I swallowed. I felt sick and hollow. “Okay. I...withdraw my request.” It took everything in me to say that, and even so, a large part of me wanted to suck the words back in, to disavow them.
He searched my eyes. For once, there was no mask at all, no charm or stone, just a strange vulnerability. “Really?”
I nodded, hands squeezing my opposite elbows as I hugged my arms to myself. “I promise.”
He closed his eyes and seemed to expel all the worry and tension in his body. “Thank you.”
I nodded.
He looked back at me. “Why?”
“Why?” I repeated.
“You’re right. I would have signed. So why’d you give it up?”
I shrugged. “I, um. I thought I was choosing between Ivernis and you. And I could never choose a guy over my career. Over something I’d worked on for so long. Over what made me
Before us, the waves crashed, a low, dull roar. Above, gulls screeched in a sharp counterpoint, swooped in and out of the moving fog. “But that’s not what the choice was. It wasn’t about me. It was about—being a good person. Being a good friend. And—I don’t know, I guess I thought about the pain. The pain you’d suffer versus the pain other people suffer if this went through. And if it doesn’t, my pain, Jeremy’s pain—yes, it will be personal, but it will be personal about a thing. A place. Not a loved one. And it will affect our professions—but not our families.” I shrugged and tried to swallow, but the soreness and tightness of my throat made it difficult. “And I don’t want to be a bad person.”
He looked at me for a long time, his hands shoved in his pockets, and then he nodded. “Okay. I have a story to tell you.”
I cracked a grin. “Once upon a time?”
He took a deep breath. “I think there are guns buried on Kilkarten.”
My stomach convulsed and I twisted to see him. “What?”
“During the Troubles. There were guns kept there for the nationalist movement.”
No, the words still weren’t making much sense. “The—what, like the IRA?” Weren’t the Troubles about Northern Ireland, whether they were part of the UK or the Republic of Ireland? Protestants vs. Catholics? What did that have to do with farmers in western Cork?
“No.” He rolled over, too, and gripped my hand hard enough to hurt. “God, no. He just...supported a united Ireland.”
“He.” It started to sink in. “You think
“I don’t know. I just—” He closed his eyes. “He never talked about it. You know how some people want to tell you every last detail of their lives? Not my dad. He’d tell you about his childhood, and about moving to Boston, but there were two or three years in the early eighties that he never mentioned. Like they didn’t exist.
“And then one year, when I was ten, I heard him and my mom talking. About Irish nationalism. About supporting the cause. About being young. And about Kilkarten. About ruining Kilkarten, and wishing he could take it back.
“Later on, after he died, I would ask my mom about it, and she’d just shake her head and say he didn’t like to talk about those years. And I just kept thinking...” He shook his head.
Good God. “And you thought he smuggled weapons in to the nationalists.”
“How else could he ruin the land? Why else would he leave Ireland and never come back?”
“Have you asked your mother? I mean, straight out said what you’re thinking.”
He just looked at me.
My overactive imagination raced across a hundred miles and thirty years. Because didn’t all those groups get their weapons from connections in other countries? I gaped at him. “No.”
He covered his eyes with one arm. “I don’t know.”
I sat up and tugged at his arm. “Come on. Your mom did not smuggle weapons into Ireland to support the nationalist movement. She said she met your dad in Boston.”
He allowed his arm to move. “What if she lied?”
I laughed slightly maniacally. “So you’re trying to protect, what, your sisters from the knowledge, and your mom from the repercussions if she was involved? There has to be a statute of limitations.” I shook my head. “No. No, this is just our imaginations running wild. This doesn’t happen in real life.”
“You’re searching for a lost city based on an ancient map and scribblings in manuscripts.”
Point taken.
“Let’s leave it now, okay? Now you know.”
“Mike... Why’d you tell me?”
“I don’t know. He shrugged. “Because I wanted you to know. Because telling you things—it makes them more bearable. It makes the weight go away.”
I leaned over and kissed him. His hand tangled in my hair as he pulled me down for a thorough exploration that sent longing spiraling through my body until I was weak and melting against him. His hands slid over my skin, blazing heat everywhere they touched.
I pulled away and leaned my forehead against his. Both of us breathed heavily. “Do you know what would really make the weight go away?”
“Mmm?” His thumb dragged against my lower lip. He leaned closer, but I pulled away.
“Talking to your mom.”
When we returned to the inn Mike headed straight for Kate’s room. I didn’t expect her to be there, but she was, sitting at her desk before her computer.
“Mom. Can I talk to you?”
Kate’s face swiveled back and forth between the two of us. “What’s going on?”
I touched Mike’s arm softly. “I can go.”
“No.” Instead, he shut the door. “I wanted to talk about Kilkarten.”
I had said almost the same thing to him, long ago.
“Of course.” She glanced at me curiously, and then back. “What about?’
He took a deep breath, his gaze flicking briefly at me. For some reason, I reached out and took his hand.
He squeezed it like a lifeline, and looked back at his mother. “When I was ten I heard you talking to Dad about Kilkarten. It was an—an unpleasant conversation. About him being involved with nationalists. About Kilkarten being used for that. So I wanted to know if you knew—or had any reason to think—that there are any weapons buried on the land.”
“What?” Her face paled until only the red stain on her lips stood out, a macabre representation of life and love. “Weapons? On Kilkarten? No!”
I could feel the change in Mike. He’d been braced for revelation, for confirmation, but never imagined his mother would stare at him like he’d spoken in tongues. “What?”
“Michael, there’s nothing buried there.”
“But—” He stared at me wildly. “But he was so upset. You were crying. He said he’d been part of a rebellious group and that Kilkarten had been sacrificed for it.”
“Michael. Oh, honey. That conversation was never about guns.” She stood and came around and hovered before him, like she wanted to embrace him or touch his face but wasn’t sure how. Then her eyes widened, and she looked back and forth between us. “Is that why you didn’t want the excavation to go through? Because you thought there was something buried there?”
He stared. “There’s no statute of limitations for treason.”
She sat back down—more of a collapse into her hair. “How long have you thought this? Why didn’t you ask me? Why didn’t you talk to me?”
