Page 42 of The Irish Arrangement

She was used to the outdoors. Fresh air mattered to her. I’d noticed how uncultured she was—mistaking her utensil use, peering around at the décor like it was some foreign experience. It wasn’t hard to imagine that Cara and Nora lived a simpler life, without much money, but how simple was it?

Before she could catch me grinning at her and taking advantage of her happy moment, I faced forward.

“Better?” I asked, amused.

“I will be after you show me what’s that way.” She pointed in the direction of the stables out back.

I bit my lip. She didn’t ask me permission to check out the building where the horses were. She didn’t demand, either.

It was impossible to miss the excitement in her voice, though. If the idea of seeing the animals out there could infuse that much pep into her, it would be a crime to miss out.

My wife came alive under my touch, and it was interesting to consider how else she could perk up and lose some of her jaded guardedness around me.

16

CARA

The second we stepped outside, my heart lifted. The simple act of letting fresh air touch my cheeks and feeling the warmth of the sun did so much to restore my soul.

It was dreary. Clouds hid the sunshine. Dampness hung in the air, courtesy of the storms and rain. But I was out. He’d let me come explore, and it felt so damn good, I lost sight of my guardedness for a moment.

It felt so invigorating to move and walk over the grass that I let go of my suspicion.

He didn’t speak after I told him where I wanted to go. Being out of the castle was an improvement, but I didn’t want to be confined to the formal gardens up here.

I missed the smells of hay and fur. Of oats and even manure. My eyes needed to find pitchforks and saddles, stalls and reins. Everything that I used to surround myself with at the farm back home. I doubted Declan and his staff kept sheep up here. The landscape wasn’t ideal this far north, but that big building back there had to be a structure intended to store animals. Any form of animal husbandry would do. It was part of who I was, what I did. Out there, I would feel like a semblance of my former self.

My single, unmarried self.

We walked side by side in the open, and I marveled in the vast reach of the Sullivan lands. Our shoes squished in the wet grass, and I wished I could’ve been wearing sandals instead, to better feel the cool dampness of the rain soaking the lawn.

Over a manicured, trimmed field that extended from the formal gardens that hugged the castle, we took a maintained path leading to the barns. Not one, but a few.

Amazing. An entire outfit waited out here. A full operational business, and I couldn’t help but envy it all. No busted walls or chipping paint on the outbuildings. All the windows were intact, the trims matching. Even this lane we walked on, it was smooth and free of mud and ruts.

Declan’s family could afford anything, inside the castle and out. I’d never come close to having that sort of financial freedom and success at Mom’s sheep farm. Seeing the evidence of the Sullivans’ wealth and success burned a fire within me.

I want this. I want this for Mom. One day, I’d make it happen, where Oscar wouldn’t harp on me to hire help and afford all the bucket-list items that would make our workdays better and more productive.

Even though this barn and the route to it showed signs of established and older stables and barns than what I’d left at home, it reminded me of it with such a deep, piercing slice of pain that my heart could barely take it.

Over two weeks now, I’d been away. Swept from my life and thrust into a very different existence. Hearing the distant sounds of horses soothed me, serving as a pointed connection between my past and present.

All those long days and nights, I’d suffered alone and without any direction in my life.

And now I was rewarded with this visit to the stables.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why are you pretending to be so nice to me?”

Declan didn’t answer, seeming to prefer the quiet of this walk. After a long moment, he shook his head. “I don’t pretend.”

“But you are. If you’re not, then you want something.”

Before we could enter the stables, he guided me to the exterior wall and caged me in. One muscled arm lifted as he braced his hand on the surface, and with the other, he gripped my waist and squeezed.

Once again, he trapped me to the wall. I saw now how it was a demonstration of his dominance. He liked making me feel small, like he could position and keep me wherever he wanted.

And, once again, it turned me on so quickly that I fought the urge to cling to him, to pull him closer until his mouth could tease my skin.

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