Page 5 of Beside Golden Irish Fields
Love. Is. Here.
Carrick swore heartily in the wind as three sheep formed the message. He was still unmoored after meeting Betsy O’Hanlon’s cousin—the one with the lush mouth who’d stared at him as if she could see into his soul. Unnerving, that. He’d have to avoid her.
“Stubborn as always,” said a voice that had him jolting in place. “I’ve been trying to tell you through the sheep to prepare yourself, Carrick.”
Jesus, his heart! He locked his jaw and swung around to face his wife, feeling as if the ground moved under his feet. She was wearing her favorite white summer dress, the one she’d had on the last time he’d seen her three years ago, when he’d kissed her goodbye like usual before she left to go for groceries. “So it is you again! It took me a while to suspect those messages were from you. I’ve been trying to prepare myself for another visit. How many times must I say it? I’m never finding love again.”
“That’s not how it works.” She crossed her arms like she did when she was vexed. “Hence why I’ve come back after a long respite.”
At one time, he would have given anything to see her again, but the reason for her return made him ache to the core. “Well, I saw the messages, and they pissed me off.Love. Is. Coming.No, thank you.”
“I wanted you to be aware,” she replied.
He shook his head. “I don’t want it, and I wish with all that I am for you to stop this. When we married, I vowed to never love another.”
“But I died,” she bantered back with a stubborn glint in her green eyes.
He didn’t want their reunion to be about this tired old topic. “Like you have to remind me you’re gone. Sorcha, when you died, I made another vow: to never love again.On your gravesite.I told you that when you first visited me six months after the funeral. The day you scared the spit out of my mouth by appearing in the mirror behind me as I dressed.”
He’d always been able to see ghosts, but it was different seeingherthis way. He’d stumbled into the dresser, knocking over their wedding photo and breaking the glass.
The same wind rushing over him played with her long brown hair and white dress. “And I told you to move on and not to be thick, but that would be like telling the wind not to blow. Then what did you up and do? You decided to start building me a dream house I’ll never live in.”
The wind rose up angrily as if she’d called it. “I promised you that house and all that goes with it.”
“Death erases such promises.”
“Not in my mind, dammit.”
She’d often complained about having to go into town for groceries every few days since they only had a couple of shelves in a cranny and a half fridge to store them in. He’d told her their dream house would silence all her chiding, but something had always come up to delay it. The tractor had needed a new engine after rusting from the rain. He’d lost lambs when the weather had turned frigid for a few nights after the shearing in late May. He’d had to spring for improved fencing for the new pastures he’d rented.
If he’d given her the home he’d promised her, she might still be with him. She wouldn’t have been on the main road that day going for milk and meat when an impatient lorry driver passed illegally and hit her straight on. The man had survived, damn him. And Carrick’s Sorcha had been taken from him.
“Guilt doesn’t become you, Carrick. My death wasn’t your fault. I’ve tried to tell you again and again, but you’re as thick in the head as ever.”
He couldn’t believe his hearing. “This is what you say to me after not speaking to me for almost three years?”
Her oval face softened. “I told you I would only visit you for a short time, to help you move on with your life and find love again. But it wasn’t helping, so I left to see ifthatwould help. We both know it didn’t. Carrick, I won’t have you keeping yourself entombed any longer. You’re only thirty-eight. You can’t live the rest of your life like this. I want you to be happy. You wanted a home, wife, and children. You’re wasting away inside. Building that house for me is a stupid pursuit. You didn’t even have the money to buy the land. You’re lucky Betsy O’Hanlon agreed to let you use it out of pity.”
“I don’t want to listen to this!” He pounded his chest. “I promised you that house, and so it will be built. I know you won’t be living there, but a promise is a promise.”
“It keeps you focused on the past,” Sorcha said.
“It keeps me occupied, which is what I like. I’ve found a rhythm without you. I tend to my sheep. I find side businesses to invest in or profit from. And I work on your house. I fall into bed tired every night, and that’s how I want it.”
“Your new pursuits—the building included—keep you busy so you won’t have to move on and find another woman.”
He wanted to growl at her pushing. “I’ve made my peace with you leaving.”
“Don’t lie—”
“Dammit, I’ve been with other women.”
“Tourists! They come, they laugh, they leave. This is not what you want or what I want for you.”
“What you want doesn’t matter anymore! You’re not here.” He shook his head in frustration. “Why do you make me say these things to you?”
“You haven’t opened your heart yet to another,” she said, softly now after her earlier blasting. “In fact, you’ve shut it away. Carrick, I’m glad you’ve found enjoyment with some women, even if it’s short-lived. But your heart has always been for love. I know that better than anyone. That heart and what’s in it is why I fell in love with you when we were sixteen.”
