I hadn’t expected being in such close proximity to canines to be so disorienting.

Certainly, I’d been around dogs before. But here I was surrounded on all sides. My desire to play with and pet them all was overwhelming. As was the sadness they didn’t have homes. They lived in a shelter, a temporary place where they didn’t belong. In a cage.

I knew what that was like.

“Meet Hampton.” Lucy placed her hand on my shoulder, grinned down at me, and motioned over to a huge black dog pacing the length of a large pen at the end of the room. “He’s a newfie and he needs his coat brushed.”

“Putting me to work right away?” I straightened, narrowing my eyes at her with mock distrust. “No hello kiss?”

She shook her head and turned my shoulders, pushing me toward Hampton’s pen. “You don’t need lessons in kissing, you do that just fine. And you said you wanted to help.”

I sighed mournfully and opened the chain-link door to the newfie’s cage, closing it behind me. “Slave-driver.”

Lucy laughed lightly. “Call me what you will, but we need to wash all these dogs before noon. Annie is in town and I have to work this afternoon.”

“Fine.” I held my hand out to Hampton the newfie and allowed him to sniff before approaching.

“He’s already mostly dry.” She handed a brush through the cage. Presumably, she expected me to use it on the great brute in front of me, tail wagging, and tongue lolling at the side of his mouth.

Apparently, Hampton liked how I smelled and we were best of friends. I grinned at him, careful not to show my teeth.

“What did you do last night?” Lucy asked, walking to one of the other cages and retrieving a short black and white terrier.

“I went to mass at St. Patrick’s.” Unable to stop myself, I patted his head and knelt at Hampton’s side, brushing the thick hair at his neck, just behind his ears. His tail wagged faster.

Lucy gave me a small, quizzical smile over her shoulder. “Are you practicing?”

By practicing, she meant, Are you a practicing Catholic?

“No. I actually haven’t been to church in years. Not since I’d started playing rugby at secondary school.”

“You didn’t go with your parents? My mam always made us go every Sunday and, since we went to private school, we went every morning during the week. Those nuns used to scare the crap out of me.”

I cleared my throat before responding, keeping my eyes fastened to the panting dog. “No. I didn’t really know my parents. My mother gave me to her brother when I was very young.”

In my peripheral vision I saw Lucy cock her head to the side, her eyebrows pulling low. “What do you mean? She gave you to your uncle?”

“Just that. My mother . . . didn’t make good choices.” A polite way of saying she’d left me abandoned at her flat for days at a time. “My uncle Peter and his wife, my aunt Clara, saw I had athletic potential. So they offered to take me off her hands.”

Though my irresponsible mother had foisted me upon my aunt and uncle, they’d accepted me as their own.

But with a condition.

“As you know, the best families had one or more rugby players in their lineage. Take your own family as an example.” My gaze flickered to hers.

Lucy shook her head, issuing me an odd look. “I don’t consider myself a Fitzpatrick. They want nothing to do with me. If you asked my grandparents, they’d tell you they’ve never heard of either Ronan or me.”

“That’s because they already have the proverbial feather in their cap. Your father was a rugby player, and your great-uncle Brian. I was the first Cassidy to demonstrate any aptitude for it.”

Lucy was staring at me now, her face carefully devoid of expression. She was wise, my Lucy. Because if she’d been looking at me with pity, I wouldn’t have continued. But as it was, her accepting silence spurred my words.

“My aunt and uncle agreed rugby needed to be my priority. So while their family went to mass, I trained with the private coaches they’d hired. I was an opportunity.”

“An opportunity,” she echoed, an edge of irritation in her voice. “You were a kid.”

“Yes, but I was eager for their praise. I trained. All day, every Saturday and Sunday. When I wasn’t in school or sleeping, I trained.”

“What about friends? Mates? Girlfriends? What did you do for fun?”

I shrugged, bobbing to the side just as the great beast I was grooming tried to lick me. “I had no friends, other than my dog, because friendships were distractions. I’ve never had teammates, not really. I was frequently reminded that all the blokes I’d ever played alongside were a means to an end.”

“I need you to train, Sean. I need you to make the team,” my aunt had said, making me believe my success was paramount to her happiness.

In the end, rugby had been my saving grace. I was large, strong, and athletic.

“My aunt has never liked my size,” I continued, unprompted. “But she did like the idea of a professional Union player in the family. When I made the team it elevated her social status.”

The box had been checked.

I’d fulfilled my role.

My usefulness was at an end.

I was no longer needed.

Now merely tolerated.

“That’s appalling, Sean. No one deserves to be used like that, least of all a little boy.”

I gave Lucy an empty smile. “No matter. It’s in the past.”