A Woman's Heart

by JoAnn Ross

  She turned to her distraught son, crouched and stroked a hand over his dark hair. “You know my feelings on this, Rory, darling. And although I don’t expect you to understand now, someday, when you have a boy or girl of your own—”

  “I don’t want a boy or girl of my own.” He jerked away, his freckles dark against a face as pale as his mother’s. “I want a horse. And if you won’t let me keep this one, I’ll never be speaking to you again!” With that threat hanging in the air, Rory spun on his heel and ran back into the house, slamming the kitchen door behind him.

  Quinn decided to try once more. “Nora, I’m truly sorry.”

  “I believe you.” Her voice was as flat as her gaze. “But the damage has already been done. Now I’d appreciate it if you’d just get that beast out of here.”

  “It’s not a beast,” Brady insisted. “Didn’t Devlin say she was a fine and gentle mare?”

  “Devlin?” Obviously this betrayal cut deepest of all. “Devlin was in on this, as well?”

  “I asked his professional opinion,” Quinn explained. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  “And wasn’t that something, all the men in my life deciding they knew what was best for my son.” Her voice clogged. “I swear, Da, I’ve half a mind to take the children and move to Galway.”

  “Now, darling, you wouldn’t want to be doing that,” Brady cajoled.

  “Please, because I don’t want to say things we both might always regret, I don’t want you to say another word. Not now.” As if afraid she’d break down in front of her family, she turned away and began walking toward her car. “I’ll be taking a drive. And when I get back, I’ll not be wanting to see any sign of a horse on this farm.”

  With that she was gone. Leaving Quinn feeling like the Grinch who’d stolen Nora’s happy family.

  “I guess I’d better take the mare over to Kate’s,” he said to no one in particular.

  “I think that might be the thing to do for now,” Fionna agreed. “Nora’s always been a strict mother, but fair. But she does have a sore spot when it comes to horses.”

  “It’s one she needs to get over,” Brady continued to insist doggedly. “It’s not right for the boy to be denied a horse just because of his mother’s unreasonable fear.”

  “Not that unreasonable,” Fionna told her son. “And you had no business using Quinn to get round her that way.”

  “True.” He turned toward Quinn, regret etched into every line in his face. “And I’m sorry for my little intrigue. But I truly thought that once Nora actually saw how happy your gift made her son, she’d relent.”

  Since the older man’s usually ruddy complexion was an unhealthy shade of gray, revealing his own stress with this situation, Quinn decided that no good would come from backing Nora and Fionna. He also realized that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the widow Fitzpatrick could hold a grudge, after all.

  “She’ll calm down,” he said, wanting to offer some words of assurance to this man who looked every year of his age. He looked even worse, Quinn thought, than he had outside the Derry hospital where his mother had been taken.

  “Aye.” Brady nodded, a bit more strength in his voice and his spirit. “And when she does, I’m grateful she’ll have you to turn to. You’re a good man, Quinn Gallagher. I only hope you’ll be able to forgive me for today’s little scheme.”

  “You’re Rory’s grandfather. You did what you thought was in the boy’s best interests. Nora will understand that once she has time to think about it.” Out of the corner of his eye, Quinn saw Fionna shepherding the other children back into the house. “Would you like a drive to The Rose?”

  “No.” Brady shook his head and managed a smile. “’Tis a lovely evening. I think I’ll just sit here and enjoy the sound of the crickets for a time.”

  Quinn was torn between staying with the man he’d grown fond of and getting rid of the mare before Nora returned from her drive. “If you’re sure you’ll be okay…”

  “Don’t you be worrying about me, lad. I’ll be as fit as a fiddle. The day an Irishman can’t handle a redheaded female’s temper is a sorry day, indeed.”

  Deciding that he’d only insult Nora’s father by pressing, Quinn climbed into the Mercedes, started the engine and began to drive away, trying to ignore the small desolate face he saw looking out from an upstairs window.

  As he watched the car and trailer drive off down the road, Brady decided that after the day he’d had, a drink and some convivial company was definitely in order. Unfortunately his mam’s car had been blown to smithereens in Derry, and Nora had the other.

  “I should have taken Quinn up on his offer,” he muttered up at the star-spangled sky. On the other hand, perhaps an evening walk was just what he needed to lift his spirits the rest of the way.

  Wisps of fog rolled in from the sea like silent ghosts, wrapping him in a cool mist. Although the village seemed a bit farther away than the last time he’d walked from the farm, which was, he realized, probably five years earlier, he managed to keep up a brisk pace, proving to himself yet again exactly how wrong that pup Flannery was. Why, his heart was as strong as ever. Probably as strong as the fool doctor’s himself, Brady decided as he approached the stone bridge crossing the river into Castlelough.

  “What the feck?” The bridge, dating back to the time when the town was first founded, had stood in the same spot for centuries. But no more. Strangely, it had disappeared. “Now how is a man expected to get to his favorite pub?”

  “I’ll be giving you a ride—for a gold piece,” a voice hidden deep in the thickening fog, offered.

  Brady peered into the mist and thought he saw the faint glow of a lantern from somewhere on the water. “And what would the likes of a poor farmer such as meself be doing with a piece of gold?” he asked.

  “Check your pocket,” the voice suggested helpfully in Irish.

  Thinking the man was obviously daft, Brady nevertheless did so—only to humor him, he told himself—and was surprised when his fingers closed around the coin. “Where in the divil did that come from?” he asked.

  “Magic,” the man said on a rusty cackle.

  He held the lantern aloft, allowing Brady to get a good look at the boatman sitting in the old-fashioned canvas curragh favored by traditional west Irish fishermen. His grizzled face looked older than the Joyce family fields; the stump of a pipe disappeared into a beard as white as the snow that occasionally muffled the island.

  “Is your curragh sound?”

  “And hasn’t it been taking passengers across this river since before you were a twinkle in your da’s eye, Brady Joyce?”

  Brady was not all that surprised the man knew who he was. After all, he’d acquired a bit of fame in his lifetime. The strange thing was that Brady didn’t recognize the boatman. He would have bet a year’s worth of pints he knew every man in the county.

  That thought in turn gave birth to another—he was thirsty. And he certainly wasn’t going to be getting a pint standing here on the bank of the river talking.

  He handed over the coin and climbed into the small shallow boat. A moment later he found himself engulfed in fog so thick he couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. The cold dampness seemed to be seeping its way through his wool jacket and trousers, all the way to the marrow of his bones. He saw a light from what he took to be the far bank and assumed the welcoming glow was coming from The Rose’s windows. Perhaps, he thought, as the chill deepened, he’d forgo the Guinness tonight for the warming comfort of some whiskey-laced coffee.

  “It won’t be long now,” the boatman assured him from somewhere in the swirling gray mist as he rowed toward the light.

  “Jaysus!” Brady exclaimed when he saw the figure standing on the bank, surrounded by a light as bright as the gilded halos painted over the heads of all those saints on the curved ceiling of the Immaculate Heart Church.

  “Not quite,” a blessedly familiar voice said with the hint of humor he’d always adored. “And not
yet.”

  While he was accustomed to talking with his wife on a daily basis, Brady had not seen her since they’d lowered her casket into the rich loamy earth. Amazingly she appeared as she had the day they’d married, her hair as black and shiny as a raven’s wing, her cheeks blooming like roses in the snowfield of her flawless complexion, her white dress enhancing curves he still caressed nightly in his dreams.

  She held out a slender hand as the boatman docked. Rising slowly to his feet, Brady held out his own. When their fingers touched and he felt the spark shoot through him like summer lightning, Brady realized this was no dream.

  Although he would not have thought it possible, the shimmering light surrounding her glowed even brighter, engulfing him as he gathered her into his arms.

  “Ah, my love.” Eleanor sighed as she twined her slender arms around his neck in exactly the same way she had on their wedding night so many years ago. “I’ve missed you so.”

  And as her lips touched his, warming him in a blissfully familiar way that Irish coffee never could, Brady realized he wouldn’t be going to The Rose tonight. Because after all these years of loneliness, he’d finally rediscovered heaven. With the one true love of his life. His beloved Eleanor.

  Alone in her bed in the upstairs of the farmhouse where she’d been raised, Kate was jerked out of yet another restless sleep by the feeling that something was wrong. At first she thought Cadel might have returned from his cousin’s in Dungarven, which couldn’t mean anything good. She lay in the shadowed darkness, willing her startled heart to be quiet, and listened, as she had night after night ever since the misty dreams had begun.

  But all she could hear was the scrape of a tree branch against her window, the sigh of the wind in the chimney, the distant unceasing murmur of the sea and the creaking sounds of her house.

  When she failed to hear the painfully familiar noise her drunkard husband made stumbling into furniture or clomping up the stairs, she began to breathe a wee bit easier. Climbing out of the hand-carved tester bed she’d been born in, she drew on her robe and went across the hall and checked on her daughter.

  Brigid’s hair gleamed like wildfire in the starshine streaming in the window, and her rosebud mouth was curved in a smile, suggesting happy dreams. The sight of such childish innocence brought a smile to Kate’s own lips as she bent down and brushed the top of the toddler’s bright head with a kiss.

  Next door, in the room that had once been Conor’s, she found her son also sound asleep. But his sheets were twisted in a way that suggested he’d been restless as well. She untangled him from the bed linens as best she could without waking him, removed the toy laser-light sword Quinn had brought him from Derry that was making a lump of his pillow, kissed him as she had Brigid, then tiptoed out of the room.

  Stopping in the hallway at the top of the stairs, she stood stone still and listened again. Nothing seemed amiss in the house. Yet, unable to shake the continuing feeling of unease, Kate returned to her bedroom and stared out the window into the night. Wondering. Worrying. Waiting.

  The house was dark when Nora finally returned from her drive, which had included a long contemplative time spent at her secret place at the lake. The solitude and the mystical presence of her surroundings had calmed her restless mind, as they so often did, allowing her to think more clearly.

  Although she dearly loved her family, it hadn’t been easy taking on her mother’s role at such a young age. When she’d first returned home from the convent, everyone was so devastated by Eleanor’s death, she’d buried her own feelings of loss and tried to provide an atmosphere of calm support, even though deep inside, her heart was shattered. Looking back, Nora realized she’d given them all the mistaken impression that she was unsinkable. That whatever the problem—from a broken doll to a dead husband—steadfast practical Nora could handle it.

  But heaven help her and God forgive her, she thought as she cut the car engine, she was so very weary of handling things.

  She went into the house, finding the note her grandmother had left on the kitchen table assuring her that Rory had gone to bed like the good little lamb he was, and that she’d said a prayer to Bernadette to ease the pain between mother and son.

  Wishing she possessed the unwavering faith Fionna seemed to have in the martyred nun, Nora read on. “Although I’ve gone to bed as well, darling,” her grandmother had written in that spidery script that still held a vestige of the penmanship method taught by the Sister of Mercy nuns, “if you should feel the need for conversation when you return home from your drive, feel free to wake me.”

  Knowing the offer came from the heart, Nora opted against seeking out whatever comfort Fionna might be able to offer. The regrettable truth was, as she’d sat beside the moon-gilded waters, she’d taken a long hard look at the fear that had been part of her for such a long time, and realized that although she’d always prided herself on being a good mother, she hadn’t been fair to her son.

  Although Conor had been a great deal older than she, Nora could recall stories of Mel Fitzpatrick—his paternal grandfather—taking him riding before he could walk. Everyone in the county always said that Conor had been born to the saddle. And wasn’t his blood running in his own son’s veins? How could she have let the dread that had put such a stranglehold on her keep her from understanding Rory’s lifelong dream for a pony of his own?

  She owed her son an apology. And, she’d reluctantly accepted, a horse. As she’d driven home, she’d decided that if he’d managed to fall asleep after the emotional evening, she’d wait until morning for the long-overdue conversation. But now, standing alone in the dimly lit kitchen, she changed her mind.

  “No time like the present,” she murmured as she turned off the light Fionna had left burning for her and left the room, headed upstairs.

  Rory’s door, like all the others along the darkened hallway, was closed. Nora entered the room, feeling the usual surge of maternal emotion she felt whenever she watched her son sleeping.

  “Rory.” She leaned over the bed, instinctively reaching for him in the dark. On some distant level she found it odd she couldn’t hear his breathing. “Wake up, darling. Mama has something she needs to tell you.” Her hand touched the pillow, stuffed with feathers from hens that had ended up on the table. It was strangely cold. “Rory?” Reaching out, she turned on the lamp on the nearby nightstand. When she saw the empty bed, icy fingers clenched her heart.

  Quinn heard her drive up. Heard her enter the house, and after a few moments, come upstairs. He’d been waiting up for her, but when he heard the faint squeak of Rory’s door across the hall, decided to give her an opportunity to make things up with her son before they had their necessary talk.

  He was prepared for her continued censure. After all, there wasn’t anything she could call him that Quinn hadn’t called himself while driving the mare over to Kate’s farm. A conversation with Nora’s sister-in-law, filling him in on a few more of the details of Conor’s death—including the way he’d lingered in a coma for three long months—had left him feeling even guiltier.

  Although it was an unpalatable idea, he belatedly realized that he’d bought the horse as much for himself as for the boy. It was more than a little obvious that, while certainly not poverty-stricken, the family lived mostly hand-to-mouth. He’d gotten off on playing the rich American, bestowing gifts like some bountiful Santa Claus.

  He’d let her blast him for as long as she needed, he’d decided as he’d tried, unsuccessfully, to work on his new novel while waiting for her to return. Then he’d agree to everything she might say.

  And then, if he was lucky, since he’d already determined she possessed a kind and caring nature, she might even be willing to forgive him. And if he was very very lucky, perhaps she might even be willing to make the argument up in his bed.

  He’d begun to fantasize about all the things he wanted to do with her when his bedroom door burst open and he saw her standing there, her face impossibly pale.

  �
�It’s Rory.” Her eyes were as wild as an escapee from an asylum; her complexion that of a wraith. “He’s gone missing, but I called Kate, thinking that he might have followed the mare to her farm, and she found him in the barn, with the mare.”

  He was out of bed in a shot. “Give me two minutes to throw on some clothes and we’ll go get him.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.”

  As he pulled on a sweatshirt and jeans, Quinn acknowledged that Nora was capable of handling the matter of a runaway boy in her own brisk, effective manner. But that didn’t stop him from being immensely relieved that after what he’d done, she’d want him with her. Obviously Kate was right. Nora was not a woman to hold grudges.

  “Rory isn’t the first boy to run away from home,” he assured her. Hadn’t he done exactly that too many times to count by the time he’d reached Rory’s age? Unfortunately the sheriff’s deputies, or cops, or social workers always took him back to his parents. “And he won’t be the last.”

  After jamming his feet into his boots, he gathered her into his arms and pressed his lips to her temple. She was as cold as ice. And trembling. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s go bring your son home.”

  “It’s all my fault,” Nora murmured five minutes later as she stared out the windshield of the Mercedes. She wasn’t seeing the rain that had begun to streak down the curved glass, only the stricken look on her son’s young face when he’d run back into the house earlier.

  “I’ve never been one for assigning blame,” Quinn said mildly. “Personally I’ve always thought it a waste of time. But if someone has to be at fault, it’s me for bringing the damn horse home in the first place.”

  “Perhaps you should have asked me,” she allowed, clasping her hands more tightly in her lap. “But I’ve been unnecessarily rigid.”