by JoAnn Ross
Kate sighed, wishing she had the power to freeze the sun, which was lowering in the sky for just a while, so she could enjoy this stolen time with Alec. But the sea continued to roll in on long breakers; if she didn’t get this over with soon, they could be stranded here when the tide rose too high.
“You’re going to think I’m a terrible person.” She’d come to accept her reasons for doing what she’d done, but still feared that others—Alec most of all—might not understand.
He laced his fingers with hers. Lifted them to his lips. “I want to do this your way, Kate. In your time. But there’s one thing you have to know right off the bat.”
“What’s that?”
“There is nothing you could tell me that could ever make me believe you were anything but warm and loving and wonderful.”
His eyes were dark. Stormy. Unnerving. But when his intense gaze also caused the now familiar little quickening inside her, Kate felt a flood of relief that Cadel hadn’t managed to ruin this for her. Even after what had happened today, she could still want a man. No, she corrected. Still want this man.
“I’m flat-out crazy about you, Kate.”
Surprise had her lifting a hand to her throat. When she felt the tenderness where she knew there’d be bruises, she reminded herself that she’d brought Alec here to get the truth behind them. Not that she knew where they were going, where they could go, so long as Cadel was still legally in her life.
“I’m rather crazy about you, as well,” she said, deciding that had to be the champion Irish understatement of all time. “I might as well say it straight out.” She took a deep breath. Blew it out. “I didn’t love my husband when I married him.”
“I get the feeling no one could.”
“He wasn’t that bad before we were wed. Truly,” she insisted at Alec’s openly skeptical expression. “Oh, he wasn’t one to be quoting poetry or bringing me posies or fancy chocolates. But he never raised his voice to me. Nor struck me.”
“Now there’s a reason to marry a man.”
“It was enough at the time. In truth, it was I who came to the marriage with baggage which he had to overcome.” She closed her eyes briefly, gathering strength. “I was pregnant with another man’s child.”
“Jamie.”
“Aye.”
“Did you love this other guy?”
“Didn’t I think so the night I gave him my virginity?” Foolish, foolish girl, she thought now, with a mingling of affection and sadness for that starry-eyed romantic. “I think I was mostly bedazzled. He was one of you Yanks. Handsome, dashing, rich. At least more so than anyone in these parts. I was flattered when he took me to his bed the night before the Derby.
“He was a trainer,” she said before he could ask. “Not as famous as you, because he was just getting started. But everyone said he showed great promise.” A promise he must not have lived up to, since she’d never heard his name come up in racing circles since that stolen time they’d spent together.
“What was his name?” Alec winced. “No. Forget I asked. That’s none of my business.”
“I wouldn’t mind telling you. His name was Sinclair. Andrew Sinclair.”
She saw the recognition in his eyes. “Please tell me he wouldn’t be a friend.”
“I only met him once and our paths haven’t crossed in years. I figured he got out of the business.”
“Oh.” Kate actually found that idea a bit of a relief. After she’d stopped hoping to run into Andrew at some county horse fair, she’d begun to dread the possibility that she might.
“The next morning he asked me to go to America with him. But I didn’t believe he meant it, and even if he had, it was a bad time for me, with my da having just been diagnosed with cancer, and him needing me to take over the work at the stud.”
“It must have been tough.”
“The decision was not difficult at all. The illness was harder. And took longer than the doctors predicted.”
She sighed. How many times over the years had she replayed that pivotal morning in her mind, wondering what would have happened if she’d followed her heart? Which would have meant, of course, turning her back on her family. Something she could never have done.
“Andrew promised me he’d ring me from his travels. And come back for me at the end of the racing season.” By then she’d been a bride. A bride who was already discovering she’d jumped out of the frying pan into hell.
“I never heard from him again. But I’m certainly not the first girl to make such a mistake and I doubt if I’ll be the last.”
“I’m afraid not,” Alec said, thinking of Zoe and the predatory Jake. He skimmed a hand down her hair, which was damp with sea mist. “It was his loss.”
“Aye,” she said, thinking of the son he’d missed out on knowing. “I didn’t know Cadel all that well,” she continued her story. “His family was from Dungarven. His father was a fisherman who, I later learned, spent nearly as much time in gaol for drunkenness and assault as he did out at sea in his boat. I met him—Cadel, not his father—when he took a job at the feed and began delivering hay to the stud. We’d talked from time to time, enough for me to know that he was ambitious, which is no sin.”
“Not in most cases,” Alec allowed obligingly.
“I was frantic when I realized I was pregnant. My da was in treatment in Galway and my mother was worrying herself to death over him when she wasn’t at church saying her rosary and making novenas, trying to bargain with God for a miracle. The last thing they needed was to have their only daughter disgrace them with a bastard.”
“Jamie’s no bastard.”
She smiled, just a bit, at that. “No. Of course he’s not. But even today, tongues wag when a girl gets herself into such a situation. I didn’t want to put my family through such gossip. I didn’t want to put my child through it. And, while it may sound selfish, I didn’t want to have to face such hurtful talk myself.
“It was bad enough, when I was young and cared what people thought about me, to have been born with The Sight. I could well imagine the truly hateful stories people could invent about who actually fathered the child of the witch of Castlelough.”
“You’d probably get some Rosemary’s Baby plotlines.”
“Didn’t I think that myself? Even now, with people knowing both Cadel and myself, there are those in the village who whisper that he left me because of my practice of sex magic. Which is, of course, ridiculously false.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” He smiled at that and kissed her again. “You certainly bewitched me, sugar. Anytime you want to practice some more, just let me know.”
That earned a light, surprised laugh. Then she immediately sobered again, drawn back to the grim story. “I lied and told my parents that I was going to Dublin to look at a mare I was thinking of buying, but in truth I went there to talk with an order of nuns who took in pregnant unmarried girls. The babies were sent to Irish American families in the States, which served both parties’ needs. But the logistics were impossible, since I couldn’t live at the convent and run the stud. Besides, even knowing I was being selfish, I couldn’t imagine giving my child away.”
“You couldn’t be selfish if your life depended on it. Are you saying you actually asked a hay-truck driver you barely knew to marry you?” Christ, surely there’d been some other single guy in town who would have found marriage to Kate no hardship.
“No. Cadel was the one who asked me. When he discovered me throwing up in a bucket behind the barn. He’s the eldest of eleven children. He recognized right away that I was pregnant.”
“So he offered to solve your little problem.” And marry his way into a tidy income and respectability.
“Aye. I was grateful for the offer. For a time.”
“Until he started hitting you.”
“Aye.”
“When?”
She bit her lip. Moved her shoulders. Looked out toward the sea where the boat had now disappeared over the horizon. “The first time was
on our wedding night.”
“Your wedding night? Christ, Kate—” He held up a hand. “Okay. Sorry. I promised I’d let you tell this your way and not make judgments.”
“He’d had too many pints at the reception, and it vexed him that he wasn’t getting a virgin bride.”
“Which he already knew,” Alec pointed out. “Besides, that old adage about men wanting virgins is a myth.”
“Would you be saying you wouldn’t have wanted me, if I’d never been with another man?”
“I told you, sugar, I’d want you any way. Any time.”
Kate believed him. A warm little flame flickered inside her, burning away the chill that had taken hold of her when she’d come home and found her child in peril.
Although it wasn’t easy, Kate forged on. “Later, I began to excuse his behavior by accepting the idea that my having slept with another man—had a child by him—was damaging to his self-esteem.”
“You don’t still think that?”
“No.”
“Good.” He touched his lips to her temple. “Nora said something,” he said carefully. “About Gallagher somehow getting involved.”
“Oh, wasn’t that a terrible day.” Her breath feathered out as she remembered the cruel fists. The harsh, painful invasion into her dry-as-dust body. “But freeing in its own way. It was before Nora and Quinn were married, but it was obvious to everyone that they were very much in love.
“I don’t want to be telling tales, but Quinn had grown up without any family, and I believe Nora’s horde was a bit difficult for him to absorb at first, but of course it wasn’t long before he’d fallen in love with each and every one of them. He’d embraced her family as his own, which was why, when he showed up at my door and discovered Cadel had raped me, he took it upon himself to get revenge.”
Alec’s eyes iced with a cold and deadly fury. “He should have killed him.”
“From what I’ve heard, if Brendan O’Neill and the others at the pub hadn’t pulled him away, he might well have.”
“Too bad.” Alec made a mental note to thank Gallagher.
“No.” She shook her head. “Cadel would not have been worth Quinn going to prison. Besides, I would have felt terribly guilty.”
“You?” He stared at her. Of all the things she’d said, this was the most astounding. “How the hell do you figure that?”
“It was not the first time such a thing had happened. Indeed, that’s how my darling Brigid came to be born. By allowing it to continue all those years, I put Quinn in that situation, don’t you see?”
“Now we’re back to every deed stirring the universe.”
“Aye.” Her eyes were dry and clear and firm in this belief.
“Why wasn’t he thrown in jail?”
“You have to understand, this isn’t America. Aman isn’t as likely to be charged with the rape of his wife, even if she were willing to air her shame before the entire village.”
“It’s O’Sullivan who should be ashamed. Not you.”
“Well, don’t I realize that now? But even so, it was a family matter and I preferred to keep it that way.”
“Christ.” He plowed his hand through his hair. “I hate that you had to go through any of that.”
“Don’t we all have trials to overcome in this life?” She managed a faint smile that amazingly, after all she’d been through today, was obviously meant to reassure him.
“The other night? When you held my hands above my head … You were right. It wasn’t you I was upset with. I was remembering. It doesn’t happen that often. At least not anymore. My therapist in Galway, a lovely woman who reminds me of my mother and always serves tea and scones after our sessions, assured me that I’d eventually overcome the flashbacks.”
“Are you talking about post-traumatic stress?”
“Aye. And after today I’m going to be arranging a session for Jamie. Just in case.”
“That’s probably not a bad idea.”
He’d had the nightmares and flashbacks himself for years, finally burning them out of his brain by working so hard and so long he was too tired to dream, and staying focused on racing so no other thoughts could filter through.
“Does Jamie know O’Sullivan’s not his father?”
“Not yet. Cadel never confirmed what gossip there was, because he didn’t want people thinking he was less than a man, marrying used goods, as I was.”
“Please tell me you at least realize that’s garbage.”
“Aye.”
“Good.”
“I keep wanting to tell Jamie, but it’s difficult. I was also concerned that he’d get angry someday and throw the truth up at Cadel, which could be a dangerous thing for him.”
“Yeah. I can see how it would be. But did it ever occur to you that it’s more difficult for the kid to believe that brutal bastard is his father?”
“Not until today. When he told me that he was afraid he might grow up to be like Cadel. Because of having his father’s blood.”
“That’s not an uncommon notion. I used to worry about it myself. But no longer. My father was born with a great many gifts. It was his choice to become a drunk and throw them all away.”
“Still, it must have been hard for you.”
He shrugged. “I survived. And so will Jamie. In fact, he’s a lot luckier, because he has you.” He smiled down at her. His eyes darkened in that way she’d come to recognize. “You are so astonishingly lovely.” He touched his lips to the darkening bruise at her temple. “Just looking at you takes my breath away.” The scrape on her cheek. “And makes me believe in magic.”
I love him. The words, which she could not quite dare admit, even to herself, shimmered in Kate’s mind with all the brilliance of a rainbow after a storm. In that stunning moment of realization, she would have shared that wondrous thought with him, and gladly, if his sweet, silken kiss hadn’t left her speechless.
It seemed the MacKenna would kiss her endlessly. His lips were patient as they skimmed up her bruised face, kissed her eyes shut, lingered on her with a reverence that nearly made her weep. Mists and dreams clouded her head as he told her, with soft murmurs, how beautiful she was, how special, how exquisite. Showed her, with heartbreakingly delicate touches that he was nothing like the man who’d so terrorized her. In his own miraculous way, Alec was as much a healer as any of the Ancients who’d first settled this wild, tempestuous land. A healer of hearts. Of souls.
Lost in him, unable to discern whether the soft sighs that drifted in the air were his or hers, Kate sank bonelessly into the kiss, her mind swimming, her body seeming to float on gentle wavelets of pleasure.
The world fell away. Time ceased to have meaning. There was no past, no future. Only this glorious, delicious present where her entire universe swirled inward, growing smaller and smaller until it became centered on this one man.
“More,” she whispered against the mouth that was drawing helpless sounds from deep in her throat.
He tilted his head, changed the angle, soothed the broken skin of her bottom lip with his tongue. “More,” he agreed. His voice was husky, but not at all rough, wrapping around her like warm and soothing velvet.
It was like a dream. No. Something better than a dream. A wish she’d never dared whisper. It was magic, and she was marveling in the pleasure of being spellbound when a towering splash of icy surf poured over the rock.
Alec cursed. Kate gasped. He looked down at her; she looked up at him and they laughed. Hand in hand, they scrambled back over the rocks before the incoming tide cut them off from the steps cut into the cliff.
When they reached the top, Alec took hold of her shoulders and skimmed a thorough, masculine look over her. “You look damn good wet, Kate.”
It was her turn to treat him to the same slow perusal. “As do you,” she replied, biting back the groan as her gaze focused on the obvious sign of arousal straining against wet denim.
He looked down. Shook his head. “See what you do to me?”
> “It would be a bit difficult to miss.”
“Well, there’s only one answer for it.”
“And that would be?”
“You’re going to have to make love with me.” He flashed that wicked, wonderful smile Kate knew would still have the power to thrill her when she was a hundred. “All night long.”
She traced his smile with a fingertip. “Aye.”
28
THE NEXT DAY DAWNED BRIGHT and clear and sunny and a great deal warmer than it had been during Alec’s time in Ireland.
He sat on the same rock where only yesterday he’d been tempted to make love to Kate, watching her dance barefoot near the edge of the sea, surrounded by a circle of adoring children. Her toenails, which he’d surprised her and pleased himself by painting, flashed like rubies on the glittering sand.
Whatever doubts he’d had about her alleged supernormal powers—and he still couldn’t quite shake them all—there was admittedly something different about her. Some forces swirling beneath the surface that touched everyone around her.
“She’s something, isn’t she?” The words were underscored with a hint of humor.
“All that implies and more,” Alec answered Nora’s novelist husband, who’d joined him. He took the bottle of stout Quinn Gallagher was holding out to him. “A lot more.”
“Kate’s important to me.” Quinn took a long pull from his own bottle as he watched her strike a pose for Jamie, who’d been clicking away all morning with the spy camera Michael had bought him for his birthday. “When I first arrived here, it was like I’d landed on the moon. The laws of physics had been suspended, gravity repealed. From the moment I met Nora, I didn’t know up from down.”
His gaze shifted to his wife, who appeared to be pointing out a flock of noisy seabirds to their baby daughter. Love and a barely restrained passion surrounded the novelist like an energy field. Alec realized that he’d been sensing more things like that since coming to Ireland. It was as if there was something in the air that lifted the veil between conscious and subconscious and allowed him to better read emotions. Or, he considered, perhaps the magic was that the land intensified feelings, making them more visible.