Haunting Beauty (26 page)

Chapter Twenty-one

S
EAN didn’t ask why she was crying. Some part of him knew to do so would be to invite an even greater breakdown. Somehow Sean sensed that Danni’s tears sprang from a deeper well of emotion than fear and confusion over how they’d ended up here. Her pain came from a part of her as hot and central as the core of the earth. She didn’t just cry, she wept as if wounded to her very soul. Her misery could not be mistaken for anything less than grieving. But what did she mourn?

Everything that made him a man wanted to demand an explanation. Wanted to fix whatever was wrong and make her world right again. He managed to control the urge, perhaps because the same man who drove it also recognized the fault in it. He couldn’t fix anguish. No matter how he wanted to, he couldn’t. And in this, trying and failing her would be worse than not trying at all.

So he did what he could. He held her. Tried to give comfort through strength. Weathered her storm. His shirt was wet with her tears and still they flowed, a river of loss that had become too much to dam. He’d taken her bundle of clothes and set them aside then rocked her slowly, gently. Rubbed her back, his hands occasionally slipping higher than the towel to meet warm and silky skin. The contact was electric and it distracted him, but he stayed the course, offering nothing more than his strength and his embrace.

He couldn’t have said how long he held her before her sobs became sniffles and her tears finally ceased. He’d become lost in the feel of her, lost in her scent and the warm vibration of her body. She lifted her head from the hollow of his shoulder where it fit so perfectly and looked at him with those tear-soaked eyes. Her lashes were dark and spiky, her pupils huge and black, ringed by a circle of smoky light that shimmered with her pain.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to touch her as he’d done that morning—if in fact it had been more than a dream, more than a fantasy that played endlessly in his mind. But she looked embarrassed now and vulnerable, and he couldn’t bring himself to cross that line of trust. With a control he didn’t know he was capable of, he pressed his lips to her forehead and stepped back.

“I’m sorr—” she began.

“Don’t, Danni,” he said.

Those beautiful eyes rounded and she nodded once. Quickly, curtly.

“I was going to unpack the supper Nana sent,” he said, turning, giving her a moment to compose herself. “Why don’t you put some warm clothes on?”

She gave another jerky nod. “I will. Go ahead and shower. I’ll unpack the food when I’m dressed.”

He sensed her desperation for a task to fill her mind and nodded.

“I hope I left you some hot water,” she said, turning toward the curtained bedroom.

“You did, I’m sure. I thought I would have to drag you out to get a turn, but you were only in there for a few minutes.”

She paled at this, and he glanced into the tiny room wondering again what had sent her out in such a state of shock. What thoughts had poured over her with the spray of water? But he didn’t ask.

His shower was considerably longer than hers, and the hot water lasted nearly to the end. As he seemed to be doing with everything of late, he found himself entranced by the feel of the spray against his skin, the sensation of lather in his hands. Why did everything feel so different here? So vivid and tangible. Since waking that morning, it seemed even the act of breathing—of existing at all—was like a seduction in itself.

Dry, he dressed in clean boxers and a pair of worn jeans that were only a bit too big. They hung low on his hips, and he thought of the rappers who wore them around their thighs as a fashion statement. A fashion statement that was years from being made in this time or place. Colleen had sent several shirts, but most were too small. Left with only two that fit, both too heavy for indoors, he opted to go without.

He felt like a new man when he emerged to find Danni sitting in front of the fire he’d started. Her golden brown hair had almost dried and it shone in the muted light. She wore an oversized man’s T-shirt—one that would have been too small for him—and a pair of stretchy pants that ended at thick white socks. She glanced at him over her shoulder with wide, shell-shocked eyes.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi.”

Her gaze moved from his face to his chest, slowly down then quickly up again. She blushed, and something within him, something deep and male, growled with satisfaction.

They ate the cold meal Colleen had sent and cleaned the dishes afterwards. They spoke very little, but between them there buzzed a tension as real as the air in their lungs and the food they’d consumed. It was full dark outside, but Sean suspected it was no later than seven or eight. He was bone tired, but also alert, attuned to the woman beside him.

“Have you ever been married, Danni?” he asked her suddenly.

“No.”

“Why is that, do you think? Are the men of Arizona entirely daft?”

Her smile was tight and sad. “I came close—twice.”

“What happened, then?”

He thought she might not answer. He was prying, and she didn’t owe him any explanations about herself or her past. But he hoped she’d tell him. He wanted to know about the other men in her life. He wanted the power to drive them from her memory.

“The first time, I was very young. My . . . Jack. That was his name. He met someone else.” She looked down at her white socks. “He didn’t tell me though. I think he might have actually gone through with the marriage rather than face up to what he was doing if I hadn’t caught him at it. I don’t understand it. To this day, I don’t. But I saw them together.”

He waited, wondering if she’d seen them in person, or if she’d “dreamed” them like she had the banshee. She hadn’t said as much, but he suspected she saw things the same way Nana did. He wondered if her sudden questions about the Book of Fennore had been spurred from such a sighting.

“Jack tried to deny it when I confronted him,” Danni was saying, “but I knew too many details. He said he didn’t love her and it was a mistake.” She looked up at Sean with another tight smile. “I wanted to believe him. I wanted it so badly that I forgave him, even knowing that I could never forget what he’d done. Yvonne thought I was nuts. I guess she was right. But getting married, having a family. Being
part
of a family . . . It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

He swallowed hard, remembering how he’d used that very lure to bring her back home.
Is it not what you’ve wished for, Danni?

“The second time I caught him, I knew that even if I married Jack, we’d never be a couple. We’d just be two people who shared a last name and liked to pretend they were together. That probably doesn’t make sense, but it’s how I felt. But even then, I still couldn’t bring myself to kill my dream. I waited for him to do it.”

“He left you?” Sean said, surprised.

“Yes.” She took a deep breath, pulled her knees up under her chin, and wrapped her arms around them. “He left me.”

Sean wanted to move closer. He wanted to hold her again, to smooth out the silky skin puckered between her brows. “What about the other guy you almost married?”

“His name was David. He didn’t cheat on me, but he didn’t want me either. He said I was too reserved, too cold. He wanted a woman he could love, not just admire.” She blinked, and Sean suspected tears would have been in her eyes had she not already cried an ocean. “I never understood what he meant by that. Do you think I’m cold?” she asked.

Hell, no.
She was a flame, and he felt raw and open from the burn of her. “I think he was a fucking idiot.”

She studied him, looking for something false in his words, in his eyes. Something she wouldn’t find. She smiled then. It was but a whisper of the real thing, but it was for him and only him.

With the kitchen cleared, she poured them both tea and sat at the table. She looked small in the man’s shirt, fine boned and pale as the moonlight. Once more she drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them.

“How about you?” she asked after a moment. “Have you been married?”

“No. Not even close.”

He saw something in the look she gave him that nudged a dark place in his mind. He sensed there was a purpose behind it, but he couldn’t begin to fathom what it was or how to question it.

“Why not?” she asked. “Don’t you want to get married? Have children?”

He shrugged, realizing he hadn’t thought of it for years, hadn’t even considered it a possibility. The reason why eluded him now though. “I never met anyone I trusted enough, I guess,” he said, answering both himself and the woman across the table from him.

“Trusted enough? What about loved enough? They go together, don’t they?”

“Not always. I’ve known men who didn’t trust their wives alone in the next room, but they loved them anyway.”

Danni set her jaw and shook her head. “It has to be both for me. Doesn’t it for you?”

“Yes.”

She stared at him again with that same probing look. He felt like he was under a spotlight, a glaring search beam that rousted out the slumbering mongrels crouching and snarling in his memory. What did she want to know? Why did he fight so hard to keep it from her? He didn’t like her questions, but it was his refusal to answer even himself that made him stand and pace a few steps away.

“You’ve had serious relationships, though. Haven’t you?” she asked.

He forced a shrug. “I’ve known women.”

“I wasn’t implying otherwise,” she said, coloring to the tips of her small ears.

He wanted to kiss them. He wanted to kiss every inch of her. She pressed, “I just wondered if you’d had relationships. Commitment.”

“Sure and what woman wouldn’t want such a thing from me? I’ve barely a pot to piss in.”

“Some women care more about the man than they do his money.”

“Well, I’ve yet to meet one.”

She shifted, and he took a perverse pleasure in knowing that he’d made her uncomfortable. It didn’t matter that he’d delved into her personal life. He didn’t like her returning the favor.

“So that’s why?” she said, dispersing any hope that she’d given up on the questions. “You don’t think you have enough to offer?”

He turned his back to her, running a hand over his face. “Not entirely. I seem to have a knack for meeting women in their time of need.”

“That’s a bad thing?”

“Only in that our union tends to be a bridge to something else.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, suddenly wondering if he’d just described his time with Danni. Surprised by the tight knot in his gut at the idea of it. He didn’t want to be the bridge with Danni MacGrath. He wanted to cross over it. He wanted to stand on the other side with her in his arms. And that bothered him. It worried him because women were creatures he’d never quite understood, and if he managed to foray that gap between them, he could not predict what she would do.

“Have you ever been in love?” Danni persisted, but she sounded ill at ease as she asked. Despite the wisdom of keeping his back to her, of keeping his thoughts shielded in that way, Sean turned to watch another wave of the delicate pink spread over her cheeks.

“I suppose the closest I came to love was with Molly Clark. Her husband had died, and she was alone in the world with five children to feed. I came to help her with the chores. Cut peat for her fire and brought her food when I could.”

“How did you meet her?”

Another question he didn’t like. It was too hard, reaching back in his memory, and the anger nipped his heels again. “Jesus, I don’t even remember.”

“Did you sleep with her?”

“Now why would you want to know that?”

She tried to smile, tried to pretend the question had been light-hearted, teasing. But the pink flush darkened, crept from brow to throat, and there was real pain in her eyes. Why would she feel pained by the question? The woman mystified him.

He said, “She had five children and only the wee hours of the night to spend with a man.”

“And did you? Spend those wee hours with her?”

“Aye,” he said, thinking of those stolen minutes in the dark of her room when the moon began to fade and the sun pondered its rise. She’d welcomed him into her arms, turned her soft touch to his skin. He remembered the warmth of her, the need in her kisses, the slumberous weight of her body shifting under him.

“Like a dream lover,” Danni said softly, somehow plucking the memory from his head.

Sean scowled at that. What did she mean, “dream lover” ? But a part of him knew, a part that went scurrying into the dark when her bright beam sought it out. It was real enough, what he’d shared with Molly, even if he couldn’t recall her face now. Perhaps not as vivid, not as fiery as what he and Danni had shared that morning. He stopped the thought there. He didn’t know for a fact if they’d shared
anything
, did he now?

He chewed on his lip for a silent moment, wondering what went on behind her lovely gray eyes. She sat unmoving, arms still wrapped around her knees, and her stillness struck him as unnatural, as if she’d suddenly been set in plaster and hardened to a point where moving would shatter her into a million powdery fragments.

“Sean, there’s something I need to . . .”

She paused and he waited, a tightness clenching his chest. What did she need? What was she going to say? The words seemed to drag her down, clog in her throat. And some instinct told him not to pressure her. Not to force those words out. He didn’t want to hear them.

As if sensing his thoughts, she licked her lips and looked away, and a confounding wash of gratitude went through him. Whatever she’d been about to say, she’d changed her mind.

“I—I was just going to ask, when did your mother . . . when did you lose her?”

His relief vanished as quickly as it came. She couldn’t know the barbs attached to her question, but they bit at his skin and tore his flesh.

“I told you, five years ago—from now—from this time. I was nine.”

“Were you really there?”

He nodded. “And my brother.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother,” she said.

He didn’t respond to that. Even now, it was too painful to talk about.