Pieces of Light

by Ella M. Kaye

  And again her mood was spoiled when a group of students came in, laughing and making all kinds of racket. Some were hers from the past year or two. Luckily, they were all too old to be in her class this year. A couple of them said hello and their chaperones gave her a smile. Others threw almost-pleasant glances with an acknowledging nod and went off to the farthest table they could find from her.

  Emma knew her reputation. She’d heard comments about how she was mean and she knew they told younger kids they should hope not to get in her class. Mean. Yes, because she made them actually read their textbooks and find information for themselves instead of giving them handout notes as to what she would put on tests. She didn’t become a teacher just to help kids past tests. She wanted them to learn and to know how to find whatever information they needed. She also didn’t look past the no cell phone rule. She took them away if she saw them. If they were off and she saw them, she handed them back at the end of the day. If they were in use during class, they were turned over to the principal. Yes, she was mean. They would have to deal with far worse than her throughout their lives to come. They might as well start getting used to the few people who would insist they actually work and follow rules.

  Oh Patty, please stay calm. She set a hand over her daughter’s as Patty tensed at the noise and sudden crowd. All she needed after running into the jerk after class was for Patty to get upset and throw a fit in front of her students who thought she was so fully together and never put up with anything. They didn’t know about her real life and she preferred it that way. “How’s your ice cream?”

  No use. She was staring at the table and rocking herself gently. The kids were too loud. Did she dare ask them to quiet down a bit? Did she dare not ask them? “It’s alright, sweetie. I know them. They’re from my school. Okay?”

  A sharp squeal from one of the always-too-loud girls made Patty jump and then rock harder.

  “Can you guys quiet down, please?” Emma had to take a chance. They already thought she was mean. It didn’t matter.

  She heard the snide we’re not at school comment from an ex student and snickering from others, felt the looks from the chaperones and knew they were thinking it wasn’t her business, that they were in charge of whatever school group it was.

  “Let’s take it outside, okay?” She stood, told the kid behind the counter they were stepping outside but he hesitated since it hadn’t been paid yet so in between watching Patty and stroking her head to try to calm her, she fumbled in her purse trying to find a few dollars she knew she had...

  “Problems?” Mark. In front of her.

  “Why are you here?” Her hands shook. She could not deal with him now on top of everything.

  “Saw your car. She okay?”

  “Saw it or followed me? Don’t touch her.” She shoved his hand away when he moved it toward Patty’s shoulder. “You know she doesn’t like you. Back away.”

  “I’ll get it.” He reached for his wallet.

  “No. Just back off.”

  “Emma...”

  Patty jumped out of her chair to get farther from him when he stepped closer.

  “Back away from her.” Emma moved in between. He couldn’t do this here, in front of her students.

  “Relax. You know I’d never hurt the kid. Don’t make it sound like I would.”

  “Just leave.” She cuddled Patty in her arms to try to quench the nervous groans that would turn into screaming if Emma couldn’t stop it fast enough.

  “I have every right to be here.” The jerk was purposely antagonizing her, making a point...

  “Get away from my sister, and my niece.” Lance stepped between.

  Emma’s pounding heart calmed a touch. “Please get him out of here.”

  “Go ahead, Em. Take her outside.” Lance set a hand on Patty’s head and told her everything was fine. “The kids will go with you.”

  Everything blurred as she obeyed her big brother, as Patty squealed in frustration, as her cousins talked to her gently and led the way outside. She wanted to go home. And stay in there locked away from everyone. “Shh, it’s alright, sweetie.”

  Patty muttered something about her ice cream and Emma sent the oldest of the three kids to go in and get it for her. If he had to deal with seeing his father pop Mark, or whatever he had to do, he could handle it. He was fourteen. A solid boy like his father.

  “Shh, sweetie. It’s alright, honey.” Emma wrapped her in tight but she didn’t want that and fought against her. “Okay, Patty. He’s getting your ice cream. Everything’s okay. Do you want it or do you want to go home? Tell me. I’ll do whichever you want.”

  She threw a fit and somewhere in the mix, Patty hit Emma right in the nose. Someone asked if she was alright as she felt moisture ... blood. Great. Now she was bleeding. On her work clothes, no less. In front of her students. Emma wanted to melt into the sidewalk. The boy had brought the ice cream out, but by now Patty didn’t want it. “Let’s go home, sweetie.” She wanted to go home. Emma desperately just wanted to be home.

  No. She didn’t want to be home. She wanted to take Patty and go to Ireland to be with Fillan.

  “Em, here, let me see it.”

  The Irish accent made her... Irish. Fillan. She was really flustered if she was seeing him there...

  He pressed tissue up against her nose. Patty calmed. Stopped flailing. Stopped yelling. With his free hand, Fillan gave her a grin and stroked her head. “Hey there, Patty Cake. What is this about?”

  In a haze, Emma saw the girl grip Fillan’s shirt and hug him. She saw Lance nudging Mark off away from them. Heard her brother come see if she was alright and help clean her up with wet napkins from one of the boys. But she kept her attention on her Fillan.

  When he had Patty calm, he reached over to take Emma’s hand. “Had to come back. I missed you both.”

  A large gasp flooded her system and she gripped onto him even tighter than Patty was. The girl moved away, still calm, and Emma let herself stand there and hold him close, her face tucked into his neck, her body shuddering against his with tears she refused.

  “Alright, Em. I am going t’ take you both home now. Yes?”

  She nodded, still holding him.

  Fillan held her in gently as Lance sat across from them. Patty had stayed up too late but she went to bed easily. While his boys played a card game in the kitchen, Lance let Emma know he’d been talking with Patty’s school and medical officials and got her on a not-income-related help plan to pay part of her expenses. He was paying the rest of the school cost as his part of taking care of his niece, which was “only fair,” so he said.

  Emma gave Lance a light thank you and turned her attention to him. “How long are you staying?”

  “In a hurry to get me out again?”

  “No.” She set a hand on his chest. “I just want to prepare myself.”

  “A good idea, since it may likely be a big adjustment.” He raised her face back to his when she looked away. “My father and I had a good long talk. Part about you. He is intent on meeting you, I should let you know. And since he could see how much I was distracted and how serious I was about getting back to you, he decided to be content enough to have my help during the summers. At least he became content enough when I told him I was looking into the Massachusetts Maritime School to learn a steady trade with a decent income that can support a family. I have a job here in the meantime, for the school year. I have checked into getting certified in movement therapy for little ones who need it. Patty’s school is willing to let me start working with them as I learn...”

  “Wait.” Emma stared up at him. “Here? You’re studying and working here?”

  “Aye, I cannot just sponge off you if I am staying, now, can I?”

  “Staying?”

  “If y’ allow. I would like you to come spend summers with me in Ireland. My father needs the most help then and you have said you like it least here while it is so crowded. I will have to go back myself during summers even if you cannot s
ince deserting my family that long is something I am not willing to do, but I will give you the rest of my time if you want it. If you cannot do full summers, then maybe you could come for some of our Christmas holidays? If it will work with Patty. I understand if it will not....”

  “Yes.” She shifted and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I would love to spend summers with you in Ireland. And Christmas, too. Patty will be fine there for a couple of months a year. With you, she will be. Yes. Of course. That way I can still work and ... and I love that you plan to do movement therapy. It’s wonderful, Fillan, truly. I’m impressed.”

  “Big plans for only a dance teacher, yes?”

  “Only? I already found that impressive. It’s a beautiful thing, you know. It really is. What I do ... teaching them English and math and such is only half enough. They need more. You add the more that helps their lives be more beautiful.”

  He brushed lightly against her lips, lightly only because her brother was right there, but she deepened the kiss until Lance cleared his throat to remind them he was there.

  Epilogue

  “It’s beautiful, Fillan.”

  Looking out over Lough Corrib past Ballycurrin Light at the blue-gray water tousled with wind and fringed by gray-white ice against the imposing boulders, he gave her a soft shrug, despite how much he agreed. “It does not stand out as your Cape lighthouses do, but it is easier to climb to the top and y’ do not have to feel entombed to do so.” Even not especially bothered by closed in spaces, Fillan couldn’t help being claustrophobic inside Cape Cod’s tall, thin lighthouses. “When we are back for the summer, I will take y’ around to see those on the coast.”

  “But this one ... it’s really charming. Like you.” Emma touched his cheek with her cold fingers.

  “Like me, aye. Short and stout and not all too impressive.”

  “No, like you as in charming and strong and different than the rest, which, to me, is a very good thing. A hidden treasure, you are, Fillan Reilly.”

  With a deep contented sigh, he pulled her in against him, his arm slipping under her coat to the warm skin. “Y’ know you have won my family over and above what I expected, do you not?”

  “They’re being nice because I’m company.”

  He laughed. “Which only goes to show you do not know them well yet. No, Emma Turner, it is the same reason you have me planning to work with children, as well as becoming, or ... thinking of becoming...” He caught himself, but not soon enough.

  Her eyebrows raised. “Becoming what?”

  “You know, I do hate to introduce you as Turner because it does not suit you.”

  She swept her hair back out of her face and held it in one hand against the cold wind’s aggressiveness. “You mean because it reminds you I was married to Mark. I plan to change it, as I told you.”

  “To your maiden name, aye.” Fillan backed up a step and took her hand with a nod out at the little stout but sturdy abandoned lighthouse. “What would you say about going up to the top? The only hard part is climbing the rocks to get out to it. Are y’ willing at all? Or does it look too treacherous?”

  “You remember I teach fifth graders, right? And I brought Patty over to Ireland in an airplane when she’s never been on one. You think those rocks scare me?”

  “Come, then, but watch for ice. It is bound to be slippery.” More than once, he nearly lost his own footing as he worried about hers and while she badgered him to answer what he meant about becoming... what he couldn’t say quite yet.

  She made it easily past the rocks and up the small slick stone steps, her strong feminine hand and long fingers gripped bravely on the metal railing. At the top, she cuddled in against him, for the warmth, he figured, at least partly, and again said it was beautiful, that she loved Ireland and looked forward to seeing more. His mother argued his idea to take Emma out to the water in the cold December wind, but Em wanted to go. She wanted to let him show off his favorite place before they went back to the States, to her students. His mum and Patty got on famously, to Emma’s surprise, and to his own, he had to admit, and the girl was alright with staying at the house without Emma for a bit of time.

  It was nearly dusk Christmas Eve and they couldn’t stay long.

  “Okay.” Emma stroked fingers down his chest over his sweater, under his jacket. “Becoming what, Fillan? A step-father? If that’s what you meant, you can say it. You are, of course. Patty feels as though you are.”

  He gazed into the hazy blue-green of the lake and the liquid blue-gray sky. Nearly the same hue in different tones, with the little expanse of land in the distance breaking the boundary and darkish clouds echoing the color of the icy white water edges. “If I want more than that?”

  She was silent and still. Far too long. Hardy birds circled in the air watching for a meal. He admired how the rough weather didn’t bother them at all. And he admired how it didn’t bother Em. She liked cold, she said. She liked misty gray days when the dampness of the air moistened her skin. She liked quiet and open and solitude.

  She loved his little house and garden.

  “Em. I think you should wait to change your name.”

  Her face turned to his but still, she stayed silent.

  “I think I would like to be a father. More than a step-father t’ Patty. If you do not want it, I won’t press the issue, and I will hear plenty about it from my family and closest friends who know I have not been children friendly, but I am enjoying working with them now that Patty has shown me how to look at things differently and...”

  “Yes.”

  He met her eyes, her moist round gorgeous brown eyes. “Yes? And which are y’ saying yes to?”

  “Well, I have to assume you’re proposing because you know I won’t purposely have children any other way and I would love to have them with you. And yes, I accept.”

  He felt a chuckle come from deep in his chest, from his very soul. “You will feel silly now if I say I was not proposing, will you not?”

  Emma took his face in her chilly fingers and warm palms and brought her lips to his. “Fillan.” She teased his mouth, then nearly whispered beside his ear. “Maybe I’m not waiting any longer for you to propose. I’ve given you time. So let’s get this settled already. Marry me. And then I’ll change my name to yours and go forward instead of backward.”

  He kissed the side of her head as his eyes clenched. “You think marrying me will move you forward?”

  “Yes. Because you truly love me, and Patty. How could it not?”

  “I do love you, Em. Truly. And it would only be fair if I inch you forward since you have truly shoved me further that direction than I could have imagined.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Impatient girl, aren’t you?”

  “Not usually. Usually, I wait and just go with the flow of things. But sometimes you just can’t do that, right? Sometimes you have to grab onto what you really want.” She slipped her hands down to his chest and gripped his sweater in her fists. “And I really want this. You. Summers in Ireland. A second pair of hands to help with Patty, from someone who wants to help, not just thinks he should. Someone ... someone who treats me like this and looks at me that way. This, Fillan. I want all of this. And the dancing, too.”

  With a light nod, he reached down into his coat pocket and pulled out the little box. “I am proposing, Em. Or I am accepting. However y’ wish to look at it.”

  “Mutual agreement.” A grin flickered across her face and she offered her hand.

  “Seems the best way to fit things together.” He teased by holding her hand but waiting with the ring. “And you are daring enough to want children with me?”

  “Yes. If you’re going to raise them with me.”

  “I would not have it any other way. With Patty, as well. Yes?”

  “Yes. If we get married, you will be her father. She’s very much needed a father, you know.”

  “She will have to make do with me, poor girl. And when you get to know my family better
, you will still want t’ come here for the summer and put up with a visit from the whole caboodle of them at times, in the States, where they will expect to stay with us?”

  “Yes. We can rent cots if needed.”

  “I am teasing, Em.”

  “I know, but I’d be willing.”

  “So you are not impatient, but y’ are desperate?”

  “Fillan Reilly.” She slid her arms up over his shoulders. “I am far from desperate, as you well know. I am getting cold. And it is getting late and we need to get back. So stop your dawdling and put that ring on my finger already. You know I can put up with you just fine.”

  With the grin he knew she liked, Fillan met her lips and claimed her hand. Lowering to one knee, he kissed her fingers and put the diamond in place. As far as he was concerned, it was crafted so carefully by the earth just to be where it was right now.

  And so was he.

  ~~ ~~ ~~

  About The Author

  Ella M. Kaye is a pen name for author LK Hunsaker’s more sensual romances. Hunsaker has been writing romantically inclined fiction for nearly two decades. She has trouble defining her mix of genres which she terms literary romance, but could alternately be called women’s fiction or upmarket romance. She also branches into straight mainstream/literary fiction in both novel and short story form.

  Pieces of Light is the third book of the Dancers & Lighthouses series.

  www.ellamkaye.com

  www.lkhunsaker.com

  Other books by Ella M. Kaye

  Pier Lights (2013)

  Caroline was a relevé away from becoming prima ballerina when, partly due to her own actions, she was damaged enough to never be allowed en Pointe again. Returning to her hometown area, she finds a grittier dancing job and determines to land on top this time.

  Dio hides away on his farm near Charleston, South Carolina, and ventures out only when he can be in disguise. He uses his swordsman skills to work out aggression and connect with others while he maintains distance. When the two collide on the beach in the glow of the lights from the pier, their personal scars push them away, and pull them in, just as the ebb and flow of the Atlantic.