The Last Bride in Ballymuir Read Online Free Page A

think
they’d be welcoming me with this in tow,” he said gesturing at
Roger.
    “ You could tie him to the
lamppost,” she said, dismissing the dog with a bored
glance.
    Somehow, Michael knew he’d be safer in tying
Evie to a lamppost than he would Vi’s precious child. “Maybe I’ll
join you another time.”
    Evie pared the general down
to the specific with a skill he couldn’t help but admire. “Monday
night, then. Eight o’clock... And if you’re lookin’ to have fun,
leave the dog and your sister at home.”
    She moved closer and for one wild moment he
imagined her doing to him what he’d done to Kylie. Had he not been
so tall, Evie Nolan just might have been up to the challenge. As it
was, she brushed one dagger-tipped nail against the front of his
jacket. “Will I be having your name before Monday?”
    He hesitated, feeling as though he was giving
up something he shouldn’t. “Michael.”
    She looked him up and down.
“For the Big Fellow, Michael Collins, I’d
wager.”
    With his size and build, he’d heard the
comment countless times before, and hated it. Collins, patriot and
hero to some, spy and murderer to others. And to him, a burden. “I
was named for my father.”
    The words must have sounded
even harsher than he’d intended. A flash of surprise and anger
passed across the girl’s face. She stepped
away warily. “Well, Michael named for his
father, Monday night, then.” She brushed past him and made her way
down the narrow walk.
    He watched her round bottom sway back and
forth to a hot beat. “We’ll see,” he said more to himself than
her.
    Roger gave a low growl and tugged at his
leash. Michael imagined that if he loosed him, the dog would sink
his teeth straight into Evie Nolan’s swinging promise of sex.
    “ Latched onto, all right,”
he said with a laugh, then followed Rog round the corner and, after
several blocks’ zigzagging detour, back home again.
    “ You’re all walked out,
then,” Vi commented as he swung shut the door and then freed Roger
from his leash.
    “ Eighty years on the road
and I’d not be walked out,” he said, hanging his jacket. During his
years caged, more nights than not he’d dreamt of walking in a
straight line bending over the horizon and on to forever. Past this
ruined life altogether, and starting again. Starting clean and
simple.
    Vi was silent a while,
seeing to the evening’s meal. When the
table was set, she said, “I can’t imagine it... knowing I must be
in the same place so long. I think it would kill me—especially when
I’d done nothing to warrant being there.”
    To his way of thinking, sheer stupidity
qualified as something, though he loved Vi for her unswerving
loyalty. Michael’s smile was grim. “Well, the anger’s enough to
keep you going a while.”
    In all her visits, all her letters, and all
of his to her, they’d skirted the “whys” and “hows” of his
existence. The life and the emotions were ugly, now best swept
under the rug. Not the most courageous of acts, but one that better
suited his skills at self-preservation.
    Vi waved him to his place at
the table. The aroma of the soup was regrettably reminiscent of his earlier
meal. Michael slowly brought the spoon to his mouth, carefully
tasted, then grabbed for the glass of water in front of him. A
conspiracy, it was!
    He glared at his sister. “Did no one teach
you to cook?”
    “ Of course they did. I got
distracted, that’s all. I had the grandest idea for a new painting
and had to get it down before it flew off.”
    He grinned. “The painting?”
    “ No, the idea, you ninny,”
she said, brandishing her soup spoon like a weapon.
    “ So I’m suffering for your art. And here I
thought that was the artist’s job.”
    “ Do you suppose you could be
doing any better?”
    “ No.”
    “ Then don’t complain.” She
nibbled at the bread before asking , “So
what’ll it be, Michael? You’ve enough money
for a new start wherever you want to go.”
    “