Page 110 of Beneath Pearly Irish Skies
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Kade had trouble shaking off the altercation in the shed.
He sat on Megan’s stool in front of her pottery wheel and tried to sort out his feelings so he could make a plan.
Carrick’s jeep pulled to a halt in front of his shed, and the man came leaping out. “Jesus Christ, man, I’m sorry!”
His friend had him wrapped up in a giant hug before he could blink. He pounded him back in return, blinking back tears. “It’s rather funny when you think about it. Until it isn’t. How did you hear?”
“My mum called me after your mum called her, crying. I hustled over here. Angie went looking for Megan. She must be hurting something fierce.”
“She is.” All the color had leached out of her face, and she’d looked much like she had when she’d first come to Ireland. He’d tried to call her after she left, but she wasn’t answering her phone, and he hoped giving her some space would help.
Carrick set a heavy hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. “We’ll find a way to set it all straight. You’ll come and take over one of my sheds for your business. We can make a path for your rides through my fields. I don’t have the shoreline, but there are some nice vistas. As for a new home for you and Megan, if this had happened in August, I could have given you the house I’d built.”
Kade’s throat thickened. “But then we wouldn’t have an arts center.”
“Come on!” Carrick said, giving him a shake. “We’ll call our friends and get you moved. You don’t want to keep running into your father after this.”
“No, I don’t suppose so,” he heard his father say.
He looked over, feeling answering tears the moment he saw them in his father’s eyes. Kade could count on one hand the number of times he’d seen his father so emotional, and it usually involved tragedy. He looked like he’d aged twenty years. Kade wondered if he looked like that too. Megan certainly had. All her hard-won joy and vitality had left her.
They stared at each other for a moment before his dad cleared his throat. “You and I understand the need to keep our word even if we don’t always see eye to eye. I love you, son, and this hurt isn’t going to follow us all our days if I have anything to say about it. It would be a favor to me if you’d help me put a stop to that. And to the hurt your mother and sister are feeling. Will you hear me out?”
Carrick clapped him on the back. “I’ll leave you two.”
Kade waited until his friend had left the shed. “Dad, you don’t have to do this because of me. Carrick was just offering me a place on his land. I’ll figure out the rest, so I will.”
“It’s good friends that you have,” his dad said, stepping closer. “I know they’ve wanted to take a punch at me for not being more understanding, but it doesn’t mean I don’t love you. Kade, it’s not only for your mother and Shannon that I’m coming to you. I can’t live knowing you’re not here on Donovan land, the land you love as much as I do.”
Kade braced himself for the deal. He expected his dad wasn’t going to make it easy on him.
“What do you propose?”
His dad took out an envelope and threw it on the table at the end of the shed. “A bit of mail for you. I say we settle this like the old-timers did. With a horse race. If you win, you’ve everything back. No strings. No rules about what you do with it.”
He had to rub the tightness in his throat. “What happens if you win?”
“I’ll think of something,” his dad said, inclining his head. “Suit you?”
His mind spun. “Sure.”
So they saddled up the horses they’d ridden yesterday with Carrick looking on with watchful eyes, and they raced the same track, neck and neck until the finish.
Sutter’s Mill edged out Red Zephyr in the final moment, and his father let out a giant cry.
Kade felt his heart break again. He’d lost, and he didn’t know what it meant. He steered the horse to his father and waited for him to say the words Kade dreaded most.
You’ll work for me and the farm now. My way.
He’d have to say no. The hurt would be double this time.
His father’s face was flushed as he dismounted and approached Red Zephyr. Kade eyed him suspiciously as he checked the stallion’s front hoof.
“We might need to race again,” his father announced, standing up. “Your horse isn’t shoed properly.”
His horse was shoed just fine, and they both knew it. His father had supervised it, in fact.
