Haunting Desire (17 page)

“I told y’ not to worry,” he said, keeping her hand in his.

By some silent communication, they all fell in with Jamie leading, followed by Liam. Tiarnan, Shealy, and Ellie were in the middle and bringing up the end came Zac and Reyes. They trudged forward in silence, moving single file when needed.

Before the darkness of the forest swallowed them, Shealy looked back at the river and the ruined settlement they left behind. The hulking corpses of the monsters lay at the center, bathed in bright sunlight. A stench rose off them and rode the teasing breeze across the water. She wondered what other horrors awaited them on this quest—for certainly even she understood that they’d embarked on more than a rescue mission.

Ellie grew heavy in minutes, but her sister would not walk, nor would she allow Tiarnan to take her. She gave a panicked scream when Jamie, Reyes, or Zac came near. She’d only allow Liam to hold her. He lifted her from Shealy’s grasp and blew a raspberry on her belly. The little girl didn’t laugh, but she did put her arms around Liam’s neck and let him carry her.

With each step they took, the world around them changed. The trees banded together, tangling branches high overhead until they blotted out every ray of sun with a canopy of leaves and twigs that rustled and cracked in the quiet. No birds sang out, no squirrels chattered from their limbs here. On the forest floor, vines seemed to grow as they watched, writhing over dirt as black as oil. Brambles lay innocently over pitted nooks and crannies that grabbed and sucked, tripping the unwary, intent on twisting ankles and breaking bones. Deadwood skimmed beneath the surface like silent crocodiles at home in their swamp of nettles that tore at skin.

She’d be lying if she didn’t admit to feeling a menace in their growth. They wanted to hurt the trespassers, and the fact that they were plants didn’t negate their power to do it.

“We tried to clear a way, when we first got here,” Jamie said, falling back to walk just ahead of them. “Me, Zac, and Reyes came out here and hacked away all the vines, trying to make a trail through the woods.”

Shealy looked around, seeing no sign of even the smallest path. Behind them, Zac made a sound of disgust.

“Why’d you stop?” Shealy asked.

“By the time we’d made it fifty feet in, everything had grown back,” Jamie said flatly. “You couldn’t even tell where we’d been.”

She could see it in her mind, the barren path, the creeping vines filling it in as fast as the men could clear it.

“Don’t ever turn your back on Inis Brandubh, Shealy,” Jamie said, picking up his pace. “You never know what’s going to sprout up behind you.”

She told herself her guilty conscience made that sound like a threat when it was merely a warning, but she couldn’t help the shiver of fear that went through her.

After that they all grew quiet, and the silence wore on with the day. Tiarnan never left her side and she was painfully conscious of his eyes watching her. She was afraid, but she didn’t ask him to stop or comfort her. It was enough that he’d come. Now that she was in the thick of these malevolent woods, she couldn’t fathom being there alone.

T
HEY’D been walking for over an hour, oppressed by the quiet and the shifting shadows. Shealy’s worries tangled with her fear of this dark and dangerous forest, leaving her feeling knotted and too frustrated to think clearly. She’d yet to reach a decision on what she should tell Tiarnan and what she shouldn’t. The experience by the river, seeing her dad, traveling not only to the
other
world, but to another time . . . She couldn’t sort out what the best next step would be and so she trudged on beside Tiarnan, afraid to do anything more than put one foot in front of the other.

Tiarnan’s silence added another layer of anxiety to her troubled mind. He moved beside her with fluid grace, hacking at branches and vines that tried to hold them back. He hadn’t touched her since they’d left the boats, but Shealy was as aware of his presence as she was of the danger that stalked them. She could see Liam up ahead, but not Jamie. Behind them, Zac and Reyes had faded into the trees. She knew the other men were still out there, but not seeing them made her feel exposed and excluded at the same time.

She glanced at Tiarnan’s serious face and wondered what occupied his mind. Was it her? Ridiculous to be worried about such a thing when their lives were in danger, yet she couldn’t seem to think of anything
but
him. At some point in her life, she’d come to believe she’d never have a
normal
relationship with a man and now having Tiarnan fill her thoughts so completely felt wrong. She realized the trauma of the accident had left more than her face and body shattered; it had broken the trusting person who’d once lived inside and made her cynical and fearful of anyone who tried to get too close.

Tiarnan glanced at her pensively.

“What are y’ thinking?” he asked, and she felt her face heat.

No way would she tell him she was thinking of how his hands felt against her body, how his mouth had seduced every thought from her mind. How she wished he would kiss her again. Kiss her until she forgot where she was and why she was here . . .

“I was worried the others might get lost,” she mumbled.

His golden brown eyes narrowed and his mouth tilted in a hint of a smile—as if he’d heard her thoughts as well as her words. There was something agonizingly intimate in the idea of it, in the eloquent look he trailed lazily over her. The man was a walking invitation to sin.

“Jamie and the others know these woods better than anyone,” he said at last. “They will not lose their way.”

“But Jamie said something was brewing and that you felt it, too. If that’s true, who knows what’s going on in this forest.”

“Is that what yer really thinking about, Shealy? The forest?”

She felt the flush heat her chest and race up her throat, knew her face had turned the color of beets by now. It was one of the many disadvantages of being fair skinned—sunburns, freckles, and excruciating blushes.

“Because I am not thinking of that at all.”

She willed herself not to ask, but those were her lips forming the words. “What are you thinking about?”

“You,” he said, drawing out the word. “It is y’ on my mind.”

And again those whiskey eyes made a slow and thorough sweep over her. There was sex in that look—hot, needy, and oh so wonderful sex—but there was more to it. The complex message embedded within the fleeting glance made her yearn to know more about him at the same time it urged her to back away and flee.

“I heard the men talking about y’,” he said, and the words felt like a splash of icy river water against her hot skin.

She felt the familiar sting of censure though she knew it was in her head, not his voice. Men had been talking about Shealy O’Leary for years. She didn’t bother to ask what he’d heard. She could guess.

Tiarnan caught his bottom lip with his teeth, watching her as she braced herself for what he might say next. She felt her mask slip into place and faced him with distant curiosity.

“They talk about y’ as if they know y’,” he said. “But I don’t think y’ met one another before Inis Brandubh.”

Shealy glanced down, remembering how they’d stared at her when they’d realized who she was. She knew she had only herself to blame—no one had held a gun to her head when she’d posed for those pictures. But the look in their eyes as they’d gazed at her made her want to pull a bag over her head and tie it at her ankles. She took a breath and hesitated before saying, “Where I come from, I’m something of a celebrity.”

Tiarnan chopped at a thorny branch and then held another thicker bough up so she could slip under.

“What does it mean,
celebrity
?” he asked when they were both through.

She shrugged, not wanting to go into it more than that. Not wanting to talk about the circumstances that had made her famous. Tiarnan carried the weight of his wrong decisions, and so did Shealy. There was a reason why the men looked at her like she was a delectable dessert on an all-you-can-eat menu.

“I’m known,” she said.

“By men?”

“By everyone. They recognize me.” Then, under her breath, “But they don’t
know
me.”

“They look at y’ as if they do.”

She glanced up then, met his eyes, and knew she couldn’t hide the uncertainty in her own. “They know my face, my body, but that’s all they know.”

She watched the tension pull at the corners of his mouth and knew he was thinking of her body even now. The gleam in his eyes was full of possessive heat. It should have irritated her. From any other man, it would have. But Tiarnan was not like any other man in
any
way, shape, or form.

“They know yer body?” he asked, his voice dark.

“They’ve seen pictures of me, Tiarnan. I’m on television. In magazines. I do commercials, I’m in the news.” At his confusion, she sighed. There was no way to explain without actually
explaining
. This man had put himself between her and the three-headed monsters, and she owed him at least that. “I told you about the car accident that I thought killed my mother. I told you it almost killed me, too. Our car went off the cliffs at sixty-five kilometers an hour. It hit every rock going down before ending up in the sea.”

He frowned as her words spun the visual. “How did y’ survive?”

She laughed, but not with humor. “I shouldn’t have. That’s the honest truth. I had critical injuries, and it took a team of surgeons to put me back together again. But the worst thing was my face.”

She swallowed, hating this part, though she’d told the story over and over and she should be immune to the pain it caused by now.

“I looked just like my mom before the accident. A younger version, but just as pretty.”

It seemed like he wanted to comment, to tell her that she looked beautiful now, but something in her expression or inside Tiarnan himself stopped him. The hard knot in Shealy’s chest eased. For all the times she’d recited the facts of her accident, she’d never felt like the listeners
got it
. They didn’t understand what had made her bitter and sad.

“They used to tell me I looked like my father,” Tiarnan said softly. “Yet I cannot remember his face. I remember only his grief. He lost everything he loved before he died.”

They stared at one another for a long moment, words unnecessary as they shared that common, if painful ground.

“Go on,” Tiarnan said. “What happened?”

She shrugged, always overwhelmed when she spoke this part. “I guess I had a guardian angel looking out for me. I didn’t die, and it just so happened a world-renowned plastic surgeon was visiting Ireland at the time of the accident. He’d been trying to pull in funding for a cause he felt passionate about—helping children with correctable deformities.”

At Tiarnan’s quizzical glance, she explained, “Kids who are born with birth defects that can be fixed. Or kids like me who are injured in accidents. He saw me as an opportunity to launch his cause.”

“I still do not understand.”

“He used me to promote his cause. A
great
cause and I’m happy to be used for it. It’s the only good thing that came out of the tragedy. But it made me famous in a wrong sort of way. I’m the shining example of how perfection can be achieved—except of course, it wasn’t achieved as you can see. When people meet me, they’re usually looking for the flaws, you know? Trying to find the cracks in the crystal.”

“Ah,” he said, and she heard a wealth of meaning in that sound. “That is why y’ do this.” And he mimed pulling his hair over his throat.

If possible, she felt herself blushing harder as she nodded.

“Y’ do not need to hide the cracks in the crystal from me, lass,” he murmured.

The words felt like honey, hot and sweet, filling those fractures inside her. She cleared her throat, uncomfortable with the feeling, with the power he had in his soft words, his deep voice.

“Half the time I don’t even realize I’m doing it.”

“Now who is telling lies?” he said. “Y’ do it with defiance. I’ve seen the lightning strike in those stormy eyes of yers when y’ catch me looking.”

Feeling raw, exposed, she glanced away. “Any way, that’s why they recognize me.”

She felt the weight of his gaze, the questions he still meant to ask hanging in it. She walked on, refusing to look up, to give him an in. She was vulnerable enough without letting him turn that perceptive stare into the window of her soul.

“Y’ know I will not let it go at that, Shealy. Tell me the rest.”

Despite the seriousness of the topic, despite the pain it caused, she felt her lips twitch in a smile. No, Tiarnan would not let her squirm out of telling all.

She took a deep breath and went on. “They put me back together. But not the way I was before the accident.”

“What does that mean?”

She wished she could give Tiarnan her canned answers.
She was grateful for the second chance at a normal life. She was happy with how she looked. She owed a debt of gratitude to the doctors who’d given her a second chance at life. . . .
But Tiarnan would not accept anything less than the truth.

“My parents were fighting when the accident happened,” she said softly. She swallowed hard and kept her gaze on her feet. “About dad’s obsession with the Book of Fennore. It had been a great day up until then, and I was so mad at myself for bringing it up—I hadn’t realized that Dad had orchestrated the whole day—taken us to the Isle of Fennore as part of his quest until I blurted out how odd it was that an island had been named after Dad’s book. As soon as I spoke, I knew my mistake, but it was too late. My mom went into orbit, ranting and raving at my dad. My parents were on the verge of splitting up, and I was so upset about it that I started shouting, too. I said horrible, unforgivable things to my mother that day. Things I can never take back, never say I’m sorry for.”