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“She’s going back to the States.”

“Oh, my. Well, good for
her.”
And very good for all the rest of
us, too.

“Not that any of that
matters,” Mike said with clear irritation at the route the
conversation had taken. “The point is, you and Taffy are here now
and very welcome. Are you thinking of staying?”

“If you’ll have me.”

“Aye. We’ll have you,”
Mike said spooning into his meal. “With pleasure,” he
muttered.

Aideen forced herself to
say nothing.
Plenty of time to seal the
deal later
, she told herself.
Take it slow for now. You’ve got your foot in the
door. The rest will come
.

She let the feeling of
immense relief and peace envelop by relaxing her spine deep into
her chair. She let out a long breath to help remind herself that
her journey was over and she was finally home.

“This stew is wonderful, Fiona,” she said,
smiling at her hostess.

“Oh, yes,” Brian chime in. “It’s
delicious.”

It hadn’t escaped Aideen’s
notice that Mike’s sister was incredibly sharp and seemed unusually
alert to people and their motives.

That would be important to
remember going forward.

The new woman was
different, Sarah noted. First, even though she was Irish, she
didn’t sound it. Second, unlike every single other woman in
camp—herself, included—she wasn’t half-baked from the sun or
scrubbed raw with the wind. If Sarah had to conjure up a picture of
the perfect English rose, unfortunately, Aideen Malone would come
to mind. It was pretty clear the woman wasn’t used to physical
labor. Whatever she’d done in the months since the bomb dropped had
obviously been indoor work.

In Sarah’s mind, the first
profession that came to mind literally was the first profession.
There was just something about her she just didn’t like…

Fiona had the newcomer by
the elbow and was going down the very short line of camp women
clustered around the potato sorting tables. The weather was fine,
almost hot, and there had been general rejoicing that the pickers
in the field would be able to make up time for the two days earlier
in the week when rain had prevented them from harvesting. Sarah
watched the camp women giggle and grin as they were introduced to
the woman. One of them nearly curtsied, but caught herself in time.
Was it just because Aideen was a stranger with a different accent?
She knew how the English were about their class system but she
hadn’t really seen anything like that in Ireland.

Had the camp women ever
treated Sarah with this kind of deference?

If anything, the women had
always seemed a little resentful of Sarah. Her relationship with
their camp leader hadn’t helped things. She’d heard rumors they
believed she and John enjoyed unfair advantages because of her
close friendship with Mike.

Hell, they were probably right.

“And this is our Sarah,”
Fiona said as she brought the newcomer over to where Sarah waited.
“And you’ll notice she wasn’t with the other women because, being
American and all, she thinks she’s kind of a special
case.”

Sarah’s mouth fell open.
Her friend looked at her with a mirroring startled
expression.
Too far?
she seemed to ask.

Aideen held out her hand and Sarah shook
it.

“I’ve heard so much about
you, Sarah,” Aideen said, her accent clipped and precise, her voice
soft and honeyed. Sarah could see why the women were treating her
like royalty. She sounded like Princess Diana.

“Have you?”

“Aideen was able to put Mike up last year
when he was on the road looking for you,” Fiona said.

Put Mike up? What the hell
did that mean?
If Aideen’s sly and
self-satisfied expression meant anything at all, it seemed the
words meant exactly what Sarah was afraid they meant. She pulled
her hand out of Aideen’s clasp.

“Well, if Fiona hasn’t
thanked you enough yet for that, then please allow me. I’m sure it
was as a result of your
helping
him that he was finally able to lay hands on me.”
She could see Fiona jerk her head at her in surprise at Sarah’s
choice of words, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that
Aideen’s smug smile had dissolved from her lips.

“My pleasure,” Aideen
said, biting off every syllable.

Sarah turned to Fiona.
“So, will Aideen be joining us today in the spud sorting
department?” She looked at Aideen. “It’s hard work here and we
don’t get many days off, especially not during harvest
time.”

“So I see,” Aideen said pleasantly.

“No,” Fiona said, her hand back on Aideen’s
elbow. “Go on and get started if you would, Sarah. I’m to deliver
her back to Mike. He’s giving her a full tour of the place today
and helping her move into her new cottage.”

Sarah watched the two move
toward Mike’s hut and saw him come out onto his porch. He was
holding a small girl in his arms, who instantly ran to Aideen when
he put her down. Sarah could hear her excited prattle from fifty
yards away although not her words. Even so, she could guess. Mike
had that effect on children.

She hurried over to the
potato sorting table, smiling broadly at the two women waiting for
her—and was met with surprised return smiles. She picked up the
first potato from the rag sack of them on the ground and brushed
the dirt from it. At the first melodic tinkle of laughter that
caught the summer morning breeze and carried back to her, she
turned her head to see the figures again in front of Mike’s
hut.

Fiona was leading the
child away toward where the rest of the children were being watched
behind the new makeshift schoolhouse they were building.

Mike and Aideen walked
toward the stables. Sarah could see he was pointing out something
to Aideen that was out of Sarah’s line of sight.

He had his hand on the small of Aideen’s
back as they walked.

***

“Really? She just waltzes
into camp one day and she’s
in
?”

“Mike vouched for her.”

Sarah grabbed two more potatoes and began
vigorously scrubbing their jackets with the small brush she was
using to clean them. Fiona stood next to her with a paring knife,
attacking the eyes and bruised spots or insect damaged areas.

“
I’ll just bet he did. And
where is she staying? Has Mike arranged that, too?”

“Of course. You know Mike.
He wanted to give her his hut because it’s so close to the camp
center, only it’s hardly bigger than an outhouse so she’ll take Old
Lady Mordor’s place for now. It’s been vacant since she died and it
has a pretty setting. Too late for flowers this year, but it gets
full sun in the morning when—”

“Okay, Fi, I don’t care about the damn sun
her new place gets.”

“Sure, why am I rattling
on? In truth, she won’t even be there in the spring
anyway.”

“So she’s just here
temporarily?” Sarah’s arms dropped to her sides. Was she really
getting unglued over nothing? She turned and picked up the small
basket of potatoes she’d finished cleaning.

“Of course. Just until you
leave. Then she’ll take your cottage.”

Sarah dropped the basket
in the dirt.

“Hey, watch that! Some
people have to eat those things. So what did you think, Sarah?
That’s we’d keep your place as a shrine to you? It’s one of the
nicest cottages in camp, if not
the
nicest. Two bedrooms, big kitchen, facing the
center of camp, and Mike is just two doors away.”

“I get it, Fi. She’s here to take my place.
I get it.”

“Oh, I think she can do a
little better than take your place, luv. It’s pretty clear by the
moon eyes she was making last night at dinner that she means to get
that big stubborn brother of my mine hitched and in her bed. Oh! I
guess that would be
your
bed, now, wouldn’t it?”

Sarah turned on her heel and stomped off to
her cottage. It was all she could do not to slap Fiona first. She
could hear her calling to her, “Oh, come on, Sarah, I was just
teasing! Come on, I’m sorry if I went too far…”

She slammed the front door
as hard as she could, wishing the windowpanes would pop out and the
doorknob would fall off at the impact. A heavy door, it was,
nonetheless, solid and slow and only made a small shushing sound
when it closed. She had an overwhelming urge to break something or
scream at the very least. Trouble was, screaming would sound an
alarm that she didn’t have the right to sound, and breaking
anything when everything was so valuable was just wrong.

She sat down and thought
about crying but decided she was too angry for that.

Worst of all, she knew she needed to go back
outside and resume cleaning and packing potatoes. She took a long
breath and straightened her blouse and smoothed out the lines of
her jeans.

I’ll go back and do my
part
, she thought, marching to the
door.
And if Fiona Donovan Cooper says one
word to me I swear I’ll soak her head in the vinegar brine
bucket.

***

Aideen wrinkled up her
nose at the smell of the place. Mike had to admit, the Widow Mordor
hadn’t been the most conscientious of housekeepers.

“It’s just temporary, mind,” he said to her
as he stepped into the cottage. He should have had Fiona air the
place out or take a hose to it, more like, but what with the
wedding and all—and not needing the place—that had taken a back
seat to more pressing things.

“It’s fine, Mike. Better than fine,” Aideen
said. “It’s a real roof over our heads and everything else can be
made lovely.”

“It’s further away from the center of camp
than I’d like,” he said. “But when Sarah moves out, you can move in
closer.” As if taking his words as an invitation, she turned to him
and put her hand on his arm.

“You know where I came from,” she said
quietly. “You know what an improvement this is over that.”

“Aye,” he said. He
couldn’t help the feeling of wanting to protect her from her past,
from the people who’d hurt her, as daft as that notion was. There
was something about her that made him want to keep her safe. “This
camp will be a good home for you, Aideen. And for Taffy. I swear it
will.”

“I know it will,” she said, shifting her
weight so her hip grazed his thigh. She looked around the dingy
little cabin as if imagining its transformation.

“I’ll have Iain bring in
food for the rest of the week. We usually parcel it out on Saturday
so those wanting a Sunday lunch can have it. You’re joining us in
the middle of our time of plenty. So that’s good.”

This tour had seemed like
a good idea when he’d suggested it last night but now, with her
standing so close to him and the thought of all the work that still
needed doing out in the field, he started to feel fidgety. Best he
left her to doing her best to tidy the place up.

Because he wasn’t
expecting it, he didn’t think to stop her or push her away when she
turned to him and kissed him on the mouth. Because he wasn’t
expecting it, he automatically dropped his hand to her waist and
pulled her to him. And because he had hungered for the touch of
another for so long, his body reacted to the moment with
instinctive immediacy.

Aideen wrapped her arms
around his neck and ground her pelvis into his before he thought to
untangle her and hold her at arm’s length. When he did, he realized
they were both panting. Her eyes glittered and focused on his lips.
He knew that she’d let him take her right there on top of the old
widow’s dusty bedclothes and broken curtain rods.

And for a minute, he considered it.

“We can’t, Aideen,” he said hoarsely.

“Sure we can now,” she
said, her eyes flitting from his mouth to his eyes. She still held
her arms out as if he would move into her embrace at any moment.
“Your Sarah is leaving.”

“Yes, but she’s not gone yet,” he said
before even thinking.

Aideen dropped her arms
and turned around to face the cottage interior. “I see.”

“No, you don’t. It’s not
like that. I just need a little time to reorganize things in my
head, is all.”

“Seemed to me your body has already made the
leap. Maybe you’re thinking too much.”

“Maybe. Can we table this
discussion for another time? I really need to get out to the field.
This is a very big time for us.”

“Of course, of course. I’ll be fine
here.”

She smiled bravely as if
he hadn’t just rebuffed her and then suggested he bolt out the
door, too. He put a hand to her face, so pale and the apples in her
cheeks like a blush about to happen.

“I can be patient, Mike,” she said, her eyes
smoldering once more and locked onto his lips. “Take the time you
need.”

Twenty minutes later he was on his horse and
cantering toward the north pasture where the potatoes had been
planted. His blood felt racing and alive as he rode. The summer
breeze ruffled his hair and the sun pounded on his back. It was
truly a beautiful day to be alive, he thought.

Aideen had just taken a shite week and made
it shine.

As he neared the field, he could see the
kneeling forms of twenty people digging up the potatoes. He was
surprised to see how orderly they seemed to be. Two people dug in
each row while a runner—it looked to be an older child—carried a
small bag of unearthed spuds back to the end of the line where
someone else packed them in larger bags and stacked them on the
back of pony carts, which were then driven off back to camp.