The Last Bride in Ballymuir (10 page)

Gerry Flynn nudged in next to him. When
Michael recognized him, he tucked his elbows into his sides and
closed himself off, staring down at the ashtray in front of him.
Kylie watched as Flynn did the talking, a nasty sneer shaping his
lips. Music and laughter prevented her from hearing what Flynn was
saying to Michael, yet she knew it was no warm welcome.

Flynn glanced around surreptitiously, then
with one quick brush of his arm, he sent the ashtray and glassware
in front of Michael flying across the bar. The music straggled off
at the sound of shattering glass and raised voices.

Incredulous, Kylie watched
as Flynn shoved
Michael off his stool and
sent him sprawling onto the
floor. Rory
O’Connor rounded the bar and stood over the two of them. Kylie
pushed through the crowd with a strength she didn’t know she
had.

“
I’ve got him, Rory,” Flynn
called up from the floor. Michael lay face down, his arm
twisted
back
and
upward at a horrible angle and Flynn’s knee digging in the middle
of his back. “I’ve no idea what got into the stupid
bastard.”

Michael didn’t struggle at all. He lay there,
passive and silent. Rory nudged Michael with his foot. “You’ll be
leaving now, and not coming back.”

Kylie looked frantically at
the circle of faces around her. Surely she wasn’t the only one
who’d seen what
Flynn
had done. Surely someone would step in. Someone else, please
God. But almost to a person, they watched the action on the floor
with avid and amused interest. All except Vi Kilbride, who gazed at
her with a look of calm expectation.

“
Tell them what you
know,”
her green eyes seemed
to say.
“Stand up for the
man.”

But she couldn’t. She didn’t
dare. Standing up for
Michael Kilbride
would be branding Gerry Flynn—a representative of the law, for
God’s sake—a liar. And
it would be
attaching her name to Kilbride’s. Pub-brawlers—even those who
rescued the occasional child—weren’t the sort of men welcome in the
conservative fold of Gaelscoil Pearse. She’d fought so hard for her
job, her little corner of this world, and she wouldn’t risk it
now.

Kylie turned and pushed through the
crowd.

Chapter Six

A Kerry shower is of twenty-four hours.

—
Irish Proverb

The rain had slowed, and fog
hung thick and silvery in the air. Shaken and still feeling lost in
her
own land, Kylie drove from town. With
Vi Kilbride’s
disappointed gaze heavy on
her, leaving the pub had seemed to take an eternity. She’d had to
stop and be certain that Breege’s friend Edna could get her home
later in the evening. Breege’s reassuring words that the pub wasn’t
usually visited by troublemakers, such as the man Gerry had tossed
out, only deepened Kylie’s remorse.

She had betrayed Michael
Kilbride tonight, and if faced with the same choice, she’d do it
again. Weak,
she was. Weak and selfish, all
over a job she couldn’t
afford to lose and
a reputation she’d sacrificed everything to salvage.

Dazed, with forbidden tears
blurring her vision, she navigated a sharp bend in the road.
Suddenly a tall figure loomed a heartbeat ahead. With a panicked
cry she swerved hard to the right, waiting for the sickening thump
she knew was to come. It never
did, though.
The little car spun on the slick road, skit
tered sideways, and stalled out. Other than the rasp of her
own terrified panting, she heard only silence. Her mouth dry and
coppery-tasting with fear, Kylie rested her forehead against the
steering wheel and willed her stomach to stop lurching.

A sharp rapping sounded beside her head. “Are
you all right?”

She lifted her head and
stared incredulously at the
face on the
other side of the glass. He had a grand way
of putting himself in harm’s path, this man. For one
incredibly lucid moment thoughts of fate and
impos
sible coincidence whirled through
Kylie’s head. Then
the
heat of anger settled over her.

Set on giving Michael
Kilbride the sharp edge of
her
tongue, she grabbed the window crank and
wrenched
it downward. The knob came off in
her shaking hand and for an instant she stared at it, nonplussed.
Then
riding the crest of the adrenaline
wave that follows any
truly dreadful event,
she sprang to action.

At least the door handle
still worked, she thought with a sense of triumph as she flung
herself from the car. “What were you thinking? Do you have no
com
mon sense, or is it some sort of mad
death wish?” She
clenched the thick weave
of his sweater in two fists and shook him, though she seemed to be
the only one moving for the effort. “Walking down the middle of the
road like that, I could have killed you, you big, bloody
fool!”

“
But you didn’t,” he said
closing his hands over hers. His touch was strangely calming,
considering he was the one who’d put the fright into her in the
first place. “You didn’t,” he repeated. “There’s not a
scratch on me. In fact, all things considered, I
seem to
be doing a far sight better than
you are at the moment.” He untangled her fingers from his sweater
and gave her hands one last gentle squeeze. “Now let’s get your car
set right on the road before some real damage is done
tonight.”

As his words sunk in, guilt consumed Kylie’s
anger. The real damage had been done back at O’Connor’s, well
before she’d almost mowed him down. The tears that had been
forgotten with the scare fought their way loose. She held one
knotted fist in front of her mouth and spun away from him.

“
Kylie?”

Slipping back into her car, she slammed the
door without answering. She wanted to be home, to have this
wretched night at an end. Fumbling with her keys, she tried to
restart the engine, but it wouldn’t even turn over.

“
Hurry... come on,” she
urged.

The car door opened, letting
in the bite of the wind
and Michael’s low
voice. “Kylie?”

She stared forward into the fog, wishing
herself anyplace but here. Broad, strong fingers stroked the side
of her face.

“
You’re crying,” he said,
surprise in his voice as his palm cupped her wet cheek. “Out.” With
a firm yet gentle hand he ushered her out of the car and around to
the passenger side.

“
I’ll be doing the driving,”
he added before closing her door.

Overwhelmed, defeated, and knowing that the
night hadn’t reached its end, Kylie slumped low in her seat.
Michael closed his door and after muttering, “Still in gear,”
started the car and turned them back around.

On the drive home Kylie fervently wished for
a handkerchief. Unwanted tears slipped silently down her cheeks,
but the sniffling she couldn’t quiet. Outside, the rain picked up
again.

“
Would it help to tell me
why you’re crying?” Michael asked.

It was tempting but very wrong to seek solace
from her victim. “N-no,” she answered in a hoarse voice. “I’ll be
fine in a... in a minute.”

Kylie caught the movement of his head as he
looked her way. “Sure you will.”

“
I don’t do this often, cry
like this,” she offered as they pulled up beside her house. “And I
don’t do it very well.”

She heard him mumble something about her
sounding like no amateur at crying, either. He switched off the car
and came around to open her door, leaving her touched by this bit
of gallantry she hadn’t seen practiced in aeons.

For an awkward moment they
stood looking at each other in the pelting rain. “Well, I’ll be
leaving,” he said at the same time she began to thank him for
seeing her safe home. They both straggled to a stop,
Kylie realizing that he now had several miles more
to
walk in the dark of a wet
night.

“
I’ll run you back to town,”
she said.

“
Hold out your
hands.”

“
What?”

“
Both of them. In front of
you, like this.” He held out his own steady hands to show
her.

Kylie copied the action, but hers trembled
like a sapling’s leaves in a strong wind. She quickly tucked them
behind her back.

“
I’d be safer standing in
front of your car again.”

True, unfortunately. And she
knew there was only one thing to be done for it, even if it did
step outside the bounds of respectability for the local
maiden
schoolteacher. She took solace from
the fact that, other
than Breege, her
closest neighbor was over a mile off.

Tipping her face skyward, she said, “You
can’t be walking home in this. Come inside, you can sleep on the
couch. I’ll run you back to your sister’s early in the
morning—before I go to work.”

He shifted uncomfortably,
whether from the rain or
her suggestion,
Kylie wasn’t sure. “I can’t be staying here. It’s not
right.”

“
And you can’t be walking
home, either.” She refused to add being the cause of a case of
pneumonia to her night’s sins. When he stubbornly refused to follow
her to the front door, she added, “Please, Michael. I’m out of
strength to argue with you. Besides, no one will know but
us.”

“
Famous last words,” he
said.

She stepped into the house.
Her mouth curved into a fleeting smile as she watched him look
about
for spying eyes before following her.
Once they were
both inside, for want of
anything else to calm her suddenly dancing nerves, Kylie started a
kettle on the stove. Michael had slipped off his shoes at the door
and laid his soggy sweater over the back of a kitchen chair. His
timeworn U2 tee shirt was blotched dark with rain.

She frowned. “I’ve a few of my father’s
clothes stored away. He’s not quite your size, but they should
do.”

Before he could answer, she hurried to her
bedroom. There she unearthed some garments from the back of her
large wardrobe. She shook out the trousers and gave them an
assessing look. Too short to be sure, but Michael was a fit man and
Johnny liked his food, so there should be room enough, anyway. She
grabbed an extra blanket and pillow, then returned to her
guest.

“
Thank you,” he said,
accepting the bundle. “You’ve been kind. One of the few tonight who
have.”

Kylie flinched at the unintended sting of his
words. Stronger than ever, the need to confess was on her. Faced
with either hurting him or being dishonest, she retreated. “I’ll be
taking care of myself now,” she said, waving one hand at her wet
hair and clothes. “Have an eye to the kettle, if you could.”

The sounds of comfort,
Michael thought as the kettle’s
whistle
gained his attention. Before that, it had been the music of running
water as Kylie showered—just one rickety door sagging loose on its
hinges between them. A feast for a starved imagination, the woman
on the other side of that door. The imagination and nothing more,
he reminded himself. He was beginning to sense his place in this
town. It looked to be nose down on the barroom floor, and not at
Kylie O’Shea’s side.

By the time he heard the
rusty protest of the shower valves being closed, he’d put together
a pot
of tea and found a couple of scones
to add to the feast
he could have.
Sitting on the edge of the spring-shot sofa that
was
to be his bed, Michael waited for Kylie
to reappear. His left shoulder still pounded from Flynn’s rough
treatment, and his head was beginning to feel the aching effects of
the whiskey he’d drunk. One hell of
a day
it had been, he thought as he absently scrubbed
his hand over his eyes.

When he brought his hand away, she was
standing there. Slender bare feet peeked out from beneath a white
nightgown covered by a too short blue velvet robe. Though it had
seen wear, it looked to have been one fine piece of clothing in its
day. Michael pictured a fifteen-year-old Kylie opening a gift box
wrapped in beautiful paper while her loving parents looked on.
Sitting in front of a grand marble fireplace they would have been,
all rich and cozy, no worries at all.

But no, he thought, shaking off the dream,
that was his wish for her. Of the reality, he knew little—just that
her father was a cheat, and she now lived poorer than he’d ever
imagined a schoolteacher doing. He glanced up at her face, kissed
pink from the heat of the shower or perhaps the intimacy of the
moment.

“
Tea?” he asked, then at her
nod, leaned forward to the low table in front of the couch to pour
out a cup. “I’ve borrowed your father’s shirt,” he said, “but the
trousers didn’t fit.”

She perched next to him on the couch. The
scents of soap and clean, flowery shampoo wafted his way.

“
There’s something I need to
tell you,” she said, her words rushed and anxious.

Michael briefly tried to imagine what sort of
confession could come from a woman who looked so pure and perfect,
her damp hair pulled back into a schoolgirl’s thick braid.