His mind didn’t want to accept her words. He would rather believe things were straightforward. “That was a long time ago,” he argued to himself as well as her. “A lot has changed. The Sinn Fein and IRA are all legitimate nowadays.”
“Maybe so, but there’s something about that Inspector Lynch I don’t trust.” She stopped abruptly when Rylie walked back into the room carrying two mugs.
“Do you take cream or sugar, Doreen?” she asked, her voice just a bit too sweet.
His sister shot Rylie one of her most sour disapproving glares. “I shan’t be taking tea, thank you.”
“Okay.” Sarcasm laced Rylie’s saccharin tone. “Since Donovan and I take our tea without anything, we’ll drink these. I don’t suppose you want a scone?”
“As a matter of fact, Doreen was just leaving.” Donovan placed his hand against his sister’s back and gave her a look that dared her to say otherwise.
Rylie set the mugs on the coffee table and plopped down in the corner of the sofa. “Guess I’ll see you later, Doreen.”
Doreen snatched her purse off a pile of boxes and turned away with a disdainful sniff.
“At least I know why Da was so upset,” she said stiffly to Donovan as she walked out the door. Then she added, “I’m sorry Lizzy Cassidy was right. And I’m sorry you found out this way.”
“Me too,” he acknowledged.
Before he shut the door, he watched her sweep down the stairs, regal as a queen. Then, feeling as if he’d been thrashed by a gang of street thugs, he walked back to where Rylie waited on the sofa.
“What was that last thing she said?” Rylie asked, her face pensive with concern.
Donovan lowered himself into the opposite corner from where she sat and rested his head wearily in his hands “Seems she’s known for years about Da and me, along with half the town.” He blew out a frustrated breath and continued, “And you were right. She remembered quite a lot about that day. The day our mother killed a man and disappeared into the fens.”
“Oh, Donovan,” she murmured, touching his forearm in a comforting gesture. “First that stuff about your father and now this. I’m so sorry.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” he replied, though he couldn’t bring himself to meet her gaze. “I’m the one who’s sorry. Sorry that you have to be here in the middle of all this.”
“Don’t be sorry about that,” she said, drawing up her legs and scooting next to him. “I’m not.” She brushed her fingertips through his hair. “In fact, I’m glad I’m here, because I intend to make you forget all about everything for awhile.”
He looked up into her silvery eyes, and saw fire smoldering in their depths. Then her small hands settled on both his cheeks, framing his mouth, and her lips slanted across his. With a shuddering sigh, Donovan pulled her onto his lap, and answered the beckoning of her tongue with his own.
Rylie’s hands left his face and moved to the buttons on his shirt. Once those were undone, she yanked both his shirttails and T-shirt free of his waistband. But when he tried to return the favor, she broke the long hot kiss to pull his hands away.
“Let me finish with you first,” she insisted. “Then it’ll be my turn.”
“Never let it be said that I couldn’t take turns,” he replied while she divested him of his shirt.
“Smart man,” she breathed, wrestling his T-shirt over his head. “Very smart man.”
Then her mouth trailed down his neck and settled warm and moist on his collarbone, while her nails grazed hot paths over his stomach. Stifling a groan, he tossed the T-shirt onto the floor and stroked the silky strands of her hair draped across his chest.
Long, torturous moments later, when her fingers reached his waistband and unbuttoned the fly of his jeans, Donovan had indeed forgotten everything.
The bed springs creaked out a noisy chorus that roused Rylie awake. An icy draft of air hit her bare bottom, announcing that Donovan was out of bed. With a muffled groan, she rolled over and saw his tall, lanky form silhouetted in the gray pre-dawn light from the window. Dressed in flannel pajama pants and nothing else, the sight of him sent a warm rush of desire spiraling through her.
Amazing, considering he’d brought her to orgasm how many times last night? Didn’t matter, however many times, she was ready for one more. In a distant corner of her mind, a voice told her with Donovan, she would always be ready for one more.
Knock it off, Rylie! She chastised herself. She and Donovan were having a fling. A very pleasurable one, maybe the best one she’d ever had, but a fling nonetheless. Even if it didn’t feel like one. It was still a fling.
By this time next week, she’d be back home in California and life without Donovan. Or anybody, for that matter. But she wasn’t going to let herself think about that and spoil any of the time she had left. She intended to enjoy every minute.
Starting now.
“Come back to bed,” she called.
“Sorry I woke you.”
When he turned in her direction, Rylie could see by his profile that she wasn’t the only one ready for round whatever. “Then make it up to me.”
“Go back to sleep,” he urged instead, facing the window again.
Rather than argue, she shook her hands free from the overly long sleeves of the pajama top she wore and crawled out of the noisy bed. The wooden floorboards sent a chill up her bare feet and legs that made her shiver. She slipped up and pressed herself against Donovan’s back, wrapping her arms around his torso and linking her fingers across his bare chest. His skin felt cool to her touch, but his muscles seemed tense. Not with desire, but with something else she didn’t recognize.
“What is it?” she whispered.
“I don’t really know,” he admitted slowly. “Something isn’t right, but I can’t quite put my finger on what.”
Rylie’s own stomach muscles clenched. “Something with us?”
He turned in her grasp and hauled her tight against his chest. “God in heaven, no! If things were any more right between us, I would be certain I’d died and gone to heaven.”
She reveled in his answer for a moment, enjoying the tickle of his chest hair against the side of her face.
“Then it must be what you and your sister were talking about,” she ventured at last. “The dead man and your mother.”
Beneath her cheek, his heart gave a pronounced thump. “Yes, and more besides, I think. Dermot, and your father, and maybe even McRory are all pieces in this. I just need to fit them together somehow.”
She pulled away and looked up at him, but disconcerting shadows obscured his handsome face. “With your Sight thing, you mean?”
“I’m afraid so.” He pulled her close again, tucking her head under his chin. “I’ve never been able to control this gift or whatever ’tis I have. In fact, I’ve spent over half my life avoiding it. But now I have to use it, because I know the answers are out there, in the fens.”
The last thing Rylie wanted was to leave the warm cocoon of his arms, and she didn’t care how selfish that made her. “Well, I don’t think they’re going anywhere, so they can wait for a couple more hours. Let’s go back to bed.”
She got her wish for a little while, but at a quarter before seven, with Donovan waiting in the car, she ran inside her B&B and did a quick clothes change. Since she’d already showered at his place, she threw a few items into a plastic bag and sprinted back out the door before Mrs. Cooke or anyone could waylay her. By 7:05, she and Donovan were seated at the counter of a bustling café called “Molly’s” ordering breakfast.
“You don’t have to go with me, you know,” Donovan muttered after the waitress delivered their heaping plates and hurried away.
Rylie paused with her fork full of scrambled eggs halfway to her mouth. “Yes, I do. We agreed it’s not safe for you try alone.”
After he’d related his adventure from two nights ago and admitted that he didn’t know how long he had lain unconscious, she wasn’t about to let him do it again without her be
ing close by.
Her gaze followed his to the window, where gray drizzle hung over the street. “’Tis a miserable day to be mucking about in the fens.”
“I won’t melt any faster than you will.”
Her quip didn’t earn her a smile, but her rumbling stomach would be denied no longer and Rylie attacked her eggs, bangers, and hash browns with gusto. Donovan followed her lead, though with far less enthusiasm.
“If you’re trying to think up more arguments, save your energy,” she warned between bites.
A half-hour later, they were back in her rental car headed for the O’Shea’s deserted cottage. The landscape remained shrouded in soggy gloom. This was the kind of day made to stay indoors.
In bed.
Even Donovan’s old, lumpy, squeaky bed.
Rylie gave herself a mental curse for her wayward thoughts. She was definitely fulfilling Doreen’s extremely low opinion of her. However, thinking of Donovan’s warm apartment in contrast to the cold and dank cottage—or worse, the fens—gave her an idea.
“Didn’t you say that just looking at a display of Celtic jewelry once triggered your gift?”
Brows lowered in suspicion, he nodded.
“Then why can’t we just take things back to your place and experiment there?”
Frowning, he turned the car off the main road onto the paved country lane. “What sort of things?”
“Dirt? Rocks? I don’t know.” Rylie blew out her breath in frustration as the car bounced over the rutted road. “How did you know to go to that excavation site? Can you tell you’re going to have a vision before it starts?”
Donovan seemed deep in concentration before he answered. “Usually there’s a kind of buzzing sound first.” He started to say more then didn’t.
Rylie chewed the inside of her cheek for a moment. “If it doesn’t work we can always come back out here.”
“I think you may be onto something,” he admitted, and she nearly clapped her hands in relief. “And trying this in a controlled environment makes sense.” His lips tilted into a half smile. “A nice, warm and dry environment.”
She reached over and gave his leg a pat. “Have I told you lately that you’re a very smart man?”
His lips curled into a full-fledged grin. “I believe you mentioned it last night.”
Minutes later they turned onto the bumpy dirt track and within a few more minutes, the cottage came into view. Streamers of yellow police tape fluttered from the open gate.
“Are we even supposed to be here?” Rylie asked nervously.
“Probably not.”
Donovan guided the car to a stop close to the cottage door. Before they got out, she looked around for a container. Neither of them had eaten their muffins at breakfast, and the waitress had put them in a white styrofoam box. Rylie wrapped both muffins in a napkin and shoved the empty box into her jacket pocket.
“All set,” she said, flipping the hood of her windbreaker over her head.
“Let’s try the storage pits first,” Donovan suggested.
Somehow, the dreary weather gave the cottage and its trampled yard with mounds of dirt a sinister air. Grateful for Donovan’s solid presence beside her, she slipped her hand into his as they walked across the muddy yard.
However creepy the house and yard looked, the fens looked even more so. The heavy mist hovered over the uneven ground and clung to the trees and bushes, giving them the look of spectral beings. She sent up a fervent prayer that they wouldn’t have to go in there anytime soon. As they approached the nearest mound of dirt, Donovan’s fingers tightened around hers. She jerked her gaze away from the spooky images of the fens and looked at his profile. His jaw was clenched, and his lips were a thin, rigid line.
“You can hear something.”
It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. Then he let go of her hand and looked away, his voice a stiff whisper.
“This was the first pit I discovered. There was a dog . . . ” He closed his eyes and swallowed. “And a horse.”
“What should I do?” She fumbled in her pocket for the box and held it out. “Collect some of the dirt?”
He nodded again and she walked to the muddy hole and peered into it. Better than the fens, she reminded herself grimly.
Donovan continued to stare off in the opposite direction. “I think something from the bottom would be best, if you can manage it.”
One end sloped and Rylie carefully edged her way down. An inch of muddy water lay at the bottom, so she opted to scrape damp earth off the side as low as she dared to bend over. When she’d collected a lump roughly the size of one of the muffins, she closed the box and shoved it back into her pocket. Then she started an even slower and more cautious exit, mud clinging to her shoes. She could see Donovan now staring moodily at the fens.
“Do we need anything else?” she asked, fighting the urge to wipe her hands on her jeans.
He looked at her as if she’d just materialized from the mist. Then he ran the back of his hand across his eyes and said, “I suppose you’d like to wash up.”
She nodded and they walked back toward the cottage. However, halfway there Donovan stopped and rubbed at his temple.
“Am I too close? Can you hear whatever you hear from the dirt?”
“No, ’tis something over here.” He moistened his lips then paced behind the car where previous vehicles had left numerous ruts and tire treads.
Wordlessly, Rylie followed.
Hand still hovering at his temple, he moved slower and slower, finally stopping altogether.
“There’s definitely something here.”
She scuffed at a clod with her shoe, then squatted down to examine the tire tracks. All she could see was more mud and tangles of dead grass. She started to stand when something metallic caught her eye. Putting one hand on the ground for balance, she unearthed the partially buried object.
“This looks like that thing Professor McRory had the first night we met,” she mused, brushing away more of the dirt.
“The scabbard ornament,” Donovan hissed. “Put it away!”
Glancing up, Rylie saw him holding both temples. His face looked unusually pale. She shoved the offending piece of metal into her pocket and leaped up.
“Are you okay?”
Donovan drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then nodded. “I’ll just wait in the car whilst you wash your hands.”
She hurried to the cottage door, which was unlocked. Stamping mud off her shoes, she stepped inside and hastily made her way to the bathroom.
Plunging her hands under the faucet, she yelped when the icy water hit. Not only was there no soap, but there was nothing to dry on. Teeth chattering, she turned off the water and rubbed her numb hands on the legs of her jeans. Donovan’s place would feel like nirvana after this.
Twenty minutes later, they were back in Ballyneagh. Since it was Sunday, everything was closed, including the pub.
Upstairs, they both removed their muddy shoes and left them just inside the door. Heading straight for the bathroom, Rylie gave her hands a thorough scrubbing with soap and heavenly hot water, while Donovan brewed tea. She returned to the living room, peeled off her windbreaker and draped it over the corner of the couch, then sat down.
A few moments later, Donovan came in carrying two mugs. He sat in the opposite corner.
“Let’s get this over then,” he sighed, placing the steaming cups on the coffee table. He rolled his head from side to side as if his neck were kinked with nervous tension.
“We could wait,” she suggested tentatively. “At least until we finish our tea.”
“I’d rather not.” His tone bordered on brusque and he didn’t meet her gaze. “I don’t think you realize how difficult this is for me. I don’t like the idea of you seeing me—” He broke off and closed his eyes for a moment. “Actually, I’m not really sure what you might see, but I have a feeling it won’t be pleasant.”
He was right. If they waited she might lose her nerve.
<
br /> “That’s okay,” she replied. “As long as you’re all right.”
Taking a deep breath, she reached for her windbreaker, pulled the white styrofoam box from the pocket, and set it on the table in front of him. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Donovan took a deep breath too, then leaned forward and opened the lid. With slow deliberation, he broke up the clump of mud and let it sift through his fingers.
Rylie knew the instant it hit him. His breath caught and his eyelids fluttered as if he were about to lose consciousness. All the color leached from his face and his fingers went slack.
“Donovan?” she squeaked in panic, grasping his arm.
With a sharp intake of breath, he fell back against the couch cushion in a startle reflex, lucidity snapping back into his eyes. “Wait!”
She snatched her hand back in embarrassment. “Sorry, I guess I need to give you more time, but I didn’t think you were breathing.”
He gave her hand a pat of reassurance. “At least your idea seems to be working. Just give me a minute or two. Surely I can hold my breath that long without permanent damage.”
“Okay.” She tried to sound blithe, though she felt anything but. “I’ll hold my breath too. That way I’ll know when you need air.”
Nodding, he gave her hand another pat then leaned forward again. This time, when he touched the moist earth, he shut his eyes. His already pale complexion went paler and after a half-dozen heartbeats, his breath stopped again.
With a nervous inhale, Rylie stopped breathing too and studied his still, handsome features. Beneath his eyelids, she could see rapid movement, like REM sleep. Her fingernails dug into her palms as she fought to keep the air contained in her lungs.
Donovan wheezed unexpectedly and Rylie’s breath whooshed out in surprise.
She grasped his arm. “Donovan?”
Inhaling deeply, he groaned and opened his eyes.
“Are you okay? Did you see anything?” She clamped her mouth shut to stop babbling.
He massaged his forehead with his free hand, which shook a little. “I’m fine.” He ran his tongue over his bottom lip then swallowed. “’Twas as if I were hovering over the scene and looking down. I could see two Druids preparing the pit. They had wooden spades . . . ”
The Wild Sight Page 16