Haunting Beauty (14 page)

“Your great-aunt,” Danni corrected him.

“No, she’s my grandmother.”

Putting aside for the moment everything else, Danni hauled the comforter tighter and moved around the bed. “Why did she say she was your great-aunt if she’s your grandmother?”

“I can’t be knowing that, can I?” he said sharply. “I don’t know how we are here. It’s like a dream. Like. . . .” He looked at her, and Danni knew he was thinking of the night, of touching her, of making love. But that
was
a dream—
Danni’s
dream . . . wasn’t it?

“Did you see that dog of yours?” Sean said. “It didn’t even snarl at her.”

His look of betrayal was almost funny, but the unfolding drama sapped any humor from the situation. Colleen’s voice rose again, demanding that they get themselves to the kitchen before she was forced to wield the dreaded switch.

“She’s not kidding this time,” Sean said.

Numb, Danni moved to the window and pulled back the curtain. Outside the barest trace of a watery sun had yet to breach the horizon. The moon still glowed brightly, illuminating a patchwork of paddocks, hemmed by low stone walls and trimmed by a winding road that led up and out of the valley. She could see the steep and craggy drop to the ocean, which surrounded the island like a natural fortress. She craned her neck and looked to where the sea met the skyline in a silky blur of gray and green.

Sean came to stand behind her. She felt the heat of him as he bent forward to look out the window. A weak part of her wanted to lean back against him, to let him hold her and reassure her. But which was more crazy she didn’t know—wanting reassurance from a ghost or thinking that touching him would bring anything so mild as comfort.

“Where are we?” she whispered, knowing the answer but needing to hear it all the same.

“Ballyfionúir.”

It was impossible of course. Too impossible to even consider.

“Why did she call me your bride?”

Sean gave her a look filled with incredulous anger. “Why did she call you anything? Why are we here?
How
are we here?”

“We’re not,” Danni said with more confidence than she felt. “This is a just a dream. I’m imagining it.”

“The hell you are.”

He moved to the chest and yanked open a drawer. Inside were two neat stacks of clothes. He pulled out a flannel button-down, gray trousers, and a white undershirt. In the next drawer he found socks and a pack of boxers still wrapped in plastic. He tossed all of it on the bed.

Still too stunned to move, she watched him rip open the plastic and remove a pair of boxers before dropping the sheet. His back flexed as he bent and pulled them on. He was such a big man, trimmed of any fat and layered with muscle from broad shoulders to long legs. Everything solid and strong and masculine in between. She remembered how it felt to have all that power, all that hard sinew against her own soft curves, and the memory made her insides feel hot and liquid. She couldn’t tear her eyes away as he tugged a white T-shirt over his head and down his chest.

He was zipping his pants when he glanced back and caught her staring. For a moment something moved in his eyes, something possessive, hungry, and burning. Something that lured her more than the white ghost of her vision. She thought of the dream that had seduced her in the night, of the words he’d whispered in her ear, of his mouth moving over every inch of her skin, telling her what he wanted, whispering what he would do to her. Freeing her of the inhibitions that had always held her back before. The memory made her entire body flush.

Quickly she shuffled past him to the chest. In the top drawer, two new toothbrushes sat beside a pack of panties and a simple white bra. Below she found a pair of light blue polyester pants and a bulky beige cable-knit sweater. She’d be making quite the fashion statement, she thought wryly. She kept the blanket around her as she fumbled into the undergarments, letting it drop as she pulled on the sweater. It hung to midthigh, and the pants were so snug she had to take deep breath to get them fastened. They fit like spandex and she was glad the sweater hid the way they clung to her hips and thighs.

While she dressed, her thoughts ran the gamut of possibilities as to what had happened. What was happening still.

She didn’t know if it had been a dream, what she’d done with Sean last night. Awake, her body lacked the languid feel of satisfaction she’d had in the netherworld of slumber. There was no telltale scent lingering on her skin, no sore muscles, no intimate aching. It had to have been a dream—a very vivid, memorable dream that she couldn’t shake. Every time she glanced at Sean, she thought of his mouth on her skin, his hands trailing down her body, touching her like no one had ever touched her before.

Nervous, she faced Sean across the gulf of the narrow bed. She read in his expression the same disorientated anxiety she felt on her own.

“Do you remember anything, Sean? About how we got here?”

He shook his head. “We were in your kitchen—and then it felt like we were falling.”

She nodded. “Before that you gave me the necklace . . .”

Remembering, she reached for it. It still hung around her neck, but there was no prickling, stinging sensation when she touched it.

“She made it sound like we had luggage that was lost,” Danni murmured. “I don’t remember packing. I don’t remember anything but—”

She stopped, yet it seemed he heard her thoughts anyway. She didn’t remember anything but his body hot against her own, moving, sliding, making her want to scream: go faster, harder, slower, longer . . . His eyes followed the trail his hands had blazed and as impossible as it was, she knew he remembered, too. If it was dream, they’d shared it.

“I’m as confused by this as you, Danni,” he said, the deep smoke of his voice low and gruff. “However impossible, here we are. Let us go downstairs before she drags us by our ears. Maybe we’ll make some sense of it in time.”

Neither of them believed it, but silently she tossed him one of the toothbrushes and followed him out of the room. The hall was narrow and painted the same grayed white of the bedroom. There were three doors that opened off of it. The first led to a smaller bedroom with a bed, a rocking chair, and an armoire inside. The other to a room nearly identical. The last was a bathroom. Sean waited while she used it first.

Marveling at the ancient plumbing, she washed her hands and face, brushed her hair and teeth. She rinsed before finally gathering the nerve to look into the mirror. The same Danni who’d gazed back yesterday waited in the reflection. But there was something different about her now. Something wild in her eyes, in the color that stained her cheeks.

This isn’t real
, she mouthed to her image.

The hell it isn’t
, her eyes shouted back
.

She waited outside the door for Sean and then followed him through the hall. A delicious aroma wafted up and teased them down the short flight of stairs. Whatever was for breakfast smelled heavenly.

The first floor of the house had a sitting room with a fireplace, a sofa, and two chairs. There was a small television with rabbit ears in the corner. It looked to be at least twenty years old with a rotary dial and two knobs for changing channels and adjusting the picture. A tall clock in the corner chimed the half hour, and Danni was shocked to see that it was only four thirty. What in the world were they expected to do so early in the morning?

A half wall with spindly wooden rails divided the room from a dining area, packed with a long battered table, eight chairs, and a china cabinet. Sean didn’t give her time to examine the set, but it was obviously old and cherished. The wood gleamed with a deep, burnished sheen, and the cabinet displayed a full assortment of crystal and china.

A doorway led through to a good-sized kitchen done in linoleum and papered with yellowed flowers. Open shelving covered only by a gauzy curtain of lavender took up the far wall. Through the diaphanous fabric, Danni saw a few store-bought canned goods among rows of jarred preserves, fruits, and vegetables. Something that looked suspiciously like pig feet floated in a pink brown fluid.

Colleen stood at the stove, stirring potatoes that smelled greasy and completely wonderful. Bean sat at her feet with a watchful and adoring look on her face. Every few minutes Colleen would flip a sliced potato out of the skillet to a paper towel where it would cool before she tossed it to Bean, who caught it like a show dog in the circus.

Sean moved to a kettle on a back burner and poured two mugs of tea. He added milk to one and several spoonfuls of sugar to another.

“There now,” Colleen scolded, reaching over to crack his knuckles with her wooden spoon when he tried for another scoop of sugar. “Do you think I’m the fecking queen of England?”

Sean’s head jerked up and he stared at his great-aunt—
grandmother
, Danni corrected herself—with even more surprise than when she’d burst into the bedroom. Danni had the sense that this was a ritual, something that had played out with them before—Sean shoveling sugar into his mug and Colleen admonishing him with a smack of her spoon—and that somehow this familiarity had done what the
being
, what the
seeing
, had not.

His surprise faded into a look of such gentle affection that Danni’s heart contracted with it. The harsh lines of his face smoothed into a faint grin, his dimples no more than a hint in the stubble on his cheeks. He leaned over and kissed his grandmother’s brow. “It’s not the fecking queen I think you are, Nana. It’s a beauty star from Hollywood.”

To Danni’s surprise, Colleen blushed like a young girl.

“It’s good for me eyes to see you, Sean,” she said softly.

Sean handed Danni the tea with milk. Gratefully she held it between her palms and breathed in the aroma. “How did you know the way I like it?” she asked, taking a sip.

His mouth quirked at the corner, and his gaze traveled slowly over her face and shoulders, leaving a hot tingle in its wake and a warm flush on her entire body. The Sean she’d awakened with was even more disarming than the one who’d appeared at her door. She felt wary and defenseless, jittery and needy in his presence. She stared determinedly into her cup, refusing to respond to the demand she felt in his eyes.

“What kind of husband would he be if he didna know the way his wife takes her tea?” Colleen asked, piling two plates with shiny potatoes speckled with course pepper, thick square sausages, and heaping mounds of fluffy scrambled eggs. Beside the eggs was a circle of something that looked like a sausage, but not one Danni had ever eaten before. Colleen put a plate in the center of the table, filled with hunks of fried bread. Danni’s arteries hardened just looking at the feast, but her stomach growled eagerly.

Colleen stood beside them, waiting impatiently for them to lift their forks. Danni took a bite of eggs and smiled in appreciation as she chewed. Colleen beamed and waited for Sean to do the same.

Sean picked up his fork and stared at the mound of food on his plate. He took a bite of potatoes then stilled, holding it in his mouth as his eyes closed for a moment. Slowly he chewed and swallowed. The look on his face made Danni wonder what Colleen put in the potatoes. She took a bite and found them delicious, but nothing that warranted the ecstasy she read in Sean’s expression as he tucked into his breakfast, savoring each bite and following it quickly with another. Like he was starved.

No.
Like it had been years since he’d really tasted food . . .

“What are these?” Danni asked, tearing her eyes from that almost sexual look of pleasure on his face and pointing to the round sausagelike things on her plate.

“Do you not know?” Colleen asked, surprised. “White pudding, that is.” At Danni’s blank look, she explained, “That’ll be pork, bread, spices of course, oatmeal, and onion. Would you rather the black pudding? Sean doesn’t yearn after it as much as the white, but I have both.”

“Oh no, this is fine. I just wondered.”

Colleen eyed her for a moment, as if seeking deception. Then, satisfied, she returned to her skillet. At her feet, Bean gave a small, apologetic woof.

“And sure I know you’re there, little beastie. Wait your turn like a lady, though,” Colleen said.

The back door opened, and a man and an adolescent boy strolled in with a damp breeze and murky predawn light. Thinking the morning could not be any weirder, Danni felt all the breath leave her lungs as the pair turned their eyes to her and Sean.

The man stood tall, as tall as Sean and every bit as fit. He wore his hair military short, and the cut gave the graying strands at his temples a salt-and-pepper look. His eyes were a bluer green than Sean’s, but the face was put together in the same strong, square manner. He was the man she’d seen pictured in the article she’d read. The man accused of killing her family.

Sean’s father.

The shock of seeing him nearly equaled the one she’d awakened to. This man had killed himself twenty years ago. Was he another ghost? Were
all of them
spirits in this alter-reality? If so, what did that make Danni?

Before she could even begin to think through it, to reason it out, the boy beside him drew her attention and shock trembled through her body. Wanting to turn away, wanting to run away, Danni stared at him.

Next to the solid mass of his father, the teenager looked like a willow sprouting tall with shoots of young growth. He was narrow and lean, corded like a thick rope, but a boy still by the breadth of his shoulders and the soft fuzz on his chin. The eyes though . . . The eyes that stared at her with a combination of banked resentment, bright curiosity, and masculine appreciation . . . Those were Sean’s eyes.

The slow tick of the clock grated against her stretched nerves as thoughts burst in her mind like explosions. It was Sean as he’d looked in the photo from the article she’d read. Sean, as a boy. Sean, twenty years ago.

“Say morning to yer cousin Sean and his wife, Danni,” Colleen told Niall and his teenaged son. Continuing with her baffling ruse about their relationship to one another, Colleen turned to the grown-up Sean and said, “This strapping lad would be your third cousin on your father’s side, named Sean Michael for your great-grandda, same as you are. He answers to Michael, though. A blessing that is, or we’d be tongue-tied with the two of you Seans running about.” She ruffled the boy’s hair to his obvious annoyance and then looked at Sean’s father. “And this fine man is your second cousin, Niall.”