Emerald Isle (15 page)

Slowly, Chance eased the dress off my shoulders, and it spilled to the floor. His shirt followed. Then he guided me to the bed, and his lips replaced his hands on my bosom. His mouth probed every inch of my breasts, as his fingers explored the depths of me until I just couldn’t take it anymore.

I slipped him inside me and we moved together, our heat building until we reached a crescendo and exploded in each other’s arms.

Afterward, we lay there in the darkness of my bedroom for a while, our hands clasped together, our bodies thoroughly satisfied. My cheek was resting on his chest, listening to the beat of his heart, when he said, “I heard you talking to Cinnamon.”

I winced. Damn. I really wanted to tell him myself. “I was going to tell you. I just didn’t get the opportunity.”

He caressed my shoulder. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”

“I don’t know.”

He didn’t say anything for a time. Then, “Is it dangerous?”

I sighed. I had never lied to him, not even when we were kids, and didn’t intend to start now. Granted, no way was I going to tell him that there was a fairy named Pickle who’d be looking out for me and if things got really touchy, I could always summon up a goddess. After all, no one was that open-minded.

“It could be,” I said, then rushed to add, “but I’ll have Birdie and the aunts there to help.”

He swallowed hard. “These people who have your mother. What if they lock you away too?”

“They won’t, because I won’t give them a reason to.” I rolled over to face him, propped my head up by my elbow. “Don’t worry. I always land on my feet.”

Chance took my chin in his palms. “It’s my job to worry about you. I’m in love with you, Stacy. I have been ever since I can remember. It’s always been you.” His voice was hoarse.

The intensity in his eyes and the seriousness of his tone startled me. My feelings for Chance ran deep, there was no question, but my life was such a mess, so unstable. Sometimes I thought it wasn’t fair to hold on to him. That he should be with a woman who’d jump at the opportunity to become his wife, who’d give him three kids, cook pot roast on Sundays, and decorate the house for holidays.

But that’s not the kind of woman I was. At least, not now.

I found his hand and kissed it, put it to my cheek. “I know you worry. I know you care. I can promise you that I’ll be careful, and guarded. I promise I’ll come home as soon as I can.”

He sat up a bit higher in bed and looked at me. “That’s all you have to say?”

I blinked a few times as he turned on the light.

“What else is there? I can’t tell you there won’t be more of these kinds of excursions, because I don’t know that for certain. What I do know is that I have to bring my mother back.”

Chance looked up at the ceiling and sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”

“What, then?” I sat up too.

He ran his fingers through his hair. “I just told you I’m in love with you. Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

His eyes glimmered in the moonlight. Or was that mist?

My stomach twisted in knots and my pulse quickened. “Chance, you know how I feel about you.” I reached for him, but he pulled away.

“See, that’s just it. I don’t know, because you never say it. Even now, you’re about to fly halfway across the world and you won’t say it.”

“You’re the best man I know.”

He just stared at me for a few moments. Then he swung his legs over the bed and stood. Reached for his jeans.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing. Better yet, what are
we
doing?” He pointed from him to me.

“Don’t do this. Chance, please.”

He climbed into his pants. “I understood when you turned down my marriage proposal.” Shrugged his shirt on. “I understood when you said you didn’t want to live together.” Grabbed his socks and shoes. “But dammit,
Stace, when the woman I love doesn’t love me back, what’s the point?”

I wrapped the sheet around me. “But I do. Chance, you know I do. Come on.”

He left the room and walked toward the front door, grabbed his keys. I followed him. He turned, hand on the knob. “Then why don’t you ever say it? I need to hear you say it.”

“You’re the most important person in my life,” I whispered. “You’re the only man I ever let in.”

“But I’m not in, Stace. I’m standing on the porch in the pouring rain, waiting for you to open the door. I’ve been waiting ever since you left after graduation, ever since you came back last year. Even now, you’ve let me into your bed, but not into your heart. I’m still waiting.”

How could I explain it to him? How could I make him see that in my world, when you got too close, knew too much, it destroyed lives? I couldn’t allow that to happen to us. There was no telling where this path would take me now, and I couldn’t let Chance get hurt because of something I was involved in. Hell, Ivy had been kidnapped, John’s wife had been shot, my own mother was imprisoned. If anything happened to Chance, I would never forgive myself.

He said, “You know what I think? I think I’m a safety net for you. That it’s just easy to be with me because of the years between us, and because I know all the secrets and I don’t judge you by them.”

“That’s not true.” Did he really believe that?

He looked at me sadly. “I don’t want to be the guy on the sidelines anymore. I can’t be that guy anymore.”

As the door creaked open and I saw my closest friend about to walk away from me, I panicked. When your heart is racing, fear pumping through your veins, and you think you’re on the verge of losing the only real thing you’ve ever had in this world, the truth rushes to the surface and demands to be heard.

I blurted, “They all leave.” I struggled to keep composed, to restrain the tears bubbling behind my eyes.

He turned, questioning.

“Don’t you see? My mom, my dad, my uncle, even Leo. The people I trusted, the people that were closest to me. Eventually, they just…go.”

He paused. Then he said, “Stacy, what do I have to do to prove to you that I’m not going anywhere?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

He sighed. “When you figure it out, please let me know.”

Then he left.

I tossed and turned all night, hating the way Chance and I had left things, a knot of worry tangled in my stomach, not knowing what I could do to make things right, or if I would even have the time to do anything.

Why hadn’t I just told him I loved him?

When the alarm finally pierced my ear at six a.m., I crawled out of bed and directly into the shower.

I quickly dressed and packed a week’s worth of clothes, toiletries, and sundries, hoping that it would be enough. I shoved the Blessed Book on top of all that, slipped the amethyst necklace over my head, and put some bladderwrack in my running shoe for safe ocean travel. Then I texted Gramps, asking if he could meet me at the cottage for our breakfast date.

The coffee was percolating, eggs scrambled, and toast poised to be browned when Gramps arrived twenty minutes later. Thor was still sleeping. His feet bucked, and small, whiney cries escaped his lips every so often, as if he were lost in a dream.

Gramps smelled of Old Spice and Irish Spring as he walked through the door. He gave me a big kiss, and I ushered him over to the breakfast bar, where the plates waited to be filled.

He said, “Sorry I couldn’t make your birthday dinner, sweetheart.”

I almost didn’t make my birthday dinner
, I thought. I waved my arm and said, “No worries, Gramps.” I poured him a cup of black coffee and spooned some eggs onto his plate.

He thanked me. “Say, did Cinnamon give you that present?”

“Actually, Gramps, I wanted to ask you about that.” I pulled out the locket. “Was this from you? I didn’t recognize the handwriting on the card.” I slid both the card and the locket toward my grandfather.

He reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and produced a pair of reading glasses, pushed them onto his nose. “No, it wasn’t from me. Your father told me about the lockbox and the heirloom before he passed, but I didn’t get it until the chief found it in his car. Said I was to hold on to it until you turned thirty.” He met my eyes. “Frankly, I would have waited till next year, but when I spoke to your grandmother about dinner, she was going on and on about your thirtieth year, so I figured it must be a Geraghty thing.” He winked at me, scanned the card.

“You figured right. So did my dad say who it belonged to or who it was from?”

The deep lines carved in his forehead crunched together as he thought for a moment. “No, I can’t say that he did.”

Damn.
“What about the card. Does the script seem familiar to you?”

He glanced at it again and shook his head. “Sorry, honey. Can’t say that it does.” He sipped his coffee. “What’s this about?” He passed the card back to me, and I slid it to the end of the counter.

I explained that we were all leaving that morning for Ireland, and that when we came back home, his daughter would be with us.

Gramps slowly set his coffee mug down. The rosy glow that usually colored his cheeks instantly faded.

“You mean you know where your mother is?” His voice was incredulous.

The question took me by surprise, as did the baffled look on his face. He didn’t know where my mother was? Oh no. What did that mean? Birdie had kept it from me all these years—the slaying of the council member, my mother’s incarceration—but I had never dreamed she would have withheld that information from Gramps.

Why would she do that?

I had the nagging sensation that I had just opened a can of worms that was meant to be sealed shut a while longer.

Gramps stood up, kicked the chair back, and threw his napkin on his plate. “Never mind. It’s not your fault. It’s hers.”

The word “hers” clung to his lips like a bitter cocktail onion.

“Gramps, calm down. I’m sure she had her reasons.”

Even as I said it, I didn’t believe it. Hidden truths and untold secrets seemed to make up the very fabric of my grandmother.

Although now I had secrets of my own.

Gramps kissed me on the cheek and said, “This is between me and your grandmother, Stacy. Don’t worry yourself over it.”

He tried to smile, but it morphed into a grimace. He left me there staring at cold eggs and cloudy coffee, feeling like the kind of jerk who tells a kid there’s no such thing as Santa Claus.

I rousted Thor and fed him the remainder of our breakfast, turned a few lights on in case Cin didn’t make it over here before nightfall, grabbed my bags and dog, and hurried out the door.

Chance was sitting on the porch when I stepped outside. Thor greeted him with a delirious wag of his tail and a nuzzle on the chin, then ran off to chase a squirrel.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hey.”

He smiled at me, but he still looked forlorn. Even the adorable cleft in his chin that I found irresistible seemed to droop.

“I know I should have called, but—”

I said, “No, I’m glad you came. Look, Chance, I—”

He put his hand to my lips, whispered, “Shh. Me first, okay?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know why I got so upset. I did a lot of thinking last night, and I had no right to put you on the spot like that.” He pulled me onto his lap. “I know you, I know what you’ve been through, what”—he shifted his eyes to my suitcase—“you’re still going through. I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry, and that I’m here for you, if you’ll have me.”

I kissed him, then I pulled back and studied his face. He had the most sincere eyes I’d ever seen. I thought about Birdie and Gramps, about my mother and father and all the untold truths, the hushed shroud that lingered over Geraghty relationships like a plague just waiting to devour them.

And I realized that with Chance and me, there were no secrets. Or at least none that I could otherwise explain.

I said, “I trust you more than I trust my own family, you know that?”

“Well, they don’t set the bar real high.” He smiled at me, a silly, playful smile. The kind of smile shared by people with a lot of history. As I smiled back, a jolt of comprehension surged through me. Why I couldn’t tell him I loved him, why I was afraid of falling too deep into each other.

“Chance, you’re my best friend. If I ever lost that, if I ever lost you…” My voice cracked, unable to complete the thought.

He embraced me, his arms dancing up and down my back. He said softly, “That won’t happen. Not ever. Even if this doesn’t work out and we’re married to other people in twenty years, you’ll still be the cool chick who likes baseball, carries a sword, and can summon a boatload of fish just to cheer a guy up.”

That was the day his grandfather died. We went fishing to get away from the veil of sadness hanging over his house, and the fish weren’t biting. So I used one of Fiona’s spells to rollick them. He loved it.

“I can’t believe you remember that. We were what, twelve? Thirteen?” I asked.

“Somewhere around there.”

I heard the back door slam at the Geraghty Girls’ Guesthouse, and Fiona and Lolly emerged with their luggage.

Chance tossed his head to the side. “I’ll go help them.”