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Declan looked at his wife
and blinked with surprise. “
That’s
what you’re upset about? That somebody wasted a
tomato?”

Fiona sat down next to Declan and reached
for his hand but he pulled it away. “I’m upset about the madness
that’s taken over our community. Declan, I’m afraid.”

“Our people are here.”

“Your
people! Mine just got thrown out on his arse.”

“We need to think about the baby,” he said,
not looking at her.

“I
am
thinking about the baby! I’m
thinking the little bugger won’t have a da if we stay—nor a mam
either with Caitlin gunning for me. Why are we still
here?”

“I thought you always said raising bairns
takes a village.”

“I wasn’t talking
about
Amityville
.
We aren’t safe here, Dec.”

Declan put a hand to his face. In the three
days since Papin’s burial and his beating, his cuts and bruises
were fading. Jamison had broken two of his ribs but Declan knew it
could have been worse.

A lot worse.

“How do you feel?”

He grimaced. He felt like shite. He was sick
of hiding and he hated the thought of running. But he didn’t see
any other way. He glanced at Fiona and felt a wave of amazement
that his perfect world could have changed so drastically so
quickly.

“The boy out there is a gypsy,” Fiona
said.

“So?”

“She’s targeting them. You see that,
right?”

Declan made a noise of disgust. “Is there
any tea left?”

Fiona flounced off the couch and stomped
into the kitchen. He watched her go. She was already filling out
fast with the little one. Christ, he hoped it wasn’t twins. He
heard voices outside as people gathered by the poor bastard locked
in the stocks.

Fiona wasn’t wrong. Brian’s bitch was
targeting the gypsies. This morning while Fi was gathering firewood
for the stove, his cousin visited him to complain. The Kelly twins,
Colin and Cedric, visited the gypsy section of camp frequently to
bed the young teen girls—more than once not by consent. Declan knew
it was only a matter of time before some young white stud got his
guts rearranged with a skinning knife.

“There’s no sugar,” Fiona said from the
kitchen. Her voice was angry and tight. He knew she just wanted to
prod him. Hell, there hadn’t been sugar since spring.

“Sure, fine,” he said.

He hadn’t known what to tell his cousin,
except to remind him that he no longer held any kind of leadership
role in the community. Which was when they reminded him the
leadership role he had in the family couldn’t be shrugged off as
easily.

He nearly grinned thinking of it. Here he
sat, battered, cowed, a virtual prisoner in his own cottage, and
the daft boggers were still coming to him to address their
grievances. In their eyes, circumstances didn’t dictate who was a
leader and who wasn’t. Declan was born to lead them and by God,
that was that.

Fiona walked back to him holding a steaming
mug of tea when Declan heard the heavy foot tread pounding up the
porch steps. He waited and the door swung open without
knocking.

Iain Jamison stood in the doorway. The Kelly
twins stood behind him. One held a truncheon in his hands that he
slapped in the other as if in anticipation of using it.

“Oy, Cooper,” Jamison said, his eyes
flitting briefly to Fiona and then back to Declan.

Declan bit back a venomous
retort.
No good could come of baiting this
arsehole.
One glance at his companions
confirmed that. They
wanted
him to resist.

He kept silent.

“I’ll be needing you to vacate the premises
effective immediately.”

Declan saw one of the twins crane his neck
to look around the living room as if ready to move in, himself.
Clearly, that’s what this was about.

Fiona marched up to Iain, still holding the
cup of tea, and Declan forced himself to his feet, his ribs
screaming in protest. “Hold on, love,” he said, hobbling to reach
her to touch her elbow before she did something that got them both
a beating. “Is that tea for me?”

She faced Jamison. “You’re
kicking us out, you useless piece of shite? Does your wife know
what depths you’ve sunk to, Iain? Does
Edie
know you’re kicking me, a
pregnant woman, out of her home?”

Declan could see that Fiona had unsettled
Jamison. He took her arm and, spilling tea on the floor as he did,
pulled her gently away from the man. It was Declan’s experience
that men who feel unsettled quite often did things—bad things—they
might not normally do. “Let’s go, love,” Declan said under his
breath. “It is what it is.”

All three men entered the cottage now and he
could see the twins taking stock of their new quarters.

“How we going to get the stench of wog out
of the rafters, eh?” The twin with the club said, smiling nastily
at Declan.

“Five minutes to gather
what you can carry,” Jamison said, his voice strident now with
obvious stress. “And be glad for that much. You’ll leave your
rifle, Cooper. And your horse and cart. There are no personal
possessions at
Daoineville
. Everything belongs to
the camp.”

“How is he supposed to shoot game to provide
for his family?” Fiona asked, her hand on her stomach. She looked
at Declan as if expecting him to argue. “And you’re stealing our
horse?”

“Not stealing, as I just explained to you,”
Jamison said tersely. “You’ve got five minutes and since none of us
has a watch that works, I’ll be guessing the time.” He looked at
Declan who had yet to speak to him. “I’d hurry, you, in case I
guess on the short side.” His hand dropped to the pistol tucked
into his belt.

Declan understood. The bastard just needed a
reason to kill him. Being too slow to leave would serve as well as
any other. “Come on, Fi,” he said, holding a hand out to his wife.
“Leave it all. There’s bugger all here anyway.”

***

Mike watched the dust motes dancing in the
air of the early morning kitchen. It had been two and a half weeks
since they buried little Papin. Two and a half weeks after he left
John and Sarah in Limerick. Two weeks after he watched Declan and
his pregnant sister trudge up the dusty road to his cottage, the
slope of their shoulders, the plodding steps telling
everything.

They were outcasts, all of them.

And none of them any too safe.

Mike woke early this morning. Aideen and
Taffy had one bedroom and Declan and Fiona in the other, leaving
himself and Gavin to bed down on the living room floor. He was
grateful for the roof over his head—and that they were all
together.

A broken cart axel had delayed them precious
days, but he expected they would finally be able to head for the
coast tomorrow. He tried to quietly light the cooker to start the
water boiling for the tea. He could see that it had done Dec a
world of good just to get out of the camp. His injuries had
healed—now he just needed to work on his pride.

“Da! I’m going out for a whiz.” Gavin stood
in the living room and pointed to the front door.

“Grab some more firewood while you’re out
there and mind you don’t piss on it first.”

“Let me do that.”

He turned to see Aideen moving silently from
the second bedroom. She was fully dressed, her hair tied back, and
even wore a touch of make up.

He was surprised she still bothered. He
handed her the tin of tealeaves. “It’s probably the last pot,” he
said. “We’ll find more as we head to the coast.”

“It doesn’t matter. We’ll survive without
tea.”

“Aye, but it’s nice not to have to, you
know?”

She didn’t answer. He watched her movements
as she spooned the tea into the pot and then gave the fire a poke
with a long stick. The kettle on top began to steam.

“So will we be leaving tomorrow?”

“Aye. We’ve stayed too long already,” he
said.

“Dec said at dinner last night that he knows
bugger all about fishing.”

“Yeah, well, he knew bugger all about
sheriffing, too, but he managed to learn.”

“That’s true.”

“Look, Aideen, I know this has been
difficult—”

“Mike, don’t. It is what it is. Let’s just
get where we’re going. All right?”

“Aye, sure.” He would have liked to put a
hand on her shoulder, or even to pull her to him for a hug but he
didn’t dare. If she was holding it together with spit and a
prayer—and the Lord knows he knew how that felt—he didn’t want to
do anything to make it harder.

Gavin came inside, his arms full of wood,
the front door banging loudly behind him.

“Oy, Gav, let yer poor auntie sleep late
just one morning, would ya?”

“Don’t worry, I’m up,” Fiona said, yawning,
as she stood in the doorway to the bedroom she shared with Declan.
“And from the sounds coming through the wall, so is wee Taffy.”

“Mam! I’m hungry!”

Aideen hurried back to her bedroom and her
howling daughter. Fiona poured the boiling water into the teapot.
“Is there enough for a pot?” she asked.

“Should be,” Mike said. He nodded at Declan
as his brother-in-law emerged from the bedroom.

“Not used to being idle,” Declan said,
grimacing. “I bloody hate it.”

“Well, you won’t be long,” Mike assured him.
“The life of a fisherman—”

“Stinks to high heaven?” Declan said, a
smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

“Very amusing. No, I was going to say, is
never dull.”

“Da, are we going to get a boat?” Gavin
reached out for the cup of tea that Fiona handed him.

“Aye, we’ll need a boat.”

“I hate the fecking water,” Declan said.

“That is a problem,” Mike said.

“And I can’t fecking swim.”

“Go on with you!”

“It’s true. It is not a skill I ever thought
I’d fecking need.”

“Well, shit, Dec. If you’re going to be in a
boat every day, you need to know how to swim.”

“I’ll teach you, Uncle Dec!” Gavin said,
grinning. “I’ll teach you the way my Da taught me.”

“Does that involve me knocking a few of your
teeth out, because I think I know that method,” Declan growled.

Fiona handed her husband his tea and a quick
kiss on the cheek. “Whisht!” she said. “Let’s all stay positive,
why don’t we?”

***

Brian watched his wife as she silently crept
through the front door. It occurred to him that he should be glad
she bothered to sneak. She probably wouldn’t for much longer.

Could it be this place that had changed her?
He’d seen it the moment they entered camp. The sweetness and
compliance shining in her face every day until the moment they rode
into Daoineville was gone, replaced by a hardness that now seemed
difficult to believe hadn’t always been there.

Who are you, Catherine
Kelly Gilhooley?
He turned his face to the
wall, unsure of whether or not he should let her see that he was
awake.

It was bad enough that her father knew she’d
been out half the night. But Brian had endured the old man’s
wordless pity all evening.

“You awake then?”

She had a scent like lilacs—although where
in the world she’d come by it was beyond him. He turned to face her
and she slipped, already naked, into his arms.

“I am,” he whispered hoarsely, urgently. His
neck reddened with his shame.

“Will you promise me you’ll go collect
Donovan tomorrow? Me poor father’s waited years for the justice
denied him. I’ll not have the dear man wait any longer.”

Brian closed his eyes. Could he really
arrest Donovan with no proof but an angry, grief-stricken old man’s
say-so? What kind of trial could they have that would produce
anywhere near the result he knew his wife and her father
needed?

“Or,” she said, her voice low and seductive,
“you could bring him in for springing that murderin’ wog. He’ll
confess to it, I’m sure. He’s that arrogant.”

Brian’s eyes opened and he smiled at her in
the dark.

Now
that
he could do.

“Iain and I’ll go first thing in the
morning,” he said, as he stroked her bare hip.

She batted his hand away. “Not first thing,”
she said. “Iain will want to sleep in a wee bit.”

20

Le Bon Bon
was her favorite middle of the week lunch spot in
Jacksonville.

Or at least it had been two years ago.

Sarah looked around at the
French décor. A six-foot metal replica of the Eiffel Tower anchored
the center of the little restaurant. Nothing seemed changed about
the place that she could see. The fragrance of the fresh-baked
croissants was as pervasive as ever. The
patisserie
case in the front of the
shop was still crammed full of every imaginable kind of
petit four
, tart
and
gateau
.
The
quiche du jour
was as heavenly as she remembered. But that was the problem,
she realized as she held her fork over the delectable golden brown
crust, the creamy, cheesy filling nestled perfectly
within.

She had imagined it during other times. She
had used the memory of this dish to keep herself from eating her
leather shoes one day during her trek through the Brecon Beacons in
Wales last year. She had kept the texture of its rich custard
uppermost in her mind the day she had needed to force down a
mouthful of rabbit—raw and still bloody from her slingshot—to keep
from starving to death.

She placed her fork back on the plate,
noticing her fingers shook as she did.