Haunting Embrace (18 page)

“You must go home, Brion,” she said softly. “You know you cannot be found here.”

“And yet I cannot bring myself to walk back out the door. Why did you leave me, Colleen? Why? And for a stinking fisherman? I could give you a better life. You know it’s true.”

“We’ve been through this, Brion. I’ll not be your whore.”

“But you’ll be his? He doesna love you. Everyone knows it.”

Colleen lowered her eyes, and Meaghan saw the flush of shame creep up her throat.

Brion pressed his point. “And you don’t love him either, do you? Look at me and tell me I’m a liar.”

Colleen did not obey. Even Meaghan knew he spoke the truth, whoever he was. Why had her grandmother married Mickey, who looked at her as if the very sight of her made his stomach turn? Why hadn’t she wed this man, if a wedding was what she’d craved? He wasn’t unattractive. In fact, he had a magnetism about him that made him more than handsome, and he looked very strong and able. If his voice was anything to go by, he thought Colleen hung the moon.

He lowered his head and brushed a kiss against Colleen’s forehead, the caress gentle and caring. “Come back to me,” he whispered.

“And what of the baby I carry? Would you take him as your own?”

Brion stilled but only for a moment. “If the child is a part of you, then he is a part of me. Why do you not believe me? Why do you think me so shallow that I would forsake flesh of your flesh?”

Colleen took a shaking breath, and Meaghan felt a lump in her throat. There’d been sincerity in his tone, and his heart had been in every word. She didn’t doubt for a moment that he meant what he said. He would take her child by Mickey and he would love it. But Colleen’s next words shattered the benevolent feelings Meaghan had begun to form.

“And your wife, Brion MacGrath? What will you do with her? What about the child she bears you?”

He pulled away and stared into her face as if she’d slapped him. “It’s not mine,” he said gruffly. “The child cannot be mine.”

“And yet it is your wife who carries it. Why do you deny such a blessing?”

Meaghan wished she could see his eyes, but the light shining down from the landing cast long shadows on his face. Still she couldn’t miss the red flush that crept up from his neck. When he spoke, his words were like stones clattering into a concrete basin. “For years I’ve been her husband and I’ve lain with her in my bed. Never once did she take my seed. Not once.”

“Until now,” Colleen said, her voice unwavering. Determined.

“I tell you, it’s not my child.” He looked away as if he couldn’t bear to see her reaction to what he said next. “It’s me—not her—that makes me so certain. I cannot father a child. There have been other women, my love. Before you. It pains me to say it, but mine is a cold marriage as it has always been. I’ve strayed from it many times. Not once would I stray from you, though.”

The last should have sounded tacked on, but it didn’t. He meant it, but that didn’t necessarily mean he could follow through. He didn’t look shamed by what he’d told Colleen, but he didn’t look proud either. His expression said this was his reality. He was a man forced to cheat on his wife. It was something beyond his control. Meaghan thought he’d fit right in if he lived in her time. How many famous men had she seen confess their sins on the evening news, taking full responsibility for their actions while at the same time, admitting they were not responsible at all?

“Not one of them ever got with my child. Not one,” he went on. “Not even you, Colleen.”

Her face was ablaze, but she kept her gaze lowered. “I took precautions, Brion.”

“You lie, my love. You think to spare my feelings. But I am not a man to be deceived. It makes my heart heavy to know I cannot give a woman my baby, but that does not mean I should let another man cuckold me and place his changeling in my home.”

“What other man would dare cuckold you, Brion MacGrath? Tell me that.”

“I do not know who he is. But I will find him.”

“Marga is a good Catholic, Brion. She would not stray from you.”

His eyes narrowed and he slammed his open hand against the wall, making Colleen jump. Meaghan did as well.

“She has, I tell you. I know that baby is not mine, and I will not play daddy to the bastard.”

“You are wrong,” Colleen said, and her voice broke. “You are wrong. The child is innocent. Wait to see it before you judge, Brion. Wait.”

He hung his head in defeat, his hands moving to cup Colleen’s face in a gentle hold. “There will only be you in my heart. Why do you forsake me?”

“It is too late to change the course of our lives,” she whispered, and her voice hitched with emotion she couldn’t quite fight back. Even if she had, Meaghan still would have felt it hanging so thickly in the air.

“I have Mickey’s child to care for, and I love him like my own.” Her hand brushed her swollen belly. “And then this baby will come, and I will love it as well. They are my future now.”

Brion pulled back, his face thunderous with rage and frustration. “He does not deserve you.”

“Perhaps not. But who am I to deserve more than my lot? I have sinned in the most carnal of ways. If I burn in hell’s fires now, it is my own fault.”

Brion shook his head, refusing to hear her soft words. “This is not over between you and I,” he said in a low and fierce voice.

“It is. I tell you it is. You must let it be over. Now go, before Mi—before my husband comes home.”

“If I were that man, I’d not be at the pub when my lovely wife was here waiting for me.”

“He’ll be back soon. He’s a good man and he puts food on the table as he should.”

“A husband should be more than a steady meal.”

Colleen raised her chin, pride prickling in the tilt of it, the square of her shoulders. Brion had gone too far.

“Perhaps you should take your own advice, Mr. MacGrath. For haven’t you a wife at home awaiting more than her supper?”

Brion’s jaw clenched and he looked like a man without control. But he said nothing. Instead he leaned in, gave Colleen a hard kiss, holding her face so she could not evade him, gentling his mouth over hers, coaxing until she made a small sound of defeat. Her fingers clenched around his arms and she returned the kiss with hunger that couldn’t be hidden. Only then did Brion MacGrath pull away.

“Some things are meant to last forever. What I feel for you is just that, Colleen. Denying it will not change it. It will only hurt like a festering wound that will destroy me. Is that what you’re after?” He took her hand, stroked her fingers, and then placed her palm over his heart. “Come back to me.”

But Colleen turned her head and slipped from his grasp. Her sorrow was a tangible thing that blanketed the chasm between them. Slowly, she opened the front door and held it wide.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, her gaze fixed to the buttons on his coat, her eyes glittering with tears. “I will let my husband know you came to pay him a visit. I know he’ll be sorry he missed you.”

Brion made a sound like a growl, but his aggression had died. Silently, he stepped into the cold Irish night.

“’Tis not the end, lass,” he murmured before she shut the door. “Only a new chapter.”

Chapter Thirteen

T
HE stew had been simmering for an hour or more, and still Mickey and Áedán had not returned home. Meaghan was both glad and angry. Glad because she couldn’t face Áedán again, not yet. She’d kept busy helping Colleen, trying not to think of what had happened earlier, but she knew the time would come when she must deal with all of the questions and feelings that Áedán aroused. She was angry, though, for Colleen. Mickey had married her to take care of his child, but
he
treated
her
like he had done the favor.

After Brion MacGrath left, Meaghan had waited until Colleen went back to the kitchen before making her way down the stairs. Colleen gave her a searching look when she’d entered, and Meaghan knew she wondered what, if anything, Meaghan might have heard.

“Who was that at the door?” Meaghan had asked with studied nonchalance.

“I’ll not be talking of that,” Colleen had answered in no uncertain terms.

Meaghan was okay with that. She’d already had enough shocks to her system. Discussing her grandmother’s love life might have been the end of her.

It was almost eight and her stomach growled again. Meaghan put a hand over it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten, and she was starving. Niall had awakened a short time ago, had a bottle and snack, and now sat on a spread blanket playing happily with his wooden blocks. Still no sign of Mickey.

Colleen stared at the back door as if willing it to open.

“Will he expect you to wait dinner on him this late?” Meaghan asked, knowing the answer and adding another black mark next to the others she’d tallied for her grandfather.

“I’m afraid so,” Colleen said. “But if he doesn’t come soon, we’ll have just a bite to hold us over. He’ll never know.”

“All right,” Meaghan said. Silence descended again, and in an effort to break it, Meaghan asked, “How long have you known Áedán?”

Colleen gave her a startled glance. “Áedán, is it? Not Mr. Brady?”

Blushing, Meaghan said, “In my time, we’re not so formal.”

“Ah, is that a fact. I’ve known
Áedán
a little less than a week.”

Well, at least he’d told Jamie the truth earlier. She’d half expected Colleen to say he’d been there months.

“Poor lad was down on his luck when Mickey found him. Been in a boating accident or something, from the looks of things. He’s not one to share and Mickey won’t pry. As far as my husband is concerned, Áedán might have come from heaven, sent down in a time of need, which is surely now. I sometimes wonder if Mickey would recognize a fish if it was hanging off his nose. He wasn’t born a fisherman by any call, but since Áedán started helping . . . Well, Mickey’s got cause to be grateful.”

It was what Hoyt O’Shea implied as well. Meaghan wasn’t surprised. Áedán struck her as the kind of man who’d be skilled at whatever he turned his hand to.

“Mickey can’t afford to pay him,” Colleen went on, “so he works for meals and he sleeps onboard. I’ve done my best to make sure the berth is clean and tidy. Mickey gave him handoffs to wear, and I wash them when I do my laundry. He seems to appreciate what we give him even though it’s not much.”

Meaghan caught the corner of her lip with her teeth. “Where is he from?”

“Mickey thinks Kildare, but who knows for sure? Mr. Brady doesn’t talk about himself much.” Colleen pulled her attention from the door and gave Meaghan a suspicious glance. “Why do you ask?”

“It just seems to me that his coming—”

The back door slammed open, ending the conversation with a bang. Mickey staggered in, stinking of fish and drink. His shirt was stained down the front as if many a glass had spilled on the way to his mouth. He looked as mean as a cornered bully in a schoolyard brawl.

Meaghan stared at him in shock while the pendant, which had remained quiet and cool inside her pocket since she’d left Áedán, suddenly began its menacing drone. She’d suspected that it somehow fed on emotions—and the more aggressive those emotions were, the more agitated the pendant seemed to become.

She remembered something Áedán had said as they’d walked to the lighthouse today. He’d asked her what she’d want most if she’d spent an eternity in a world without texture, without touch. He’d told her it would be
to feel.
If the pendant was a part of the Book of Fennore, a part of that cold, flat world he referred to, perhaps it, too, sought emotion. Only instead of siphoning all feelings, it somehow amplified them. She remembered the hostility in the lighthouse and how it felt as if the pendant were somehow engaged in the conflict. . . .

Could that be the reason Áedán had looked at her with such shock and . . . dread? He’d been enraged when they’d left, and she hadn’t understood why. Had the pendant churned some feeling in him that had flared out of control?

“Where’s my fecking dinner?” Mickey slurred in a booming voice.

Colleen jumped to her feet and scurried to the stove. “It’s ready and waiting, Mickey. Have a wash and it will be on the table—”

“I’ll wash if and when I fecking feel like it,” he snarled.

“Sure and I understand. If you’d just keep your voice down so as not to upset the baby—”

The sound of his hand slapping her face came like a sniper’s bullet. Meaghan sucked in a gasp and stepped forward just as she saw Áedán, who must have been on the back porch, move quickly to grab Mickey’s wrist before he could hit Colleen again.

In the stunned silence, Mickey glared at Áedán and jerked his hand free. “She’s me wife. I’ll beat her if I want,” he said angrily. “Do you hear my words, Áedán Brady?”

The pendant’s drone rose in pitch until it rattled Meaghan to the bone, growing hot as it had before. She no longer had the coat to use as wadding against it, and it burned her through the thin layer of her pocket. If she hadn’t felt threatened by Mickey’s antagonism, she might have flung it out of her pocket just to escape its heat.

Áedán stared at Mickey with steady eyes for a long, drawn minute. She felt the sharp spike of his shock and then a plunge of disbelief. Whatever he saw in the depths of Mickey’s gaze disturbed him. More than that. It filled him with alarm. She could almost hear it tolling like the bells of doom.

The fingers of Mickey’s other hand curled into a fist, and he raised it threateningly at Áedán.

“Will it make you feel better to strike me, Mr. Ballagh?” Áedán asked in the calmest of tones, but beneath it, Meaghan sensed the heavy mist of dread. “For I owe you much and will gladly take the blow if it will ease you some.”

Meaghan didn’t believe it for a moment. If Mickey moved to strike Áedán, she knew Áedán would knock him to the floor. The hard gleam in Áedán’s eyes contradicted his deferential tone and the fear she felt whispering in the silence. He was no man’s punching bag, and the fool who took him for one might not live to regret it. Meaghan watched with a dry mouth.

Mickey faltered, backing up without backing down. Obviously he’d drunk too much to realize the dangerous path he teetered across. Belligerence jutted out his jaw. “That’s right, you owe me. You all owe me.” He jabbed a finger at Colleen. “You especially.”