by Loree Lough
Gina directed her attention to Ciara’s father. “You’re looking good, Joe. What have you been doing…taking vitamins or something?”
He shook his head. “I guess the prospect of becoming a grandpa agrees with me. You know, seeing a part of me living on in a new generation.”
“Well,” Gina huffed, “you don’t look old enough to be a grandpa, if you ask me.” Playfully she elbowed Ian. “I say that because Patrick has a steady girl now, and things seem to be heating up. We could be in your shoes in a year.”
Ian chuckled. “Who, me? A grandpa?” Smiling serenely, he added, “Maybe I’d better reread Grimm’s Fairy Tales. It’s been a while since I told a good story.”
“Oh, give me a break,” Gina teased. “You tell a story every morning of your life, when you say I’m the loveliest thing you’ve ever seen.”
Opening his eyes wide, he tucked a finger under her chin. “Sweetheart,” he said, doing his best Jack Nicholson impression, “you can’t handle the truth.” He punctuated his comment with a kiss to the tip of her nose.
“Ian, really,” Gina scolded, smiling and blushing like a young girl, “you know how I feel about—”
“‘Public displays of affection.’ Yes, I do. And you know I don’t give a whit who sees how I feel about you.” As proof, he kissed her again, on the lips this time.
Giggling, she shoved him away. “So tell me, Ciara,” she said breathily, “how’re you feeling?”
Ciara grinned. Like I’m watching an X-rated movie, she thought. “Well, let me put it this way,” she said instead. “If this baby doesn’t get here soon, Mitch is going to have to hog-tie me, ’cause all this lying around is driving me nuts!”
“Hey,” Gina advised, “enjoy it while it lasts.” She winked at Ian. “Trust me, when that baby has you up every couple of hours, you’ll be asking yourself why you were complaining!”
“Complaining?” Mitch knelt beside Ciara’s chair and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “I’ll have you know this girl hasn’t uttered a word of complaint, not once in the two weeks I’ve been home.” He kissed her cheek. “She’s a real trouper,” he boasted.
“Well, all I can say is you’re lucky you didn’t marry me,” Gina admitted. “I’d be whimpering and whining every five minutes if I had to stay off my feet for four solid weeks.” She wriggled into her husband’s arms. “Isn’t that right, honey?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Hard as it is to get you out of bed on a Sunday morning…”
“Much as I hate to admit it,” Gina said, bobbing her head, “he’s right.”
“Say, Joe,” she put in, “tell your motorcycle story. I tried to tell it the other day, but I couldn’t remember the punchline….”
Ciara’s father rubbed his palms together and grinned, blue eyes twinkling merrily. “Okay, you asked for it…” Standing, Joe held a finger aloft, and began:
“There were two Irishmen,” he said with an exaggerated brogue, “travelin’ the A-1 on a motorbike. ’Tis mighty cold, McAfferty,’ said the one on the back. ‘Well, no wonder, Casey, ye’ve got yer coat on backward.’ McAfferty parked, turned Casey’s jacket ’round, and zipped it up the back. ‘There, now,’ he said, tucking the fur collar under Casey’s chin, ‘that’ll keep ye warm.’ They took off again, and after a bit, McAfferty noticed Casey wasn’t there, and headed back the way they’d come. He spied a couple of farmers, starin’at somethin’ in the middle of the road. ‘Why, it’s me friend, Casey,’ McAfferty said. ‘Is he all right?’ ‘He were fine when we got here,’ one farmer said, ‘but since we turned his head ’round the right way,’ said the other, ‘he ain’t said a word….’”
Their laughter acted like a magnet, attracting Kathryn. “There you are, Joseph, I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” The words, if printed on a page, might have convinced bystanders his wife felt something akin to affection for her husband. But Ciara had heard that “why do you torture me so?” tone in her mother’s voice before, too many times to count. Had seen that look, too, hundreds of times…one brow up, lips pursed, shoulders slumped in long-suffering exhaustion. “Has he been telling that awful motorcycle story again?” she asked. Rolling her eyes, she sighed heavily. “Thank goodness I walked up when I did! If you only knew how many times I’ve heard that stale old story.”
Gina, Ian and Mitch smiled stiffly in response to her obvious insult. Ciara had seen those looks before, too…looks that blended pity for Joe with disapproval for Kathryn. How long will she make him pay for his mistake? Ciara wondered.
She couldn’t have known that her mother’s contemptuous treatment of her father had started long before she’d learned of his affair, but evidence to support that fact was there, etched in the tired lines and weary smile on his sad-eyed face.
I won’t live that way, she told herself. Better to let Mitch go…better to send him away than to condemn him to a life of arm’s-length neglect and open disdain.
Mitch was looking at her when she tore her gaze from her mother’s hostile expression, from her father’s lethargic acceptance of it. He shook his head, a small smile lifting one corner of his mouth as he winked. “Don’t worry,” was the message emanating from his brown eyes, “we won’t let that happen to us.”
Her heart fluttered in answer to his promise. Ciara wanted to believe him, wanted to grasp it as truth.
Still…
So far, they had all but walked in her parents’ marital footsteps. Dread and fear hammered in her heart. Is there any way to avoid other stumbling blocks along the way?
She loved him with every cell in her body, with every pulse of her heart. But like her father, she had not been wise enough to seek Divine Guidance in choosing a mate. What price would she pay for that foolishness? Was it too late to right that wrong, or could their marriage yet become what it might have been…if she’d had the foresight and the insight to ask the Lord what He intended for her future?
She looked at her parents, read the indifferent compliance that yoked them to each other, then looked at her in-laws, and saw the esteem, the friendship, the respect and admiration they felt for one another. That is what she wanted to see in Mitch’s eyes, twenty, thirty, fifty years from now.
“What God has joined together, let no man put asunder,” the preacher had said, sealing the vow that made Ciara and Mitch husband and wife. Surely, now that they were married in the eyes of God and man, He would show them how to make theirs a strong union, rooted in faith, nourished by steadfast devotion. If they could accomplish that, how could their love do anything but grow, like Ian and Gina’s, as the years went by?
The words of a hymn hummed in her head: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
Mitch grasped her hand, gave it a hearty squeeze as Ian said, “Well, thanks for the eats, but we’ve got to make tracks.”
“We ought to hit the road, too,” her father said. “I have lesson plans to write.”
She watched the two couples leave, walking side by side through the gate and out of the yard. How similar, yet how different, Ciara thought, biting her lower lip. Unconsciously, she gave Mitch’s hand a little tweak. She thought she knew the secret that had given Ian and Gina years of happiness…and her parents decades of misery.
Teach us to love selflessly, Lord, she repeated, echoing the words of the song, and let it begin with me….
“What time is it?” she asked, her voice whisper soft.
“Don’t know,” Mitch answered. “Can’t read my watch.”
“Shouldn’t the fireworks have started by now? It’s been dark for an hour.”
“You’re a grown woman, Ciara Mahoney,” he teased, quoting what she’d said the day before. “‘How can you get so caught up in a light show?’”
There was just enough moonlight to allow him to see her playful sneer. He rolled onto his side, propped his head on a palm. “Yeeesh,” he said, grimacing, “if looks could kill, I’d be worm food.”
Ciara rolled over, as well. “Don’t say thi
ngs like that, not even as a joke,” she scolded.
He drew her to him. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I keep forgetting…”
She laid a finger over his lips to silence him. “Shhh.” She raised the same finger into the air. “Listen…I thought I heard one.”
“Heard one what?”
“A firework, silly.”
“‘Firework?’” he quoted. “Now who sounds silly?”
“Well, if all of them are fireworks,” she said, accenting the s, “doesn’t it make sense that one is a—”
Chuckling, he nodded. “Okay. All right. ‘Firework.’ You’re the teacher, after all.”
“And don’t you forget it,” she said, smiling as her forefinger drew lazy circles in the chest hair poking from the vee of his shirt.
They lay on a makeshift bed he’d created from two thick quilts, a crisp bedsheet and three overstuffed pillows for each of their heads. Beside her, a foot-high table was laden with decaffeinated sodas, a bowl of strawberries, a plate of cheese and crackers. Beside him, nothing but a fly swatter. All the stars in the universe winked at them from the inky sky above. And all around them, crickets and tree frogs chirped.
“This is nice,” Ciara told him. “I’m glad you thought of it.”
He pulled her closer. “Me, too.”
“I thought Mrs. Thompson was going to watch the show with us and bring Nicky.”
Mitch shrugged. “Guess she changed her mind…or Nicky changed it for her.”
“She’s something, isn’t she? Seventy-two and doesn’t look a day over fifty. I hope I age that gracefully.”
“Are you kiddin’? You’ll be the envy of every old woman in the retirement home.”
“Only because every old woman will be wishing they had you.”
He grinned. “You think?”
She nodded. “I know.” Ciara yawned, stretched. “If the fireworks don’t start soon,” she said, “I’m liable to sleep right through them.”
“If you doze off, I’ll set off a firecracker near your ear.”
“You just try it, Mister Big Shot, and I’ll…I’ll…I’ll fire your cracker!”
“What in the world does that mean?”
“I have no idea….”
Their laughter blended in sweet harmony, as Ciara snuggled closer, closed her eyes. “This is nice,” she said again.
And he nodded. “Yep, nice.” Two minutes, perhaps three, passed before her breathing slowed and shallowed, telling him she’d fallen asleep. He leaned back a bit, so he could see her face. The soft breeze combed through her hair, fluttered the ruffle at the collar of her blouse. Long lashes curved up from her pale cheeks, and soft breaths passed her slightly parted lips. He knew it might wake her, if he touched her, but Mitch couldn’t help himself. Gently he pressed a palm to her cheek and marveled at the miracle in his arms.
Miracle, because she was lovely and sweet, and good to the marrow of her bones. The baby kicked, and he felt the powerful little jab against his own stomach…a subtle reminder that soon, he might be forced to call another man’s child “son.”
Mitch held his breath, ground his molars together. Why, he asked himself, when you’ve been praying like crazy for weeks, can’t you get that thought out of your head?
Because of what Bradley had said, that’s why: “She’ll go with me willingly.” And “Who do you think the baby will look like?”
Headlights panned the yard, distracting him, and Mitch squinted into the brightness. They’d considered themselves fortunate to have found a corner lot…the appearance of twice the land, with only one neighbor to contend with, but it had its negative aspects, as evidenced by the beams of every passing car.
Hey…that’s the same car that went by not ten minutes ago, he told himself, staring harder at the four-doored black sedan. It’s just someone looking for an address, he told himself, someone lost in the maze of streets that comprised the neighborhood.
Ciara sighed quietly as the car slipped out of sight. He rested his chin upon her head and relaxed a bit—but only a bit. A quiet pop, followed by several more, told him the fireworks had begun. “Sweetie,” he whispered, kissing her cheek, “they’re starting….”
Wriggling, she blinked. “Hmmm?”
“The fireworks,” he repeated, gently shaking her shoulder, “hear ’em?”
She rolled onto her back, smiling as the sky brightened with starbursts of red and blue and white. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “Isn’t it just beautiful?”
He hadn’t noticed. He was too busy watching her face, painted in shades of pink and gold and green by the reflected light. “It’s beautiful, all right,” he agreed. “Most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
If not for the darkness, he’d have seen a blush, Mitch knew, for her big eyes fluttered in response to his scrutiny. “Pay attention,” she scolded sweetly, “you’re missing all the good stuff.”
“That’s a matter of opin—” The black car crept by, choking off the rest of his words.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, eyes on the sky.
“Nothing,” he lied, levering himself up on one elbow as the car inched past. “I’m having the time of my life. How ‘bout you?” He could almost feel the intense gaze of a back-seat passenger boring into him through the blackened windows. Had Bradley rounded up the troops? What better night to pull a stunt than the Fourth of July, when explosions in the sky competed with Roman Candles and other assorted firecrackers on the ground? Who’d notice a gunshot amid all the rest of the noise?
“This is the most fun I’ve had in—” She gasped. “Mitch, what is it?”
He was torn between keeping his eyes on that car and looking into Ciara’s face to reassure her. The hammering of her heart against his rib cage decided it. “Just a little headache,” he fibbed, wanting to calm her, soothe her, because a rise in blood pressure could be deadly.
“Are you sure? Because you look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
He kissed her cheek, gently turned her face toward the sky show. “It’s no big deal. I’ll get an aspirin when the fireworks are over.”
He felt her relax in his arms. “Well, if you’re sure….”
“I’m sure.” And with the tip of his forefinger, he gently pushed her chin, until she was looking up into the sky again. “Wow,” he said, “I felt that one all the way to my toes!”
Ciara giggled. “The rib-rackers are my favorites. Those, and the ones with the squeaky little squiggles….”
The night had swallowed up the car again; either its driver had found the address he’d been looking for…or had found a place to park, where he could watch the Mahoney house, undetected.
Except for the half-dozen or so strange phone calls he’d intercepted, Mitch had no reason to believe he was in any danger. The U.S. Attorney had pretty much assured him Pericolo’s men, relieved to have gotten rid of the boss with the hair-trigger temper, had lined up behind Chambro. And it wouldn’t be very smart for Bradley to show his hand, not with everybody from the dog catcher to the CIA looking for him.
Mitch remembered that old saying: “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”
But who was they, and what would they get him for?
Ciara had been right; his job was dangerous. In the past he’d been the only one in harm’s way. Now, simply because she’d chosen to stand beside him through life, she stood in the line of fire with him.
If anything happens to her because of my job…
Mitch clutched her a little tighter to him, pressed a kiss to her temple as she oooh’d and ahhh’d at the skylights. Lord Jesus, Mitch prayed, thanks for protecting her from reading my fears. I’m counting on you to keep her safe and sound.
Clenching and unclenching his fists, David Pericolo sat in the blackness, counting to ten, taking deep breaths. It was natural to be a little nervous, even though he’d taken every precaution. He recalled his last visit with his father at the penitentiary, how his father had laughed at h
is plan. Well, he’d prove himself worthy of respect yet. He’d make his father proud. For weeks, he’d been watching Mahoney from his hiding place across the street.
It was time to make his move. And this time, there would be no slip-ups, as there had been a week ago…
You got too sure of yourself, and it made you lazy, he told himself. You overlooked something, all wrapped up in memories the way you were….
He’d been thinking of his grandfather, who’d been a demolitions expert during World War II. If the old man could see you now, he’d thought.
What was the expression his grandfather had used? “A rude awakening,” that’s it! He’d lifted the black lid of the boot box on the dresser, wiggled a red wire, jiggled a black one. Agent Mitch Mahoney, he thought, smirking, is in for a rude awakening.
He had waited until the letter carrier filled Mahoney’s box with a handful of mail, slipped the bomb inside, carefully attaching the wires to the hinged door. Then he’d climbed back into the car, wondering as he waited if, like himself, Mahoney had ever wanted to be an astronaut. The minute you open that door, kaboom! you’re gonna experience space flight, first hand.
Then some kid in baggy jeans shorts and a backward baseball cap had sauntered up, and slipping the top flyer off the pile of bright blue papers tucked under his arm, and opened the Mahoney mailbox. It had taken every bit of control he could muster to keep from hollering “Get away from there, you little jerk!” He rolled the window down an inch, intending to distract the boy, offer him a couple bucks for his bundle, and send him safely on his way.
But he hadn’t been quick enough. “Cool,” he’d heard the boy say, grabbing the bomb. “Hey, Gordie,” he called to his buddy, who was delivering flyers on the other side of the street, “check this out.” The boys stood, cap brim to cap brim, muttering under their breaths for a minute before the taller one said, “It ain’t nothin’ but a hunk of junk.” The first kid shrugged, then tossed the bomb into a nearby trash can.
Junk!
He had rolled the car window back up. It took me three hours to build that “hunk of junk”!
Now, in the steamy darkness of this July night, he stared at the Mahoney house and grinned. This bomb was no hunk of junk.
