A Woman's Heart

by JoAnn Ross

  “That’s not exactly the same thing.”

  “I suppose I believe that myths are capable of possessing their own reality. And if there is a Lady in the lake—and I’m not saying I believe there is, mind you—” she shot him a stern look “—she deserves the same consideration we give any of God’s creatures. Including a rich and famous American horror novelist.”

  Having tacked on the last without taking time to censor her words, Nora feared he’d take offense, but he surprised her by flashing a grin that came and went so quickly she thought perhaps she’d imagined it.

  “Point taken.”

  The brief argument, if it could, indeed, even be called an argument, appeared to have burned off his dark mood, like a July sun burns off cold morning fog.

  “I think I’d like to see the lake,” Quinn said, “if you have time.”

  Although holding a grudge was nearly a national pastime, Nora had never been able to keep a decent pique going. She smiled, pleased at the opportunity to share one of her favorite places with him. “We have a saying here in Ireland, Mr. Gallagher—when God made time, he made plenty of it.”

  Chapter Seven

  Whatever You Say, Say Nothing

  Less than five minutes later Nora pulled off to the side of the road. “It’s a bit of a walk. But a lovely one, just the same.”

  “I could use some exercise.” Once again Quinn figured the fresh air might help banish the remnants of his hangover and jet lag.

  “It might help clear away any lingering Jameson fog,” she said with a smile, revealing similar thinking.

  Quinn started to remind her she hadn’t locked the car door, then realized there was probably no need, which left him feeling a lot like Dorothy after the tornado had blown her out of Kansas. Ireland might not exactly be Oz. But it sure as hell wasn’t California, either.

  They passed a cemetery like the ones he’d seen while driving around in circles, a somber place of high crosses standing like silent sentinels and rounded gravestones covered with pale green moss. A few of the more recent stones had been decorated with arrangements of colorful plastic flowers in domed containers.

  The narrow well-worn path meandered through the hills like a tangled fishing line, crossing meadows lush with blue lupine, wild roses and strawberries. After climbing for about ten minutes, they came upon a mound of earth blanketed with yellow poppies and decorated with stones.

  “It’s a cairn,” Nora explained, “built about five thousand years ago. There are quite a few of them around this part of the country.”

  “It’s a tomb, right?”

  “Of sorts. There’s probably a passage below leading to a central burial chamber. The early ones believed in an afterlife, so they often buried their loved ones with tools, weapons or household goods.”

  Quinn, who always prided himself on his research, knew about the pre-Christian burial sites. But reading about something in a dry archeological text was vastly different from actually standing right beside it. This place hidden in the green folds of the mountain had gone unchanged for millennia; memories of that long-ago heroic time and shadows of a mysterious faith hovered over the site like ghosts standing guard over an ancient past.

  He paused and drank in the atmosphere, breathing deeply of air scented with golden hollyhock and something else he could not quite define. Then he rubbed at the tingling sensation at the back of his neck.

  “I don’t know if I believe in an afterlife,” he said. “But here…it sure feels as if some spirits might have lingered on.” He could almost hear the eerie sound of ghostly voices floating on the breeze.

  Nora gave him a surprised look that quickly turned to pleasure. “Sometimes, you know, I come here and talk to the early ones. I tell them my troubles, and strangely, things seem better when I leave. Although I suspect it’s just the telling, getting it off my chest, as you Yanks would say, that lifts my spirits.”

  “That, or magic,” Quinn suggested.

  The soft color he was beginning to enjoy too much for comfort rose high on her cheekbones again. “Listen to me, going on so,” she protested with that soft cadence that strummed dangerous chords inside him. “You’ll be thinking I’m just a foolish culchie.”

  Quinn lifted a brow. “Culchie?”

  “It means a country person. Usually a daft or stupid one.”

  “Ah.” He nodded and felt an unaccustomed smile tugging at the corners of his mouth again. “A bumpkin.” The breeze was blowing her hair in a wild tangle around her flushed face in a way that put him in mind of a Botticelli maiden.

  “A bumpkin.” She appeared to consider that. “Is that how you see me, then? As a fanciful and foolish country bumpkin?”

  Fanciful she might be. Foolish? Quinn didn’t think so. Although a more cautious woman would probably know enough to take off running right about now.

  Some errant strands of fiery silk blew across her face. When he reached out to brush them back, she went as still as one of the stone crosses they’d passed earlier.

  “I certainly don’t consider you a bumpkin. Although I have to admit I’ve never met a woman who had the imagination to carry on conversations with Stone Age ancestors.”

  This time the color flamed to the roots of her hair. “We’d best be continuing on if we want to reach the lake before it rains.”

  Unlike every photograph he’d ever seen of Ireland, there wasn’t a cloud to be seen anywhere in the robin’s-egg blue sky.

  “Good idea,” he heard himself saying as she looked up at him, wary, but fascinated, the way one might stare at a pretty, poisonous snake. He watched her exhale a brief shuddering breath. Then, squaring her slender shoulders, she turned away and resumed walking.

  They left the trail, Nora scrambling over rocks as nimbly as one of the black-legged sheep he could see grazing in distant meadows. The mountains they were walking over were ancient, headed toward dust. Although they weren’t as bold and breathtaking as the jagged mountains he was accustomed to, Quinn found them strangely soothing.

  “Aye, they can be a solace,” Nora answered after he’d shared his thoughts. “Of course some people view them as prison walls. Keeping them locked into a place, or in a life that’s not all they’d like it to be.”

  Quinn wondered if she might have just given him a little insight into her marriage to that hotshot rider on the European equestrian circuit Brady had told him about. Suddenly they came to a towering hedge ablaze with shocking pink fuchsia. The thick seemingly impenetrable greenery extended in both directions for as far as the eye could see.

  “Looks like we’ve just hit a dead end,” he said.

  “Oh, there’s a passageway that leads to the lough. I like to fool myself that it’s my own secret entrance,” she added with a soft laugh.

  Quinn followed her through the bright fragrant passageway, then stopped dead in his tracks as he gazed down into a valley of unparalleled beauty. The lake, surrounded by feather-crowned reeds that swayed in the breeze, was a splash of glistening sapphire satin on a mottled green carpet.

  “It’s lovely, isn’t it?”

  “Lovely doesn’t begin to describe it.” His voice was hushed, almost reverential, as if he’d entered a cathedral. “It’s stunning. And so…peaceful.”

  The only sounds were the soft sigh of the breeze and the buzzing drone of fat bees flying from flower to vivid flower. Quinn could hear himself breathe.

  “We have a saying—ciunas gan uagineas. It means quietness without loneliness. I’m always reminded of that when I come here.”

  “Ciunas gan uagineas.” Quinn struggled to wrap his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables. “It fits.”

  “Doesn’t it? I suppose you know the legend of how the Lady arrived in the lake in the first place.”

  “Actually, I don’t. I just ran across a mention of her in an article about Irish mermaids and let my imagination fill in the blanks.” Besides, when it came to monsters, Quinn figured he had enough lurking in his own mind to keep writing long
into old age. “But now that I’m here, I’d like to hear it.”

  “Oh, it’s a lovely tale. And far better told by Da. But I’ll try my best not to disappoint you,” she said in the soft swaying tones that made him think of fairies dancing in the moonlight.

  “The lake was once the site of a splendid kingdom ruled over by a beautiful benevolent queen,” she began. “She had long flowing yellow hair that fell down her back in waves and glittered like a leprechaun’s gold beneath a full summer sun.

  “Because she was as good as she was lovely, the gods had rewarded the people of her kingdom by bestowing upon them a marvelous gift—a sweet spring whose waters brought youth to all who drank of it.”

  “So this is where the Fountain of Youth’s been hiding all these years,” Quinn said.

  “Aye.” Her eyes sparkled with humor. “It’s a secret we’ve kept well to prevent ourselves from being overrun by even more tourists.” She paused, then went on, “At any rate, the queen had instructed that the spring be capped every night with a large stone so it couldn’t flow out and flood the valley.

  “Unfortunately a fairy who lived in the glen fell in love with the queen’s husband. But the fairy was as ugly as an old boar, sharp as a brier, and evil as the devil, which, of course, made it difficult for any man to love her in return.”

  “I can see how all that might prove a problem.”

  “Aye, a fearsome problem, indeed. But even when the hag turned herself into a beautiful young girl, the noble prince remained steadfastly faithful to the queen and didn’t return her affections.

  “Well, unfortunately for all, this fairy had a terrible temper, and when the handsome prince rejected her for the third time, she cast a wicked spell on him. That night, during the summer-solstice celebrations, although he’d always been known as a man who could hold his liquor, the prince got drunk and passed out before putting the capstone on the spring.

  “So it flowed and flowed, and by morning the entire valley, including the fair city and all its people, were now underwater. But since the water was magic, no one drowned. Indeed, they adapted quite well to their new life beneath the lake, although every so often, the queen, who has sensibly replaced her satin gowns with emerald scales, comes to the surface to gaze upon the hills that she continues to miss after all these many years.”

  “Nice story.” And a helluva lot more benevolent than the dark and threatening one he’d created.

  “I’ve always thought so. There are also fishermen who swear that sometimes on a still summer evening you can look over the edge of your boat and catch a shimmering glimpse of the turrets of the queen’s castle and the townspeople busily going about their daily work.”

  Quinn found the idea of a hidden Atlantis-like city almost as appealing as the magical silent site itself.

  “You know,” he said, “although this place isn’t nearly as wild, it reminds me a bit of my home on the California coast.” It was the solitude, he decided. A quietness that was both inspiring and comforting at the same time.

  Nora smiled, seeming pleased he was enjoying her gift. “If it’s wild scenery you’re wanting, Mr. Gallagher, I’ll take you to our seacoast on our next outing.”

  Quinn tensed at her casual mention of another sight-seeing trip. Instincts kicked in, the primordial knee-jerk behavior Laura had, only yesterday, teasingly compared to a wolf sniffing out a trap.

  He knew he should refuse further excursions before he got in any deeper. “I think I just might like that,” he heard himself saying, instead.

  In a gesture too natural to be contrived, Nora slipped her hand in Quinn’s as they gazed down at the lake.

  The crystal-clear sapphire water reflected every cloud, even a passing gull. Two white swans, looking as if they’d just flown in from Sleeping Beauty’s castle, floated serenely on the glassy surface.

  “I wish I’d seen this before I wrote my book,” he said.

  “Would you have changed something?”

  “Yeah. I would have set the story in Scotland, since they already have Nessie. Or Wales. Or even California.” He shook his head. “It almost seems a sacrilege to invade this place with a movie crew.”

  “It’s not a church.”

  “Not now. But I’ll bet that the Celts—and before them, the people who built that burial mound—felt differently.”

  He shifted his gaze to the ruins of the castle. “It’s a strange thought.”

  “What?”

  “Thinking of people once living here. Loving and laughing and warring behind those walls. Lord, the stories those stones could tell if they would talk.”

  “I believe I owe John an apology,” Nora said suddenly.

  “John? Your brother?”

  “Aye. He’s been telling me I should read your books, but I haven’t. Oh, I’m sure you’re a fine writer,” she said quickly, as if afraid she might have insulted him. “But I’ll admit to preferring stories that don’t give me nightmares.”

  Having heard that remark countless times, it no longer bothered him. “Horror has its own reality,” he said, twisting her earlier words concerning myths.

  As a lone cloud came from behind the velvety mountain to move across the sun, Nora looked up at him, studying him in that solemn way she sometimes had. The way that made Quinn feel as if she were seeing all the way to his soul. Not that she’d be able to see anything but darkness, he thought grimly, unable to remember when he’d last believed he even possessed a soul.

  “I suspect that’s true enough.” She reached up as if to touch his cheek, apparently thought better of it and lowered her hand. “But any man who can feel the magic and the mystery of this place is a man whose books I want to read.”

  She was suddenly too close. Quinn felt in danger of suffocating. “If you’re looking for a way in to who I am,” he said, sensing she might actually be naive enough to believe she could steal into his sealed-off private places by reading his books, “you’ll be disappointed. Because there isn’t any.” His fingers tightened on the hand he was still holding. “And even if there was, believe me, baby, you wouldn’t want to go there.”

  “And you’d be knowing where I want to go?” Her lilting tone remained soft, but she lifted her chin in an obvious challenge.

  “I’d be knowing where you damn well shouldn’t want to go,” he practically growled. How the hell had they ever gotten on this subject? “It’s a dark place, Nora. Teeming with things you could never understand.”

  She surprised Quinn by smiling. A faint sad little smile that tore at something elemental deep inside him.

  “Now there’s where you’d be wrong, Quinn.”

  This time she did touch his cheek, her fingertips feeling like a burning brand against his scarred skin. Then, before he could come up with an appropriate response, she’d tugged her other hand free of his and was headed back the way they’d come.

  Cursing, Quinn jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and followed her. Without the warmth of the buttery spring sun, the day had suddenly turned as cold and dark as his mood.

  And his heart.

  “So, how are you and your handsome boarder getting on?” Kate asked Nora three days later. They’d gone shopping together in the village, taking time for tea at O’Neill’s.

  “We’re not.”

  Nora pretended grave interest in stirring sugar into her tea. Though she was truly fond of her sister-in-law, she didn’t want to admit that she’d actually been a bit depressed by the American’s disappearing act after their outing to the lake.

  Despite the fact that his rental fee included meals, he left the house every morning before breakfast and returned late at night. If she was still sitting up in the parlor—not waiting for him, Nora told herself, merely working on the account books or mending Celia’s jumper or some such necessary task—he’d merely give her a curt nod, a grunt she supposed was meant as a greeting, then go straight upstairs to his room.

  “Mr. Gallagher is a source of much-needed income, nothing
more.”

  “So that’s why he was looking at you the other morning as if you were a custard topped with clotted cream.”

  “He was not! He wouldn’t even be staying at the house if Da hadn’t gone behind my back and rented out my room. Besides,” Nora added, “I’m not his type.” Hadn’t the man told her that himself?

  “You’re not his usual type of woman, perhaps.” Kate’s smile managed to be both smugly knowing and sympathetic at the same time. “But I could tell he fancies you.”

  “Even if he did—and I’m not saying he does, mind you—nothing could ever come of a romance with the likes of Quinn Gallagher.” The tea tasted bitter on her tongue, so Nora added another spoon of sugar. It didn’t help. “We’re from different worlds.”

  “Who says anything has to come of it?” Kate argued. “You’ve been widowed for five long years, Nora. I’d say it’s high time for you to be kicking up your heels, so to speak.”

  Unlike Kate, who’d once been the most sought-after fun-loving girl in the county before her marriage to Cadel O’Sullivan, Nora had never been one to kick up her heels. Not for the first time since Quinn Gallagher’s arrival in Castlelough, was she forced to consider how impossible it was to fight nature.

  “Are you saying I should just fling caution to the winds and go to bed with him?”

  Kate appeared surprised by the question. “Has it already come to that?”

  Nora felt the blush—the bane of all redheads—flood hot as burning peat into her face. “He may have mentioned it the first night. But he’d been drinking, so I didn’t pay any heed.”

  “But you were tempted.”

  Nora knew better than to lie to this woman who was, in many ways, closer to her than her own sisters. A woman who could see beyond the obvious.

  Hadn’t she even foreseen Conor’s horrible accident? Discovering that fact at the wake had strained their friendship for a time, because although Kate had attempted to warn her brother—who’d always considered himself impervious to injury—she’d never uttered a single word to Nora.