Page 11 of Irish Rose
“You remember it’s only on the condition that you come by and visit. Ma’s counting on it.”
“Then we’d best be rounding up the brood. Burke, if you give the lad chocolate you deserve to have him smear it on you. Brendon, Keeley, into the van now. We’re going for a ride.”
They didn’t have to be told twice.
First they went to the cemetery, where the grass was high and green and the stones weathered and gray. Flowers grew wild, adding the promise of life. Some of Erin’s family was buried there; most she barely remembered. She’d never lost anyone close or grieved deeply. But she loved deeply when it came to her family, and thought she could understand how wrenching it would be to lose them.
Yet it had been so long ago, Erin thought as she watched her cousin stand between the graves of her parents. Didn’t a loss like that begin to fade with time? Adelia had been only a child when they’d died, nine or ten. Wouldn’t her memory of them have dimmed? Still, though she could imagine a world away from her family, she couldn’t imagine one where they didn’t exist.
“It still hurts,” Dee murmured as she looked down at the stones that bore her parents’ names.
“I know.” Travis ran a hand down her hair.
“I remember Father Finnegan telling me after it happened that it was God’s will, and thinking to myself that it didn’t seem right. It still doesn’t.” She sighed and looked up at him. “I’ll never be able to figure it out, will I?”
“No.” He took her hand in his. There was a part of him that wanted to gather her up and take her away from the grief. And a part of him that understood she’d been strong enough to deal with it years before they’d even met. “I wish I’d known them.”
“They’d have loved you.” She let the tears come, but smiled with them. “And the children. They’d have fussed over the children, spoiled them. More than Hannah does. It comforts me that they’re together. I believe that, you know. But it’s painful that they missed knowing you and the babies.”
“Don’t cry, Momma.” Keeley slipped a hand into Adelia’s. “Look, I made a flower. Burke showed me. He said they’d like it even though they’re in heaven.”
Dee looked at the little wreath fashioned of twigs and wild grass. “It’s lovely. Let’s put it right in the middle, like this.” Bending, she placed it between the graves. “Aye, I’m sure they’ll like this.”
What a strange man he was, Erin thought as she sat beside Burke in the van and listened to Brendon’s chattering. She’d seen him sit in the grass and twine twigs together for Keeley. Though she’d kept herself distant enough that she hadn’t heard what he’d said, she’d been aware that the girl had listened attentively and had looked at him with absolute trust.
He didn’t seem to be a man to inspire trust.
She knew the road that led to the farm that had been the Cunnanes’. She remembered Dee’s parents only as the vaguest of shadows, but she did remember Lettie Cunnane well, the aunt Dee had lived with when she’d been orphaned. She’d been a tough, stern-faced woman, and because of her Erin had kept her visits to the farm few and far between. That was behind them now, she reminded herself as she gestured toward the window for Brendon. “You see, just over this hill is where your mother grew up.”
“On a farm,” he said knowledgeably. The patches of green pasture and yellow gorse meant little to him. “We have a farm. The best one in Maryland.” He grinned at Burke as if it was an old joke.
“It’ll still be the second best when I’m finished,” Burke answered, willing to rise to the bait.
“Royal Meadows has been around for gener… gener…”
“Generations,” Burke supplied.
“Yeah. And you’re still wet behind the ears ’cause Uncle Paddy said so.”
“Brendon Patrick Grant.” It was all the warning Hannah had to give. She turned her stern eye on Burke. “And you should know better than to encourage him.”
Burke merely grinned and tousled the boy’s hair. “Doesn’t take much.”
“Burke won his farm in a poker game,” Brendon supplied as the van shuddered to a halt. “He’s teaching me to play.”
“That’s so when Royal Meadows belongs to you, I can win that, too.” He pushed open the sliding door, then grabbed the giggling boy around the waist.
“Did he really?” Erin asked in an undertone as Hannah took Keeley’s hand. “Win his horse farm gambling?”
“So I’m told.” Hannah stepped a bit wearily out of the van. “Rumor is he’s lost and won more than that.” She glanced over as Burke settled Brendon on his shoulders. “It’s hard to hold it against him.”
She wouldn’t, Erin thought as she joined the others. She was too Irish to turn her nose up at a gambler, especially a successful one. Trailing behind Dee, she looked over the rise to the farm below.
It hadn’t changed much, not in her memory. Oh, the milking parlor was new, and a fresh coat of paint had been slapped on the barn a year or so before. It was the only farm in sight. To the east, the hills rose up and blocked the view. The vegetable garden was already tilled and planted, and a smattering of the dairy cows could be seen in the strip of pasture. There was smoke spiraling out of the chimney of the little stone cottage, which was a great deal like her own. The good, rich smell of peat carried on the wind.
“The Sweeneys are a nice family,” she said at length because her cousin stared down so long without speaking. “I know they wouldn’t mind if you wanted to go down and look about.”
“No.” She said it too quickly, then softened the refusal with a touch of her hand. “I don’t mind looking from here.” The truth was she couldn’t bear to go any closer to what had been and was no longer her own. “Do you remember, Erin, when Aunt Lettie was so sick and you and your mother came visiting?”
