Cian and Keenan stood by the lough, as quiet as they used to be with each other before Cian started to use his voice. But there was true silence between them. Not like before when Keenan could read him.
The wind blew, and I held on to my father a little tighter. We were in October, and the fall weather was crisp. The cool air seemed to help my dad when we walked around the property like this, though. The doctor said he had to start off slow, then build his stamina gradually.
It was never food I had to worry about with my dad. His appetite had always come and gone. But if his curiosity crashed, I had something to worry about.
His color was returning, and so was his vivid spirt of inquiry.
He was going on about the property, Ireland, even something about how wonderful it would be to have a car that ran on water. My father’s mind worked that way.
I was listening, but not fully.
My mind was on Cian. He hadn’t been acting odd or distant. If anything, he was sticking even closer to me. Without him and Beatrice, I wasn’t sure I could have handled the stress of my dad’s surgery by myself, but he was still…absent in a way he hadn’t been since I’d met him.
“Maeve,” my dad called.
“Hmm?”
“The pirate figure you carved.”
“What pirate figure?”
He looked between Cian and me. He smiled a little.
“Remember the one I tried to carve of the Pirate Jean?”
I tried to remember… “I do! You didn’t feel like you were doing the face justice. You asked me to do it. Then asked me to do it again. I made two.”
“That’s it. They were for Bryce MacGregor.”
“You didn’t mention his name.”
“No,” he muttered. “I didn’t.”
“Who is he?”
Loud barking echoed from the house before the two rapidly growing bodies they belonged to came barreling toward us. Beatrice chased behind them with a house towel, grumbling something about monsters in the kitchen.
The hounds were going straight for Cian. When they got close enough, they sniffed around his feet before they relaxed and started loitering around the water.
Subconsciously, I seemed to be moving closer to him too.
Beatrice was complaining about the dogs eating her biscuits before she started back for the castle. I smiled at her and she smiled back, even though she was put out. I’d grown close to Beatrice over the weeks. She was there for me the entire time my dad was in the hospital and even after, just like Cian.
My dad unraveled himself from me and went to stand at the edge of the water. He stared at it before he blinked. He removed his glasses, rubbed his eyes, then put them back on.
I stood next to Cian, and his body touched mine. I smiled a little when his hand came down to pet Argus and Grania’s heads. Keenan went to walk back toward the castle, but I stopped him.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Keenan nodded at Cian. “Ask your husband.”
I looked at him and raised my brows.
“I’ll tell you what’s going on,” Keenan said. “Your husband started a war with Oran Craig, and he’s about to forfeit it. You can’t direct a battle from an entire country away.”
“Because you’re not in Boston,” I surmised.
Cian nodded.
