Talking Sense (16 page)

She stood up and put her arms around him. “Oh
Col-um.
You are so sweet sometimes.”

He buried his face in her shoulder and drank her in. Her hair smelled of the strawberry shampoo she used—his probably smelled the same because he’d used her shower that morning. He’d never been able to eat strawberries again without thinking of Mia.

“I was trying not to use it,” he whispered. His ability made him uneasy. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow being controlled by evil spirits when he used it.

“I know, and I do understand. But if you believe in that sort of thing, it would make sense to me to also believe that you’re being guided along the path you’re travelling.” She pulled back to look up at him with her bright green eyes. “What do you think of what Ash does? What Nate does?”

He shrugged awkwardly. “I don’t know.”

“Do you really think Nate’s gift comes from a dark place? That what he’s doing is somehow evil?”

He couldn’t answer that, because of course the very idea that the quiet and gentle Nate who healed people with a touch of his hands could be evil was laughable.

“Do you want to know what I think?” Mia said.

He smiled. “Always.”

“It’s like electricity,” she said. “It’s not good or evil. It’s what we do with it that counts. We can use it to power life-support machines and baby monitors and run operating theatres to make people better, and to cook food and heat our homes to keep us warm and safe. Or we can use it to make electric chairs and Tasers to hurt people. Take a stereo music system—we can play uplifting classical music to inspire us, or we can use it to blast out heavy bass and annoy our neighbours. The stereo itself isn’t good or bad. It’s how we use it that matters.”

He honestly hadn’t thought about it like that before. “So you’re saying the ability itself is neither good nor evil. It’s how I apply it.”

“Exactly. It’s the same with Ash—he could do readings for people and find out where they’ve hidden the family silver and go and steal it, or find out tomorrow’s Lotto numbers and make millions, but instead he chooses to help people. He brings comfort to hundreds of thousands of people by contacting their relatives and convincing his clients their loved ones are in a safe place, being happy and cared for. I don’t know about your definition of evil, but that’s not mine. Throughout time, people with special gifts have been called evil by those who don’t understand their talents—but that doesn’t
make
them evil, unless they’ve used the gifts they’ve been given to bring harm.” Her face was earnest.

His heart flooded with affection for her. And, ignoring the nudges of the two elderly women in the gardening section and the vaguely disapproving glare from the librarian at the desk, he leaned forward and kissed her.

He felt her inhale in surprise, but he continued to kiss her, and after a few seconds her arms crept around his waist and she melted against him.

She’d crunched a mint shortly before she’d called him to the computer, and when she opened her lips to brush her tongue against his, his mouth was flooded with the fresh taste. He shivered with desire at the thought of taking her, possessing her again. Everything about her was fresh and full of life, like a mouthwatering summer dessert of strawberry sorbet and fresh fruit and herbs. If only she could shake off the lingering malaise that hovered over her like wintry weather that refused to move on, he was sure her bright spirit would shine through him even on his darkest days.

He didn’t want to ever let her go.

Chapter Twenty

Te Papa’s archive collection in Tory Street was exactly what Mia had anticipated—lots of white rooms with carefully controlled humidity and conditions to preserve the precious artefacts and paintings they held.

It was past closing time, but Colm had rung David, who’d trawled through the museum’s online resources and had located the painting buried deep in the archives a few streets away. Luckily, a friend of David’s had agreed to see them after hours, so they’d walked down to Tory Street and had been shown up to the collections.

“75A,” said Richard Thornton, the assistant researcher who’d agreed to show them around. He was a university history student on a work placement, and looked thoroughly happy being closeted away with nothing but books, papers and old pots and coins for days on end. “That’s on the second floor.”

He led them up to the correct room, which was vast and lined with shelving housing rack upon rack of paintings.

“I know the paintings need these strict conditions to make sure they’re not destroyed by moisture or insects,” Mia said, pulling her jacket closer around her as they walked along the cool, white aisles, “but it’s a shame the environment’s so sterile. Think of all that creative energy, contained by this sanitary, spotless atmosphere. It’s like having tigers in a four-foot-square cage in a zoo.”

“I don’t think of it like that,” Richard said, turning right down another aisle. “I think of the environment as a background for the beauty of the paintings, to let them shine, like displaying diamonds on black velvet to make them stand out. If you were to lay them out on polka dots or brightly-coloured zigzags, it would detract from the beauty of the gems.”

“I suppose,” Mia said doubtfully. “But I can imagine the ghosts of all the artists clustered here, sighing in disappointment because the works of art they created with such passion and excitement are hidden away, never to be seen.”

“True.” Richard stopped and checked the number on the shelf. “But it’s the nature of things, like the names on tombstones gradually fading into obscurity. Time passes, and things fade away. We don’t have the space to display every single painting that’s ever been created. At least this way they’re preserved and not destroyed.”

A chill went through Mia at his words.
Time passes, and things fade away.
Like the little boy whose tiny body her car had crushed. Did he have a tombstone? She had a vivid image of his mother kneeling by it, scrubbing it to keep the moss from creeping over the marble surface, planting flowers that gradually wilted as the weeks went by.

To her surprise, Colm put his arm around her. Had he picked up on how she was feeling? She looked up at him, blinking away the tears threatening to fall, to see his frown, pity in his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but he did press his lips to her temple. She gave a shivery sigh. She’d never been able to share her thoughts and feelings before. It surprised her how comforted she felt by his understanding.

Richard gave a “Ha!” of triumph and began to ferret through a section of landscapes. After about ten seconds he extracted one and turned it around to show them.

It was the view of the Grand Canal in Dublin she’d found on the computer. It was larger than she’d anticipated, maybe three feet high by five feet wide, beautifully painted in soft watercolours that still looked fresh and bright as they must have the day Robert Green had painted them. It wasn’t framed, but had been taped to a large board.

Colm dropped to his haunches before the painting and stared at it. Mia watched him, heart pounding, wondering what he was thinking. Was he one step closer to finding his father?

One step closer to leaving?

Richard shoved his hands in his pockets. “David said your dad might have painted this—is that right?”

“Yes,” Colm said softly. “Maybe.”

“Well, David’s happy to vouch for you, if you want to borrow the painting.”

“Borrow?” Colm’s eyebrows rose.

“Yes. There’s a bit of paperwork, and you have to promise to look after it, but we often loan out family artwork and artefacts. Let’s face it, unless they’re by famous artists, they’re going to be more precious to the family than anyone else.”

“True.” Colm hesitated. He reached out a hand, then glanced up at Richard. “May I?”

“Well, you’re not supposed to, obviously.” He turned his back. “I’ll just put these ones away in the rack again.”

The corner of Colm’s mouth quirked up, and he glanced at Mia with amusement. Then she watched as he held the edge of the painting gently in his left hand and closed his eyes.

She studied him for a moment, from his ruffled brown hair to the dark lashes lying on his cheeks to his five o’clock shadow and square jaw, his mouth now firm and unsmiling as he concentrated.

She’d told him that her period was due in two or three days and she might as well wait and see what happened before they panicked, and he’d agreed, the lifting of his frown telling her that he hadn’t liked the idea of her taking the morning-after pill, even though he’d told her it was her body and her decision.

She probably wasn’t pregnant—after all, even though her mother had warned her as a teenager that you only had to sleep with someone once to risk getting knocked up, she’d read enough women’s magazines to know it was likely to be the opposite way. When she did eventually decide she wanted to have a baby, it would likely take her several months to get pregnant, especially she was now over thirty and her fertility levels were starting to drop.

Her body clock was something she’d never listened to before. In fact she’d never thought much about settling down until Grace had met Ash. Before then she’d sometimes wondered if she and Grace would end up in a retirement home together crocheting bobble hats and drinking their tea through straws. But then Grace had fallen in love, and Freya had found Nate, and suddenly Mia was the odd one out, single and heading alone at a fast rate toward middle age.

And now the tick, tick of her clock sounded loud in her ears. What if she and Colm had made a baby? Would it look like him, with brown hair and blue eyes? She’d always imagined parenthood to be hard work, a squalling brat and nappies and sick everywhere, but suddenly she saw the other side of it—of having a baby made from a piece of both of them, of coming together to care and protect it, of sharing the highs and lows and being there for each other.

She rested her hand on her stomach, still watching him crouching there with his eyes closed. She didn’t deserve a child. But suddenly she wanted one more than anything in the world. And it was then she knew—the knowledge hit her like a sharp slap to the face, making her catch her breath and blink rapidly as her heart pounded from the realisation.

She was in love.

Colm opened his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. His eyes met hers, and for a moment she thought the delight reflected in his meant he’d somehow heard the thought that had shot like a bullet through her brain, and he was happy about it. Then her head cleared and she realised that no, he was pleased because he’d got some information from the painting.

He nodded and she grinned back, pleased for him, even though her heart was still pounding, but there wasn’t time for him to tell her what he’d seen because Richard was turning back and picking up the painting. They went back to his office, and Colm filled in the necessary paperwork before they left, taking the painting with them in a protective carry case.

Outside it had grown dark, and the heavy clouds overhead were threatening rain. They walked quickly back to Colm’s car, worried a sudden shower would damage the painting, but managed to get it into the boot and climb in before the weather broke and rain began to thunder down onto the bonnet and roof.

“Phew.” Colm leaned back in his seat and gave her a dazzling smile. “What a day!”

Mia looked out of the window, watching the raindrops bouncing off the pavement. “I love this kind of weather. It makes me feel…I don’t know, alive, somehow.” She had butterflies in her stomach. She tried not to think about a baby forming in there.
It’s probably wind,
she scolded herself, but still she couldn’t stop her brain putting together images of nurseries and booties and stickers of Winnie-the-Pooh.

How strange. She hadn’t thought about any of this before meeting Colm. That sharp realisation,
I’m in love
, filtered through her mind again, but she pushed it away. What did she know about love? She had a crush on him, true, but love wasn’t Beaujolais, it was fine malt whisky, maturing over years until it became rich and satisfying. She had to keep things in perspective or she was going to ruin the good time they were having.

She glanced across at him. He’d started the engine and had edged the car into the traffic. She knew he lived somewhere along Oriental Parade, and he was obviously heading there now, which surprised her. Was he not going to drop her off home first?

“So spill the beans,” she said, able to ask now they were alone and in the quiet, apart from the rain hammering on the roof above them. “What did you see?”

He signalled and looked over his shoulder as he pulled across a lane of traffic, then gave her a brief smile. “Not much. Glimpses of the canal and Dublin, a bit like holiday snaps. But what I did get—” and here his smile widened, “—was an image of a woman sitting across a café table. She was drinking coffee, her head tipped to one side. Dark hair, tied back. And blue eyes.” He gestured to his own.

Understanding sank in. “Mary?” she questioned.

He nodded. “I’ve only seen photos, obviously, but I’m sure it was her.”

“So it
was
your father who painted it.”

He shrugged. “There’s no way of knowing for sure, but it’s a good start. I’ll have another go with the painting later, see if I can get anything else.”

“I’m glad, Colm. You deserve to have some luck.”

He smiled at her, then turned his attention back to the road. She looked out at the harbour, the water black and forbidding. The rain blurred the lights of the city, like Christmas trees seen through a fogged-up window.

The car slowed, and she looked up with surprise to see him pulling into a parking space along the seafront. The road was pretty much deserted, sensible people heading for home as the heavens opened. He parked and switched off the engine, and she turned in the seat, puzzled. “Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” he said huskily, unclipping his seatbelt. He unpopped hers too, and then pulled her into his arms, crushing her lips to his.

Mia gasped as his tongue swept into her mouth, and when he brushed his hand up her rib cage to cup her breast, a shiver ran through her from the roots of her hair to her tailbone.