Deadly Gift (3 page)

He ought to tell her he would. That would be the polite thing to do.

But he didn’t want to lie, so he didn’t say anything.

“You’re not going to call, are you?”

“No,” he said softly.

For a moment she stared back at him with tawny brown eyes that registered what was at least an honesty between them. Then she smiled, something dry in her gaze. “Nice night, thanks. Have a good life.”

“You too,” he told her. It was the truth. It
had
been a nice night, and he wished her well, but their lives weren’t meant to intertwine.

He dialed the airport as he left, and headed back to his hotel to pack up as quickly as he could.

The air was soft and sweet, redolent of flowers, the sky blue, the hills emerald beneath the sun. She could feel the damp blades of grass beneath her bare feet, and she reveled in the sheer joy of being alive and feeling the silken breeze lift her hair until the sun kissed the back of her neck just so.

She could feel the beat of her own heart, and she ran in her dream as she had once run in life. She laughed out loud at the promise she felt all around and in her love for the land itself. She had come from the city, just as she had when she was a young child, free and strong, believing that happiness lay ahead. She knew that when she crested the next hill, she would see the cottage with its neatly thatched roof where it waited in the valley. A fire would be burning in the hearth, and at night, the men would drink their ale, play their tunes, sing of the maids they had loved and lost, and speak of times gone by. The old cottage would be filled with those she had loved and everything she herself had lost.

She realized that she was quickening her pace, and it troubled her at first. But then she decided to simply exult in the strength that filled her limbs. It was wonderful to run so, with her senses so alive and in tune with nature itself, the grass beneath her feet, the air, the sun, and even the distant sounds of music, like a siren’s song, beckoning her onward.

Then she looked back—and she knew. Knew why she was running faster.
Had
to run faster.

There was darkness behind her. The darkness of night, of billowing clouds, of shadows against the sun.

The sweet music that had called to her gave way to a roll of thunder, and she knew that she had to run, for like the sweep of a tidal wave, the darkness was coming. In that thunder she began to hear the drumming of horses’ hooves, and when next she dared to look, something was breaking through the clouds, rushing ahead of them.

A coach. Dark, massive and beautiful, yet terrifying, and drawn by huge, elegantly plumed black horses.

And she knew—somehow she knew—it was coming for her.

She turned away and began to run harder. She was young, she told herself, beautiful, and the world was hers.

She saw someone there…ahead of her. She knew him, she was sure of it, but she couldn’t place him. There was a sad smile on his face, as if to welcome her. Something told her that he shouldn’t have been there. She knew him. A friend, not a lover. And yet a friend who did not belong here, not in this Ireland she had known and loved as a child. He waved, and she couldn’t tell whether he was welcoming her or warning her away.

It didn’t matter. She had to escape the darkness, and the only way to run was forward.

And the thunder of those hooves! She didn’t know, either, whether that great coach was meant to save her from the darkness or if it was part of it.

And so she ran, picking up speed, her heart racing, her calf muscles burning along with her lungs. She prayed, as she raced to stay ahead of the darkness, that the coach was coming to save her. To hurry her onward toward the emerald-green beauty of the day, and the warmth and the love of the cottage and the one who waited for her there. He was speaking now, and though she couldn’t hear the words, somehow she knew they were a warning.

“Eddie?” she cried out, recognizing him as she drew closer.

“It’s all right, Bridey. I’m fine now. Fine where I am. But you have to watch out for the shadows and for the wind that howls.”

“Eddie, for the love of God…what happened?”

“Would that I knew. I saw the shadow.”

And then he was slipping away from her, fading. Shadows were falling around him, but she needed to reach him.

And so she continued to run….

Eager and, despite her fear, so alive, so desperately alive.

She could feel the dew beneath her feet. Feel the strength that powered her young muscles. Heart, lungs, mind: all were keen, and simply being alive was so sweet….

Bridey O’Riley woke with a start.

Barely had she blinked before she felt the arthritis crippling her hands, bowing her back, even as she lay in her bed.

Ah, dreams.

In dreams, a woman could be young again. Beautiful. Back in the Ireland of her youth, away from the strife of the city, just a lass playing in the hills and dreaming of love.

She smiled as the light of day crept in through her windows. There would be no racing down the hills and across the velvet green dales of Ireland today. Her home there was as much a part of the distant past as her youth. If she were to rise and glance into a mirror, no brilliant eyes, radiant smile or porcelain skin would meet her stare. She would see an old woman, wrinkled and weathered, one who had lived, survived tragedy, known ecstasy, and knew now that death could not be far away. She could look out a window and see rocks, gray in the thin light of winter, jagged and wild and, perhaps, even exciting. This was America, the shore of Rhode Island, the place she now called home.

And a fine home it was. Sean William O’Riley had done himself and his family proud. The sea was his heritage, sweeping through his veins, and he had come to this place, this granite shore, and made himself a fine living chartering beautiful ships with high masts and billowing sails. They lived in a stately mansion and wanted for nothing, and the respect he had shown her, caring for an old relation all these years, was proof that he was a good and loving man.

He was a good businessman, too, working with that new young fellow, Cal, and with Eddie Ray….

Her smile faded as she remembered seeing Eddie in her dream.

Eddie Ray was missing.

One of the best captains on the Eastern Seaboard, he had taken out his favorite vessel, the
Sea Maiden,
and he hadn’t been heard from since. He had disappeared.

But he had been in her dream, standing in front of the cottage and warning her, though there was no reason for him to be there, when he had always lived here, in the States.

Even as that thought came to her, the door to her room was flung open and Kat stood there for a moment, posed in the doorway, like a regal figurehead standing strong against the rise and fall of the sea. Katherine Mary O’Riley, her great-niece. She was Sean’s daughter, and as young and beautiful as Bridey had once been herself.

“Oh, Aunt Bridey!” Kat cried, clearly upset.

“What is it, child?” Bridey asked, sitting up against her pillows.

Kat flew across the room and threw herself down next to Bridey on the bed.

“They found the
Sea Maiden
floating out by one of the islands.”

A tremor shook Bridey’s heart. Hadn’t she just seen Eddie, captain of the
Sea Maiden,
in a glen in Ireland, where he shouldn’t have been?

And hadn’t he just been warning her about the shadows?

“And Eddie?” Bridey asked softly, dread knowledge filling her mind.

Kat looked down at Bridey with troubled blue eyes.

“Not a sign of him,” she whispered, close to tears, and then she sat up straighter.

“It’s her,” she said grimly, staring at Bridey through narrowed eyes. “That bitch. I don’t know how, but somehow Amanda did something to him.”

“Ah, now, lass. Your own dear mother would’na’ mind that your father found happiness with another.”

“Oh, Bridey,” Kat protested. “That’s a crock! Amanda is barely five years older than I am, thirty-one. She married my father for his money—you know she did. And now Dad is in a hospital in Dublin and the boat has been found, with no sign of Eddie, and I know—I just
know
—she did it….”

“Now, lass, how can that be? Your da is in Ireland, and Eddie went missing here right before the party, and you know Amanda was with your da that day,” Bridey said softly.

“I don’t care. She did it—somehow. She poisoned my dad,” Kat insisted. “She’s evil. Pure evil.”

“Now, Kat.”

Bridey tried hard not to betray any emotion in her face, but her mind was racing. Why on earth had Sean taken it upon himself to marry that young blonde…what was the word they used over here? Bimbo. That was it and it described Amanda O’Riley all too well.

She couldn’t say such things to Kat, though, or she would only make things worse. She smoothed her great-niece’s hair. “Don’t you worry, now. Didn’t you tell me you were going to ask Zach Flynn to see that Sean comes home safe and well?”

Kat nodded. “I called him this morning, and he’ll be on his way today.” Then she offered Bridey a smile. “And
you
were the one who said I should ask Zach.”

“And you did right to listen to me,” Bridey told her. “He’ll get your da home, that he will.” She was grateful that Kat had practiced enough control to send Zach for Sean. Amanda was Sean’s wife. If he was incapacitated, she called the shots, and having Kat there spewing accusations wouldn’t help anything. Not only that, if there was something to be discovered, if there
was
a threat, Zach was trained to handle such a situation.

“I should be with my father,” Kat said softly.

“But you’re with me,” Bridey said, and smiled. “And blessed I am, child. Zach will bring Sean home, and he’ll get to the bottom of whatever is going on here, I promise you.”

But Bridey knew. He would not find Eddie. At least, not alive.

She had seen the dark coach, and the plumed black horses.

Eddie was dead.

And the coach of Death was still thundering down on them.

“Y
ou should see it at Christmas,” Sean O’Riley said, and his eyes were bright, despite his weakened state as he lay in his hospital bed. “We’re on the coast, so there’s no guarantee of snow, but it’s crisp and cool, always, and the breeze comes just right, and it’s just beautiful.”

Caer smiled, impressed by the old man’s vigor. Being assigned to him had been a pleasure. He still sported a cap of thick silver-white hair, and he was watching her with eyes as bright a blue as the sky over Tara itself. If Sean O’Riley said that the weather at Christmas was crisp and cool, it probably meant people froze their buns off. She liked him, liked hearing the story of his life. He had been born here in Dublin, in the very hospital where he now lay, but home to him now was across the Atlantic Ocean. A city called Newport, in Rhode Island, known for fierce weather, including crippling nor’easters. He hadn’t even been back in Ireland a day before he’d been rushed to the hospital, but already, a bit of a brogue was returning to his speech, even after the years he’d been gone.

“I’m sure Newport is lovely,” she told him.

He nodded, satisfied by her agreement, then winced slightly, adjusting himself on the bed.

He had a strong constitution and had gone quickly from ICU to a regular room. Dr. Morton, the internal-medicine specialist, suspected some kind of food poisoning, but Sean had eaten the same meals at the same places as his wife, and an inspection at the restaurant where they’d dined had turned up no bacterial contaminants. Amanda remained fine. In fact, she was at the hotel spa right now, having declared that she needed a massage to ease the tension that had filled her because of Sean’s illness.

Sean was seventy-six.

Amanda was thirty-one.

That made her stomach forty-five years younger than Sean’s, so perhaps that had helped her. Then again, the doctors weren’t sure what had brought Sean to the hospital. They had checked his heart—which was healthy—and performed scans, and they had no real answers. They were pleased with his progress, but he was weak as a kitten right now. The kind of pain he’d endured had put tremendous pressure on his heart, and that had nearly taken his life. But as to what had caused that pain, they still had no good answer.

“It’s been good to come back to Ireland,” he said quietly, then smiled in realization of how strange that must sound. “Despite…this.” He gestured to include his hospital room and all the monitors still hooked up to him. “We saw a terrific production of Brendan Behan’s ‘The Hostage’ at the Abbey Theatre. A matinee, luckily.”

“You haven’t been back since you moved to the U.S.? Fifty years ago?” Caer asked.

He shook his head, and he looked at her, but it was as if he were looking back in time. “Caer,” he said, pronouncing her name correctly, “kyre.” “It’s so easy to get caught up in life, so you plan to do things, but…well, at least I made it back at last. But,” he said, and wagged a finger at her, “you’ve never been to the United States, have you, young lady?”

“No,” she admitted, smiling. “No, I haven’t. I tend to be busy right here.”

“Nurses are always in demand,” he said.

She felt a bit guilty as she replied, “Yes, nurses are always in demand.”

“Used to be, we had tons of Irish nurses and Irish priests in the U.S., but they say that the economy here has gotten so good that they don’t need to come over to find work anymore.”

“I never thought about it. I’ve always had plenty of work here,” she said.

“Well, someday you must come to the States. And not just New York or California, either. Take Rhode Island, you take Rhode Island, now. We have a wealth of beauty and culture and history. I went over because my grandfather died and my father wanted to stay here. I understood how he felt—even shared his feelings, to be honest—but my grandfather had built a magnificent house and begun a business that someone needed to take over and make it into a solid, profitable enterprise. So I did. And when I saw where the house sat, atop a cliff, high above the water, with the wind whipping up sweet and wild, well, I knew it was the home I wanted. Here…the world is progressing, and it’s right for Dublin, but in Newport I found the past, somehow. When I’m not on the water, I’m following the trail of one Revolutionary fellow or another. Ever hear of Nigel Bridgewater?”

“Who?” Caer said.

Sean laughed. “No, of course not. You’d have learned Irish history in school. Besides, Nigel died too quickly to have made it into most of the history books. He was a great patriot, though, sailing out in secret one night with a delivery for the Continental army. He was young, just twenty-six, and they said he could navigate the sometimes-treacherous seas of New England like a fish. But he was caught, and executed by the British. Anyway, for years, Eddie—he’s been my partner practically since the beginning—and I have tried to follow his trail. Apparently he knew the British were hot on his heels, and he managed to hide not just some of his treasure—funds collected for the struggling patriots—but also dispatches, letters that named names and would have led many of his fellow patriots to the gallows for spying. Maybe it sounds silly, I’ve always loved tracking a good historical mystery.”

He looked up at her, and she stared into his eyes and assessed what she saw: a man who had spent a lifetime working hard, a man with zest and energy, an all-around good guy.

His gaze turned inward then, and he said, clearly upset, “I’ve got to get out of here—got to get home. Right away.”

Caer looked at him curiously and asked gently, “I know I don’t understand your business, but why do you feel you have to get home so quickly? You do understand that you’ll be taking a chance, right? The doctors still haven’t figured out what made you so sick.”

“Why do I have to get back?” he asked, as if the answer should have been obvious. “Eddie is missing.”

“Your partner,” she said.

“One of my partners,” he said gruffly. “There’s Cal, too, but he’s young and hasn’t been with us that long. But Eddie…Eddie joined me right after I moved to the States and helped me modernize the business. We added year-round dinner cruises, and he worked like a son of a gun right beside me to handle all the business we added. He lived in the little house out back—well, little by Newport standards—and we worked like dogs, maintaining the boats, captaining them, doing the paperwork at night.” He grinned wryly and went on.

“Eddie…he lived my dreams with me. A lot of people thought I was crazy—still do, but I’m rich now, so I get to be eccentric—but I study the past, and Eddie and I…we’ve followed Bridgewater’s trail. He was heading south with dispatches for the Continental Congress and a hold full of English coins, and he managed to hide both before the British caught up to him. He was hanged without ever giving up the secret of where he had stashed everything. There’s bravery for you. You see, I don’t think he was just holding out on the money. Like I said, I think the papers he was carrying would have condemned some of his fellow patriots, so he died in silence. I mean, that was honor. Real honor. I’ve always dreamed of discovering just where he hid that cache, and maybe even writing a book about it.” He laughed suddenly. “Listen to me. I’m just a rambling old man, taking advantage of a beautiful young woman who has no choice but to sit and listen to me.”

“No, this is fascinating,” she assured him.

“But you have other patients,” he reminded her.

“The floor is well staffed. I’m all right, really. Trust me, if someone wants me, they’ll find me.”

His story
was
fascinating. She liked him, and she enjoyed sitting with him. She wasn’t quite sure why he had wanted to acquire a wife like Amanda, but then again, who was she to judge?

“I’m worried about Eddie,” he said, and there was a deep sadness in his eyes. Then he saw her watching and tried to make himself look strong again, but he couldn’t hide his troubled thoughts. “…I have a bad feeling something’s happened to him, and I owe it to him to find out the truth,” he said firmly. “They’ve found the boat—and no sign of Eddie, I have to get back. I should have known something was wrong when everyone was there to see us off—except Eddie. He never missed a party, and he’d promised he would be there…. Something must have happened. Maybe he’s in hiding.”

“In hiding? Why?”

Sean waved a hand weakly. “Who knows? I just know I have to get home, though I’ll bet I won’t find a nurse like you back there.”

Silently, she agreed. No, he would never find another
nurse
quite like her. Deciding she needed to change the subject—now—she said, “Tell me about your family.”

“Family. It’s really all that matters in the end,” he said softly.

She felt a tug of emotion at her heart. She felt a strange ache to belong to someone’s family and be spoken of with such love. She’d never really known a family.

“They were what called me back,” he said.

“Pardon?”

He glanced up at her sheepishly. “It was strange, when they brought me here—to the hospital, I mean. I suppose I was dreaming, but I felt like I was a boy in the hills again. I’d forgotten how right they are when they call this the Emerald Isle. The wind was blowing, setting up a real howl. And I was running back to the cottage where I grew up, like I was a kid going home. I heard someone—I think it was my mother—singing an old Irish song, crooning in the old Gaelic. The sun seemed to be setting. There were bursts of light, and shadows falling, but I didn’t feel scared of them, even though I knew I should. It was beautiful, and I felt like I could run forever…but then I heard my daughter’s voice, and suddenly I was aware that I was in the hospital, and that I had to fight, had to live. I had to live because I had to go home. To my daughter.”

“Ah,” Caer said.

“Caer?”

She started, looking up.

Michael was standing in the doorway, summoning her. He was in a white lab coat with the name “Dr. Michael Haven” embroidered on the pocket.

“Excuse me,” she said to Sean.

“Oh, Lord, forgive me. I
have
taken up too much of your time,” Sean told her.

“No, no, it’s all right,” she said as she rose, then smiled and squeezed his hand. “I’ll be back.”

“And glad of it I’ll be, lass,” he told her.

Her smile deepened; he was sinking back into a few Irish cadences in his speech.

“I’ll just talk to the family a bit,” he told her, and nodded toward the picture at his bedside.

She had to laugh, though looking at the happy grouping made her feel…as if she were definitely missing out. In the photo, Sean had his arm around a beautiful young woman in her early twenties, who looked up at him with all a daughter’s adoration of her father. Then came a woman—his wife, but not the girl’s mother. Sean had told her that his first wife had passed away. His new wife was only a few years older than his daughter. On the other side of Sean were three tall—and, she had to admit, handsome—men, all clearly related to one another. Brothers, Sean had said. An old woman sat in a chair in front of the rest. Bridey, Sean’s aunt, who lived with him.

Bridey had the same bright blue eyes as Sean and his daughter. Her expression held a mixture of wisdom, kindness and compassion. Caer knew she would love Bridey, were she ever to meet the woman.

But it was the brother standing closest to Sean who never failed to attract her attention.

She figured that he had to be about six-two, and his hair was a light auburn. His eyes were direct and seemed to look right out at Caer. Every time she found herself staring at the picture, she was startled to feel a little tug at her heartstrings; she was sure she’d never seen such eyes before. They weren’t blue, weren’t green. They were the true aqua of the Caribbean, startling against his tanned features, arresting, piercing, and even, despite being only a photograph, assessing.

She had thought at first that he was Sean’s son-in-law, but he’d told her no, the Flynn boys were like the sons he’d never had.

“He’s on his way here,” Sean told her now.

“Pardon?” Caer drew her eyes away from the picture, embarrassed that she’d been caught staring.

“Zach Flynn,” Sean said. “Kat convinced him I need an escort home.” He sighed dispiritedly. “We look like a nice family in that shot, huh? Not quite so, I’m afraid. You marry a younger woman, and everyone thinks she’s a gold digger. Who would have thought I’d spend my golden years trying to be a peacekeeper?”

“Well, I’m sure things will work out for the best,” she said. Which was a crock, she knew, but most of what people said in the hospital was a crock. It went with the territory.

“Caer?”

She heard her name again. Michael. She should have followed him by now, she realized.

“Excuse me,” she said again to Sean, and left.

Michael was heading down the hall, and she quickly followed him.

He stepped into an office, waiting for her to join him. As soon as she did, he closed the door. She felt him at her back—not a comfortable feeling.

He walked around and stood behind the desk. “What are you doing?” he asked her.

“What do you mean, what am I doing?” she demanded, determined not to let him put her on the defensive.

“Just what I said—what are you doing?”

“Talking to Sean O’Riley,” she said.