Night Of The Blackbird Read Online Free PDF Page B

inside, he had believed that happiness for her would mean waiting for him.
    Okay, so he was an ass.
    An ass…yet he had done the right thing. She was a strong character, with a sense of the world, of right and wrong and everything that being an American meant. He hadn’t been able to help it; he was Irish. An Irishman who loved America, but who felt…
    Obligated.
    Was he always going to feel obligated?
    Hell, was he going to survive?
    He thought angrily of how much he didn’t like what was going on, and there seemed to be no help in the knowledge that it wasn’t his fault. He’d never put any of this into motion, but there wasn’t a damn thing he could do.
    Moira was coming home. He’d talked to Katy Kelly on the phone today, and she’d been in heaven, knowing that she would have her whole family home and in one place for the special holiday. She was also a little nervous. “She’s been seeing a man, one her da and I have yet to meet,” Katy had informed him, trying to keep her disapproval out of her voice.
    â€œHe’s probably a great guy,” Dan had told her. “She’s grown up a smart woman, Katy, you know that. You should be proud.”
    â€œHe’s in television, too. Working for her and Josh.” Katy had sighed. “Now Josh…there’s a good man.”
    â€œA fine man.” Danny could say so easily. He liked Moira’s partner. And the fellow was married, was truly a friend and had never had an intimate relationship with Moira.
    â€œWell, this new fellow is Irish.”
    â€œOh? And what’s his name.”
    â€œMichael. Michael McLean.”
    â€œWell, there you go. What more can you ask for?”
    Katy sighed again. “Well, I suppose…for you two to have married, Danny.”
    â€œAh, Katy. We were going different ways. Besides, I wasn’t meant for marriage.”
    â€œI think you were.”
    She had gone on to insist that it wouldn’t matter that Moira and her crew would be there—the back room of the pub was his, as it always was when he came to Boston. And yes, Moira knew that he was coming.
    A strange sense of nostalgia stole over him. This place really was home to him, certainly as much as any other. His early years seemed a very long time ago. Living with his uncle, he had traveled a great deal. Brendan O’Toole, his mother’s brother, who had married a cousin of Katy Kelly, had been a scholar and broker for antique manuscripts. He had given Dan his first love of literature. Of the written word and the power within it. He’d been a storyteller, another talent he had passed on to Dan. His house in Dublin had been home, but they’d been on the go constantly. Dan had seen many foreign countries, and he had spent a great deal of time in America. He did love the States.
    And after any length of time away, he missed this old place.
    It was time for him to be there. He could go on in. But he had said he was arriving in the morning. He would wait. No reason to tell the folks that he had been in Boston a bit before checking in with them.
    Aye, he would wait.
    As he stood there against the building, he saw another man striding down the street. He wore a huge overcoat and a low-brimmed hat. Nothing odd in that. Boston could be frigid this time of year.
    But this man approached the pub oddly; then, as Dan had done himself, he paused, staring at the windows.
    He stood there for a long time. Dan dropped his cigarette to the ground and remained still, watching the watcher.
    The man was peering through the windows, trying to see who was in the pub.
    Apparently he didn’t see the person—or people—he was seeking, because after a long moment, he turned away and started down the street again, back in the direction from which he had come.
    Nothing odd in that. A guy out to find friends at a pub, taking a look for them, realizing they weren’t there, deciding to leave.
    Nothing