Читать книгу Rock Point - Carla Neggers - Страница 7

Chapter 2

A ewe cried out in distress just before dawn. Finian went out to the barn with Sean and helped deliver a healthy lamb. With mother and baby safe and warm, Finian followed his friend back to the farmhouse, grinning as he hung his coat on a hook. “I hope I didn’t misunderstand and this is the work God called me to do.”

Sean laughed. “Farm work, Fin? Delivering lambs at dawn? I don’t think so.”

The kitchen was cool, a dampness in the air, but Sean got a turf fire going in the old fireplace and it was soon warm enough. Finian sat at the pine table. He’d jumped into jeans and a wool shirt. No clerical suit for working in the barn.

Sean put the kettle on to boil. “A full Irish breakfast this morning, Fin?”

“Perfect.”

Sean set to work, and Finian’s mind drifted, as it sometimes still did. He could see his fair-haired, beautiful wife, and he could hear her laughter when, years ago, facing the uncertainties of business, he’d wondered aloud if he should be a farmer.

“You a farmer? Oh, Fin. That’s just so funny.”

“We were farmers as boys. Declan and I.”

“And now you’re whiskey men.”

He and Sally had been enjoying a pint and traditional Irish music at a Kenmare pub. She was such fun—and so smart. A young marketing consultant who’d just finished a project for Bracken Distillers.

He’d fallen for her on the spot and asked her to marry him three months later. They’d been hiking in Killarney National Park. She’d said yes without hesitation and burst into tears and laughter as she’d hugged him so hard they both fell to the ground.

He’d been twenty-four. She’d been twenty-three.

Kathleen had been born the next year. Mary three years later.

My sweet girls.

Finian returned himself to the present. He smelled the turf fire, and he noticed the chipped paint on the old-fashioned dresser, the plates lined up on its open shelves, the crooked lower doors worn with age and use. He watched Sean drop tea bags into a brown pot and then fill the pot with the hot water. His garda friend looked at ease, totally natural, in his torn flannel shirt and muddy work pants. Maybe at heart he was a farmer after all, meant for a life out here on Shepherd Head instead of the occasional few days off to help his uncle.

Sean Murphy had been a young, ambitious garda when he’d located Finian in his office at the old distillery he and Declan had returned to life, just outside Killarney. An important business matter had come up and Sally and the girls had started their sailing holiday without him. He would join them at their first stop that evening. He hadn’t been enthusiastic about sailing, but Sally had thought it would be a grand adventure for them and the girls.

It was Garda Murphy who’d told Finian his wife and daughters were dead.