Page 6 of Beside Golden Irish Fields
He kicked at a clump of grass, needing somewhere to express his anger. “I’m content enough, Sorcha. You’re the one being thick. It’s like I’ve told my family and my friends. I’ve lost the love of my life once, and I won’t risk going through it again. I’m after peace now. I have my sheep and my extra pursuits. Soon I will have that house built, and my debt there will be repaid.”
“I don’t want—”
“With the sale of my prize ram at the fair in August, I’ll finally be able to buy the land the house sits on as well as more pastureland from Betsy O’Hanlon. Call it pity if you’d like. I’m grateful she let me build that house until I could afford the land outright. Soon I’ll be finished, and with those extra acres, I’ll become the biggest sheep farmer in the county. I’ll have the home to go along with it too.”
“That home has seen more than its share of misfortunes since you started, and you know why.”
He stilled, remembering the problems. Cracks in the foundation. Delays in deliveries. Surges of spring water through the ground, making the site engineer express concern about the site for building after the fact. The whole village had dubbed it Fitzgerald’s Folly, a name he hated. “Sorcha, I want the truth. Did you curse the house?”
She shook her head slowly. “No, my Carrick. I would never do such a thing. But a house needs two hearts to make it a home. With yours shut away and mine gone, there’s nothing to hold it together. Don’t you remember how we’d remark after a solid stone cottage that went to ruin after the people abandoned it?”
Ireland was full of ruined cottages, something the tourists found charming. But he and Sorcha had heard an abundance of such sad tales and begun to believe them.
“You’re wrong about my heart.” He pounded his chest again, making his sheep bleat. “I have a passion for my sheep and my business. I will finish the house, and people from all around will praise it.”
She glanced over her shoulder as one of the sheep came around her, sniffing, as if they could smell the orange in her hair, her signature scent from the orange peels she’d used in her wash water to bring out the highlights.
“Success will never fill your heart.” She gestured to him. “You’re not that kind of man.”
“I am that kind of man now.” He swallowed thickly. “Leave me be, Sorcha. It’s torture to talk like this. I would speak of other things with you. Like how you are and where you’ve been.”
Seeing ghosts as he did, he’d often wondered what their existence was like, and he’d looked deeper after his wife became one. Even talked to the village priest. But no one had good answers, and it all remained a grand mystery. He’d think he was crazy if not for his mother and his friend, Kade, who also saw ghosts.
“Carrick, this talk is only torture because you have locked your heart away.” She drew closer to him, so close he wished to touch her. When he’d tried in the past, his hands had only passed through her. How he envied the wind. The elements could touch her, but not him.
“It’s my heart, and I’ll do with it what I like,” he said, locking eyes with her.
“True, but thank God it has a mind of its own, so to speak. You felt a connection with Betsy O’Hanlon’s cousin. I’ve been trying to tell you through the sheep to prepare yourself. You two have more in common than you know.”
He ground his teeth, troubled that she was privy to his feelings. “I don’t care what we might have in common. She’s Betsy’s cousin and off-limits. Even if you weren’t pushing me at her.”
“And here you are, digging your heels in like an old mule. Carrick, you can do this the easy way or the hard way. Do it easy for once in your life.”
He made a fist in the air to punctuate his thinking. “I’m not doing it at all, Sorcha, and that’s the way of it.”
She started to walk away, her bare feet gliding through the grass. “So the hard way then. What a surprise! Carrick, I’m here to help you. Don’t fight me. Or your own heart.”
“We had some of our best times when we pushed at each other,” he said, hoping reminders of their former days might soften her resolve. “You loved it.”
“I didn’t always, and neither did you. Life is short. We know that better than most. Go easy with this, man. I’m telling you.”
“And I’m telling you!” He swore and glared at a sheep that bumped him rudely with its body. “I’m not doing it.Love. Is. Coming. Love. Is. Here.It’s total and complete rubbish. Stop sending me messages!”
“Then stop spraying the words from my poems on your sheep.”
Pain shot through his heart. “You know I can’t do that. It’s the only thing I have left of you besides my memories and photographs.”
“And you say you’ve made peace with me being gone. It’s time to let me go all the way, Carrick.”
“If that’s what you’re asking, you should go back to where you came from and leave me be. Now I’m going to go work on your house.”
“I can be as stubborn as you can.” There was a smile on her face when she glanced back at him, a smile that portended trouble. She’d smiled at him like that before she’d spilled cold stew in his lap the morning after he’d stayed out all night drinking with his brother and friends and forgotten to call her. “Remember you chose the hard way. You can choose the easy road anytime. All you have to do is let me go and open your heart.”
The wind surged up, making him brace his body so it wouldn’t throw him off-balance, the kind of wind that could cause rack and ruin. The sheep next to him cuddled closer for shelter. When Carrick looked for Sorcha, she was standing next to the gate.
“Don’t you dare!” he called, starting to run.
She laughed, that mischievous laugh he used to love.
