“She was going toward the barn. She’ll be—” He yelped as something hard banged against his head. He put up his hand, wondering if he had been hit by a baseball. Then hail clattered around him. “C’mon, Cailin. Now!”
For a moment, he thought she would refuse to listen. Then she ran with him to the carriage. The hail battered them in a shower of icy pebbles.
“Megan,” he called as soon as he was within earshot, “do you know where Lottie is?”
“She was going to go and see if our rabbit got a ribbon.”
“If she’s in the barn, Cailin, she’ll be all right.”
He did not give her a chance to answer. Handing her into the rockaway, he jumped up beside her. He pulled her into his arms, turning so he was between her and the barrage. The children crouched beneath the dash. In his arms, Cailin shook. Was it from fear, or was it because she could not deny, even in the midst of her belief that he had betrayed her as Abban Rafferty had, how much even the simplest touch fired their yearning for each other?
The carriage rocked as a savage gust struck it. He heard Brendan and Megan scream, but could only hold on as the right wheels rose off the ground. They dropped back to the grass with a crash that reverberated through him.
“No!” Cailin shrieked.
He raised his head to follow her horrified gaze at the larger barn. The wind lifted the roof. It struck the ground, smashing into kindling. For a moment, there was silence, save for the hail that rattled around them.
Then screams came from every direction. Human screams. Animal screams. Thunder burst like cannon fire overhead. The pens by the barn shattered as the terrified beasts broke through them. The walls of the barn shook, and he knew other animals inside it must be trying to flee.
Cailin pulled away from him.
He halted her. “Stay here.”
“I’m not staying here!” She started to slide off the seat.
“Stay here.” He caught her face between his hands. “Trust me this time to save one of your children, Cailin. Trust me!”
“Samuel—”
“Trust me! Please.”
It was only a second, but it seemed like a lifetime before she nodded. “I’m trying to trust you. I really am.” She put her hand on his cheek. “Go!”
He did not give her time to change her mind or for himself to enjoy this hard-won show of her faith in him. He leaped out of the carriage and raced across the open field, which was rapidly becoming a mire. Through the rain that was falling as swiftly as if the Ohio surged up over the bluffs, he saw others running toward the barn.
The wind knocked him from his feet. He stood, then ducked as debris soared toward him. Spitting out mud, he scrambled to his feet. He put his arms over his head to protect it and ran to the barn.
Cows and goats ran through a hole in the wall. He jumped aside before one could plow him down. He heard shouts for help from inside the building. Running to where a door had been ripped off by the wind, he threw himself inside.
He fell to his knees as he was freed from fighting the wind. Hoofs grazed his side. With a groan, he pushed himself out of the way of the panicked animals.
“Lottie!” he shouted.
He heard his name cried in a high-pitched voice. He ran to his left. Or he tried to, because he was shoved back time after time by the animals. He clambered up the side of a pen, vaulted over the sheep in it, and catapulted out on the other side. Seeing several unmoving forms on the ground, he ran past them to Lottie, who crouched in a corner where two pens came together.
He pulled her into his arms as the wind tore the boards off the wall like someone peeling a potato. Huddling with her, he realized someone was stretched out beside her on the ground. Lightning flared against the darkness.
Thanington!
Samuel held on to the little girl, wishing he had let Cailin and the other children come with him. He tried once to look over the top of the walls protecting them, but rain and wind knocked him to his knees again. In his resolve to force Cailin to admit that she trusted him, he had left her and the children to this storm. Then he realized he had to trust her to protect Brendan and Megan.
With a crash, the back wall fell. Then there was silence again, broken only by the patter of rain. Not like the violent storm of moments ago; this was the steady rain they had been hoping for.
Shouts came from every direction. Calls for help for those who had been hurt, and more from folks searching for those who had been separated in the abrupt storm.
Standing, Samuel scanned what remained of the barn. Other people were coming to their feet, soaked, muddy, some with blood on their faces. All of them stared about in disbelief.
“Samuel? Lottie? Samuel, where are you?”
Cailin!
“Over here!” he called back.
She ran to him, drenched and with her broken bonnet bouncing on her back. Brendan followed. He tugged his sister after him. When Megan turned and darted toward the back of the barn, he gave chase.
“I found Lottie,” Samuel said.
Cailin dropped to her knees and hugged her youngest. “Lottie, dearest Lottie.” She could not say anything else but those two words as Lottie clung to her.
“You scared us, quarter-pint.”
Samuel’s voice broke through her hysteria, and she saw him beside Mr. Thanington. Her first thought that the man was dead vanished when she saw him lifting his hand to his forehead and moaning.
“I think,” Samuel said, “we all survived. What a mess to clean up after the storm passes.”
“Is Dahi all right?” Lottie asked.
Cailin stared at her daughter. How could Lottie be talking about an imaginary friend now? Gently she said, “Lottie, Dahi isn’t here.”
The little girl pointed to Mr. Thanington. “Dahi is right there!”
“Dahi?” she repeated in astonishment. When Mr. Thanington sat, shaking mud from his light brown hair, she asked, “He is Dahi?”
“Isn’t he, Mama? You said the others weren’t Dahi, so he must be Dahi.”
“I can’t see your friend.”
“But you know all about him, Mama.”
“Pretend I don’t. Tell me everything you can about him.”
Lottie screwed up her face. “Mama, you know. He lived in Ireland with us and then he went to ’merica. We went to ’merica, too. But you couldn’t find him in New York. He was lost, so I wanted to find him for you.”
“Dahi?” she asked softly, thinking of the many words Lottie misunderstood. “Like do athair?”
“Dahi!” exclaimed the little girl with excitement, mispronouncing the words as she had so many others. As Cailin looked at Samuel in astonishment, Lottie continued, “You told me Dahi had pale-colored hair and was tall and—”
Cailin drew her younger daughter into her arms. “Lottie, do you know what the words do athair mean?”
She shook her head.
“It is Gaelic for ‘your father.’ We came here to be with your father—your papa, but he died before we got here.”
“Then I don’t have a papa?” She pondered for a moment, then said, “If I don’t have one, I should be able to pick out one for myself.”
“It doesn’t work like that, a stór.”
“Maybe it should,” Samuel said as he drew Cailin to her feet.
She gazed into his eyes, wanting to believe what she saw there. He had been wrong when he said she had never trusted him before today. She had dared to trust Samuel with her heart. Not blindly, as she had Abban, but through the pain and doubts. Even through her fear that having this man in her life would be a short-lived joy. He had proven that every foreboding was unjustified.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
“You’ve got plenty of excuses not to trust a man.”
“But I trust you, and I really like trusting you.” She took a deep breath, then said, “Because I love you.”
“Do you now?” he asked, copying her Irish accent. “
Then, a stór, there seems nothing else to do but …” He took her right hand and dropped to one knee. “Will you marry me, Cailin O’Shea Rafferty?”
She stared at him, astonished. Hearing chuckles around them, she paid them no mind as she gazed down into his smile. “Marry you? You want to marry me?”
“I just asked you, didn’t I?”
Ignoring Lottie, who was dancing about with excitement, she said, “I thought you never wanted to get mixed up with weddings again. That’s what you told me when you refused to come to Alice and Barry’s wedding.”
“Are you trying to talk me out of this proposal?”
She knelt, facing him as rain poured down over them to wash away the sorrows of the past. “No.”
He released her hand and cupped her chin. “What do you say, a ghrá mo chroí?”
“You know those words?”
He chuckled. “You aren’t the only one in Haven who speaks Gaelic. I remembered you speaking them at a very tender moment, so I wanted to find out what they were. ‘Love of my heart,’ right?”
“Yes.”
“And you love me.”
“Yes.”
“And I love you. Will you be my wife?”
“If you are asking me because of the children—”
As if on cue, she was interrupted by a shout of “Mama!” She saw Megan and Brendan hurrying toward them. Megan was carrying a very wet and very unhappy rabbit and a white ribbon. She was grinning broadly. Brendan was leading his cow, which seemed unhurt, although straw was sprayed over it.
Samuel brought her face back to him. “This has nothing to do with the children. I’m asking because I want you in my life, Cailin. I love you. The children are a bonus, like in any marriage.” He chuckled. “They were just an early bonus. So will you marry me?”
“Yes.” She could not imagine what more she would want to say, for that one word said everything her heart longed to sing out with joy.
He pulled her into his arms, and his mouth caressed hers with a promise of rapture that needed no words. Around them, applause and cheers sounded. Not just from the children, but from the extended family they had found in Haven.
Drawing back, she said, “I must ask you one question.”
“What is it?”
“Will you forget your vow to avoid weddings and come to our ceremony?”
He ran his finger along her cheek as he murmured, “I’ll be glad to trade that vow for another—to love you for the rest of our lives.”
About the Author
Jo Ann Ferguson is a lifelong storyteller and the author of numerous romantic novels. She also writes as Jo Ann Brown and Mary Jo Kim. A former US Army officer, she has served as the president of the national board of the Romance Writers of America and taught creative writing at Brown University. She currently lives in Nevada with her family, which includes one very spoiled cat.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2002 by Jo Ann Ferguson
Cover design by Julianna Lee
ISBN: 978-1-4532-4847-8
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
www.openroadmedia.com
THE HAVEN TRILOGY
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After the Storm Page 29
