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“Sinead had just moved into the cottage and she worked for the school, running kids back and forth to the village for appointments. She bought groceries and the like. And she was young and a single mom, and the priests had thought she needed the job and the home and the security enough that she wouldn’t betray them. The night Tom died, I ran away down to Sinead’s, planning to steal her car and get the fuck out of town. But she was standing on the path, staring up at the church. And she wasn’t even surprised to see me, like. She looked at me and said, ‘There’s something bad happening at that church, isn’t there?’ And she brought me into her house and she fed me that farl with jam, and I told her what had happened to Tom. And she got her twelve year old daughter out of bed and we went into town. She went to the constable station and when they told her to fuck off, she went to the newspaper. I swear to God that night we drove around lighting up every journalist and chief constable she could get her hands on until someone believed her. Until someone promised to get things done.”
“She got the school shut down?”
“She did. The journalists made such a fuss, the church had to do something. Father Patrick helped.”
“Father Patrick, the man up there?” I asked.
He held out his hands, telling me to calm down. “Yeah, but he’d been at the school long enough. I doubt he would have done it if Sinead hadn’t already risked everything.”
“He asked you to forgive him.”
He shrugged. “Some things don’t get forgiven.”
I stood and he braced himself like he knew I was going to approach him, but all I did was finish cleaning up the table. Clearing our coffee cups. Trying not to spook him. “You risked everything too. Telling Sinead.”
“No. When we got to Derry, I took off, like. Found some old friends and started doing all the same shit that got me in trouble in the first place. I heard the school got shut down and Sinead got to keep the cottage. I didn’t run away that night planning to do anything but save my own skin. And that’s all I did for the next twelve years, whatever needed doing so I could survive.”
“Until me.”
He laughed. “Until you. And trust me, I’ve learned my lesson. It won’t happen again.”
He turned back to the sink of dirty dishes. It was like seeing a wolf doing the washing up with its sharp claws.
“What’s going to happen tomorrow?” I asked after a long moment.
“We’ll get on a train to London.”
“How are you affording all this? Jets, apartments, train tickets, new identities?” I sat back in the chair. “Are you rich?”
“Does it matter?’
In so many ways, it mattered a lot. But Ronan wouldn’t be any less Ronan if he were rich or poor. He was impervious to such things. “I guess not. So, we get my sister in London, and then what?”
“You two lay low until it’s safe for you to come back.”
“If you go back, Caroline’s not going to trust you.”
“I should hope not.”
“And the Morellis—”
“Need to answer for Theo Rivers. And I plan on finding out why anyone wants you dead.”
“Or alive,” I said, feeling like someone needed to keep saying that part out loud.
“Well, that part I get. You’re not so bad alive.” As far as compliments went, it was pretty weak, but it’s not like he’d said a lot of nice things to me over our brief relationship.
“You need to work on your flattery.” I wished I could just reach out to touch him. The muscles in his back. The scar there along his jaw. How exciting it would be to have the right to touch him. How exciting it would be for him to be mine.
“You’re doing all of that to make it safe for me?”
“Yeah.”
“But that can’t be safe for you.”
“Not much is, Poppy.”
So, he was going to go back to make things safe for me and I was going to sit in a house in England that he paid for while waiting for him to come out. It hardly seemed fair. Or right.
“How do I repay you?” I asked. “I mean . . . Ronan? How do I possibly repay you for any of this?”
He turned so fast, I blinked. Stepped back. He crowded me against the counter, his hands braced on either side, dripping water onto the floor. His eyes walked all over my face, like he was soaking me in. Memorizing me. “You never should have been in this life, Poppy. You want to repay me? Live the life you were supposed to have. Just be happy, Poppy.”
I couldn’t stand him so close, yet even a breath away, he was too far away. I leaned forward, kissing him. With all the sweetness I had in me. All the sweetness I felt for him. The sweetness I wished for him.
