Page 109 of Beside Golden Irish Fields
Her voice was hoarse, and when their gazes met, he knew she could see into his very soul. She knew he wasn’t strong enough to move on with her after this.
He was going to go home and work until this pain and fear left him. There was new fencing he could put in and briars to be cut back.
He would go back to how he was before he met her.
“You mind yourself,” he said, forcing his legs to move.
Crossing to her hospital bed was torture. Even in here, the smell wound around him, pulling at him. Leaning down to kiss her cheek was the worst kind of pain, a pain he remembered all too well. It was the kind of pain that drove a man to the brink, a place he wasn’t sure he could come back from a second time.
“I love you, Carrick,” she whispered.
He lingered a moment before saying, “I love you too.”
Then he made himself walk out.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tough times challenged even the toughest spirits.
Angie was home, thank God, with Megan hovering around her for a change. Might be good for their relationship. Sometimes role reversals helped the other person see a fresh perspective. Frankly, Bets needed that for herself, after being disqualified from the rose competition.
She yanked out another weed strangling the roses in her front garden. She’d already seen to her secret garden. She’d cried a little while tending to Love’s Magic, the one she’d won the competition with only yesterday. In the blink of an eye, a weed could pop out of nowhere and start destroying something beautiful. Mary Kincaid was that weed, and Bets wished she could pluck her up and toss her out of the village right now.
Donal’s Mercedes purred up her driveway, and the man who had found purchase in her heart got out and slammed the door of his precious car. “I only just heard. They disqualified you because of me? Bets, I won’t stand for it!”
She grabbed the sticky stem of a cleaver and plopped it in her rubbish pail. “There’s nothing to be done about it. Mary somehow found out you’d given me the rose bushes and planted them only a few months ago. Even though there is nothing in the contest rules about a rose being purchased by another person or the length of time it needs to be in the ground, the committee decided it wasn’t fair for me to win.”
He marched over in his long strides. “The rules are the rules, and if doesn’t say it—”
“It gets better,” she said, ripping out another weed. “When I told them that someone had cut the rope on your fencing, which made us suspect foul play, do you know what they said? They said someone in the village claims there’s a ghost around. While they’re right about that—”
“What?”
“Sorcha is back—”
“Sorcha! Bets, I’m Irish as anyone, but you’d better tell me this tale from start to finish.”
By the time she finished, his face was pale. “I didn’t know the myths were true about such things. Makes me wonder why my Margaret or your Bruce didn’t try the same thing as Sorcha.”
Bets scratched her head. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Oddly, she was rather sad Bruce hadn’t.
“Maybe we didn’t need the kind of help Carrick did.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “God, I need a whiskey. Bets, I’ll take them on for their rubbish. Imagine that, blaming a ghost. Especially Sorcha, who wouldn’t hurt a soul.”
“She wasn’t named, Donal, and given the state of Carrick right now, it’s best not to say anything.” He would be upset to have anyone slander her name, and rightfully so.
“Like a ghost can cut a rope. Jesus. How would Mary have even fathomed something like this?”
Bets had her suspicions. Mainly, she wondered if, like Bruce, Mary Kincaid had the gift of seeing spirits. “Let’s set this aside for now. Promise me you won’t mention the ghost thing to anyone else.” She couldn’t imagine the judges would say anything either after telling her what they’d heard—from an unnamed source, no less. They’d be laughingstocks. This nugget she would keep to herself, but she would watch Mary from now on. She knew this wasn’t over.
“Fine.” His shadow shaded her from the afternoon sun. “But I still have a mind to pop by each and every one of their houses and tell them—”
“It’s not worth it, Donal. I’m yanking weeds, imagining they’re Mary, and telling myself everyone in the village will still think I won anyway. Seems she didn’t just stop at growing her Black Magic rose. No, she had to get out her cauldron and go all witchy on me. Dammit, I hate that. Black Magic shouldn’t beat Love’s Magic. Ever.”
Donal knelt down beside her and yanked out more weeds, his large hands moving efficiently in time with hers. “I’ve heard of jealousy—”
Bets set her hands on her knees. “She was jealous the moment I arrived married and pregnant, and it only got worse as the village embraced me. The Lucky Charms most of all, I think. She wants to live here, in my house, and with Bruce gone, it’s only gotten worse.”
“There might be another reason,” Donal said, rubbing her shoulder. “You should know she flirted with me after Margaret died and a reasonable time had passed. Bets, her lemon curd was so sweet I thought my teeth might fall out.”
