by Nora Roberts
He felt he’d straightened things out in that area as well. Both of them were too sensible to be influenced by legends, or self-interested faeries. Or dreams of a blue heart that beat steady and strong deep in the sea.
He had business to see to, he reminded himself as he carried coffee up to his office in the cottage. Calls to make, contracts to negotiate, supplies to order. He couldn’t waste time thinking about what he did or didn’t see, did or didn’t believe. Responsibilities wouldn’t wait while he pondered just how much of Irish myth was real and how much was imagined.
He touched the disk under his shirt. Real, he thought. As real as it gets. But he was handling it.
He glanced at his watch, and thought he might just catch his father at home in New York. And stepping into the bedroom, he jerked and spilled hot coffee over the back of his hand.
“Goddamn it!”
“Oh, there’s no need to profane.” With a quiet cluck of her tongue, Gwen continued to ply her needle. She sat in the chair in front of the tidy hearth, her hair neatly bound back, her face composed, her hands quick and clever as she embroidered a white cloth.
“You’ll want salve on that burn,” she told him.
“It’s nothing.” What was a little discomfort compared to seeing ghosts? Much less to conversing with one. “I’d nearly convinced myself not to believe in you.”
“Sure and you need to do what makes you most comfortable. Would you rather I let you be?”
“I don’t know what I’d rather.” He set the coffee down on the table, turned his desk chair around to face her. And sitting, he sucked absently at the sting on his hand. “I had dreams about you. I told you that. I didn’t tell you I halfway believed I’d find you when I came here. Not you,” he corrected, fumbling just enough to annoy himself. “Someone . . .” the word “alive” seemed rude somehow. “Real. A woman.”
Her gaze when it lifted to his was gentle and full of understanding. “You thought perhaps you’d find the woman you’d dreamed of, and that she would be for you?”
“Maybe. Not that I’m looking particularly,” he added. “But maybe.”
“A man can fall in love with a dream if he lets himself. It’s a simple matter with no effort, no work, no troubles. And no real joy, when it comes down to it. You prefer working for something, don’t you? It’s part of who you are.”
“I suppose so.”
“The woman you did meet is a great deal of effort and work and trouble. Tell me, Trevor, does she bring you joy as well?”
“You mean Darcy?”
“And who else have you been walking with?” Gwen questioned. “Of course I’m speaking of Darcy Gallagher. A beautiful and complicated woman that, with a voice like . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head and lightly laughing. “I was going to say like an angel, but there’s little of the angels about that one. No, she’s a voice like a woman, full and rich and tempting to a man. She’s tempted you.”
“She could tempt the dead. No offense.”
“None taken. I wonder, Trevor, don’t you think she’s what you’re looking for?”
“I’m not looking for anything. Anyone.”
“We all look. The lucky find.” Her hands, stilled, lay on the cloth with bright patterns of thread. “The wise accept. I was lucky, but not wise. Could you not learn something from my mistake?”
“I don’t love her.”
“Maybe you do and maybe you don’t.” Gwen picked up her needle again. “But you haven’t opened your heart to the risk of it. You guard that part of yourself so fierce, Trevor.”
“It may be that part of myself doesn’t exist.” Chewed off at the knee in Ardmore, he thought, before I was even born. “That I’m just not capable of loving someone the way you mean.”
“That’s foolishness.”
“I hurt another woman because I couldn’t love her.”
“And, I think, hurt yourself in the process. It puts doubts about yourself in your mind. Both of you, I can promise, will not only survive it, but be better off for the experience. Once you stop thinking of your heart as a weapon instead of a gift, you’ll find what you’re looking for.”
“My heart isn’t the priority here. The theater is.”
She made a sound that might have been agreement. “ ’Tis a grand thing to be able to build, and build to last. This cottage, simple as it is, has lasted lifetime and lifetime. Oh, sure a few changes here, another room there, but the core of it remains. As does the faerie raft beneath it, with its silver towers and blue river.”
“You chose the cottage over the castle,” he pointed out.
“I did. Aye, I did. For the wrong reasons, but in spite of it, I won’t regret my children or the man who gave them to me. Perhaps Carrick will never understand that part of my heart. I’ve come to understand it would be wrong to ask him to do so. Hearts can merge and the people who hold them still stand as they are. Love accepts that. It accepts everything.”
He saw now what pattern she worked into the cloth. It was the silver palace, its towers bright, its river blue as gemstones, its trees heavy with golden fruit. And on a bridge that spanned the water were two figures, not yet finished.
Herself, Trevor realized, with her hands held out toward Carrick’s.
“You’re lonely without him.”
“I have . . .” She brushed a finger gently over the threads that formed a silver doublet. “An emptiness in me. A place that waits. As I wait.”
“What happens to you if the spell isn’t broken?”
She lifted her head again, her eyes dark and soft and quiet. “I’ll bide here, and see him only in my heart.”
“For how long?”
“For as long as there is. You have choices, Trevor Magee, as once I had. You have only to make them.”
“It’s not the same,” he began, but she faded away, like mist. “It’s not the same,” he said again, to the empty room. Though he turned the chair around, it was some time before he picked up the phone and managed to get on with the business at hand.
He called his father first, and that connection of voice to voice soothed his nerves. With his rhythm back, he fell into routine, contacted Nigel in London, and his counterpart in Los Angeles. He checked the time again, noted it was closing in on midnight. Seven in New York, he thought, and called the ever reliable Finkle at home.
Notes were piled on his desk, his computer up and running, and the phone tucked on his shoulder with Finkle’s voice droning through when he heard the sound of a car pulling in. Trevor shifted, angled so he could see through the window.
And watched Darcy walk toward the garden gate.
He’d forgotten the wine.
She considered knocking, but she’d seen the light in his office window. Working, are you? With a sly glint in her eye she let herself in the front door. She thought they’d soon put a stop to that, and walked straight up the stairs.
She paused at the door to his office, finding herself both irritated and pleased when he continued with his phone call and waved her in with a little finger crook.
Irritated that he didn’t appear to have been anxiously awaiting her. And pleased because she imagined she would shortly have him panting like an eager pup.
“I’ll need that report before New York closes tomorrow.” Trevor scribbled something down, nodded. “Yeah, well, they’ve got till end of day to accept the offer or it’s off the table. Yes, that’s exactly how I want you to put it. Next item. I’m not satisfied with the bids on the Dressler project. Make it clear that if our usual lumber supplier can’t do better, we’ll look to alternate sources.”
He glanced over absently, took a sip of his coffee as Darcy unbuttoned her coat. Then inhaled caffeine like air—and choked on it.
The coat dropped to the floor, and he saw she wore nothing beneath it but his bracelet, high heels, and a very feline smile.
“Perfect,” he managed. “Jesus, you’re perfect.” As Finkle’s voice buzzed in his ear, he simply hung up, got to his feet.<
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“I take it business hours are over.”
“They are.”
She looked around the room, angled her head. “I don’t see my glass of wine.”
He discovered it was just possible to speak when a man’s heart was in his throat. “I forgot it.” His breath already ragged, he crossed to her. “I’ll get it later.”
She tipped her head back to keep her eyes on his, and saw what she’d wanted to see. Desire, raw as a fresh wound. “I’ve a powerful thirst.”
“Later” was all he could say before his mouth came down on hers.
He possessed. With quick, hard hands, restless lips, he took what she’d offered. Gave her what she’d wanted. Desperation was what she’d wanted from him, that jagged edge of need as dangerous as it was primitive. She’d come to him naked and shameless to lure the animal.
He was rough, and his recklessness added a slick layer of excitement. No control now, nor the need for it. So she lost herself in the wicked spell of her own brewing.
He shoved her against the wall, feasting on her throat, drugged on that sharply sexual taste of perfumed female flesh. And his hands streaked over her, bruised over her, greedy for the curves, the swells, the secrets of woman.
Hot, wet, vibrant.
His fingers slid over her, into her, driving her up. Even as he felt her body shudder, felt the violence of the orgasm rip through her, he looked into her eyes.the dark and clouded blue, he thought he saw the flash of triumph.
He might have been able to pull back then, to clear his head enough to find his finesse, but she moved against him, one lazy, stretching arch, and her arms twined around him like chains wrapped in velvet.
“More.” She purred it. “Give me more, and take more as well. Right here.” She nipped her teeth into his lip. “Right now.”
If she’d been a witch murmuring the darkest of incantations, he’d have been no less spellbound. He’d have sworn he caught the scent of hellfire as her mouth once again captured his.
Then there was madness, fevered and glorious. In her own triumph she found it, that wild pleasure, the terrorlaced delight of having a man turn savage. And allowing it. Craving it.
Her blood beat as frantically as his, her hands raced, as urgent and as rough as those that raced over her.
She tore his shirt, and reveled in the harsh sound of cotton rending at the seam. And her teeth dug into his shoulder when he pushed her over the edge again.
A haze filled his vision, thick and red. Her nails bit into his back, glorious little points of pain. His blood was a drumbeat, a primitive tattoo in his head, heart, loins. He plunged into her where they stood, greedily swallowing her ragged cry.
Each thrust was like another step on a thin wire stretched over both heaven and hell. Whichever way they fell, it couldn’t be stopped. Knowing it, he dragged her head back, kept his hand fisted in her hair, his eyes on her face.
“I want to see you.” He panted it out. “I want to see you feel me.”
“I can’t feel anything but you, Trevor.”
She tumbled off the wire, clasping him against her on the fall. And flying out with her, he didn’t give a damn where they landed.
He stayed where he was, fighting for air, for his sanity. The press of his body kept her upright as he braced a hand on the wall for balance.
She’d gone limp, as he knew now she did after loving. He told himself he’d find the energy, in just a minute, to get them both into bed.
“I can’t stay like this,” she murmured against his shoulder.
“I know. Just a second.”
“Maybe we could just slide down to the floor here for a bit of a while. I can’t feel me legs, anyway. You make me dizzy, Trevor.”
It made him laugh, and he turned his head, buried his face in her hair. “I’d say I’d carry you to bed, but I’d never make it and it would ruin the image of manly prowess. You make me weak, Darcy.”
“It’d take quite a bit to spoil the image after this.”
“Well, in that case.” He slipped an arm behind her knees, lifted her. His hair was tousled, his eyes sleepy and satisfied.
She toyed with the silver disk dangling from the chain, closed her fingers around it. She started to answer his grin, then could only stare as her heart landed right at his feet.
“What is it?” Alarmed by the shock in her eyes and the quick paling of her cheeks, he crossed quickly to the bed to set her down. “Did I hurt you?”
“No.” Oh, Jesus, oh, God. Holy Mother of God. “Just dizzy for a minute, as I said. I’m better now, but I still have that powerful thirst. I could dearly use that wine, if you don’t mind.”
“Sure.” Not quite convinced, he skimmed his knuckles over her cheek. “Just sit there. I’ll be right back.”
The minute he was out of the room, she grabbed a bed pillow and pummeled it viciously with her fists. Damn it all to hell and back again, she’d gotten caught in a web of her own spinning. The man was supposed to be bewitched by her, intrigued, frustrated, satisfied, stupefied, and willing to be her slave before she was done.
And now she’d kicked her own self in the ass and gone and fallen in love with him.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She pounded the pillow again, then hugged it against her as her stomach took a deep, diving dip. How was she supposed to wrap the man around her finger when she was already wrapped around his?
It had been such a good plan, too: She would use her wiles, her lures, her charm, her temper, everything at her disposal. Then when he was caught, as surely he would have been, she’d have been free to snip him loose or keep him. There would have been time to decide which suited her best by then.
Well, this was God’s punishment, she supposed. Fate’s little joke. She’d been so certain she could keep her heart in check until she decided if she should love him or not. Now she had no choice at all.
For the first time in her life, her heart wasn’t her own. And a terrifying sensation it was.
She bit her knuckles, worrying over it. What did she do now? How could she think just now?
It had been all right when it was a kind of game. It hadn’t done more than nip at her temper to think that the manner of man Trevor was wouldn’t be serious about a woman such as herself. Now, well, it was a great deal more important.
And more infuriating.
Because, she thought as that temper began to bubble and burn away panic, if the likes of him thought he could toss her aside just because he had a fancy education and property and money to burn, he was very much mistaken in the matter.
The bastard.
She was in love with him, so she would have him. As soon as she figured out the best way to get him.
Her head came up, a she-wolf prepared to bare fangs, when she heard him coming up the stairs. It took all her control, and all her skill, to bury that instinct, force that temper back, and greet him with a silky smile.
“Okay now?” He came to her, held out a glass of white wine.
She took it, sipped delicately. “Never better,” she said and patted the bed beside her. “Come sit by me, darling, and tell me all about your day.”
Her sugary tone had him wary, but he sat, tapped his glass against hers. “The end of it was the best part.”
She laughed and walked her fingers up his thigh. “And who said it was over?”
• • •
Brenna wasn’t the least bit pleased about being hauled off the job at nine in the morning. She’d argued, cursed, and sulked while Darcy dragged her up the hill to the Gallagher house through a drizzling rain that sent puffs of mist creeping behind them.
“Trevor’s a right to give me the boot for this.”
“He won’t.” Darcy took a firmer hold on Brenna’s arm. “And you’re entitled to a morning break, aren’t you? Been on the job already since half-six. I need twenty minutes of your precious time.”
“You could have had it while I was working.”
“It’s a private matter, and I c
ould hardly ask Jude to waddle her way down there, could I, in the wet.”
“At least tell me what this is about, then.”
“I’m doing it all at once, so you’ll just have to wait five more flaming minutes.” Puffing a bit—Brenna was small, but it wasn’t an easy matter to pull a reluctant woman of any size up that steep hill—Darcy continued down the little walkway between Jude’s wet flowers.
She didn’t knock, and as the door was never locked, she hauled Brenna inside, where her work boots, unwiped, tracked mud down the hallway to the kitchen.
They looked so cozy there, Jude and Aidan, sharing breakfast at the old table, and the big dog sprawled hopefully under it. The smell of toast and tea and flowers hung in the air. It gave Darcy a little jolt in the center, made her wonder why she’d never before realized how satisfying such quiet moments could be. How intimate they were.
“Good morning.” Jude glanced over, and in a credit to friendship, said nothing about the mud. “Do you want some breakfast?”
“No,” Darcy said just as Brenna moved forward to snag a piece of toast from the rack. “We didn’t come to eat,” she continued, aiming a lowering look at her friend. “I need a word with you, Jude. In private. Go away, Aidan.”
“I haven’t finished my breakfast.”
“Finish it at the pub.” Neat and deft, Darcy slapped the remainder of his bacon on toast, scooped the bit of egg left on his plate on top of it, and held it out. “There. Now off with you. This is women’s business here.”
“A fine thing this is, a fine thing for a man to be shoved from his own table, out of his own house.” He may have grumbled, but he got up and shrugged into his jacket. “Females are rarely worth the trouble they take. Except this one,” he added and leaned down to kiss Jude.
“Bill and coo later,” Darcy ordered. “Brenna only has a few minutes as it is.”
“You might as well go.” Resigned now, Brenna got herself a cup, brought it back to the table to enjoy some tea with her toast. “She’s on a tear.”
“I’m going. I’ll expect you to be on time,” he said to Darcy. He kissed Jude again, lingering over it as much to please himself as to annoy his sister.