Selkie's Song (Fado Trilogy) (13 page)

As Tynan strained to hear the hushed conversation from the kitchen, he pushed down the sense of voyeurism that cinched around his chest.

Muireann had a life and Simon was obviously part of it. Were they lovers? He couldn’t imagine that. In any case, an old ghost of a feeling shrouded Tynan’s enthusiasm for his and Muireann’s activities before Simon’s intrusion.

He’d completely lost his mind. What was he doing in Muireann’s bedroom? Ty felt sickened by his lack of self-control. This was not part of his plan. The timing was all wrong.

Even if he’d allowed himself a dalliance, this woman was worth more than a quick shag. The only way to put a stop to the inevitable was escape.

Tynan had shrugged into his jacket and fished for his car keys in the pocket. When he looked up, Muireann stood in the doorway of her kitchen. His breath left him in a whoosh and judgment tried to run for cover.

She was still wrapped in the table scarf and it barely covered her breast to hip. Cú was at her side. The scene was reminiscent of a painting he’d seen by Waterhouse…a fairy princess, a changeling, a nymph. He held his breath for a moment too long and felt dizzy.

The trip his hands imagined taking across her satiny skin stirred a part of his brain over which he had little control. If he took one step toward her, he was lost. He imagined himself picking her up in his arms, carrying her to her bed, and loving her until she gasped and shuddered against him.

“Going somewhere?” she asked.

“Muireann…I…”
Sloane, you’re insane to leave now.
“I’ve got to go.”

Her eyes scanned him, possibly looking for signs of complete insanity. “Oh.” She reached up and started to loosen the scarf. “Are you sure, now?”

A molten rush shot straight to his cock. Even a saint would fight his conscience over this temptation. He took one step in her direction. The intention, he lied to himself, was to kiss her and be gone.

That one step dislodged his resolve. In a maelstrom of time and space where desire left logic in the haze , he found her lips with his. Her soft, slippery mouth opened to him, allowed his intrusion with abandon.

Muireann moved against him, twining one long leg around him and pressing him closer. A dreamlike otherworld enclosed him. Pure sexual craving fogged his mind. All that broke the silence was a rush of blood, waves crashing in his ears, and Muireann’s gasps of pleasure.

Cú growled.

Muireann stiffened.

Tynan pulled away.

“I’m leaving. Muireann, I really have to leave now,” he was able to say though indecision had a strangle hold on his throat.

“I understand,” she said, but he didn’t think she sounded convinced.

He put his hands on her shoulders. She snugged the scarf up…a filmy coat of armor to his hot advance.

“If I don’t leave, I’m going to have to make love to you.”

“What’s so terrible about that?” she whispered and he saw her throat work as though she fought back tears.

Ty closed his eyes to regain his equilibrium. “What’s terrible about it is that it won’t be terrible. It would be… perfect. But it wouldn’t be right.” Her hand went to his chest and his heart pounded against her fingertips. “You want it to be right, don’t you?” he asked.

Muireann didn’t speak and in her demur he had his answer.

She took his hand in hers and walked him to the door.

Tynan wanted in the worst way to kiss her, just one more time. He couldn’t. It would not end with one more kiss.

She looked down. “Where are your shoes?”

“I took them off.” A rush of dumb-ass warmed his face. He scanned the room for the shoes and remembered they were in Muireann’s bedroom. So much for a quick, painless exit.

The split second of uncertainty was his downfall. Cú barreled toward the door, a shoe between his teeth. Muireann and Ty grabbed for the hound, but he was too fast for them.

“Cú,” Muireann yelled by reflex but knowing he wouldn’t hear, she bent to pick up a clod of turf and hurled it at the backside of the retreating hound.

She missed.

Ty spun around and ran after the beast.

“It’s no use, Ty,” Muireann called.

Making a sharp turn at the garden gate, Ty slipped and fell full on into the mud slicked path. “Shit.”
Kiss that quick and dignified exit goodbye.

As he glanced back at Muireann, she had her hand covering her mouth, but her eyes betrayed the laughter she tried to mask. “Sorry,” she called.

Tynan pulled himself to his feet. His socks were soaked and his clothes coated with a layer of good Irish mud. There was no graceful retreat. “No panic. Now I’ve a good reason to see you in the morning,” he said and made his way to the car.

“I’ll have the kettle on. Goodnight, Ty. Safe home, now.”

****

Ty’s stocking feet didn’t feel the chill as he walked to the B&B entrance. He prayed Mary Conneely was asleep. This strange attire would be hard, if not impossible, to explain: shoeless, unbuttoned shirt, and a good portion of Irish mud and turf smeared up his back and on his hands and face.

He put the key in the lock of his room with relief at not needing to explain himself to anyone. The respite from humiliation did not last long.

“Ah, Tynan, you’re…”

He jumped as though caught with his knickers down.

Mary stood with her hands on her ample hips, mouth agape. “Oh, my dear, look at you.”

Ty backed into his room. “No problem. Everything’s grand. We were…I was…”

“Yer missin’ yer shoes there.” Muireann’s aunt had a talent for stating the obvious.

Ty glanced at his feet to avoid Mary’s eyes.

“Right, yes.” He tried to smile. “A bit too much of the ‘black stuff’ down at O’Malley’s. No panic now.” He knew he didn’t sound or smell like he’d been drinking but couldn’t explain himself in any other way.

“Ah,” Mary said with a knowing grin. “O’Malley pours a mighty pint. Set yer back teeth afloat, did ya? I’ve got a cure for that. You’ll be feelin’ much the man again in the morning.”

“No,” he blurted. “No, thank you. See you in the morning. G’night.” Ty closed the door, leaned his head against the cool wood and cursed himself for his stupidity.

He stripped, turned the shower to hot, and stood blindly staring at his reflection in the fogged mirror. What had he been thinking? If Simon had not burst in on them, he would have had Muireann naked in her bed in the next five minutes.

If he wanted more than a short-term good time with Muireann, this was no way to start. They needed time. But even for a man like Tynan, this was counter-intuitive. He ached for her. The feeling was raw, physical, and not at all platonic.

Muireann was no help. She had thrown herself at him.

It didn’t matter. He had waited half his life for this.

He made a decision. Ty was going to show a level of restraint unheard of in the annals of Western civilization. Or at least in
his
lifetime.

He had no time to get to know Muireann properly. He had about a week. If he allowed his mind to get muddled by desire, he feared losing focus on his goal. First he needed a successful business. He needed O’Fallon’s.

Ty got into the shower and scrubbed the mud off his body. He tried to concentrate on something, anything, else. Useless. Muireann’s image came back to him. The deep sable of her hair as it fell over the soft honey and cream of her skin gave him a shiver even with the water beating a warm tempo on his back.

Damn. She
was
magical. She
had
enchanted him. If he didn’t watch his step, she would have him swimming away with her in the frigid water off her beloved cliffs.

The words repeated in Tynan’s mind, a mantra to force him back to single-mindedness.
You came to Ireland with a purpose. If you’d wanted another one-night woman, you could have found her in Boston
.

In a way, he had to thank Muireann’s intrusive friend, Simon, for showing up and interrupting. The rude wake-up call had stopped him before he turned this woman into another quick conquest.

The bedroom was chilly in contrast to the steamy little bathroom. Ty hurried and dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. He found his mobile phone and turned it on. The power was low, but he thought he could get one call out of it before it died.

He would ring Muireann and apologize.

Whomp!
Head smack.
You flamin’ eegit. Apologize for what?

For kissing her, wanting her, burning to lose yourself in her warm, slick…tight…
“Aagh!”

He had to stop this thought process or he’d be in his car driving down her road again tonight.

The house seemed quiet. The only sound was the loud thump of his own heart. Was Mary finally off to bed?

She would have a telephone directory. Muireann would be listed. Ty knew he should let this go, but need gnawed him. Ringing her might be a hollow way to resolve it, but no other options came to mind.

Muireann was undeniably desirable. She wanted him. He couldn’t keep his hands off her. They had waited half a lifetime. Why had he bolted?

So I’m not the greatest playboy of the western world.

One tentative step onto the landing outside his room elicited a groan from the floorboards. He held his breath. No sound of the telly from the sitting room. No light crept under the kitchen door. Ty let himself breathe as he descended the rest of the stairs.

He thought he had seen a phone book on the hallway table. Ty felt for it in the dark and knocked something to the floor. With a prayer that Mary wouldn’t notice and pop in on him, he switched on a table lamp and started to rifle through sundry tour information.

No phone book. Typical. With ubiquitous mobile phones, townsfolk would have everyone on speed dial. Ty bent to retrieve the item he had knocked onto the floor under the table.

A newspaper. He’d seen this before. Last night at O’Malley’s, Simon had bragged about his involvement in the local rebellion. Now he took time to notice the headline splashed across the front page:
Ballinacurragh Fisherman’s Bank loan chief challenged by local woman.

He noted the set of her shoulders, the defiant posture of her head, the long tangled tresses.
Muireann.

Ty’s throat locked down and he was unable to swallow. The
local woman
was Muireann.
His
Muireann. How had he failed to see the tree, the whitethorn decorated with trinkets, baubles, and tokens?

His
tree.

Chapter Eleven

Muireann left the door of her workshop open so she could hear the song of the sea as she worked. Her hands pressed and nudged, carved and teased until the lump of clay transformed into a jar, pot, or vessel of her imagination.

She’d awakened this morning with a warm memory of Tynan’s lips on hers, only to be chilled by the reality that he hadn’t really come to Ballinacurragh find her.

He came first to sell the old fortress out from under her.

Her head was full of speculation. Thoughts of Tynan merged in an emotional stew and threatened to distract her from her goal. She’d let no man divert her for long. It had only happened once and the guilt of it would not abate.

The rafters of the workshop still bore the weight of timbers destined to become harps. She hadn’t the courage to get rid of the pieces that Ronan had meticulously chosen and saved. So they hung lifelessly over her head like the sword of Damocles.

Muireann should have been the one to take the boat out the day they lost Ronan. She had no excuse. Her brother was not a man of the sea. He would only have gone out in the storm as a last resort. Muireann’s chest tightened and burned with guilt to think she could have prevented his death. If she’d not been swept away by the anarchy of her own desires, Ronan would be here today.

She reached for a cutting tool and trimmed the pot base from the wheel.

When Muireann looked up, a silhouette blocked the late morning sun from the east facing doorway.

“Simon, yer blocking my light.” But as soon as the words escaped her lips she knew Simon never made that big a shadow.

“An’ how are ya keepin’ this fine day, Muireann O’Malley?”

His voice was liquid velvet. It stroked her aural center, ran down her spine, and cuddled up below her belly button. “I’m keepin’ just grand, Ty.”

Muireann stood, grabbed a towel and wiped the mud off her hands. She had a flash of regret for her old baggy jeans, Blind Piper T-shirt sans bra, and splashes of clay and water on her face.

He looked fresh, clean, and fabulous: white dress shirt open at the collar, dark trousers, mandolin case slung over his shoulder, and a smile to stop a saint on her way to prayer.

Muireann had never coveted sainthood as a life goal. She wouldn’t start now. Had he reconsidered his premature retreat last night and come to take up where they’d left off?

She looked at his feet. He was wearing hiking boots. She couldn’t help but grin and when her eyes met his, he smiled. He stepped cautiously out of the sunshine and into the dark work shed. “Where’s the pup?”

“Out romancing every female of the canine persuasion in the county.”

“Any chance he’ll show up?”

Muireann shook her head. “In his own time.” She used the rag in her hands to dust off a bench. “I didn’t hear you drive up.”

“Too fine a day to drive.”

“Any day without rain is a fine day,” she repeated the worn proverb. “Have a seat. I’m nearly done here. We can go in and have a cuppa.”

In the light of day, last night’s tomfoolery seemed years and worlds away.

“All set,” she said, put her work aside, and wiped her hands free of mud. “Have you had breakfast?”

Ty rose and followed her outside. “Do you really think Mary would let me out of the house without breakfast?” He caught up with her, stepped ahead, and opened the screen door to the kitchen. “I wouldn’t turn down a coffee.”

Was he going to tell her why he was really in Ballinacurragh? She decided she would wait until he brought it up. He was intentionally hiding the truth from her. Perhaps he knew more about Bertie’s land than he would admit. There was an outside chance the Ó Mháille had a connection with the Sloanes she didn’t know about, rare though it was to have something that important kept a secret. Muireann decided to put it out of her mind for a while. After all, she had a dare to contend with and time was short.