Read Online It Was Only Ever You by Kate Kerrigan - Free Book Online Page B

respectable, but they drove a horse and cart and did not own a car. They were not the sort of people the Hopkinses would invite to take tea in their drawing room and they would certainly not allow one of them to marry their precious only daughter.
    Rose pushed Patrick back then shook her head quickly from side to side to break the spell. She sat up and straightened her hair then leaned back against the bark of the narrow tree and took out her pad.
    Patrick ran his hand in frustration through his thick hair, puffed out a deep breath and let out a short, angry sigh. He lay on the grass in front of her and Rose felt the gaze of his blue eyes on her as she reached into her pocket for a pencil.
    ‘Stop looking at me,’ she said. ‘I’m the one with the pencil. I’m the one looking at you.’
    ‘You’re so beautiful – I could look at you for ever,’ he said, and meant it.
    ‘Well don’t,’ she said smiling. She felt thrilled when he told her she was beautiful. ‘Look over there at that tree while I draw your profile.’
    Reluctantly, he turned his face, his eyes rolling back towards her.
    ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘I’m serious, I want a drawing of you.’
    In the shadow of the tree, his face relaxed, his deep tan revealing white crow’s feet around his eyes. His nose was strong and his browline high, his eyes glinted shards of blue and grey. In that moment Rose could see and feel that Patrick was not simply a young man, but nature itself. He was the earth beneath them and the sky above. As complex and beautiful as a tree or a flower – as significant as a single blade of grass in an endless, lush, green field. While she sketched the lines of his face she tried to capture not simply a likeness of his good looks, but the essence of who he was. Deep, sensitive, artistic. Other girls saw the handsome, dark-haired bad-boy. None of them could know what lay underneath. None of them could know what she knew about him. None of them could feel his spirit the way she could. Rose wanted to define his spirit in a drawing so that she could show him how much she not only loved him but could see him for who he was. If Patrick saw himself how she saw him, if he knew how well she knew what lay inside him – he would love her for ever. He would never look at another girl. She would be the only one.
    *
    Under the dappled sunlight she looked so perfect Patrick could not believe he had found a sweetheart as delicate and beautiful as this girl was. The wind touching the leaves sent dappled flecks of light across her pale skin and the blonde curls tumbled over her shoulders. Patrick watched Rose as her eyes flicked across and then down at the page. Something about the way she was so absorbed in her work, the confident skill and the way her small hand moved across the paper, brought such a stab of love in his heart that he said what he was thinking out loud.
    ‘I love you.’
    As the words came out of his mouth he wondered if he should be saying them. Although he could feel that he loved her in his heart, it was the first time he had ever said it to her. Indeed, at twenty-five, it was the first time he had said it to any girl – and he had been with plenty. It was always worth thinking carefully before you gave a girl ideas. Otherwise she might think you wanted to marry her.
    Patrick reassured himself that he was only telling the truth. He had meant the words fully when he said them and, oh, but she was beautiful, so beautiful.
    He sat up and reached across, gently taking the pencil from her hands. Then he gave a broad smile, before taking her face in his hands and kissing her softly on the lips.
    ‘I love you too,’ she said.
    Patrick was visibly relieved. It was out now – she loved him back. They loved each other. She was the girl for him – it was settled. They could date now, and all the others would leave him alone. He could take her to the pictures in Ballina and show her off to his friends and family.
    Patrick did not question