Breakaway (38 page)

“Oh, cut the shit, pretending you don’t know what I’m talking about! How dare you insult my intelligence this way!”

Rory was blinking confusedly. “What way?”

“You know, you scumbag!”

“Jesus Christ, Erin!” Rory seemed alarmed. “I’ve no idea what you’re on about! I swear to God!”

Erin sighed wearily. “You want to play this sad little game? Fine.” She took a second to unclench her jaw. “Sandra saw you sneaking out of that New York agent’s room at the B and B early this morning, Rory. She was loading up the linen closet and she saw you creep down the hall. Care to explain that to me?”

“Sure.” He actually had the balls to look relieved. “Neither Jake nor I were fit to drive by closing time. So we sat on the benches outside the pub just talking—and near puking, I might add—until I felt clearheaded enough for me to drive him home. Around sunrise, this would be.”

Erin crossed her arms and said nothing, so Rory continued.

“Anyway, I’m driving back to gran’s, and who do I see limpin’ on the side of the road but Wendy Dann, looking like five miles of bad road.”

Erin frowned. “Right.”

“Seems she’d been ‘chatting’ with PJ all night”—he gave Erin a significant look—“and he wanted to drive her back to the B and B, but she told him no, she wanted to walk back into town in the lovely, early-morning Irish mist.”

“Stupid twit,” Erin said under her breath.

“Well, she tripped in a hole along the way and twisted her ankle. I wanted to ring Doc Laurie and take her there, but she insisted on going straight to the B and B. I drove her there, I carried her up the stairs to her room, and then I left. I guess that’s when San saw me.”

“What a tidy little tale,” Erin said sarcastically. “Tell me: did you tuck the little darlin’ in as well?”

“Only if you define ‘tuck in’ as helping someone with a badly sprained ankle into her room.”

“Was her ankle so bad you couldn’t fuck her standing up?”

“I didn’t fuck her at all!” Rory snapped. “What is it that you don’t get?”

Now he had the gall to start losing his temper, which made Erin even angrier.

“You know what I get? That you’re a lying wanker. It’s coming in loud and clear.”

Rory looked astounded. “Do you really think I would do that to you? After returning to Ballycraig to win you back? What’d be the point in it?”

“Maybe you wanted one last hurrah before you hitched up with your old Ballycraig albatross.”

“And if I did want a ‘last hurrah,’ as you call it, do you think I’d be thick enough to fuck someone under your parents’ roof? I can’t believe you could even think this of me. Sandra runs to you tellin’ you half-arsed tales, and you believe her.”

“Because it’s such a normal thing for her to see,” Erin replied sarcastically. “You creepin’ out of the B and B in the early morning.”

Rory’s mouth was set in a hard line. “I just explained to you what happened.”

“Yeah, and you’re banking on my gullibility to get you off the hook. I’m not that timid, accommodating mouse who worships you and thinks everything that comes from your mouth is the Golden Word of God.” Erin laughed scornfully. “I don’t blame all of this on you; it’s partially my fault for being so stupid as to give you another chance. I should have known this could never work. Not after you’ve been living in New York all this time.”

“You’re talking complete shit, Erin. I wish you could hear yourself.”

“And I wish you could have seen yourself! The way you looked at her, and how easily you fell into patter about this place and that place around town! The polish of her! I could never measure up to that!”

“Who the hell is measuring?” Rory yelled plaintively. “This is all in your head!”

“You really seemed to want a life with me. Now I see you’re still the same selfish bastard! I can’t spend my life with someone like that. I won’t. I gave you another chance, and you blew it.”

Any warmth that had been in Rory’s eyes was fading. “I’m gonna say this once, and then I’m not gonna say it again: I’m not lying to you. I’ve never slept with another woman behind your back, and I’m not now. If you stop a minute and think, you’ll see what I’m telling you happened makes sense.”

“Yes, it does fit together very nicely.”

Rory tipped the aviator sunglasses perched atop his head down onto his nose. “I’ve explained to you what happened,” he said in a controlled voice. “If you don’t want to trust me, or believe me, well, that’s up to you. But I’m not gonna stand here and go round and round on this.”

He started down the hill. Erin was furious as she watched him go. He was betting on her running after him, all, “Rory, Rory, I’m sorry, how could I ever doubt you?” That was the way things used to work in the past when they’d have a bad argument. Rory would always cut the discussion short and walk away, thus ensuring he carried all
the power with him. And Erin, frightened little Erin, would scamper after him, terrified that in her stupidity, she had finally said or done the one thing that would make him see who she really was—a loser—and she would lose him for good.

Not this time.

“They’ll love this.”

Erin stood next to Liam at his kitchen table, watching as he loaded up a large canvas tote bag with sandwiches, vacuum flasks of tea, and a nice big chunk of buttered brown bread. Usually Aislinn and Jake took their lunch break at the house. But today, since it was so nice outside, Liam had decided he’d bring lunch out to them. Erin, still living there, thought it was a lovely thing of him to do.

She hadn’t talked to Rory in three days, which was fine with her. She doubted she’d ever speak with him again.

The opening bars of “New York, New York” bleated from Liam’s cell phone.

“Fuck.” His expression clouded, but he picked it up anyway.

“Is everything all right?” Erin mouthed.

“Hang on a minute.” Liam covered the mouthpiece. “Can you bring their lunch up the hill? It’s Jack. Something’s gone wrong with one of the beer distributors and he sounds like he’s on the verge of a breakdown. I need to go down to the Oak.”

Erin started outside, Liam’s angry voice fading the farther she walked from the house. Erin knew Aislinn would be cheesed off that Liam was going down to the Oak—again. She often made the sarcastic comment that it was getting to the point where if Old Jack had a hangnail, he’d ring Liam to come into town to tear it off for him. From what Erin could see during the time she’d been under their roof, Aislinn was right.

Jake and Aislinn were up in the high north pasture. Often they worked different fields, but today they were both working with Jupitus. Actually, it would be more accurate to say the three of them were working with Jupitus, since Deenie was there, too. Wherever Aislinn went, so went Deenie. The older dog was sitting next to Aislinn, looking like a contest judge as she watched the younger Border collie with Jake. Deenie was half human, half dog. Aislinn waved her arms, whistling the command for the young dog to return to her side. Jake followed. Both he and Aislinn looked pleased to see Erin.

“This is a lovely surprise,” said Aislinn. Deenie started nosing the tote bag containing the food. “Hey! I taught you better manners than that, miss! Lay down.”

Deenie gave Aislinn a dirty look but did as she was told. Jupitus was already laying down beside Jake.

“Liam meant to surprise you, but Old Jack caught him on the blower.”

Aislinn looked angry. “That’s it. I’m giving that Jack a mouthful if it’s the last thing I do. Liam works damn hard. He’s allowed to have a few bloody hours to himself a day.” She rose and started down the hill. “Start without me.”

“He’s in for it now, Old Jack,” said Jake.

“He does seem to ring Liam a lot.”

“He’s getting old and needs help, but he’s too proud to admit it.” Jake peered into the tote bag. “There’s loads of food here. Why don’t you stay?”

“Nah, that’s all right.”

“Ah, c’mon. Here, you won’t even have to deal with the
dirt.” He took off his jacket and spread it out on the ground. “There you go. Sit yourself down.”

Erin really had no pressing need to be anywhere, so she sat, watching as Aislinn closed in on the house. Jake handed her half a ham and Swiss sandwich. Erin held her breath, waiting for the sound of Aislinn blasting Old Jack, but there was silence. She must’ve changed her mind on the way down the hill, not wanting to stress Liam out even more.

She took a bite of her sandwich, washing it down with a sip of tea. It was a bit weak; after all this time, Liam still hadn’t gotten the hang of brewing a decent cuppa yet.

“Good sandwich,” said Jake.

“I was just thinkin’ that.”

“Bad tea,” he continued.

“I was thinkin’ that, too.” They laughed.

“He didn’t sleep with that woman,” Jake said casually, a non sequitur if Erin ever heard one. “He was beside himself that you could even think that. He was all for going round to Sandra’s and giving her what for.”

“For what? Something she wasn’t supposed to see?”

“He wouldn’t do that to you, Erin. Think hard.”

Erin opened her mouth to protest but was stopped by the larger realization that Jake had just defended Rory. Not that they were still rivals in any sense of the word, but hurtful barbs were still occasionally thrown, most of them having to do with her.

Erin sipped her tea slowly.
He wouldn’t do that to you
. That’s what her first intuition had been. But her internal compass was broken.

“Why should I believe him?” she asked Jake quietly.

“Maybe it’ll help if I fill you in on some other details of the night.” He took a hearty bite of his sandwich. “I’m sure he told you we got a bit pissed.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m talkin’ lying-down-on-the-street-singing pissed.”

“That’s bad.”

“Yeah, it is.” Jake smiled sheepishly. “Around five, Bettina
was awake and took pity on us. She took us inside and made us some coffee. Instant, but still.

“Rory drove me home. When I talked to him later that morning—well before you went feckin’ batshit on him, thanks to Sandra—he told me about that Wendy woman twisting her ankle. Rory wanted to take her to Doctor Laurie, but she was too embarrassed to go because she’d spent the night with PJ, and she didn’t want to look like a slag. So Rory helped her out and took her straight back to the B and B.”

Erin regarded him with suspicion. “How do I know you’re not covering for him? How do I know you and he didn’t concoct this big bullshit story to explain why Sandra saw him?”

“Number one: as I already told you, Rory would never do such a thing. Number two: men are thick as planks. We don’t have the brains to concoct a story that good even if we wanted to.”

Erin said nothing.

“He’d never do that to you,” Jake repeated firmly. “He never fooled around behind your back before, and he wouldn’t now.”

“How do you know?”

“I’m his best mate. He treated me like shit, but he admitted he was an asshole and a coward, and we’ve worked it all out. He’s not a prick anymore.”

Erin didn’t know what to say.

Jake, still sweaty from his chores, ran a cloth over his face. “Look, men don’t come runnin’ to each other spilling their guts once a day, like you and Sandra do. For Rory to talk to me about this shows how upset he is. He said it was worse than taking a puck to the mouth, the way you immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion.”

“Sandra jumped to the worst possible conclusion, too! So would any woman!”

“Yeah, and then their fella would tell them what really happened, and that would be the end of it,” Jake countered,
tilting his head back to chug from his vacuum flask. His sideways glance was quizzical. “So?”

“So yourself. Think about it from my side, Jake. In walks this beautiful sophisticated woman—one who you were trying to impress, by the way, with your baloney about being mistaken for an athlete and all that—and within seconds she and Rory are speaking the same language. One I don’t know and will never know. And she’s talking in a way I’ll never talk, and carrying herself in a way I’ll never carry myself, and I know I can never be that for him. Ever.”

Jake looked frustrated. “He doesn’t
want
that. Why can’t you see that?”