Up Close and Personal (11 page)

The sharp spicy scent of the chrysanthemums in the garden teased her nose and led her off the patio and onto a set of stone steps that wound through a garden that was mostly winter dormant. But she could see the bones of it and could easily imagine what it would be like in spring and summer.

Roses blooming, trellis standing over a white iron bench, alive with the morning glories that were now missing from the dark green vines. There was an herb garden and a few hardy dahlias still clinging to life at the edges of the garden.

Beyond lay a sweeping yard of green that sloped toward cliffs that echoed with the thunder of waves crashing ashore. She stood there, in the silence, letting her heartbeat ease, her mind empty and tried to release the fury that had prompted her escape.

But it clung to her insides, chilling her to the soul.

Shaking her head, she turned from the sea and looked up the rise of a rolling hill to where a round tower stood, ancient and alone. Without even thinking about it, she started for the tower, drawn by its solitude and the promise of peace.

She wasn’t dressed for it. Her skin felt as icy as her heart as the wind continued its relentless pushing at her. Her heels sank into the soft ground until she was fighting for every step and still she went on, determined to reach the top. Halfway there, she heard the sighing of the wind as it slipped past the tower and through what she realized was an ancient cemetery.

Laura kept going even when she heard Deirdre’s happy bark in the distance and coming closer. Swinging her hair back from her face, Laura stumbled, caught herself and went on, finally stepping out of her shoes altogether and carrying them in one hand. The long grass was soft and silky against her bare feet, but there were stones there as well and they scraped at her skin as she made her way higher.

Deirdre raced past her, barking in delight now, to have company on a run. Laura smiled in spite of the turmoil churning inside her until she heard an all-too-familiar voice coming from right behind her.

“You’ll be frozen,” Ronan warned, catching up to her and grabbing hold of her arm to stop her progress toward the tower.

“Doesn’t matter,” she argued, tugging free. “I’m fine.”

“What’re you doing, Laura?”

“I just needed to get out of that room.” She glanced at him, then back to the tower that stood like a beacon. It was taller than she had thought. At least twenty feet high, and would have been even taller when it was built. The top of the thing was broken off, snapped in two as if a giant had reached down and broken it in a temper.

“And come to the cemetery?” he asked, whipping off his overcoat to drape it around her. “In your bare feet?”

“My heels kept sinking.”

“Laura—”

She looked up at him then. “Leave me alone for a while, Ronan. Please.”

“No.” He cupped her face and the heat from his body touched her cold cheeks and swamped through her. “I’ll not. If you’re so determined to see the tower, I’ll go with you.”

Deirdre romped across the wide grassy expanse, chasing her own imagination across the field and up to where tilted tombstones stood in memory of those lost. There was a timelessness about this place, Laura thought. Centuries ago, this tower was built and the people then had been much the same as she and Ronan. The same wants and needs and fears and disappointments.

They’d lived and died and left their mark here, with this tower. With the tombstones.

What mark would she leave?

God, dark thoughts for a gray day on a windswept hill so far from home.

Ronan put one arm around her and drew her to him. His thick, Irish knit sweater was warm and smelled of him, making her want to cuddle close in spite of everything.

She didn’t want to thank him. Didn’t want to need him beside her. Hated wanting even the warmth of his coat or his scent wafting up to her. But she did and couldn’t hide that, at least from herself.

“It was a fine welcome to Ireland you got, wasn’t it?” he asked, resting his chin on top of her head.

She didn’t even comment on that because what could she say that wouldn’t open her up to a conversation she wasn’t interested in having. So instead, she half turned in his embrace and looked up at the stone tower, still standing proud.

“What were they for?”

“The round towers?” She felt him shrug. “No one knows for sure. Their name in Gaelic is
Cloigtheach
and in the old language it means ‘belltower.’ Some say it was for defense. That a lookout was perched high in the tower and if he saw the bloody Vikings coming back for another go-round, he’d sound the bell and the villagers would know to pack up what they could and run for it, while the warriors stayed behind to fight.”

“What happened to this one?” she asked quietly, her voice nearly lost in the wind.

“Most likely it was destroyed in a long ago battle and what was left, time has whittled down.”

“No graffiti though,” she mused, staring up at the silent gray stones. If this were at home, she knew there would be spray-painted names and sayings and pictures all over it and that thought made her sad.

“No. We honor our past in Ireland and fight for our future.”

She took a breath, looked up at him and asked flatly, “Like Sinead is trying to fight for hers?”

He held her more tightly as if afraid she might pull away from him, and Laura thought he was very attuned to her because that’s exactly what she wanted to do.

“’Tis not the same, Laura. Sinead knew that marriage would be the end for her if there was a child. As did Michael.”

“Forcing them to marry isn’t right, Ronan.” She whipped her hair back out of her eyes. “What if they’re miserable together?”

“Most marriages end in misery from what I’ve seen,” he said with a casual shrug that made her want to hit him with something heavy.

“And you’d wish that on Sinead?”

“You’re not in America, Laura,” he said patiently. “This is Ireland and though we’ve come a long way in the last few decades, a woman alone with a child still faces a hard road. Michael knew what he was risking. As did Sinead.”

“Sex shouldn’t come with a penalty.”

“But it does, and everyone knows it.” He blew out a breath then and added, “Besides that, I’ve told you. Things are different here.”

“And yet,” she said, “you seem the same. Still laying down orders expecting to be obeyed.”

“You don’t understand, and there’s no reason you should.” He fumed silently for a moment, then seemed to gather himself before saying, “No matter how it looked, Sinead’s not being forced to do a damn thing. She’s been after Michael since she was a girl, and she’s finally landed him. She only wanted someone to tell her ‘no’ so that she could go and do what she liked. She’s the most contrary girl in County Mayo. Always has been.”

“So you were just doing her a favor?”

“In a way.”

“And Sean hitting Michael in the eye, that was a good deed, too?”

Scrubbing both hands across his face, he muttered, “The idiot man slept with a girl Sean and I both consider a little sister. Can you understand that we find that hard to deal with?”

Laura smiled to herself. “In fact, that’s the one thing I completely understand.”

“That’s something then at least.”

“You want her happy.”

“I do,” he admitted.

“Married.”

“Married, for some, is the right thing,” he muttered. “Or so I’ve heard.”

“But not you.”

He looked at her. “Not me.”

“Right. So easy to stand back and order people to do what you won’t do yourself. Or…is that what I would have been to you if I hadn’t lost the baby?” she demanded. “A penance to be paid? A sacrifice bravely endured?”

He frowned at her. “Are you meaning would I have married you? Aye, I would have. For it’s the right thing to do.”

Stunned speechless, she could only look up at him and laugh in disbelief. “Do you even hear yourself? You believe marriage is a trap, yet you’d force that girl into its jaws and would have tried to drag me in, too.”

“And would have, make no mistake,” he grumbled.

Laura moved away and though she missed the heat of him, she couldn’t be that close to him without wanting to kick him. “I wouldn’t have married you, Ronan. I’ve no more interest in being some man’s penance than Sinead does.”

“And like Sinead, you’d have had no choice in the matter.”

“Your arrogance is absolutely boundless.”

“Is it arrogant to want to do what’s right?” Temper flared on his features and glinted in his eyes. “If my child were still inside you, do you think I’d have let you go from me?”

A chill that had nothing to do with the icy wind crawled through Laura and sank bitter teeth into the edges of her soul. “I’m not pregnant now, Ronan, and you’re still not letting me go. So what does that mean?”

Ronan looked at her, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed and his dark hair wind-tossed into a tangle. “It means I will let you go, Laura. But not yet.”

He stomped off a few feet and whistled to Deirdre who was running too far away. As the dog careened back toward them, he looked at Laura.

“You know, I grew up in that house,” he said, waving one arm at the manor behind them, “and never saw one reason to believe marriage was anything but a trap a man would chew his own foot off to escape.”

She held her breath and listened. Watched. His eyes flashed with old pain and his mouth worked as if he’d tasted something bitter.

“My parents,” he went on as if a dam had burst inside him and he couldn’t stop the flow of words, “insisted they married for love, and yet spent every living minute tearing into each other. They were each of them miserable and were bound by the law and the church to remain so until death finally gave them—and me—some peace.”

“All marriages aren’t like that, Ronan,” she finally said and reached down to stroke Deirdre’s shaggy hair when the dog leaned into her.

“I’m not an idiot, you know,” he said wryly, his temper draining away as easily as it had flashed into life. “I’ve seen some good ones. My friend Sam, a man as determined as I to remain single, is happy and about to be a father.” He shook his head as if he didn’t quite understand it, so he didn’t see the flinch that must have shown on Laura’s face.

She still felt the twinge of pain and memory when she thought of what she’d lost. But hearing Ronan now, she began to think that the pain she might have felt if the baby had lived, would have been worse.

He’d have expected marriage without love and that she wouldn’t do.

“Those that make it work seem content enough,” he continued. “But you are what you learn as a child, Laura. What I learned was to avoid marriage like the bloody plague.” He stood in the gray light, with the wind tossing his hair into a tumble and looked directly into her eyes. “Don’t look to me for love, I don’t have it in me.”

“You’re wrong,” she said and gave Deirdre one final pat. “You love your cousin. Sinead. Patsy.”

“That’s different.”

It wasn’t, but he couldn’t see that. Laura had known him now for months. Had loved him in spite of how furious he made her at times. But he simply refused to be moved by even the chance that he might be wrong. He wouldn’t risk love becoming what he’d seen as a child. How could they possibly ever breach the chasm between them?

“Love is love, Ronan,” she said after a long moment. “You’re capable of it. I’ve seen it in you. You’re just too scared to risk it.”

Insult etched onto his features in an instant. “If I am, I’ve a right to be. But either way, can’t or won’t, ’tis the same difference in the end.”

The fact that he believed what he was saying tore at Laura. She watched him, knowing that she loved him and realizing that they had no chance together. What they would share here in Ireland would be the last of it. When she went home, she’d be going alone and she wouldn’t see Ronan again. Ever. Her heart simply couldn’t take that kind of pain.

So she made a decision. The only one she could. She wouldn’t have forever, so she would have
now
. Take Ronan as he was, for however long they were here in this place that was so beautiful it felt like a dream. Make memories that would keep her warm when the cold times came. Then, she would let him go.

Taking first one step, then two, she crossed to him and watched wariness flash in his eyes. She reached up, hooked her arms around his neck and went up on her toes. Looking into his eyes, she whispered, “You’re wrong, Ronan. About all of it…”

“Laura, you must understand—”

“No, I don’t have to. Not right now. Not here.” Then she kissed him. She felt his hesitation at first, and then his hunger as he yielded to what each of them had been craving for too long.

He kissed her there, in the grayness of an Irish day, with Deirdre barking madly, the wind singing through the tombstones and in the distance, the heart of the sea beating with a steady drumroll.

Through her fury, through her misery, she fell into that kiss as if it meant her life. And for now, it did. Heart aching, mind reeling, she knew that when she did eventually go, she’d be leaving her heart behind.

And as his arms came around her, Laura’s heart ached even as her mind whispered,
Remember this.

Nine

T
he Pennywhistle Pub sat in the middle of the village of Dunley. It was small and noisy and filled with all those who needed to get away from their own homes for an hour or two to share conversation and music and a drink.

Laura loved it.

She’d been to pubs at home, of course. But in California the so-called “real” Irish pubs were nothing like this. There, the rooms were glossy, as if they were nothing more than a stage set, with potted ferns, piped in music coming down from overhead speakers and posters of Ireland tacked to the walls.

Here, the walls were stone, supported by what looked like ancient wooden beams, darkened by years of peat fire smoke. Rough-hewn tables that had probably sat in the same spot for a century or more, were lovingly polished and the bar itself, a long sweep of dark wood, gleamed in the overhead lights. Behind the bar, a television set on mute displayed a British soap opera, starring impossibly pretty people.

There were a half dozen or so tables in the pub, crowded with chairs and three booths along one wall where whole families, children included, gathered together. The smell of peat smoke layered over the crowd from the fireplace in one corner and the conversations and laughter around her rose and fell like the waves that stretched out behind the village.

Laura sipped at her beer and smiled when the owner of the pub, Danny Muldoon, came to their table. “Ronan, will you be staying for long this go round, or is it off to America again?”

“I’ll be home awhile yet, Danny,” Ronan said, with a long glance at Laura.

Danny’s broad chest puffed out almost big enough to match the belly that strained the clean, white apron tied around his waist. His smile was beaming as he, too, looked at Laura. “If I’d known how lovely the lasses were across the foam, I might’ve taken myself off there long ago.”

Ronan grinned. “Your Mary would probably be surprised to hear it.”

“Ah, but I’d have taken her with me you see,” Danny told him, “for she’s the loveliest of them all.” He winked at Laura. “Give us a call if you’ve need of another beer.”

When he moved off into the crowd, stopping to chat with those he passed, Laura said, “You know everyone here, don’t you?”

“Comes from growing up in one spot.” He shrugged. “’Tis a small village after all.”

The beer was cold, the pub was warm, and the look in Ronan’s eyes when he turned to her was heated enough to melt the strongest barricades she could erect around her heart.

For two days, she’d lived in his world and watched him with those who knew him best. Here, he was still bossy and arrogant, but it was tempered with the real caring he felt for the people. He’d told her once he didn’t have any family except Sean. But he was wrong, Laura thought.

He had an entire village of family.

They all knew him. They all loved him, that was plain to see, and they were all proud of what he’d made of himself. Sitting here beside him, she was seeing a whole new side of Ronan Connolly and her heart ached at what she knew she’d soon be losing.

Since their first day in Ireland, since that afternoon at the tower, Laura had spent every moment she could with him. Days were filled with trips around the countryside, to the port city of Westport and to Galway so she could see the
Cosain
offices and wander through the shops. And every night, she lay in Ronan’s bed, wrapped in his arms, determined not to waste one instant of the time she had here.

“I saw the sketch you did of the round tower,” Ronan said, leaning in so that his voice was for her alone. “It was lovely.”

“Thank you.” She hadn’t bought paints in Galway, as she wouldn’t be here long enough to capture all that she wanted to on canvas. Instead, she had settled for a sketch pad and pencils, and told herself that when she was home, she would take the time to paint them all. Especially the round tower where she had willingly crossed an emotional bridge, to take what joy she could find. At home, she would bring back in oil the moments she’d had here—and then she’d torture herself by hanging them all around her house.

Depressing thought.

She took a sip of beer and half listened to the conversation Ronan was having with another man about the coming winter and who in the village needed their roof fixed before the worst of it hit.

Her gaze locked on Ronan, she realized that he had no idea just how
much
he loved. He tried so hard to shut the emotion out of his life, but it was there, inside him, whether he recognized it or not. He didn’t owe anyone here anything and yet, he was making plans to see that people who needed help were taken care of.

He was, she thought with a whip of anger that sliced through her internal misery, too stubborn to see the truth right in front of his eyes.

Still scowling, she turned her gaze to the door when it opened and smiled when Michael and Sinead entered the pub. The two of them looked happy, and Laura was glad to see that
someone
at least was getting what they wanted most.

“When’s the wedding, Sinead?” someone called out from the back of the room.

“When the banns have been read,” Michael shouted back and leaned down to kiss his bride-to-be.

Sinead laughed up at him, then stopped to talk to friends while Michael walked toward the hearth where two other young men his age waited, tuning up instruments.

“Michael’s a musician?” she asked, leaning into Ronan while Michael pulled a violin from a case.

“He is,” Ronan said, his breath brushing her skin. “And a fine one. He’s a good future ahead of him and now that he’s getting married and settling down, maybe he’ll put some work into developing it.”

Music jumped into life. Michael’s fiddle sang with a fast tempo tune that had half the patrons singing and the other half leaping into fast, complicated step dancing that would have made the Riverdance company hang their heads in shame.

Ronan draped one arm around Laura’s shoulders, and she leaned into him, smiling. One more memory, she thought, and lay her head on his shoulder.

* * *

For the next few days, all was peaceful and so Ronan’s internal warning system was on red alert. He was waiting, he thought, for the skies to open and all hell to rain down on him. Nothing could be this good for long.

His time with Laura had been a revelation to him. She’d flung herself into village life and the easy pace of things in Ireland as if born to it. At home, in California, she seemed like everyone else there, always in a hurry. But here, she found time to sit and sketch, to work with Patsy in the kitchen and to stroll the beach with him just to watch the waves crashing to shore.

And the people here,
his
people, loved her.

He saw it with Sinead, when she and Laura sat before the fire, talking about American music and Hollywood, which fascinated Sinead to no end at all. He saw it with Patsy, who traded her recipe for Irish soda bread for Laura’s on how best to make spaghetti sauce. He even saw it with Sean, who kept finding reasons to stop by the manor, and in the village of Dunley, where she’d already made friends.

Everywhere she went, Laura carved out a place for herself—as she had with him.

Oh, Ronan didn’t want to acknowledge it, but it was becoming damned difficult to ignore. She had etched her presence onto every corner of his home. He knew that years from now, he would still be walking into the front parlor and be able to see Laura, curled up on the sofa with a book in her hands and Deirdre at her feet.

And that didn’t even bring to mind the images he had of Laura in his bed. Moonlight across her skin, the shimmer of lamplight against her blond hair. The sigh of her breath when she lay across him in the middle of the night because she was cold. The heat of her body pressed along his and the cry of her voice when he emptied himself into her.

All of these and more were driving Ronan round the bend.

Because though his world seemed peaceful, beneath the surface, everything around him was shifting and changing and damned if he liked knowing that.

“We’ve another request for a guard from the Baileys in Dublin.”

“What?” Ronan looked up at Molly O’Hara, serving as his assistant while Brian was still away in California. Frowning, he shook his head, tried to remember what they had been talking about before his mind wandered. And, he thought with a frown, until Laura had invaded his life, he’d had no problems with concentration. “Right. Yes. The Baileys. Have you explained to them that it’ll be a week or more?”

“I have,” she admitted with a sigh. “And they’re none too happy about the wait. They’ve offered to double the signing fee if you can get them an agent faster.”

John Bailey, Ronan thought, quickly reviewing what he knew of the potential customer. Industrial tycoon, single, Bailey made many trips overseas, running his various businesses and he wanted personal protection. The problem was, they had no one free at the moment.

When Sam Travis certified the new recruits though, Ronan thought the former marine, Cobb, would be the perfect fit for Bailey.

“I’ll take care of it,” Ronan said. “Leave me his file. We’ve a new batch of guards graduating from training within the week, Bailey will either wait for one of them or not, as he chooses.”

“As you wish,” she said and handed over the file. “Unless there’s anything else you need, it’s late so I’ll be leaving now and see you again on Monday morning?”

“Fine, Molly. Thanks.” When she was gone, Ronan tossed the file onto his desk, then swiveled his chair around to stare out at the night over Galway city and the bay beyond. He’d stayed later than usual, and now he saw the sweep of stars across the sky and was forced to admit to a truth. Burying himself in work didn’t help. Pretending that he was in no hurry to return home to Laura didn’t change reality.

Ronan realized that for the first time in memory, he didn’t want to be at work.

He wanted to be home.

Where Laura waited.

He hungered for her, damn it. He had wanted her to come to Ireland with him as a means of making
her
desires quicken. Instead, it was he himself doing the suffering. No matter how much he touched her, it wasn’t enough. He craved more until his body felt as tight as a bodhrán drum.

Ronan had wanted
her
on the razor’s edge, not himself.

When, he asked himself, had she become…vital?

And what was he to do about it?

He didn’t want her to leave, he knew that. Though it had nothing to do with love, as well he knew. It was a problem for sure, but all problems had solutions if you looked hard enough and were willing to work toward compromise. Laura wanted love and marriage. He couldn’t give her that. But surely there was something else he could offer in its stead.

Possibilities raced through his mind.

* * *

At home, he found her in his bedroom, warm and lovely in his bed, and Ronan knew he’d like nothing better than to come home to her every night for the rest of his life. And he would, he vowed. If he played his cards right, if he could convince her to see things his way, they could each have what it was they wanted.

Ronan stripped quietly, quickly, and went to her, sliding beneath the blood-red duvet and gathering her in close.

She sighed and flowed against him, one leg sliding across his, one arm draped over his chest, her head pillowed on his shoulder. Her hair felt like silk and smelled like summer.

“You worked late,” she murmured.

“I did,” he said, kissing her forehead, sliding one hand along her spine. “Had a few things to work out in my mind.”

She tipped her head back to look up at him and a slice of moonlight slanted across her features, shadowing her eyes, making her skin seem to glow. “Did you get everything settled?”

“You know me,” he said softly.

“I do.” A smile curved her mouth and his breath caught. That brilliant smile, freely given and so filled with joy, jolted through him like a hammer against rock. He felt her power over him and told himself that it meant nothing. Only that he’d a fondness for her. And for the magic they made together.

But even he was having a hard time believing that. Determinedly, he closed his mind to the thoughts clamoring for his attention.

“I’ve no wish for talking at the moment,” he said, rolling over until she lay beneath him. He went up on one elbow to look into her eyes and used the tips of his fingers to smooth back a strand of blond hair.

“I don’t really feel like talking, either,” she admitted and lifted one hand to trace the curve of his mouth with her fingers.

“That’s good then,” he whispered and dipped his head for a kiss.

Every time he kissed her it was as if it were the first time. The same sensations crowded inside him. Light and heat and a powerful explosion of electricity that shot through his mind and body and left him breathless. She was a hunger in his blood and Ronan knew she always would be.

He tore his mouth from hers and trailed his lips down the line of her throat and farther, letting the scent of her envelop him. He moved until he found her breasts and the dark pink tips of her nipples. He tasted one, then the other, swirling his tongue over their sensitive points until Laura sighed with pleasure and murmured his name.

Her talented hands moved over his back, tugged at his shoulders and finally cupped his cheek and guided his face back to hers.

“You’re lovely,” he said softly, loving the way moonlight caressed her.

“You’re prejudiced,” she countered.

“No.” He bent to kiss her again, taking his time with it, giving them both the sensations they craved. His chest tight, mind crowded with thoughts and feelings he couldn’t explore, he said only, “I’m not. You’re the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Ronan—”

He moved over her, pushing his body into hers on one long slide. Instantly, he was lost in the heat of her. He groaned, from deep in his throat and set a rhythm she moved to match. Again and again, he took her, each time, driving them higher, closer to the end that waited for them, and when he heard her cry, felt her body tremble, he at last allowed himself to follow.