She stuffed her hands in her pockets and began to pace in a way that warned him not to touch her. "My friends-acquaintances mostly, will think of me with amusement now and again and shake their heads. Perhaps some of them will come to visit and see just what I've given up the fast lane for. I'm trading that for family, for people I've felt closer to than almost anyone I've known. That's a bad deal all right."
She stopped, looking out between the stones as the warming sun burned off the mist. "Then there's my career, that all-important ladder to climb. Five years more,
and I guarantee I would have had that metaphorical key to the executive washroom. No question, Shannon Bodine's got the drive, she's got the talent, she's got the ambition, and she doesn't blink at sixty-hour weeks. I've put in plenty of those weeks, Murphy, and it occurs to me that not one of them ever gave me the joy or the simple satisfaction I've felt since the first time I picked up a paintbrush here in Ireland. So I guess it's going to be real tough for me to turn in my Armani jacket for a smock."
She turned back. "That leaves one last thing by my calculation. I'm back in New York, boosting myself up the next rung on that ladder, and I'm alone while the man who loves me is three thousand miles away." She lifted her hands. "There doesn't seem to be any contest. I'm giving up nothing, because there's nothing there. That's the bright flash I had last night. There's nothing there I want, or need, or love. It's all right here, right here with you.
"But you had to jump right in, didn't you?" she tossed out when he would have stepped forward. "Now I'll never be able to throw in your face during an argument what I've done for you. Because I'm not doing anything, and I know it. And you would have done everything."
He wasn't sure he could speak, and when he did it was only one unsteady sentence. "You're staying with me."
She circled over to where he'd balanced the painting. With impatient rips, she tore the protective paper aside. "Look at this and tell me what you see."
A man and a woman on a white horse, their faces as familiar to him as his own, in a land washed with light. The stone circle in the background with two of the cross stones that had fallen still in place. The copper brooch clipped to a swirling cape.
But what he saw most was that while the man held the horse from bolting with one hand, his other held the woman close. And she him.
"They're together."
"I didn't mean to paint them that way. He was supposed to be riding away, as he did, leaving her when she begged him to stay. When she pleaded and cast aside every iota of pride and wept."
Shannon took a careful breath and finished telling him what she had seen in her mind, and her heart, when she'd painted.
"He left her because he was a soldier, and his life was battles. I imagine wars demand to be tended, just as the land does. He wanted to marry her, but he wouldn't stay, and she needed him to stay more than she needed marriage, though she knew she was carrying his child."
Murphy's gaze shot up, arrested on her face. "His child."
"She never told him. It may have made the difference, but she never told him. She wanted him to stay for her, to put his sword aside because he loved her more than what he was. When he wouldn't, they fought, here. Right here. And said things to each other to wound because each was wounded. He gave her back the broach in anger, not in memory as the legend suggests, and rode away from her. Always believing she'd wait. She cursed him as he left him, and shouted out that he'd never have peace, anymore than she, he'd never have it until he loved her enough to give up everything else."
Shannon pressed the broach into his palm, kept hers over it. "She saw, in the fire when he fell in battle, when he bled and died. And she delivered his child alone. She's been waiting, endlessly, for him to love her enough."
"I've wondered for a long time, tried to see it, and never could."
"Knowing the answers spoils the magic." She set the canvas aside so it would no longer be between them. "They're together now. I want to stay, Murphy. Not her choice, not my mother's. Mine. I want to make a life here with you. I swear I love you enough."
He took her hand, brought it fiercely to his lips. "Will you let me court you, Shannon?"
"No." It came out on a broken laugh. "But I'll let you marry me, Murphy."
"I can settle for that." He pulled her against him, buried his face in her hair. "You're the one, Shannon. You're the only one for me."
"I know." Closing her eyes, she rested her head on his heart. It beat there, strong and steady, as he was. Love, she thought, closed every circle. "Let's go home, Murphy," she murmured. "I'll cook you breakfast."
Three Sisters Island Trilogy
--1 Dance Upon the Air (06-2001)--
It is sweet to dance to violins
When Love and Life are Fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
To dance upon the air!
—Oscar Wilde
~•~
Prologue
Salem Village, Massachusetts
June 22, 1692
In the dark green shadows of the deep woods, an hour before moonrise, they met in secret. Soon the longest day would become the shortest night of the solstice.
There would be no celebration, no rite of thanksgiving for the light, the warmth, on this Sabbat of Litha. This midsummer was a time of ignorance, and of death.
The three who met, met in fear.
"Have we all we need?" The one known here as Air pulled her hood closer so that not a single pale lock of hair could be seen in the light of the dying day.
"What we have shall do." Earth laid her parcel on the ground. The part of her that wanted to weep and to rage over what had been done, over what was to come, was buried deep. With her head bent, her thick brown hair fell forward free.
"Is there no other way for us?" Air touched a hand to Earth's shoulder, and both looked at the third.
She stood, slim and straight. There was sorrow in her eyes, but behind it lived a firm purpose. She who was Fire threw back her hood in a gesture of defiance. Curling waves of red spilled out.
"It is because of our way there is no other. They will hunt us down like thieves and brigands, murder us, as they have already murdered a poor innocent."
"Bridget Bishop was not a witch." Earth spoke bitterly as she rose to her feet.
"No, and so she told the court of oyer and terminer. So she swore. Yet they hanged her. Murdered over the lies of a few young girls and the ravings of the fanatics who smell brimstone in every breath of air."
"But there have been petitions." Air linked her fingers together like a woman preparing to pray. Or plead. "Not everyone supports the court, or this terrible persecution."
"Too little," Earth murmured. "And far too late."
"It will not end with one death. I have seen it." Fire closed her eyes, saw again the horrors to come. "Our protection cannot outlast the hunt. They will find us, and they will destroy us."
"We have done nothing." Air dropped her hands to her sides. "No harm."
"What harm did Bridget Bishop do?" Fire countered. "What harm have any of the others accused and waiting trial done to the people of Salem Town? Sarah Osborne died in a Boston prison. For what crime?"
Temper lanced through her, hot and keen, and was ruthlessly rejected. Even now she refused to let power be stained by anger and hate.
"The blood is up in these Puritans," she continued. "These pioneers. Fanatics they are, and they will bring a wave of death before sanity returns."
"If we could help."
"We cannot stop it, sister."
"No." Fire nodded at Earth. "All we can do is survive. So we leave this place, the home we made here, the lives we might have led here. And make another."
Gently, she cupped Air's face in her hands. "Grieve not for what can never be, but celebrate what can. We are the Three, and we will not be vanquished in this place."
"We will be lonely."
"We will be together."
And in that last flicker of the day they cast the circle—one by two by three. Fire ringed around the earth, and the wind lifted the flames high.
Inside the magic circle they formed another, joining hands.
Accepting now, Air lifted her face to the sky. "As night takes the day, we offer this light. We are true to the Way and stand for the right. Truth here is done, a circle of one."
Earth, defiant, raised her voice. "This hour is our last upon this ground. Present, future, past, we will not be found. Strength not rue, a circle of two."
"We offered our craft with harm to none, but the hunt for our blood has already begun. We will make our place away from here." Fire lifted joined hands high. "Away from death, away from fear. Power lives free, a circle of three."
The wind kicked, the earth trembled. And the magic fire speared through the night. Three voices rose, in unison.
"Away from hate let this land be torn. Lift it from fear, from death and scorn. Carve rock, carve tree, carve hill and stream. Carry us with it on midsummer moonbeam. Out past the cliff and out past the shore, to be severed from this land forever more. We take our island out to the sea. As we will, so mote it be."
And a great roar sounded in the forest, a swirling torrent of wind, a wild leap of fire. While those who hunted what they never understood slept in their righteous beds, an island rose up toward sky, circled madly toward sea.
Settled safe and serene on quiet waves. And took its first breath of life on that shortest night.
Chapter One
three sisters island
june, 2001
She kept staring straight ahead as the knuckle of land, bumpy and green with distance, began revealing its secrets. The lighthouse, of course. What was an offshore New England island without its stalwart spear? This one, pure and dazzling white, rose on a craggy cliff. Just as it should, Nell thought.
There was a stone house near it, fog-gray in the sharp summer sunlight, with peaked roofs and gables and what she hoped was a widow's walk circling the top story.
She'd seen paintings of the Light of the Sisters and the house that stood so strong and firm beside it. It was the one she'd seen in the little shop on the mainland, the one that had sent her impulsively to the car ferry.
She'd been following impulse and instinct for six months, just two months after her meticulous and hard-worked plan had freed her.
Every moment of those first two months had been terror. Then, gradually, terror had eased to anxiety, and a different kind of fear, almost like a hunger, that she would lose what she had found again.
She had died so she could live.
Now she was tired of running, of hiding, of losing herself in crowded cities. She wanted a home. Wasn't that what she'd always wanted? A home, roots, family, friends. The familiar that never judged too harshly.
Maybe she would find some part of that here, on this spit of land cradled by the sea. Surely she could get no farther away from Los Angeles than this pretty little island—not unless she left the country altogether.
If she couldn't find work on the island, she could still take a few days there. A kind of vacation from flight, she decided. She would enjoy the rocky beaches, the little village, she would climb the cliffs and roam the thick wedge of forest.
She'd learned how to celebrate and cherish every moment of being. It was something she would never, ever forget again.
Delighted with the scatter of clapboard cottages tucked back from the dock, she leaned on the rail of the ferry, let the wind blow through her hair. It was back to its natural sun-drenched blond. When she'd run, she'd hacked it short as a boy's, gleefully snipping off the long, tumbling curls, then dying it deep brown. Over the past months, she'd changed the color periodically—bright red, coal black, a soft sable brown. She still kept it fairly short and very straight.
It said something, didn't it, that she'd finally been able to let it be. Something about reclaiming herself, she thought.
Evan had liked it long, with a riot of curls. At times he had dragged her by it, across the floor, down the stairs. Using it like chains.
No, she would never wear it long again.
A shudder ran through her, and she glanced quickly over her shoulder, scanning the cars, the people. Her mouth went dry, her throat hot as she searched for a tall, slim man with gilded hair and eyes as pale and hard as glass.
He wasn't there, of course. He was three thousand miles away. She was dead to him. Hadn't he told her a hundred times that the only way she would be free of him was in death?
Helen Remington had died so Nell Channing could live.
Furious with herself for going back, even for a moment in her mind, Nell tried to calm herself. She breathed in slowly. Salt air, water. Freedom.
As her shoulders relaxed again, a tentative smile played around her mouth. She stayed at the rail, a small woman with short, sunny hair that danced cheerfully around a delicate face. Her mouth, unpainted and soft, curved up and teased out the hint of dimples in her cheeks. Pleasure brought a rosy glow to her skin.
She wore no makeup, another deliberate act. There was a part of her that was still hiding, still hunted, and she did whatever she could to pass unnoticed.
Once she had been considered a beauty, and had groomed herself accordingly. She'd dressed as she'd been told to dress, wearing sleek, sexy, sophisticated clothes selected by a man who claimed to love her above all things. She'd known the feel of silk against her skin, what it was to casually clasp diamonds around her throat. Helen Remington had known all the privileges of great wealth.
And for three years had lived in fear and misery.
Nell wore a simple cotton shirt over faded jeans. Her feet were comfortable in cheap white sneakers. Her only jewelry was an antique locket that had been her mother's.
Some things were too precious to leave behind.
As the ferry slowed to dock, she walked back to her car. She would arrive on Three Sisters with one small bag of belongings, a rusted secondhand Buick, and $208 to her name.
She couldn't have been happier.
Nothing, she thought as she parked the car near the docks and began to wander on foot, could have been farther from the pleasure palaces and glitz of Beverly Hills. And nothing, she realized, had ever called more truly to her soul than this little postcard village. Houses and shops were both tidy and prim with their colors faded by sea salt and sun. Cobblestone streets were curvy and whistle-clean as they climbed the hilly terrain or arrowed back to the docks.
Gardens were lovingly tended, as if weeds were illegal. Dogs barked behind picket fences and children rode bikes of cherry red and electric blue.
The docks themselves were a study in industry. Boats and nets and ruddy-cheeked men in tall rubber boots. She could smell fish and sweat.
She hiked up the hill from the docks and turned to look back. From there she could see the tour boats plugging along in the bay, and the little sickle slash of sand beach where people spread out on towels or bobbed in the energetic surf. A little red tram with white letters that read THREE SISTERS TOURS was rapidly filling up with day-trippers and their cameras.
Fishing and tourism, she supposed, were what kept the island afloat. But that was economics. It stood against sea, storms, and time, surviving and flourishing at its own pace. That, she thought, was courage.
It had taken her too long to find her own.
High Street speared across the hill. Shops and restaurants and what she supposed were island businesses lined it. One of the restaurants should be her first stop, she thought. It was possible she could hook a job as a waitress or short-order cook, at least for the summer season. If she could find work, she could hunt up a room.
She could stay.
In a few months, people would know her. They'd wave as she walked by, or call out her name. She was so tired of being a stranger, of having no one to talk to. No one who cared.
She stopped to study the hotel. Unlike the
other buildings it was stone instead of wood. Its three stories with elaborate gingerbread, iron balconies, and peaked roofs were undeniably romantic. The name suited it, she decided. The Magick Inn.
It was a good bet that she'd find work there. Waitressing in the dining room, or as part of the housekeeping staff. A job was the first order of business.
But she couldn't make herself go inside, deal with it. She wanted time first, a little time before she settled down to the practical.
Flighty, Evan would have said. You're much too flighty and foolish for your own good, Helen. Thank God you have me to take care of you.
Because his voice played all too clearly in her ears, because the words nipped at the confidence she'd slowly rebuilt, she turned deliberately away and walked in the opposite direction.
She would get a damn job when she was ready to, but for now she was going to wander, to play tourist, to explore. When she was finished roaming High Street, she'd go back to her car and drive all over the island. She wouldn't even stop at the Island Tourist Board to get a map.
Following her nose, she hitched up her backpack and crossed the street. She passed craft shops, gift shops, loitered at the windows. She enjoyed pretty things that sat on shelves without purpose. One day, when she settled again, she'd make a home just as she pleased, full of clutter and fun and color.
An ice cream shop made her smile. There were round glass tables and white iron chairs. A family of four sat at one, laughing as they spooned up whipped cream and confetti-colored sprinkles. A boy wearing a white cap and apron stood behind the counter, and a girl in snug cutoff jeans flirted with him as she considered her choices.
Nell sketched the picture in her mind and walked on.
The bookstore stopped her, made her sigh. Her home would be full of books, too, but not rare first editions never meant to be opened and read. She'd have old, scarred books, shiny new paperbacks all in a jumble of stories. In fact, that was one thing she could start now. A paperback novel wouldn't add much weight to her pack if she had to move on.
Books by Nora Roberts Page 144