Free The Last Bride in Ballymuir by Dorien Kelly Page A

family
meeting.”
    With a toss of her head, Evie sniffed, “I
don’t like being treated this way.”
    “ Then you’d best learn to
behave, yourself,” Vi chided her. “Now run along, Evie, before you
make me lose my patience.”
    Evie spared Michael one last pouting face,
then sulked her way back to the front room.
    Michael leaned against the wall to let a
woman edge by on her way to the loo. He gave his sister a long,
curious look. “Not that I don’t appreciate being rescued, but what
are you doing here? I thought we’d agreed no spying.”
    “ I’m not spying, you big
oaf. I come an hour or two most Monday nights for the sessiun. Though why is it
when you’re left to your own devices, I always find you with a
woman in your arms?”
    “ The Kilbride charm?” At her
frustrated hiss, he came as close to
laughing as he had since the Garda’s visit.
“No?” he asked. “But I have to point out that I was in Evie’s arms,
and not the other way around.”
    “ Whoever was doing the
holding, have a care.” Vi glanced back up the hallway. “Anyway,
that’s not why I’m hiding back here with you. Tell me what went on
with Gerry Flynn—the Garda—today.”
    “ How’d you know about that,
with you not spying on me?”
    Vi waved aside the question. “Kylie O’Shea,
but we haven’t time to discuss that right now. Flynn, what happened
with him?”
    “ Just a friendly greeting,”
Michael said with a bitter turn of his mouth. “Let me know they’d
be keeping an eye on me.”
    Vi gave another glance up
the hallway. Slowly the message came to
Michael that she was nervous about something.
    “ What is it?” he
asked.
    “ Flynn walked in the door
the same time I did. If you were anyone other than a Kilbride, I’d
suggest that you be on your way now, but I know better than to
commit that sin. Just be careful, Michael. He’s not been with the
Gardai long, and is arrogant with power.”
    Masking the fury—and the guilt—that his life
had come to this again, Michael shrugged. “He’s got no power over
me. I just want to finish my drink and leave.”
    “ I’d rather you left now,”
she said, her love for him plain in her eyes. “No good can come of
this.”
    “ Don’t you see? If I’m to
cower every time Flynn comes around, I’d
just as well go stick myself back in that
cell. Now meet with your friends, and if you’re of a mind to do
anything for me, sing me a song. It’s been years since I’ve heard
you.”
    Vi went up on tiptoe and
brushed a kiss against his cheek. “You
smell of whiskey and cigarettes,” she said, wrinkling her nose. She
leaned closer, then with a disgusted little
sound stepped back. “And Evie Nolan, too. Even a walk home in the
rain won’t wash that away.”
    “ And those are the lesser of
my sins today,” he joked in a half-hearted manner.
    “ Then don’t tell me about
the rest,” his sister ordered.
    Michael followed Vi back to the pub’s main
room. The local musicians had drawn themselves into a circle just
beneath the half-curtained front windows. Elderly women with their
hair fussed and lacquered sat shoulder-to-shoulder with plain-faced
farmers. The serious musicians sat head down tuning their
instruments. The more congenial laughed with their mates.
    Nowhere did Michael see Flynn, though today
he’d focused more on the uniform than the face. Evie was easier to
find; she waited for him at the bar. He pulled out his stool and
bought a few inches of space between himself and Evie’s wandering
hands.
    “ She’s a meddling bitch,
your sister.”
    “ She’s—” Ready to defend Vi,
Michael trailed off when he spotted a willowy figure at the end of
the bar.
     
    Kylie wasn’t sure what got her
attention, there in the unfamiliar laughter, noise, and smoke. It
might have been Evie Nolan’s shrill voice carrying her way, or the
feel of Michael’s eyes on her. Whatever it was, she wanted to turn
and flee.
    She wasn’t meant to be in this foreign world.
She