Authors: Deirdre Martin
Breakaway (2 page)
Special thanks to:
Jane Dashow, without whose help this book could not have been written.
Additional thanks to:
My husband, the ever patient Mark Levine.
My extremely patient editor, Kate Seaver.
My terrific agent, Miriam Kriss.
Fatin Soufan, Binnie Braunstein, Eileen Buchholtz, and Dee Tenorio.
Mom, Dad, Bill, Allison, Frankie, Aine, Sinead, Dave, and Tom.
Lord, please don’t
let there be any truth to the saying, “This is the first day of the rest of your life,”
thought Erin O’Brien, as she shoved guests’ dirty sheets into the massive washer in the basement. Ever since her parents had purchased Ballycraig’s sole B and B, she’d come to feel like an indentured servant. Helping her mother run the place was supposed to be temporary until they found “the right kind of help.” Apparently, no one in the village was right for catering to the PJ Leary fanatics who made up the bulk of the visitors. Months had crawled by, and Erin was still here, relegated to the less glamorous tasks: laundry, housecleaning, dishes. The worst part was, she did it all for free, out of what mother liked to term “family unity.”
Unity? I guess Da and Brian are exempt.
She envied her brother: Brian had left town as soon as he got married, an IT job waiting for him in Liverpool. It was a great career opportunity, except it left their father all alone to run Ballycraig’s sole auto shop, which he’d bought from Ned Sykes when the old man retired. For years, her father and brother had worked as mechanics in nearby
Balla. Now, her poor father was working with a very green assistant who’d already come close to crushing himself under a number of cars.
“How’s it going down there?” her mother yelled from the top of the basement steps.
“Fine,” Erin shouted back, peering up at her mother’s creased, anxious face. “Dad did a great job fixing the washer. Could be a second career for him.”
“No need to be cheeky.”
“I’m not!”
“Nevertheless, watch yourself.” Her mother checked her watch. “Christ, the first of the weekend guests will be here in three hours. Would you be a love and go to the supermarket in Moneygall for me?”
Erin’s shoulders slumped. “Mam—”
“Asking too much, am I?”
Erin felt guilty. “No, it’s just you’ve more than enough time to go to the market yourself. You’ll be back here and baking before they’ve even arrived.”
“Assuming the buses are running on time.” She looked fretful. “Normally I wouldn’t ask you to shop on such short notice, love. You know that. It’s just that I’ve got so much to do…”
God help me,
Erin thought.
I really need to get my license. If I don’t, I’m always going to be hostage to a bus timetable, or worse.
“Relax, all right? You know I’ll do it.”
“You’re a good girl, Erin.”
“A patsy, more like,” Erin grumbled to herself. Her mother was still peering down at her with a distressed expression. “Mam, calm down. I just said I’d do it, so why do you still look so upset? All you achieve by fretting and wringing your hands is driving yourself, and everyone around you, mad. You’re going to give yourself a stroke, and for what?”
“I know, I know,” her mother agreed distractedly. “It’s just that I want it all to be perfect, you know?”
“Perfection doesn’t exist.”
Her mother snorted. “Oh, so now you’re a philosopher, I see. You should be down at the pub with that Holy Trinity of Dimwits, sitting at the bar, each one thinking they’re the next Stephen Fry.”
The criticism stung, but Erin refrained from saying what she was thinking:
I can never win with you
. She didn’t want things to escalate, especially since her mother could go from zero to fifty in the rage department in seconds. Also, that same thought had been running through Erin’s head since she was twelve. It would sound pathetic coming from the mouth of a grown woman. Still, she did have a right to defend herself.
“I’m not being philosophical. I’m just trying to point out that you drive yourself mad unnecessarily.”
Erin could tell by her mother’s lack of response that this conversation was going in one ear and out the other. Her mother had always been anxious, but now she bordered on high-strung. Erin worried that one day, she’d just keel over dead from a stroke.
“I’ll leave you a list on the kitchen counter, all right?”
“Sure.”
“You’re a good girl,” her mother repeated.
Too good,
Erin thought. She took comfort in knowing her escape plan was firmly in place and that she would, sooner or later, be free. She double-checked behind her to make sure the washer was still tumbling properly and headed up the stairs.
* * *
“Chores” done, Erin went to her room, locking the door behind her. She and her parents now occupied the top floor of the guest house, the sale of their family home and some land having provided the bulk of the money to buy the B and B.
She caught her reflection in the mirror atop the scratched bureau from her childhood.
You’re no great shakes,
she told herself.
Nothing special to look at
. But in the career she’d be pursuing, looks didn’t matter.
Her eyes traveled the room, caressing the reproductions of some of her favorite artwork that she’d pinned to the walls to help fend off dreariness: Frida Kahlo, the bright reds of Henri Matisse, fields of heart-lifting bright yellow sunflowers by van Gogh, and Irish landscape artist Henry McGrane’s gentle impressions of spring. Erin was pursuing an art history degree online with the Open University. Most people would think it impractical, even odd. Erin didn’t care: she loved art, and it was something she’d pursued off and on while Rory was away at college. Now that Rory was out of her life, she could do as she wanted, no putting her dreams on hold for that selfish bastard. No one knew she was almost done with her degree but her best friend, Sandra.
Rory Brady. Just thinking about him sometimes made her feel like a twit. Ballycraig’s local idiot, that’s who she was, too stupid to tell when she was being played. How many times had she replayed their years-long relationship in her mind? Why did she insist on torturing herself? The story always ended the same way: her life in tatters and his looking brighter and brighter, the first Irish-born man playing in the NHL for the New York Blades.
Rory’s face swam up in her mind’s eye. Her mam had always said he looked like David Beckham, and it was true. If he were a pop star, girls would be breaking into his house just to catch a glimpse of that dirty blond hair and blue eyes. It was a sin that a man should have eyes that beautiful and be such an SOB.
They’d started dating when they were just babies, fourteen years old. It was casual at first, but soon turned serious. Very serious, then committed, even when his family moved to America a year later. They spent eight years of trying to find a place to be alone when his family returned to Ballycraig for the summer, eight years of her arguing with her parents about going to visit him in the States. One memory in particular dashed back at her: It was early evening, and the sky had gone all gray dusk and pink. She and Rory were lounging beneath the big oak tree in Old Man
McDonagh’s field, the sun filtering through the latticework of the leaves.
The Lover’s Tree
, it was called, because the old man never minded couples loafing beneath it. Rory was leaning back against the tree, and she was stretched out with her head in his lap. It felt like they were in a poem.
Rory looked down at her, smiling. “I was thinking it might be nice if our wedding ceremony was just you and me, and some old padre saying the words in an ancient church, the only light coming from a blaze of candles surrounding us.”
Erin settled into his lap dreamily. “That’s very romantic.”
“And it saves us worrying about a guest list.”
Erin clucked her tongue, glancing up at him with affection. “I knew you had an ulterior motive.”
“Me? Never.” His expression was tender as his large, strong hand brushed against her cheek. “I know it sounds mad, but sometimes I feel like we’re already married, we’ve been together so long.”
“Is that your way of telling me you’re getting tired of me, Rory Brady?” Erin teased.
“I could never get tired of you.”
“Promise?”
He put his hand over his heart. “On my life.” His voice, a deep sexy rumble, was charged with emotion as he continued, “You’re the only one for me, Erin, and you always have been. Nothing can change that, not even geography. You’re going to be my wife.”
Erin believed him. Their love was immutable, fixed as law. There was no telling where one left off and the other began. It had always been that way, and always would be.
The memory faded, straight-on narrative returning as if she needed to recount the facts of what happened to make sure it really had happened.
They decided they’d wait to tie the knot until Rory graduated from Cornell and got picked up by a minor hockey team, and then hopefully, the NHL. Which is exactly how it happened.
Except part of it didn’t: the wedding. Erin loved him so
blindly, and with such faith, that even after he hadn’t come back to Ballycraig for two years running, she still held tightly to their dream. All that rubbish about being in the NHL now and training camp and not having any time to get back home? Deep down, she knew. So when she gave him the ultimatum—either marry me like you said or we’re done—she shouldn’t have been surprised that he grabbed option B.
Even so, when the crash came, it was no less devastating. She was dragged under by their history together, tormented by every loving thing he’d ever said and done over the years. She’d have donned widow’s weeds if she could. It was a lucky thing that she was surrounded by loving family and friends, like Sandra and Rory’s former best friend, Jake Fry. Were it not for all of them, especially Jake and Sandra, she’d have spent her life in bed, not caring about anything. She certainly stopped caring about her job in the jewelry store in Crosshaven, quitting a month after Rory dumped her. She couldn’t handle dealing with people, especially happy couples who came in looking for wedding rings.
It took her two years to pull herself together, but when she did, she made a promise to herself: never, ever again would she give her hopes and dreams over to a man like Rory Brady.