Gift of the Realm (8 page)

“What
I
need or what you
want
?” she asked breathlessly.

“I’ll
admit to being a bit hungry myself.”

His
wolfish smile said the hunger had nothing to do with anything Eileen would have
prepared. She couldn’t help laughing. No subtle pass for Colin Quinn. He left
no doubt of his intentions when he made his move.

A
few minutes ago, she would have jumped at the invitation, but the momentary
break in his seduction had allowed reason to get a foothold over lust.
Self-preservation kept her from throwing caution to the wind by accepting the
promise of untold pleasures in his eyes.

“As
tempting as that sounds,” she said, disentangling herself from his embrace, “I
am
tired.”
And more than a little rattled.
“I think I’ll call it a day.”
She nodded at the ledgers on the table. “Do you mind if I take a couple of
those along? I’ll be careful with them.”

“Take
whatever you want.”

He
helped her gather up several of the notebooks and insisted on accompanying her
on the short walk home. The summer night was warm and welcoming, the gentle
breeze scented with lilac from the row of bushes Gran had planted along the
border separating the cottage from the lane.

She
didn’t object when he captured her hand, linking his warm fingers with hers,
even as her heart twisted on a painful roll in her chest. She cast a furtive
glance at his strong profile, barely visible in the shadow of the leafy canopy
of the trees. A heavy sadness filled her at the acknowledgement that she hadn’t
just been foolish—she’d been lying to herself for years.

Risk
her heart again? How could she risk a heart she’d already given away? She loved
Colin Quinn—had loved him from the moment she’d met him a decade ago. The
dreams aside, there had never been another man who could make her breathless
and needy without even trying. And the need wasn’t just a physical reaction,
though God knew he could touch off feminine wildfires within her with a simple
look. It was more than that. She didn’t understand the how, or the why of it,
but from the moment she’d met him, Colin had been a requirement of her soul.

She’d
tried to outrun it, telling herself the dreams were just that...dreams. In
truth, they’d fed her need to be with him, even if only in her subconscious.
Fear of severing their connection kept her from returning to Ireland and
solving the riddle of the dreams.

She
was back now and had his promise to help her with the task. He’d also made it
clear he was interested in her physically, but she held no illusions about a
future between them. The Don Juan of Dunhaven wasn’t a settling down kind of
man. He’d move on eventually.

What
would happen to her heart and her soul, then, when they’d finished and she was
denied his companionship even in the dreams? She was very much afraid of the
answer.

He
pulled her from her musings when he lifted their joined hands to press a kiss
to her knuckles. They’d reached the cottage and he paused at the foot of the
path leading to her door. He turned her until she faced him.

“Will
you dream?” he asked quietly.

“I’ll
dream,” she said on a short, self-deprecating laugh, and did her best to banish
the grief from her heart. “About the only time I don’t is when I’m ill. If it’s
crazy to look forward to getting sick, then I’m certifiably insane. What I
wouldn’t give for a raging case of strep throat.”

He
grimaced then chuckled. His eyes gleamed when he crooned, “Ask me in, darlin’.
I make a mean chicken soup.”

She
laughed, as she knew he’d intended. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Rising
on her toes, she pressed a kiss to his mouth, stepping back before he could
take it deeper. Though she wanted nothing more than to take his hand and lead
him inside, she had a decision to make. Should she deny herself the pleasure of
knowing him in the biblical sense, hopefully blunting the sense of loss when
they went their separate ways? Or should she grab hold and greedily take all
she could before that happened? At the moment, her mind and heart were too raw
to make the call.

She
reached for the ledgers he carried, tucking them against her chest to race up
the path and through the door.

Chapter
Ten

Keely
ran a fingertip over the leather binding covering one of the thousands of books
lining the walls, and tried not to think of the kiss she’d shared with Colin in
this very room, last night. With him out of town, she’d divided her time
between pouring over his mother’s ledgers, and telling herself considering the
possibility of fairie blood running in her veins didn’t make her a crazy
person. As Colin pointed out, her experiences made it impossible to dismiss
what she’d found in the ledgers as ridiculous, but her mind still insisted
there had to be some other explanation.

It
was the new millennium, for heaven’s sake. Fairies and curses were the stuff of
Ireland’s primitive and superstitious past, and had no basis in reality for a
modern woman.

Early
this morning, she’d finally concluded she was too emotionally involved to think
the situation through clearly. Between her feelings for Colin and the intensity
of the dreams, she barely knew which way was up. If anyone could talk her back
to reality, Kathleen would be the one. Like Keely and Colin, his great-aunt was
also a descendant of Owein and Saraid, and yet, Kathleen had always been the
most grounded person Keely knew.

Now,
if she could find the words to explain.

She
glanced Kathleen’s way.

Seated
across the room in her favorite wingback chair, Kathleen waited, all patience
and concern, the book in her lap forgotten.

Keely
took a bracing breath. “Do you think it’s crazy for a person in this day and
age to believe they’re descended from fairie blood? I mean...that would be
nuts, right?”

“If
I did,” Kathleen said without hesitation, “I’d have to proclaim
myself
nuts. I can assure you, that is something I’ll never do.”

Keely
was sure she must look like one of those cartoon cats that had just been
smacked upside the head with a frying pan. Shocked by what amounted to
Kathleen’s casual admission of believing in something impossible, she
practically heard the
boi-oi-oing
of her brain ricocheting back and
forth in her skull. Her mouth gaped open.

Kathleen
pointed to the chair across from her. “Have a seat, my dear. You’re looking a
little pale.”

Like
a robot, Keely did as she was told, moving to the chair and dropping to the
edge. “Are you saying you...that
you
believe you’re
descended
from fairie blood?”

“Of
course I believe it. Why wouldn’t I, when it’s true?”

Keely
pressed several fingers to her pulsing temples, and rubbed.

“Morna
and I wondered when you’d finally ask about your heritage.”

Keely’s
fingers stilled. “Gran?” she squeaked.

Kathleen
nodded.

“
My
Gran?”

“Yes,
your
Gran. Though her fairie blood was never anywhere near as strong as
what she saw in you, she did come from the same line, you know.”

Keely’s
hands dropped to her lap and she flopped back in the chair. “I don’t believe
this,” she groaned.

“Don’t
you?” Kathleen asked with a raised brow, suggesting she doubted it. “Fairie blood
is stronger in some than in others, Keely. In you, well, let’s just say it’s
rare for the blood to manifest itself so powerfully in anyone except for a pure
fairie. And the stronger the blood, the more extreme the gifts. Much to our
disappointment, your grandmother and I were only blessed with simple ones.” She
laughed remembering. “As girls, we bemoaned the fact neither of us could fly.”

“Fly?”
Keely croaked.

“It’s
a rare gift of the realm, and one we both coveted. But, after a time, you grow
to appreciate what has been bestowed upon you and use it to your advantage.
Morna could charm a rock into doing her bidding,” she proclaimed with a
reminiscent smile. “Myself, I can spot a person’s weaknesses from a mile away.
It’s a useful tool in business, as you can well imagine. When combined with my
natural outspokenness, however, my gift has caused more than a few
disappointments in my personal relationships.”

“Gifts?”

The
conversation wasn’t going the way Keely had expected. And if her one word
questions were any indication, she’d finally completed her trip down Insanity
Street.

“Gifts,”
Kathleen stated, “like your dreams. Each time one of your letters arrived in
the post, your Gran would be on my doorstep, your latest story clutched in her
hands.”

“They
were dreams, Kathleen—figments of my overactive imagination, woven into stories
for my own entertainment.”

“Dreams
full of details,” Kathleen insisted. She leaned forward, her eyes sparkling
with excitement. “You’ve traveled beyond the mound to join the fairies in their
realm, Keely. That is something no other human I know can claim. You’ve
witnessed first-hand a wild and wonderful world most people don’t believe
exists.”

“I’m
not sure I believe it exists myself.”

“If
you didn’t, you wouldn’t be sitting here, your eyes full of questions. You’re a
Halfling, Keely. Like me and your mother and grandmother before you.”

Halfling.
Fairie blood. Gifts
. First Colin and now Kathleen
. Maybe insanity was
contagious.

Keely
hadn’t considered that if
she
was part of Owein’s line, so too were her
mother and grandmother, but now... Gran she could almost see as some kind of
fairie wannabe. Morna had always accepted the unexplained with a philosophical
shrug, embracing Ireland’s magical history with a knowing smile. But her mother,
Shannon O’Brian, wife of one of Wall Street’s most influential financial
attorneys? No way. Keely had never seen evidence of anything even remotely
mystical in connection with her straight-laced mother.

“If
all of this is true, why wouldn’t my mother have explained it to me? She knew I
had the dreams.”

“It
always embarrassed Shannon whenever your grandmother brought up what she termed
‘superstitious baloney,’” Kathleen revealed. “It’s no surprise she didn’t
discuss your heritage with you. You were a babe at the time, but Morna and your
mother had a terrible row the last time they spoke of it. Shannon forbade your
Gran from filling your head with such nonsense. It’s the reason Morna never
spoke of it to you. But, she wanted to, Keely. She worried such a strong gift
would be confusing to you without someone there to guide you.”

“You
think?” Keely grumbled.

Kathleen
laughed and reached across the distance to pat her leg. “I would have stepped
in if it looked as if you needed help. Shannon would have been furious with me,
but it wouldn’t have been the first time I’d angered someone I love. And now, I
don’t have to,” she grinned, “as you’ve come to me with your questions. So,
tell me why you finally have.”

Keely
started from the beginning, filling in the details of the dreams of her
childhood. She told of the many fanciful adventures and the black wolf that
always accompanied her on those magical escapades. She explained how the dreams
changed when she’d first come to Dunhaven, of her sudden, uncomfortable obsession
with Dunhaven’s Door, and the sense of urgency.

Choosing
her words carefully, she admitted how Colin had taken the wolf’s place as she
walked the cliffs each night, and how he’d continued to share her dreams ever
since. She ignored the brow Kathleen raised at that. The incident in the gazebo
was too embarrassing to share, but she did her best to convey the desperation
she’d felt at leaving Dunhaven. She told her of the dream two nights ago, about
Colin entering the ring for the first time, about the rosebush and the woman’s
pleading cry, and how she believed the dreams were somehow connected to the
legend of King Owein and Saraid Quinn.

“Colin
thinks there might be some clues in his mother’s papers,” Keely said. “He’s
letting me look through them.”

“You’ve
spoken to him about this?”

“Yesterday.
And to tell the truth, I was surprised when he agreed to help. I expected him
to dismiss me as a complete lunatic.”
And he had
, she reminded herself,
before
changing his mind for reasons of his own.

Kathleen
chuckled and shook her head. “I’m sure you gave him quite a shock, but my
grandnephew is too Irish to dismiss your claims out of hand. And as he carries
the blood of the realm himself, he’d recognize the possibility of a fairie
connection.”

“Does
Colin have any of these gifts you keep mentioning?” Keely asked, her lingering
doubt evident.

“Several,
I would say, though he keeps the details of his gifts to himself. His fairie
blood is as strong as yours.”

“Well,”
Keely said on a sigh, “at least he doesn’t have the gift of mind reading. He
was speechless when I finally worked up the nerve to tell him about the
dreams.”

Kathleen
said nothing to that, commenting instead, “I know the legend of King Owein. Why
do you believe the woman you heard in the ring was his Saraid?”

“She
was calling out to Owein. It makes sense she would be his wife.”

Kathleen
nodded.

“Anyway,
it’s driving me nuts, waiting for Colin to get back. In the dreams, he’s
reluctant to enter the ring. He didn’t exactly promise he would, but I’m hoping
to convince him to visit the Door when he gets home, and to enter the ring with
me. I need Saraid to speak again, if I’m ever going to figure out what it is
she needs.”

“I
agree, but do you need Colin here to do that?”

“I
think I do. I’ve been drawn to the Door for a decade, but not once have I heard
or seen anything within the ring, not until the other night, when Colin
accidentally followed me inside for a moment.”