by Nora Roberts
“Filthy work, this.” Mick rested against his shovel.
“More than one lowlander’s going to find himself wading in shit if this keeps up.”
“If those bastards from Waterford had showed up, we’d have the tank pumped out, at least.”
“If they ever get here with their big pumper, I say we toss them headfirst into the muck.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Christ Jesus, what a smell. But I think here’s the matter, Dad.”
They hunkered down, rain beating over their heads, and studied the old cracked line with identical expressions of interest and thoughtfulness on their faces. “It’s just as you figured, Dad. The pipe’s old and gave out under the added pressure. It runs from tank to field and bursting’s turned Mrs. Duffy’s nice yard into a dung heap.”
“Well, once she’s cleared out Kathy’ll have herself a well-fertilized garden, won’t she?” As the stench was enormous, Mick breathed through his teeth. “It was a good job of you to think of going and getting the PVC pipe ahead of time. We’ll replace it and see what’s what.”
With a grunt, Brenna got to her feet. They squished over to the truck together. The work was nasty, but the teamwork routine. As they worked, she shot little glances at him.
He’d said nothing about Shawn, not a word. And though she understood her father would have some delicacy of feeling about the situation, she couldn’t stand having it between them. Unsaid, it was a wedge, and she needed to knock it loose.
“Dad.”
“Ha, nearly got her now. Bitch may be cracked, but she’s tough on the joinings.”
“Dad, you know I’m still seeing Shawn.”
Mick rapped his knuckles hard against the pipe and his tool squirted out of his hand like wet soap. Keeping his eyes lowered, he plucked it out again, then wiped it on his equally filthy trousers. “I suppose I do.”
“Are you ashamed of me?”
He worked another moment in silence. “Never have you done anything to shame me, Brenna. But the fact is, you’re stepping onto boggier ground than we’re swimming in. Working with you, respecting and admiring your skills is on the one hand. But on the other, you’re my daughter. It’s not an easy thing for a man to discuss such areas with his daughter.”
“Sex?”
“Damn it, Brenna.” Under the filth on his face, his cheeks went pink as peonies.
“It’s there, isn’t it?” When the ruined pipe was wrenched free, she shoved it aside.
“So is the shit I’m sitting in at the moment, but I’d just as soon not dwell on it. You’ve been reared as best as your mother and I could, and the steps you take as a grown-up woman are your own. You can’t ask me for my blessing in such a thing, Brenna, but I’m not judging you, either.”
“He’s a good man, Dad.”
“When did I say he wasn’t?” Exasperated, embarrassed, and wanting an end to the topic at hand, Mick scooted, slithered so they could fit the new pipe.
“It’s just . . . what Mary Kate said last week. She was mad as spit, and we’ve come to our terms on it. But I don’t want you to think that it’s cheap between us.”
The girl, he thought, was as ever like a terrier with a bone. She wouldn’t have done until it was chewed to her satisfaction. “What Mary Kate said to you was uncalled for between sisters, and it’s pleased I am the two of you have made it up. As for the other . . . do you care for him?”
“I do, of course. Yes.”
“And respect him?” The slight hesitation had Mick looking over the pipe, meeting Brenna’s eyes. “Ah, well, now.”
“I do respect him. He has a good brain when he bothers to use it, and he has a kind heart and a good humor. That doesn’t make me blind to his faults. I know he’s lazy about things, and careless with his own talents.”
“On this I do have something to say, though you’ll go your own way no matter.” He straightened, rolled his shoulders. “You don’t fix a man the way you do a fault in a pipe or a leak in a roof. You take him as he is, Mary Brenna, or you don’t take him at all.”
She frowned. “It’s not like that, but more of a turning in the right direction.”
“Right for who?” He gave her a pat on the arm. “ Adjustments can’t be all on one side, darling, else the balance goes off and what’s being built just falls down.”
For Shawn, Brenna’s appearance at the back door in the middle of the lunch shift was a shock to all his senses. She was filthy from cap to boot and, even with the distance, let off an aroma that watered the eyes.
“Mother of God, what’ve you been doing?”
“Septic tank,” she said cheerfully. “We scraped and hosed off the worst of it.”
“You missed a few spots from where I’m standing.”
“Well, we’ve got to do what we can to put Mrs. Duffy’s yard back together, so we didn’t bother with all of it. But the fact is, we’re near to starving.”
He held up a hand. “If you’re thinking of coming in here, O’Toole, pause and reflect.”
“I’m not coming in. I told Dad I’d walk up and get us a couple of sandwiches to keep us going. And we could use a couple bottles of beer.”
“Step back out and close the door.”
“I will not.” To annoy him, she leaned against the jamb. “I’m not hurting anything way over here. Whatever makings you have handy’ll do. We aren’t particular.”
“That’s obvious enough.” He bumped back the orders he’d been filling and got out bread and meat.
It amused her to see him work with a great deal more speed than was his habit. “We’ll be a couple hours yet. Then I’ve a few things to do.”
“I hope bathing’s one of them.”
“It’s on the list. From the looks of things in here, the weather’s not slowing down your business.”
“Half the village is in day or night. People look for company as much as anything else, and a change of view from their own four walls.” He layered meat and cheese generously. “We’ve a seisiun going most the time and a few heated tempers over whatever sporting match is on the telly now that we’ve got the generator running.”
“It’s keeping us hopping as well. I don’t think we’ve had an hour free, Dad and me, since the storm rolled in.”
“I’m looking forward to it rolling out. Haven’t seen sun nor star in a week now. Tim Riley says she’s breaking, though.”
It was easy talk, weather and work, the sort she could have with anyone she knew. Wasn’t it nice, she mused, that she liked having it with Shawn best of all? That was a kind of treasure, one she hadn’t cherished enough in the past.
“Well, whether Tim’s right or he’s wrong, I was thinking I might wander up to Faerie Hill later on. Say a bit after midnight.”
“The door’s open, but I’d appreciate you cleaning off your Wellies first.” He put the sandwiches in a sack, added a couple of bags of crisps and two bottles of Harp. When she started to dig out payment, he shook his head. “No, this is on the house. I don’t think I want any coin you might have in those pockets.”
“Thanks.” She took the bag, rested it on her hip. “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”
“No. But I’ll make it up to you later.”
“See that you do.” With a grin that might have been flirtatious under different circumstances, she sauntered off and left him to close the door.
• • •
She was a woman of her word, and she opened the door of his cottage at the stroke of midnight. Too early, she knew, for him to be home from work. But she liked the quiet of the place, the mood of it when she was there alone.
She took off her boots at the door, as Shawn often did himself, and wandered around in her stocking feet lighting candles and oil lamps, as the power had yet to be restored. And as she did, she was half hoping Lady Gwen might show herself.
Wasn’t it the perfect time for a ghost, after all? A stormy night alive with rain and whistling wind, a little cottage alight with candles and the glo
w of a fire.
“I know you’re here, and there’s no one but me.” She waited, but the air was still, the only sounds the ticking of the cottage as it settled and the incessant call of the wind. “I wanted you to know that I think I understand what you were telling me that first time. His heart’s in his song, and I have listened. I hope what I did was the right thing.”
Again she fell silent, and again only silence answered her.
“Well, a lot of help you are.” Irked, she marched upstairs.
She didn’t need any ghostly visitations or words from beyond to tell her what to do and how to do it. She knew what she was about. She had a man she intended to keep. Since her mind was set on it, it was just a matter of seeing to the details.
She lighted the fire here as well, and banked it for the night. After setting the flame to a pair of candles, she dropped onto the bed, propped the pillows at her back, and settled down to wait.
And the day’s work caught up with her.
There was no wind, no rain. The sky was midnight silk studded with stars that flashed ruby, sapphire, citrine. The moon, full and white, sailed high, spilling its light over a sea as calm as a lake.
The wings of the white horse beat like a heart, steady and true. Astride him, the man in silver rode with his back straight and proud while his dark mane of hair streamed back like a cape.
“It wasn’t wealth or stature or even immortality she wanted from me.”
It seemed not odd at all to be riding with the prince of faeries and sweeping over Ireland. “What was it she wanted from you?”
“Promises, vows, words that come out of the heart. Why is it that saying ‘I love you’ is so hard for some?”
“Saying it lowers all shields.”
He turned his head, his eyes bright and bitter. “ Exactly so. It takes courage for that, does it not, Mary Brenna O’Toole?”
“Or foolhardiness.”
“If love doesn’t make a fool of us, what will?”
The horse swooped downward at a speed that had her heart bounding with excitement. She saw the light glow against the window glass, and the shape and shadows of the cottage on the faerie hill.
Hooves sent sparks shooting when they met ground.
“A simple place,” Carrick murmured, “for so much drama. There, that pretty garden gate. It might be the wall of a fortress, for I can’t pass through it as once I did.”
“She walks the cliffs as well, your love.”
“She does, I’m told, but we can’t so much as see each other, though we might stand near as side by side.”
There wasn’t bitterness in his eyes now, but sorrow. And, Brenna thought, a painful kind of longing.
“At times I feel her there, or catch the scent of her hair or her skin. But not once in a hundred years times three have I been able to see or to touch or so much as speak my heart to her.”
“You cast a harsh spell on the both of you,” Brenna commented.
“I did, yes, and I have paid for that rash moment of temper. You know of such things,” he said.
“I do, indeed. And fortunate it is I haven’t the power to conjure or cast.”
“Mortals.” Amusement softened his face. “You’ve no concept of what powers you hold, and so you use what you have most carelessly on yourselves and each other.”
“That’s pot calling kettle.”
“As you see it,” he agreed with a nod. “But there was no faerie magic in what began between me and Gwen. I neither tricked nor lured her to me, as some tell the tale. She came to me willing, until her father forbade her. Until he promised her to another for fear of me.”
“I believe the truth of that.” Because she did, she laid a comforting hand on his arm. “A maid had less say in such choices then.”
Carrick tossed his leg over the horse, slid down. “Then make yours.”
“I have.” She mirrored his move, watched his mouth twitch. “But I’ll follow through in my own way.”
“Listen,” was all he said.
The music drifted out on the air, wove around her like a silk net. “It’s Shawn playing. The song he gave me. Oh!” She closed her eyes. “It fills the heart right up. There’s nothing in your raft lovelier than that,” she said, reaching down to open the gate.
But it held fast, no matter how she pushed or pulled.“I can’t open it.” Panicked, she whirled around, but horse and rider were gone. She turned back, gripping the gate with both hands, shoved.
“Shawn!”
“There, now.” She was in his arms, and there was a chuckle in his voice. “You were dreaming. An excitable one.”
“Dreaming.” Her mind was full of mists and stars and music. “I couldn’t open the gate. I couldn’t get in.”
“You are in.”
“I am in. God, I’m fuzzy-brained yet. I must’ve dropped off like a rock.” She pushed at her hair. “Give me a minute to wake up.”
“I’ve some news that might clear the cobwebs.”
“What is it?”
“Aidan’s taken with your drawings of the theater.”
As he’d suspected they would, the clouds in her eyes cleared immediately. “Really? Is he?”
“He is, yes. So pleased, in fact, he’s already spoken of them to the Magee.”
“What did he say?”
“Which of them?”
“Both, either.” She gripped his arms and shook. “Don’t play with me, Shawn, or I’ll have to hurt you.”
“Sure and that’s a frightening thought, so I’ll tell you. I can’t relay exactly what Magee said, as it was Aidan who spoke with him, but it seems that the man’s interested enough to want to take a look at what you’ve drawn up.” Shawn toyed with her hair as he spoke, a new habit he was enjoying. “So they’re going off to New York City, and we’ll see what we see.”
“It’s a good design.”
“It looked good to me.”
“It would work and work well.” Worrying over it, she gnawed at her lip. “Any dunderhead would see that it blends with what’s here, adds to it rather than overpowering. He won’t get better from any of his fancy architects.”
“You have to work on your confidence, Brenna. So much modesty’s unseemly.”
She only snorted. “But how is Magee to know that if he can’t actually see ? The way the pub sits and how the land is and so on.”
“He has photographs,” Shawn reminded her. “Finkle took dozens while he was here.”
“It’s not the same. I should talk to Magee myself, is what I should do.”
“You may be right, but wouldn’t it be best to give it a bit of time, then see what he thinks before jumping in boots first and pushing at him?”
“Some take a good push.” Her lips slanted into a sneer. “As yourself is a perfect example. When is Aidan sending them? Maybe I should take another look at them first.”
“They’re already on the way. He shipped them off in yesterday’s post, by special courier as Magee requested.”
“Well, then. Well.” They would stand or fall on their own, she thought, as Shawn’s song would. She nearly blurted out that she’d already spoken to Magee herself, and that between them they were keeping the man busy looking over their efforts.
No, better to wait, then give Shawn the results instead of the worry of wondering.
“And what are you thinking of so hard and long?”
“The next steps, and what happens after they’re taken. It seems when one thing changes, everything changes with it.”
“I’ve thought the same myself.” Look at us, he thought, and brushed her hair back from her face.
Her pulse stumbled. Another change, she realized, that his just touching her could cause that sudden and vivid awareness. “Does it worry you?”
“No. But if it concerns you at the moment, I’d rather just take you dreaming again.” His lips cruised over hers as he laid her back. “If you hold on to me, we’ll go together.”
“I want to be with you. You’re the o
nly one.” It was the closest she could come to lowering her shields.
He took her dreaming, gliding up, sinking down with the lights of the candles and turf fire shimmering everywhere. There was a tenderness in her she hadn’t explored before. A welling need to give whatever was asked, and give gently.
They undressed each other. No tugs, no pulls this time. Fingers slid over skin, and lips followed, lingered so that each caress, each taste was precious. Sigh answered murmur. A mingling of breath.
Desire, without the red flash of flames, was gilded at the edges. Even when he urged her up to that fine and trembling peak, the glow held steady.
They watched each other as he slipped inside her.
It was like coming home.
His lips curved as they lowered to hers, another link. Her hands lifted, framed his face, held him there, just there while the beauty of it had tears swimming to her eyes.
“Come with me.” She murmured it against his mouth. “Let go and come with me.”
Her breath caught as she began the tumble, then released in a sigh when he took her hand and fell with her.
His mouth was on hers again before the mists cleared. “Stay.”
She shouldn’t. Even as he shifted to draw her against his side she thought of all the reasons why it was best if she left now, crept quietly into her own bed.
“All right,” she said and settling her head on his shoulder, slept.
Of course, by dawn he’d shoved her to the edge of the bed. That was a little something they’d have to work on, Brenna thought as she got up in the half-light. She’d be damned if she’d spend every night of her life fighting for space on the mattress.
Begin as you mean to go on, her mother often said. Well, she’d begin by shoving her elbow into his ribs several times a night until he learned to share.
But her eyes were warm, watching him as she dressed. And the kiss she gave him before she left was unashamedly loving. “We’ll get a bigger bed,” she whispered, then hurried out to get home before her mother came down to make breakfast.
An hour later, he woke alone and vaguely dissatisfied. Couldn’t the woman have said good-bye at least? That was going to change. In fact, the whole business was going to change, and sooner than she might expect.