“It’s helped, though, hasn’t it?”
“It—andyou—have likely saved m’life, Ian. And you did it even though I didn’t deserve a bit of your help. You’d every reason to tell meagainto keep the devil away from you.”
They kept rolling down the road. “You weren’t so far gone as all that, Patrick. Though whiskey had a greater pull on you than you’d like—and I’m not denyin’ it’s caused you no end of trouble—I’ve seen men shackled to it. Destroyed entirely. They couldn’t’ve gone hours without it, and you’ve just gone two weeks. I don’t think you were as near to destruction as you feared. And I suspect that means you’re going to be able to keep winning your battle with it.”
“Provided I don’t run out of tea.”
Ian guided the horses over a small rise. “If you ever run low, come to my place. And if we don’t have any, we’ll go beg a bit of Ma. And if she’s out, Mary. And if not Mary, Ciara. And if we get desperate enough, we might even talk to Tavish.”
“I don’t know if I’ll ever bethatdesperate.”
Ian laughed. That was a sound Patrick would never grow tired of hearing. “Do you know the worst part about your being halfway across the country these past thirteen years? I’ve had to be friendly with Tavish. Pure torture, that’s been.”
“Well, I’m here now, brother. We can ignore him together.”
Their plot proved doomed to failure. Not thirty minutes later, Tavish, Cecily, and their nearly one-year-old boy, Matthew, turned onto the very road they were driving on in their own wagon. They waved and pulled their wagons to a stop alongside each other.
“How’d your sales do?” Ian asked.
“Grand. And I had better company than in years past, I’ll tell you that.”
Ian leaned a little closer to Patrick. “Ihave gone with him in years past.”
“Ah.”
“Where’ve the two of you been?” Tavish asked.
“Up in the mountains,” Patrick said. “Ian’s been torturing me.”
His brothers exchanged looks: eyes a little widened, brows twitching upward, mouth twists that seemed to say, “Isn’t this intriguing?” Silent conversations were the specialty of brothers who were particularly close. Patrick and Ian used to have such conversations all the time. He had hope they would again.
“Our brother, here, has made a mull of things with the lass who’s claimed his heart,” Ian said. “Any words of advice for him, Cecily?”
From behind her green-tinted spectacles her brows pulled low. “Is Eliza upset with you?”
Ian and Tavish laughed. Even Patrick found he could smile. Obviously he hadn’t kept his preference for Eliza a secret.
“She’s decidedly upset,” Patrick said. “I don’t know how to fix it.”
“Bribery?” Tavish suggested. “How much money do you have?”
“Stop it,” Cecily said, amusement filling her tone.
“Poor as a church mouse, this one,” Ian said. “And he’s every bit as ugly as you are, so we can’t depend on him wooing her over with his handsome gob.”
“And he’s not very funny,” Tavish said, “so we can’t count on charm.”
Patrick managed to sneak into the back-and-forth. “I sure have missed the two of you,” he said dryly.
“You also won’t win her over with a show of brotherly devotion,” Tavish said. “She’ll sort out that deception straight off.”
“The only person here I’m likely to get any actual help from is Cecily, but the two of you won’t stop flapping your gums long enough for me to discuss this with her.”
“I think I’m offended,” Ian said. “Are you offended, Tavish?”
“Deeply.”
Cecily shook her head. “The two of you are utterly impossible. Patrick, switch places with Tavish. We’ll let these ridiculous brothers of yours drive ahead, and we can follow behind.”
