by Nora Roberts
He drew back, wanting to clear his head, catch his breath. Think. She stayed against the wall, then gave one long, feline sigh and opened her eyes.
“I liked that.” A little more, she was sure, than was good for her. Still, she ran her tongue over her bottom lip, as if to steal a bit more taste, and had his blood swimming again. “Why don’t you do it again?”
“Why don’t I?”
This time he framed her face in his hands, combed his fingers through her hair until they fisted in it. Then hesitated, waited, suffered, with his mouth a whisper from hers until her breath, and his, quickened.
“We’ll drive each other crazy.”
The sound she made was more gasp than laugh. “I’ve come to the same conclusion. Let’s start right now.” She closed the distance by catching his bottom lip between her teeth, tugging lightly, then not so lightly before soothing the nip with her tongue.
“Good start,” he managed and crushed his mouth to hers.
Her head went spinning, quick, dancing circles that left her giddy and dizzy and delighted. Every sensation was a burst through her system—the taste, the hard lines of him, the damp stone at her back, the shimmer of rain on her skin.
She wanted to push him to urgency, to make him weak, to hear him beg—before she did. She threw herself into the kiss, into the moment, and as a result gave him more than she’d intended.
Again, it was he who drew back. It was either that or drag her off to the car and tumble her in the backseat with all the finesse and control of a kid on prom night. She’d taken him right to the edge with a kiss on a wet sidewalk outside of a crowded pub.
“We’re going to need more privacy,” he decided.
“Eventually.” She needed to get her legs back under her. “But at the moment we’ve stirred each other up enough. I don’t think we’ll get much sleep tonight, but I don’t mind that.” Steadier, she brushed a hand through her hair, scattering fine drops of rain. “You know, the last time I kissed a Yank, I slept like a baby after.”
“That would be a compliment.”
“Oh, indeed it would. I’ll enjoy thinking about kissing you again at the next opportunity, but for now I have to go back inside, and you should go home.”
She turned to go, stopping when he took her arm. She wasn’t quite steady enough to resist if he recognized his advantage and pressed it. So she sent him a bright and sassy look over her shoulder. “Behave yourself, Trevor.If I’m any longer out here, Aidan will lecture me and spoil my nice mood.”
“I want your next evening off.”
“And I’ve a mind to give it to you.” She gave his hand a friendly pat, then slipped quickly inside again.
It was a surprise and an annoyance to find himself shaken. He had to sit in the car, listening to the rain,waiting for his blood to cool and his hands to steady. He knew what it was to want a woman, even to crave the feel of one under his hands, under his body. Just as he knew, and accepted, that the need brought with it certain vulnerabilities and risks.
But whatever it was he wanted, needed, craved from Darcy Gallagher was on a different level than anything that had come before.
She was different, he admitted, frowning at the pub for a moment before starting his car. Sexy, selfish, seductive. There were other women he knew with those attributes, but they were rarely so unapologetic and honest about it.
She was toying with him, and doing nothing to hide the fact. And by God, he had to admire her for it. Just as he had to admire her for being perfectly aware that he was playing the same game.
It was going to be fascinating to see who won, and how many rounds it took.
Relaxing since he was confident he’d handle her, he bumped along the track toward home and found himself smiling. Christ, he liked her. He couldn’t remember another woman who’d heated his blood, engaged his mind, and sparked his humor in quite the way she managed to do all three. Often at the same time.
If there’d been no physical spark between them, he would still have enjoyed being with her, picking his way through that marvelous and straightforward brain of hers. As it was, he thought he was about to explore the best of all possible worlds, romantically speaking. And what a relief it was to head toward intimacy knowing that both parties looked for nothing more than mutual gratification and interesting companionship.
The business end of their relationship was relatively uncomplicated. The pub belonged to her, as much as to her brothers, but it was Aidan Trevor had dealt with, and would continue to deal with in that area.
There was that voice of hers, which was a separate and intriguing matter. He had a couple of ideas he wanted to let simmer before he discussed them with her. In that area he was confident that she’d be guided by his experience. And lured by what he could, and would, offer her.
She appreciated money and wanted enough to live stylishly. Well, he had a feeling he was going to be able to help her out there.
Profit was the bottom line, she’d told him that day on the beach. He had some ideas how that bottom line could be reached by both of them. For a song.
He turned into his street next to his cottage, very satisfied at how well his time in Ireland was being spent, and how successful the results were to date.
He got out of the car, locking it out of habit, then used the light he’d left burning to guide him through the mist to the garden gate.
He didn’t know why he looked up, why he was compelled to lift his eyes to the window. The jolt that went through him was like a lightning bolt through the center of his body, one hard sizzle from head to foot.
At first he thought of Darcy, of the way she’d stood framed in her bedroom window the first time he’d seen her. A similar jolt then, not of recognition but of desire.
This woman stood framed in the window as well, was lovely as well. But her hair was pale, like the mists around him. Her eyes he knew, though it was too dark to see their color, were a haunted sea green.
This woman had been dead for three centuries.
He kept his eyes on her face as he pushed open the gate. Saw a single tear shimmer as it slipped slowly down her cheek. His heart was a trip-hammer in his chest as he walked quickly along the path through drenched flowers, through the faint music that was the wind chimes dancing in the breeze. The air was ripe, almost overpowering, with the wet perfume, the tinkling notes.
He unlocked the door, shoved it open.
There wasn’t a sound. The single light he’d left burning caused long shadows to slant into corners, over the old wooden floor. With the keys still in his hand, forgotten, he started up the stairs. As he stepped to the bedroom doorway, Trevor took a breath, held it, then flipped on the light.
He hadn’t expected her to be there. Illusions faded in the light. When it flashed on, flooded the room, he let out the breath he’d been holding in one short whoosh.
She stood facing him, her hands folded neatly at her waist. Her hair, delicately gold, spilled over the soulders of a simple gray dress that flowed down to her feet. The tear, bright as silver, was drying on her cheek.
“Why do we waste what’s inside us? Why do we wait so long to embrace it?”
Her voice lifted and fell, the rhythm of Ireland, and stunned him more than the vision of her.
“Who—” But of course he knew who she was, and asking was a waste of time. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s always more comforting to wait at home. I’ve waited a long time. He thinks you’re the last. I wonder, could he be right when you don’t wish to be, and wish it so strongly?”
It was impossible. A man didn’t hold a conversation with a ghost. Someone, for some reason, was playing games, and it was time to put a stop to it. He strode forward, reached out to take her arm. And his hand passed through her as it would through smoke.
The keys slipped out of his numb fingers and clattered on the floor at her feet.
“Is it so difficult to believe that more exists than what you can touch?” She said it kindly, becaus
e she understood what it was to fight beliefs. She could have allowed him to touch an illusion of what she had been, but it would have meant less to him. “You already know it in your heart, in your blood. It’s only a matter of letting your mind follow.”
“I’m going to sit down.” He did so, abruptly, on the side of the bed. “I dreamed of you.”
And for the first time, she smiled. Mixed with gentle humor was compassion. “I know it. Your coming here to this place at this time was determined long ago.”
“Fate?”
“It’s a word you don’t like, one that makes you want to brace for battle.” She shook her head at him. “Such a thing as fate takes us to certain points along a path. What you do here and now is up to you. The choice at the end of a path. I made mine.”
“Did you?”
“Aye. I did what I thought right.” Annoyance filtered into the musical voice. “It doesn’t make it right, but only what I thought, and what I felt needed to be done. My husband was a good man, a kind one. We had children together who were the joy of my life, a home that contented us.”
“Did you love him?”
“I did, oh, aye, I did after a time. A warm and settled love we had, and he would have asked no more of that from me. ’Twasn’t the flash and burn I felt for another. Do you see that’s what I believed it was I felt for Carrick? A fire that would flame hot and high, then die away to nothing but ash. And there I was wrong.”
She turned, as if looking out the window, beyond the glass, beyond the rain. “I was wrong,” she repeated.“I’ve bided in this place a long time, a long and lonely time, and still the burn of that love, the ache and the joy of it’s inside me. It’s so easy for love to hide itself under passion and not be recognized.”
“Most would say it’s easy to mistake passion for love.”
“Both are true enough. But for me, I feared the fire, even as I longed for it. And fearing, and longing, never looked into the flames for the jewels that waited there for me.”
“I know about passion, but I don’t know about love. And still, I’ve looked for you in other women.”
Her eyes met his again. “You haven’t realized what you look for, and I hope you will. We’re coming to the end of it, one way or the other. Look hard at what you want to build, then make your choices.”
“I know what—” But she was fading away. He leaped to his feet, reached out again. “Wait. Damn it!” Alone, he tried to pace off nerves, but they stretched and snapped inside him.
How the hell was he supposed to handle this? Dreams and magic and ghosts. There was nothing solid there, nothing tangible. Nothing believable, if it came to that.
But he did believe, and that was what worried him.
SIX
“YOU’ RE LOOKING A bit the worse for wear this morning.”
Trevor took another gulp of the coffee he’d brought to the site with him and sent Brenna a murderous look. “Shut up.”
She didn’t bother to disguise her snort of amusement. She was used to him now and didn’t worry overmuch about his bark. When the likes of him meant to bite, they didn’t warn you first.
“And cross as well. There now, I can have someone bring out a nice rocking chair and you can sit under an umbrella and have a bit of a nap.”
He sipped again. “Have you ever seen a cement mixer from the inside?”
“As rough as you look ’round the edges this morning, I could take you one-handed. Seriously, you can go into the kitchen and have your coffee in peace and in quiet.”
“Construction zones cheer me up.”
“And me.” She glanced around at the tacks of equipment, the hulking machines, the men hefting pipe and cheerfully insulting each other. “Odd creatures, aren’t we? Dad’s off this morning doing a spot of repair jobs here and there, so I’m glad you’re here and in the mood for working off your sulks.”
“I’m not sulking. I don’t sulk.”
“Ah, well, brooding, then. I enjoy a good brood myself, though most often I prefer just punching something and being done with it.”
“Shawn must lead an interesting life.”
“He’s a darling man, and the love of my life, so I do my best to keep him from tedium.”
“Tedium,” Trevor muttered, “kills.”
She nodded. He didn’t look cool and reserved this morning, nor did his voice hold that faint tint of distance. She judged him to be a man that put all of that up as a barrier until the one he dealt with proved trustworthy.
She was glad to have passed the mark.
“I should tell you the lines from the new well and those from the septic are to be inspected this morning. All goes okay, we’ll be burying them by end of day.”
She headed over to show Trevor the progress. The ground was muddy from the night’s rain, which continued to fall steadily. It dripped off the brim of Brenna’s cap, glimmered on the little silver faerie she had pinned on it, as she hunkered down beside a trench.
The smell of mud and men and gasoline pleased her enormously.
“As you see, we’ve used the grade of material you specified, and a pretty job it is, too. Dad and I dealt with a busted septic line during the flood last winter, and it’s not an experience I’m after repeating any time in the near future.”
“This’ll hold.” He crouched where he was, scanned the area. He could see it perfectly, the long, low sweep of the theater, faced with stone to blend with the existing pub, the trim of dark, distressed wood. Charming and simple, but what it was built of, and built on, would be the best that modern technology offered.
That was the dream, after all. Taking what was here, respecting it, even showcasing it, while using the material and ingenuity man had devised along the way.
That’s why he was here, to put the Magee mark on the place they’d come from. It had nothing to do with old legends and lovely ghosts.
Tuning back to the present, he glanced back and saw Brenna patiently watching him. “Sorry, mind wandered.”
He looked perplexed and not a little angry. She hesitated. After all, they’d only known each other in the face-to-face manner for a handful of days. “If it’s something to do with the job that’s troubling you, I hope you’ll tell me so I can do what I can to smooth it out. That’s part of what you’re paying me for. If it’s a personal matter, I’ll be glad to listen if it’s something you feel the need to talk through.”
“I guess it’s a combination. I appreciate it, but I’ll mull a while.”
“I find I mull most successfully when my hands are busy.”
“Good point.” He straightened. “Let’s get to work.”
• • •
It was rough and messy work, and most wouldn’t find it pleasant. Trevor did. Large sheets of plywood were spread over the mud to give barrows and boots traction as material was transported. He hauled lumber for studs and joists, stood under the tarp where the plumbers worked and listened to rain patter on canvas. He drank a gallon of coffee and began to feel marginally human again.
Brenna was right, he decided. Busy hands kept the mind occupied so what was troubling it could stew and turn in the corners. He would figure out what was happening and what to do about it while he dealt with the business at hand.
That, he thought, amused at himself, was a great deal more efficient than brooding.
Drenched and muddy and in a much happier frame of mind, he hefted another board. And nerves danced in his belly, up his spine, over the back of his neck. He was compelled, as he had been the night before, to look up.
Darcy stood in the window, watching him through the thin curtain of rain.
She didn’t smile, nor did he. In that meeting of eyes was an acute awareness that was primitive, sexual, erotic as the slide of naked flesh on naked flesh. There was nothing of the casual flirtation that had passed between them that first morning. Nothing of the clever, seductive game they’d played since.
The flash and burn. Yes, he understood that exactly as he stood in the chilly r
ain staring at a woman he barely knew.
Barely knew, he thought, but had to have. And he didn’t give a damn how quickly the fire died. Annoyed that he could be so easily manipulated by his own desires, he shifted the lumber on his shoulder and carried it to the team of carpenters.
When, unable to do otherwise, he looked back, she was gone.
She acted as if nothing had happened, as if that bolt of knowledge hadn’t flashed between them. When Trevor came in out of the wet for lunch, she sent him a casual glance and continued to take the orders at one of her stations without a single hitch of rhythm.
It was admirable, and infuriating. He’d never had a woman stir both emotions in him so effortlessly.
The lunch crowd was thinner today. He supposed the weather kept some of the tourists within the confines of the hotel. Knowing it was perverse, he deliberately chose a table in Sinead’s section. It would be interesting to see what move Darcy made in this little chess match they appeared to be playing.
Clever, was Darcy’s opinion when she noticed his strategy. Though it would cost him in speed of service, he’d made his point. It was her turn to take a step ahead or back. Then again, she pondered as she scooped up the tip from a table that had just cleared, there was always sideways.
“A bit wet out today, is it, Trevor?” She called across the room while she gathered dirty dishes.
“More than a bit.”
“Ah, well, it’s what makes us what we are. A day like this I imagine you’d rather be tucked into your fancy office in New York City.”
Enjoying himself, he propped a booted foot on his knee. “I like it fine where I am. How about you?”
“Oh, when I’m here I think about being there, and vice versa. I’m a fickle creature.” Pulling out her pad, she moved to the next table, beamed smiles. “And what is it I can get for you today?”
She took their orders, and those of another table besides, delivered them in to Shawn, and served drinks before Sinead managed to make her way to Trevor. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Darcy smirk.