Grounded Hearts Read online

  It was time to release the spell. “Thanks for looking in on me. If a belligerent comes to my door, I’ll send him packing.”

  His lips moved, but no words came out.

  “Good night.” She closed the door, flicked the lock, and held her breath until she heard the shuffle of his boots moving away through her courtyard, the squeak of the gate, and the clank of its closing.

  Staying in place, she pressed her back against the door and found herself sliding to the floor. Her heart was beating so hard, she thought her ribs would rupture.

  A crackle from the fireplace made her jump. She focused on the hearth. Jesus’s portrait seemed to come alive. Surely, he was staring at her in disappointment.

  To use her body in such a sinful way. “I’m sorry. Please forgive me,” she whispered. She glanced at the gun on the table and hoped she’d never see another as long as she lived. Rising to her feet, she prayed no more pilots would knock on her door, either. She’d need to get the bomber boy out of the tub and healed enough to be on his way.

  No need to make it easy for snooping eyes, she thought, racing around the house, closing all the heavy burlap curtains. She paused. The last time she’d closed all the window coverings had been after Teddy’s death. She shook the memory away as she opened the bathroom door.

  Dutch was biting his lip, his eyes wide. “Who was it?”

  “Officer Finn with the Local Defence Force.” Nan looked at Dutch’s bandaged arm. Only a few dots of blood showed through the gauze, all on target for recovery.

  “What happened? Does he suspect?”

  “Oh, I believe so.” She was too embarrassed to relay details. “Thanks to my cat. Don’t worry. I got rid of the man. At least for tonight, but he’ll be back like a shadow in the sunlight.”

  Dutch frowned. “Maybe I should go now. I don’t want to get you into trouble.”

  “I’m already there.”

  Especially after her act with Finn. She reckoned he wouldn’t forget the show she’d given him. In the pit of her stomach, she felt her supper threatening to come up.

  “Let’s get you out of the bath and into bed. What you need is sleep. You can leave tomorrow, once it’s dark.”

  He gripped her hand and, with her help, stepped out of the tub. Water ran down his body to drip on the tiled floor.

  Not any different from being at the beach with a young man, she tried to convince herself. She swaddled the towels around his shoulders and waist before he lowered himself onto the chair.

  There was a bruise blossoming on the right side of his face. With her finger, she smoothed ointment over the scrape. “You’re a sight.”

  He covered her hand with his, held on, and wouldn’t let her go. With eyes raised upward to capture her gaze, he said, “I appreciate what you’ve done for me tonight.” Pins seemed to rise up her arm as she took in his eyes. Fierce yet wounded. She couldn’t look away.

  “How can I repay you?”

  Get down the road. Leave me in peace. “Return to your unit. Go be the hero.”

  “That’s all I want. To be a hero,” he said. “To save the world.”

  “That’s a tall order.” So typical of a man, she thought.

  “It’s my purpose in life.”

  “Is it? Well, ya purpose tonight is to get into bed. So let’s bandage up your knee.”

  He released her, but she could feel him watching her as she gathered the bandages for his knee and unwrapped a new bundle of gauze. The wrapper fell on top of his jacket, turning the white paper pink from the bloody garment. The sight stopped her; the war was in her home. Not for long, she assured herself.

  After dealing with his knee, she said, “Up you get. The bed’s not far.”

  With her help, he limped into the bedroom. The mattress squeaked under his weight. “I need you to take off your wet things. Can you do that by yourself?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  She turned away, crossing the room so she wouldn’t be tempted to help. Or watch. The bed creaked from his efforts.

  “It’s cold in here.” The hearth in the living room didn’t warm the entire house so she placed more turf bricks onto the smoldering fire in the bedroom fireplace. The room warmed, then filled with the scent of smoke.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the towels and his undergarments on the floor. “Let me see if there’s something for you to wear.”

  “Okay.” His low voice felt like a caress. How long had it been since she’d had the feel of a man in her home? Her bed? The thought triggered heat to race through her. In the dresser beside the fireplace, she opened the bottom drawer.

  Teddy’s clothes. His clean nightshirt. The material felt soft in her hands. She sniffed it, half expecting after all these years for it to smell of her husband. It didn’t. The vague scent of summer lavender she’d tucked into the drawer was all she could detect.

  “Here,” she said, shaking the garment out. She paused. He sat on her bed, the towel draped over his lap. “It gets cold in the morning,” she said, focusing on his face.

  Like a dutiful child, he let her ease him into the nightshirt. The garment barely fit. She left the five front buttons open; the nightshirt gapped across his chest.

  “Is that comfortable?”

  “It’ll do,” he said.

  “Now, get inside the sheets and cover.”

  His head lay against her pillow, on the side of the bed where Teddy had slept. “I’ll get you some water in case you wake in the night.”

  By the time she returned, he was already softly snoring. Pulling up the covers around his shoulders, she gazed at him.

  Sweet baby Jesus. Please bring swift healing to my secret flyboy. And grant him safe passage to the north. Soon.

  She shut the door behind her.

  Inside the main room of her cabin, she spotted the gun on the table. Taking the weapon, she went back into the bedroom. Accompanied by the sound of his heavy breathing, she laid the gun on the bedroom’s fireplace mantel and then counted down eleven bricks. With both hands, she struggled to wiggle the brick free. It slid out, revealing a deep hole. She put the gun inside, replaced the brick, and stepped back.

  There. Safe until she returned it to Dutch. Folding her arms, she glanced at the far corner of the room. Behind the wood-paneled wall, there was a hiding place. She hadn’t opened it in years. Perhaps she should air it out, bat away the spiderwebs. If Finn or the Garda came snooping, Dutch would need to hide there the same way IRA members had been hidden by her grandma when the authorities had come looking for resisters during the Troubles.

  The cat strutted toward her, tail swishing. “And for you, Mr. Dee,” she whispered. “No more interfering with the doings going on here. Dutch is our secret. Understand?”

  Nan gathered her nightgown and the clothes she’d need in the morning and then left the room.

  The cat followed her out. She closed the door, resting her hand on the wood for a second, wondering if she’d made the worst mistake of her life or if this was indeed her patriotic duty. Perhaps it was both.

  The cat sat next to his empty bowl and meowed.

  “Oh, all right. I did forget to feed you. You want your dinner, don’t you?”

  After she fed the cat, cleaned the bathroom, and took her own bath, she checked on Dutch before climbing the wooden staircase from the scullery to the loft.

  She stood on the landing, the candlelight flickering, illuminating the room. Once a week she ventured up here to clean, but it was always during the day. Her gaze rested on Teddy’s desk at the opposite corner of the loft. Tuda, her best friend in the whole world, had told her to pack up everything. Donate his books to the library, send his manuscripts to the Dublin publishers, take off her wedding ring, and get on with her life.

  She couldn’t. She’d left everything as it had been on that day three years before. Perhaps she was trying to make sense of something that made no sense, as though leaving his desk untouched might bring an answer to why he’d chosen to do what he did.<
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  Leave her. Her and this world.

  The candle’s flame wavered from the wind that crept through the paned windows. She made her way to the other side of the loft, to the iron bed. She placed the candle on the nightstand, lay on top of the mattress, and pulled a heavy quilt over her.

  When she blew out the candle, its smoky scent filled the air. Her eyes adjusted to the moonlight streaming in from the windows. Drawing the covers to her shoulders, she stared at the dancing shadows in the thatched roof ceiling. It had been a long time since she had slept up here. Twenty years, probably. With her ma, who’d visited the summer after her da, uncles, brothers, and cousins had perished.

  All together, all at the same time, all in the basement of their house. Such a waste. Hatred had conquered them.

  She’d never forget that day. She and her ma were at the market when they heard the explosion. From four blocks away, they could see smoke and flames rising to meet the gray sky.

  Ma had squeezed Nan’s hand so hard, she’d thought her fingers would break. By the time they arrived at their row house, there was nothing left. Ma picked up a fragment of a photograph of Da. Without a word or a tear or even a gesture of sorrow, her mother had opened her purse, dropped the picture in, and snapped the bag shut.

  At her aunt’s house that night, when Ma thought she was asleep upstairs, Nan could hear them talking.

  “That’s what comes of men and bombs,” her ma had said. “Men and their wars.”

  “Would you prefer we live in a divided Ireland?”

  “I’d prefer if we just live.”

  This place, Bramble Cottage, her current home, wasn’t supposed to have come to her. It should have been handed down to her oldest brother. When the time came, Nan was the only one left to inherit the old farm.

  She snuggled into the warmth of the quilt. Tuda had been the last person to lay her head on this pillow, after that awful ordeal, the night when Tuda had lost her unborn baby. She’d come to the door, bleeding, but Nan hadn’t been able to save the child. After the news, Tuda’s husband had gone mad. He drank himself into a stupor. Accidentally set fire to their home. Then managed to land in jail, near death after picking a fight with the wrong fellow.

  The bed shook. Nan gazed at the foot of the mattress. She could barely discern the outline of the cat in the moonlight, circling around, stepping on and over her legs.

  “If it isn’t himself, the troublemaker.”

  Mr. Dee settled at the bottom of the bed. Nan was glad for the warmth of the wee beast. With a sigh, she shifted onto her side.

  Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me my sins. Give me strength and confidence to continue in spite of my shortcomings. Grant me courage tomorrow. I’m going to need it.

  She cringed. Had she really touched Finn’s buttons? Shown him a bit of skin? How could she have? She rolled onto her back. Because there was a wounded pilot in her bathtub.

  Dutch. He was far more injured than she’d first thought. He couldn’t pedal out of here tomorrow, not with his arm and his knee in bandages. Walking would be impossible, too.

  She rolled onto her stomach and felt the cat stroll along her back. No. There had to be another means of escape. She searched her mind for a solution.

  Her eyes opened. The Ford. Her car. It hadn’t run for almost a year, but Tuda had said it wouldn’t take much to get it going again. Her best friend would know what to do. She was a better auto mechanic than her husband, especially now that Paddy had taken to the drink again.

  When the car had died last year, Nan decided that with the cost and scarcity of petrol, riding her bike would do her fine.

  The trick with Tuda would be keeping the flyboy downstairs a secret. Nan didn’t want her friend knowingly involved, in case something went wrong. Finn had warned everyone: help a belligerent, face jail time. No exceptions on his watch.

  She should have never opened her door tonight, to either man. Both had brought trouble. Deep trouble. Drumming her fingers on the mattress, she weighed the possibilities.

  Okay. This was the plan. Get Tuda to fix the Ford. Get Dutch healed. Get back to normal.

  Normal, she laughed. What was normal anymore?

  If only she could fix her past, fix what had happened with Teddy, as easily as Tuda could fix the Ford.

  The ache at the back of her throat grew as she looked across the moonlit room to her husband’s desk, everything in its place, as though he might climb the stairs again, sit down, and start typing. If it were anything else, she could face the priest, confess her wrongdoings; but she’d tightened her lips around the half-truths for so long, what actually happened that day had to remain locked in her heart. For Teddy’s sake.

  Nan tried to sleep, but she tossed and turned and repositioned herself until the cat finally jumped off the bed. She smacked her pillow several times before she flopped facedown into its feathers.

  Finally, she started to drift into sleep, mumbling the Lord’s Prayer, hoping for peace, comfort. “Forgive us our trespasses . . .” She paused, eyes open in the darkness.

  How could she seek forgiveness through Father Albert or from God for her sins if she couldn’t bear to even talk about what had happened that horrendous day Teddy died? The shame and guilt poked at her soul.

  She rolled onto her back, stared at the shadows. With a swipe to her face, she tamped down her resolve. Best to leave it alone. What good could come from disturbing the dead? She should leave it be, let it go; but like a tick burrowed under her skin, her conscience would not let her rest.

  CHAPTER 3

  The faint morning light filtered through the drawn curtains in Nan’s bedroom. She set a tray with tea, brown bread, jam, and a slice of ham on the nightstand next to her medical supplies.

  She stood, hand on the iron headboard, watching him asleep in her bed, his chest slowly rising and falling.

  A rustling noise from the yard made her flinch. She stepped to the window, her boots clicking over the tiled floor, her knees shaking. She knew Finn would be back, snooping around, trying to catch her.

  But so soon?

  The scuffling, tapping noise grew louder. She parted the curtain and gazed through the wavy glass. Across the way, the tin roof of the calf house dripped moisture onto the cobblestone courtyard.

  Crows. Five of them. The gangsters of the farm, waddling along the stone fence as though they owned the place. They even intimidated the cat. Too bad she couldn’t train the birds to attack Finn when he entered her yard.

  Tuda had been insisting for years that Nan should get another dog, but somehow it didn’t seem right. When old Hamme—the mutt that she and Teddy had raised from a puppy—died, she couldn’t bring herself to get another dog. Father Albert had apologized profusely for running over the pet with his car. He was a notoriously bad driver.

  After the incident, the priest no longer drove. Mrs. Norman, the housekeeper shared by the town doctor and the priest, took over chauffeuring duties, but her driving was no improvement. Mrs. Norman smashed the vehicle six months later and mowed down four chickens in the process. Father Albert gave up on a car. He rode a bicycle instead. Now it was the village dogs that terrorized him.

  Another pair of crows landed on top of the calf house, their claws tapping loudly on the tin roof. One smack of her palm on the window sent the crows flapping away with angry caws.

  “Dutch,” she whispered, approaching the bed. “Wake up.” Her hand went to the stubble on his cheek.

  His eyelids flickered, and he looked up at her.

  She smiled. The sensation of his stubble lingered on her fingertips and echoed up her arm. “Good morning. How are you?”

  After a brief confused expression, he adjusted his position, grabbing his injured arm as though he’d forgotten about the wound. Pain rode his chiseled features. “I’m dandy. I’m ready to go.”

  Sure you are, she thought. “We’ll talk about that in a minute. First, I have your breakfast. Are you hungry?”

  “Famished.” He grimaced as he ros
e to a sitting position, her husband’s nightshirt stretched across his brawny chest. A rip below the open buttons provided additional room for him to move. She glanced at the dark chest hair that peeked out from the nightshirt’s gap. The sight stirred a part of her she barely remembered.

  He leaned forward. “I’ll get out of bed. Eat at the table.”

  “You won’t.” With her mere push on his firm chest, he slumped back. The sensation of touching his skin and seeing his chest hair and the depth of his dark-blue eyes had her tongue-tied for a second.

  She shook her head. “Stay put. You need time to heal.”

  “No, I have to go.”

  “Ah, you mean to the bathroom? Sure.” She reached for a walking stick she’d placed against the nightstand. The cane was made out of wood, with a stag-horn handle and a silver cap at the end of the slender shaft. The face of a fox, carved into the end of the handle, had always given Nan the willies.

  “Here, use this.” She offered him the cane.

  Dutch looked her up and down, then settled his gaze on the cane. “What’s that for?”

  “What do you think?”

  “To beat Finn with? Just give me my gun.”

  “Don’t be daft. I’m in enough trouble without you beating the tar out of an LDF officer.”

  “Then what’s the cane for?”

  She held it out, waiting for him to take it. “You’re the one who said he needs the loo.”

  “Well, yeah. Later, but . . .” He frowned at the cane. “I don’t need that to get around.”

  “Dutch. You do. You have a knee that’s swollen to the size of a melon, plus you’ve sliced open your arm. Aren’t you in pain?”

  He shrugged, glanced at his bandage. “Nay.”

  “Oh, stop. I know that’s not true.” She set the cane back against the nightstand, within his reach, and then she handed him a cup of tea. “Careful,” she said. “It’s hot.”

  Their gazes locked, and her breath caught deep in her chest. Ah, but he was a good-looking man. She drew away, stepped back. Trouble. He was trouble.

  He glanced at the cane. “Where’d you get that thing? Is that a horn handle? Doesn’t look like a peasant—eh, country type of cane.”