by Nora Roberts
the tub. “That’s the core of the problem. I’m used to following directions, so everyone’s startled that I’ve taken a detour.”
She set the book aside, idly lifted a leg out of the water, skimmed a fingertip up her calf.
His mind moaned.
“No one’s more surprised than I am that I like detours. Adventures,” she added, and grinned over at him. “This is really my first adventure.” She eased up again, bubbles clinging to her breasts. She scooped up a handful and idly rubbed them up and down her arm.
She only laughed when he ran his tongue slowly from her elbow to her shoulder. “All in all, it’s been a hell of an adventure so far.”
She lingered in the tub for a half hour, innocently delighting him. The scent of her as she toweled off made him yearn. He found her no less alluring when she slipped into the flannel pajamas.
When she crouched to build up the bedroom fire, he nipped and nuzzled, making her giggle. The next thing she knew she was wrestling playfully with a wolf on the hearth rug. His breath tickled her throat. She rubbed his belly and made him rumble with pleasure. His tongue was warm and wet on her cheek. Breathlessly happy, she knelt to throw her arms around his neck, to hug fiercely.
“Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. I’m so glad I found you.” She pressed her cheek hard against his, locked her fingers in that silky fur. “Or did you find me?” she murmured. “It doesn’t matter. It’s so good to have a friend who doesn’t expect anything but friendship.”
She curled up with him to watch the fire, smiling at the pictures she found in the flames. “I’ve always liked doing this. When I was a little girl I was sure I saw things in the fire. Magic things,” she murmured, and settled her head on his neck. “Beautiful things. Castles and clouds and cliffs.” Her voice slurred as her eyes grew heavy. “Handsome princes and enchanted hills. I used to think I could go there, through the smoke and into the magic.” She sighed, drifted. “Now there are only shapes and light.”
And slept.
When she slept, he let himself be Liam, stroking her hair while he watched the fire she’d built. There was a way through the smoke and into the magic, he thought. What would she think if he showed her? If he took her there?
“But you’d have to come back to the other, Rowan. There’s no way for me to keep you. I don’t want to keep you,” he corrected, firmly. “But God, I want to have you.”
In sleep she sighed, shifted. Her arm came around him. He closed his eyes. “You’d best hurry,” he told her. “Hurry and find out what you want and where you intend to go. Sooner or later I’ll send for you.”
He rose, lifting her gently to carry her to bed. “If you come to me,” he whispered as he lowered her to the bed, spread the cover over her. “If you come to me, Rowan Murray, I’ll show you magic.” Lightly he touched his lips to hers. “Dream what you will tonight, and dream alone.”
He kissed her again, for himself this time. He left her as a man. And prowled the night mists as a wolf.
* * *
She spent the next week in the grip of tremendous energy, compelled to fill every minute of every day with something new. She explored the woods, haunted the cliffs and pleased herself by sketching whatever appealed to the eye.
As the weather gradually warmed, the bulbs she’d spotted began to bud. The night still carried a chill, but spring was ready to reign. Delighted, she left the windows open to welcome it in.
For that week she saw no one but the wolf. It was rare for him not to spend at least an hour with her. Walking with her on her hikes through the woods, waiting patiently while she examined the beginnings of a wildflower or a circle of toadstools or stopped to sketch the trees.
Her weekly call home made her heart ache, but she told herself she felt strong. Dutifully she wrote a long letter to Alan, but said nothing about coming back.
Each morning she woke content. Each night she slipped into bed satisfied. Her only frustration was that she’d yet to discover what she needed to do. Unless, she sometimes thought, what she needed was simply to live alone with her books, her drawings and the wolf.
She hoped there was more.
* * *
Liam did not wake every morning content. Nor did he go to bed every night satisfied. He blamed her for it, though he knew it was unfair.
Still, if she’d been less innocent, he would have taken what she’d once offered him. The physical need would have been met. And he assured himself this emotional pull would fade.
He refused to accept whatever fate had in store for him, for them, until he was completely in control of his own mind and body.
He stood facing the sea on a clear afternoon when the wind was warm and the air full of rioting spring. He’d come out to clear his head. His work wouldn’t quite gel. And though he claimed continually that it was no more than a diversion, an amusement, he took a great deal of pride in the stories he created.
Absently he fingered the small crystal of fluorite he’d slipped into his pocket. It should have calmed him, helped to steady his mind. Instead his mind was as restless as the sea he studied.
He could feel the impatience in the air, mostly his own. But he knew the sense of waiting was from others. Whatever destination he was meant to reach, the steps to it were his own. Those who waited asked when he would take them.
“When I’m damned ready,” he muttered. “My life remains mine. There’s always a choice. Even with responsibility, even with fate, there is a choice. Liam, son of Finn, will make his own.”
He wasn’t surprised to see the white gull soar overhead. Her wing caught the sunlight, tipped gracefully as she flew down. And her eyes glinted, gold as his own, when she perched on a rock.
“Blessed be, Mother.”
With only a bit more flourish than necessary, Arianna swirled from bird to woman. She smiled, opened her arms. “Blessed be, my love.”
He went to her, enfolded her, pressed his face into her hair. “I’ve missed you. Oh, you smell of home.”
“Where you, too, are missed.” She eased back, but framed his face in her hands. “You look tired. You aren’t sleeping well.”
Now his smile was rueful. “No, not well. Do you expect me to?”
“No.” And she laughed, kissed both his cheeks before turning to look out to sea. “This place you’ve chosen to spend some time is beautiful. You’ve always chosen well, Liam, and you will always have a choice.” She slanted a look up at him. “The woman is lovely, and pure of heart.”
“Did you send her to me?”
“The one day? Yes, or, I showed her the way.” Arianna shrugged and walked back to sit on the rock. “But did I send her here? No. There are powers beyond mine and yours that set events in order. You know that.” She crossed her legs, and the long white dress she wore whispered. “You find her attractive.”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“She’s not the usual type you’re drawn to, at least to dally with.”
He set his teeth. “A grown man doesn’t care to have his mother discuss his sex life.”
“Oh.” She waved a hand dismissively and set her rings flashing. “Sex, when tempered with respect and affection, is healthy. I want my only child to be healthy, don’t I? You won’t dally with her because you worry it will involve more than sex, more than affection.”
“And what then?” Anger simmered in his voice. “Do I take her, engage her heart only to hurt her? ‘An it harm none.’ Does that apply only to magic?”
“No.” She spoke gently, held out a hand to him. “It should apply to life. Why assume you’ll harm her, Liam?”
“I’m bound to.”
“No more than any man hurts any woman when their hearts bump together. You would take the same risks with her.” She angled her head as she studied his face. “Do you think your father and I have loved over thirty years without a scratch or bruise?”
“She’s not like us.” He squeezed the hand he held, then released it. “If I take the steps, if I let us both fee
l more than we do now, I’d have to let her go or turn my back on my obligations. Obligations you know I came here to sort out.” Furious with himself, he turned back to the sea. “I haven’t even done that. I know my father wants me to take his place.”
“Well, not quite yet,” Arianna said with a laugh. “But yes, when the time is right, it’s hoped you’ll stand as head of the family, as Liam of Donovan, to guide.”
“It’s a power I can pass to another. That’s my right.”
“Aye, Liam.” Concerned now, she slid from the rock to go to him. “It’s your right to step aside, to let another wear the amulet. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know.” Frustration rang in his voice. “I’m not my father. I don’t have his … way with others. His judgment. His patience or his compassion.”
“No. You have your own.” She laid a hand on his arm. “If you weren’t fit for the responsibility, you would not be given it.”
“I’ve thought of that, tried to come to accept it. And I know that if I commit to a woman not of elfin blood, I abdicate the right to take those responsibilities. If I let myself love her, I turn my back on my obligations to my family.”
Arianna’s eyes sharpened as she studied his face. “Would you?”
“If I let myself love her, I’d turn my back on anything, on everything but her.”
She closed her eyes then, felt the tears welling in them. “Oh, it’s proud I am to hear it, Liam.” Eyes drenched, she laid a hand on his heart. “There is no stronger magic, no truer power than love. This above all I want you to learn, to know, to feel.”
Her hand closed into a fist so quickly, her eyes flashed with annoyance so abruptly, he could only gape when she rapped his chest. “And for the love of Finn, why haven’t you looked? Your powers are your gifts, your birthright, and more acute than any I know but your father’s. What have you been doing?” she demanded, throwing up her hands and whirling with a spin of white silk. “Prowling the woods, calling to the moon, spinning your games. And brooding,” she added, jabbing a finger at him as she turned back. “Oh, a champion brooder you ever were, and that’s the truth of it. You’ll torture yourself with the wanting of her, go keep her company during a storm—”
“Which I know bloody well Da brewed.”
“That’s beside the point,” she snapped, and skewered him with the sharp, daunting look he remembered from childhood. “If you don’t spend time with the girl, you won’t think with anything but your glands, will you? The sex won’t answer it all, you horse’s ass. It’s just like a man to think it will.”
“Well, damn it, I am a man.”
“What you are is a pinhead, and don’t you raise your voice to me, Liam Donovan.”
He threw up his hands as well, added a short, pithy curse in Gaelic. “I’m not twelve any longer.”
“I don’t care if you’re a hundred and twelve—you’ll show your mother proper respect.”
He smoldered, seethed and sucked it in. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Aye.” She nodded once. “That’ll do. Now stop tormenting yourself with what may be, and look at what is. And if your lofty principles won’t let you look deep enough, ask her about her mother’s family.”
Arianna let out a huff of breath, smoothed down her hair. “And kiss me good-bye like a good lad. She’ll be here any second.”
Because he was still scowling, she kissed him instead, then grinned sunnily. “There are times you look so like your Da. Now, don’t look so fierce; you’ll frighten the girl. Blessed be, Liam,” she added; then, with a shiver of the light, she spread white wings and soared into the sky.
Chapter 5
He hadn’t sensed her, and that irritated him. His temper had been up, blocking his instincts. Now, even as he turned, he caught that scent—female, innocence with a light whiff of jasmine.
He watched her come out of the trees, though she didn’t see him—not at first. The sun was behind him, and she looked the other way as she started up the rough path to the apex of the cliffs.
She had her hair tied back, he noted, in a careless tail of gleaming brown the wind caught and whipped. She carried a trim leather bag with its strap crosswise over her body. Her gray slacks showed some wear and her shirt was the color of daffodils.
Her mouth was unpainted, her nails were short, her boots—so obviously new—showed a long, fresh scar across the left toe. The sight of her, muttering to herself as she climbed, both relaxed and annoyed him.
Then both sensations turned to pure amusement as she spotted him, jolted and scowled before she could school her expression to disinterest.
“Good morning to you, Rowan.”
She nodded, then clasped both hands on the strap of her bag as if she didn’t know what else to do with them. Her eyes were cool, in direct contrast to those nervous hands, and quite deliberately skimmed past him.
“Hello. I’d have gone another way if I’d known you were here. I imagine you want to be alone.”
“Not particularly.”
Her gaze veered back to his, then away again. “Well, I do,” she said very definitely, and began to make her way along the rocks, away from him.
“Hold a grudge, do you, Rowan Murray?”
Stiffening with pride, she kept walking. “Apparently.”
“You won’t be able to for long, you know. It’s not natural for you.”
She jerked a shoulder, knowing the gesture was bad-tempered and childish. She’d come to sketch the sea, the little boats that bobbed on it, the birds that soared and called above. And damn it, she’d wanted to look at the eggs in the nest to see if they’d hatched.
She hadn’t wanted to see him, to be reminded of what had happened between them, what it had stirred inside her. But neither was she going to be chased away like a mouse by a cat. Setting her teeth, she sat on a ledge of rock, opened her bag. With precise movements she pulled out her bottle of water, put it beside her, then her sketchbook, then a pencil.
Ordering herself to focus, she looked out at the water, gave herself time to scan and absorb. She began to sketch, telling herself she would not look over at him. Oh, he was still there, she was sure of it. Why else would every muscle in her body be on alert? Why would her heart still be tripping in her chest?
But she would not look.
Of course she looked. And he was still there, a few paces away, his hands tucked casually in his pockets, his face turned toward the water. It was just bad luck, she supposed, that he was so attractive, that he could stand there with the wind in all that glorious hair, his profile sharp and clean, and remind her of Heathcliff or Byron or some other poetic hero.
A knight before battle, a prince surveying his realm.
Oh, yes, he could be any and all of them—as romantic in jeans and a sweatshirt as any warrior glinting in polished armor.
“I don’t mean to do battle with you, Rowan.”
She thought she heard him say it, but that was nonsense. He was too far away for those soft words to carry. She’d just imagined that’s what he would say in response if she’d spoken her thoughts aloud. So she sniffed, glanced back down at her book and, to her disgust, noted that she’d begun to sketch him without realizing it.
With an irritated flick, she turned to a blank page.
“There’s no point in being angry with me—or yourself.”
This time she knew he’d spoken, and looked up to see that he’d strolled over to her. She had to squint, to shade her eyes with the flat of her hand as the sun streamed behind him and shimmered its light like a nimbus around his head and shoulders.
“There’s no point in discussing it.”
She huffed out a breath as he sat companionably beside her. When he lapsed into silence, appeared to be settling in for a nice long visit, she tapped her pencil on her pad.
“It’s a long coast. Would you mind plopping down on another part of it?”
“I like it here.” When she hissed and started to rise, he simply tugged her back down. “Don’
t be foolish.”
“Don’t tell me I’m foolish. I’m really, really tired of being told I’m foolish.” She jerked her arm free. “And you don’t even know me.”
He shifted so they were face-to-face. “That could be part of it. What are you drawing there in your book?”
“Nothing apparently.” Miffed, she stuffed the book back into her bag. Once again she started to rise. Once again he tugged her easily back.
“All right,” she snapped. “We’ll discuss it. I admit I stumbled my way through the woods because I wanted to see you. I was attracted—I’m sure you’re used to women being attracted to you. I did want to thank you for your help, but that was only part of it. I intruded, no question, but you were the one who kissed me.”
“I did indeed,” he murmured. He wanted to do so again, right now, when her mouth was in a stubborn pout and there was both distress and temper in her eyes.
“And I overreacted to it.” The memory of that still made her blood heat. “You had a perfect right to tell me to go, but you didn’t have the right to be so unkind about it. No one has the right to be unkind. Now, obviously, you didn’t have the same … response I did and you want to keep your distance.”
She pushed at the hair that was coming loose from her ponytail to fly in her face. “So why are you here?”
“Let’s take this in order,” he decided. “Yes, I’m used to women being attracted to me. As I’ve a fondness for women, I appreciate that.” A smile tugged at his lips as she made a quiet sound of disgust. “You’d think more of me if I lied about that, but I find false modesty inane and deceitful. And though I most often prefer to be alone, your visit wasn’t intrusive. I kissed you because I wanted to, because you have a pretty mouth.”
He watched it register surprise before it thinned and she angled her face away. No one had told her that before, he realized, and shook his head over the idiocy of the male gender.
“Because you have eyes that remind me of the elves that dance in the hills of my country. Hair like oak that’s aged and polished to a gleam. And skin so soft it seems my hand should pass through it as it would with water.”
“Don’t do that.” Her voice shook as she lifted her arms, wrapped them tight to hug her elbows. “Don’t. It’s not fair.”
Perhaps it wasn’t, to use words on a woman who so obviously wasn’t used to hearing them. But he shrugged. “It’s just truth. And my response to you was more … acute than I’d bargained for. So I was unkind. I apologize for that, Rowan, but only for that.”
She was over her head with him, and wished the terror of that wasn’t quite so enjoyable. “You’re sorry for being unkind, or for having a response to me?”
Clever woman, he mused, and gave her the simple truth. “For both, if it comes to it. I said I wasn’t ready for you, Rowan. I meant it.”
It was hearing simple truth that softened her heart—and made it tremble just a little. She didn’t speak for a moment, but stared down at the fingers she’d locked together in her lap while waves crashed below and gulls soared overhead.
“Maybe I understand that, a little. I’m at an odd place in my life,” she said slowly. “A kind of crossroads, I suppose. I think people are most vulnerable when they come to the end of something and have to decide which beginning they’re going to take. I don’t know you, Liam.” She made herself shift back to face him again. “And I don’t know what to say to you, or what to do.”
Was there a man alive who could resist that kind of unstudied honesty? he wondered. “Offer me tea.”
“What?”
He smiled, took her hand. “Offer me tea. Rain’s coming and we should go in.”
“Rain? But the sun’s—” Even as she said it, the light changed. Dark clouds slipped through the sky without a sound and the first drops, soft as a wish, fell.
His father wasn’t the only one who could use the weather for his own purposes.
“Oh, it was supposed to be clear all day.” She stuffed the bottle of water back into her bag, then let out a quick gasp when he pulled her to her feet with casual, effortless strength that left her limbs oddly weak.
“It’s just a shower, and a warm one at that.” He began to guide her through the rocks, down the path. “Soft weather, we call it at home. Do you mind the rain?”
“No, I like it. It always makes me dreamy.” She lifted her face, let a few drops kiss it. “The sun’s still shining.”
“You’ll have a rainbow,” he promised, and tugged her into the sheltering trees, where the air was warm and wet and shadows lay in deep green pools. “Will I have tea?”
She slanted him a look, and a smile. “I suppose.”
“There, I told you.” He gave her hand a little squeeze. “You don’t know how to hold a grudge.”
“I just need practice,” she said, and made him laugh.