"And you're afraid this will blow things out of the water again."
"I'm not afraid it will. I know it will. If I could spare you from her anger and embarrassment, I would, Shannon."
"I can handle myself."
Brianna's face relaxed into a smile. "Then I'll ask a favor. Don't let whatever she says or does turn you away. We've had such little time, and I want more."
"I planned to stay two or three weeks," Shannon said evenly. "I don't see any reason to change that."
"I'm grateful. Now if-" She broke off, distressed when she heard the sound of the front door opening, and the raised female voices. "Oh, they're here already."
"And you'd like to talk to her alone first."
"I would. If you don't mind."
"I'd just as soon not be around for the first act."
Feigning a calmness she no longer felt, Shannon rose. "I'll go outside."
She told herself it was ridiculous to feel as though she were deserting a sinking ship. It was Brianna's mother, Shannon reminded herself as she started along the garden path. Brianna's problem.
There'd be a scene, she imagined. Full of Irish emotions, temper, and despair. She certainly wanted no part of that. Thank God she'd been raised in the States by two calm, reasonable people who weren't given to desperate mood swings.
Drawing a deep breath, she turned a circle. And saw Murphy crossing the closest field, coming toward the inn.
He had a wonderful way of walking, she noted. Not a strut, not a swagger, yet his stride had all the confidence of both. She had to admit it was a pleasure to watch him, the raw masculinity of movement.
An animated painting, she mused. Irish Man. Yes, that was it exactly, she decided-the long-muscled arms with the work shirt rolled up to the elbows, the jeans that had seen dozens of washings, the boots that had walked countless miles. The cap worn low to shade the eyes that couldn't dim that rich, startling blue. The almost mythically handsome face.
A capital M man, she reflected. No polished executive could exude such an aura of success striding down Madison Avenue in a thousand-dollar suit with a dozen Sterling roses in his manicured hand as Murphy Muldoon strolling over the land in worn boots and a spray of wildflowers.
"It's a pleasant thing to walk toward a woman who's smiling at you."
"I was thinking you looked like a documentary. Irish farmer walking his land."
That disconcerted him. "My land ends at the wall there."
"Doesn't seem to matter." Amused by his reaction, she glanced down at the flowers he held. "Isn't that what we call bringing coals to Newcastle?"
"But these are from my land. Since I was thinking of you, I picked them along the way."
"They're lovely. Thanks." She did what any woman would do and buried her face in them. "Is it your house I see from my window? The big stone one with all the chimneys?"
"It is, yes."
"A lot of house for one man. And all those other buildings."
"A farm needs a barn or two, and cabins and such. If you'll walk over one day, I'll show you about."
"Maybe I will." She glanced back toward the house at the first shout. Shannon doubted it would be the last one.
"Maeve's come then," Murphy murmured. "Mrs. Concannon."
"She's here." A sudden thought had her looking back at Murphy, studying his face. "And so are you. Just happening by?"
"I wouldn't say that. Maggie called to tell me things would be brewing."
The resentment came as quickly as the unexpected protective instinct. "She should be here herself, and not leave this whole mess up to Brie."
"She's there. That's her you hear shouting." In an easy gesture, one more sheltering than it seemed, he took Shannon's hand and led her farther from the house. "Maggie and her mother will go at each other like terriers. Maggie'11 see that she does, to keep Maeve from striking out too close to Brianna."
"Why should the woman fight with them?" Shannon demanded. "They had nothing to do with it."
Murphy said nothing a moment, moving off a little ways to examine the blossoms on a blackthorn. "Did your parents love you, Shannon?"
"Of course they did."
"And never did you have any cause to doubt it, or to take the love aside and examine it for flaws?"
Impatient now, for the house had grown ominously silent, she shook her head. "No. We loved each other."
"I had the same." As if time were only there to be spent, he drew her down on the grass, then leaned back on his elbows. "You didn't think about being lucky, because it just was. Every cuff or caress my mother ever gave me had love in it. One the same as the other."
Idly he picked up Shannon's hand, toyed with her fingers. "I don't know as I'd have thought about it overmuch. But there was Maggie and Brie nearby, and I could see that they didn't have the same. With Tom they did." Murphy's eyes lighted with the memory. "His girls were his greatest joy. Maeve didn't have that kind of giving in her. And I'm thinking, the more he loved them, the more she was determined not to. To punish them all, herself included."
"She sounds like a horrible woman."
"She's an unhappy one." He lifted her hand, brushing his lips over the knuckles in an absent gesture of long intimacy. "You've been unhappy, Shannon. But you're strong and smart enough to let the sadness pass into memories."
"I don't know if I am."
"I know." He rose then, holding out a hand. "I'll go in with you. It's been quiet long enough, so it's time."
She let him pull her to her feet, but no further. "This isn't my affair, Murphy. It seems to me everyone would be better off if I stayed out of it."
His eyes stayed on hers, dark and level and tough. "Stand with your sisters, Shannon. Don't disappoint me, or yourself."
"Damn it." His unblinking stare made her feel weak, and ashamed of the weakness. "Damn it, all right. I'll go in. But I don't need you with me."
"I'm with you just the same." Keeping her hand in his, he led her toward the house.
It was foolish to dread it, Shannon told herself. The woman could do or say nothing that would have any affect. But her muscles were coiled and her shoulders stiff when she stepped through the kitchen door with Murphy behind her.
Her first thought was that the woman seated at the table didn't look like anyone's victim. Her eyes were hot, her face set in the unforgiving lines of a judge who'd already passed sentence. Her hands were ringless, gripped together on the tabletop in what might have been an attitude of prayer had the knuckles not been white.
The other woman seated beside her was rounder, with a softer look offset by worried eyes. Shannon saw that the Concannon sisters were standing, shoulder to shoulder, with their husbands on either side in an unyielding and united wall.
Maeve pinned her with one furious look, and her lips curled. "You would bring her here, into this house, while I'm in it?"
"The house is mine," Brianna said in a voice that was frigidly calm. "And Shannon is welcome in it. As you are, Mother."
"As I am? You'd throw her in my face. This spawn of your father's adultery. This is how you show your respect, your loyalty to me, the woman who gave you life."
"And resented every breath of it we took thereafter," Maggie tossed out.
"I'd expect it from you." Maeve's wrath turned to roll over her eldest daughter. "You're no different than she. Born in sin."
"Oh, save your Bible thumping." Maggie waved the fury away. "You didn't love him, so you'll get no sympathy."
"I took vows with him, and vows I kept."
"The words, but not the heart of them," Brianna murmured. "What's done is done, Mother."
"Maeve." Lottie reached out a hand. "The girl's not to blame."
"Don't speak to me of blame. What kind of woman sneaks another's husband into her bed?"
"One who loved, I imagine." Shannon stepped forward, unconsciously moving closer to that united wall.
"Love makes it all right to sin? To defile the Church?" Maeve would have stood, but her legs felt
shaky, and something inside her heart was burning. "I'd expect no less from the likes of you. A Yank, raised by an adulteress."
"Don't speak of my mother," Shannon warned in a low, dangerous voice. "Ever. She had more courage, more compassion, more sheer goodness in her than you can possibly imagine in your narrow little world. You curse the fact of my existence all you want, but you don't speak of my mother."
"You come all the way from America to give me orders in my house."
"I've come because I was invited to come." Shannon's anger was too blinding for her to realize that Murphy's hand was on her shoulder, Gray's on her arm. "And because it was one of the last things my mother wished me to do before she died. If it disturbs you, it can't be helped."
Maeve rose slowly. The girl had the look of him, was all she could think. What kind of penance was it that she had to look into the girl's face and see Tom Concannon's eyes?
"The sin's planted in you, girl. That's your only legacy from Tom Concannon." Like the snap of a whip, she shot her gaze to Murphy. "And you, Murphy Muldoon. Standing with her brings shame to your family. You're showing yourself as weak natured as any man, for you're thinking she'll be as free with herself as she was born in sin."
Murphy's hand tightened on Shannon's arm before she could step forward and attack. "Take care, Mrs. Concannon." His voice was mild, but Shannon could feel the strength of his temper through his tensed fingers. "You're saying things you'll need to repent. When you speak of my family, and of Shannon in such a way, the shame is yours."
Her eyes narrowed so that no one could see the tears swimming behind them. "So you'll all stand against me. Every one of you."
"We're of one mind on this, Maeve." Subtly Rogan blocked his wife. "When your mind's calmer, we'll talk again."
"There's nothing to talk of." She snatched her purse from the table. "You've chosen."
"You have a choice, too," Gray said quietly. "Holding on to the past or accepting the present. No one here wants to hurt you."
"I expect nothing but duty, and even that isn't offered by my own flesh and blood. I'll not come into this house again while she's under its roof." She turned and walked stiffly away.
"I'm sorry." Lottie gathered her own bag. "She needs time, and talking out." With an apologetic look at Shannon, she hurried after Maeve.
After one long minute of silence, Gray let out a breath. "Well, that was fun." Despite the lightness of tone, his arm had gone around his wife and he was rubbing his hand up and down her arm. "What do you say, Shannon. I'll go out and find a nice pointed stick to jab in your eye."
"I'd rather have a drink," she heard herself say, then her gaze focused on Brianna. "Don't apologize," she said in a shaky voice. "Don't you dare apologize."
"She won't." Determined to fight back the one that was looming in her own throat, Maggie gave her sister a nudge toward the table. "Sit down, all of you. We're having whiskey. Murphy, put on the kettle."
With his hand still on Shannon's shoulder, he started to turn. "I thought we were having whiskey."
"You are. I'll have tea." It was a good time, she decided. The perfect time for such news. She looked straight at Rogan, a gleam of unholy amusement in her eyes. "It's not wise to have spirits when you're carrying."
He blinked once, then the grin started, and spread. "You're pregnant."
"So the doctor said just this morning." Planting her hands on her hips, she tilted her head. "Are you just going to stand there, gawking like a fool?"
"No." The laughter burst out as he swept her off her feet and spun her around the kitchen. "By Christ, Margaret Mary, I love you. Pour the whiskey, Gray. We've something to celebrate."
"I'm pouring it." But he stopped long enough to give Maggie a kiss.
"She did that for you," Murphy murmured as Shannon stood beside him, watching the lightning shift of mood.
"What?"
"She told him here, told all of us here." He measured out tea as he spoke. "That was for her sisters, to ease the heaviness around their hearts."
"For Brianna," Shannon began, but Murphy cut her off with a look.
"Don't close yourself off from a gift when it's offered, darling. Her telling made you smile, just as she wanted it to."
Shannon stuffed her hands in her pockets. "You have a way of making me feel very small."
He tipped her chin up with a gentle finger. "Maybe I have a way of helping you look one level deeper."
"I think I enjoyed being shallow." But she turned away from him and walked to Maggie. "Congratulations." She took the glass Gray offered and stood awkwardly. "I don't know any Irish toasts."
"Try Slainte o Dhia duit," Maggie suggested.
Shannon opened her mouth, closed it on a laugh. "I don't think so."
"Just slainte's enough," Murphy said as he brought the teapot to the table. "She's just tormenting you."
"Slainte then." Shannon lifted her glass, then remembered something from her childhood. "Oh, and may you have a dozen children, Maggie, just like you."
"A toast and a curse." Gray snickered. "Well done, pal."
"Aye." Maggie's lips curved. "She's done well enough."
Chapter Nine
The hours Murphy spent with his horses was his purest pleasure. Working the land was something he had always done, always would do. There was joy in it, and frustration, and disappointment and pride. He enjoyed the soil in his hands, under his feet, and the scent of growing things. Weather was equal parts his friend and his enemy. He knew the moods of the sky often better than he knew his own.
His life had been spent plowing the earth, planting it, reaping it. It was something he had always known, yet it was not all he knew.
The fine spring that the west was enjoying meant his work was hard and long, but without the bitter sorrow of root crops that rotted in soaked earth, or grains that suffered from the bite of frost or the plague of pests.
He planted wisely, combining the ways of his father and grandfather with the newer, and often-experimental means he read of in books. Whether he rode his tractor toward the brown field with its rows of dark green potato plants, or walked into the shadowy dairy barn at dawn to start the milking, he knew his work was valuable.
But his horses were for him.
He clucked to a yearling, watching as the wide-chested bay gave a lazy swish of tail. They knew each other these two, and the game of long standing. Murphy waited patiently, enjoying the routine. A glossy mare stood farther out in the field, cropping grass patiently while her colt nursed. Others, including the mare who was mother to the yearling, and Murphy's prize, the chestnut filly, perked up their ears and watched the man.
Murphy patted his pocket, and with equine pride the yearling tossed his head and approached.
"You're a fine one, aren't you? Good lad." He chuckled, stroking the yearling's flank as the horse nuzzled at the pocket, and the others walked his way. "Not above bribery. Here then." He took a chunk of the apples he'd quartered and let the colt eat out of his hand. "I'm thinking you're going on a fine adventure today. I'll miss you." He stroked, automatically checking the colt's knees. "Damned if I won't. But lazing in pasture all day isn't what you were born for. And all of us have to do what we were meant to do."
He greeted the other horses, sharing the bits of apple, then with his arm slung around the yearling's neck, he gazed over the land. Harebells and bluebells were springing up wild, and the madwort was beginning to bloom yellow beside the near wall. He could see his silo, and the barn, the cabins, the house beyond, looking like a picture against a sky of layered clouds.
Past noon, he judged, and considered going in for a cup of tea before his business appointment. Then he looked west, just beyond the stone dance, away by the wall that separated grazing from grain.
And there she was.
His heart stumbled in his chest. He wondered if it would always be so when he saw her. It was a stunning thing for a man who had gone more than thirty years without feeling more than a passing interest in a
woman to see one, once, and know without doubt that she was his fate.
The wanting was there, a churning deep that made him long to touch and taste and take. He thought he could, with a careful and patient approach. For she wasn't indifferent to him. He'd felt her pulse leap, and seen the change that was desire slip into her eyes.
But the love was there, deeper yet than the wanting. And stranger, he thought now, as it seemed to have been there always, waiting. So it would not be enough to touch, to taste, to take. That would only be a beginning.
"But you have to begin to go on, don't you?" Murphy gave the yearling a last caress, then walked over the pasture.
Shannon saw him coming. Indeed, she'd been distracted from her work when he'd come among the horses. It had been like a play, she thought, the man and the young horse, both exceptional specimens, passing a few moments together in a green field.
She'd known, too, the exact moment when he'd seen her. The distance hadn't kept her from feeling the power of the look. What does he want from me? she asked herself as she went back to the canvas she'd started.
What do I want from him?
"Hello, Murphy." She continued to paint as he came to the wall that separated them. "Brianna said you wouldn't mind if I worked here for a while."
"You're welcome for as long as you like. Is it the dance you're painting?"
"Yes. And yes, you can take a look." She changed brushes, clamping one between her teeth as he swung over the wall.
She was catching the mystery of it, Murphy decided as he studied the canvas that was set on an easel. The entire circle was sketched in, with a skill he admired and envied. Though both back and foregrounds were blank still, she'd begun to add color and texture to the stones.
"It's grand, Shannon."
Though it pleased her, she shook her head. "It has a long way to go before it's close to being grand. And I've nearly lost the right light today." Though she knew, somehow, she could paint the standing stones in any light, from any angle. "I thought I saw you earlier, on your tractor."
Books by Nora Roberts Page 125
