Chapter Twenty

 

When Irish Eyes are smiling,

Sure ‘tis like a morn in Spring…

 

Like a warning, the song his mum used to sing to him as a little boy, ran in one continual loop in Ash’s heart. He hadn’t been this at peace with the world of men since, well, since he’d left that field alongside the Black Oak River and cast his dreams to the westward blowing winds.

Somewhere in his storytelling tonight, he’d told Colby how the figureheads turned a pretty penny, and that they—she—had saved him from going daft. That much was the truth. Yet even now, when he knew how fractured her spirit was, he could nah go on with his lies to protect her. She needed to know.

As if she agreed, Colby rubbed her cheek against his chest like a satisfied cat that had returned home to a warm hearth, and he was happy just to hold her and pet her while she slept. To love her.

 

In the lilt of Irish laughter

You can hear the angels sing…

 

Aye, but it wasn’t angels singing that he heard. If anything, he dared not fall asleep, not with some insane killer on the loose and her fear of the dark fresh in his mind. Ash kept his ears tuned to the sounds from the street or the softest touch at his doorknob or window. His eyes strained to decipher every shadow, and his nostrils flared to detect the slightest hint of petrol.

His love for Colby knew no bounds, but the news Kevin had shared earlier made for an incredibly anxious midnight hour. Not only did he worry about Colby, Bella, and Tula, but now he feared for the dockworkers who handled overseas containers, too. That was where the first three fires had broken out, on the docks where the containers storing his alleged orders had been stacked pending pick-up.

Which meant the arsonist knew him and his friends, his business and his personal habits, not only enough to sabotage him, but to frame him as well. Earlier, Ash feigned a calm demeanor to settle her down. Colby didn’t need any more grief in her life. But now he worried as the song in his head ragged on.

 

When Irish hearts are happy,

All the world seems bright and gay…

 

Gay nothing. A world filled with the likes of Colby Quaid should shine, not be as dark and sinister as the one now besmirched with the soot and smoldering embers of a murderer with a blowtorch. Ash pressed her warm, limp body to his chest, her head under his chin, duty bound to make this world a safer place for her.

He pressed one of many anxious kisses to her brow, pleased they’d had this one perfect night together. But the new day’s sun would soon be spreading through his east-facing kitchen window, and the fact remained. Someone in Beantown was out to get him.

The bloody truth he’d meant to tell Colby before she’d fallen asleep was not as romantic as he’d made it sound earlier. It was much more sinister. His older brother, Liam, did not tend sheep on the hillside, nor did he milk any dairy herd. Quite the opposite. Liam led the local band of the , the bloody Warriors of Ireland, a splinter group off the Irish Republican Army.

Aye, the did rare good deeds on a rarer day. Occasionally, when it suited them, they sought out and meted justice on drug dealers and underground slave traders, child smugglers, and the like. But more often they used violence to further their political agenda. They were behind several recent bombings in Belfast and abroad. Innocent people had died, and Ash could not abide by that. Not for anything.

He hadn’t gotten involved with the Warriors, but his brother had. Guilt by association ate at Ash until the day he’d fallen asleep after a drunken binge in the field. When he woke, he knew he had to leave the country he loved, or be sucked into a life of sin, crime, and intrigue at Liam’s insistent bullying.

Gods bless her, it was his dead mother’s tearful voice he’d heard that day in the field, not some Irish banshee or mystical pirate queen. In her simple Irish way, Annie Quaid had distinctly told him to, “Leave now, before he ruins you, too.” ‘Course, she’d said it in Gaelic, but you get the drift.

So Ash left Liam and the infamous behind, and when the cruise to America was done, he’d ended up a pauper in Boston. He’d already lost everything. Fresh off the boat, he’d spent the first few nights in his new country sleeping on the docks, rousted by many an Irish cop until the night Officer Declan MulCahey introduced him to the warm beds and hot meals at Sister Bernadette’s homeless shelter. The good people there gave him a change of clothes, a shower, and a hearty clap of encouragement on the back. In two days he’d been hired to drive trucks for a freight company. In a month’s time, he’d saved enough money to rent a flat in Southie. Month by month and paycheck by paycheck, he’d prospered.

 

And when Irish eyes are smiling

Sure, they steal your heart away…

 

Pressing another kiss to her forehead, Ash knew he needed to be honest with Colby. He was no simple woodcarver from the Emerald Isle. He’d changed his name when he came to America, but he was Ash O’Callaghan, brother of the notorious, Liam O’Callaghan. He might even be a wanted man.

His Irish eyes weren’t smiling. They were crying.