Devil's Shore Read Free Page B

in the cupboard ceased rattling.
    “Orla, can we not have a normal conversation anymore without you smashing half the dishes?”
    Soon after my mother’s funeral, my “gifts” emerged. Flying cutlery, breaking glass. Initially they freaked both of us out. Now we saw them as an annoyance as much as anything else.
    I stepped away from him. “You know better than to get me so upset.”
    “We have to go. I’ve passed up two promotions already. If I pass up this one, I’m through.”
    “Why can’t you find a job in Dublin?”
    “Because it’s an international company and the headquarters are in New York. All the big bosses have spent time in New York.”
    “I don’t want to go,” I said, sounding as petulant as a teenager.
    He smiled, pulled me to him and kissed me on the lips. “I know. But it will be two years, max. And then we can come home.”
    “Two years?”
    “Come on, Orla. We’ll come home for holidays, if you like.”
    He looked up at me, his face pale and earnest. He’d been so good to me since the day we met. And especially since my mother died. Declan’s never asked a thing of me. Why was I such a bitch? Why could I not give in, just this once? I’m a housewife. I could take care of the boys and clean the house wherever I went.
    “I’m afraid,” I whispered. “I’m afraid to leave.”
    “Why, love?”
    “I don’t know. I swear, Dec, I don’t know. I just know that if we leave, something bad will happen. Something terrible.”
    A shadow crossed his face. “Is it because of Bobby?” My brother Bobby, who Dec loved like his own brother, had worked as an investment banker in the World Trade Center and died on 9-11.
    “No. It has nothing to do with Bobby. I don’t know. It’s a feeling I have.”
    “Questronics isn’t even located in Manhattan. It’s on Long Island. Near the beach. It’s perfectly safe there. I promise, love.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “A change will do you good. It will do all of us good. You’ll see.”
    I looked into his kind broad face and noticed that these past two years had taken a toll on him. There were wrinkles around his eyes that hadn’t been there before and he looked tired, older than his thirty-eight years. Living with the Devlin witch couldn’t have been easy. I owed him. I owed him his chance.
    I stroked his thinning ginger hair. “Fine, Dec. We’ll go. But only for two years.”
    He smiled then, like a child on Christmas. “Only two years, I promise. You won’t be sorry. It’ll be fun. An adventure for the boys.”
    “Sure,” I said, forcing a smile.
    An adventure. That was the last thing I wanted.
    * * * *
    “I’m asking you for the last time. Please move your seat up.”
    The bitch Yank wife of the Irish fella sitting in front of us had pushed her seat all the way back for the last hour, and the floral scent of her hair spray was almost choking the life out of me.
    “And I told you, I have a bad back,” she said. “I’m entitled to put my seat back.”
    “You’ll have more than a bad back by the time I’m done with ye,” I muttered.
    Dec placed his hand on my arm. “Do you want to switch seats with me?”
    If the seat with Her Highness pushing her seat back was tight for me, it would crush poor Dec and his long legs. “No, love,” I said. “I’m fine.”
    He shot me a wary look. “Be good.”
    I forced a smile. “Aren’t I always?”
    I was near suffocating for the next hour but I held my tongue. The air wenches served us the usual slop. Chicken or beef? Why not be honest and say “inedible” and “more inedible”? But I choked the beef concoction down, as did my three lads. They’d eat anything that didn’t moo back. Dec, the only fussy eater in the house, ate an apple he’d packed himself.
    Once the spray-tan orange air hostess took my tray, I slammed the tray table back into the bitch in front of me.
    “Ow! My back.” She turned to me and snarled, “Why did you slam the seat so hard?”
    “Sorry, but