Haunting Embrace (8 page)

“You best keep that pendant where it’s safe,” Colleen said. “Who knows what it will do.”

Wishing she could fling it over the cliffs of Fennore and into the churning sea below, Meaghan pulled it from around her neck, ever so careful not to touch the pendant. As soon as it was off, that insidious drone began again. A jolt of electricity went through her as it dangled in front of her eyes, turning, glinting, multifaceted and inconceivable. For a moment, Meaghan felt as if it were alive—living, breathing,
yearning
. . .

Colleen said something, but Meaghan couldn’t hear it. The world around her began to blur and dim in a crazy kaleidoscope of color. It looked like an inked sketch, immersed in water. The colors ran together, making new shades, different shapes. She saw a picture trying to emerge from within the swirl, but she couldn’t bring it into focus, couldn’t comprehend what the blots and blurs could be.

The sky remained overhead, the earth beneath her feet, and yet it felt as if the globe encasing them had been shaken and now a new vista lay ahead of her. One with a dark blight at its center. That air of malevolence engulfed her, and for a moment, she felt as if invisible eyes had turned her way and made note of her presence.

And she hadn’t even touched it yet. What would happen if she dared let it press against her flesh?

From the numbing silence, a voice tried to answer, but it whispered words she could not hear, did not
want
to hear.

She squeezed her eyes shut and sucked in a deep breath. And then another. Her heart pounded painfully, laboriously, and her head felt light. It took will she didn’t know she possessed to slow down her pulse, to stay grounded.

“What in the name of Mary was that?” Colleen breathed.

Slowly, cautiously, Meaghan opened her eyes again, and Ballyfionúir snapped back into focus.

She didn’t ask Colleen what she’d felt. The pale face and frightened eyes that looked into her own were answer enough.

Quickly Meaghan stuffed the pendant back into its pouch and pulled tight the drawstring before shoving it into the dress’s deep pocket. Still she could feel the pendant heavy against her thigh where the pocket rested. It felt hot. Sly. Intent.

Intent on what?

“Well then,” Colleen said, eyeing her warily. “Let’s get on with ourselves.”

Meaghan’s mouth was too dry to answer. All she could do was nod. And, sick with dread, she followed her grandmother home.

Chapter Five

C
OLLEEN seemed engrossed in her own thoughts as they trudged up the winding rocky path, and Meaghan was glad for it. Her own mind was too jumbled, her fear too close to the surface to manage any semblance of a conversation. So much had happened in such a short amount of time, could she really trust herself to understand any of it?

She couldn’t begin to guess why she’d fallen through time—why she’d gone backward to her grandmother’s youth. And who in bleeding hell was Saraid, and why had she given Meaghan this pendant that had been her brother’s and was undoubtedly linked to the Book of Fennore? Until those dark days when she’d been imprisoned in the world created by it, Meaghan had never been near the Book, though she’d been obsessed with finding the Book for years.

And yet, she’d recognized it the very instant she’d seen it.

It was too much. Her head hurt. Her emotions felt bruised. She needed a few moments alone to recharge, regroup. But some internal ticking clock told her she didn’t have time for any of that.

She looked at the landscape spread out around her, trying to find solace in the familiarity of the view. It was not much different today than it would be in Meaghan’s time, more than fifty years from now. Sure, a few more houses would dot the countryside, the roads would be better paved, and the shops more plentiful. But Ballyfionúir had not undergone massive changes with the progression of years. As a teenager, Meaghan remembered wanting nothing more than to escape the provincial life here. And yet the place where she’d grown up held her heart in ways she couldn’t describe, and she’d never been able to distance herself from it for long.

She’d always felt she belonged on this island. Now she wondered if her ties were deeper even than family, than home.

She and Colleen came around the last bend, and Meaghan caught a glimpse of Áedán turning at the gravel walk that led to Colleen’s front door. He glanced back before he started up, and for a moment, their eyes met. The distance was too great to read his expression, and yet something in the manner, in the solemn tilt of his head, the square of his shoulders, in his looming presence, shot through her like an arrow.

And damn it all if her thoughts didn’t turn immediately to that kiss, to how it felt to be held in his arms—connected in a way that made no sense at all. But like her presence here, in a past that she shouldn’t be part of, sense had little to do with anything.

“Mickey will be home by now,” Colleen said in a low voice. She shot Meaghan a worried glance. “My husband is not likely to be happy at my bringing you home with me.”

And then she hurried forward, her shoulders hunched and her eyes anxious. Meaghan followed, too confused to form words into questions. Numb, she trailed Colleen into her cottage, bracing herself for the rush of nostalgia that nearly swamped her.

The house looked very different and somehow exactly the same as it had the last time Meaghan walked through the door. In the small front room, two chairs and a settee grouped around a rag rug and a coffee table. The cluster of furniture was crude and seemed about as comfortable as church pews. The last time Meaghan had been there, Colleen had two big, plush recliners with a table between them in their place. One for herself and one for a guest, should she choose to have one. She didn’t encourage company and didn’t want to make the stray guest feel so comfortable that they lingered or came with a crowd. Her son, his wife, and her grandchildren were the only exception to that rule, and none of them minded sitting on the floor if the chairs were occupied.

Eventually Colleen would have a tiny television in the corner, but now there was only a small bookshelf with a neat row of books and a few knickknacks that Meaghan had never seen before. They didn’t look like anything her grandmother would appreciate, and Meaghan wondered if they were her grandfather’s contributions to the decor. As they stepped over the threshold, the air was thick with smoke, and with it, the taint of anger rushing at them.

Meaghan braced herself as a man came from the kitchen, a cigarette in one hand and a glass in the other. If the black waves of fury he gave off weren’t enough to frighten her, the look on his face would have done it. She’d never known her grandfather; he’d been dead long before she was born. She’d heard once that he and Colleen had been distant cousins—both Ballaghs even before they’d wed, but no one talked of her grandfather much. Not Nana Colleen and not her dad, and she’d never really asked.

He was just one of many dead ancestors whose pictures she’d glimpsed over the years. He’d been a big man, with broad shoulders and the heavy build of a seaman. The life of a fisherman was rarely an easy one, and Michael—Mickey—Ballagh looked like every year he’d spent afloat had left a mark on him.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded, looking past Áedán to Colleen, who stood like a fear-frozen rabbit in the talons of a hawk.

Meaghan didn’t know what shocked her more—the vehemence of her grandfather or the timidity of her grandmother. In all her life, she’d never seen Nana Colleen cower to anyone.

“I just went out for a wee bit, Mickey. I—my cousin, Meaghan, is here.”

Mickey’s gaze flicked from Colleen to Meaghan and back. “Cousin? Here? From where?”

“Well, from the mainland, of course. She tells me her mam has died.”

Colleen was not the best liar and Mickey looked to be better than most at smelling deceit. He cast his cold scrutiny between them with restless ire. “So what if her mam’s dead?” he said. “What does she want here? Do you think I’m the fecking king that can feed all your sniveling relatives?”

Meaghan felt her face flush with heat. Colleen took in quick and shallow breaths, and a vein throbbed at her throat. She seemed too fearful to be embarrassed by her husband’s rudeness. Fear was something else Meaghan was not accustomed to seeing on her grandmother’s face, and it caught her as much by surprise as anything else that she’d seen since opening her eyes in the cavern.

“Of course not, Mickey,” Colleen said in a rush. “But it would be nice if we could offer the poor girl a meal and a bed for the night. She’s all alone in the world. She’s got nothing.”

Mickey took a deep drink from his glass and swayed slightly. He was drunk, Meaghan realized. And mean with it.

“Where did
you
go?” Mickey demanded, shifting that cold hostility to Áedán, who’d been watching with the kind of still attention a cat gave something it stalked.

Meaghan noted that he could see Áedán, too, and her theory that the cavern caused his earlier invisibility grew more solid. The cavern was the lair of the Book of Fennore. She’d felt it to her bones. Meaghan had been in the cavern when she was sucked into that nebulous, terrifying world of Fennore where she’d met Áedán. He’d been invisible to everyone but her there, too. Now piecing it together, Meaghan thought the connection was obvious, if twisted. Close proximity to the Book’s power must have some impact on him. But why? Why did it affect Áedán and not Meaghan? If there was an answer to that question, it eluded her. She would have to wait until she could speak to Áedán alone to learn more.

“I didn’t go anywhere. I slipped in the mud and hit my head,” Áedán answered Mickey’s question, his voice smooth and unconcerned. “Knocked myself out, evidently.”

Mickey scowled. “You’re all right now?”

“I am.”

“But your hand still needs stitching, I see.”

Colleen jumped as if prodded. “Have you hurt your hand, Mr. Brady? Well, let me tend to it right away.”

“I want you here when I get home,” Mickey snarled at her as she hurried by. “Not off gallivanting with your beggar relatives. I work all day, and when I walk through that door, I bloody well expect to find my wife waiting with me tea.”

He pronounced it
tay
like Meaghan’s father did. But his snide wrath made it sound offensive instead of endearing.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d be so early,” Colleen said.

She hunched her shoulders and tucked her chin, like a puppy caught peeing on the floor. Meaghan wanted to say something, to step in and defend her Nana, but there was peril in the antagonism wafting off Mickey Ballagh, and it kept her mouth shut for a change. She wasn’t known for her restraint, and she could tell by the sharp look Áedán gave her that it surprised him. He’d watched her mouth off to guards twice her size when they’d been imprisoned. But this was different, and some deep sense of self-preservation guided her.

Colleen spoke in an unnaturally high voice. “I’ll be on the tea this instant. Sit down, Mickey, and I’ll bring it out to you.”

“I don’t want it no more. And I don’t want fish for supper. Are you hearing what I say, wife?”

Wife. Slave. Imbecile.
Meaghan could see the meaning he gave the word with his hard, derogatory tone.

Colleen nodded meekly, pulling Meaghan into the kitchen with her.

“Take care of Mr. Brady’s hand right away or else your cousin will find herself doing his share in the morn,” Mickey barked after them.

With that, he slammed out of the house, leaving a vacuous silence in his wake.

Meaghan let out a shaky breath. “Where is he going?” she whispered, though he was long gone and couldn’t hear her.

She thought Colleen mumbled, “To hell,” but she couldn’t be sure. Tight-lipped, her grandmother shook her head and moved away. Áedán followed the women into the kitchen and went to the sink to rinse the nasty cut on his hand. He didn’t look at Meaghan or Colleen as he held the wound under the water, wincing as he applied soap.

“There’s nappies in the bag just there,” Colleen said to Meaghan, handing over Niall as she pointed to the bag on the ground next to a crude shelf of jars, cans, pots, and pans. “Give him a change, will you, while I get his porridge ready. Would you mind too much if I asked you to feed the wee lad as well?”

“Not at all, Colleen.”

Colleen hurried to the stove, lifting the lid on a pot at the back burner, pulling it forward, and stirring it as she adjusted the flame.

“Mr. Brady, use plenty of soap and then sit down over at the table please.”

With skill borne of practice, Colleen heated the porridge, set water to boil, and pulled a jug of cream from the small refrigerator in the corner. As Meaghan finished with the diaper, Colleen scooped the porridge into a bowl, added cream and sugar, and set it aside to cool.

Meaghan waited for Áedán to finish at the sink before she washed her own hands, painfully aware of his size and physique as she moved around him. He seemed to fill every vacant space in the room, and he looked as out of place in the tiny kitchen as a knight in an apron.

As if feeling her attention on him, he turned and gave her a dark look, searching her face for something that he seemed very interested in finding. She stared back, trying to pretend his steady perusal didn’t unnerve her, but the truth was, it did. Face hot, Meaghan dropped her gaze.

He brushed against her as he passed, and a starburst of images exploded in her head. Áedán’s mouth on her body, his tongue a soft whisper against her skin, his hands—she put brakes on the slide show and took a few quick breaths, but still her pulse raced and her temperature spiked. His glance turned knowing as he stepped away, and that only made it worse. She felt like the words
Do me
must be spelled across her forehead in the shades of her blush.

Glad she’d been tasked with feeding the baby and not stitching the silent man who watched her with those unflinching green eyes, Meaghan put Niall into his high chair, then took the bowl of porridge Colleen gave her. Niall ate with delighted gusto, and she might have enjoyed watching him had she not been so aware of Áedán.