“I love you, Thomas. I think I loved you when you were simply words on a page, a face in an old photo. When my grandfather showed me your picture and said your name, I felt something. Something shifted inside me.”
Thomas didn’t interrupt or profess his own love. He just listened, staring down at me, his gaze soft, his mouth softer, his touch against my back the softest of all. But I needed something to hold on to, and I curled my hands into his shirt the way I’d clung to the tree. His skin was warm from dancing, and his heart drummed beneath my clenched fists, reminding me that in that moment, he was mine.
“Then the words on the page and the face in the photos became a man. Real. Tangible. Perfect.” I swallowed, trying not to cry. “I fell so fast, so hard, and so completely. Not because love is blind, but because . . . it’s not. Love isn’t blind, it’s blinding. Glaring. I looked at you, and from the very first day, I knew you. Your faith and your friendship, your goodness and your devotion. I saw it all, and I fell so hard. And the feeling continues to grow. My love is so big and full and brimming that I can’t breathe around it. It’s terrifying to love so much, knowing how fragile our existence really is. You’re going to have to hold on to me, or I’ll burst . . . or maybe I’ll just float away. Up into the sky, out into the lough.”
I felt a tremor run through him from his gentle hands to his forgiving eyes, and then his lips were smiling and pressed to mine, once, twice, and again. His sigh tickled my tongue, and my grasping hands flattened against him, yielding. Then he was murmuring into my seeking lips, kissing me even as he spoke.
“Marry me, Anne. I’ll shackle you to me so you can’t float away, so we won’t ever have to be apart. Plus, it’s time you had a new name. It’s damn confusing to keep calling you Anne Gallagher.”
Of all the things I’d thought he’d suggest, marriage was not one of them. I pulled back, my jaw slack, and I laughed in disbelief. For a moment, I forgot about Thomas’s lips and searched his eyes instead. They were pale and guileless beneath the sheltering boughs and the light of the winter moon.
“Anne Smith is almost as ordinary as Thomas Smith,” he murmured. “But when you’re a time-traveling countess, the name isn’t all that important.” His teasing tone was at odds with his very serious proposition.
“Can we do that? Can we really get married?” I breathed.
“Who’s to stop us?”
“I can’t prove that I’m . . . me.”
“Who needs proof? I know. You know. God knows.” Thomas kissed my forehead, my nose, and each cheek before pausing at my mouth, waiting for me to answer.
“But . . . what will people say?” What would Brigid say?
“I hope they will congratulate us.” He pressed a kiss to my upper lip, then to the lower one, tugging it softly, urging me to follow his lead.
“What will Michael say?” I panted, pulling back so I could converse. I could picture Michael Collins congratulating Thomas while he whispered warnings in my ears.
“Mick will say something rough and irreverent, I’m sure. And then he’ll burst into noisy tears because he loves as intensely as he hates.”
“What—” I began again.
“Anne.” Thomas pressed his thumbs to my lips, cradling my face and quieting my stream of questions. “I love you. Desperately. I want to bind us together in every way possible. Today, tomorrow, and for every day after that. Do you want to marry me or not?”
There was nothing I wanted more in the world. Not a single, solitary thing.
I nodded, smiling against the pads of his thumbs, submitting completely. He moved his hands, replacing them with his mouth once more.
For a moment, I reveled in the possibility of permanence, in the clean, all-consuming taste of him. Promise sang between us, and I let myself hum along.
Then the wind shifted and the moonlight winked; a branch cracked and a match flickered. A tendril of cigarette smoke hung in the air, alerting us that we were not alone seconds before a voice rose out of the darkness.
“So it’s true, eh? You two. Mother said it was like this. I didn’t want to believe it.” I spun in Thomas’s arms, swallowing a gasp, and his arm snaked around me, steadying me as he stepped toward the stranger.
I thought it was Liam. His build and height were similar in the darkness, and the timbre of his voice was almost identical. But Thomas, cool and composed, greeted the man by another name, and I realized my mistake with a flood of relief. This was Ben Gallagher, Declan’s oldest brother, the one I’d not yet met.
“Anne,” Ben greeted stiffly, inclining his head. “You look well.” His voice was stilted, uncomfortable, his expression shrouded by his cap. He took a deep pull on his cigarette before he turned to Thomas.
“Collins is here,” he clipped. “I guess that tells me all I need to know about where your loyalties lie, Doc. Though judging from the way you were kissing my brother’s wife, I’m not sure loyalty is your strong suit.”
“Mick is my friend. You know that,” Thomas said, ignoring the jibe. Declan had been gone for five years, and I was not his wife. “Michael Collins was your friend too, Ben. Once.”
“Once we had a common cause. Not anymore,” Ben muttered.
“And what cause is that, Ben?” Thomas asked, his tone so soft it was hard to detect the venom, but I heard it. Ben heard it too, and his temper flared instantly.
“Feckin’ Irish freedom, Doc,” he snapped, tossing his cigarette aside. “Have you grown so comfortable in your big house with your powerful friends and your best friend’s woman that you’ve forgotten seven hundred years of suffering?”
“Michael Collins has done more for Irish freedom, for Irish independence, than you or I will ever do,” Thomas countered, conviction ringing in his voice.
“Well, it isn’t enough! This Treaty isn’t what we’ve bled for. We’re almost there, and we can’t stop now! Collins caved. When he signed that agreement, it was a knife in every Irish back.”
“Don’t do that, Ben. Don’t let them take that too,” Thomas warned.
“Take what?”
“The English have left their imprint everywhere. But don’t let them divide us. Don’t let them destroy families and friendships. If we fight each other, we will have nothing left. They will have truly destroyed the Irish. And we will have done the wet work for them.”
“So it was all for nothing, then? The men who died in ’16 and the men who’ve died since? They died for nothing?” Ben cried.
“If we turn on each other, then they died for nothing,” Thomas replied, and Ben immediately began shaking his head, disagreeing.
“The fight isn’t over, Thomas. If we don’t fight for Ireland, who will?”
“So our loyalty is to Ireland and Irishmen unless they disagree with us, then we mow them down? That’s not the way it’s supposed to work,” Thomas insisted, incredulous.
“You remember how it was, Thomas. The people weren’t behind us in ’16 either. You remember how they hollered and hissed and threw things at us when the Tans marched us through the streets after we surrendered. But the people came round. You saw the uproar when they started hanging our leaders. You saw the crowds cheering when the prisoners came home from England eight months later. The people want freedom. They’re ready for war, if that’s what it takes. We can’t give up the fight now. Look how far we’ve come!”
“I watched men die. I watched Declan die. I’m not going to start shooting at the friends I have left. I won’t do it. Convictions are all fine and good until they become excuses to go to war with people you once fought with,” Thomas said.
“Who are you, Doc?” Ben was aghast. “Seán Mac Diarmada must be rolling in his grave.”
“I’m an Irishman. And I won’t be raising arms against you or any other Irishman, Treaty or no Treaty.”
“You’re weak, Thomas. Anne comes back—where the hell have you been, anyway?” he hissed, turning on me in fury before shifting his gaze back to Thomas, resuming his argument. “She comes back, and suddenly you’ve lost your fire. What would Declan think of the both of ya?” Ben spit at our feet, the sound wet and thick, before he turned and waved toward Thomas, dismissing him, dismissing us.
“Your mother will be glad to see you, Ben. It’s been too long. Eat. Drink. Rest. Spend Christmas with us,” Thomas said, refusing to react.
“With him?” Ben pointed to the row of windows along the east side of the house that revealed the party in full swing. Michael stood near one, outlined in light, conversing with Daniel O’Toole. “Someone needs to tell the Big Fella not to stand in front of the windows. You never know who’s hiding in the trees.”
Thomas stiffened at the veiled threat, his hand tightening on my body, and I was grateful for the support when a voice spoke up from the shadows, accompanied by the unmistakable snick of a pistol being cocked.
“No, you never do,” Fergus intoned, moving toward us. A cigarette hung from the bodyguard’s lips, giving him a casual air completely at odds with the weapon he wielded.
Ben flinched, and his hands fluttered at his sides.
“Don’t do it,” Fergus warned quietly. “You’ll ruin Christmas for a lot of good people.”
Ben’s hands stilled.
“If you’re going to go inside, I’ll need that gun you’re thinking about pulling,” Fergus insisted calmly. “If you’re not going inside, I’ll still take it, just to make sure you live through the night. Then I’ll need you to start walking toward Dublin.” He let his cigarette fall, and without lowering his eyes, ground the butt into the dirt with the toe of his shoe. He approached Ben and without fanfare, searched him for weapons, removing a knife from his boot and a gun from his waistband.
“His mother is inside. His nephew too. He’s family,” Thomas murmured.
Fergus nodded once, a quick jerk of his head. “I heard. So why is he out here in the trees, watching the house?”
“I came to see my mother. To see my sister-in-law, back from the dead. To see Eoin and you, Doc. I’ve come here for Christmas for the last five years. I didn’t expect Collins to be here. I hadn’t decided if I was going to stay,” Ben reasoned, affronted.
“And Liam? Is Liam here too?” I asked. I heard the tremor in my voice, and Thomas grew rigid beside me.
“Liam’s in Youghal, down in Cork. He won’t be coming home this year. Too much work to do. There’s a war on,” Ben ground out.
“Not here, Ben. There’s no war here. Not tonight. Not now,” Thomas said.
Ben nodded, his jaw clenched, but his expression was one of disgust, and his eyes condemned us all. “I want to see my mother and the boy. I’ll stay the night in the barn. Then I’ll be on my way.”