They went on to discuss the little cottage where he would live, what the duties were like. Moonstone offered to help if they needed to communicate with him. “I can be your conduit when you’re not here,” she said to Blythe.
I only half-listened to their conversation, feeling distracted by Moonstone’s hair and makeup, both of which made my hands itch with a desire to make her over. It would take some doing, but I could strip down all the bright colors to find her natural beauty. The orange hair dyed a shiny auburn and cut to her shoulders with some curls that reminded me of waves in a bay that were such the style now. Nails cut and polished with a French manicure. Purple eye shadow and dark pencil exchanged for soft charcoals to bring out the green in her eyes. When Moonstone excused herself to use the bathroom, I turned to Blythe, ready to pitch my ideas. But she put her hands up before I could start speaking.
“Don’t even think about it. She likes herself the way she is,” said Blythe.
“How is that possible?”
“Don’t be mean.”
“I’m not. I just see potential under that horrific makeup and hair.” I shuddered, thinking of the split ends I’d spotted during dinner. “It’s my duty as a woman of taste to help her.”
“Never mind that.” Blythe leaned closer, peering into my eyes. “What’s going on with you and Ciaran?”
I made my eyes wide like I was surprised by the question. “Nothing other than he’s taken it upon himself to show me how to have fun.”
She hadn’t taken her eyes off me. How could I escape? The longer I sat here, the more likely she was to figure out my true feelings.
“I saw how he looked at you at dinner. He barely took his eyes off you. And, he was unusually quiet. What have you done to him?”
“What’ve I done to him? It’s the other way around.”
“Oh, God.” She continued to stare at me with those laser eyes. “Please tell me you haven’t already slept with him. Was it the hot tub?” She banged her head three times against the hard back of the couch. “It was the damn hot tub. What was I thinking, encouraging you to spend time with him?”
“Nothing happened. As a matter of fact, half the time I want to punch him.” Never in my life had I lied to my sister, although the punching part was true.
I jumped when Moonstone spoke, right behind us. “There’s a reason the two of you have crossed paths. You and Ciaran, that is.” She’d reapplied her lipstick. Same purple as her nails, glistening like tinsel on a 1970’s Christmas tree. God help me.
We both turned to look at her as she came around the couch and took the chair by the fire.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
She fluffed her hair with those pointy nails, as her eyes closed. “I’m not entirely certain, but there’s a gray haze over him. Something sinister threatens him. You’re to assist in some way. I can see this when you stand next to him. The haze disappears, which indicates you’re to save him somehow. I can’t make it all out just yet, but you’re important to one another in the ways that matter most. Clear light indicates true love.”
I exploded in a burst of rueful laughter, mostly to hide the anxiety Moonstone’s words had given me. “I can barely stand him. He’s everything I hate about men.”
“You’re a cosmic challenge to one another,” said Moonstone.
“But he’s Kevan’s brother,” said Blythe. “Isn’t there some rule against siblings dating siblings’ siblings?”
“Blythe, we’re not romantically involved. Stop worrying.” Well, it wasn’t romance, but attraction. There was a big difference in the two. I shook my head as if this whole conversation was tiresome, when inside I wanted to scream out, tell me more.
“More details will come to me. Probably in dreams if I meditate on the two of you before sleeping,” said Moonstone.
I looked over at Blythe, fully expecting her to roll her eyes and laugh at such nonsense. But this new Blythe, this Idaho-influenced Blythe, seemed to believe in such things. She looked concerned, not skeptical. Had Moonstone truly heard my thoughts? I needed to be more careful. I flushed, thinking of my Moonstone mental makeover that had so distracted me from the conversation just minutes before.
“Promise me you won’t get involved with him,” said Blythe. “Nothing good can come from it.”
“Don’t worry. Ciaran Lanigan is the last thing I need,” I said.
My sister looked somewhat relieved. Moonstone, however, just looked down at her hands with an eerie half smile on her face. “The universe has spoken. I’m afraid it’s not up to you.” Then, she looked up at me. “Now about this makeover—when can we start?”
I flinched, like someone had cracked a whip over my head. Crap. The woman really could read minds.
Pretending that it was not out of the ordinary whatsoever for this woman to have been inside my head, I leaned toward her. “Does anyone do hair in this town?”
“Yes. You met her yesterday when you first arrived. Do you remember? Ida Smart. Moved here last year—lives with her brother out on Maple Loop. She doesn’t have a salon, but she does do house calls. I could call her tomorrow.” Moonstone smiled at me with a hopeful glint in her eyes, suddenly looking like a little girl.
“I thought she was a masseuse,” I said.
“Oh, that too,” said Moonstone. “She prefers to call it ‘body work’.”
Body work? That sounded like something our hippie mother would say.
“But Moonstone, I thought you were happy with your appearance,” said Blythe. “Why do you want to change it?”
“Bliss is right. Once I saw myself through her eyes, I realized that I might be in need of a few changes.” She scooted forward on her chair and lowered her voice. “And Sam. Well, you know.”
Blythe cocked her head, wrinkling her brows. “I do not know.”
I stared at her. “You like him—I mean, like him like him. Is that it?”
“Exactly.” Moonstone sat back and crossed her legs. “And he likes me, but not that way.”
“How do you know?” asked Blythe.
“It doesn’t take a psychic to know when you’re in the friend zone,” said Moonstone.
“But Moonstone, he’s homeless,” said Blythe in a tone of voice that implied we had lost our minds.
“Our possessions do not define us,” said Moonstone.
“But we don’t know enough about him. He might be dangerous,” said Blythe.
“He’s not,” she said. “I know.” She looked back at me. “I need a complete overhaul.” She swept her hands down the entirety of her torso. “Operation ‘get out of the friend zone’.”
“Game on,” I said.
“Game on.” Moonstone pointed at her mouth. “Can I keep the tinsel lipstick, though? Glitter makes me deliriously happy.”
I shook my head. “God, no. Absolutely no glitter. If this is going to work, you have to trust me. Can you do that?”
She sighed. “No glitter. Ten-four.”
Chapter 21
KEVAN TOOK OUR NEW friends back to the inn around nine. The little girls and Blythe had said good night, leaving Ciaran and me in the mudroom, preparing to venture out into the cold. Ciaran had run over earlier to fetch my Idaho boots, so I carried my others with the soft leather of the upper boots draped over my forearm like dishtowels.
“I’ll walk you back to the guesthouse before I head out on the snowmobile,” he had said in front of the others. We both knew he wasn’t going anywhere the moment we shut the door behind us.
Tying the boots, I thought about Moonstone’s words earlier. What was she seeing about Ciaran that none of the rest of us could? I squinted, looking just above his head, hoping to see some hint of what she saw. But nothing. Just regular light over his ridiculously handsome face.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Fine. Yeah.”
I held onto his arm as we headed toward my temporary home. The path he’d shoveled for us was icy, and I was happy to have the practical boots. When we reached my place, he opened the door for me. There was something somber about him; he’d been this way after he’d come in from outside when everyone was gathered around having another drink and playing various games. He hadn’t participated, instead, sitting in the chair nearest the fire, seemingly lost in thought. I’d seen my sister watching him several times with a worried look on her face.
“Do you think it’s safe to come in?” I asked him. “Is anyone watching?”
He glanced at the other house. “All the lights are out.”
“What about Kevan when he gets home? Won’t he see your snowmobile?”
“I parked it around back.” He grinned and raised an eyebrow. “Thinking ahead.”
“Ah, smart man.”
He followed me inside, closing the door behind him. I took off my boots and headed toward the fireplace, turning it on with a flip of the switch. He remained at the doorway, still in his jacket and hat, watching me.
“You were quiet after dinner. Is everything all right?”
He shook his head, shrugging his left shoulder and took off his hat, tossing it on the table. “That dark feeling came over me while I was shoveling snow. It’s like smoke hovers around me. Hard to explain.”
A chill ran up and down my body. Hadn’t Moonstone described it as a gray cloud, like smoke? What did she see? What did he feel? Was it possible that it was something supernatural that haunted him? But that couldn’t be. There was no such thing as ghosts or demons. It had to be something of this world that threatened him. Someone. Was there something in his past, someone who felt wronged and wished him harm? It was either that, or there were mental issues here that he should deal with.
He sank onto the couch, running both hands through his hair so that it stood up like a little boy’s in the morning. It made him appear vulnerable, like I imagined he’d been as a child growing up the youngest of four tough boys, having to harden everything on the exterior so nothing could penetrate, nothing could hurt. I sat on the couch next to him and put my hand on his knee. “Do you ever feel safe?”
“Yes.” Leaning closer, he cupped my chin in his hand. “I feel safe right now.” He lowered his eyes my mouth; his lashes fanned out against his cheekbones.
“I’m glad.”
He kissed me with a tenderness we hadn’t shared earlier, his hands on either side of my face. “Can I stay with you tonight?”
“I would like that very much,” I said.
He took my hand, leading me toward the bedroom, stopping only long enough to turn off the fireplace, grinning at me as he did so. “I’m a good boy scout. Never leave a fire burning.”
In the bedroom, we stopped at the side of the bed. He lifted my sweater dress over my head and snapped the clasp at the back of my bra, freeing my breasts from the soft lace. The next second he pushed me onto the bed, his hands clumsy now as he tried to pull off my panties while kissing my neck.
“I’ll do it,” I said. My voice didn’t even sound like me, coming out hoarse like I’d just run a marathon.
“Yeah, good.” He stood and slipped out of his sweater, tossing it onto a chair.
I felt suddenly self-conscious, even though the room was dark except for the light coming in through the open door from the other room. I tossed the extra pillows onto the floor before pulling down the quilt and blankets to slide between the sheets. He did not take his eyes off me as he took off his own jeans and socks. I wanted him to stay standing so that I might take him in, but he joined me on the bed, moving the sheet off my body. “I want to see you,” he whispered, before he kissed me. “There’s nothing but beauty here.”
* * *
Afterward, Ciaran held me against him, spoon to spoon, with his right arm under my neck. I expected to feel stiff in his arms, unused to having a man in my bed, but I relaxed into the strength and warmth of his body. This is what it feels like to be held by Ciaran Lanigan, I thought. Lovely. Warm. Languorous. As if no other woman had ever been held as gently. As if he had never held another. This was the magic, I realized. It wasn’t Ciaran’s beauty that attracted women. Instead it was the ways in which he made them feel beautiful, cherished, seen. I took in a deep breath, my legs shaky from how tightly I’d wrapped myself around him, and shivered. “Are you cold? Should I get another blanket?” he asked, his voice sounding low and sleepy in my ear.
“No, I’m fine.” But I was not, really. The space he left would be more noticeable now that I knew what it felt like to be possessed by him in moments of passion and then held by him. “It feels good to be held.”
“You should be.”
“Held?”
“Yes. A woman should always be held during the night.”
“Keeps the demons away, I suppose?” Trying to sound light, but I heard the loneliness in my voice. The light of day would come and this man would be gone. Henry was right; he was the leaving kind, the type of man who was the subject of too many country songs.
“I used to have a teddy bear.” His face was in my hair. “I couldn’t sleep without him. Used to hold him like this until I fell asleep. He was shorter than you, though. And furrier. Not nearly as sexy. I called him Toddy. My brothers teased me unmercifully.”
“What happened to Toddy?”
“I outgrew him I suppose. Don’t really remember when I stopped sleeping with him. Just one day he wasn’t part of my night any longer.”
“Replaced with women?”
He chuckled, and squeezed me tighter. “No, that wasn’t for years after I abandoned Toddy. Now go to sleep. I’ll tell you all my secrets in the morning.”
The snow had started up again. I saw it falling gently outside the window, illuminated by the porch light. “It’s so pretty,” I said.
“Yes, you are.”
I fell asleep listening to his soft breathing that broke the silence of this winter’s night. My last thought before I drifted into nothingness: snow falls without sound.
I awakened near five a.m. needing to use the bathroom. The dresser and bookshelf appeared as black shapes in the dark room. From behind the window shade, a bit of light from the outside lamps fell in a rectangle across the top end of the bed so I could see Ciaran’s face. He slept on his back with his head angled toward my side of the bed and his arms tucked under the covers. His breath came in long, even gusts of air, in and out of his nose with just a slight high-pitched noise at the end of each pattern. In sleep he appeared boyish and innocent; I suddenly had an image of him as a child with his teddy bear in his arms. I reached out to touch his face—my hand seeming to have its own mind—but pulled back just in time. I didn’t want to risk waking him and have him leave before it turned light, the way men do. The few times I’d slept with men I hadn’t known long, they always slipped out before light, as if they might turn back into a rat with the light of day.
I crept from the bed, careful to lift the covers only enough to slide silently to the floor. Cold seeped in, I knew, when blankets were disturbed. I tiptoed through the cold to the bathroom, wincing when a floorboard creaked. Glancing back to the bed, I felt relief to see Ciaran’s long body splayed out as I’d left him. Outside it was still dark. The snow had ceased and the cloud cover had moved away. No moon this early, I guessed, as I could see only scattered stars sparkled in the dark November dawn through the glass windows. Before I sat on the toilet, I flicked on the overhead fan, self-conscious of the sound of urine hitting water. Decidedly unsexy. I rubbed my eyes. My hands carried the scent of Ciaran and sex. How long had it been, I wondered, since a man had touched me? At least a year. Sometime after my short-lived involvement with “Man-Bun Yoga Teacher.” Some trip for work, I’d met a man in the bar of the hotel. Where had I been that trip? I couldn’t remember if it was Chicago or Boston. Regardless, I’d met a man in th
e bar while eating a late dinner. We’d chatted about business for an hour or so. He had no ring on his left hand, so I’d let him buy me a second drink, which went to my head enough that when he offered to walk me to my room, I accepted, knowing full well what would happen when we got there. It had been what anyone might expect when you have sex with a stranger, more like a sporting match than making love. But today and tonight with Ciaran had felt different, even though we’d only just met. Why was that? Was it because I knew I would see him again, that he would be in my life from now on? Or, was it just that I felt a connection to him, despite my intentions to the contrary?
I tiptoed back to bed, slipping under the covers, then turned to face the wall. Not daring to hope for further sleep, I closed my eyes anyway, listening to the sounds of the Peregrine dawn. So this is the country, I thought. Quiet. Nary a sound, except the soft breathing of Ciaran. After a few minutes, I rolled onto my back, disturbing the covers so that a draft of cold air slivered in and gave me goose bumps. As I’d feared, it woke my slumbering partner. He stirred next to me and wakened as I shifted to look at him, his eyes glittering in the shaft of light coming through the space between the shade and the window. “Bliss?” He said it as if surprised to see me, rolling onto his side and resting his hand on my hip.
“Sorry I woke you.”
“I didn’t know where I was for a moment. Too many mornings of waking in a strange place.” His voice was thick with sleep.
I moved to my side, touching his face with my fingertips. Pure instinct, I thought, to touch him in this familiar way, as if we were longtime lovers. “Go back to sleep. It’s early.”
“It’s cold. Stay close.” He scooted down a few inches and buried his face in my neck. “You smell like home.”
“Like home?”
“Like something familiar. Someone familiar.” He pulled me under him, peering at me with his thick hair brushing my forehead.
I didn’t answer with words as I ran my hands down the muscles of his back, thinking only that I must memorize the feel of him for the cold day that would come.
Blue Moon (Blue Mountain Book 2) Page 20
