The Last Bride in Ballymuir (2 page)

A light mist began to drift
from the sky: too gen
tle for rain, a true
soft day. And still Michael walked.
The
path became steeper as it led into the foothills. His shoes, a
half-size too large and stiff with newness, rubbed at his heels.
The sting kept him conscious of the progress he made, the freedom
he owned.

But what was freedom without goals and plans?
He paused, feeling an ugly sort of amusement at his own thoughts.
Freedom was more than he’d had in a bloody lifetime. And as for
goals, he’d become rather good at doing nothing at all.

As he readied to walk and
leave his empty dreams behind, a motion caught his eye. In a far
field, a girl
lifted a rock and carried it
to a low, meandering fence
made of the
rock’s kin. Instead of walking, Michael found himself watching.
Then, drawn to her, he traveled up a muddy track and perched
himself on yet another stone fence—easy to come by in County
Kerry.

She was yet a distance off, and Michael found
it hard to judge her age. That she wore a fawn-colored sweater with
sleeves too long and a hem that dipped and sagged almost to her
knees didn’t help in the guessing. She was slender, though, and
tall for her youth. But it was the grace of her movement in such a
dull task that riveted him. Measured grace, something he’d never
considered. Now he did.

Michael stepped even closer and sat again.
The girl had to see him, but gave no sign of it. A sweep of brown
hair, long and straight as a silk banner, shielded her face from
him. One rock to the next she cleared the field with no tools but
her hands. And he sensed that she enjoyed herself, too.

Michael went to a break in the fence. She
stilled and then with one long-fingered hand pushed back her hair.
The movement of her arm drew the oversized sweater tighter to her,
silhouetting breasts that were no child’s.

She turned to face him. Innocence: wide-set
eyes of the palest blue he’d ever seen, a broad mouth that somehow
appeared vulnerable in her oval of a face. His heart staggered at
the sight of that purity—plain to the point of beauty.

Wariness shadowed her features. He held
himself unmoving, unthreatening under her gaze. In the time it took
him to realize that he was also holding his breath, her caution
faded, and that innocent mouth curved into one devil of a
smile.

“
You might as well come
help,” she said. “Standing there gaping like that, you make me
wonder who’s the bigger fool, me for taking on this job, or you for
watching as though there’s something to
see.”

Without thought, without intent, he walked to
her. Thank God she was no child. No child at all. Reaching out her
right hand, she said, “My name’s Kylie—Kylie O’Shea.”

He took her hand in his, and though she was
tall enough and clearly strong for her size, never had Michael felt
so hulking and clumsy. “Kilbride, Michael Kilbride.” Out of
practice for even the most rudimentary of social exchanges, his
words sounded rusty.

He found himself staring down at their joined
hands. Not knowing how long he’d stood there grabbing on like he
had no intention of letting go, Michael dropped her hand and backed
up a step.

She gave him a curious glance. “So you’re
staying down the road and came out for a walk? Well, your help’s
welcome, Michael Kilbride.”

Looking at a field made of roughly equal
amounts of rock and sheep droppings, he asked, “What are you
doing?”

“
Getting ready for spring,
of course.”

The absolute, irrational optimism of that
statement set him back on his heels. “It’s February,” he said, and
immediately felt like an idiot for pointing out the obvious.

“
It is, and I’ve not many
free days left between now and planting time.”

Michael was the product of cities, buses, and
sprawl. Still, even he could see that there was no sense in putting
anything other than more sheep manure in this plot of earth.

“
Planting?” he echoed
skeptically.

“
Planting,” she affirmed.
“Now either help or be on your way. It slows me down, knowing
you’re watching like that.”

Because he had no way to take, and because he
didn’t want to leave the company of Kylie O’Shea, he bent over,
picked up the smallest rock he could, and carried it to the growing
wall.

He glanced back at her. Her brows arched in
amused challenge. “Surely a man of your size can do better than
that.”

He surprised himself by laughing. He could do
better, and did. The sight of her was worth the price of admission.
After a while, Michael fell into the rhythm of the task. Time
slipped by, measured by the sight of the low clouds drifting across
the sky and by the solid sound of rock hitting rock. A sense of
contentment came over him. They worked in near silence, something
he found far more comfortable than trying to scrape together words.
Watching her was enough.

He was truly surprised that he hadn’t ground
his knuckles raw and flattened a few toes the way he followed her
every move instead of his work. Her gaze touched him more than
once, too. He sensed it with a primal awareness that made him feel
almost like a barbarian. He found himself wanting her. In the
ancient days—those before any law other than that of strength
taking weakness—he’d have had her.

But he was a modern man, Michael thought
while lifting and heaving yet another rock to the wall. She didn’t
know him. He didn’t know her. And the ritual of meeting and dating
was as foreign to him as the wanting. Even before the years away,
chatting up the girls hadn’t come naturally. And this one, with her
smile and confidence, she’d have heard it all before, anyway.

Though the field still held far more rock
than the low line of fence they’d created, after an hour or so,
Kylie O’Shea stood, hands propped on narrow hips, and looked
around, appearing satisfied.

“
Enough,” she
said.

Feeling a mix of regret and relief, Michael
glanced toward the road. “I’ll be on my way.”

The set of her mouth grew stubborn. “Not
without a meal, you won’t. I’m not much in the kitchen, but it’s a
hard thing to foul up vegetable soup. It’s been simmering since
morning.” She gestured toward a small, whitewashed cottage further
up the hillside. “Join me, won’t you?”

At his nodded assent, she led the way up the
path. He followed without thinking, a trait that had bought him
trouble time and again, Michael knew. But Kylie O’Shea was no
temptress. And he was no longer a callow eighteen. Looking at the
slender, capable woman in front of him, he was glad for both
facts.

It was the boldest thing Kylie had ever done,
asking a stranger into her house. And boldness, she remembered,
had a way of crossing over into stupidity.

“
Make yourself at home,” she
said, scrubbing her hands at the kitchen sink. She glanced over her
shoulder at him. “The facilities are behind the door on your left,
if you’d like to wash up.”

“
Thank you,” he said in a
deep voice that had her ducking her head closer to the sink to hide
the blush she felt sliding across her features. In the minutes that
he was in the other room, she hurriedly dug in her purse for a
brush and ran it through her hair, wondering how she looked, and
wondering why after all these years vanity chose now to show
itself.

Her appearance had never bothered her before.
In fact, she was thankful she wasn’t the sort to draw attention.
Brown wren Kylie, safe from the predators of the world. She
scrubbed her face, washed her hands again, then told herself to
calm down. By the time he returned, she stood placidly at the
stove.

He nodded a greeting, then turned his back to
her and gazed out the window. Even now he seemed wary and
uncomfortable in her presence. Still, she felt a startling sort of
instinctual trust. For her to have these feelings about any man was
a battle of will against brutal experience.

To trust a stranger? This was a miracle, no
less. In return, she wanted to put him at ease, but had no idea how
to go about it.

Kylie gave the pot of soup one last stir. It
seemed a bit stubborn at the bottom. She leaned closer to the soup
and sniffed suspiciously. She prayed she hadn’t scorched it, though
scorched soup seemed a proper mate to the rather too crusty bread
she’d baked that morning.

He still stood at the window.

“
Are you wondering what it
is I do up here?” she asked, putting a smile in her
voice.

He turned, and her pulse danced and
skittered. Beautiful he was, in an entirely male way. His black
hair was shorter than many men wore it, but it did nothing to
detract from his appearance. Little could. All dark and big with
green eyes that seemed to see into the comers of her mind, the man
was a medieval maiden’s fantasy landed in the wrong world. If he
hadn’t seemed even more uncomfortable than she, Kylie would have
found him intimidating.

“
You’re no farmer,” he
said.

Kylie gave an apologetic
sigh as she ladled out the soup. “Nor a chef, either.” Putting a
bowl at the place she’d set for him, she said, “I’m a primary
teacher at Gaelscoil Pearse—one of the local All-Irish
schools.
An bhfuil Gaeilge
agat?
”

A
smile, almost too brief to be seen, passed across his face. “I
speak a word or two, but none that I’ll be trotting out for an
expert like you. And now you’re teaching it to the young? It’s a
grand thing you’re doing.”

She felt her face color at
the compliment; she received them so painfully seldom. Kylie smiled
her thanks. “Milk? It’s fresh this morning.” At his
“please,” she busied herself pulling two clean
glasses
from the shelf and the milk from
her small refrigerator.

The milk, at least, would be right. The bread
was another issue. On her pay, store bought was an impossibility.
Home-baked, on the other hand, was a punishment. She sawed
frantically at the loaf, wishing not for the first time that she’d
had a mother long enough to teach her these basic things. With
luck, Michael Kilbride had a forgiving nature because he’d have
much to forgive after this meal.

They sat together at her plain wooden table—
scarcely big enough for one. Between swallows of overcooked soup
and nibbles of bread drier than the Sahara, Kylie struggled to
maintain her end of a weak conversation.

“
So are you visiting the
O’Hallorans or Mrs. Flaherty?” she asked, referring to the only
neighbors within walking distance.

After washing down bread
with a healthy swal
low of milk, he said,
“No, I’m staying with my sister,
Vi.”

Kylie immediately made the connection, and
was relieved to have at least found a topic to settle on. “Vi
Kilbride, the artist? She’s fabulous!”

He looked amused at her enthusiasm. “Lately
I’ve been thinking of her more as Vi Kilbride, the harpy. And even
when she’s not set on making my life miserable, I see her as a
little sister, not an artist. But you know her work, then?”

“
I do, though I can’t afford
it. I didn’t know she lived close by.”

‘‘
Down the road in
Ballymuir.”

She set down her spoon and gave up any
pretense of eating. “That’s easily six miles off!”

“
Is it?” He took another
spoonful of the soup. Kylie thought he did a creditable job of
hiding a wince. It didn’t seem right to be torturing her guest like
this.

“
Yes, and don’t be eating
that on my account. It seems to have burnt while we were out
working.”

He was polite enough to look surprised. “So
the smoked flavor wasn’t intended?”

She laughed. “Not exactly.”

“
It was the best meal I’ve
had in some time, Kylie O’Shea.”

She liked the way her name slipped from his
lips, and liked his kindness, too. “If this is the best, where have
you been dining—on a desert island?”

He gave a slight shrug. “Something like
that.” Glancing out the window he said, “It’s time for me to be
home.”

“
You’re walking.” She pushed
back from the table and stood. “Let me run you back to town. It’s
the least I can do after making you haul rocks, then trying to
poison you for your effort.”

He stood. “I like the walking.”

She wasn’t ready to let go,
to slip back into the
careful, colorless
discipline of her life. It wasn’t every
day—or any other day at all—that brought a man like Michael
Kilbride to her door. She’d take these moments and keep them to
brighten the lonely times. “I’ll drive... I insist.”

He gazed down at her, his raised brows
seeming to point out the absurdity of her words. She’d sooner be
able to stop the rain from falling than this man from doing what he
wished.

“
Then I accept,” he
said.

Time passed all too quickly as she tidied the
kitchen, then led Michael out to her relic of a car. Evening had
begun to approach. Kylie smiled as she noted the sky’s whisper of
indigo meeting the orange of the setting sun.

As she drove the miles toward town, she
wondered about a man who would walk this far on a day chilly enough
to be best spent by a fire. She glanced over at him and felt the
heat of his green gaze—hungry, yet hesitant. She knew those
feelings well. Especially the hesitancy.

Hoping to defuse the strange sort of tension
that seemed to be filling the car, Kylie resorted to chat about
sports—the sort of things she thought a man might take to. Not
Michael Kilbride. Though his answers were polite enough, he paid
little attention. In fact, the unspoken conversation rang louder
than the spoken. He watched her as he had earlier, and though Kylie
was scared witless, she welcomed his gaze.