Page 65 of Against Ebony Irish Seas

“What are you mumbling about?” Linc asked as he undressed in their bedroom.

She wondered if he knew he’d been groaning as he got ready for bed for the second time that night. Bets eyed the clock. It was heading toward three. If it were any later, she would head out to her rose garden and pull weeds. How was she supposed to sleep after what happened tonight?

“I’m going to the kitchen to bake something.” Bread maybe. She could punch that.

“Save your energy, sweetheart.” He threw his shirt over her easy chair in the corner, a sign he was too tired to hang up his clothes like normal. “We’re going to be going hard for the next few days.”

Like they hadn’t been all week?

“Christ, Bets, what a rough deal! I’ve lived a long time and seen a lot of things, but this takes the cake for me. I want to smash something.”

She sank onto the bed, gripping her knees. “Linc, are we doing the right thing here? Should we just give up?”

He halted from unbuttoning his pants and strolled over until he stood in front of her. “Betsy O’Hanlon, you’re hurting and you’re tired like the rest of us. If you’d wanted to give up, you would have done it a long time ago. After the first punch.”

She closed her eyes, the sting of rare tears burning hot. “Yeah. Probably. But dammit, Linc! They wroteGo Home Sluton her front door. Jamie’s front door!”

He sat beside her and pulled her into his arms. “I know. Do you think I haven’t thought about what might have happened if Jamie hadn’t been there and woken up? You know how much I care about Sophie and her daughter. This is eating at me like battery acid, but she’s right. Her leaving won’t solve this. We have to think about other artists, Bets. The ones we have now and the ones we will have. If we don’t make a stand for them, no artist worth his or her salt is going to come here and risk this kind of harassment and violence. Well, some will, but it limits our pool.”

Pressing her face into his chest, she pounded the mattress with a fist. “You’re right, dammit. I know you are.”

“This is a watershed moment, darlin’. We’ll have to rise to meet it or let it take us down. And you know I don’t do no Alamos.”

She lifted her head and touched his jawline, so familiar to her, so dear. “I still remember the bite in your voice when you told me that.”

He rubbed the tense muscles in her shoulders. “Lots of other people feel like we do, Bets. We just need to take this wide and connect with them. I figure there’ve been a lot of bullying and beatdowns in the world by corrupt motherfuckers who want to see goodness fly out the window. I, for one, am fed up with it. Artists deserve to be safe to express.”

“And women deserve to feel safe, and people need to stop calling us sluts.” She wanted to shriek. “I remember the first time I heard that word. I was fifteen and it was 1977. Some boy at school leered at me and said he wanted to take me for a ride in his car, and when I didn’t answer him—because I was scared—he called me a slut. Loudly. Everyone opening their lockers stopped to listen. I was mortified. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.”

“Now, we’re getting up in arms about things that have sucked since the world began.” He started to remove her sweater. “God knows we aren’t going to solve it. We can only do our part. Now, weneedto get some shut-eye. Oh, Bets, you put this on backward, honey.”

She bit her lip to stop from crying. He was right. She was hurting and angry and feeling hopeless to boot. “Linc, do you really think we can turn this around? Because Sophie is about ready to send her daughter back to Provence, and I don’t want them to be parted for no good reason.”

“If I didn’t think we could, I would have said so.” He chucked her under the chin. “I won’t sugarcoat it. It’s not going to be easy. But we’ll do it. Together.”

Putting her arms around him, she settled into his strength. “I hope you’re offering a huge reward and that I’m in the room when we find out who did what. I don’t think Mary’s behind this one. She’s evil, but why bother paying young boys to spray an obscenity on Jamie’s door when she already delivered her message in person?”

“My thinking too.” He stroked her back. “No, this has Malcolm written all over it. If he can’t have our arts center, he’s going to crush it. Not that we’ll let him. We need more allies. Big ones. I think we should form a wider advisory board ASAP. Remember how I mentioned courting Nobel Prize winners and other bigwigs in our long-term plans?”

“The ones with million-dollar-plus board seats?” The amount still shocked her. She’d always thought volunteering was about doing something from your heart. God, she’d been naïve.

“Yeah. That. Some early commitments to our international advisory board will help us short and long term. We should have a few important allies show up to our press conference if possible. I’ll pull in a couple of my former executive secretaries who’ve retired to help put it together. I think we shoot for Friday. That way reporters can enjoy the weekend in this fine country as they write their copy for their Sunday papers. We’ll probably have to throw a dinner. Something somber given the situation.”

“I’ll put up black crepe curtains and fill the room with funeral-themed peace lilies.” She wanted to bang her head against the wall. “What about the publicist Sophie mentioned?”

“Brigitte would only have the best,” Linc said, his hands continuing a slow and easy rhythm on her back. “I’ll call her tomorrow morning after Sophie makes the intro. Heck, this morning. Christ, it’s late. I feel old, and I hate that. Hate admitting to it as much as I hate the feeling itself.”

“And I thought battle charges were supposed to make men feel young,” she said, pulling away and continuing to undress.

“Only young people get a charge out of battle, Bets. Too stupid to know what’s coming.”

“I feel old too.” She was sure her muscles were locked up tight as a drum. “Maybe there’s a way for us both to feel a little younger.”

His mouth turned up on the right. “I might have heard about it. It’s a mighty powerful way to feel comfort too, and honestly Bets, I could use a healthy dose of that right about now.”

She felt the burn of tears again and blinked them away. “Me too, cowboy.”

Bets knew it was corny, but as he laid his lips on hers and helped the tension in her heart evaporate, she discovered love really was the most powerful force on earth.

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