Because You're Mine(9)

She slipped into the car. “Well?” Ciara demanded.

“She’s not here,” she said. “She went back to America.”

Ciara dropped the car into drive and pulled away from the side of the road. “America?”

“According to the woman I spoke to, she’s lived there twenty-five years. She must have gone there straightaway.”

Ciara glanced at her. “Shall you be dealing with it okay?”

“I knew long ago she didn’t care anything about me.” Alanna managed a shrug though she wanted to cry. To sit in the dust and howl. She didn’t have any blood relatives left, and with Liam gone, there was no one who really loved her. Oh she had no doubt Ciara and her other band members cared. But someday they might go their separate ways.

Her hand smoothed her tummy. She would soon have her child. The minute she laid her eyes on her baby, she would know him. His imprint was already part of her. But first, she had to get out of Thomas’s long-armed reach.

“We must get home to pack,” she said. “We’ll leave as soon as the funeral is over. Thomas won’t be expecting me to return to America so quickly, and I shall be able to escape.”

“Can you be getting a plane ticket out so soon?” Ciara asked. “Our flight back isn’t scheduled for another week.”

“I hope so.” What would she do if she couldn’t? “I think I’ll call Barry. He might be able to change flights for us.”

Ciara didn’t object. Alanna pulled out her cell phone and dialed their manager’s number.

Barry answered on the first ring. “Alanna?”

“I need your help, Barry.”

His brusque voice changed to a softer one. “Alanna, are you all right? You sound upset.”

How did so few words tell him that? Barry often seemed connected to her in a strange way. “I need to get back to America as soon as possible, Barry, right after Liam’s funeral. And could you find out what I have to do to become an American citizen?”

“Of course, but what is this all about, sugar?”

When had he started calling her by the endearment? The first time it had startled her. Now she liked it. It gave her a sense of belonging. “Liam’s father is going to try to get custody of my baby.”

“You’re pregnant.” Something changed in his voice, a new alertness.

She told him what had happened in the confrontation with the Connollys.

“I’ll get you a flight home right after the funeral. Leave it to me.”

“You’re so good to me, Barry. Thank you.”

“I’d do anything to help you, Alanna. You should know that by now.”

“I knew I could count on you.” She put her phone away after Barry promised to check into the immigration protocol and call her back.

Ciara drove downtown, where the women ate dinner in a local pub. Alanna was only able to pick at her bangers and mash with a side of chips. The grease on the chips turned her stomach, and the spice in the bangers, usually something she loved, made her tummy burn. Ciara didn’t have much to say either, and the women spent an hour in the pub staring morosely at their plates.

Darkness descended while they were eating.

“How’s your throat?” Ciara asked as they walked back to the car. “You’re sounding a little hoarse. Too much talking today.” A yeasty smell of mead rolled out of the bars along the way.

“I’ll rest it tomorrow.”

She needed to follow up with the throat specialist when they got back to the States. What if her voice was already ruined? She had a baby to support. Would the audience respond as well to Ceol if all she could do was play the fiddle?

So many things to worry about.

Most pressing was Thomas’s threat. Much more than a threat. What would she do if he succeeded? She’d have to throw herself on his mercy and move in with them. She shriveled inside at the thought, but she couldn’t allow the Connollys to raise her baby without her influence.

She shuddered at a new thought. “Maybe I should do what Thomas wants,” she said. “If he wins his suit, he’s vindictive enough to deny me any contact with the baby. If I give in now, at least they would prepare an apartment for us. I’d raise my baby myself, even if it’s with their interference.”

Ciara pulled the car into the parking bay and shut it off before she spoke. “I’m not smart enough to be telling you what is the right thing, but think hard about it, Alanna. You’d be giving up any life of your own. Thomas would own you. You’d be making no money of your own, have nothing that belonged just to you. Your career would be over. And Ceol’s.”

Alanna knew she had a responsibility to her mates. She was Ceol’s driving force. The audience roared when she played the fiddle and danced barefoot across the stage. The papers were filled with her image in the towns where they played. Critics compared her voice to Loreena McKennitt’s pure, crystal tones. Now she sounded more like a frog.

“Maybe my career is over anyway,” she said softly.

“Even if your voice is gone, you can play the fiddle like no one ever has,” Ciara said. “The Irish reels that pour from your instrument make the audience want to get up and dance in the aisles. Sometimes they do.”

Liam used to say that God had given her a gift. She didn’t have the right to turn her back on it. But maybe she wouldn’t be doing that if she moved in with Thomas and Sheila. She could train up her child to follow after the music.