Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games (28 page)

They slept the night in the stall next to their horses. The next morning, Mike told Gavin not to bothering tacking up. Just stay with the horses until Mike returned.

“Some adventure,” Gavin said. “Here I am in Wales and I'm seeing the inside of a fecking stable.”

Mike chose to ignore the grumbling. “I'll bring you back lunch,” he said, checking his pockets to see how much coin he had left. Not much.

A light rap on the stall door startled them both and they looked at each other warily.

“Well, you
were
asking a lot of questions to a lot of people,” Gavin whispered, shrugging.

“Come in,” Mike said, pulling his rifle out of his saddle sheath.

The heavy stable door creaked open and a young boy poked his head through. “Oy, mister? You lookin' for the gypsy girl?”

Mike put the gun back and beckoned for the boy to enter. “What do you know about her?”

“You related to her or something?” the boy asked, still not completely entering the stable.

“Something like that. Can I give you an American dollar to hear what you know?” The money wasn't worth anything as far as buying beer but the contents of Sarah's billfold might be useful in other ways.

“Cor, really? A greenback? Can I see it?”

“If you can tell me where I can find the gypsy girl, you can have it.”

The boy licked his lips and stepped into the stable. “She's at me auntie Mabel's place.”

Mike held out the dollar to him but when the boy reached for it, Mike didn't let go. “Where is your auntie Mabel's place, if I may be so bold?”

The boy jerked his head to indicate it was outside the stable. “I'll lead ya,” he said. “I'll take ya straight there. But ya gotta be quiet, like. The girls is all sleeping this early.”

“The girls?”

“Blimey, Da,” Gavin said. “He's taking ya to a whorehouse!”

Mike released the dollar to the boy who examined it closely and then folded it and stuck it in his pocket.

“So she's alive?”

The boy stopped and frowned. “I'm not sure,” he said. “She was pretty smashed up when they dumped her at me Auntie Mabel's. But I think she was alive last time I saw her.”

“When was that?” Mike pulled on his jacket.

“A week ago?”

Mike's stomach muscles clenched, but he nodded to the boy. “Take me there, son,” he said. “And hurry.”

I
f you haven't read
Free Falling
,
Book 1 of The Irish End Games
, you'll want to see how the Woodson family got stranded in Ireland in the first place when a nuclear bomb dropped on the second day of their perfect vacation.

If you want to find out what happens next to Sarah, John and Mike, check out
Heading Home
,
Book 3 of the Irish End Games.

H
ere is
the beginning of
Heading Home
.

T
he colors
from the setting sun streaked across the summer sky in a vibrant display as Sarah stood in the front room of her cottage. She filled a basket with fresh-baked rolls for the upcoming dinner at Fiona's. The days in Ireland were long and warm in late June. As she looked across the camp, awash with muted reds and yellows from the dying light, her eyes were drawn to the warm glow from inside Fiona's cottage.

Even from a distance, it looked inviting and cozy. Sarah saw Fiona and Papin moving about the interior, doing the little homey chores necessary for putting a family meal together. She watched them until she saw Mike appear on the porch steps and heard Papin squeal her greeting to him.

She saw Mike open his arms and Papin and Fiona both came to him. Sarah would never forget the day, seven months ago, when Mike rode into camp with Papin cradled in his arms, her broken arm folded against her chest, her eyes wide with hope and expectation. When Sarah ran up to them, he dismounted and carried Papin to Sarah's cottage. Sarah held the dear broken girl—and the man who had brought her home—and believed her heart would burst from happiness.

Since that day, Mike had stepped easily into the role of father to Papin, and the girl had responded like a Morning Glory to sunlight. Gregarious by nature, Papin slipped seamlessly into the pace and beat of family life as if she'd been born to it. For the first time ever, Papin had a loving family.

One thing everyone knew for sure: the bad times were behind her.

As Sarah packed her basket, it occurred to her that tonight was a typical evening meal with the people she loved most in the world. The anticipation she felt—hearing them share about their day and laughing with them, as she knew she would—filled her with a sense of wellbeing and security she'd never really had up to now.

The truth of it was they were finally all together—all except for David. A shadow passed over her heart as she thought of him, buried beneath a scattering of wild flowers in the far pasture by Deirdre and Seamus's old cottage. She shook the thought from her mind. Tonight wasn't the time for reflection or regrets or grief. It was a night for celebration and toasts and joy.

Tomorrow was Fiona's wedding day.

M
ike Donovan stood
at the end of the aisle and watched the bride approach. He had to admit he had never seen her look more beautiful, her face flushed with excitement, her eyes sparkling when she saw him. It was all he could do to mask his quickly misting eyes as he gazed at her.

“You ready, then?” he asked gruffly, holding out his arm to her.

“As I'll ever be,” Fiona said, grabbing on to his arm.

“Declan's a good bloke,” Mike said, turning toward the chapel.

“I know.”

They stood at the end of the path as it wrapped around the last hut before entering the camp. It had been Sarah's idea to have Mike and Fi approach the little chapel from the outdoor walkway. Mike had to admit, it felt even more special to take this walk with Fi, at the end of which he'd hand her over to the man who, in the last seven months, had become his closest mate since his school days.

Hard to believe it had been seven months since Declan and his gypsy gang of fortune tellers, goniffs, and grifters had stormed the little Irish settlement Mike had built and helped rescue them from an English assault. Seven months in which Declan had proved himself to be not only a friend and a capable lieutenant in managing the camp alongside Mike—but the one man in all the world that Mike's sister, Fiona, would give her heart

“There's the music,” Fi said, squeezing Mike's arm. “I don't know how your Sarah did it, but it really sounds pretty close to
Haste to the Wedding
.”

Mike grinned.
His Sarah
. As much as he loved the sound of that, and he knew Fiona only said it as a private gift to him on this special day, he also knew Sarah Woodson—an American stranded in Ireland with her family after an ill-timed vacation—belonged to no one.

It was true enough, however, that she was just about the most resourceful person he'd ever met. After everything that went down last year he had started calling her the female MacGyver.

“Let's go, Mike,” Fi said, tugging on his arm. “I got the bugger to the altar but there's no telling how long he'll stay there.”

“He'll stay,” Mike said, as he turned his attention back to his sister and her big day. “You're not the only one who's waited a long time for this day.”

T
he wedding could not be more
perfect,
Sarah thought as she dabbed her eyes,
if it had been privately catered with a limo waiting for the happy couple afterward
. As it was, they cut a homemade wedding cake that, due to the lack of sugar, tasted more like corn bread than cake and said their vows in front of a seriously inebriated justice of the peace in lieu of a proper priest. Just a few more things hard to come by after the bomb changed everyone's world, Sarah thought grimly.

She turned to her thirteen-year-old son, who was whispering loudly to the bride's nephew, Gavin. John was growing tall, like his father had been. His eighteen months of living in a world with no electricity, no electronics and no transportation beyond what a horse could provide had transformed him from an indulged child into a young man mature beyond his years.

Which didn't mean he still didn't need to be shushed from time to time. “John,” she whispered.

He turned to her, grinning apologetically and mouthed the words,
Sorry, Mom
.

Sarah turned back to the wedding to see Mike kiss Fiona at the altar in the little chapel that two weeks earlier had served as a granary shed, then go to stand by Declan.

She glanced at the calluses on her fingers. Before coming to Ireland a year and a half ago, she had worked in an advertising office in Jacksonville, Florida. Her major skillset involved the usual office equipment and word processing software.

A lot had changed since then. Nowadays she baked bread and dug in the dirt and milked goats and mended clothes that she wouldn't have bothered giving to the poor once. Back then she'd had a paralyzing fear of horses. Now, she rode nearly every day and couldn't imagine her life without the presence of the gentle, forgiving beasts.

Back home
. It was a painful image that never got easier for Sarah. When the hydrogen bomb exploded over the Irish Sea eighteen months ago, it detonated an electromagnetic pulse that effectively flung Ireland and the United Kingdom back into the eighteen hundreds.

Sarah's dreams, her thoughts, her world would always focus on the hope that one day she and John would go back home to the United States.

Papin sat to Sarah's left. A young gypsy girl, a year older than John, Papin had known only abuse and prostitution before meeting Sarah in Wales last year.

“Do they kiss when they marry in America?” Papin asked in a loud whisper.

Sarah nodded and looked back at the ceremony. She felt responsible, in part, for Fiona's happiness, since it was Sarah who'd met Declan and his band of gypsies and urged him to come to Donovan's Lot. It would never have occurred to her then that the rambling, handsome gypsy who lived off the land—and by his wits—and the fisherman's daughter would fall in love. It had been a pleasure to watch it unfold over the last months.

Fiona, at thirty-five, had never married. Opinionated, fiery with a wild mane of curly brown hair, she looked like a gypsy queen, Sarah thought.
Who would have guessed she'd been waiting for her gypsy king to find her?

As for Declan, his extended family had assumed after awhile that he would not wed and had given him the mantle of the family leader and patriarch—even though none of the many gypsy children that scampered around the camp were his. When it became clear that he and Fiona intended to be together, it was as if Donovan's Lot had engendered its own William and Catherine love story, so eagerly did the people in the community endorse the match.

Declan, in his suede boots and demi-jacket, turned to Fiona and drew her close to him. Sarah watched Fiona turn to her new husband, her eyes shining, mouth slightly open as if to gasp at the wonder of the moment.

When the couple kissed, Papin gave a loud sigh. “So romantic.”

Several people in the seats in front of where Sarah and the two children sat turned to smile at Papin.

It
was
romantic. And for sweet, darling Fi to find someone after all this time…Sarah caught her breath at the pleasure and sheer happiness for her dear friend. Her eyes strayed again to Mike, standing solemnly as the couple kissed and the crowd began to clap and cheer.

Were all brothers like this when their sisters got married?
Sarah frowned. She would definitely need a word with him as soon as she could get him alone.

T
he wedding feast
was well underway. Two long tables stood opposite the cook fire loaded with fruit pies, roast chicken, fried apples, corn fritters and pitchers of buttermilk.