Born in Shame (25 page)

“That's nonsense, and it's time you stopped it.” Firm, he took her shoulders. “Was it anger that made you come here to where it began, knowing what it would cost you to face it? You know he died here, yet you came to face that, too, didn't you?”

“Yes. It hurts.”

“I know, darling.” He gathered her close. “I know it does. The heart has to break a little to make room.”

“I want to understand.” It was so comforting to rest her head on his shoulder. The tears didn't burn then, and the pang in her heart lessened. “It would be easier to accept when I understand why they all made the choices they made.”

“I think you understand more than you know.” He turned so that they faced the sea again, the crashing and endless symphony of wave against rock. “It's beautiful here. On the edge of the world.” He kissed her hair. “One day you'll bring your paints and draw what you see, what you feel.”

“I don't know if I could. So many ghosts.”

“You drew the stones. There's no lack of ghosts there, and they're as close to you as these.”

If it was a day for courage, she would stand on her own when she asked him. Shannon stepped back. “The man and white horse, the woman in the field. You see them.”

“I do. Hazily when I was a boy, then clearer after I found the broach. Clearer yet since you stepped into Brianna's kitchen and looked at me with eyes I already knew.”

“Tom Concannon's eyes.”

“You know what I mean, Shannon. They were cool then. I'd seen them that way before. And I'd seen them hot, with anger and with lust. I'd seen them weeping and laughing. I'd seen them swimming with visions.”

“I think,” she said carefully, “that people can be susceptible to a place, an atmosphere. There are a number of studies—” She broke off when his eyes glinted at her. “All right, we'll toss out logic temporarily. I felt—feel—something at the dance. Something strange, and familiar. And I've had dreams—since the first night I came to Ireland.”

“It unnerves you. It did me for a time.”

“Yes, it unnerves me.”

“There's a storm,” he prompted, trying not to rush her.

“Sometimes. The lightning's cold, like a spear of ice against the sky, and the ground's hard with frost so you can hear the sound of the horse thundering across it before you see it and the rider.”

“And the wind blows her hair while she waits. He sees her and his heart's beating as hard as the horse's hooves beat the ground.”

Clutching her arms around her, Shannon turned away. It was easier to look at the sea. “Other times there's a
fire in a small dark room. She's bathing his face with a cloth. He's delirious, burning with fever that's spread from his wounds.”

“He knows he's dying,” Murphy said quietly. “All he has to hold him to life is her hand, and the scent of her, the sound of her voice as she soothes him.”

“But he doesn't die.” Shannon took a long breath. “I've seen them making love, by the fire, in the dance. It's like watching and being taken at the same time. I'll wake up hot and shaky and aching for you.” She turned to him then, and he saw a look he'd seen before in her eyes, the smoldering fury of it. “I don't want this.”

“Tell me what I did, to turn your heart against me.”

“It isn't against you.”

But he took her arms, his eyes insistent. “Tell me what I did.”

“I don't know.” She shouted it, then, shocked by the bitterness, pressed against him. “I don't know. And if I do somehow I can't tell you. This isn't my world, Murphy. It's not real to me.”

“But you're trembling.”

“I can't talk about this. I don't want to think about it. It makes everything more insane and impossible than it already is.”

“Shannon—”

“No.” She took his mouth in a desperate kiss.

“This won't always be enough to soothe either of us.”

“It's enough now. Take me back, Murphy. Take me back and we'll make it enough.”

Demands wouldn't sway her, he knew. Not when she was clinging so close to her fears. Helpless to do otherwise, he kept her under his arm and led her back to the truck.

* * *

Gray saw the truck coming as he walked back to the inn and hailed it. The minute he stepped up to Shannon's window he could sense the tension. And he could see quite easily, though she'd done her best to mask it, that she'd been crying.

He sent Murphy an even look, exactly the kind a brother might aim at anyone who made his sister unhappy.

“I've just come back from your place. When you didn't answer the phone, Brianna started worrying.”

“We went for a drive,” Shannon told him. “I asked Murphy to take me to Loop Head.”

“Oh.” Which explained quite a bit. “Brie was hoping we could go out to the gallery. All of us.”

“I'd like that.” She thought the trip might dispel the lingering depression. “Could you?” she asked Murphy.

“I have some things to see to.” He could see it would disappoint her if he made excuses, and that she wouldn't talk to him now in any case. “Could you hold off for an hour or two?”

“Sure. We'll take Maggie and the monster with us. Rogan's already out there. Come by when you're ready.”

“I need to change,” Shannon said quickly. She was already opening the door as she glanced back at Murphy. “I'll wait for you here, all right?”

“That's fine. No more than two hours.” He nodded toward Gray, then drove off.

“Tough morning?” Gray murmured.

“In several ways. I can't seem to talk to him about what happens next.” Or what happened before, she admitted.

“What does happen next?”

“I have to go back, Gray. I should have left a week ago.” She leaned into him when he draped an arm over
her shoulder, and looked out over the valley. “My job's on the line.”

“The old rock and a hard place. I've been there a few times. No way to squeeze out without bruises.” He led her through the gate, down the path, and to the steps. “If I were to ask you what you wanted in your life, for your life, would you be able to answer?”

“Not as easily as I could have a month ago.” She sat with him, studying the foxglove and nodding columbine. “Do you believe in visions, Gray?”

“That's quite a segue.”

“I guess it is, and a question I never figured I'd ask anyone.” She turned to study him now. “I'm asking you because you're an American.” When his grin broke out, hers followed. “I know how that sounds, but hear me out. You make your home here, in Ireland, but you're still a Yank. You make your living by creating fiction, telling stories, but you do it on modern equipment. There's a fax machine in your office.”

“Yeah, that makes all the difference.”

“It means you're a twentieth-century man, a forward-looking man who understands technology and uses it.”

“Murphy has a top-of-the-line milk machine,” Gray pointed out. “His new tractor's the best modern technology's come up with.”

“And he cuts his own turf,” Shannon finished, smiling. “And his blood is full of Celtic mystique. You can't tell me that part of him doesn't believe in banshees and fairies.”

“Okay, I'd say Murphy's a fascinating combination of old Ireland and new. So your question to me is do I believe in visions.” He waited a beat. “Absolutely.”

“Oh, Grayson.” Frustrated, she sprang up, strode two paces down the path, turned, and strode back. “How can
you sit there, wearing Nikes and a Rolex and tell me you believe in visions?”

He looked down at his shoes. “I like Nikes, and the watch keeps pretty good time.”

“You know very well what I mean. You're not going to have any trouble rolling into the twenty-first century, yet you're going to sit there and say you believe in fifteenth-century nonsense.”

“I don't think it's nonsense, and I don't think it's stuck in the fifteenth century, either. I think it goes back a whole lot further, and that it'll keep going through several more millenniums.”

“And you probably believe in ghosts, too, and reincarnation, and toads that turn into princes.”

“Yep.” He grinned, then took her hand and pulled her down again. “You shouldn't ask a question if the answer's going to piss you off.” When she only huffed, he toyed with her fingers. “You know when I came to this part of Ireland, I had no intention of staying. Six months maybe, write the book, and pack up. That's the way I worked, and lived. Obviously Brianna's the main reason I changed that. But there's more. I recognized this place.”

“Oh, Gray,” she said again.

“I walked across the fields one morning, and I saw the standing stones. They fascinated me, and I felt a tug, a power that didn't surprise me in the least.”

Her hand tensed in his. “You mean that.”

“I do. I could walk down the road there, or drive to the cliffs, through the village, wander around in ruins, cemeteries. I felt connected—and I'd never felt that connection with anything or anyone before. I didn't have visions, but I knew I'd been here before and was meant to come back.”

“And that doesn't give you the creeps.”

“It scared the shit out of me,” he said cheerfully. “Just about as much as falling in love with Brianna did. What's scaring you more, pal?”

“I don't know. I have these dreams.”

“So you said before. Are you going to tell me about them this time?”

“I have to tell somebody,” she murmured. “Whenever I start to talk about it with Murphy I get . . . panicked. Like something's got a hold of me. I'm not the hysterical type, Gray, or the fanciful type. But I can't get past this.”

She began slowly, telling him of the first dream, the details of it, the emotions of it. The words came easily now, without the hot ball in her throat that swelled each time she tried to discuss it with Murphy.

Still, she knew there was more, some piece, some final link that part of her was blocking out.

“He has the broach,” she finished. “Murphy has the broach I saw in my dreams. He found it in the dance when he was a boy, and he says he started having the same dreams.”

Fascinated, and with one part of his brain coolly filing away the facts and images for a story to be spun, he whistled. “That's pretty heavy stuff.”

“Tell me about it. I feel like I've got the weight of a hundred-pound ax at the back of my neck.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I said heavy, not scary. Certainly not threatening.”

“Well, I am threatened. I don't like it, this having my unconscious intruded upon. And this nasty feeling that I'm supposed to fix whatever went wrong doesn't agree with me. Gray, when I see a magician vanish in a puff of smoke, I know it's a trick. I may enjoy it, be entertained if it's well done, but I'm fully aware there's a trapdoor and misdirection.”

“Rock and a hard place again, pal. Logic against
illogic. Reason against emotion. Have you considered relaxing and just seeing which side wins?”

“I've considered finding an analyst,” she muttered. “And I'm telling myself the dreams will stop once I'm back in New York, back in the routine I'm used to.”

“And you're afraid they won't.”

“Yes, I'm afraid they won't. And I'm very afraid that Murphy won't understand why I have to go.”

“Do you understand?” Gray asked quietly.

“Logically, yes. And still logically, I can understand my connection here. With Murphy, with all of you. I know I'll have to come back, that I'll never break the ties, or want to. And that the life I'm going back to will never be quite the same as the one I had before. But I can't fix dreams, Gray, and I can't stay and let my life drift. Not even for Murphy.”

“Want advice?”

She lifted her hands, then let them fall. “Hell, I'll take what I can get.”

“Think through what you're going back to and what you're leaving behind. Make a list if it helps the logical side. And after you've weighed them, one against the other, see which side of the scale dips.”

“Pretty standard advice,” she mused. “But not bad. Thanks.”

“Wait till you get my bill.”

She laughed, tilted her head onto his shoulder. “I really love you.”

Flustered, and pleased, he pressed a kiss to her temple. “Same goes.”

Chapter
Twenty-Two

Shannon couldn't have been more delighted with Worldwide Gallery, Clare. Its manor-house style was both striking and dignified. The gardens, Murphy told her as she stepped from the truck to admire them, were Brianna's design.

“She didn't plant them,” he went on, “as there wasn't enough time for her to come out every day with her spade and her pots. But she drew up the placement of every last dahlia and rosebush.”

“Another family affair.”

“It is, yes. Rogan and Maggie worked with the architect on the design of the house, scrutinized every paint
chip. There were some lively arguments there,” he remembered, taking Shannon's hand as Gray pulled up nearby. “It's a labor of love for all of them.”

Shannon scanned the cars already parked in the lot. “It appears it's working very well.”

“The president of Ireland's been here.” There was wonder in his voice as well as pride. “Twice, and bought one of Maggie's pieces, others as well. It's no small thing to take a dream and make it into a reality that stands strong.”

“No.” She understood what was beneath his words and was grateful when Brianna and the rest joined them.

“You'll keep your hands in your pockets, Liam Sweeney,” Maggie warned. “Or I'll handcuff you.” Not trusting the threat, she hoisted him up. “What do you think then, Shannon?”

“I think it's beautiful, and every bit as impressive as Dublin and New York.”

“Here's a home,” she said simply and carried Liam toward the entrance.

Shannon smelled the flowers, the roses, the drifting fragrance of peonies, the scent of the trimmed lawn that was thick as velvet. When she stepped inside, she saw that it was, indeed, a home, furnished with care, and with the welcoming grace of elegance.

There were paintings on the wall of the main hall, clever pencil portraits that celebrated the faces and moods of the people of Ireland. In the front parlor were dreamy watercolors that suited the curved settee and quiet tones of the room. There were sculptures, Maggie's incomparable glass, as well as a bust of a young woman carved in alabaster, and canny little elves depicted in glossy wood. A hand-hooked rug in bleeding blues graced the floor, and a thick throw was draped over the back of the sofa.

There were flowers, fresh that morning, in vases of brilliant glass and fired pottery.

It gave her a jolt to see her own painting on the wall. Stunned, she walked closer, staring at her watercolor of Brianna.

“I'm so proud to have it here,” Brianna said from beside her. “Maggie told me that Rogan had displayed three, but she didn't tell me this was one of them.”

“Three?” There was something spreading in Shannon's chest, making her heart beat too fast for comfort.

Maggie stepped up, struggling with a wriggling Liam. “At first he was only going to use the one,
The Dance,
but he decided to put up the other two for a few days only. He wants to tease the clientele a bit. Give them a glimpse or two of what's to come in your fall showing, and start a buzz. He's had an offer on
The Dance
already.”

“An offer?” Now whatever was stretching inside of Shannon was creeping into her throat. “Someone wants to buy it?”

“I think he said two thousand pounds. Or maybe it was three.” She shrugged as Shannon stared at her. “Of course he wants twice that.”

“Twice—” She choked, then certain she'd gotten the joke, shook her head. “You almost had me.”

“He's greedy, is Rogan,” Maggie said with a smile. “I'm forever telling him he asks outrageous prices, and he delights in forever proving me wrong by getting them. If he wants six thousand pounds for it, he'll get it, I promise you.”

The logical part of Shannon's brain calculated the exchange into American dollars, and banked it. The artist in her was both flustered and grieving.

“All right, boy-o,” Maggie said to the squirming Liam.
“It's your da's turn.” She marched out with him, leaving Shannon staring at the painting.

“When I sold the yearling,” Murphy began in a quiet voice, “it broke my heart. He was mine, you see.” He smiled a little when Shannon turned to him. “I'd been there at the foaling and watched through until the first nursing. I trained him to the lead and worried when he bruised his knee. But I had to sell him, and knew that in my head. You can't be in the horse business without doing business. Still, it broke my heart.”

“I've never sold anything I've painted. I've given it away as gifts, but that's not the same.” She took a long breath. “I didn't know I could feel this way. Excited, overwhelmed, and incredibly sad.”

“It may help to know that Gray's already told Rogan he'll skin him if Rogan sells your
Brianna
to anyone but him.”

“I'd have given it to them.”

Murphy leaned close to whisper in her ear. “Say it soft, for Rogan's got good hearing.”

That made her laugh, and she let him take her hand and lead her into the next room.

 

It took more than an hour before she could be persuaded from the first floor to the second. There was too much to see, and admire, and want. The first thing she spotted in the upstairs sitting room was a long sinuous flow of glass that hinted at the shape of a dragon. She could see the spread of wings, the iridescent sheen of them, the curve of the neck, the fierce turn of head and sweep of tail.

“I have to have it.” Possessively she ran her fingers along the serpentine body. It was Maggie's work, of course. Shannon didn't have to see the carved M.M. under the base of the tail to know it.

“You'll let me buy it for you.”

“No.” She was firm as she turned to Murphy. “I've wanted a piece of hers for more than a year and know exactly what Rogan gets for her. I can afford it now. Barely. I mean it, Murphy.”

“You took the earrings.” And she was wearing them still, he saw with pleasure.

“I know, and it's sweet of you to offer. But this is important to me, to buy for myself something of my sister's.”

The stubborn look that had come into his eyes faded. “Ah, so it's that way. I'm glad.”

“So am I. Very glad.” Her lips curved when his came to them.

“I beg your pardon,” Rogan said from the doorway. “I'm interrupting.”

“No.” She went to him, hands extended. “I can't begin to tell you how I feel seeing my work here. It's something I never thought of. Something my mother always wanted. Thank you.” She kept his hands in hers as she kissed him. “Thank you for making something she dreamed of come true.”

“It's more than a pleasure. And I'm confident it will continue to be, for both of us, for years to come.” He saw her hesitation and countered it. “Brianna's gone to the kitchen. You can't keep her out of one. Will you come have some tea?”

“I've just started on this floor, and actually, I'd like a minute of your time.”

“Rogan, there you are.” With a smug smile on her face, Maggie strode into the room. “I've dumped Liam on Gray. I told him it would be good practice for when Kayla gains her feet and never stops running on them.” She hooked an arm through Rogan's. “Brianna has the
tea ready, and bless her, she brought a tin of her sugar biscuits from home.”

“I'll be right down.” He gave her hand an absent pat. “Should we go into my office, Shannon?”

“No, it's not necessary. I want to discuss the dragon.”

He didn't need for her to gesture toward the sculpture. “Maggie's
Breath of Fire,”
he said with a nod. “Exceptional.”

“Of course it is,” Maggie retorted. “I worked my ass off on it. Started three different times before it came right.”

“I want it.” Shannon was an excellent negotiator, had bargained with the best of them in the diamond district, in the little galleries of Soho. But in this case her skills had no chance against sheer desire. “I'd like to arrange to buy it and have you ship it back to New York for me.”

No one but Maggie noticed that Murphy went suddenly and absolutely still.

“I see.” Considering, Rogan kept his eyes on Shannon's face. “It's one of her more unique works.”

“No argument. I'll write you a check.”

Maggie looked away from Murphy and squared her shoulders for battle. “Rogan, I'll not have you—”

It amused Shannon to see Maggie seethe into silence when Rogan raised a hand. “Artists tend to have an emotional attachment to their work,” he said mildly while his wife glared at him. “Which is why they need a partner, someone with a head for business.”

“Fathead,” Maggie muttered. “Bloodsucker. Damn contracts. He makes me sign them still as if I hadn't borne him a child and didn't have another in the womb.”

He only spared her a brief glance. “Finished?” he asked, then continued before she could swear at him. “As Maggie's partner, I'll speak for her and tell you that we'd like you to have it, as a gift.”

Even as Shannon started to protest, Maggie was sputtering in shock. “Rogan Sweeney, never in my life did I expect to hear such a thing come out of your mouth.” After a burst of delighted laughter, she grabbed his face in both her hands, then kissed him long and hard. “I love you.” Still beaming, she turned back to Shannon. “Don't you dare argue,” she ordered. “This is a moment of great pride and astonishment for me in the man I married. So shake hands on the deal before he comes back to his normal avaricious senses.”

Trapped by kindness, Shannon did what she was told. “It's very generous. Thank you. I guess I'll have that tea now, and gloat, before I finish the tour.”

“I'll take you down. Maggie, Murphy?”

“We'll be right along.” Maggie sent him a quick, silent signal, then waited until their footsteps faded away. She thought it best to say nothing for the moment and simply wrapped her arms around Murphy.

“She didn't realize what she was saying,” Maggie began, “about having it shipped to New York.”

That was the worst of it, he thought, closing his eyes and absorbing the dull, dragging ache. “Because it's automatic to her. The leaving.”

“You want her to stay. You have to fight.”

His hands fisted on her back. He could fight with those if the foe was flesh and blood. But it was intangible, as elusive as ghosts. A place, a mindset, a life he couldn't grasp even with his brain.

“I haven't finished.” He said it quietly, with a fire underneath that gave Maggie hope. “And neither, by Jesus, has she.”

 

He didn't ask if she'd come back to the farm with him, but simply drove there. When they got out of the truck, he didn't lead her into the house, but around it.

“Do you have to do something with the animals?” She glanced down at his feet. He wasn't wearing his boots, but the shoes she knew he kept for church and town.

“Later.”

He was distracted. She'd sensed that all along the drive back from Ennistymon. It worried her that he was still brooding about what they said to each other at Loop Head. There was a stubborn streak under all those quiet waters, just as there was a flaming wave of passion always stirring under the surface. Already the panic was creeping up at the idea he might insist they talk about the dreams again.

“Murphy, I can tell you're upset. Can't we just put all this aside?”

“I've put it aside too long already.” He could see his horses grazing. He had a client for the bay colt, the one that was standing so proud just now. And he knew he'd have to give him up.

But there was some things a man never gave up.

He could feel the nerves in her hand, the tension in it that held the rest of her rigid as he drew her into the circle of stones. Then he let her go and faced her without touching.

“It had to be here. You know that.”

Though there was a trembling around her heart, she kept her eyes level. “I don't know what you mean.”

He didn't have a ring. He knew what he wanted for her—the claddaugh with its heart and hands and crown. But for now, he had only himself.

“I love you, Shannon, as much as a man can love. I tell you that here, on holy ground while the sun beams between the stones.”

Now her heart thudded, as much with love as with nerves. She could see what was in his eyes and shook her head, already knowing nothing would stop him.

“I'm asking you to marry me. To let me share your life, to have you share mine. And I ask you that here, on holy ground, while the sun beams between the stones.”

Emotion welled up until she thought she could drown in it. “Don't ask me, Murphy.”

“I have asked you. But you haven't answered.”

“I can't. I can't do what you're asking.”

His eyes flashed, temper and pain like twin suns inside him. “You can do anything you choose to do. Say you won't, and be honest.”