by Nora Roberts
“I could have waited until her feelings for you faded off, as they will.”
“So, I’m the forgettable sort.”
She glanced up at him, then away. “That scores your pride, but it’s the way it is. She’s barely twenty and can’t see through the stars in her eyes.”
“But there’re none in yours.”
“I see clear enough. I started this with you, and I’d end it. I was prepared to end it. But that’s not the way to solve the matter. Mary Kate won’t forgive and forget just because I step away from you. If she’s to grow up, she needs to learn how to face the hard things.”
“So, you’ve decided for all of us, then.”
Because he stopped, she turned to him. Moonlight streamed at his back, spilling over sand and sea like liquid pearls. And in its light she saw his eyes weren’t calm and easy, but very near to furious.
“Someone has to.”
“And it’s always you? Maybe I’ve had enough of you. Maybe I prefer having my life on balance instead of being in the middle of two women who want to bite and scratch.”
Nearly as shocked as she was offended, she snapped at him. “I don’t bite and scratch, and I wasn’t looking to fight Mary Kate or anyone over the likes of you. It just happened. And as far as you having enough of me,” she added, “that’s a different tune you’re singing than the one I heard only this morning.”
“I know a variety of tunes. And as you think so little of me, I’d suspect you’d be relieved to part ways in this area. Both of us can find sex elsewhere when we’re in the mood for it.”
“It’s not just sex.”
Ah, he thought, finally. “Isn’t it?” He stepped closer, backing her toward the sea. “Isn’t that what you said you wanted from me?”
“Yes.” What was going on in those eyes of his? she wondered. They were black as night, with thoughts and feelings she couldn’t read. “But we have a caring for each other. I won’t have you cheapen what’s between us that way.”
“But you’ll say what I’ll have and won’t, what I’ll do and don’t?” He snatched her up seconds before she backed into the surf. “Why would you want a man touching you who could be so easily ordered about?”
“Shawn.” He had her up, her feet dangling inches above the ground. Her heart began to boom. “Set me down.”
“You want me to touch you. Even now, thinking you can point and I’ll go here, or I’ll go there, you want my hands on you.”
“It’s nothing to be proud of.”
He jerked her up another inch. “Fuck pride.”
And when his mouth crushed down on hers, it was rough and ruthless. She might have resisted, might have shoved and struggled. But she did none of those things.
She gave, because he so rarely demanded. She gave, because she needed to. As her body began a fevered quaking, she said his name.
“I could have you, right here and now.” He dropped her abruptly on her feet. “Think about why that is. I have.”
She couldn’t think at all, not with her insides churning and the blood roaring in her head like the sea at her back.
“I’m going home.”
“Go, then. I won’t stop you.” He tucked his hands back in his pockets so he wouldn’t be tempted to do just that. “Mind this, Brenna. I won’t come to you. Once you work out what’s inside you yourself, you know where to find me.”
She walked away. Shawn could say what he would about pride, but she needed herself. She didn’t start running until her boots hit the street.
“That’s the way you charm the ladies, is it?” Carrick stood in the shallow surf and lifted the silver pipe he held to his lips to play a quick tune. “What strange ways you mortals have.”
“I know what I’m about here.”
“I’m sure you think you do. You pea-brain. If you love the woman, why do you let her wiggle away like that?”
“Because I love her.” The fury he’d barely held in check broke out now as he rounded on Carrick. “And you didn’t do so very well in your own time with your own woman, did you?”
Carrick’s eyes flashed, a wild blue that matched the lightning that split the star-strewed sky. “You’re looking to take on the likes of me now, Gallagher the younger?” He stepped out of the surf on boots that were soft and dry. “Didn’t your dear mother ever warn you about what comes of challenging the Good People?”
“You don’t worry me, Carrick. You need me. It’s come down to you, with all your power and all your tricks, needing a mortal man. So hold your threats and your light shows. They don’t impress me.”
Temper simmered, settled. “Hah. The woman thinks she knows what’s in you, but she’s yet to dig deep enough. Have a care you don’t show her too much too quickly and scare her off.”
“Go to the devil.”
Carrick flashed his teeth. “He won’t have me,” said he, and faded away to the tune of his pipe.
SEVENTEEN
BRENNA WENT TO early Mass. The little church with cool morning light coming through the glass smelled of candle wax and holy water. It always seemed to her that holy water carried a faint metallic scent. When Brenna was a child Mollie told her it was the blessings in it. She often remembered that, found comfort in that, whether she dipped her fingers in the church font or the water of Saint Declan’s Well.
A baby was fussing in the back pew, little fretful squawls that his mother tried to hush with murmurs and pats. Brenna didn’t mind it. It was rare to sit at Mass and not hear a baby whimpering or wailing, or children squirming, starched clothes scratching against worn wooden pews.
She liked the familiarity of it, as much as the ritual. It was a fine time and place for thinking, which to her mind was the same as praying half the time.
She had choices to make. And if she wanted to repair the damage that had been done, she had to make them quickly. When there was a crack in something it only widened if you didn’t tend to it. Let it go long enough, a crack became a break, and you had a hell of a mess on your hands.
There was damage now to her relationship with Mary Kate, a split that could undermine the foundation of blood and heart. She’d had a part in causing it. Left as it was, that damage could run through and fracture the bond of her entire family. How it was repaired would determine whether that bond held firm or showed the scars.
The same was true of Shawn. There was a foundation there, built over a lifetime of affection and shared memories and friendship. She wouldn’t stand aside and watch it crumble.
Choices, she thought, of where to begin the repairs and how to go about them. Each choice took steps, and only she could take them. Best if she began now.
She slipped out a few minutes before the service ended. That way she avoided anyone who wanted to chat or gossip or ask after her family. She drove home, a bit nervous in the stomach regions, but with her mind made up as to which step to take first.
“There you are.” Mollie, dressed for church, met her at the door. “I heard you go out earlier.”
“I’ve been to Mass.”
“Oh, well, the lot of us are about to go ourselves.”
“Mary Kate’ll have to go later.” Brenna moved in and started up the stairs. “She can use my lorry.”
“Brenna, I want no fighting in this house on the Lord’s day.”
“There won’t be,” Brenna promised. She had a mind to fight elsewhere, should it be necessary.
She got to the top of the steps just as her father came out of his room. His face was red and glowing from his shave, his hair showing the forks of his comb like little furrows in a sandy field. Her heart all but broke with love for him.
“Dad.”
It was awkward, and he imagined it would be so between them for a little while yet. But there were tears swimming into her eyes. That he couldn’t bear. “Your mother’s gathering us up for Mass.”
“I’ve already been.”
“Ah, well.” He shifted his feet. “I’m after an early start in the morning. Those back
steps of O’Leary’s finally fell through, as we’ve been telling them they would. Of course, O’Leary fell through with them, which is no more than he deserves for letting them rot as he did. We’ll start there first thing.”
She understood that either of them could have dealt with the job alone. That he was having them work together healed the widest crack in her heart. “I’ll be ready. Dad—”
“We’ll be late for Mass if you don’t shake out the lead,” Mollie called up.
“Tomorrow’s as good as today,” was all Mick said, and touched his hand lightly to Brenna’s arm as he passed her.
She took a deep breath. “Not for everything,” she muttered, and pushed open the door to her sisters’ room.
Alice Mae sat patiently on the side of the bed, her good shoes polished, her hair brushed to a rose gold gleam. Mary Kate primped in front of the mirror, adding a coat of mascara to her lashes. Her eyes were still a little swollen from weeping, but her mouth formed a thin sharp line when she saw Brenna.
“Alice, darling, Ma’s calling. Go on now.”
Mary Kate gave her hair one more toss. “I’m coming with you, Alice Mae.”
“No, you’re not,” Brenna corrected and stepped in front of the doorway. “You’ll have to make a later Mass.”
“I don’t have to do anything you say.”
“You can come with me and have this out away from the house, as I’ve promised Ma there’d be no fighting in it. Or you can sulk day and night like a child. If you want to be a woman, Mary Kate, I’ll be in my lorry waiting.”
It took less than five minutes for Mary Kate to saunter out of the house and climb into the lorry. She’d added lipstick, Brenna noted as she zoomed out into the road. She couldn’t understand why so many females saw paint as a kind of shield or weapon.
Then again, she knew her ancestors had painted themselves blue before screaming into battle.
As she figured it as neutral turf, or if anything leaned a bit toward Mary Kate’s side, she drove to the cliff hotel and parked. She got out and began to walk, knowing her sister would follow.
“And where are you going?” Mary Kate demanded. “Somewhere you can toss me off a cliff?”
“Somewhere I think the both of us will respect enough not to start pulling hair or punching.”
They followed the path, crossing the cliffs, where the air still had a bite. It seemed winter wasn’t quite ready to surrender to spring. But there were wildflowers beginning to show their faces and tuneful birds that sang out as high and loud as the crying gulls.
She passed the ruin of the cathedral once built in the name of Saint Declan and moved beyond his well, beyond the three stone crosses, toward the ground that held the dead and their markers.
“This is holy ground,” Brenna began. “And I’m standing on it when I tell you I wronged you. You’re my sister, my blood, and I didn’t consider your feelings, not as I should have. I’m sorry for it.”
It threw Mary Kate off, and that alone was enough to stir her temper again. “Do you think that makes up for it?”
“I’m thinking it’s all I can say.”
“Are you giving him up?”
“I thought I would,” Brenna said slowly. “That was part pride. ‘I’ll give him up for her,’ I thought. ‘Then she’ll see how I’d sacrifice to keep her happy.’ The other part was guilt that I’d done something to hurt you, and ending things with Shawn would be my penance for it.”
“I’d think you’d have more guilt than pride in the way you’ve behaved.”
Temper flashed once, a bright warning in her eyes. Then Brenna snuffed it. She knew her sister, and she knew just how clever Mary Kate could be in inciting anger to overpower her opponent’s reason.
“I’ve no guilt over what’s been between myself and Shawn, but only that what is between us has hurt and embarrassed you.” The cool delivery only added impact to the words. “And for that I was prepared to turn from him, as a lover, and perhaps as a friend as well. Then, reconsidering, it seemed to me that doing that would be something akin to giving in to a child’s tantrum, and that’s hardly treating you or your feelings with respect.”
“You’re just twisting it all around so you can have what you want.”
Suddenly the four years separating them seemed like forty. And made Brenna unbearably tired. There were tears in Mary Kate’s voice, hot and spiteful ones that reminded Brenna of times they’d squabbled over a new toy or the last biscuit in the tin.
“Do I want Shawn? I do. I haven’t figured it all out as yet, but the wanting’s there, and I can’t deny it. I’m facing you here, woman to woman, and telling you he wants me as well. I’m sorry, Mary Kate, for the unhappiness it causes you, but he isn’t looking at you that way.”
Mary Kate’s chin came up, and Brenna thought her own would have done the same under the circumstances. “He might if you weren’t warming his bed.”
That caused a hitch in her stomach, but she nodded. “The fact is, I am in his bed. And I won’t be rolling out of it to make room for you. Yesterday I might have, because I couldn’t stand seeing you so hurt and knowing I was part of the cause. But I’m looking at you here, Mary Kate, in clear light with a clear head. And you’re not hurting now. You’re just mad.”
“How do you know what I feel for him?”
“I don’t. Tell me.”
She threw up her head so her hair flew in the frisky wind. “I love him.” It was a passionate and almost sweetly dramatic declaration. Brenna gave her full marks for it, knowing she herself could never have pulled it off so impressively.
“Why?”
“Because he’s handsome and sensitive and kind.”
“Aye, he’s all of those things—as is the Clooney dog. What of his flaws?”
“He doesn’t have any.”
“Of course he does.” The fact of them smoothed out Brenna’s nerves and made her feel oddly sentimental. “He’s stubborn and slow to move and absentminded. There are times you’ll be talking to him and you might as well be talking to yourself, as his brain’s gone off somewhere else. He lacks ambition and needs to be prodded along every other step or he’d stay happy in the same place forever.”
“That’s how you see him.”
“I see him as he is, not as a pretty picture out of a book. Mary Kate.” She stepped forward, knowing it was too soon to reach out. “Let’s be honest here, we two. There’s something in the way he looks, in the air of him that makes a woman want. I understand how he makes you feel in that area. And I’ve wanted him myself since I was no older than Alice Mae.”
Something flickered in Mary Kate’s eyes. “I don’t believe you. You don’t wait for anything.”
“I thought I’d get over it. Then I thought I’d make a fool of myself.” Brenna pushed at her hair, wished she’d thought to tie it back before coming up the cliff. “In the end it was more than a wanting. It was a needing.”
“You don’t love him.”
“I think I might.” The minute the words were out, Brenna pressed a hand to her heart, as if someone had just delivered a blow to it. “I think I might,” she said again, then just slid down to her knees. “Oh, sweet God Almighty, what am I to do?”
Mary Kate could only gape. Her sister had gone dead white and was rocking on her knees and clutching her chest as if she was having a seizure. “Stop that. You’re playacting.”
“I’m not. I can’t. I can’t seem to breathe right.”
Suspicious, Mary Kate walked over and gave Brenna a hefty thump on the back. “There.”
Her breath whooshed out, wheezed in. “Thanks.” She sank weakly onto her heels. “I can’t deal with this now, I can’t. I shouldn’t be expected to. It was bad enough the way things were, but this won’t do. It won’t do at all. This fixes nothing, but only shifts the weight. Damn it.”
Since Brenna made no move to get up, Mary Kate sat down. “I think I could forgive you if you were in love with him. Are you just saying you are so I will?”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why should I go around telling anyone? So I can look like a bigger horse’s ass?”
“It’ll probably go away.”
“Why should you want it to?”
“In love with Shawn Gallagher.” Brenna rubbed her hands over her face, ran them back into her hair. “What a pretty mess that would be. We’d drive each other crazy inside a year—me always wanting to get things done, him dreaming the time away. The man can’t remember to plug in a cord, much less fix one that’s gone off.”
“What difference does that make? You can fix it. And dreaming’s what he does. How else could he make up all that music?”
“And what’s the point of making it up if you do nothing with it?” Brenna waved it away. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s not what either of us was after when we started. I’m just doing the bloody female thing, and it annoys me. Why do women have to turn attraction into love?”
“Maybe there was love hiding under the attraction all along.”
Brenna lifted her head. “Why do you suddenly have to get wise?”
“Maybe because you’re not treating me like a foolish girl anymore. And maybe because when I look at you right now, it occurs to me that it might not have been love I was feeling for him. It didn’t make me go pale and tremble, that’s for certain. And . . .” She sat back, a faint sneer on her face. “Maybe because it’s satisfying under the circumstances to see you look weak and terrified. You damn near pulled my hair out by the roots yesterday.”
“You got your licks in.”
“Well, it was you taught me to fight.” At the memory of it sentimental tears clouded Mary Kate’s eyes. “I’m sorry I called you a whore. I did it the first time out of anger, and the others out of spite.” She dabbed at her eyes. “And I’m sorry for the things I wrote about you in my diary—well, sorry for some of them.”