicking snow off my boots before climbing back inside the car.

My fingers ache from the chill, and I hold them in front of the vents for a few minutes, then down my bottle of water. I fill it with snow so it will be melted when I'm ready for more, then I take a deep breath.

It'll probably take me more than two hours to traipse back to the Donnellys—or even to a closer residence where I can use a phone—but there's nothing else to be done.

“Well, let's go Jessie. Onward and upward.” All I know is that I'm getting to the damn airport.

I'm about to shove open the door when a strange, tinkling sound meets my ears. It sounds like sleigh bells, a jingle that I've only heard in movies and daydreams, and if I was anywhere but Ireland I would dismiss it as crazy fancy.