"You would've thought that I'd have found my own Sir Alibad a long time ago?" Ashleen supplied.
Garret shrugged, uncomfortable. "I suppose so. It's no secret that you're damn beautiful. And the way you're always laughing, your eyes sparkling... I can't believe some man didn't plunge heart over heels for you."
She flushed. "When my eyes were sparkling in Wicklow, most of the men were too busy checking their pipe-stuffings for pepper or their pockets for frogs to notice what I looked like. I was incorrigible. Sometimes I think that even then I was trying to get all the mischief out of me before I took my vows."
"You knew even then that you would be a nun?"
"I was lisping out my Hail Marys almost before I said da." She laughed, shaking her head. Pins loosened by the night's work slipped their grasp, the chignon threatening to tumble down. Garret's mouth went dry, and he wondered what she would say if he reached up, tugging the last of the ivory anchors free.
"You see, my mother married late and was afraid she would be barren," Ashleen's voice drifted on. "So Mam promised St. Gerard that her firstborn would be dedicated to God. I guess she should have stipulated that there be a second born and a third born, as well, to keep me out of trouble. But unfortunately, I was all the angels brought her. And I was worlds different from the saintly little creature she'd imagined."
With insight borne of the artist in him, Garret could see the babe Ashleen must've been, a tiny fairy princess of a child, all blue and gold and sweet, sweet laughter. "No matter what your mother imagined before you were born, she must've loved you very much."
With a heavy sigh Ashleen plucked a grass stem, twirling it between her fingers. "I suppose she did in her way. It's just that all the years she had waited for a child, I think she had planned and dreamed exactly what this son or daughter should be. Everything from the color of its hair to how politely it would say 'yes, sir' and 'no, ma'am.' I'd catch her watching me, resigned, her fingers telling off her rosary beads whenever she wasn't busy baking or cleaning or mending. I think she was praying for my redemption till the moment she died."
Garret recognized the sense of inadequacy reflected in those words, felt the same subtle sting of rejection that had marked his own first ten years. His father's impatient voice echoed in his head: "Makin' pictures is worthless, boy. Can't eat 'em, can't wear 'em, can't shoot 'em. Takes all the strength a man has just to make the crops grow."
Garret toyed with the buckle on his saddlebag, his voice low, hoarse. "After she died, where did you go? What did you do?"
"Da tried to manage me on his own for a while. He really tried. But he was too free with the poteen even before my mother died. And after, he grieved for her so deeply, the bottom of a jug seemed to be the only place he could find peace. If I'd been wild before, I was a hundred times worse by the time Father O'Hara stepped in, reminding Da of my mother's wishes regarding my future. That very day I was bundled up, all scrawny and dirty and full of defiance, and taken off to St. Michael's."
Garret bristled at the thought of the little girl she must have been, frightened, grieving, alone, her father so far gone in drink she had no one to care for her. "So this priest just stormed in and took you."
"Yes, thank God. And he put me into the arms of the kindest woman I've ever known." A shadow crossed her features, and Garret could have sworn he saw her lips quiver, her voice thick with unshed tears as she whispered, "I wonder what Sister Agatha is doing now."
The outrage he had felt on her behalf was suddenly diffused, and he could only bite out a grudging "Humph." He was sounding as sulky as Renny.
"Ah, I see. You think all nuns are crusty, crotchety, switch-wielding harridans holding small children in dungeons." Ashleen scooted around until she faced him, locking her arms about her bent knees. She pillowed her chin upon them. "Sister Agatha Augustine Murphy was the most understanding, most intelligent, most trusting person who ever..." The words ended with a watery sound, and Garret watched as Ashleen turned her face away from him, hiding what he knew to be tears.
Garret clenched his fists, at a loss as to what one did to comfort a crying nun.
If Kennisaw had been there he would've known what to do. The old buzzard had soothed more feminine tears than any man west of the Missouri. Commiserating kisses, fervent embraces, expensive trinkets. Garret had seen Kennisaw lavish them all upon the weeping women that had comprised the man's harem. But even if Garret had had some pretty bauble to tempt her with, he was certain a mere present could not ease Ashleen O'Shea's pain. And as for kissing her, holding her—
Hell, once he had her in his arms, would he be able to hold on to what few notions of honor he had left? Be able to let her go without easing the fierce hunger she spawned in him? Once in an Indian village a chief had offered him a sacred herb called peyote. It had been as intoxicating as a keg full of whiskey, whirling up visions of dream worlds beyond the reaches of imagination.
Garret sensed that one taste of Ashleen O'Shea would hurl him further still.
A muffled snuffling sound from the tumbled golden head made something break inside him. And for the first time in his life his mind wasn't scrambling for some way to escape a woman's tears.
"Damn it to hell!" He reached out, awkwardly cradling Ashleen in his arms as if she were no older than Meggie. She pressed close against him as if seeking warmth, strength, not knowing that Garret MacQuade possessed nothing but barrenness.
The shudders racking her slender body pierced him. His eyes clenched tightly, his mouth a tense line as he stroked her hair with trembling fingers.
"Here, now, what the devil is this?" he demanded. His voice was rough with emotion; every place where the softness of her, the heat of her was pressed against his skin thrummed with pain and need and confusion.
"I'm sorry," she choked out, burrowing her tear-wet face in his throat. "I—I don't—don't mean to go all weepy. It's just thinking of Sister Agatha, and the convent, and Ireland, and..."
Hell, had she been homesick the whole damn time they'd been on the trail? The whole time he'd been yelling at her, grumbling at her, stomping around in a temper? Had she been crying herself to sleep in that blasted wagon, her smile fading into secret tears once the children were in bed and he was off sulking in his own bedroll?
His arms strained tighter around her, and he laid a beard-stubbled cheek on the soft crown of her head. "Cry all you want, Sister," he said. "There's nobody out here to hear you."
"Nobody ex-except you. And I p-promised I wouldn't."
Garret winced at the memory of how he'd laid down the law to her, bellowing that he didn't want to hear a word of whining, complaining... but now, holding Ashleen in his arms, he only wanted to be there for her, to listen as she poured out whatever grief hurt her heart.
"Hell, if I'd had to put up with me these past weeks, I'd be hollering to high heaven."
She lifted her face from his chest, scrubbing at those wet cornflower eyes. Her lashes were lush, spiky from her tears, her eyes pools of such inner anguish Garret almost turned away, unable to bear it.
