Run to Him Read Online Free

had placed her hand over his and, as he looked up at her, for the first time it struck him that he had found a way to make someone like him and it didn’t involve thieving. In fact, just the opposite. Fionnuala’s reaction to the brushes had not been at all what he expected. If he had done that for any other person in this pub, they would have been beside themselves with delight. There wasn’t a single family on the Four Streets could afford to buy a set of silver brushes and even if they could, wild horses wouldn’t make these people, who had known hunger, throw money away on something so frivolous.
    Fionnuala looked directly at him and her dark brown eyes owned him. All he had to do to please her was to agree not to thieve, and he realized that having Fionnuala proud of him for doing that would be worth foregoing the approval of every other family on the Four Streets.
    ‘Will you promise me, now?’ Fionnuala had some of her mother’s ways and like a dog with a rag, would not give up once she sunk her teeth into something.
    ‘I promise to stop the thieving, if ye give me a tail home?’ Callum said cheekily, catching Fionnuala off her guard and taking huge pleasure in watching her blush furiously.
    For a split second, Callum thought he had blown it and that she was about to walk away, but then she smiled.
    ‘All right,’ she said, ‘if you want, but you keep yer hands to yerself, Callum O’Prey. I will not be fighting for my honour in the entry.’
    ‘I promise,’ he replied, with a grin on his face.
    Fionnuala looked around and saw that her friends were calling her over. ‘I have to go and join Angela Keating and the others. Don’t tell anyone. Me mam and da wouldn’t be happy.’
    ‘I promise you that as well, Fionnuala.’ Callum grinned and doffed his cap.
    The grin quickly slipped from his face as she disappeared into the blue haze of cigarette smoke. He had no idea how to take Fionnuala’s honour. Callum had spent his entire life thieving for his neighbours. He was sweet seventeen and had never been kissed. Despite her boldness, neither had Fionnuala.
    Callum’s pal, Michael, came and stood at his side. Michael worked at the repair garage and every day he mixed with men of the world, men who had enough money to own cars. Michael was also from Dublin, unlike Callum’s family and most of the people on the Four Streets, who had originated from Mayo, Cork and every village in between.
    Callum looked Michael up and down. ‘Michael you must know things about girls, do ye? If I kiss a girl, am I taking her honour, now?’
    Michael furrowed his brow, lifted his cap, rubbed his Swarfega-coated, greasy hair and put his cap back down again. Michael did that every time he was asked a question, regardless of the depth or seriousness.
    ‘I would say it was now, to be sure. Once a girl has been kissed, that’s it. She’s not a virgin any more, is she, and there’s plenty more goes on. I hear about it all the time from the lads at the garage. There’s not much I don’t know about that kind of stuff now, so I’m sure that’s right.’
    ‘Bloody hell,’ said Callum. ‘I never knew that. I’m still a virgin and I’m seventeen. I had better put an end to that soon, had I, Michael. Are ye a virgin still?’
    ‘Feck, no,’ said Michael with a note of disgust in his voice. ‘I’ve kissed loads of girls, so I have.’ And with that, off they both walked to the bar to refill their Guinness pots.
    Fionnuala left the do, whilst most people were on to ordering their fourth round. Bill wasn’t daft, she thought. Putting everyone in a good mood with free food made sure that their merriment emptied pockets and purses over his bar. Fionnuala had been so full of yawns and excuses that she must away to bed, because she had to be up and report to the nursing school early, that no one complained when she slipped out of the snug door and down the pub steps.
    The road was full of the Mersey mist that lay on the