Up Close and Personal

by Maureen Child

  Sinead hopped up from the window seat, rushed across the room and slapped both hands against Ronan’s chest in accusation.

  “I called you to help me,” she said, hurt in her voice and shining in her eyes.

  “I am, lass.” Ronan looked at her with sympathy. “Why don’t you want to marry him?”

  “Because I’ll be no man’s duty,” she said with a glare over her shoulder for the boy who was her lover. “I’ll marry for love or I won’t marry at all.”

  “Love?” Ronan took her shoulders in his big hands and held her still when she might have skittered to one side. He looked into her face and saw her as a child and now as the woman she was and his heart turned over. He could sympathize with what she was feeling, but he knew what was best for her. “Did you love him when you made the child?”

  She looked down, to the side, above her head, anywhere but into his gaze. But Ronan waited her out and hardly noticed the hush in the room. Finally, she looked up at him and whispered, “Yes.”

  “And did he love you?”

  “I did, and I do,” Michael called out from where Sean still kept a wary hand on his shoulder.

  Ronan ignored the boy and focused on Sinead. “You’ll marry, Sinead. You’ve wanted Michael since you were sixteen and nothing’s changed. Only the timing of the thing.”

  “I don’t want him to have to marry me,” she insisted.

  “Responsibility’s never an easy thing, but it’s the only way and well you know it,” Patsy put in from where she sat on the couch.

  Ronan took a quick look at Laura who was biting her bottom lip as if forcing herself to be quiet.

  “Responsibility shouldn’t be the reason for a proposal,” Sinead argued, turning from Ronan to face her mother.

  “It’s not like that, Sinead,” Michael argued and broke free of Sean’s grip to head toward her.

  Ronan stepped in between, still fighting the urge to blacken Michael’s other eye. He could understand passion, but he didn’t understand not taking precautions. Though even as he thought it, he remembered that Laura had become pregnant even with a condom being used.

  Sean pulled Michael back, Patsy stood up to argue toe-to-toe with her daughter, and Sinead once again started crying. Ronan stood like a man lost in his own home and watched as Laura slipped from the room like a ghost.

  * * *

  Laura had had enough of the shouting and recriminations. Deciding no one would miss her if she disappeared, she took a chance and stepped through a pair of French doors leading onto a stone patio.

  Instantly, the Irish wind pummeled her like a fist in a velvet glove. Icy, all enveloping, it wrapped itself around her and sent chills racing along her skin. And still it was easier to take than the drama she had just skipped out on.

  Because the drama had hit too close to home, she thought, walking briskly across the patio. Her heels tapped musically against the stone as she set off blindly, not knowing where she was headed.

  The sharp spicy scent of the chrysanthemums in the garden teased her nose and led her off the patio and onto a set of stone steps that wound through a garden that was mostly winter dormant. But she could see the bones of it and could easily imagine what it would be like in spring and summer.

  Roses blooming, trellis standing over a white iron bench, alive with the morning glories that were now missing from the dark green vines. There was an herb garden and a few hardy dahlias still clinging to life at the edges of the garden.

  Beyond lay a sweeping yard of green that sloped toward cliffs that echoed with the thunder of waves crashing ashore. She stood there, in the silence, letting her heartbeat ease, her mind empty and tried to release the fury that had prompted her escape.

  But it clung to her insides, chilling her to the soul.

  Shaking her head, she turned from the sea and looked up the rise of a rolling hill to where a round tower stood, ancient and alone. Without even thinking about it, she started for the tower, drawn by its solitude and the promise of peace.

  She wasn’t dressed for it. Her skin felt as icy as her heart as the wind continued its relentless pushing at her. Her heels sank into the soft ground until she was fighting for every step and still she went on, determined to reach the top. Halfway there, she heard the sighing of the wind as it slipped past the tower and through what she realized was an ancient cemetery.

  Laura kept going even when she heard Deirdre’s happy bark in the distance and coming closer. Swinging her hair back from her face, Laura stumbled, caught herself and went on, finally stepping out of her shoes altogether and carrying them in one hand. The long grass was soft and silky against her bare feet, but there were stones there as well and they scraped at her skin as she made her way higher.

  Deirdre raced past her, barking in delight now, to have company on a run. Laura smiled in spite of the turmoil churning inside her until she heard an all-too-familiar voice coming from right behind her.

  “You’ll be frozen,” Ronan warned, catching up to her and grabbing hold of her arm to stop her progress toward the tower.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she argued, tugging free. “I’m fine.”

  “What’re you doing, Laura?”

  “I just needed to get out of that room.” She glanced at him, then back to the tower that stood like a beacon. It was taller than she had thought. At least twenty feet high, and would have been even taller when it was built. The top of the thing was broken off, snapped in two as if a giant had reached down and broken it in a temper.

  “And come to the cemetery?” he asked, whipping off his overcoat to drape it around her. “In your bare feet?”

  “My heels kept sinking.”

  “Laura—”

  She looked up at him then. “Leave me alone for a while, Ronan. Please.”

  “No.” He cupped her face and the heat from his body touched her cold cheeks and swamped through her. “I’ll not. If you’re so determined to see the tower, I’ll go with you.”

  Deirdre romped across the wide grassy expanse, chasing her own imagination across the field and up to where tilted tombstones stood in memory of those lost. There was a timelessness about this place, Laura thought. Centuries ago, this tower was built and the people then had been much the same as she and Ronan. The same wants and needs and fears and disappointments.

  They’d lived and died and left their mark here, with this tower. With the tombstones.

  What mark would she leave?

  God, dark thoughts for a gray day on a windswept hill so far from home.

  Ronan put one arm around her and drew her to him. His thick, Irish knit sweater was warm and smelled of him, making her want to cuddle close in spite of everything.

  She didn’t want to thank him. Didn’t want to need him beside her. Hated wanting even the warmth of his coat or his scent wafting up to her. But she did and couldn’t hide that, at least from herself.

  “It was a fine welcome to Ireland you got, wasn’t it?” he asked, resting his chin on top of her head.

  She didn’t even comment on that because what could she say that wouldn’t open her up to a conversation she wasn’t interested in having. So instead, she half turned in his embrace and looked up at the stone tower, still standing proud.

  “What were they for?”

  “The round towers?” She felt him shrug. “No one knows for sure. Their name in Gaelic is Cloigtheach and in the old language it means ‘belltower.’ Some say it was for defense. That a lookout was perched high in the tower and if he saw the bloody Vikings coming back for another go-round, he’d sound the bell and the villagers would know to pack up what they could and run for it, while the warriors stayed behind to fight.”

  “What happened to this one?” she asked quietly, her voice nearly lost in the wind.

  “Most likely it was destroyed in a long ago battle and what was left, time has whittled down.”

  “No graffiti though,” she mused, staring up at the silent gray stones. If this were at home, she knew there would be s
pray-painted names and sayings and pictures all over it and that thought made her sad.

  “No. We honor our past in Ireland and fight for our future.”

  She took a breath, looked up at him and asked flatly, “Like Sinead is trying to fight for hers?”

  He held her more tightly as if afraid she might pull away from him, and Laura thought he was very attuned to her because that’s exactly what she wanted to do.

  “’Tis not the same, Laura. Sinead knew that marriage would be the end for her if there was a child. As did Michael.”

  “Forcing them to marry isn’t right, Ronan.” She whipped her hair back out of her eyes. “What if they’re miserable together?”

  “Most marriages end in misery from what I’ve seen,” he said with a casual shrug that made her want to hit him with something heavy.

  “And you’d wish that on Sinead?”

  “You’re not in America, Laura,” he said patiently. “This is Ireland and though we’ve come a long way in the last few decades, a woman alone with a child still faces a hard road. Michael knew what he was risking. As did Sinead.”

  “Sex shouldn’t come with a penalty.”

  “But it does, and everyone knows it.” He blew out a breath then and added, “Besides that, I’ve told you. Things are different here.”

  “And yet,” she said, “you seem the same. Still laying down orders expecting to be obeyed.”

  “You don’t understand, and there’s no reason you should.” He fumed silently for a moment, then seemed to gather himself before saying, “No matter how it looked, Sinead’s not being forced to do a damn thing. She’s been after Michael since she was a girl, and she’s finally landed him. She only wanted someone to tell her ‘no’ so that she could go and do what she liked. She’s the most contrary girl in County Mayo. Always has been.”

  “So you were just doing her a favor?”

  “In a way.”

  “And Sean hitting Michael in the eye, that was a good deed, too?”

  Scrubbing both hands across his face, he muttered, “The idiot man slept with a girl Sean and I both consider a little sister. Can you understand that we find that hard to deal with?”

  Laura smiled to herself. “In fact, that’s the one thing I completely understand.”

  “That’s something then at least.”

  “You want her happy.”

  “I do,” he admitted.

  “Married.”

  “Married, for some, is the right thing,” he muttered. “Or so I’ve heard.”

  “But not you.”

  He looked at her. “Not me.”

  “Right. So easy to stand back and order people to do what you won’t do yourself. Or…is that what I would have been to you if I hadn’t lost the baby?” she demanded. “A penance to be paid? A sacrifice bravely endured?”

  He frowned at her. “Are you meaning would I have married you? Aye, I would have. For it’s the right thing to do.”

  Stunned speechless, she could only look up at him and laugh in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself? You believe marriage is a trap, yet you’d force that girl into its jaws and would have tried to drag me in, too.”

  “And would have, make no mistake,” he grumbled.

  Laura moved away and though she missed the heat of him, she couldn’t be that close to him without wanting to kick him. “I wouldn’t have married you, Ronan. I’ve no more interest in being some man’s penance than Sinead does.”

  “And like Sinead, you’d have had no choice in the matter.”

  “Your arrogance is absolutely boundless.”

  “Is it arrogant to want to do what’s right?” Temper flared on his features and glinted in his eyes. “If my child were still inside you, do you think I’d have let you go from me?”

  A chill that had nothing to do with the icy wind crawled through Laura and sank bitter teeth into the edges of her soul. “I’m not pregnant now, Ronan, and you’re still not letting me go. So what does that mean?”

  Ronan looked at her, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed and his dark hair wind-tossed into a tangle. “It means I will let you go, Laura. But not yet.”

  He stomped off a few feet and whistled to Deirdre who was running too far away. As the dog careened back toward them, he looked at Laura.

  “You know, I grew up in that house,” he said, waving one arm at the manor behind them, “and never saw one reason to believe marriage was anything but a trap a man would chew his own foot off to escape.”

  She held her breath and listened. Watched. His eyes flashed with old pain and his mouth worked as if he’d tasted something bitter.

  “My parents,” he went on as if a dam had burst inside him and he couldn’t stop the flow of words, “insisted they married for love, and yet spent every living minute tearing into each other. They were each of them miserable and were bound by the law and the church to remain so until death finally gave them—and me—some peace.”

  “All marriages aren’t like that, Ronan,” she finally said and reached down to stroke Deirdre’s shaggy hair when the dog leaned into her.

  “I’m not an idiot, you know,” he said wryly, his temper draining away as easily as it had flashed into life. “I’ve seen some good ones. My friend Sam, a man as determined as I to remain single, is happy and about to be a father.” He shook his head as if he didn’t quite understand it, so he didn’t see the flinch that must have shown on Laura’s face.

  She still felt the twinge of pain and memory when she thought of what she’d lost. But hearing Ronan now, she began to think that the pain she might have felt if the baby had lived, would have been worse.

  He’d have expected marriage without love and that she wouldn’t do.

  “Those that make it work seem content enough,” he continued. “But you are what you learn as a child, Laura. What I learned was to avoid marriage like the bloody plague.” He stood in the gray light, with the wind tossing his hair into a tumble and looked directly into her eyes. “Don’t look to me for love, I don’t have it in me.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said and gave Deirdre one final pat. “You love your cousin. Sinead. Patsy.”

  “That’s different.”

  It wasn’t, but he couldn’t see that. Laura had known him now for months. Had loved him in spite of how furious he made her at times. But he simply refused to be moved by even the chance that he might be wrong. He wouldn’t risk love becoming what he’d seen as a child. How could they possibly ever breach the chasm between them?

  “Love is love, Ronan,” she said after a long moment. “You’re capable of it. I’ve seen it in you. You’re just too scared to risk it.”

  Insult etched onto his features in an instant. “If I am, I’ve a right to be. But either way, can’t or won’t, ’tis the same difference in the end.”

  The fact that he believed what he was saying tore at Laura. She watched him, knowing that she loved him and realizing that they had no chance together. What they would share here in Ireland would be the last of it. When she went home, she’d be going alone and she wouldn’t see Ronan again. Ever. Her heart simply couldn’t take that kind of pain.

  So she made a decision. The only one she could. She wouldn’t have forever, so she would have now. Take Ronan as he was, for however long they were here in this place that was so beautiful it felt like a dream. Make memories that would keep her warm when the cold times came. Then, she would let him go.

  Taking first one step, then two, she crossed to him and watched wariness flash in his eyes. She reached up, hooked her arms around his neck and went up on her toes. Looking into his eyes, she whispered, “You’re wrong, Ronan. About all of it…”

  “Laura, you must understand—”

  “No, I don’t have to. Not right now. Not here.” Then she kissed him. She felt his hesitation at first, and then his hunger as he yielded to what each of them had been craving for too long.

  He kissed her there, in the grayness of an Irish day, with Deirdre barking madly, the
wind singing through the tombstones and in the distance, the heart of the sea beating with a steady drumroll.

  Through her fury, through her misery, she fell into that kiss as if it meant her life. And for now, it did. Heart aching, mind reeling, she knew that when she did eventually go, she’d be leaving her heart behind.

  And as his arms came around her, Laura’s heart ached even as her mind whispered, Remember this.

  Nine

  The Pennywhistle Pub sat in the middle of the village of Dunley. It was small and noisy and filled with all those who needed to get away from their own homes for an hour or two to share conversation and music and a drink.

  Laura loved it.

  She’d been to pubs at home, of course. But in California the so-called “real” Irish pubs were nothing like this. There, the rooms were glossy, as if they were nothing more than a stage set, with potted ferns, piped in music coming down from overhead speakers and posters of Ireland tacked to the walls.

  Here, the walls were stone, supported by what looked like ancient wooden beams, darkened by years of peat fire smoke. Rough-hewn tables that had probably sat in the same spot for a century or more, were lovingly polished and the bar itself, a long sweep of dark wood, gleamed in the overhead lights. Behind the bar, a television set on mute displayed a British soap opera, starring impossibly pretty people.

  There were a half dozen or so tables in the pub, crowded with chairs and three booths along one wall where whole families, children included, gathered together. The smell of peat smoke layered over the crowd from the fireplace in one corner and the conversations and laughter around her rose and fell like the waves that stretched out behind the village.

  Laura sipped at her beer and smiled when the owner of the pub, Danny Muldoon, came to their table. “Ronan, will you be staying for long this go round, or is it off to America again?”

  “I’ll be home awhile yet, Danny,” Ronan said, with a long glance at Laura.

  Danny’s broad chest puffed out almost big enough to match the belly that strained the clean, white apron tied around his waist. His smile was beaming as he, too, looked at Laura. “If I’d known how lovely the lasses were across the foam, I might’ve taken myself off there long ago.”