Dylan was deep in thought and hadn’t noticed the thickening fog that had set in until he was just a block from home. As he glanced up to get his bearings he realized the house was barely visible; only the yellow bulbs on the front porch glowed eerily through the mist to beckon him home.
As the fog rolled in, it cloaked the remaining houses so he felt as if he was standing in the middle of nowhere, as though he’d been transported to a remote region.
He felt an odd lump forming in the pit of his stomach as he forced his legs to continue moving. But as he neared the house, his strides became slower and narrower and his feet heavier, until just the act of moving up the steps onto the front porch were exhausting.
He hesitated at the front door, his hand hovering over the knob, before he backed away and sat in the porch swing.
It reminded him of Ireland, of the mists that rolled in during the wee hours of the morning, settling into the valleys and obscuring all in its path. He thought of the times when he stood on the small stoop of a porch, drinking his coffee or tea and watching the mists rise above the pond at the edge of the lawn. The mists of Ireland were something alive, something that could soothe a man’s soul or destroy it, something that cloaked a man when he wanted to be hidden or obscured that which he needed to see.
It reminded him of the precipitation that always seemed to hover over the land. One was always looking at the sky commenting on the rains that were coming or the rains that had just left, gauging the difficulty of the day’s activities by which way the wind was blowing the mist. It was the kind of precipitation that could soak into the bones in the coldest hours and sweeten the skin on the warmest of days.
And he missed it. He missed the feel of it on his brow, the ghostly way it surrounded and hugged him. He missed the way it could soften her features. No, he thought, involuntarily shaking his head as he rose. He wouldn’t think of her. Not now. Not ever.
He’d left those memories behind forever when he left Ireland, and he wouldn’t be going back.
Of course, Dylan does return to Ireland in the next book in the series, Dylan's Song, due to be released in the spring of 2013. And in that book, Vicki discovers the real reason why he left all he had ever known to come to America - and what secrets he thought he'd left behind.
