The Selkie Enchantress (14 page)

Owen nodded, staring into the fire.

“What did she say?”

“She said, ‘everything would be clear in time. And when this was all over, everything I ever wanted would be mine.’”

Everything he ever wanted would be his? A gust of wind shook the cottage, rattling the windows. “And you have no idea what that means?”

“No.”

Struggling to come up with a reasonable explanation, Caitlin tucked her legs against her side. “Maybe something happened before you came here. Some kind of accident that caused you to forget. Maybe she’s hoping you’ll… heal here.” By leaving him alone in a dark, unheated cottage during a storm? She was grasping at straws, but what else could she do?

Owen clutched the book tightly to his chest, staring into the fire. “I saw her trip him.”

“Trip who?”

“The man who came in on the ferry with us.”

Caitlin’s eyes went wide. “Liam?”

Owen nodded. “She caught the rope around his ankle when he was stepping over the edge. She tripped him and he hit his head and when he woke up he couldn’t remember… things. Just like I can’t remember things.”

Caitlin’s gaze dropped to the book still clutched in Owen’s arms. It was Nuala who pulled Liam from the freezing November waters. Nuala who sat on the pier beside him, barely shivering afterwards. So exotically beautiful she seemed from another place, or another time. “I want you to tell me everything, Owen.” Caitlin reached out, taking his cold hand in hers. “Is there anything… anything at all you can remember from your past?”

Owen shook his head as a faint scent of roses drifted into the room. “The only thing I can remember is water.”

***

Tara rolled out the pie crust, setting the wooden pin back on the counter and laying the dough carefully into the glass. A murmur of voices drifted in from the barroom, where most of her friends and neighbors were gathered around the fire, weathering the storm. She wasn’t a stranger to storms. She respected the sheer destruction one could leave in its wake.

She’d ridden that wave of destruction less than a year ago, abandoning her car by a Houston bridge as the river rose and swept it away. She’d used that storm to fake her own death as she caught the last flight to Europe and fled an abusive husband, eventually making her way to Ireland and finding a new home and a new life here on Seal Island.

But she’d never forget the terror of that day, and wondering if she’d make it out alive. She pinched the edges of the pie crust together to form a row of neatly spaced ridges. At the knock on the back door, she let out a breath. Dominic and Liam left a half hour ago to help Finn tie down the boats in the harbor. She didn’t want them out in this mess. She wanted them inside, safe and warm where she didn’t have to worry about them.

She dusted the flour off her hands and headed for the door. She must have thrown the bolt by accident. A gust of wind blew into the kitchen and she stepped back from the rain spitting inside. “Caitlin?” She paused when she spotted Caitlin and Owen huddled under the overhanging roof in matching yellow slickers. “What are you doing here?”

“We’re looking for you.”

“Come inside.” She opened the door wider. “It’s freezing out there.”

“No.” Caitlin shook her head and Owen shrank back from the doorway. “Can we talk to you privately? In your office?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong with either of us,” Caitlin explained, keeping her voice carefully neutral. “We just want to talk to you.”

“Okay,” Tara said slowly, looking back and forth between them. “I’ll just give Fiona a head’s up and grab my coat.”

“Wait,” Owen called when she turned, her sneakers squeaking on the wet floor. “Is my mother in there?”

Tara nodded. “She’s at the bar. Fiona’s fixing up a couple plates for her to bring home to you. Do you want me to get her?”

Owen’s eyes darted up to Caitlin’s face. “No.”

Caitlin squeezed his shoulder. “That’s part of what we want to talk to you about, Tara.”

Tara heard the ocean, a restless thundering rhythm in the distance. The skin on the back of her neck started to prickle when she noticed for the first time that the shape of Owen’s mouth actually mirrored Caitlin’s. “You don’t want me to tell your mother you’re out here?”

Owen shook his head.

“Where does she think you are?”

“At home,” Caitlin answered.

Tara swallowed. Some storms left scars you could heal and wounds you could re-patch. Others left paths of destruction so severe you could never recover. And the people left in their wake could do nothing but pick up the broken pieces and hope to find a way to start over as someone else, in some other place.

A river of rain rushed through the alley, bubbling white and swirling through the puddles. She reached for her jacket, stepping out into the street and closing the door behind her. Which kind would this be?

Liam knotted the wet rope around the piling, securing the fishing boat rocking in the dark churning waters of the harbor. Loose trawling nets tangled with lobster traps and crashed into cabins. Coolers and storage crates slid across the decks as the waves threw them from side to side. Blood pumped through Liam’s veins as he worked, sheets of rain pouring down around the men as they fought to secure the boats tighter to the pier.

“Not bad, professor,” Donal shouted over the rain. “Just try not to fall in the water this time.”

Liam ignored him, hauling in a seaweed-covered rope and looping it in a tight, steady knot around the metal hook nailed into the pier. His mind was just now beginning to clear, the terrible feeling of being swept out to sea fading and in its place a slow burning frustration over the afternoon he’d spent with Caitlin. An afternoon that had brought back more than one memory.

Donal trotted down the slippery pier, catching the line Liam threw to him and wrapping it around the piling. “There’s no beautiful blonde down here to pull you from the waters tonight.”

“Shut up, Donal,” Dominic barked, shoving him aside and pointing up at Finn clambering onto the ferry. “Give him a hand. I’ve got this.”

Liam watched Donal step onto the ferry and help Finn cart supplies down into the cabin. Grabbing the cold metal railing of the nearest fishing boat, Liam lowered himself down to the deck. Seawater spilled into the rocking vessel, sloshing into the overturned coolers and storage crates. He went to work securing the loose supplies sliding around the deck, looping lines and tying the tight, steady knots he’d learned as a child.

He caught his brother’s eye through the rain. Dominic was working his way down the long, narrow pier, tethering the boats to the pilings. It was so typically Dominic, always one foot rooted to the earth, not nearly as comfortable with the imbalance and unpredictability of the sea. Liam glanced down, where his feet were firmly planted on the rocking boat’s deck. He was as comfortable on the water as Dom was behind the bar.

It would have been his trade if he hadn’t gone to university. He spent his childhood summers on the island learning to fish, apprenticing with Finn. He’d been climbing around these boats since before he was a teenager. How, then, had he tripped stepping down from the ferry the other night? Had he been so distracted by the woman who rescued him? Liam’s hands stilled on the ropes.
‘Don’t you think it’s a little strange that the only pieces of your memory you lost are me and that fairy tale?’

Rain lashed at the pier. The wind tore over the harbor, snatching at the raised voices of Finn and Donal. “You have to admit,” Donal called, reaching for the railing to catch his balance as a swell slammed into the boat. “She’s a strangeness to her.”

“Aye,” Finn said, gathering up the nets and making his way slowly across the slippery deck to the cabin to stow them. “Can’t recall I’ve ever seen eyes or hair as fair as Nuala’s.”

“I asked her if she knew the O’Toole’s,” Donal added. “The ones who own
The Curragower
. Everyone knows
The Curragower
. It’s the oldest pub in Limerick. But she’d never heard of it.” Donal handed a lobster crate to Finn, still holding onto the railing as the boat rocked. “And have you taken a good, long look at that boy?”

“Aye,” Finn latched the door to the cabin, testing it to make sure it would hold against the rain and wind. “He’s a strange one too, isn’t he?”

Donal nodded, gripping the railing as he swung a leg over and jumped back down to the pier. “There’s something familiar about him.” Donal held out his hand, helping the older man clamber back down to the pier. “But I can’t put my finger on it.”

Liam stood, pulling himself up to the pier in one fluid motion. The rain sheeted down, dripping from his black hood and he stared at Donal. He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed something familiar about Nuala’s son?

Donal crossed to the end of the pier, grabbing the line of the smallest fishing boat and tugging it closer. He grinned over his shoulder through the rain. “Strange or no, I wouldn’t kick her out of bed.”

Finn let out a bark of laughter. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“No,” Donal agreed, knotting the line around the metal clamp. “At least not while the professor here’s got his eye on her.” He stood, wiping his muddy hands on his wet jeans. “Besides, Nuala’s too thin for my tastes. I prefer my women soft…” He grinned up at Liam. “Like Caitlin.”

Liam sent Donal a look of warning.

Donal angled his head, rising to the challenge. “Heard you stood her up the other night.”

Liam stalked to the edge of the pier, unwinding a knot Dominic had tied in a hurry and rewinding it so it threaded securely around the wood. “Who told you that?”

“Word gets around.”

There’d been talk, Liam realized, gazing out at the angry sea. Talk amongst the islanders of what he’d done. He’d hurt Caitlin, not just by standing her up, but by embarrassing her in front of her friends and neighbors.

“Nobody has any secrets here,” Donal went on and Liam turned. “And it’s no secret she’s been carrying a torch for you for years.” Donal took the line Finn threw him and looped it around a piling. “But maybe now that you screwed it up…” He shrugged, yanking it tight. “Maybe she’ll make herself available.” Donal glanced over his shoulder, wiggling his eyebrows. “I definitely wouldn’t kick
her
out of bed.”

Liam was across the pier in two strides, hooking a fist in Donal’s rain gear. He shoved him back against the piling.

“Whoa!” Donal tripped, his feet slipping on the wet wood as Liam held him there.

“Stay the hell away from her,” Liam growled, watching the other man’s eyes widen as he fought to scramble free.

“Enough,” Dominic warned, hauling Liam off Donal. “He got the message.”

Donal rubbed his jaw where it had smacked against the wood. “Idiot.” He spat out blood from where his tooth bit into his cheek. “If I had a woman like Caitlin in love with me, I wouldn’t fuck it up the way you keep doing.”

In love with him? Liam took a step back. Since when was Caitlin in love with him? A storm swell slammed into the pier, sea spray splashing the back of his legs. And what the hell did Donal mean,
‘keep fucking it up?’
The water flowed over the planks, seeping through the cracks. A sweet, sickening perfume curled into the wet air and his gaze fell to the pier when the sea receded, leaving a single white rose in its wake.

***

Caitlin stripped off her raincoat as Tara reached for the light switch automatically, forgetting the power was out. She took Owen’s jacket and hung them both on the rose-colored antique coat hanger, ushering Owen over to the pale green sofa in the corner while Tara pulled a battery-powered lamp from the cabinet.

Islanders were wary enough of doctors. The last thing they needed was to walk into a sterile room before getting stuck with a needle. A doctor’s office should be a place where you went to heal and feel better, not get poked and prodded and shepherded in and out with clipboards and charts like cattle.

She and Tara had worked hard to make sure the island’s first medical practice was a soothing and calming experience. It helped that it was a converted cottage, so it already felt more like a home than an office, but she welcomed the sense of peace that washed over her as Tara switched on the small lamp, placing it on the coffee table filled with magazines and books.

“The kitchen’s pretty backed up right now,” Tara said, settling into the worn wooden chair across from them. “Everyone brought over what was in their fridge and Fiona’s trying to find a way to salvage it. We have at least ten minutes, maybe twenty at the most.”

Owen’s hand gravitated to the stuffed seal on the table in the corner and he picked it up, squishing it between his fingers. “Is it true?” he asked, glancing up at her. “That you’re a selkie?”

Tara lifted a brow. “Who told you that?”

“Kelsey.” He set the stuffed seal in his lap, patting its soft fur.

“I see.” Tara exchanged a glance with Caitlin. “What else did Kelsey tell you?”

“She said all selkies are black. Is that true?”

Tara crossed her legs, sitting back in her chair. “As far as I know.”