The Delaney Woman Read online

  JEANETTE

  BAKER

  Table of Contents

  Begin Reading

  Connecticut ● New York ● Colorado

  Table of Contents

  The Delaney Woman

  Copyright Notices

  Other Books by Jeanette Baker

  Acknowledgements

  CHAPTERS

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Copyright Notices

  JEANETTE BAKER

  The Delaney Woman

  Copyright © 2003, 2012 by Jeanette Baker

  Int’l ISBN: 978-1-62071-002-9

  ISBN: 1-55166-696-0

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic means is forbidden unless written permission has been received from the publisher

  All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

  For information address:

  Author & Company, LLC

  P.O. Box 291

  Cheshire, CT 06410-9998

  This eBook was designed by iLN™

  and manufactured in the United States of America.

  Other Books by

  JEANETTE BAKER

  Chesapeake Tide

  Chesapeake Summer

  This Irish House

  The Lavender Field

  A Delicate Finish

  Witch Woman

  To learn more about Jeanette and

  all of her books please visit:

  www.JeanetteBaker.com

  Acknowledgements

  The vision of this book changed a great many times and took longer than usual to write. For those who suffered with me through the rewrites, the plot changes, the name changes, the various beginnings and endings, many, many thanks for your unconditional support.

  Specifically:

  My fellow authors, Pat Perry and Jean Stewart, for their words of encouragement.

  My sister, Vicki Riley, for her pragmatic, no-nonsense advice.

  My agent, Loretta Barrett, for always calling me back, and for understanding when to leave me alone and when not to.

  My editor, Valerie Gray, for being such a trooper, for not giving up on me and for making me laugh when I wanted to cry.

  CHAPTERS

  One

  “Fast forward,” shrieked four-year-old Danny, his hands covering his eyes, “fast forward.”

  Kellie Delaney, familiar with the procedure, pressed the forward button on the remote control and counted to ten. Then she gently squeezed her nephew’s arm. “It’s over, Danny,” she said gently, “the scary part is over.”

  Danny removed the hand from his left eye, opened it to a mere slit, and glanced at the telly. Convinced his aunt and beloved godmother was telling the truth, he settled back into the couch and concentrated on the story before him.

  Kellie stroked the blond curls. All the Delaneys were cursed with curly hair, so fine and thick it couldn’t be controlled. She kissed his cheek. Comforted, the little boy curled into her side, never removing his eyes from the screen. It was always the same. Danny insisted on his favorite video, Walt Disney’s Bambi, and yet the point where the fawn lost his mother continued to terrify him. Ridiculous as it sounded, Kellie wondered if it wasn’t a subconscious notion emblazoned in him from infancy.

  His own mother, Kellie’s sister-in-law, had given up her life for him. Lizzie Delaney’s cancer wasn’t diagnosed until her pregnancy was in its second term. The doctors advised aborting her fetus but Catholicism and a mother’s protective instincts prevailed and she’d refused. Danny and the cancer had grown together. She had given birth to a healthy baby but for Lizzie it was too late. The babe and Lizzie’s husband, Connor, were left behind to fend for themselves. Kellie had come down from Derry City for the christening and fallen in love with the tiny, motherless infant.

  Dazed with grief, her twin brother had asked her to stay. It wasn’t terribly difficult to find a teaching position. Somehow the three of them had managed to muddle through the last four years, Kellie standing in as aunt, mother, confidante and sister.

  She loved her role. She loved the charming university town of Oxford and she loved her job teaching English at a private girls’ academy near the river. She loved the drive down the tree-lined streets of the walled city. She loved the parking lot with its broken pavement and blades of grass persistently growing between the cracks. She loved the old brick buildings, the polished wood and the smells of dust and books and age and chalk. She loved the staggered rows of student desks in her classroom and the long oval windows, gleaming and diamond-paned, facing out over green lawns.

  The very idea that she, Kellie Delaney of the Falls, could have come to this place in her life never ceased to amaze her. She didn’t want to think about growing up in a family all but the most tolerant would call dysfunctional, but the memories intruded on her whether she called them up or not.

  Her father, Brian Delaney, the family patriarch, hadn’t seen a sober moment in four decades. Mary, her mother, had her hands full with seven children, a drunk for a husband and never enough money to feed her family all at once. She took in washing and mending and the only time her eyes weren’t red was the first hour she opened them in the morning. Because there was always another baby on the way and too much to do, the older siblings found ways to fend for themselves.

  Bridget, the first born, was thrown out of Saint Theresa’s Catholic School for Girls when she arrived late one morning with one side of her head shaved and her skirt rolled up to her fanny. Sean was kneecapped for joyriding down the Ormeau Road in a car he’d lifted from the car park behind Dempsey’s Pub. The car belonged to Father Donnelly who’d stopped to wet his thirst on the way to say Mass for the political prisoners in Long Kesh. Another brother, Liam, a self-proclaimed member of a paramilitary group, had turned him in. The two youngest Delaney brothers, Michael and Gene, were already heavily involved in the drug culture that had swept through West Belfast at the first sign of a halting of hostilities between Protestants and Catholics. And then there was Connor, her twin, her soul mate, a university graduate working for British law enforcement in Oxford, England.

  There were times when Kellie, one of the pair of the only serene, goal-oriented, academic children in the bunch, was sure the wristbands proclaiming which babies belonged to whom had been switched when she and Connor were born and her mother had brought home someone else’s twins. She would dream that somewhere she had parents who lived in a well-ordered house with a piano and bookshelves, people who read and discussed world events and spoke in soft voices, people who were never redfaced, never pounded the table with their fists and never, ever fell in the gutters too overcome with the drink to care where they spent the night.

  Of course, when she looked into the mirror, her argument went the way of a too thin rainbow on a day of smattering sunlight. She was the image of her mother in Mary’s younger, less dragged-out days and only a fool or an idiot would believe that Mrs. Delaney had ever cuckolded her husband.

  Automatically, Kellie crossed herself and mumbled a quick but heartfelt Hail Mary. The ugly image of what she’d escaped never failed to bring on a shuddering prayer of thanksgiving and fervent appreciation for the blessings she’d been given.

  The cushy job offer from Silverlake Academy came as a wonderful surprise. She’d been in Oxford for less than a month and had only the one interview. She’d connected immediately with the headmistress but hadn’t counted on the job. There were few openings, most of them occurring through attrition when a teacher retired. No one wanted to leave Silverlake but the English teacher’s husband had been unexpectedly transferred. The salary was excellent and the perks more than competitive. Kellie could actually afford to live within the city of Oxford. Connor had offered to supplement her salary, a gesture of appreciation for leaving her position in Derry, but she didn’t need it. Not that her brother hadn’t done well for himself. The lovely old home with its hand-carved moldings, polished oak floors and beveled-glass windows was a Find. Kellie still didn’t understand how a police officer, even if he did have a degree in criminology and wore a suit and not a uniform, could afford to live the way he did. She wasn’t complaining. Connor was extremely generous and Kellie benefited from his circumstances as if they were her own.

  Life was so perfect it frightened her. Kellie’s superstitious tendencies, although buried deeply, were definitely Irish. The sense that all was progressing too well to continue had been highly developed in her Catholic childhood. It was only natural for her to assume in the deepest recesses of her consciousness that someday soon the ax would fall. The way of the Shiia the Irish call
ed it. Beatrice’s Law was the English translation.

  The final Bambi scene was winding down. It was time for dinner. The ritual was always the same when Kellie was in charge. Danny was allowed his favorite, bangers and chips, foods Connor religiously avoided. She stood and held out her hand. “Come on, love. It’s time for tea.”

  Obediently, the little boy took her hand, slid off the couch and trotted beside her down the hall with its plush, jewel-bright runner into the kitchen. Kellie groaned as she lifted Danny to the counter to watch her cook. “You’re a very big boy. Soon you’ll be too heavy for me.”

  The child nodded and reached for a handful of popcorn from the half-empty bowl. Kellie tickled his tummy, loving his distinctive chuckle. “Watch,” she said, grabbing a kernel and throwing it into the air. She opened her mouth and caught it between her teeth. Danny laughed. She did it again.

  “I want to do it, too,” he said.

  “You shall.” She picked out another kernel and held it over his head. “Open your mouth,” she said, “and tilt your head back like this.”

  Danny imitated her. She dropped it neatly into his mouth. He clapped his hands and laughed. “Again,” he said.

  “Just once and then dinner.” Once more she held the kernel barely out of reach and dropped it into her nephew’s mouth. He chewed, swallowed and smiled sunnily. A wave of tenderness washed over her. This small, lovable tyrant, adorable and slightly spoiled, was as dear to her as if he were her own child.

  If anything marred the satisfaction of Kellie’s existence, it was her inability to settle down with a family of her own. She knew she was reasonably attractive, not a great beauty, but pretty enough in a wholesome sort of way, and she cleaned up well. Opportunities came her way fairly frequently, but she couldn’t seem to connect with anyone. Her roots betrayed her. From a small isolated Nationalist enclave in Belfast, she wasn’t comfortable with the cosmopolitan attitude toward sex. Even discussing it was embarrassing to her. Not that she had ruled it out completely; it was just that she thought it should be done with someone who meant more than a brief interlude. All good Catholic girls grew up believing that sex was sinful, that the act was only for benefit of procreation and that boys were beasts with disgusting appetites. By the time they learned differently they were safely married and well on the way to agreeing. Kellie had outgrown the attitudes of her childhood, but she wasn’t ready for the casual promiscuity all around her.

  Her sole sexual experience had left her raw. She’d met and fallen in love with an American attached to the embassy. Gregory Charles Hampton Bennett was a Bennett of Beacon Hill, a blue blood whose ancestors had arrived on that ship everyone who was anyone came over on. Not that his pedigree had meant anything to Kellie. She was weak in American history. After all, America had only been a sovereign nation for a bit over two centuries. It was a country settled by Englishmen and her own country, Ireland, had been at war with England for eight hundred years. Still, Greg was a darling man who’d adored her, temporarily. It was the temporary part that had bothered her. He hadn’t made that quite clear and by the time he did, there was nothing to do but end it and wish him well when he returned to America.

  Connor had helped her through it; Connor, her twin, who thought she was perfect in every way. He’d reminded Kellie that she had quite enough of her own to bring to the table, that she was something unusual in her own right, that she had a high-boned, clear-eyed, creamy-skinned Irish loveliness, despite her hated riotous curls that resisted gel, mousse, blow dryers and flat irons, and that everything was better and brighter when she was around. “Not to worry,” he assured her. “Thirty-five isn’t too old. You’ll find someone much better in the end.” Kellie’s innate sense of honesty refused to accept his observations completely. He was her brother after all. Still, it was uplifting having a brother like Connor. Especially considering her other five disappointing siblings. She loved them desperately, of course. Family loyalty was as inbred in the Delaneys as were their large distinctive gray eyes, their love of words and music and the direct uncompromising way they had of expressing their opinions.

  Kellie shook off her reverie, refusing to dwell in even the barest hint of darkness. Connor was always telling her she was too serious, to stop thinking of what might be and try to focus on the pleasure of the present. She concentrated on following his advice. She’d even come to the conclusion that romantic love was highly overrated. She’d thought seriously about the gamut of emotions she’d run when she was with Greg and decided that love could be described in stages.

  In the beginning it is all consuming. The very idea of one’s beloved not returning love with the same intensity is so painful it becomes unbearable. Edges are sharply defined and every word, every nuance and gesture is analyzed with the clarity and definition of a slide under a microscope. Later, when the gloss and newness fade, when one becomes more secure in the relationship and steps back with a bit of detachment, when a touch of realistic skepticism is attached to the face of love, one relaxes a bit, able to go about the business of living without the ever present consciousness of wondering what one’s lover thinks or how he feels. In short, lovers begin to take each other for granted which is, she thought, a very good thing because such an intense level of emotion could never be permanently maintained with any degree of sanity.

  Danny pointed out the window. “Da’s home.”

  Sure enough, Kellie heard her brother’s car in the carport. She lifted her nephew to the floor and together they walked outside.

  “Hello, lad,” said Connor, swinging his son into the air. “How’s my favorite son?”

  “I’m eating chips and bangers,” confided Danny. “Aunt Kellie made some for you, too.”

  Connor laughed and tousled his son’s curly head before setting him on his feet “Did she now? Bangers and chips, my favorite.” He leaned close to Kellie’s ear. “Is there anything else edible in the house?”

  “I made some pasta and a salad. It’s in the refrigerator.” She tucked her hand in his arm. “Are you set for tomorrow?”

  “Nearly. Are you sure you won’t come with us?”

  Kellie shook her head. “I’m going home for the rest of my holiday. Mam called me and you know how she rarely does that. She’s having a hard time of it, Connor.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said bitterly. “When hasn’t she? Living with an unemployed drunk takes its toll.”

  “Stop it He wasn’t always that way.”

  “Just our whole lives.”

  Kellie shook his arm in protest. “Do you remember how he used to play the pipes? Wasn’t he wonderful?”

  “Aye, if only one could make a living as an average musician.”

  “What has he done to make you so unforgiving? I’m not and I lived the same life you did.”

  “Where shall I begin? With his not coming to my wedding, or to Lizzie’s funeral?”

  Her voice softened. Connor was rarely bitter. “Is that why you do what you do? Work here in England for the British authorities because of what Da was?” “

  Don’t go psychoanalyzing me, Kellie.”

  “I’m simply asking you a question. You’ve chosen an odd profession for an Irish Catholic from Belfast.”

  He kissed her cheek. “I’m here because it’s a lovely town and it’s not Belfast. Say hello to Mam for me and tell her she’s always welcome here.”

  The following morning Connor Delaney strapped his son into the child’s restraint in the back of the car and took his place in the driver’s seat. “We’re on our way, lad,” he said cheerily and pulled out onto the tree-lined street. He turned left, negotiated the roundabout onto the Coast Road and settled into the slow lane for a leisurely drive. Danny’s head was already nodding. He would nap most of the way. Connor turned on the radio. Classical music filled the cab. It wasn’t his normal preference but he left it there anyway. Today it suited his mood. The car was comfortable, tuned and packed for his vacation.

  He stopped for petrol in a small town near the Welsh border. For the remainder of the journey the roads would be winding and narrow. Danny munched on crackers. Connor began singing the first verse of “Old MacDonald Had a Farm.” Somewhere in the middle of the third verse, Danny joined in.