Read Online The Delaney Woman by Jeanette Baker - Free Book Online Page A

everyone knew each other. People were too polite to stare or comment, but she felt their eyes on her back, speculative, wondering. Kellie felt as if she were back in the Falls only this time she was a stranger.
    It was important that she do this, Kellie told herself. It was all for Connor and Danny and, she’d come to realize, herself.
    Tom interrupted her thoughts. “You might take a look at Geary’s Hardware. It’s our claim to fame, a first-rate store with everything one could possibly need for home improvement.”
    â€œYour rooms could use some bookshelves,” replied Kellie, “nothing complicated.”
    â€œWhy do I need shelves?”
    â€œPeople like a homey room and shelves filled with books.”
    He looked thoughtful. “I’d never thought of it.”
    â€œThink of it now. Don’t you like books?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œYour guests will, too. Small things, like books and a basket of treats with some biscuits and bottled water, a teapot, things like that make a room memorable.”
    â€œYou may be right.” He waved his arm. “What do you think?”
    â€œOf what?”
    â€œThe town.”
    Kellie glanced briefly around her. Curbs on one side of the road were painted green, white and orange, Catholic colors. The Irish tricolor hung from upstairs windows. Tea shops were filled with men smoking down their breakfasts and reading the daily news. Mothers with prams walked uniformed children to school. There were more pubs than any other business establishment and most had customers at eight-thirty in the morning.
    â€œIt reminds me of home.”
    Heather tugged on her father’s arm. “Where are we going? This is the turn.”
    Tom stopped and looked at the shops on the familiar corner. “I’m in a daze,” he said to his daughter. “Lead the way.”
    Heather skipped ahead waving her lunch box and her pack. Knobby knees, scabbed from a tumble, peeped from beneath her plaid skirt. The red jacket matched her hair ribbon and the glow in her cheeks.
    Kellie’s breath caught. “She’s a beautiful child.”
    â€œAye.” Tom’s words formed a cloud in the cold air. “I’ll give you no argument with that one.” He glanced at the woman beside him. “She looks like her mother.”
    â€œShe’s her own person, unspoiled and enthusiastic and incredibly bright. You’ve done a wonderful job with her.”
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œWe’re very formal with each other, aren’t we?” she said after a minute.
    â€œDid you expect something else?”
    â€œNot really.” Her hands curled in her pockets. Somehow, she had to break through. “It was just an observation.”
    Heather was nearly a block ahead of them now.
    â€œTell me what it was like growing up in Belfast,” he said.
    It was the question she knew would come, the one everyone asked. “Very much like growing up anywhere else, I suspect. If a child isn’t aware of anything different, it isn’t strange. I had parents and brothers and sisters. We had our difficulties like anyone else. I left when I earned my degree.” She looked at him. “What about you? How did you happen to stay in Banburren all of your life?”
    â€œI didn’t.” His hands were in his pockets, his head bowed against the wind. “There was a time when I fancied myself the martyred revolutionary. That mistake earned me a stint in Long Kesh.”
    He was a felon, an ex-convict . Her stomach burned and she bit her tongue to hold back the obvious question. “How dreadful,” she managed to say in a small, tight voice.
    â€œIt wasn’t as bad as you might think. I was with men I knew, all political prisoners, all of us in for the same reason. We were treated fairly.”
    She hadn’t thought he would tell her such a thing, so openly, without embarrassment. Again her doubts assailed