Spellbound

by Jeanette Baker

  “I will,” Mollie promised, and continued on her way, pondering the irony of her mother’s cultivating friendships on the island now that she was a temporary visitor. There had been none all those years ago when she was a bride. Acceptance on the island was slow, the people too honest for superficial smiles.

  Mollie had no clear idea of where she was going, only a sense that guided her up toward the cliffs of Dun Aengus, where the view, once the mist separated, was unobstructed.

  The wind was up when she reached the broken steps of the old entrance to the fort. She climbed them, pulled herself up, and stood in the flat grassy expanse of what had once been a courtyard. Walking toward the precarious edge, she stopped a good six feet away from the sheer drop and looked out over the sea. Most of the fog had burned off. The muddy color had disappeared from the water. Sean had told her that ninety percent of the oil would have evaporated by now. Everything looked just as it had the first day she’d stepped onto the pier, except that empty fishing boats bobbed in the harbor and stoic-faced fisherman in yellow oilskins no longer hauled their long black curraghs down to a fickle sea.

  The ferry, a white silent streak in the grayness, was still a distance from the harbor. From her spot hundreds of feet above the water, all was silent except the screaming of gulls circling above her head. They hadn’t yet come to terms with boats that never left the dock, men who no longer fished, a pier scrubbed free of entrails.

  Caught up in thought and solitude, she didn’t hear him behind her. The sound of her name blended with the wind and the cries of the birds. The first she knew of his presence was the strength of his arms circling her from behind, holding her against him, warming her, breathing hard.

  She closed her eyes. “Are you following me?” Her voice was faint above the howl of the wind.

  “I am.”

  “Why?”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  Her heart pounded. It would be so easy to turn, to bury her face in his chest, to give herself up for a too brief time to the feel of his hands on her skin and his lips moving against her mouth. But then what? The last time she’d indulged herself, the ache that came after was worse, much worse, than anything she’d known before. Mollie knew what he wanted. She wanted it, too. More than once she’d argued with herself that sex might be the way to keep him. Men compromised themselves over it all the time, throwing away lifelong, gone-stale marriages for newer, livelier, younger women, uninhibited enough to experiment in bed.

  Then reason would kick in, and the rational side of her brain would remind her that sex without love was never the answer. More importantly, she had enough pride left to want the man she loved to want her back without having to trap him into it.

  She pulled away and turned to look at him. He wore a thick cable-knit sweater under his jacket. Above it his eyes were clear blue with a hint of green—ocean-colored eyes. His twisted smile tore at her heart and weakened her resolve.

  “There’s a storm coming,” he said gently. “I didn’t want you caught up in it.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me.”

  “It’s too late for that.”

  Be careful, she mentally chastised herself. Don’t read something that isn’t there. “I needed some time alone,” she said out loud.

  “Do you need that often, Mollie Tierney?”

  She thought a minute. “Yes.”

  “Are you able to manage it with all we’re asking of you?”

  She nodded. “An hour or so usually does it. It isn’t so much that it interferes with anything.”

  “Kerry didn’t like being alone.”

  Mollie turned away. “I thought we weren’t going to talk about Kerry.”

  “I don’t remember saying that.”

  She wouldn’t remind him. It would bring up other memories of that night, their lapse, and the crossing of a line that should never have been crossed. “Maybe I misunderstood you.”

  He was silent. She watched his eyes move across her face and settle on her mouth. “You’re nothing like your mother, you know,” he said softly. “At first I thought so. You have her look about the eyes and mouth. Sometimes the way you smile. But now I see no resemblance at all.”

  “I’m not my mother, Sean. We’re two different people.”

  “Aye.” His voice was husky, choked.

  They stood there, inches apart without touching. Black clouds boiled above them. The wind whistled past, bounced against the cliffs, and echoed back again. “It’s going to pour,” he said.

  “Can we make it back?” Already she felt the drops on her head.

  He took her hand. “Come on.”

  Mollie followed him away from the precipice to where a tiny domed hut was sheltered by a rock and mortar wall. The entrance was the size of a window.

  “It’s bigger than it looks,” he said, “and if the current generation of schoolboys is anything like we were, it’s probably furnished with pornography and a blanket or two.”

  Dropping to her knees, Mollie crawled inside. Instantly the noises of wind and rain diminished, and she was swallowed in darkness. “I can’t see anything,” she called back.

  Sean was right behind her. “You’ll adjust.” A small pinpoint of light permeated the darkness. “I have a flashlight.”

  It was enough to look around. Grass, long dead but still soft, had been scattered like a carpet on the ground, and in the corner, magazines were neatly stacked. There were no blankets, but inside the thick walls it was warm. She sat down, leaned back, and crossed her legs. “Do you think it will last long?”

  She couldn’t make out his features, but his voice in the darkness was teasing. “The worst of it will be over soon. If you don’t mind a wetting, we should be home in plenty of time for you to cook my Christmas dinner.”

  “If your heart is set on food, you’d better hope that my mother will have most of it finished by the time we get back.” She changed the subject. “Where are the children?”

  “I left them with my mother to watch television. She ordered a video of The Nutcracker some time ago. It arrived the other day. Patrick will bring them back in time for dinner.”

  “It’s strange, isn’t it, how everyone is getting along so well?”

  “They’ve nothing left to argue about.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He thought a minute before answering. “When people’s lives are connected and every move one makes affects the other, as in a marriage, there’s a tremendous amount at stake. Arguments are inevitable. Your parents’ futures are no longer tied together. There’s no point in arguing or in making the other move in the same direction.”

  Her voice was a paper-thin whisper in the dry darkness. “How convenient for them.”

  She felt his hand on her arm, friendly, comforting. “You don’t still hope they’ll reunite, do you, Mollie?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Good. Because it’s a childish wish and not worth entering your head. Patrick is better off looking in another direction for love.”

  “You mean Alice Duncan?”

  “He could do worse.”

  Suddenly she was angry, “You have it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You know exactly what will and won’t happen. Is everyone on this island like Mabry O’Farrell, or is it just the two of you who can predict the future?”

  “I’ve only stated the obvious, Mollie. I know nothing of the future.”

  Ashamed of her outburst, she said nothing, staring at the pinpoint of light in front of her. Every sound was magnified a thousand times. Her breathing was shallow and loud. Self-conscious, she inhaled deeply, trying to slow it. She reached for a magazine and held it under the light. When she saw the erotic pose of the scantily clad woman on the cover, she tossed it aside.

  He broke the silence. “If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry.”

  She didn’t trust herself to speak. What was happening to her? She was frustrated, conf
used, out of control.

  “Talk to me, Mollie. I can’t see your face. Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

  She was conscious of his shoulder pressing against hers. “Nothing,” she said shortly. “I’m not thinking of anything.” She wanted to forget who they were and what they’d said, forget that one day, months from now, she would leave and never return.

  “Your nose is growing, Mollie Tìerney.”

  Suddenly it was all too funny. She was Mollie Tierney, privileged, attractive, intelligent, and, if she was completely honest with herself, more than a little spoiled. Not once had she experienced the humiliation of sitting out a dance at a junior high mixer or staying home on a weekend night for lack of a date. Invitations had always come easily and with them the confidence of knowing she was one of the preferred. “The golden girl” were the words printed under her picture in her high school yearbook. She had to travel eight thousand miles to find a man who wasn’t interested in her, and the irony of it was that he was the only one she’d ever really wanted. Her sense of the absurd battled with self-pity and won. She laughed.

  Immediately the tension in his shoulder relaxed. “You had me worried,” he admitted.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking,” she countered.

  He hesitated.

  “I won’t run away.”

  It was his turn to laugh, to rest his hand on her thigh. This time she knew it was a bit more than friendly.

  “I’m thinking that I’m alone out of the rain in a warm, dark shelter with a beautiful woman.” His voice had dropped, and his hand moved in circles across her leg. “I’m thinking that I don’t want this to be another wasted opportunity.”

  She held her breath.

  “I’m thinking that if I move first, she’ll be terrified, run out into the wet, and I’ll lose the lovely warm thing there is between us.”

  Mollie didn’t stop to think. She only knew what she wanted and that she’d waited an endless length of time to satisfy her wanting. Her hand found his cheek and slid beyond it to the back of his neck. Drawing his head down, she kissed him.

  A sound, a mixture of relief and pleasure, rose up from the back of his throat. His arms wrapped around her, and he deepened the kiss. It was frantic at first, hard and searching, as if he’d forgotten what kissing her was like, but then his mouth gentled, coaxing her to share in the tasting and probing and curling of tongues. He lifted his head to breathe and utter her name. “Mollie.”

  She heard the lilt at the end. It was a question after all, and she answered it with a slight nod, a movement of her cheek against his, and the quick separating of the first shirt button beneath his sweater.

  He kissed her again, slowly this time, a gentle caress of lip against lip, the murmur of words she didn’t understand and, with them, a leisurely, thorough exploring of her body, the swell of breast, the curve of hip, and, when she lifted slightly to accommodate his hand, the rounded cheek of her bottom.

  Mollie found her own pace. There was no hurry. The rain pounded against their shelter, showing no signs of abating. His body was leaner than she remembered and hard, very hard. His breath came harshly against her ear. One hand had slipped under her sweater and was moving slowly, purposefully, toward her breast. The other had worked off her slacks. She could feel the softness of his worn jeans against her bare legs.

  She couldn’t see his face. Shifting to the side, she felt the weight of her breast fall into his hand. Lifting her sweater and bra out of the way, he lowered his head and circled one peak and then the other with his tongue. She gasped and held him to her, kissing his cheek, touching her tongue to the inside of his ear.

  His hand moved to the front of his jeans. She helped him ease the buttons from their holes, helping him tug the clothes from his hips, and pressed her palm against the bare, hard front of him.

  “Mollie?”

  Again the question, the wonder in his voice, the desire for her alone.

  “Yes,” she whispered, her hands sliding down the length of him, jutting angles, hard planes, fitting against her.

  Supporting himself on both hands, he linked his fingers with hers and moved over her. She refused to close her eyes when he entered her. She wanted him to remember who he was loving, whose body he was joining with and pleasuring, who he would think and dream of in all the long and lonely nights to come. She wouldn’t say the words, not because she didn’t feel them or because she was afraid he would draw away, but because she couldn’t face the emptiness of not hearing them in return.

  It wasn’t new, and yet it seemed new, this moving together, the matching of rhythms, the feverish building heat, the wanting more while holding back to heighten each moment, to prolong the pleasure, the give and take of body and soul, heart and mind, for an interlude so brief and yet so profound.

  Here, cocooned in warm darkness with sheets of rain falling around them, Mollie learned about desire. Desire that speeds the blood and slows the breath and squeezes the heart in a dangerous slamming rhythm that removes all reality except the present and the person and the moment when the earth moves close to heaven.

  He came quickly, explosively, a man gone too long without release. She held him against her, searing into memory the shuddering weight of him, the salty taste of his skin, the smooth muscles of his back, the strength of his arms, and the delicious warmth of what they’d shared.

  Mollie had never loved a man before. She knew with the same quiet conviction with which she came to all her conclusions that she loved this one. And she knew that it wouldn’t go away. She would live on this island, if only she could have Sean O’Malley. All she had to do was convince him she meant it.

  “The rain’s stopped,” she said softly.

  He propped himself on one elbow and looked down at her face. “Do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t ever want to leave,” she said honestly, “but soon they’ll look for us.”

  Reluctantly, he sat up and reached for his clothes.

  Mollie watched him dress, loving the quick, efficient way he moved. He finished tying his shoes and looked back at her. His eyes narrowed, and he drew a deep, long breath and exhaled. “You’re the loveliest sight in all the world, Mollie Tierney,” he said softly. “I wonder if you know that.”

  Strangely unselfconscious, she held up her arms. He reached for her, pulling her against him. This time she knew what he liked and what aroused him. Her kiss was lingering, a promise of more to come.

  “I’ll wait outside, or we’ll never get home,” he said, regret strong in his voice. He backed away through the entrance.

  She dressed quickly and crawled out through the opening. The rain had stopped.

  Sean stood on the edge of the cliff facing the sea. “Look.” He pointed out the shimmery outline of a crescent moon in the afternoon sky. “It’s going to be a clear night.” His arm slipped around her waist. “A slipper-footed moon is a wishing moon, lass. Wish on it if you like.”

  Mollie wished.

  “What did you wish for?”

  She looked at him. “Do you really want to know?”

  “I do.”

  “Will it come true if I tell you?”

  “I have no idea.”

  She would tell him anyway. “I wished for you to fall in love with me.”

  Expressionless, he stared at her. Then he smiled, that quick twisting of his mouth. “Wish again, lass,” he said gently. “We won’t have another moon like this for a month.”

  “Why again?”

  He flicked her cheek with the back of his finger. “Because you’ve no need to waste a wish.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Sean left her at the junction of the road. “I’ll go home and clean up before I come for dinner.”

  Mollie nodded. “The girls want to help with the table.”

  He laughed. “More than likely they want to inspect the gifts. Your mother said four o’clock. Does that suit you, Mollie?”

  “That would be fine,” she said, as if they were d
iscussing the weather, as if nothing at all had passed between them.

  Sean knew why. He knew how vulnerable she was and how much it had taken to leave what they’d shared at the place where they’d left it. She was brave and proud as well. She’d told him once how she felt. He knew she couldn’t tell him again, nor would she make demands. Mollie wasn’t like that. It was one of the many qualities he loved about her.

  Hands in his pockets, Sean climbed the slight grade toward home. He thought of Mollie all the time. All the while he was staring at his computer screen and trying out the words, layering his scenes, deliberating stage directions, waiting on hold for someone to answer the telephone, preparing meals for Luke and the girls, she was always on his mind. The smell of her perfume, her laugh, the lovely multihued gold of her hair came to him at the oddest moments. He loved her. He hadn’t believed it was possible to love a woman the way he loved Mollie. It terrified him.

  He wanted her gone because he couldn’t stay away. Sex hadn’t cured him. Once he thought it might. Now it shamed him that his thoughts had even traveled in that direction. Not that it wasn’t satisfying, an understatement if there ever was one. It wasn’t Mollie’s body that drew him. It was her ability to endure, to take what was mundane or inevitable, even tragic, and turn it around until it was something more, something possible, hope-gilded. He couldn’t bear to see that quality disappear, and it would after a few short years on an island, water-locked from the rest of Europe, an island where there were no shopping malls, where sheep crowded country roads, where men fished and smoked and woman watched the telly and knitted away their winters, where rain poured down in buckets and there was no escaping the cloying smell of wet wool.

  Ireland was no place for a woman like Mollie, and Newport, California, was no place for a man who taught Irish history and wrote Irish plays. That wouldn’t change, and neither would his resolve to spare his sister’s children further pain. Come summer, Mollie would go home. They would miss her, but not so much that they wouldn’t recover, provided she remained Aunt Mollie, as long as he didn’t bring her into his home, as long as he didn’t believe she could be a part of his future. The state of his heart was another matter. He would leave that one alone for now and enjoy his Christmas dinner.