“Stop. You should never feel rushed or pushed into doing anything you don’t want to. We can keep waiting. We don’t have to do anything again until you’re ready.”
Helena remained silent for a moment. “But what happens if I always react like that? What happens if it gets worse?”
“You might never have a reaction like that again. We don’t know, but we can’t let the fear of what could happen stop us from living.” As soon as he’d spoken he wished he could take the words back. “But I never want to hurt you. I don’t want you to—”
“End up like Danny did?” she said, finishing his thought.
He traced his hand down the gelding’s face until he gently brushed the tips of Helena’s fingers. “I never want you to be unhappy, or to put you at risk. I care about you too much.”
She wrapped her fingers around his and lifted them to her lips and gave the backs of them a soft kiss. “I care about ya too. That’s why I think maybe it’s best if I just get out of the way of ya livin’ your life.”
“What?” Was she really breaking up with him because they both feared sex? “No. That would be giving up. We’ll find a way to get around this. We can try to make love again. We’ll move slow, talk to each other. If you think you’re feeling anything that you shouldn’t be, then we can stop. We’ll learn each other’s bodies.”
“What if that never works, Graham? I don’t want ya to have a life half-lived. I want ya to be able to make love, to not fear hurting the person you’re with because ya want to express yourself in a physical way. If something happens, I don’t think I’d be the one who’d pay the highest price—I think it would be you. Ya were already wracked by guilt after what happened. Can ya imagine if I spent a year like that? A lifetime? One simple thing. One choice that we should be able to make would ruin your life. You’d never let yourself fall into the arms of a lover again—you’d be stripped of that pleasure.”
“We can’t be afraid of what could happen, Helena. We just have to face the world as we know it and move forward one step at a time.”
“You’re right, Graham, but we can’t stick our heads in the sand and pretend like what we fear ain’t a possibility. Maybe it’s best for both of us if we just take a step back. You can date whomever you like. Someone more like you. Someone who ya don’t have to fear touchin’.” She pulled her fingers from his. “Someone who doesn’t fear you touching them.”
“You fear me?” His heart sank to a depth he hadn’t been aware it was capable of reaching. It was like the organ had fallen out of his chest and been kicked across the floor.
This wasn’t his first relationship, but it was the most real, the most emotionally fulfilling of his life—and she feared his touch. What was more, he couldn’t blame her. He feared it equally.
He took a step back. “This isn’t what I want. I don’t want to lose you over something so...unimportant.”
She moved to reach for him but dropped her hand. “You’ve been so patient. So kind with me. You’ve waited for me. You’ve done everything right. Yet what happened today, it just proves that maybe we are tryin’ to make somethin’ work that we shouldn’t be. We can’t...we can’t be together, Graham.”
He heard only the sounds of horses and the echoing ring of her pain-inducing words. This couldn’t be over. He loved her too much to let her go over something fixable, or at least survivable. He couldn’t let her push him away in some ill-conceived attempt to protect them both. He didn’t need protection, not when it came to giving her his heart.
“Not every first time is perfect. Sex and life are imperfect, and they can be beautiful in their imperfections. If we can just try again...” Even he could hear the pleading in his voice.
He never thought he would be the type who would beg to keep a woman, but he definitely wasn’t the kind who would walk away from something as good as what they had. Sure, things hadn’t been flawless. Sure, they had grown a bit complacent in their relationship, and the stresses of life had come between them. They had cultural differences, but when push came to shove, they really weren’t that different. They were just two people who wanted to share their hearts, to share their lives with one another—that was, until now.
He felt like he’d been defeated by the world, and the only person he wanted to turn to was Helena.
The door that led from the arena to the horse stalls opened. A man stood just outside the doorway. His shoulders were stooped with age, and his bald spot caught the thin light of the barn. He had his back turned to them and was talking loudly with someone Graham couldn’t see.
“That boy was a fecking eejit. I told him to have nothing to do with those people. He was only supposed to be a silent observer. If he hadn’t made a mistake, he’d still be alive. He knew the risks he was taking.”
Graham slid open the bolt to the gelding’s stall, pushed Helena in, and followed her before quietly closing the gate and sliding the bolt back into place. They couldn’t be caught breaking into the equestrian center. The horse huffed and moved around as he tried to make sense of their presence in his area.
“Whoa, baby,” Helena whispered, trying to calm the nervous animal.
The gelding calmed, but threw his head in protest.
Helena pushed deeper into the shadows and motioned for Graham to follow, but he waved her off.
“Murdering Neill was reckless,” the other man said, answering the balding man from the shadows.
“No, he was reckless. We were proactive.”
“I’m sure he thought he was being proactive as well.”
“Neill was a maggot. We can both agree on that, but he’s no longer a problem. Now we just need to find a way to keep moving forward with our plan,” the balding man said. There was the sound of his shoes scraping through the bits of hay and dirt that littered the floor.
“Is everything in place?”
Graham tried to look through the bars to see the men who were talking about Neill’s death, but he couldn’t see them without completely exposing himself. These were men who weren’t afraid to murder, to reach their goals by any means necessary, and Graham doubted they would blink at the thought of killing him and Helena for eavesdropping.
“With everything that happened today, there’s been a lot of traffic around the area. We had a harder time getting in. I’m sure everything will be put in place, but it’s going to take a little more time,” the balding man said.
“And yet you are wasting your time looking after a bloody horse,” the other man grumbled. “It’s alive, aye?”
“Do you know how much this horse cost? How much money it could make us? It has a bloodline better than yours.”
“It’s still a horse. It’s like you care more about it than you did for our man. Our man could have done quite a bit more for our fight. Do I need to remind you that there is a whole building full of freaks at our fingertips? They are the ones we need to worry about. They are going to contaminate us all with their vile ailments.”
The man stopped just short of the gate, and Graham pushed back into the shadows, standing in front of Helena and keeping her from view. Regardless of their relationship status, he was always going to protect her.
The gelding moved toward the front of the stall and stuck his head out, just like he had done when Graham and Helena had made their way into the barn. The horse whinnied, the sound almost like a show of strength. Graham liked the thought that perhaps even the horse was trying to protect them.
“Look, the filthy beast is fine.”
“He’s not a filthy beast. He did nothing wrong.”
“No, he only tried to kill a man and nearly got us all found out. What would have happened if the gypo had touched Neill and read his mind?”
“That’s not what she can do. Apparently all she can do is heal, and she has a minor ability to see the future.”
“Minor ability?”
“From what I’ve heard from the staff, her visions are sporadic, like today. She can’t control them. They don’t alway
s come true. More of a liability than an asset if you ask me.”
“None of their gifts are assets. They’re abhorrent, and the people like her—they’re freaks. All of them.”
Helena moved, like she was going to push around him and face the men who were spewing hate, but he stopped her. This wasn’t the time for her to go running out. She wouldn’t change the men’s minds by going toe-to-toe with them. These men were dangerous. They wouldn’t hesitate to hurt someone in their way—especially a gypsy who had broken into the center. But Graham would never let them lay a finger on the woman he loved.
“Stay here. Don’t let them see you,” he said in the quietest whisper he could. He stepped forward and out of the shadows. “Stay safe.”
He pressed his body against the rough wood of the stall’s wall and made his way to the door. Peeking out, he could just discern the back of the man’s gray suit and his balding head. From this angle the man looked like an over-fattened snake, round in the middle, with a neck that blended into his corpulent body.
“Let’s go,” the other man ordered.
“Aye, fine.” The obese man stepped away from the stall.
Hopefully the man’s lethargy was mirrored by the man in the shadows, but Graham couldn’t believe that they would be that lucky. They had just witnessed something that told him all he needed to know—Ayre had been right. Neill was only a small part of something so much larger—something where blackness reigned.
Chapter Ten
STARING UP AT THE CEILING as she lay on the lumpy, decades-old couch that sat in the center of the cottage, Helena couldn’t decide what she hated worse—herself, or the feelings that still threatened to overpower her. She was so confused and full of regret.
It had been a mistake to break up with Graham. He hadn’t done anything wrong. He was a good man, and they complemented each other in so many ways. In fact, she had spent more than her fair share of time imagining their future: the children they would have, where they would live—even that they would always keep a bottle of Jameson in the house for guests.
Maybe a drink was exactly what she needed now. It would fix the way she was feeling—or at least numb it enough that she was able to forget. Then again, if she took that path, she would be that much closer to repeating the mistakes her mam had made and perpetuating the cycle she hated so much.
She would just have to find something else to help her cope. Over the last few months, any time she had a problem, she could turn to Graham.
How could she have missed the ways she had come to depend on him and their relationship?
She had been stupid to only look at the little problems—the moments missed because they had been busy, those times they couldn’t give each other exactly what the other needed. It was called life. But she had thought that it would be ideal—that they would never have moments of anything less than bliss.
Maybe it was just the fact that this was the first time a relationship had moved past the honeymoon phase. Hell, it had been the only real relationship she’d ever had. Maybe she had just fallen into the traps set by their cultural differences. They were bound to not always understand one another, but if they had talked more and learned more, they could have found a way. They had just lost so much time fighting the world around them, a world that hated their supernatural abilities and told them what they could and couldn’t be, that maybe for a moment she had let the world win.
She got up from the couch, made her way to the kitchen, and started the tea water. There were the sounds of footsteps coming down the hall and turned to see her da.
There were dark circles under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept. And, as she looked at him, she couldn’t help but notice that in the last few months, he had come to look even older than the day he had stepped out of the clink.
“Gra, it’s early. Why are ye up? Ye should be asleep,” Da said, glancing over at the clock on the back of the stove.
“I could ask ya the same question, Da.”
He answered with a tired smile. “It’s been a long week, and I’ve still not got everything done I need to be doin’. I never thought workin’ at the manor would be this hard.”
She understood his sentiment completely. “I never thought life would bring us to this place, that’s for sure.”
“Aye,” he said, taking out two cups for tea and setting them on the counter. “This’s a strange world that we live in. Ain’t it?” He bent down to grab something from the bottom cupboard. As he moved, his shirt rose slightly, and Helena could make out long red cuts across his back.
“Da, what happened to ya?”
He immediately stood up and pulled his shirt low, covering the marks. “Nothin’, gra. I’m fine.”
“No. What happened to your back?”
“Really, gra. It’s nothin’. I just had a bit of an accident when I was workin’ on one of the cottages.”
As he moved, she noticed he seemed to put more weight on his left foot.
“Did ya fall?”
She wanted to lift his shirt and get a better look at the marks, but she knew he’d never let her. He wasn’t the kind of man who wanted a woman to worry about him. He was the head of the family, the strong one, the one who carried the burden and refused to share it with others. He was and would always be a Traveller, and their culture didn’t allow them the more fluid gender roles that were part of the lifestyle of country folk. That fluidity was something she had grown to love over her months in the manor, but no matter how much she wished it were a part of her culture, the times wouldn’t change rapidly enough for it to become a part of her life—at least, if she ended up with a Traveller.
She sighed. The only man she really wanted to end up with was Graham. She was addicted. And she had a feeling that no matter what state their relationship was in, she would always be thinking of him. No amount of time would break the spell he had cast on her heart—especially if she continued working at the hospital, in such close proximity to him.
Maybe she and the fam should leave. They could all get back on the road.
Graham would be safer if she left. He wouldn’t have to worry about their relationship, or lack thereof. She wouldn’t continue to put him at risk by staying there. And Angel and the boys, they could get back in touch with their Traveller roots.
Being settled, the boys would never know the enchantment that could be found in constant, beautiful movement. Every day it was something new: a different place, a different neighbor, and sometimes they even came across new ways of thinking. They would listen to the stories of their people, the folklore and the sean nós sung beside the campfire each night.
And Da...Helena looked at him as he poured the hot water over the tea and swirled the bag lazily, waiting for it to steep.
“Da, do ya like being here?”
He turned slowly, as though his body hurt. “I like it here just fine, gra. Why?”
His face remained placid, unmoved by any emotion as he spoke, which only made her wonder what exactly he was thinking.
“I mean, do ya miss it? The traveling? The campsites?” She motioned to the walls that surrounded them.
He looked at the wall and gave a resigned sigh. He handed her the tea, as though he were using it to take a moment to collect his thoughts.
“Truth be told, gra, I do. I miss it. And I miss my Cora.”
Her mouth dropped open. How could he miss her mam, the woman who had done nothing but fight with him? The woman who had taken his daughter and run away? The woman who had risked their children’s lives?
“What?” she asked in a breathless whisper.
“Before I went to prison, when you were small, things between her and me, well, we got on just fine. She was good in those days. Loved horses. Loved to make everyone happy. It was the first time I found myself in trouble...’twas the day everything changed.”
Helena never thought about her mam as anything but a vile woman, a woman who had left Helena to raise her siblings while she herself had fallen deeper and
deeper into the bottle. Had the woman Da described ever really existed?
“What happened? Where did it all go wrong?”
“We’d been at the pub with a few of our friends, tying one on and having a right fine time dancing. You should have seen her, gra. She was beautiful then. Her hair was so dark, so black it almost looked blue sometimes. And, ach, when she’d smile...it was like the whole world warmed up.”
She thought back to the last time she’d seen her mam, lying in the hospital bed, covered in burns and calling her a bitch. No matter how hard Helena tried, she couldn’t see the beautiful woman Da had described.
“Someone in the bar had started a fight. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with nothin’.” He shook his head as he took a long drink from his steaming tea. “I went to the clink. Thought I’d be out the next day. Ya know, just get a chance to sleep it off, tell my story, and get to walkin’ away. But while I was there, someone said they’d seen me stealin’ a lorry. Now, I ain’t never stolen nothin’, not in my whole life. I may do some things others wouldn’t understand to get by, but I ain’t never resorted to thievin’.”
“Why did they get to thinkin’ it was you, then?” Helena asked, taking a drink of the bitter tea.
“Because we are who we are. They knew I was a gypsy, and it was easier to use me as a patsy than to wait and actually catch the one who done the stealin’. We’re all thieves in the law’s eyes.”
Unfortunately, Helena knew all too well that he was right. They lived in a world fraught with racism and cruelty. Until they’d come here, they’d seen and experienced the nasty looks and the snide remarks on a daily basis. And not always at major events. Even going to the butcher had been a struggle. No one trusted them. They couldn’t enter a shop without being followed around under suspicion of stealing.
“Are you glad we got the shelter of this place?”
Da reached for his back but, as he noticed her watching him, dropped his hand. “Sure, this place gives us some extra security, but it ain’t all sunshine and daisies. We gotta fight here just like we gotta fight everywhere. The fightin’ here is just a little bit more under wraps, ya know?”
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