Морган Лливелин - Drop by Drop

Bea turned to her nephew. “You agree with all this?”

“I’ll accept it’s scientifically sound, but I’m still not convinced. I’ve always had a hunch that the sun—”

“You two are maddening!” Bea exclaimed. “You haven’t answered my question at all; I wanted to know about the force itself! Who or what is it?”

“That,” said Jack, “is still the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.”

When he and Gerry entered the bar the Mulligans and Edgar Tilbury were already there. So was Lila Ragland. Jack thought she looked smaller, diminished. Mass and energy, he mused. Sitting down beside her, he said, “Your story in the paper struck just the right note, Lila: dignified.”

“After what we saw in the street a lot of dignity was required.”

“That was your jacket over—”

“Hooper’s head and face, yes. I wanted to hide them from Nell and the people coming out of the chapel.”

“That was fast thinking.”

“No it wasn’t, Jack. It felt like time had frozen.”

“Time’s relative; I learned that when I was a kid. I climbed too high in a tree and fell and broke my leg. It took an hour to hit the ground, and a lifetime before my aunt stopped scolding me about it.”

“Where’s Nell?” Tilbury asked Jack. “I thought she’d be here.”

“When I took her home after the sheriff’s funeral she said she wanted to be alone with her kids for a few days. Quality time. She’ll be trying to help them come to terms with what’s happened.” He hesitated. “Under the circumstances she, I mean we, have decided to postpone the wedding. You don’t need to say anything about that in the paper, Lila.”

“I wouldn’t anyway. Later in the year, maybe?”

“I don’t know,” he said tightly. “Up to her, I guess.”

Jack was uncomfortable. The marriage seemed cursed. Would Nell look at it that way? Could the violence on her wedding day have caused an irrevocable change in the woman he loved?

To change the subject he said, “Isn’t Morris coming?”

“He took Hooper’s death hard,” Shay replied, “but I imagine he’ll be along. Strange, isn’t it? So much tragedy on one hand and the Change fading away on the other. Like scales balancing.”

Jack shook his head. “That’s not an equal balance.”

Bill Burdick passed around drinks. “On the house,” he announced. “Like a wake.”

“I have a better idea,” said Evan Mulligan. He raised his glass. “Let’s toast the future. It’s gotta be better than the last year or two.”

Shay rumpled his son’s hair. “Good boy. The future it is!”

When Morris Saddlethwaite burst through the door of Bill’s Bar and Grill his face was ashen. “You’re not gonna believe this! I mean, you’re not gonna believe this!”

“You’re repeating yourself,” said Bill. “Sit down and have a drink, you look like you need one. Or have you had too many already?”

“Is that your red car parked outside the door?” Saddlethwaite asked Jack.

“You know it’s my car, there’s not another one like it in the state. If it’s in your way I’ll move it, though.”

The other man lifted his right arm and waved it in the air. The sleeve was covered with a flaky substance that resembled dried blood and crumbled from the fabric. “I don’t know if you can move it, Jack. I just brushed against your fender and this stuff came off on my clothes. Now the goddamned metal’s rotting!”

After Rome

Bard: The Odyssey of the Irish

Brendán

Brian Boru

Drop by Drop

The Elementals

Etruscans (with Michael Scott)

Finn Mac Cool

Grania

The Horse Goddess

The Last Prince of Ireland

Lion of Ireland

Only the Stones Survive

Pride of Lions

Strongbow

The Wind from Hastings

1916: A Novel of the Irish Rebellion

1921: The Great Novel of the Irish Civil War

1949: A Novel of the Irish Free State

1972: A Novel of Ireland’s Unfinished Revolution

1999: A Novel of the Celtic Tiger and the Search for Peace

MORGAN LLYWELYNis the New York Times bestselling author of Lion of Ireland . She has won numerous awards for her historical fiction. She lives near Dublin, Ireland. You can sign up for email updates here.

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DROP BY DROP

Copyright © 2018 by Morgan Llywelyn

All rights reserved.

Cover design by Michael Graziolo

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ISBN 978-0-7653-8866-7 (hardcover)

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eISBN 9780765388681

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First Edition: June 2018