Haunting Beauty (15 page)

Danni felt sick as the scene played out in front of her. In a realm of impossibility, this latest twist put her over the edge. The young Sean—Michael as he was called—and his father were standing in front of them looking exactly as they had twenty years ago. At the same time, grown-up Sean was sitting right beside her. And none of them could possibly be real.

Except, before they’d awakened here, people only looked through Sean without ever seeing him. Suddenly these people—these people who couldn’t exist—were looking right at him. And not with fear, misgiving, or confusion. But with curiosity. With friendliness.

Like the ghost she knew him to be, Sean was pale and solemn as he came to his feet. What he was thinking, she didn’t know, but he stood unsteady and silent as he faced his father and, impossibly, the young version of himself.

Niall said, “Sure and Mum’s been talking about your coming for weeks. You’d think you were the Sainted Peter for all her fuss. Michael has been eager enough to meet you, that’s a certainty.” Niall gave Michael a playful punch in the arm as he spoke. The boy shot him a poisonous look and swatted his hand away.

“You’ve come from America, haven’t you?” Michael said, speaking to Sean, but staring at Danni like she was something he’d dreamed up for his viewing pleasure.

She felt awkward and exposed beneath the steady eyes that were so like Sean’s.
Not just
like
Sean’s
, she whispered to herself.
One and the same.
In twenty years, those very eyes would be turning her bones to putty. She frowned at an idea embedded in that elusive thought. In twenty years . . . In twenty years . . . She pulled in a deep breath. It couldn’t be . . . but in some twisted way it made sense. Crazy, but . . . was it possible they could have awakened in a different time as well as a different place? Could they have opened their eyes twenty years
in their own past
?

“Yes, we’ve come from America,” Sean answered, still standing, still looking like he’d been carved of stone.

“And you’re a Yank, true enough?” This to Danni.

“I guess. I mean, yes,” Danni answered. They were all staring at her and waiting with expectant expressions. Feeling like an idiot, she mumbled, “I live in Arizona.”

“Lived you mean,” Niall said cheerfully. “You’re settling here, isn’t that the way of it?”

“Do you know any Indians?” Michael asked.

“Uh, well yes, there are quite a few Native Americans who live in Arizona.”

She reached for Sean’s hand, wanting to squeeze it hard. Wanting to ask him what was going on. Why did they all act like it was perfectly natural for Danni and Sean to be here—and married on top of it? How could these people have anticipated their appearance? How could they be here at all?

She stopped herself before she went any further. Only madness waited down that avenue of pursuit.

Michael took the seat to her right, his attention riveted. Colleen shuffled over with more plates of food. “Don’t be pestering her now. She’s trying to eat her breakfast.”

Eating suddenly felt like an impossible chore, but Danni dutifully lifted her fork again. Sean sank to his seat on her left. He couldn’t seem to stop staring at his father and grandmother, but he avoided looking at Michael at all. She couldn’t blame him, couldn’t even imagine what must be going on in his head, through his mind.

Michael picked up his fork and began shoveling food into his mouth.

“Look at you, eating like ye was starved. It’s ashamed, I am,” Colleen said, with a quick slap to the back of the boy’s head. “Are you thinking the dog will have your breakfast if you doona wolf it yerself?”

“What dog?” he asked around a mouthful of potatoes.

“Why the one sitting on the floor, you blind fool,” Niall said.

Though the words were delivered with a teasing tone and a gentle smile, Michael’s head snapped up and he glared at his father. A deep, angry flush stained his face.

“The wee beastie came with your cousin’s bride,” Colleen said, tossing a cooled slice of potato to Bean. Bean jumped and snapped it from the air. When had she learned to do that?

Michael frowned and then glanced back at Danni. “Why did you get such an ugly dog?” he asked.

His expression so perfectly mirrored one his grown-up counterpart had used that for a moment, Danni was too unnerved to speak. “I don’t think she’s ugly,” she managed at last.

“Aye, isn’t that the way of it?” Colleen agreed, nodding over her skillet. “It’s not the bones that are beautiful but the flesh on the shoulders.”

With equally baffled expressions, all heads swiveled to take in Bean’s little body.

“’Tis a truth,” Niall interjected. “’Tis a truth.”

“Are you messing with me?” Michael said, frowning. “Dogs don’t have shoulders.”

Niall grinned, but continued to demolish his breakfast, only pausing between bites for a gulp of tea. After he’d swallowed the last bit of sausage, he wiped his mouth on his napkin, leaned back, and let his gaze move from Danni to Sean and back again.

“You’ve a look of the Irish, Danni,” he said. “Have you family from here?”

Danni cast an uncertain glance at Sean, not sure how to answer that one. Honesty didn’t seem the right response given the situation. Sean sat rigid and silent beside her, offering no help. On her right, Michael finished his eggs and scrutinized her with guarded eyes. Being sandwiched between the two of them gave Danni a shaky sense of vertigo.

“Maybe up north?” Niall asked, still shifting his eyes between them, now with a bit more curiosity.

“Who doesn’t have family from Ireland?” Sean finally answered.

Niall laughed and leaned forward to wink at Danni. “We’re a fertile lot, that much I’ll give you. Self-preservation is what we call it. If they won’t take us for what we are, what choice have we but to breed ourselves in?”

Danni managed a weak smile.

“Ah, you’re a lovely thing and a jealous man I am,” he said, grinning as he pushed himself to his feet. “So, cousin, are you ready?”

As Sean looked up with dull surprise, there came a knock at the front door.

It was like being in the center of a tornado, Danni thought. Everything spinning around them so fast they didn’t stand a chance of understanding it before it was gone. She wanted to stand up and shout, “Stop everything,” but of course she couldn’t, wouldn’t.

Colleen wiped her hands on her apron as she crossed through to open the front door. Danni could hear the warm smile in her tone when she greeted her visitor.

“Good morning, Mrs. Colleen,” a lilting childish voice answered her.

“And how are you this morning, my wee missy?”

“I’m very fine and thank you for asking, Mrs. Colleen. My mother sent me to ask Mr. Ballagh if he thinks there will be salmon today.”

“God willing there will be,” Niall called from the kitchen.

“That is good, because cook has a new recipe to try and would like it for tonight.”

“And so she’ll have it,” Niall said, standing to take his plate to the counter.

“Thank you.”

The girl’s voice was young and sweet and it drew Danni like an elusive melody. While Sean stood awkwardly at her side—Danni swiveled to face the door.

“My mum says you have company from America. Is that so?” the girl asked.

Colleen and the young girl stood in profile, facing each other with a formality that would have struck Danni as odd if she hadn’t suspected it was a game the two played. The girl wore a big T-shirt with a bright pattern of pink flowers on it over pale blue stirrup pants that ended with white high-top sneakers. Her hair hung to her shoulders in a feathered style that would be considered big in today’s fashion of smooth, flat hair.

Danni took a step closer, frowning, wondering why the child seemed so familiar.

“Well, yes,” Colleen was saying in the same formal singsong she’d used to greet the girl. “We do have guests from America. Would you like to meet them?”

“Oh, very much, thank you.”

Colleen held out her hand and the young girl took it. Danni watched them approach, feeling each step closer like a drumming in her head. She stumbled back, toppling her chair, aware of it only when Sean moved to right it. But she didn’t turn around. Couldn’t pry her gaze from the child’s face. As if from a distance, she felt his arm circle her waist and pull her against his solid warmth.

“Easy now,” he breathed against her ear.

But she couldn’t take it easy. As she drank in the site of the shiny golden-brown, the clear gray eyes, the sprinkle of freckles across the child’s nose, a feeling beyond shock locked her jaw and knees in the same instant. Like a statue, she stood frozen as the girl stopped in front of her and smiled up with heartbreaking innocence.

“Sean, Danni, this little darling is Miss Dáirinn MacGrath. Dáirinn, this is my great-nephew and his new wife.”

“From America?” she asked.

“True enough,” Colleen answered.

Danni couldn’t speak. Couldn’t think. It had been one thing to see Sean mirrored in the boy, but this. . . . She hadn’t expected it. She couldn’t comprehend it. How could she be standing here, facing
herself
for God’s sake? Dáirinn’s smile wavered and she shuffled her feet, obviously uncomfortable under Danni’s distraught gaze. But what could Danni do? What could she say?

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Sean said, reaching down to shake the girl’s hand. Dáirinn gave a relieved sigh and her smile brightened again.

“I’m pleased to meet you, too,” Dáirinn said with a small curtsy.

Danni had a sudden, vivid memory of practicing the curtsy in front of an ornate mirror in her mother’s room. She’d made her brother bow to her while she rehearsed it over and over and over . . .

From outside, there came a brief blast of horn. “I have to go,” Dáirinn said, but her puzzled gaze lingered on Danni’s face a moment longer before she gave a small wave and turned to the door.

“Tell your mum I’ll save the best of my catch for her,” Niall said before she stepped out.

Like a puppy on a leash, Danni trailed behind, silently stopping on the porch to watch her go. A car idled in front of the house with a woman sitting in the driver’s seat. She stared out the windshield, deep in thought. There was a boy in the backseat, nose pressed to the window.
Her brother . . .

Dáirinn opened the car door and the woman in the driver’s seat jumped—startled by the sound. Dáirinn said something to her as she climbed in the car, and the woman turned her head to stare at the people on the porch with such intensity, Danni wondered at her thoughts. Her eyes seemed to snag on Niall and hold for a long moment before moving on to study Danni and Colleen. Then, as if realizing they were all staring back, she pasted a smile on her face and the strangely focused look vanished. As the car began to pull away from the house, she leaned out of the open window and waved good-bye.

Numb, Danni lifted her hand in response and watched with stunned disbelief as her mother drove away.

Chapter Twelve

F
OR reasons Danni didn’t know and couldn’t find a way to ask, Sean was supposed to assist Niall and Michael on his fishing boat this morning while Danni was expected to work at the MacGrath house. It seemed the arrangements had been made weeks before, when Colleen had first received word that Danni and Sean were coming to Ballyfionúir. How or from whom the notice of their eminent arrival had been delivered, she didn’t say. Again, Danni found it impossible to ask without revealing the reason for her ignorance. And wouldn’t that go over well?

Could you explain why I’m here, because the last thing I remember, I was standing in my kitchen lusting after your dead grandson . . . .

She watched Sean finish his tea and prepare to leave with panic burning in her stomach. How was this happening? How could it be that one minute she was safely in her own home and now she was here in a time and place of strangers where Sean’s was the only familiar face?

And how could he even consider leaving her to go off and do God knew what on his father’s boat? Couldn’t he see the absurdity of it? However they’d come to be here, this wasn’t their time, their place, and the only thing they should be doing was trying to figure out how to get back. But even as she seethed over the situation, Sean was rising and following his father and his younger self outside. He truly intended to keep up this pretense.

Her throat tightened as the door clapped shut, and she rushed forward, pushing it open and stepping onto the porch. She heard Colleen come out behind her, and Danni had an instant mental picture of the older woman grabbing her and wrestling her to the dirt. Danni quickly moved away before she had the chance.

A part of Danni recognized the hysteria rising up inside her, understood that it was the being
left behind
that triggered it. Abandoned. Deserted among strangers in a strange place—just as she’d been as a child. But the cold logic of it did nothing to dispel her fear or ease the tightness gripping her chest so hard she couldn’t breathe.

“Sean, wait,” she said, hating how weak and frightened her voice sounded.

You’re not five anymore, Danni.
And Sean was the last person she should be counting on to save her. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin—silently scolding herself for the way it wobbled.

Sean turned at the sound of her voice. For a moment, he simply stared at her and her fear ratcheted up a notch. He didn’t understand—how could he? She was a fool to think anyone could grasp how this scenario mirrored her darkest nightmares, her worst fears. He was probably glad to be going—would be running to leave her behind if he thought he could get away with it.

But instead, he backtracked to her side, took her hand in the strong warmth of his own, and pulled her a few steps away where the corner of the house shielded them from their rapt audience.

Close to tears, Danni bit hard on her lip and stared at her feet.
You’re not five anymore, you’re not five anymore, you’re not . . .

He lifted her chin, forcing her to look into those deep-sea eyes.