excerpt

“And what would you have done,” she asked, “if you had gone to my room and found an empty bed?”
Michael paused. He smiled to himself and said, “No matter. I’d have slept in it anyway.”
“Even if I wasn’t there?”
“Why not?”
“You’re teasing, Michael Carrick. Wouldn’t you come to find me?”
“How would I know where to look? I would never have guessed you were up here all alone on this dark hillside.”
“I told Mother Ross. She was listening for you. She knows your tread on the stairs.”
“Weren’t you afraid?”
“Oh no. Mother Ross knows all about us now.”
“No; I mean, weren’t you afraid coming up here alone?”
“What is there to be afraid of, Michael? I was born on this farm. I grew up in these hills. I know them as I know my own body. I know every stone, every boulder, every thorn bush and clump of whin.”
Caitlin’s arm came out from under the rug, and she raked the ashes with the blackened stick. “The whin bushes are getting more flowers,” she said. “In a couple of months the whole hillside will be blazing with them. Did you smell them in the air when you came up the loaney?”
“No. There aren’t enough yet to give out a smell.”
Caitlin tapped the glowing end of the stick on the hearth-stone and watched the fluster of sparks disappear. “They don’t smell like flowers even when there’s a lot of them,” she said. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever noticed that.”
Michael sat with his chin on her shoulder, his cheek pressed against hers. “What do they smell like?”
“They smell like bodies,” Caitlin replied. “They smell like love-making.”
Michael let his hands run down along the line of Caitlin’s arms and then held her round the waist. The rug rumpled up, baring her feet and her knees. He kissed her neck and her ear.
She twisted her body below the rug and kissed him on the lips.
“What were the things you had on your mind tonight?” Michael asked nervously as Caitlin turned her face back to the fire.
Her eyes stared at the yellow flames. “Padraig. You. My father. The future.”
“And the past?”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763203