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“I guess I thought you’d wait until I was
actually gone.”

“Wait for what? To sleep with her?”

Even in the dark, he could
see her face flush and he regretted his flip words. This wasn’t
easy for her either. He’d like nothing more than to pull her into
his lap and just hold her. It would do them both good.

Until it
didn’t.

“It’s just that…I won’t be
getting over
you
so quickly. I guess I’m just surprised, is all.”

“What is there to get over? Our friendship?
A few snogs? Is the power of my effect on you really so strong? Oh,
wait. You’re leaving. So I guess not.”

“But if I
wasn’t
leaving…”

“Do not even say it. Do
not even dare to say it.” He felt an irrational anger build up in
his chest. “We’ve had this conversation and there’s nothing more to
say. Is it your concern over John’s behavior today that’s brought
you here tonight?”

“No.”

“No. It’s jealousy when you’ve no right or
claim to me. Do ye not want me to find happiness, Sarah?”

“You know I do.”

“I know nothing of the
sort. Or is it just happiness that doesn’t involve the love of a
woman who can love me back?”

“I love you.”

The air punched out of him as if she’d hit
him square in the solar plexus. His mouth fell open and he stared
at her.

“How can you believe I
don’t? How could you
think
I don’t? Because I’m leaving? Because I’m
determined to sacrifice everything I’ve got—my life, my own
happiness—for the sake of my child? You couldn’t be so obtuse. Not
even you.”

She stood up and he could
see she was trembling now. When he reached for her, she came
easily, willingly. “I love you, Mike,” she whispered into his
collar, her arms wrapping around his neck and pulling his face to
hers. “I love you, I love you. I know this isn’t fair to either of
us, but I need to feel you next to me and in me. I need to remember
that I once had you as close as two people can be.”

Not knowing where he got
the strength, he swung her into his arms and took the two steps
that measured the distance to his bed…and their inevitable
goodbye.

8

The sun was full out the
next morning, shining down on him.

And life had never sucked
so completely in all the days he’d lived so far.

If Mike thought living
through the next ten days knowing she was leaving was tough
before
they slept
together, it didn’t compare to how bad it felt now.

Would they sleep together
again? Would they continue to be together right until the moment
she stepped onto that transport plane? Or was last night their
first, their last, their big goodbye?

As he sat on his horse, he
could see Sarah as she spoke with one of the camp women outside her
cottage, her hand on her hip—the very hip he had caressed naked
just that morning, the very hip he had pulled to himself and
claimed as his. After all those months…

“Oy! Mike! There’s a ruckus by the gypsy
camp. Brian’s already there but you’d better come quick.”

Mike snapped his head
around to see Jimmy and Iain trotting in the direction of where the
gypsy families had their tents. Even from a distance of a hundred
yards, he could hear the yelling coming from that
direction.

“What the hell?”

Two other men from camp
dropped their tools and ran toward the sound of the altercation.
Mike dug his heels into his mount and launched into a canter. As he
approached the furthest point of the camp where it abutted the
northeast pasture, he could see that at least three men were
scuffling in front of the main tent the gypsies had erected. Declan
was in the center of the melee.

Mike swung down from his horse and charged
into the fracas. An elbow caught him in the stomach and he grabbed
the offending limb and jerked its owner off his feet. He could feel
the fight collapsing as he found the man at the center of it, a
young cousin of Declan’s. He was curled into a ball protecting his
face and stomach from the blows and kicks of his family.

“Oy!” Mike shouted. “What’s going on? Why
are you hammering the lad? Declan!”

When Mike turned to his
friend, the tall gypsy’s eyes were blazing black with anger. Mike
could see he had a small club in his hands. The end was bloody.
“Jaysus, God, Dec, what’s gotten into you?”

Gilhooley pushed aside a
gypsy who had been beating on the boy. He stood over the young man,
his booted foot on his leg so he wouldn’t rise. “Young Ollie here’s
murdered his girlfriend,” he said tensely.

“What?” Mike turned to
Declan, whose face was set in implacable, rigid lines. “Is this
true? Is the lass dead?”

“She is,” Declan said, spitting in the dirt
beside the boy. “And he’s confessed.”

Mike leaned over the young
man and pushed Gilhooley’s foot off him. His face was bloodied and
streaked with tears and his eyes were clenched shut as if in agony.
“Is this true, son?” Mike said, shaking the young man’s arm
gently.

“His name’s Ollie,” Declan said.

“Ollie,” Mike said. “Open your eyes and look
at me.” He waited, hearing the sounds of the gypsy families drawing
closer, murmuring.

“I wouldn’t waste your time, Donovan,”
Gilhooley said. “He confessed, I told you.”

Ollie’s eyes opened and in
a flash he was on his knees, his hands grabbing for Mike’s.
“Please,” he said. “It was an accident. A terrible, rotten
accident. Please don’t let them kill me.”

Mike shook off his hand
and stood up. “So was it murder or an accident?” he said to Ollie,
and then to the gathered crowd.

“Cor, they fight all the time,” a woman’s
voice screeched out.

“Too right! Eeny said she
was brutal scared of him, so she did!”

Mike turned to Declan. “Do you know anything
of this?”

Declan gave him a look of
disgust. “He killed her. That’s all we need to know.”

Mike wasn’t sure in what
way Eeny was related to Declan or, for that matter, how he was
related to Ollie. But his brother-in-law seemed convinced it was
not an accident.

“Get him on his feet,”
Mike said. “Take him to the new barracks.” Declan and Gavin were in
the process of securing a small hut with bars and a lock on it to
be used if needed as a temporary holding cell. “Meanwhile, Dec,
talk to his kin, and hers. Get eyewitnesses or anyone who knows
anything. We’ll convene a panel straight away to hear the evidence
against him.”

“And then what?” Gilhooley said, turning to
Mike. He looked angry, as if the act of bothering to gather proof
of guilt was in itself somehow a crime.

“If he’s found guilty of murdering the
lass,” Mike said, his voice loud so that everyone could hear,
“he’ll be banished.”

A brief silence followed
and then Gilhooley turned to face the crowd. “Is the family of poor
Eeny happy with that judgment?
Banishment
for the monster who’s
robbed them of their daughter? Of future grandchildren? Is that
justice?”

The crowd’s roar assaulted
Mike as he dragged Ollie to his feet and flung him into Declan’s
arms. “Take him away from here
now
,” he said and then turned to
face the crowd. “We’ll have a trial first because that’s the law
here and you all know that.”

“And after that?” Gilhooley
spat. “After your
trial
?”

It took everything Mike
had not to slam his fist into the man’s haughty, sneering face.
“We’ll deal with matters once we have all the evidence,” he said.
He looked over his shoulder to see Declan dragging the boy toward
the main camp and the makeshift jail.

Gilhooley stretched his
arms out to the gypsies who were gathering in closer, their faces
flushed with anger and frustration. “I say what the Bible says…an
eye for an eye! If Ollie killed Eeny, he should pay with his life!
Not be escorted to the nearest bush outside the camp.”

“Escort him to a bush and
put a bullet between his eyes!” a voice in the crowd yelled
out.

“Hang the bastard and hang his thieving
bastard kin while you’re about it!”

That prompted the eruption
of a fistfight that pushed Mike and Gilhooley to the edges of the
crowd. Mike grabbed him by the arm. “What are you trying to do,
Gilhooley? This is not how we do things.”

“Oy!” Gilhooley raised a
hand and the combatants dropped their fists and, with the rest of
the crowd, turned to listen to him. “We all know what happens if we
let Ollie get away with this, and so we’re not going to let that
happen—”

“What the feck do you think you’re doing?”
Mike shoved Gilhooley hard and the man sat down in the dirt with a
thud. “This isn’t your place, ya little bogger. Shut the feck
up!”

Gilhooley scrambled to his
feet and put his face close to Mike’s. “I figure it is my place,”
he said fiercely. “This camp has no law that I can see and people
are living in fear. Bad enough for what’s on the outside wanting
in, but to let our own people terrorize us? You’re weak,
Donovan.”

Before Mike could react,
Iain Jamison slithered out of the crowd and stood between them. He
put a firm hand on each man’s chest and separated them. “Now,
gents, let’s don’t get carried away,” he said easily. Mike could
feel the alcohol blasting off him and he wondered where in hell the
bastard had gotten the grog.

“It won’t help the situation to start
swinging and I’m sure when heads are cooler, you’ll agree,” Iain
said, his voice oily and wheedling.

“I agree
now
,” Gilhooley said
backing away, his hands up to show he wouldn’t be the one to throw
the first punch.

Mike turned to the crowd. “Everyone go back
about your business. We’ll—”

“Hold on there, Donovan,” Iain said. “I’ve a
mind to make one wee announcement before we break things up.”

“What are you talking
about?” Mike saw Iain give a quick glance to Gilhooley who, he
could have sworn, gave the barest of head nods in
return.

Iain cleared his throat.
“As none of us here had any say in the running of this camp we all
call home—nor the selection of our leader—it is my…” he gave
another quick glance at Gilhooley, as if searching for the right
word from him “…suggestion that we nominate candidates to be our
leader and vote for who we want to be making decisions on our
behalf. All agree, say
aye
!”

Stunned, Mike heard the entire assembly of
gypsies chorus their assentation.

“I’ll pass it around the
main camp, too,” Iain said to Mike, as if reassuring him. “You’ll
hear soon enough,” he said, “but I’m nominating Mr. Brian Gilhooley
as the candidate who’ll be running against you in the election to
be held…” He looked again at Gilhooley.

“The day after the Harvest
Festival,” Gilhooley said, his eyes watching Mike warily. “After
which time,” he said turning to address the Gypsies, “we will
celebrate the fact with the public hanging of one murdering
sod.”

The crowd cheered, their voices growing
louder and louder as Mike turned to locate his horse and make his
way back to camp.

Sarah looked around the
dinner table and felt the usual flush of fellowship and
contentedness she always felt when everyone she loved was gathered
around the dinner table, laughing and talking at once. That is
until, as her eye traveled around the table and came to Mike and
Aideen.

After their night of
lovemaking and an intimacy, which turned out to be every bit as
exquisite as she had imagined it would be, she wasn’t sure what to
expect from Mike in the bright of day. Would they pretend it hadn’t
happened? She assumed they would to everyone in camp, but with each
other? Wouldn’t they take advantage of the brief time they had left
and spend it as intimately as possible?

“Earth to Sarah, luv, pass the corn, if you
would,” Fiona said from across the table. Sarah looked up, jerked
out of her thoughts. Fiona pointed to the plate of corn at Sarah’s
elbow. She slid it across the table to her, and glanced again at
Mike at the end of the table. Aideen was practically sitting in his
lap.

And he was not acting like
he’d just held another woman in his arms a few hours
earlier.

Not at all.

A giggle rose up from
Aideen and Sarah caught Mike grinning.

Private jokes? After last night? Really?

“Mum, you okay?” Papin frowned at her. “You
look like you’ve just seen the Devil himself.”

“I’m fine,” Sarah said,
her voice abrupt. She saw Papin’s face react and instantly she was
sorry for her tone. She reached a hand out to soften her curtness
but Papin pulled away, refusing to be mollified.

“So, Da, we’ll be having a
little democracy at Donovan’s Lot after all, it seems?” Gavin
looked at his father from over a heaping plate of fried corn bread,
sliced tomatoes and at least four ears of corn slathered in fresh
butter.

“It’s for the best, Mike,” Fiona said.
“Surely you can see that.”

“Well, as it happens,”
Mike said, sourly, “I can’t. But as you’re so keen on being able to
vote on every little question of how to run the camp, then by all
means, have an election.”