Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70174 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
CHAPTER 20
Tommy
It always felt good to get cleaned up after a hard day’s work at the training center. While the way they trained horses here was night and day from the way we trained saddlebreds at Blackburn Farm, the labor was just as taxing and just as rewarding. I stepped out of my cottage and pulled the door shut. My hair was still wet from the bath I’d taken… one of the things I wasn’t liking about Ireland. While Rory’s cottage and the main manor house had been updated with modern conveniences like showers, my cottage had not and still only contained a bathtub. It had to be heated manually with an immersion heater which was a pain in the ass, but in the chilly evenings after work, it was a necessity.
I headed down the darkening path to Rory’s cottage where, for the last two nights, I’d been invited to join him, Kathleen and Fiona for dinner. Everyone was worried about Fi, but she seemed to be holding her own. She spent her days working at the training center. Rory said the best thing was to keep her mind and body busy, and she wasn’t afraid of hard work. She helped feed, water, and groom the horses as well as breeze them on the track. Today, Rory took her over to the steeplechase run and for the first time, they didn’t have to hide it from Seamus because he no longer had a say in what his daughter did.
Asshole.
The morning after Seamus threw Fiona out, Rory went over to the manor house to demand her clothing, but his brother wasn’t there. Brigid let him in and was quiet and nonconfrontational about it. She didn’t help Rory pack up Fiona’s belongings, but she didn’t stop him either. He returned with two large suitcases full of her stuff and Fiona shed some tears, a mix of both happy and sad. It made me want to pound Seamus Conlan into the ground because it was breaking my heart to see Fiona’s world ripped apart.
As Rory’s cottage came into view, all aglow and smoke pouring from the chimney, my excitement to see Fiona rose. While I’d love nothing more for her to spend all night with me, that was definitely impossible now with her under Rory’s watch. But that could wait.
I’d become familiar enough with the warmth of an Irish welcome and walked right into Rory’s front door with only a slight knock. I followed the voices into the kitchen and found Fiona and Kathleen busying about and Rory sitting at the table. The rich aroma of stew and fresh bread hit my nose, but that’s not what tightened my belly.
It was seeing Fiona in a pretty blue dress with an apron to protect it from spatter. She turned, faced me with a smile that brightened exponentially when she took me in. I’m not sure if Rory or Kathleen noticed the subtlety, but her eyes slid up and down, surveying me from head to toe, and I saw pure female appreciation in her expression. I loved that about her. That despite how innocent she was, and how I was her first, she looked at me the way a woman does when she wants a man.
We sat down around the table, the peat fire cracking merrily in the adjoining sitting room. Fiona sat to my left and was putting on a brave face, despite how drained she was from emotional overload.
She smiled, she laughed at my teasing, she made conversation, but every so often, I’d catch it—the flicker of sadness, the way she’d absently rub her thumb over her breastbone like she was grounding herself.
I couldn’t forget that even though she was safe and secure right now, Fiona was grieving. She had lost her family. Granted, her father was an asshole and her mother a doormat, but they had raised her. And she was worried about whether she’d be allowed to see her siblings. There was no answer to that question quite yet. No matter how much she told herself she was better off without them, I knew that kind of pain didn’t just go away.
I reached under the table and gave her knee a reassuring squeeze. She turned to me, her features softening as she offered a small, tired smile.
That was enough for now.
After dinner, Kathleen insisted Rory and I clean the kitchen, to which we didn’t object. Back home, I was expected to help my mom and it was never called “women’s work.” Not when my mom was out in the barns pitching hay and scooping up horseshit.
We retired to the sitting room where Kathleen had set out a tea service, but Rory went straight for the liquor bottle. I didn’t hesitate in accepting a small glass of whiskey, but Fiona was content with a cup of steaming tea. She settled into my side on the couch while Kathleen and Rory took the adjacent chairs.