Page 55 of Faithless Vows

A good wife stays. I know that. I was raised to know it.

But I want to stay here. That much I know. I want to be on this wall, on this land, close to the water and the hills and the people who know my name without needing anything from it. Hearing Finn call me his willow makes staying feel like something I’m allowed to choose.

I don’t know what I am right now. Not free—not the way people mean when they say it. I was married before God, and I left my husband. I carry that with me every day. I don’t know what that makes me. I only know that I am not who I was in Boston, and I am not yet who I will be.

But I am here.

I look down at the bracelet again.Mo Shaileach.A willow stays. It puts down roots. I bump my shoulder gently against his and feel him exhale beside me. “Thank you, Finn,” I say softly. “For all of it.”

He doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t need to. We sit there together on the wall, the dark water moving below us and the stars wide overhead, until the cold finally drives us back up the lane to the warm house.

This morning, I wanted everyone to forget. Now I don’t want the day to end.

Nineteen.

Mine.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Ronin

Paulie Shea has captained cargo runs for the Byrne family for fifteen years. He knows the harbour. He knows our shipments. And he knows better than to ask questions about things that don’t concern him. I heard he’s been having money trouble lately and looking for a bigger cut. His freighter is leaving in two nights, running empty across the Atlantic to Cork to pick up crates of Paddy’s whiskey for our operation. So I make him an offer. Two crates of the Paddy’s if he takes me with him and keeps it between us.

Paulie takes my hand. “Done.”

I leave him to it and go home to pack a bag. The annulment papers are still sitting on the coffee table where Seamus left them. I haven’t even brought myself to look at them. I pick up the envelope now and slip it into the inside pocket of my coat.

I’m going to hand them to Malachy O’Connell in person and tell him to his face that I’m not signing. Whatever process he has set in motion through the Church to end my marriage to his granddaughter—whatever channels a man in his position has access to—my name carries weight too, and I’m not going to make this easy on him.

Because Alannah is mine. She has been since the day I agreed to our betrothal. If I’m honest with myself, probably even before that.

The crossing takes twelve days.

The Áille is a cargo freighter out of Boston, registered in Liverpool. I’m the only passenger on board, and the crew mostly leave me to myself, which suits me fine. I spend the first two days sick over the rail and the next ten in a cabin thesize of a large wardrobe. It has a porthole no bigger than a dinner plate, and the engines thrum beneath it day and night, making it hard to sleep for more than a few hours at a time.

There’s no comfort to be had on the North Atlantic in January. The cold gets into everything. The ship moves in ways that have no regard for the people on it. The days are short, grey, and all the same, and I have nothing but time and my own head for company. Mostly, I think about Alannah.

I think about the way she treats people—how she always seems to care about everyone around her. The way she listens when someone speaks, like what they say matters. I think about the freckles across her nose and cheeks, and the way they stood out whenever she blushed. The way she looked at me when I asked her to marry me, when I slid the Claddagh onto her finger. I think about how happy she looked walking down the aisle toward me.

I think about her birthday, not long past. Nineteen—the first one we didn’t spend together, even if it was usually just our families and a cake on the table.

But no matter where my thoughts start, they always end at the reception. I think about the look on her face when I called her naïve—how heartbroken she was, and the strength it must have taken for her to leave.

Then I think about what I did to her. I’m not going to dress it up. There are no words for it that don’t curl into excuses, and I was done with excuses by about the third day after she vanished. What I’d done was wrong. The women I’d been with while I was promised to her. Kathleen on my stag night. The way I treated her at our reception.

I’d been reacting—to Danny’s scoff, to my own pride, to a lifetime of being taught never to show weakness in front of my men. Alannah paid for all of it.

But I’m not signing those papers.

I’m going to get to her. I’m going to stand in front of her and apologize and try to make it right. I can’t imagine a life without her. Whatever it takes, I’m going to make it right. There isn’t any other choice.

On the twelfth morning aboard the Áille, I’m already dressed and packed when the knock comes. I’ve been awake for over an hour, watching the sun come up through the porthole. The Irish coastline appeared the evening before—a dark line at first, then something more solid as we came closer. I stood at the rail until I couldn’t feel my hands, watching it take shape.

The man who knocks is one of the crew—a quiet man from Waterford who has been bringing my meals to the cabin each day. “We’re docked,” he says. “Your contact’s on the quay. Car’s waiting.”

I pick up my bag and follow him out. The smell hits me before anything else—diesel, thick and heavy in the air. Men shout farther down the pier, hauling crates from another ship while gulls wheel overhead, crying as they circle the harbour.

I step off the gangway and onto Irish soil.