*
Sean snorted, though he had to respect her spirit. There was no way he was taking money for telling Kieran’s croie that her car was a piece of shit and confiscating the keys to the damn menace. He was going to have a word with his younger brother, though, for letting Faith and her son drive around in the screaming metal death trap in the first place. Oh, he’d seen where some minor repairs had been made – Kieran’s doing, no doubt – but the truth was, the car was finished.
Had it been anyone else, Sean would have laughed. He could hardly believe the thing even made it down the mountain. If she had been a man, Sean would have ripped him a new one for being stupid enough to allow that deathtrap on the road.
He turned and went back into the bays, reasoning that she couldn’t pay him if he wasn’t there to take it. He’d call Kieran - he knew her best – and let him handle it.
*
Faith stared at his back as he walked away from her, stunned. At least until the anger began to overshadow everything else. She stomped right into Sean’s office and looked at the posted rate charges. She figured he’d spent a good hour on the car. By emptying her wallet, her coat pockets, and every last purse compartment she scraped together enough for one hour of labor and left it on his desk, then turned and walked out.
No wonder pride was considered a deadly sin, she thought sometime later as she walked the five miles in the cold October rain back to her cottage. Hers just might kill her.
“Where the hell have you been?!” Matt shouted when Faith finally walked through the door.
“Can we talk about this a little later?” she said, struggling to speak through her chattering teeth. “I’d really like to get into something dry first.” She ignored the urge to chastise him for his disrespect and language choice when she saw the stark fear in his eyes.
It took him a minute to realize that she was soaking wet and shivering. “Jesus, Mom,” he said, following behind her as she headed straight for the stairs. “What happened? Are you alright?”
“Car trouble. And I’m fine. Just a little cold and wet at the moment.” If she’d been thinking clearly, she might have realized that fall rain in Pennsylvania was a lot colder than fall rain in Georgia before she’d decided to walk home.
“Why didn’t you call?”
In answer, Faith reached her hand into her pocket (which wasn’t easy because her fingers were numb) and extracted a thoroughly soaked cell phone, thrusting it into Matt’s hands. Then she left him standing there as she closed the door to the bathroom and cranked up the hot water.
The cold had seeped so far into her bones that she didn’t think she’d ever feel warm again, but a full tank of hot water later, she was feeling much better. Tugging on thick sweats, a t-shirt, a hoodie, and two pairs of Matt’s sweat socks, she made her way back downstairs for some hot soup.
Faith found a steaming bowl waiting for her, as well as a cup of tea. Matt was just sliding his cell phone back into his pocket and spooning out some soup for himself. Judging by the way he attacked the rolls she’d made the night before, he hadn’t eaten either.
She thanked him for getting supper on the table and sat down, physically and mentally exhausted. “I’m sorry you were worried,” she said.
“What happened, Mom?”
Faith sighed. She’d never lied to Matt and she wasn’t about to start now. “I took the car into town hoping to get it tweaked enough to make the trip to Georgia,” she said with a hesitant smile when Matt’s head jerked up. “But it turns out the old gal’s on her last legs, and the mechanic said it wasn’t safe to drive anymore.”
“Sean said that?”
Of course Matt would know Sean Callaghan. He knew all of the brothers. She nodded.
“So we don’t have a car.”
“No. I’m sorry, Matt.” She looked at the soup, her appetite suddenly gone.
Matt was quiet for a long time. “We’ve been without a car before,” he finally said. “But how will you get to work?”
She shrugged, having giving that a lot of thought on the long walk home. The Goddess was cut into the side of a mountain, and unless she suddenly developed leg muscles like the Callaghan men, she wouldn’t be riding a bike there.
“I’ll have to bum a ride from someone until I figure something out.” It would kill her, but she’d find some way to pay them back. “But Matt, this means I won’t be able to pick you up in town anymore.”
“Kieran can bring me home.”
“Matt, you can’t take advantage of him like that,” she said quietly.