IRISH FIRE by Jeanette Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

boats, a fate similar to a prison sentence in Brians mind. Instead hed acquired an education few fishermans sons from the Aran Islands could claim.
    The fact of the matter was that Caitlin had surprised him. There was nothing left of the girl Martin OShea told him about, nothing except a mass of flyaway black curls and eyes as large and dark as Raphaels Madonna, the one that had so intrigued him in the antechamber of the Jesuit rectory in Dublin. Only now those eyes didnt sparkle with mischief. They were angry and concealing and filled with an unmistakable wariness. Intuition told him the anger he saw was really something else, something he couldnt imagine associating with the Caitlin Keneally hed heard so much about.
    Neeve slipped out from under his hand, walked to the fireplace where the turf still glowed a dull red, turned around several times, and settled into a comfortable sleeping position. Brian gulped down the last of his now tepid tea, rose, and headed for the single bedroom at the back of the cottage he called home. If he was lucky he could manage at least three hours of undisturbed rest before anyone called him.
    Thirty minutes later, in that twilight stage between waking and sleeping, when the edges of a solution are not yet clearly defined but the problem doesnt appear quite so difficult as it seems in the merciless, unrelieved light of day, it came to him just as it always did when the night was long and his mind was particularly receptive to association. Martin OShea had grown up with Caitlin. He would know her as well as anyone. The priest had a way of putting a healing finger on the heart of a matter.
    After all it was Martin whod shown Brian that a calling to holy orders was absolute, with no room for halfway measures, doubts, or portions held back in reserve. Four years in the Jesuit College with Martin had clarified the shallowness of his own religious commitment. With a sense of relief and more than a little gratitude, he had shaken his friends hand and promised to keep in touch.
    Later, when Brian needed work, it was Martin whod convinced John OShea to recommend him as a thoroughbred trainer, and it was Martin who smoothed his path with the local residents who welcomed strangers, but only those who stayed from February through June, the racing season, and then went home again.
    Brians reputation had been further cemented by the training of three consecutive winners of Englands Grand National, the most prestigious steeple chase in the world. The race that catapulted his face onto the front pages of
Irish
Field
and the
Racing Gazette
. The race that made his name a household word in equine circles, and for the first time in his life, earned him enough of a bank balance to merit a savings account, an investment portfolio, and a platinum credit card.
    When John OShea retired as manager of the Curragh Stud, he recommended that Brian take his place, a move that established the younger mans standing in the tightly knit community of Kilcullen Town.
    Over a pint or two at Keneallys pub, Martin had shared many of his childhood escapades. Hed mentioned Caitlin often but Brian knew enough to disregard most of what he said. Memory played tricks on a man, and events seen with the eyes of youth changed enormously with age. No one person could have the qualities Martin attributed to the Caitlin Keneally of his youth.
    Tomorrow Brian would call on Martin at the rectory, bring him a bottle of Irish whiskey, and ask the questions that needed answering. Maybe then he could sleep peacefully. Whatever the reason, Caitlin Claiborne, with her dark eyes and her pouting, bruised-lipped mouth, disturbed him in ways he hadnt been disturbed in a very long time.

    Martin OShea, junior rector of Saint Patricks Church in Kilcullen Town, answered the door dressed in faded denims and a cableknit sweater. Father Duran wont return until tomorrow, and Mrs. Kelly has an emergency in Kinsale, he said, explaining away his housekeepers absence.