Born in Shame

by Nora Roberts

  "Likely." He liked the way she smelled when she worked-paint and perfume. "Have you been at it long?"

  "Not long enough." Frowning, she swirled her brush in paint she'd smeared on her palette. "I should have set up at dawn to get the right shadows."

  "There'll be another dawn tomorrow." He sat on the wall, tapping a finger against her sketchbook. "That shirt you're wearing, what does CM stand for?"

  She set down her brush, took a step back to examine the canvas, and smeared more paint from her fingers to the sweatshirt. "Carnegie Mellon. It's the college I went to."

  "You studied painting there."

  "Umm." The stones weren't coming to life yet, she thought. She wanted them alive. "I concentrated on commercial art."

  "Is that doing pictures for advertisements?"

  "More or less."

  He considered, picking up her sketchbook and leafing through. "Why would you want to draw up pictures of shoes or bottles of beer when you can do this?"

  She picked up a rag, dampened it from her jar of turpentine. "I like making a living, and I make a good one." For some reason she found it imperative to remove a smudge of gray paint from the side of her hand. "I just copped a major account before I took my leave of absence. I'm likely to get a promotion."

  "That's fine, isn't it?" He flipped another page, smiled over a sketch of Brianna working in her garden. "What sort of account is it?"

  "Bottled water." She muttered it, because it seemed so foolish a thing out here in the wide fields and fragrant air.

  "Water?" He did exactly what she'd expected. He grinned at her. "The fizzy kind? Why do you suppose people want to drink water that bubbles or comes in bottles?"

  "Because it's pure. Not everyone has a well in their backyard, or a spring, or whatever the hell it is. Designer water's an enormous industry, and with pollution and urban development it's only going to get bigger."

  He continued to smile. "I didn't ask to rile you. I was just wondering." He turned the sketchbook toward her. "I like this one."

  She set her rag aside and shrugged. It was a drawing of him, in the pub holding his concertina, a half-finished beer on the table. "You should. I certainly flattered you."

  "It was kind of you." He set the book aside. "I've someone coming by shortly to look at the yearling, so I can't ask you in for tea. Will you come tonight, for dinner instead?"

  "To dinner?" When he rose, she took an automatic step in retreat.

  "You could come early. Half six, so I could show you about first." A new light came into his eyes, one of dangerous amusement as he caught her hand. "Why are you walking backward?"

  "I'm not." Or she wasn't now that he had hold of her. "I'm thinking. Brianna might have plans."

  "Brie's a flexible woman." A light tug on the hand brought Shannon a step closer. "Come, spend the evening with me. You're not afraid of the two of us being alone?"

  "Of course not." That would be ridiculous. "I don't know if you can cook."

  "Come find out."

  Dinner, she reminded herself. It was just dinner. In any case she was curious about him, how he lived. "All right. I'll come by."

  "Good." With one hand still holding hers, he cupped the back of her head, inched her closer. Her nerves were already sizzling when she remembered to lift a protesting hand to his chest.

  "Murphy-"

  "I'm only going to kiss you," he murmured.

  There was no only about it. His eyes stayed open, aware, alive on hers as his mouth lowered. They were the last thing she saw, that vivid, stunning blue, before she went deaf, dumb, and blind.

  It was barely a whisper of a touch at first, a light brush of mouth to mouth. He was holding her as if they might slide into a dance at any instant. She thought she might sway, so soft and sweet was that first meeting of lips.

  Then they left hers, surprising a sigh out of her as he took his mouth on a slow, luxurious journey of her face. The quiet exploration-her cheeks, her temples, her eyelids-weakened her knees. The trembling started there, and moved up so that she was breathless when his mouth covered hers a second time.

  Deeper now, slowly. Her lips parted, and the welcome sounded in her throat. Her hand slid up to his shoulder, gripped, then went limp. She could smell horses and grass, and something like lightning in the air.

  He'd come back, was all she could think before her head went swimming into dreams.

  She was everything he'd wanted. To hold her like this, to feel her tremble with the same need that shook inside him was beyond glorious. Her mouth seemed to have been fashioned to meld with his, and the tastes he found there were dark, mysterious, and ripe.

  It was enough, somehow it was enough, to hold back, to suffer the gnawing teeth of a less patient need. He could see how it would be, feel how it would be, to lie down in the warm grass with her, to pin her beneath him, body to body and flesh to flesh. How she would move under and against him, willing and eager and fluid. And at last, at long last, to bury himself inside her.

  But this time her mouth was enough. He let himself linger, and savor and possess, drawing away gently, and with the promise of more.

  His hands wanted to shake. To soothe them, he skimmed them over her face and into her hair. Her cheeks were flushed, making her, to his eye, even lovelier. How could he have forgotten how slim she was, like a willow, or how much truth and beauty could shine from her eyes.

  His hand paused in her hair, and his brows drew together as image shifted over image.

  "Your hair was longer then, and your cheeks were wet from rain."

  Her head was spinning, actually spinning. She had always believed that was a ridiculous romantic cliche. But she had to put a hand to her temple to steady herself. "What?"

  "Another time we met here." He smiled again. It was easy for him to accept such things as visions and magic, just as he could accept that his heart had been lost long before that first lovely taste of her. "I've wanted to kiss you for a long time."

  "We haven't known each other a long time."

  "We have. Shall I do it again, and remind you?"

  "I don't think so." No matter how foolish it made her feel, she held up a hand to stop him. "That was a little more potent that I'd expected, and I think we'd both be better off ... pacing ourselves."

  "As long as we're after getting to the same place."

  She let her hand drop. If she could be sure of anything it was that he wouldn't press, or make awkward or unwanted moves. Still, she took only an instant to study him, and less to look inside herself.

  "I don't know that we are."

  "It's enough that one of us knows. I've an appointment to keep." He brushed his fingers down her cheek so that he could take that last touch with him. "I'll look for you tonight." He caught the expression on her face before he swung over the wall. "You're not so faint of heart you'll make excuses not to come just because you liked kissing me."

  It wasn't worth the effort to be annoyed that he'd seen she was about to do so. Instead she turned away to pack up her equipment. "I'm not faint of heart. And I've liked kissing men before."

  "Sure and you have, Shannon Bodine, but you've never kissed the likes of me."

  He went off whistling. She made sure he was out of earshot before she let the laughter loose.

  It shouldn't have felt odd to go on a date-not when a woman had recently turned twenty-eight and had experienced her share Of firsts and lasts in the game of singles.

  Maybe it had been the way Brianna had fussed-bustling around like a nervous mother on prom night. Shannon could only smile to think on it. Brianna had offered to press a dress, or lend her one, and had twice come up to the loft room with suggestions on accessories and shoes.

  Shannon supposed she'd been a great disappointment to Brianna when she'd appeared downstairs in casual slacks and a plain silk shirt.

  That hadn't stopped Brianna from telling her she looked lovely, to have a wonderful time, and not to worry about when she got in. If Gray hadn't come along and dragg
ed his wife out of the hall, she might never have gotten away.

  It was, Shannon supposed, sisterlike behavior, and didn't make her as uncomfortable as she'd expected.

  She was grateful both Brianna and Gray had insisted she take the car. It wasn't a long trip to Murphy's, but the road would be dark after sunset, and it looked like rain.

  Only minutes after pulling out of the driveway, she was pulling in to a longer one that squeezed between hedges of fuchsia that had already begun to bloom in bloodred hearts.

  She'd seen the farmhouse from her window, but it was larger, and undoubtedly more impressive up close. Three stories of stone and wood that looked as old as the land itself, and equally well tended, rose up behind the hedge and before a tidy plot of mixed flowers.

  There were flat arches of dressed stone above the tidy square windows of the first floor. She caught a glimpse of a side porch and imagined there were doors leading to it from the inside.

  Two of the chimneys were smoking, puffing their clouds lazily into the still blue sky. A pickup truck was in the drive ahead of her, splashed with mud. Beside that was an aged compact raised onto blocks.

  She couldn't claim to know much about cars, but it certainly had seen better days.

  But the shutters and the front porch of the house were freshly painted in a mellow blue that blended softly with the gray stone. There was no clutter on the porch, only a pair of rockers that seemed to invite company. The invitation was completed by the door that was already open.

  Still, she knocked on the jamb and called out. "Murphy."

  "Come in and welcome." His voice seemed to come from up the stairs that shot off from the main hallway. "I'll be a minute. I'm washing up."

  She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. To satisfy her curiosity, she walked a little farther down the hall and peeked into the first room, where again, a batten door was open in welcome.

  A parlor, of course, she noted. Every bit as tidy as Brianna's, if lacking some of her feminine touches.

  Old, sturdy furniture was set on a wide planked floor that gleamed. A turf fire simmered in a stone hearth, bringing its ancient and appealing scent into the room. There were candlesticks flanking the thick wood mantel, bold, sinuous twists of emerald. Certain they were Maggie's work, she went in for a closer look.

  They looked too fluid, too molten to be solid. Yet the

  glass was cool against her fingers. There was a subtle, fascinating hint of ruby beneath, as though there were heat trapped inside waiting to flame out.

  "You'd think you could poke your fingers straight into the heart of it," Murphy commented from the doorway.

  Shannon nodded, tracing the coils again before she turned. "She's brilliant. Though I'd prefer you not tell her I said so." Her brow lifted when she studied him. He didn't look so very different from the man who walked his fields or played his music in pubs. He was without his cap, and his hair was thick, curled, and a bit damp from his washing. His sweater was a soft gray, his slacks shades darker.

  She found it odd that she could picture him as easily on the cover of GQ as on Agricultural Monthly.

  "You wash up well."

  He grinned self-consciously. "You look at things, people, more as an artist does once you're used to them. I didn't mean to keep you."

  "It's no problem. I like seeing where you live." Her gaze glanced off him and focused on a wall of books. "That's quite a library."

  "Oh, that's just some of them."

  He stayed where he was when she crossed over. Joyce, Yeats, Shaw. Those were to be expected. O'Neill, Swift, and Grayson Thane, of course. But there was a treasure trove of others. Poe, Steinbeck, Dickens, Byron. The poetry of Keats and Dickinson and Browning. Battered volumes of Shakespeare and equally well-thumbed tales by King and MacAffrey and McMurtrey.

  "An eclectic collection," she mused. "And there's more?"

  "I keep them here and there around the house, so if you're in the mood, you don't have to go far. A book's a pleasant thing to have nearby."

  "My father wasn't much on reading, unless it had to do with business. But my mother and I love-loved to. In the end, she was so ill, I read to her."

  "You were a comfort to her. And a joy."

  "I don't know." She shook herself and tried a bright smile. "So, am I getting a tour?"

  "A child knows when she's loved," Murphy said quietly, then took her hand. "And yes, you'll have a tour. We'll go outside first, before it rains."

  But she made him stop a half a dozen times before they'd traveled from the front of the house to the back. He explained the raftered ceiling, and the little