The Last Bride in Ballymuir by Dorien Kelly

gift of sight.
But she couldn’t, any more than she could lose her height or her
love of color. Vi rubbed her arms to restore some warmth and told
herself that the call meant nothing.
    “ Courage,” she
admonished.
    After giving Roger a few
moments to snuffle the last crumbs of his meal, she snapped on his
leash and announced, “Off to the studio with us, a ghra. We’ve work to
finish before the distractions begin. They’re going to be plenty
today.”
    An idea that Roger relished, judging by the
spring in his step. Vi felt mightily less pleased with the thought.
Whether it be Mam or grackle, bad tidings were afoot.
     
    It was a morning for more
subtle intimacies, waking and readying for the day in Kylie’s tiny
home. Michael had lived elbow-to-elbow before, but there had been no closeness to it, only a maddening lack
of privacy. This was different; he liked it—too much, in fact. It made him think of waking with Kylie in
that dreamer’s bed, and of staying there until the day had slipped
into night. Dangerous emotions, those were, and becoming harder to
ignore.
    After a breakfast filled with talk and
laughter, he helped her pile an armful of bundles into the boot of
her car. When he asked her about them, she fluttered off some
embarrassed answer about things she no longer needed and help for a
family in town.
    But they’d just made it back to the main road
when she pulled up in front of a cottage. Curious, Michael watched
as she hurriedly dropped a bag on the stoop.
    “ And that was?” he asked
when she’d settled back into the car.
    “ Reading materials.” Her
cheeks blazed crimson.
    He grinned. “What kind of reading materials
might they be?”
    “ Romance novels,” she said
in a way that just dared him to laugh. “Breege won’t buy them for
herself—she’s too old, she says—but she’s not against reading them
a dozen times through if they just happen to show up on her
doorstep.”
    Books for a friend named
Breege, bundles for peo ple in town. And she
lived like a pauper. “I don’t think you need look further than your
own mirror to find a hero, Kylie O’Shea.”
    She gave him a startled glance. “I’ve done
nothing out of the ordinary. No more than anyone who wants to be a
part of this town would.”
    He weighed that bit of unintended advice. To
his experience, books and bundles didn’t open arms that wanted to
stay closed. But taking in her shuttered expression, he decided to
let the matter rest.
    Hungry as always, he asked Kylie to let him
off in front of Spillane’s Market. With Mr. Spillane peering out
the front window, he didn’t kiss Kylie, though he sorely wanted to.
She looked so smooth and pretty, a schoolboy’s—and this grown
man’s— fantasy. Instead he took a clumsy step toward getting that
kiss another time. “If I rang you up sometime, would you ... that
is ... ah, hell...”
    The corners of her full mouth began to curve
upward. “Are you trying to ask me out?”
    He nodded. “I think I might be.”
    “ Well then, when you figure
it out for sure, let me know.” Her wink was sheer flirtatious
promise, mak ing him laugh at his own rusty
skills. As he got out of the car she said,
“And Michael, I’m sorry for what happened at the pub. I’ll be a
better friend to you. I promise.”
    He stood on the curb and watched her pull
away. In fact, he watched even after the little car was gone from
sight. Moonstruck. He was past thirty and embarrassingly
moonstruck.
    He turned back to
Spillane’s, where the grocer still stood in
the front of the store. Michael waved a greet ing and came to the door, mentally savoring all the food he
meant to buy. But Spillane didn’t move or acknowledge him with
anything more than a flat stare.
    “ Closed,” he mouthed through
the thick glass, then turned away.
    Michael could feel the darkness gather around
him, the anger at knowing this was how things were to be. After
last night he’d still hoped he could make some headway before