Three Fates

felt obliged to offer to carry at least some of them. As they walked, she’d call out a greeting, or answer one.
    She might have looked slight in the oversized sweater, but she strode up the steep hills effortlessly and, during the two-mile hike, kept up a running conversation without any hitches in breath.
    “Since you’re flirting with me, Mr. Burdett—”
    “Jack.”
    “Since you’re flirting with me, Jack, I’m going to assume you’re not a married man.”
    “I’m not married. Since you ask, I’m going to assume that matters to you.”
    “It does, of course. I don’t have flirtations with married men.” She cocked her head as she studied his face. “I don’t generally have them with strange men, either, but I’m making an exception because I liked the look of you.”
    “I liked the look of you, too.”
    “I thought you must, as you stared at me more than the scenery during the tour. I can’t say I minded. How’d you happen by the scar here?” she asked and tapped a finger to the side of her own mouth.
    “A disagreement.”
    “And do you have many?”
    “Scars or disagreements?”
    She laughed up at him. “Disagreements that lead to scars.”
    “Not so far.”
    “What is it you do back in America?”
    “I run my own security company.”
    “Do you? Like, bodyguards?”
    “That’s an aspect. We’re primarily electronic security.”
    “I love electronics.” She narrowed her eyes when he glanced down at her. “Don’t give me that indulgent look. Being a woman doesn’t mean I don’t understand gadgetry. Do you do private homes or places like banks and museums?”
    “Both. All. We’re worldwide.” He didn’t brag about his company as a rule. But he wanted to tell her. The way, he realized with some chagrin, a high-school quarterback wanted to impress the head cheerleader. “And we’re the best. In twelve years, we’ve expanded from one branch in New York to twenty internationally. Give me another five and when people think security, they’ll think Burdett, the way they think Kleenex for tissues.”
    She didn’t consider it bragging, she considered it pride. And she was one to appreciate and respect a person’s pride for his own accomplishments. “It’s a good feeling, to make your own. We’ve done that as well, on a smaller scale, of course. But it suits us.”
    “Your family?” he asked, reminding himself to stick to the point.
    “Yes. We’ve always made our living from the water, but it was fishing only. Then we tinkered our way into a tour boat. One, to start. We lost my da a few years back, and that was hard. But as my mother’s fond of saying, you have to find the right in the wrong. So I started thinking. We had the insurance money. We had strong backs and good brains. Tourism helped turn Ireland around, economically speaking. So what could we do to cash in on that.”
    “Harbor tours.”
    “Exactly. The one boat we ran was doing a reasonable business. But if we used the money and bought two more, well then. I ran the figures and calculated the potential outlay and income and such. So now Sullivan Tours runs the three for touring, and the fishing boat as well. And I’m thinking it’s time to add another package that would include just what we’re doing now. A guided walk along the funeral route and to the cemetery where the Lusitania dead are buried.”
    “You run the business end of it?”
    “Well, Mal, he does the people part—the promotion and glad-handing, as he’s best at it. Gideon keeps the books because we make him, but he prefers overseeing the maintenance and repairs, as he’s the organized sort and can’t stand anything not perfectly shipshape, so to speak. My mother handles the copy and correspondence and keeps us all from killing each other. As for me, I have the ideas.”
    She paused, nodded toward the stones and high grass of the graveyard. “Do you want to wander a bit on your own? Most do. The mass graves are up ahead with those yew trees. There were elms there first, but the yews replaced them. The graves are marked with three limestone rocks and bronze plaques, and there are others—twenty-eight others—individual graves for those who died. Some are empty as they never recovered the bodies.”
    “Are these for them?”
    “These,” she said and took the flowers from him, “are for my own dead.”

Thirteen
     
     
     
     
    T HE cemetery stood on a hill surrounded by green valleys. Gravestones were stained with lichen, and