“You’re feeling better?” He cleared his throat.
“Wonderful. I took a nap, never slept better. Strange how much good some sleep can do. A protein bar and a cup of tea—now I’m ready to move.” She hiked a backpack over one shoulder, slid a knitting needle behind one ear and dropped a notebook into her pocket. After surveying her room—neat as a pin, Calan noted—she brushed past him and opened the door.
Then she waited impatiently one hand on her hip. “Well?”
No resemblance to the woman crippled by nausea. No resemblance to the stranger in the night, racked by anger and grief in the shadows of the abbey.
Who was she? Calan refused to believe that she was connected with any dangerous plot threatening the abbey. No, whatever drove Kiera Morissey was a personal torment. And Calan was determined to find out the nature of those demons.
He, of all people, could give her extensive advice on living with shadows and bitterness.
“Well, are we going?”
“I’m a little surprised, that’s all.”
“I’ve recovered. Hardly a surprise. But the day is half gone already and I have quite a lot to see before dark. I’m taking you up on your offer.”
“Which offer in particular? I made several.”
“Your offer of a guided tour of Draycott Abbey.” She stared at him, sunlight touching her face and glinting off her hair. “You’re an interesting man, and I’ve decided that I’m going to find out everything I can about you. No rules, no holds barred.” Her lips curved. “And I warn you, when I set my mind to something, I don’t give up until I succeed. Right now, you’re next on my list.” She handed him one of the two water bottles from her end table and raised an eyebrow. “Unless maybe you want to back out?”
Something dark stirred in him, drawn up from the hunter who never rested, never relaxed. He watched her with an intense focus, measuring the way heat flared in her face as their shoulders brushed for a moment.
She was offering a challenge, open in her warning. He should have been irritated at her clear intention.
Instead he pulled the door shut, broke off a piece of lavender from the path and slid it gently behind her ear. “I never turn back once my mind is made up.”
His voice was low, rough with sudden emotion. For a moment neither of them moved, caught in shimmering awareness of how close they stood. Of the way their shoulders bumped. Of how easy it would be to move closer, skin to skin.
“Never?” she whispered.
Wind tousled her hair. It required a major force of will for Calan to keep his fingers out of those dancing, sunny strands. Suddenly touching her seemed a thing of deep and serious worth in a world that held far too much artifice and pain.
“You’ll have to find that out for yourself, Kiera Morissey. Unless you’re afraid of what you might find out before you’re done.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
AFRAID?
Oh, the man was the king of smooth. The absolute model of all dangerous attraction that mothers warned their daughters against.
And girlfriends secretly lusted for.
She was going to have to watch her step, keep her impulses strictly under control and, above all, remember her agenda.
Because right now Kiera was a major fraud, a walking, talking lie. She wasn’t feeling her normal self and she definitely didn’t feel calm around Calan MacKay. Nor did she understand what had triggered her strange bout of dizziness. Despite her question, she had awakened with the awareness that this was an opportunity she couldn’t afford to miss. She could study the abbey and have informed answers from someone who knew it well, all under the guise of a little sightseeing. So she had to go. Even if she encountered one of the hated Draycott family.
Her skin prickled at the thought.
Nearly as bad, she couldn’t seem to keep her thoughts calm and controlled around her rugged guide. The man unsettled her more every minute they spent together. Sometimes he seemed generous, attentive and completely sincere. Then the vast distance settled into his face and hardened his eyes and they might have been enemies facing off on opposite sites of a trench.
Oh, yes, some kind of war was in progress. Silent and subtle, it carried her forward as ammunition was prepared and embankments were placed. But she didn’t yet know his real goals and how loyal he was to the owners of the abbey. So she would test him and read every response, using the information to complete her mission at the abbey.
And then be gone forever.
Yet something warned her that if this man wanted to track her down, he would succeed.
Another shiver.
This one crossed her neck and raced lower, but not from fear. Instead it was an infuriatingly complex feeling of uneasiness, anger, expectation and, yes, desire. More desire than she could ever remember. A woman couldn’t be close to a six-foot-four-inch specimen of rugged Celtic fantasy and not feel her blood stir and her body come alive. One glance from those glorious azure eyes had her shifting in the seat, torn between jumping from the moving car and gripping his jacket and hauling him against her for a slow and unbearably intimate tongues-only kiss.
“Something wrong, Kiera? Not feeling sick again, are you?”
Oh, she was feeling sick. At herself. She wasn’t used to having sexual fantasies about men she barely knew. “Nothing like before. Just a few twinges. Is it far? I can’t wait to see the roses. The brochures say they are spectacular.” She stopped abruptly, aware that she was chattering breathlessly.
“The abbey roses are all that and more.” Calan was looking at her intently. “This is a great deal of enthusiasm for someone who had no interest in the abbey less than two hours ago. Did I miss something?”
She managed a little shrug. “Do I really need to explain it? You were an utter stranger and I had no intention of telling you anything about me or my plans. That is the first rule of travel safety.”
“I see. And the clubbing in London? Was that a lie, too?” Calan said gently. “Along with the man you were to meet?”
Kiera studied her neat, unmanicured nails and frowned. “I don’t think I’ll answer that. Not until I know you much better. And I’m the one who is supposed to be prying out answers here, remember? Let’s talk about you.” She turned slightly in her seat, watching those long, competent fingers grip the wheel. “You’ve got quite a lot of scars on your hands. Are you in some kind of building trade?”
He shook his head. The window was down and wind ruffled his dark hair.
“No, I didn’t think so. How about resort or ship design?” He had the focused intelligence for either.
“Wrong again.”
Now she was baffled. She had tried all the obvious answers—unless he had lied to her, and somehow she didn’t think he had.
I never lie about the important things.
They rounded a curve, and ahead of them a row of neat cottages gleamed in the sunlight, hugging the narrow road. A picture-postcard version of the English countryside, Kiera thought.
Perfect lawns. Perfect houses. Perfect lives.
How much pain and anger was hidden behind those neat stone facades? How many secrets were buried in this quiet lane?
“What’s wrong?”
Calan slowed, staring out the open window, his eyes watchful.
Suddenly a dark shape shook the nearby bushes and shot over the road. Calan muttered a curse, stabbed the brake in short bursts and cut the wheel hard to the left.
Kiera flinched, instinctively throwing her hand up to cover her face as the big animal raced straight for the car. But at the last moment, Calan fishtailed onto the grass, then backed up slightly, staring at the bushes.
Two more deer shot through. Hooves struck gravel as they hammered off to join their companion.
When a car rounded the corner, coming from the other direction, he flipped on his lights, warning them to slow down.
And then, almost as if he had suspected it, two tiny deer darted from the greenery, followed by a large female. Calan watched them ra
ce past and vanish with the others.
Then he pulled back onto the road.
“Why did you wait? How did you know…” Kiera’s heart was still pounding as she stared at Calan.
“They often travel together as families. This time of year that means four or five. I was fairly sure there would be more.”
It was logical enough. Except Kiera remembered how he had slowed the car even before the first deer appeared. How could he have known what was about to happen?
She took a long breath, drumming her fingers on the armrest.
“No need to be impatient. It isn’t much farther.”
She let him go right on thinking she was impatient rather than suspicious and distinctly unsettled.
He was taking a different road now, one too small to be on Kiera’s maps. She filed the location away in case she needed an alternate route later.
The deer forgotten, she studied the turns, memorizing landmarks and approximate distances.
Suddenly she was aware of Calan, turning to look at her, his gaze almost a weight in its intensity. The car came to the crest of a hill and Kiera’s breath caught in a gasp.
It rose above the quiet valley like a dream of summer, golden light cast on old windows, bees droning in a meadow full of wildflowers. To one side swans cut perfect ripples in a burnished moat where twisted chimneys and rugged parapets swam in restless reflections.
Draycott Abbey by night was imposing.
Draycott Abbey by sunlight was heart stopping.
Kiera wanted to be untouched, unaffected, but the beauty of the ancient walls seemed to reach out, holding dreams and hiding promises she couldn’t even name.
And this all might have been part of her life, a place she could call home. Kiera felt her nails dig into her palms and understood that the real test was about to begin. Everything else had been simple.
She wanted to run. She wanted to tell him to turn the car around. But a promise made could not be broken.
She forced her muscles to relax and kept her expression casual. “Is that Draycott Abbey? I don’t see any roses yet.”
“The road curves. One more turn and we’ll be awash in them.”
In a haze of golden light, he turned past a row of dense oaks and suddenly the abbey was there, all silver water and tall granite towers, the weathered facade covered by a riot of roses. In half a dozen colors, they climbed past doors and windows, tossed in the steady wind.
“So many,” she whispered, moved beyond any other words.
“You won’t forget your first sight. I never have,” he said roughly.
Kiera fought through a wave of emotion and tried to focus on what he’d just told her.
Him, not her. She was after all the information she could shake free from and about him, while she kept her own feelings firmly out of reach.
After all she was the practical Morissey sister. The one with her feet fixed on the ground in every situation, so her mother always said.
But Kiera didn’t feel practical now. With sunlight pouring over old mullioned windows and the heady smell of roses filling the air, she felt rudderless, insubstantial.
Caught by magic.
And she didn’t believe in magic.
Calan stopped the car and punched in a security code on a remote unit. As the big iron gates swung open, Kiera sat stiffly. More trees, a pair of ancient statues. The shimmer of the moat down the hill. So much beauty.
Pulled by emotions she couldn’t name, Kiera sat up straighter. “Stop,” she said breathlessly. “Right here, beside the rhododendrons. I’m getting out.”
Calan’s eyebrow rose, but he stopped in the sunlight, studying the peaceful scene below them.
Kiera didn’t wait, shoving open her door and striding over the cool grass, pulled toward the crushed gravel path that rounded the moat and then turned toward the tall glass-paneled structure set in a grove of old oaks.
The conservatory is what I remember most, after everything else. I thought and imagined and grew up there. I shed my bitter tears there, but became stronger as a result.
Her mother’s words returned, clear as a struck bell, making Kiera shiver. The old conservatory was exactly as Elena Morissey had described it, tall and imposing, but with traces of pure whimsy in its ornate ironwork doors and roof. Coiled metal shapes of dragons and unicorns decorated its window. Above it all the Draycott crest guarded the big iron door, a reminder that this place and this family held great power, and their whimsy should never be confused for naïveté.
Here was the place where her quest would end.
She made her plans with every step, sure in her goal now, her head clear. Even with roses scenting the air with magic, she told herself that she was immune to the abbey’s beauty. Draycott Abbey meant nothing to her beyond a promise made to a frightened, dying woman.
Kiera heard the soft rustle of footsteps nearby as Calan drew up beside her.
“Sorry if I was abrupt. I was feeling a little queasy,” she lied. “I’d like to see the roses. And after that the conservatory. If you don’t mind.”
“Not the inside of the house? Most tourists are mad for the old paintings.”
“Not me. After a while all old houses start to look alike, great art or not. I’m more interested in the grounds and these amazing flowers. Is there a gardener here?”
“Not currently.”
They were almost at the end of the moat. Kiera turned. “Then you’ll have to fill in. How much do you know about the history of the gardens and what roses are grown here?”
He seemed to be absorbed by her face, considering her questions carefully. “I think I can answer most of your questions.”
Kiera put a hand on her hip. “You know, you still haven’t told me what exactly you do here.”
He walked past her, smiling faintly. “I don’t know what you do, either. That makes us equal.”
She frowned. Sometimes you had to give up information to get information. “I’m a tour operator. Trekking and adventure routes, along with active vacations in truly rustic areas tourists seldom see.” She couldn’t keep a note of pride from her voice. “Nothing cookie-cutter, either. I design each itinerary to suit my clients.”
“You lead the tours yourself? That would mean hiking, climbing? Bicycling with a group?”
She nodded. “All of the above. I’ve done a few horseback trips through Mongolia and Kazakhstan, too. I only had trouble with bandits once.”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“No, I’m not. The man wanted our bicycles, and he was well armed. It was a little prickly until we reached a compromise.”
“Which was what?”
“He got three bicycles and an iPod fully loaded.”
“What did you get?”
“Escorts over the mountains through a spring snowstorm. It was astonishingly beautiful. I’ve never had more fun in my life,” she said happily.
Calan pushed open the main door of the conservatory. “I may have to look into one of those tours. Something tells me I’d enjoy seeing you in action.”
Kiera didn’t answer him. She was too busy staring in awe at the high glass panels covered with light condensation. The big room was full of roses, orchids, lilies and fruit trees, all spilling their fragrance through the warm air.
“It feels as if I just stepped ashore in Tahiti. There must be two hundred plants here.” She touched the velvet petals of an icy purple orchid and a spotted lily. “If you wanted to impress me, you succeeded.”
She wandered down an aisle crowded with air plants in a dozen shapes. Next were small pots with white strawberries and tiny herbs. “The cook must adore having these to work with. I’ve only seen white strawberries once.”
“Then let’s not pass up the opportunity. Have one.” Bending smoothly, Calan picked off a ripe berry and held it up to Kiera’s lips.
Feeding her, carefully, his fingers against her mouth.
Kiera simply stared at him, stunned by the feel of his rough fingers
and the fruit against her mouth. All she could see was a bead of fruit sliding down his forefinger and all she could think of was how much she wanted to pull him close and then lick all that sweet juice away with her tongue and watch his eyes darken while she did it.
Because his eyes would darken.
Somehow Kiera already knew that. And she wanted to know more. She itched to feel his chest under her warm palm and the sound of his breath rough with the force of his desire.
She watched her hand rise. Oddly detached, she saw it move down his chest as if it wasn’t her fingers, but a stranger’s that opened the top button of his shirt and traced warm skin underneath.
He felt strong but immensely controlled. His focus was absolute, blazing in his eyes, and Kiera had the strangest sense that he was measuring her, tracking her mentally, both of them caught in a contest that had begun without her awareness.
Instead of being frightened or angered, she was pulled in deeper, hypnotized by the rough power of his eyes and the gentleness of his touch. The combination was arresting.
She took a jerky breath and closed her eyes.
“This is a mistake.” She took an awkward step back. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
Something dark and hungry moved over his face. Kiera had the sense of a tightly coiled spring as he watched her fingers close, her hand falling away from his chest.
“I’m willing to take a chance on what I’m feeling.”
“Why?”
“Because something damned rare is happening. I want to know more.”
Too smooth, she thought helplessly. He sounded absolutely sincere. Her protests were already half forgotten, lost beneath the husky rasp of desire in his voice.
She stood rigid, summoning all her strength and distance. “You could be an ax murderer or a con man for all I know.”
“You really believe that?” He was absolutely serious, his gaze brutally direct. “What do your instincts tell you about me right now?”
Bound by Dreams Page 7
