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“Do you get lonely up here by yourself?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” he said. “But Sinead is usually around for a cup a tea if I need to hear another voice. How about you, lass? Are you lonely?”
The question was startling, perhaps because I’d never thought about it before.
“I was married,” I said. “And it was the loneliest thing I’d ever experienced. Even though I was never really alone.” I didn’t try to explain the spies the senator had, or the spies the Morelli family had. And, apparently, Caroline.
“Sounds like it was a bad marriage.”
“It’s the kind of marriage that cures you of marriage,” I said with a laugh, surprised a little by how much I meant it. I would never marry again. No man would have that much legal, financial, and emotional control over me. There wasn’t enough love in the world to change my mind.
“You’re not really married to Ronan, are you?” he asked, the question coming out of the blue.
Oh man. I just totally blew the cover. “No, I’m not.”
“Are you in trouble, lass?”
I took a deep breath and let it out, my body slumping. “At the moment, no. But in the large scheme of things?” I waved my hand, indicating the wider world. “Yes.”
“Is Ronan . . . hurting you?”
“What? No. Not at all. Father Patrick—”
“Because I knew him as a boy.”
“From the school?”
“He was wild and could be vicious, trying to survive and get by, but he was sweet too. They all were. They were just boys and they had sweetness—”
“He still is,” I said, because the priest was nearly frantic. I put my arm around him, and he took a deep shuddering breath. “He can still be very sweet.”
“He doesn’t seem it.”
“I know,” I said. “But he’s taking good care of me.”
“Oh, you must think me some dodgy fool,” he said, looking at me sideways. There was something about him that was old despite the fact he couldn’t be that much older than Ronan. “I just . . . I never thought I’d see that boy again.”
I swallowed. “What happened? I mean, he’s told me a little, but I don’t know how he left the school. Or why. And I really don’t understand why he would bring me back here if all there are, are painful memories.”
Father Patrick looked out at the endless horizon and shook his head. “No, lass. He wouldn’t want me telling you. I was the villain in his story.”
That answer was expected, and I patted him on the shoulder. “Well,” I said. “For what it’s worth, I think you’re a terrible villain.”
“He wouldn’t say that. It doesn’t take real cruelty to be a villain. Sometimes, it just takes cowardice.”
Down the hill, a plume of brown dust was rising from the road, a blue car coming toward the cottage.
“He’s back,” I said.
“Lass, if he’s scaring you or threatening you—”
“It would be a day ending in ‘y,’” I said with a dramatic roll of my eye.
“You can come to me,” he said. “If you have to. I can keep you safe.”
He couldn’t, actually. What was coming after me was coming with guns. The reality of what I’d done made my stomach roll over. By asking him to text my sister’s number, I’d brought danger right to his doorstep. And those church doors were thick, but they weren’t bulletproof.
“We’ll be gone soon, I imagine,” I told him. “You don’t need to worry about me. Ronan is keeping me safe.”
Safe and at arm’s length. I was standing in front of a door he kept shutting in my face, which, because I was a fool, only seemed to make me want inside even more.
I got to my feet, my body a little swimmy from the hard cider and the weeding I’d done. I’d protected my shoulder as best I could, but the dull ache from earlier was now sharper and I wanted one of those painkillers. “Talk to you later, Father Patrick. Maybe tomorrow we can fix that fence.” Though I wasn’t sure I would be here tomorrow. I wasn’t sure I would be here in an hour.
“He won’t like you spending time with me,” Father Patrick said.
“He doesn’t like anything,” I said with a smile and headed back down the hill.
CHAPTER NINE
Poppy
The car pulled into the drive just as I was coming around the edge of the cottage.
“Welcome home, honey,” I said cheerfully as Ronan got out of the small car. Frowning at me, of course.
“What the fuck are you doing up at that church?”
“Gardening and getting a little drunk.”
His eyebrows went up at that and I kept my hands to myself with great restraint. Anytime this man showed me any emotion, it made me horny. “Where did you go?”
“The village.” From the back seat of the car, he pulled out a few plastic bags.
“Let me help,” I said, reaching my good arm out for one of the bags and he ignored me, walking into the cottage with all the parcels.
