“We promised her,” Tavish said. “None of us is going back on our word. All the women would slaughter us if we did. We’d none of us hear the end of it.”
The brothers tossed in their agreement. Patrick watched as Ian’s tiny glimmer of hope faded and defeat pulled at his shoulders. He knew that posture. Ian had worn it before. Patrick saw it often in the mirror as well. He couldn’t bear seeing it now.
“Ididn’t promise her,” he said from the top of his ladder.
Everyone looked at him. Even Finbarr turned in his direction.
“Biddy told me her reasons for your not being up on your own roof, but she didn’t make me promise anything.” He began climbing down. “You can use my ladder. I’ll hand you what you need.”
Ian hesitated, but there was no mistaking the renewed life in his eyes, and even a shimmer of gratitude. “She really will kill you.”
Patrick reached the ground. “The entire Confederate Army tried to kill me, and they didn’t manage it. I think I like my odds better in this battle.” He stopped right in front of Ian. “And if Biddy does decide to do away with me, I’ll accept my fate with dignity and weep and beg only when there aren’t any witnesses. You know, for the sake of the family’s dignity and all.”
“We may do better to pin our hopes of dignity on Biddy, then.” Just enough cheek lay in Ian’s words to bring a smile to Patrick’s face. They used to joke like this easily and regularly. To have even a hint of it back was doing him a great deal of good.
“Oh, I’ve always pinned a lot of hopes on Biddy. She made something of you, didn’t she?”
“That she did.” Ian never looked happier than he did when talking about his wife. “And for her sake”—he looked out over his gathered family—“none of you’d better run off and tattle about this.”
Chuckles and amused shakes of the head answered his threat, but no one objected.
Patrick hooked his thumb toward his abandoned ladder. “Up with you, then. Just tell me what you need.”
Ian hesitated. He watched Patrick for a drawn-out minute, a question in his expression,. After a moment, he simply nodded and took up his new position. Work resumed, but with a lot of curious glances in Ian’s direction. If he noticed them, he didn’t let on.
As Patrick crossed paths with Da in their role of fetching and delivering, Da stopped him with a hand on his arm. Voice lowered, he said, “We’ve been holding him back. I didn’t even see it until now. He needed someone who’d let him try to move forward.”
Patrick shrugged. “I tossed Finbarr up on a roof a few weeks ago and kept him from accidentally killing himself. I think I can manage the same with Ian.”
Da grinned. “Cecily’s been singing your praises ever since she heard about you tying the lad to the chimney and all the work you’ve had him do on this house. The one thing she snips at the lot of us about is babying Finbarr.”
“Does anyone snip at you for babying Ian?”
“Ian.”
Patrick gave him a pointed look. “Maybe we oughta start listening to him. Now and then, at least.”
“He always was quieter than the rest of us. But you were always the one telling us to listen when we sometimes forgot to.” Da gave him a nod as he resumed his path toward the pile of cut shingles. “It’ll be good for him to have you doing that again.”
“Do you think he’ll let me?”
Da looked back over his shoulder. “After today, I think you’ve a growing chance he will.”
Ian proved himself more than capable of doing the work he’d insisted he could. Within the first half hour, the brothers all stopped watching him with worry and simply settled into the rhythm of their work. Laughter flowed as easily as water to the sea. Though Patrick’s place was firmly at the edges of the group, he felt increasingly part of it.
He especially appreciated seeing Aidan interact with Ryan. The lad had lost his father at too young an age. To see him have a father-son bond with someone who clearly loved him did Patrick’s guilt-burdened heart a great deal of good. He’d worried about the boy from the moment Grady had declared his intention to join the war effort. That anxiety hadn’t eased at all over the years.
He remembered all too well Aidan’s little five-year-old voice telling him, in tones of awe and pride, “My da was a hero. He went to save the country, and he went to save his brother. That makes him brave.”
If there was a chance that explaining what really happened would change how this lad, who’d had so much snatched away in his short life, thought of his father, Patrick wouldn’t risk it. The truth was not the most comforting of companions, and it had kept him constant company these past years.
Patrick sat beside Finbarr during a lull in their work. “Once the roof’s sound, I’d be happy to tie you to the chimney.”
Finbarr laughed a little. His scars tugged at things when he smiled and talked and laughed, but not in a grotesque or unsettling way. The disfigurement added a poignancy to his expressions. “Feels good doing something no one, including me, thought I could do. I confess, it was terrifying. I’d do it again if I had to, but whenever I have the option, I’ll keep my feet on the ground.”
“Can’t say I blame you.” Patrick leaned back on his elbows, enjoying a minute to breathe. “This’ll be a fine house for you, Finbarr. I know it will be. And I built it as solidly as I could. It should withstand nearly anything this ol’ world throws at it. I’ll be plastering and whitewashing the inside. That’ll brighten it up.”
“I appreciate all the windows,” he said. “I like that.”
