Page 71 of Beside Golden Irish Fields
Carrick followed his friend into the shed. Kade was already sitting on a stool, petting the lambs, who were nuzzling him with gusto.
“You would be a great sheep farmer,” he told him, walking over to his metal bookshelf and eyeing the spray paint.
He picked up the blue, and it struck him how close in color it was to the sky in the painting Angie had been working on this morning. Frowning, he walked over to where his friend was sitting and knelt on the ground next to the first candidate, who stood nibbling on Kade’s jeans.
“So what’s the first word to be then?” Kade asked softly.
Carrick hearkened back to one of Sorcha’s last poems.
The day is gone from us now.
A harsh wind has brought in the darkness.
Yet I am not cold.
I am unafraid.
My hands have a fire to ward off the chill.
My heart is warmed by love.
I live in a land of magic.
True darkness can never touch me.
I am unafraid.
And so I always will be.
The poem’s simplicity had always appealed to Carrick, even though Sorcha hadn’t thought it her best work. Still, for a time, he’d thought the sentiment at the heart of it mistaken. True darknesscouldtouch someone. It had touched him. Only she hadn’t known it, and he was grateful she’d been spared.
But he hadn’t been, and his grief had been his darkness. It had made him feel a cold nothing could warm.
Until recently.
He felt a change in his heart whenever he caught sight of Angie. And on those two sweet occasions—yes, he’d counted—when they’d held each other’s hands. His Yank, for that was how he thought of her now, had managed to warm him. In the end, it was her unwillingness to tell him to move on, as everyone had, that had made him want to do it.
He looked at the sheep, his finger poised on the sprayer. If he were to choose a word, it would beUnafraid. God, how he wished to be so again, both as a man and as someone who had a heart with a mind of its own.
His gaze drifted to the stack of wool coats in the shed. The last message from Sorcha had beenRelease.
She was right. If he sprayed another sheep, he’d be choosing to live in that darkness. His friends would still come round, but the jokes would continue about mourning clothes and cleavers. They’d come less as they married and had families of their own.
He’d be left behind.
Neither his sheep nor his ambition would warm him. They hadn’t been enough for him these past years, and they never would be. It was time to stop pretending.
He lowered the can and set it away from him. Kade lifted his hand from the sheep, his gaze as gentle and understanding as always.
Carrick wiped at the burn in his eyes, a burn he couldn’t blame on sweat anymore. His friend put a hand on his shoulder as he cradled his head in his hands.
“You should leave, Kade.”
His voice was harsh because of the thickness in his throat, and he rubbed away tears as they began to run down his cheeks.
“What kind of friend would that make me?” Kade asked softly.
“A good one.” He rubbed his nose. “You’re the only one I’d do this in front of, you know.”
