Page 48 of A Miracle on Hope Street
‘Look, I can’t and won’t ever deny it. I’m very, very fond of you, Ruth,’ he says eventually. ‘I can’t help it, but it’s not something I ever expected to happen. I just don’t want us to get hurt, that’s all.’
‘Hurt?’
‘Eitherof us,’ he continues. ‘I don’t know that someone like you would want to be with someone like me and I’m afraid that we might be getting too close too soon, plus like I said to you, I’ve some stuff with my past to sort out and I don’t want to weigh you down with my problems. It’s a sensitive time of year so we . . . we should just be careful, that’s all. Enjoy our time together, but be careful.’
I let out a sigh.
‘Gosh, you sound just like Gloria,’ I can’t help but say, joking a little. ‘You’re spending too much time at that café.’
Michael laughs knowingly. ‘You’re very beautiful, very kind, very brave in what you are setting out to do this Christmas and you make me feel like we’ve known each other forever, but I also think you are way out of my league.’
I raise an eyebrow. My stomach gives a whoosh every time I look at his handsome face. I’m a bit stuck for words.
‘Well, that has shut me up,’ I say to him and he laughs in response. ‘My sister was warning me to be careful. I think she is afraid you might be a serial killer or something.’
I didn’t mean to say that. I don’t want to offend him.
‘Maybe your sister is right,’ he says, putting on a snarly face.
‘What?’
‘I’m joking!’ he says.
‘So wasshe. . . I think.’
‘You’ll soon find out, maybe I am a serial killer,’ he says and I glare at him in horror. ‘I’m joking!’
He lifts his hands from the steering wheel momentarily in mock surrender.
‘Okay, let’s just have a nice afternoon out and not put any limitations on “what-ifs” or “maybes” then, or any suggestion of serial killers amongst us?’ I suggest to him. ‘Plus, I can’t take all that adulation from you. I’m embarrassed now and I might even start believing it.’
He rests his hand by my side again but this time he doesn’t move it away. I’m glad. I like it there.
Then I lie back and watch the world go by, wishing I could feel this good every day for the rest of my life. I forget about my mother, I forget about my house and my urge to sell it, I forget about how I first found Michael homeless on Hope Street and I forget that he has this major issue with young Liam to address.
I choose to forget it all, just for now. Sometimes it’s good to just forget.
Chapter Twenty
Almost two hours later, Michael and I cruise along the Wild Atlantic Way of Ireland’s north-west coast near a little place I instantly recognise as Rossnowlagh in County Donegal, where I watch the waves crash in the distance as we drive, and I gasp as the familiar shoreline that I have longed to return to for so many years comes into view.
‘You’re taking me to Rossnowlagh?’ I say, glancing at him in disbelief that he remembered how I told him I wanted to come back here.
‘I thought you might like it,’ he says, looking very pleased with himself as he watches me look out the window like an excited child and I’m moved to tears that he thought of bringing me here.
Wonderful flashbacks of my childhood with both my parents and my sister for that brief family holiday come flooding into my head. We stayed in a little cottage that overlooked the sea and I remember how it rained every single day from we got there until we left, yet it remained in my heart as one of my favourite holidays ever. We fished in the morning, we played cards at night and during the day we explored the rugged coastline, filled our bellies with seafood and tired ourselves out with the breezy sea air.
I must have been about ten years old and even though I’ve never been on this road since, the memories come flooding back.
‘Oh look! Do you mind just taking this turn-off?’ I ask him. ‘I’m almost sure this is where we stayed back then.’
Michael goes for it and as we drive down the bumpy lane, I know it has to be the same place. I remember how our car bounced along on this lane and how Dad thought he had taken a wrong turn only to find our accommodation high on a cliff edge at the end of the lane overlooking the most magnificent scenery and sea views that took our breath away.
‘I think we stayed in a house on the end of this lane,’ I tell him. ‘I’m sure it was here. I haven’t thought about it in years and would have had no idea how to get here but now that I see it all, it’s coming back to me.’
The car bumps up and down along the lane and I can hear her voice so clearly.
‘We’re going to stay in a beautiful thatched cottage,’ she’d told us with such excitement. ‘You can wake up each morning to the sound of the waves crashing outside and we’ll try so many delicious types of seafood and play in the sand every day. It’s going to be wonderful.’
