Running Back (11 page)

Chapter Twelve

When I woke, I threw on my simple black dress and blew out my hair. I left it loose and straight instead of shoving it into my habitual ponytail, and even scrounged up some eyeliner from the black hole of my messenger bag. When I finished, I could see hints of my mother in my reflection. For a moment I just stared, slightly uneasy, before attempting on a whim the look she had been particularly famous for. It was a cross between a smile and sneer, an expression of unrelenting disdain for the mere mortals that wanted her attention.

It looked so ridiculous on me that I laughed, and headed down to breakfast.

Downstairs, the O’Connor women waited in unrelenting black. Different blacks; Kate looked elegant in a sheath and pearls, Lauren looked like the dress could double for cocktail hour, while Anna’s looked kind of poufy and alternative. She didn’t have her dark eyeliner on for once, but she hadn’t given up the combat boots either.

We’d already started in on our eggs and hashbrowns when footsteps sounded in the hall. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel Mike’s presence behind me, palpable and elemental as a gust of wind or a burst of light. “Morning, everyone.” He tugged on my ponytail. “Morning, Natalie.”

Kate smiled.

I flushed. “Good morning.” I glanced up, and froze.

He’d put on a suit, his black jacket sharp, his white shirt crisp. His brilliant hair gleamed in sharp contrast. I sucked in a breath. He grinned down lazily and filched toast off my plate.

I blinked at him. “You stole my breakfast.”

He gave me one of his devastating smiles, before turning to his mother. “Wow, Mom. You look great.” He dropped into the chair beside me, angling his leg so his knee brushed mine. I tried to keep from jumping and he tugged the plate of sausages toward him.

Kate O’Connor set down her coffee mug. “Thank you, Michael. Your compliments are always so sweet and so unexpected.”

He gave her a puppy-eyed expression. “I remember flowers and cards at every holiday.”

Kate smiled. “You are always so sweet.”

“This is the problem with my family,” he said to me, sotto-voice. “They say one thing, but I suspect they actually mean two or three other things. Makes conversation very complicated.”

Kate laughed. “And doesn’t Natalie look lovely too?”

I jerked up as they all turned my way, Kate smiling a little too smugly. Mike turned his head, ever so slowly, and tilted it up and down as he took me in. I tried to fight the rising color in my cheeks. God, why didn’t he ever blush? He was the redhead.

“Yeah,” he said. “She does.”

I was almost positive both Anna and Lauren kicked their brother when he said that.

I kept stealing glances at him all through breakfast. I couldn’t seem to help myself. I was used to seeing him in jeans or in running gear, not in a formal suit. A red tie hung loosely around his neck, and I barely heard anything as he laughed, his eyes glinting, lips parting...

I placed my silverware down and practically leaped into the air. “Excuse me. I have to get my...something...from the car.”

Outside, I leaned against the warm stone of the inn, my breath rushing in and out. This was crazy. I couldn’t get involved with Mike when Kilkarten lay between us. Maybe once we were back in New York, or after his sisters decided definitively that there would never be an excavation, but when everything still hung in the air—it felt too much like emotional manipulation.

Lauren’s voice floated out, and I jerked upright and tried to look like I totally hadn’t been fantasizing about her brother. But she was nowhere. Instead, I noticed the closest window propped slightly open. Ever so stealthily, I sidled over until I stood next to it. A rose trellis got in my face and made the world smell all pink and orange and candy-like.

Lauren kept speaking. “She’s really pretty. I mean, she always looked pretty, but normal pretty. Today...”

I preened.

Kate ruined that. “You know who she reminds me of?” She paused, and I pictured her taking a long sip of coffee. “Tamara Bocharov.”

Oh,
shit.

But what had I expected, putting on a dress and make-up?

I guess I hadn’t expected anything. I’d just wanted Mike to think I was pretty, due to my certifiable insanity.

Still, no one said anything. Kate sighed. “You’re all too young to remember her. That’s depressing.”

“I remember when Pluto was a planet,” Anna said.

Lauren snorted. “Barely.”

“So who was Tamara?” Mike said.

“Oh, a model back in the day. She—”

“Ahh,” Anna said. “That explains why you like Natalie. I was wondering why you were hooking up with a girl who actually has a brain.”

“I told you, we’re not a couple—”

“Whatever. You should just admit it. The keys to a happy family are open communication.”

“For Christ’s sake—”

“Mike,” Kate said.

He groaned. I snickered, then clapped my hand over my mouth and pinched my nose shut to stifle the sound.

He groaned. “Don’t we have a memorial to go to?”

* * *

Four hundred years ago, local O’Connors and O’Malleys and Murphys painstakingly built the local church by hand, making it older than America, as Eileen’s son and grandchildren cheerfully informed us as soon as the building came into view.

Inside, light spilled across the pale wooden support beams and pews, making the whole room brighter than I’d expected. Whitewashed walls surrounded a handful of stained glass windows. I would never say it, because that would be wrong, but it looked pretty damn quaint.

People packed the pews, dressed in black and curiosity. They watched as we walked down the red carpet and sat beside Maggie and Paul.

The Irish O’Connors didn’t look so thrilled at the Americans’ presence.

“Thank you for having us,” Kate said formally. “I’m sure it’s still very difficult for you.”

Maggie looked her up and down. “Well, you can’t get over someone in a month, can you?”

Kate stiffened. “Not someone you have a strong bond with, no.”

Maggie’s lips curved. “This is where we all grew up.” She gestured around the church. “Brian and Patrick and I used to skip sometimes and go smoke by the Celtic cross.”

“I know.”

Both women narrowed their eyes and looked away.

The parish priest—Father MacCarthy, whose nephew was one of the crew I’d hired—called for all our attention. I’d never heard of parishes outside of Austen novels—didn’t Edward get a parish? Or Edmund? The
Mansfield Park
boy, whoever he was. And the dad in
North and South
had one, with Richard Armitage.

By Elizabeth Gaskell, I meant. Because I definitely thought about 19th century literature based on authors, not actors.

Father MacCarthy started in on the dearly departed. I studied Kate and Maggie and the space between, maintained with stiff shoulders and pointed glares.

After the mass finished, everyone filed out and headed over to Maggie’s. Some of the locals stopped to pick up food and flowers from home on the way over, while others enveloped the O’Connors completely. People crowded the house on Blue Street to overflowing. Outside, tables had been set up, and I sat down at one, nursing a glass of lemonade.

To my surprise, Paul dropped down beside me. “Don’t want anything stronger?”

“Isn’t it too early?”

He gave a dry half smile. “It’s never too early to drink in Dundoran.”

I almost agreed with him. “What’s the story between Maggie and Kate? And the brothers, for that matter.”

He tilted his head. “You don’t know?”

I watched him carefully. Paul was interesting. If he shared stories with me, I wouldn’t attribute it to a love of gossip, but a desire to stir up trouble. “No.”

“Your boyfriend’s not very open.”

“He’s not really my boyfriend.”

He scanned me in an overtly insulting manner. “That so?”

I rolled my eyes. “Mike’s not even here to see that.”

His lips split in a sudden, genuine grin. “True.” He shrugged. “Patrick was orphaned young and had to take care of his younger brother. Too much responsibility, too little money. Then he married a woman who didn’t love him. The family farmhouse—there was a house out on Kilkarten, right?—was razed, and then he took a job as solicitor, which wasn’t bound to make him any friends, you know, and he was bitter and angry by the time he died.”

“That’s sad.”

Paul cocked his head. “Aren’t most people’s lives sad?”

Hadn’t I said the same to Mike not so long ago? I didn’t want to be as angry as Paul. “I hope not.”

We finished our drinks, and then I ducked inside for the bathroom. I passed Mike and Lauren on the way. The middle O’Connor scowled at the elder. “Anna’s eyeing the liquor cabinet with the help of her merry band of local rebels. Your turn to deal with it.”

Mike groaned. “Dammit. Where’s Mom?”

“Being interrogated by some great-uncle I’d never heard of, about Dad’s entire life. I don’t think she needs this too.”

I shot Mike a sympathetic glance and headed up the stairs.

Coming out of the bathroom, Maggie’s framed wedding picture at the end of the hall caught my attention.

They were remarkably young—well, I thought so, since they looked around my age. Maybe even younger. Did they look happy? Patrick looked—grimly triumphant. Maggie looked beautiful, if distant.

More photos, small and dark, covered the wall, and I followed them into the next room, an office with much larger prints. I remembered Anna’s request for pictures of her father, and looked for a second redheaded man. I recognized him instantly. He’d been younger than Mike when he immigrated, so he had to be younger still in these pictures. But they had the same cowlick, the same grin and jaw.

One picture, in pride of place above the mantel, featured Maggie between the boys. They were teenagers. Her long black hair swept over her shoulders as she laughed on the cab of a beat up Ford. Patrick had his arm around her shoulder. Brian curved his arm around her waist.

Oh
...

“Can I help you?”

I spun around, almost slipping on the floor. Maggie O’Connor stood there, solemn and austere in her black dress. “I’m sorry. I just...” I had absolutely no excuse.

She raised her brows. “You’re nosy.”

I raised my hands apologetically. “Incurably.”

Her gaze wandered past me and landed on a round portrait. I turned to face it. Maggie was even younger there, maybe Anna’s age, her cheeks cherub round, her eyes holding dreams. “You were beautiful.” I looked up quickly. “I mean—that’s not to say—”

She permitted a small smile to cross her lips, and waved away my blunder. “I still see her when I look in the mirror.” Her expression softened. “I was the most beautiful girl in Kilkarten in those days. We had such grand plans then.”

“Not anymore?”

“Can’t build castles on cobwebs.” She appraised me. “Patrick was a hard man to like, especially in the later years, and I’ll take my share of the blame. But it was a good thing he did, agreeing to let you excavate Kilkarten. I think it’s wrong of Mike to not let you do so.”

“Why didn’t your husband leave the land to you?”

She let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to absolve the anger between the brothers. And I would have just left it to Mike, so. No children of my own.”

“What about Paul?”

She looked surprised, like she’d never thought of leaving the land to her other nephew. “Wouldn’t have been right. That land always belonged to the O’Connors. I’m sure Patrick didn’t want it out of the family, no matter what.” She shook her head. “We should rejoin the others.”

Back in the kitchen, I piled my plate high while watching everyone mingle. Nearby, Anna stood with crossed arms in a group of other teenagers. Lauren argued with Paul over by the bookshelves. Kate laughed out loud at something an older gentleman said.

People kept approaching me to discuss the dig. Everyone knew it wouldn’t take place, but they seemed to think that I was the person who could change that fact, and I had too much pride to blame Mike.

Well, they also liked to discuss my plate of food. One commended me on my “lively appetite.” One looked alarmed at the amount of cheese I’d taken. The third, Caitlin Riordan, whose family owned the pub, explained how excited she was for the dig and introduced her younger brother as Finn, the sullen bartender Anna kept sneaking glances at. Another, Mrs. Barry from the farm nearest Kilkarten, noted that the she’d made the scone in my mouth, and that it would be no problem for her to make up an equally delicious lunch each day for the workers—and for a small fee, of course.

Across the room, Mike smiled and nodded as strangers who’d known his father and uncle told stories about their childhoods. But while his lips stayed turned up, the muscles around his eyes stopped moving, and his hands started to shift.

When he excused himself, I followed him outside. He headed down the road for a long minute, until the laughter faded and the tiny harbor came into view.

Before him, the sea stretched flat and gray, save the metallic ripple of sun. Above, textured gunmetal blue sky and orange tinged clouds rippled out. Muddied pink and shadowy purple lined the horizon and curved coast. Mike’s hands worked at his neck, yanking the tie off. It dangled in his clenched hand, a vibrant streak of color in the softened world.

I walked closer. “Are you okay?”

He jerked and turned. An unfamiliar expression drew his brows down in stark lines, and with the sun setting his eyes were shadowed. “Didn’t I look okay?”

I hesitated, unnerved by his tone. “Not really.”

He knotted the tie around his fists as he hung his head back let out a groan and dropped it, reaching for me. The tie fluttered to the ground.

I took one of his hands and moved close, lifting my eyes to his. They were bright and unblinking. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head and pulled me closer. He kissed me with such desperation that it scared me. I pulled back, but remained within his embrace. My hands rested on his chest. “Mike. Tell me.”

He dropped his arms and walked away. “My uncle
died
, that’s what. I never met him. He’s dead, and my father’s dead, and my grandparents are dead, and what the fuck am I doing?” The wind whipped his hair into a mad tangle. “This isn’t
me.
This hasn’t been me for ten years. I’m so fucking angry with my father, and Patrick, and all these people who know so goddamn much about ‘the O’Connors.’”