“Hey, Guv,” he said easily. “Checking out your plantation?”
Finn ignored him. Brendan was a big man with the easy confidence that comes of towering over most people in daily interactions. It annoyed Finn that Brendan never acted worried about him. The way Finn saw things, Brendan should be plenty worried about him.
The American looked up and, amazingly, smiled. It was all Finn could do not to smile back.
What the shite did he see to smile about?
“Comfortable, I see?” he said to the man.
“I’m good,” the Yank replied, pulling his worn blanket around him tighter as if to belie the fact. It had been a cold afternoon and the evening promised to be much colder.
“So, just in Ireland on holiday, are you?” Finn squatted down next to the man and fished out another cigarette. Because he was looking for it, Finn saw out of the corner of his eye that the American glanced up at Brendan.
Oh, so it’s like that, is it? Friends, are we?
“Yes, I heard about the great fishing in this part of the country…”
“Oh, yeah, we got great fishing here. Really great. So, how is it you ended up lashed to a bed by that harpy back yonder?”
“I was just helping out,” the man said. It was more of a mumble, Finn thought, He glanced over at him. The man looked bad but he’d rallied in the week since Finn’s men had found him tied to a boat anchor in the back room of that hag’s cottage. They’d nearly killed him, too, until all the noise from Julie, who was in complete hysterics over the murder of her mother—an unexpected bollocks—had brought Finn’s attention to what they were about to do.
The Yank was his winning ticket to getting her. He hated to think how close he’d come to losing him because of those stupid gobshites.
“So you got enough to eat?” Finn stood up and stared down at the man. In many ways, he didn’t look any different from his men. He had a scruffy beard, filthy, ripped clothes and a look that vacillated between desperation and vacancy. But there was something else about him. Something settled and self-assured. The kind of something that came from money and having it all done for you your whole life.
The kind of something that Finn absolutely hated.
David watched the scruffy little gypsy walk away. He watched him as he rubbed his shoulder like it still hurt him. Likely, it still did. When he spoke, David could see the malignancy in his eyes, like a feral animal that wanted to rip and hurt just for the sake of it.
There’s something really wrong with that guy, David found himself thinking.
The other gypsy, Brendan, eased back down onto the ground next to David and gave the little campfire a poke with a long stick.
“He’s not buying your shite, Yank,” he said matter of factly.
David only brought his hand to his face to massage his forehead tiredly.
“He knows she’s yer wife, mate,” Brendan insisted. “Why d’ya think yer still alive?”
“I don’t know, man,” David said. “I just know I am.”
While Brendan assembled a mealy sandwich to share with him, David couldn’t help but watch him in wonder.
He didn’t think Brendan was the one who’d murdered Betta, but his hands were likely not clean in any event. He’d been kind to David for reasons other than his American celebrity but what those reasons were David couldn’t fathom. He couldn’t help but feel grateful to the man but he knew he needed to fight the feeling. Brendan was operating with his own agenda in mind and David’s life or wellbeing likely played no role in it. He needed to quickly regain his strength and try to use the big gypsy for his own reasons—which meant separating his gratitude from his actions. The only thing that mattered now that he was still alive, was that he reunite with Sarah and John.
By any means possible.
Brendan handed David the sandwich and David smiled at him in a perfect mime of typical American eager politeness.
“Thanks, man,” he said. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”
“No worries, Yank,” Brendan said, smiling back at him.
That night at the evening meal, the group at Cairn Cottage sat around the open fire. Fiona seemed to be generally accepted as the one in charge of all things domestic—meals, the children, and the other women. Sarah could see that most of the women, with the exception of the young teenaged niece of Donovan and Fiona’s who was also the unwed mother, were the wives to Donovan’s men. So far, the extent of their contact with Sarah was to smile shyly at her.
Donovan sat down next to her on a log rolled up to the campfire. He held two tin plates of stewed lamb and soda bread and offered her one.
“At least it’s not squirrel again.” he said, his eyes watching the perimeter of the small camp as he spoke.
Sarah took the plate and tore off a piece of the still-warm bread.
“Fiona’s a miracle maker to be able to create these meals out of virtually nothing,” she said with amazement.
“Fiona’s a good girl,” Donovan said absently. “Your boy doing okay?”
Sarah appreciated his question but knew there was more to it.
“I guess I’ve been acting pretty clingy with him lately,” she admitted.
“No, no,” he said, looking at her now. “Not at all, not at all. No more than any sane mother would who had just experienced thirty minutes of believing her bairn to be murdered. Not at all.”
Sarah looked away to hide the emotion stinging her eyes again.
Would she ever get over those thirty minutes? Could any mother?
“But we’ll be needing to talk about your problem with the gypsies now.”
Sarah put her plate down and decided to choose her words carefully. “It is my belief, Mike,” she said, “that it is not just my problem. I mean, unless you think you can live with them somehow.”
“I’m not thinking that.”
“But you think by defying them or calling attention to yourselves you’ll make it worse?”
“Something like that.”
Sarah heard first and then saw John across the campfire laughing at something Gavin said. She watched the older boy scoop her son up and the two playfully wrestle in the dirt before Fiona shooed them away from the fire.
“Ejeet boy will never grow up,” Donovan muttered, watching them too.
“I guess that’s what this new world is all about,” Sarah said. “Growing up fast. I’ve seen it in John and hated to see it at the same time I was glad of it.”
Donovan looked back at her and smiled.
“You’re like no Irish woman I ever knew,” he said.
“How so?” Sarah picked her plate back up. “Don’t tell me about being strong or resilient or crap like that, I warn you. I’ve seen Fiona in action so I wouldn’t buy it.”
“No, it’s not that. Ireland is full of strong women. With the drunken bums many Irish men are, they’ve had to be. No, it’s not that. Being tough is one thing, but doing it with your…your…”
“Swagger?” Sarah laughed. “Trust me, all American women have a little bit of John Wayne in them,” Sarah said. “It’s part of our culture.”
“Yeah, must be.”
Sarah watched the other men sitting around the campfire. There were two, not counting Gavin. Two more were patrolling the perimeter of the little camp and would, in shifts, all night long.
“All right then,” Donovan said, collecting her empty plate. “I have a bit of news for you that probably won’t change your mind much about waiting for the gypsies to come kill us all but I need to tell you.”
“News? Where did you get more news?”
Instantly, Sarah tried to locate John with her eyes. She needed to see him before the landscape changed yet again.