Enchanted (8 page)

Slightly ill from the cookies, she snapped the lid back on. The first thing she was going to do was drive into town and find a bookstore. She was going to buy some how-to books. Basic home maintenance, she decided, stalking back into the living room for her purse.

She wasn’t going to go fumbling around the next time something happened. She’d figure out how to fix it herself. And, she thought darkly as she marched out of the house, if Liam came to her door offering to fix it for her, she’d coolly tell him she could take care of herself.

She slammed the door of the Rover, gunned the engine. An errant thought about flat tires made her think she’d better find a book on car repair while she was at it.

She bumped along the dirt road, clamping down on the urge to work off some of her frustration by stomping on the gas. Just where Belinda’s little lane met the main road, she saw the silver bird.

He was huge, magnificent. An eagle, she thought, automatically stepping on the brake to stop and study him. Though she didn’t know if any type of eagle was that regal silvery gray or if they tended to perch on road signs to stare—balefully, she decided—at passing cars.

What wonderfully odd fauna they had in Oregon, she mused, and reminded herself to read more carefully the books on local wildlife she’d brought with her. Unable to resist, she rolled down the window and leaned out.

“You’re so handsome.” She smiled as the bird ruffled his feathers and seemed to preen. “So regal. I bet you look magnificent in the air. I wonder what it feels like to fly. To just … own the sky. You’d know.”

His eyes were green, she realized. A silver-gray eagle with eyes green as a cat’s. For an instant, she thought she saw a glint of gold resting in his breast feathers, as if he wore a pendant. Just a trick of the light, she decided, and with some regret leaned back in the window.

“Wolves and deer and eagles. Why would anybody live in the city? Bye, Your Highness.”

When the Rover was out of sight, the eagle spread its wings, rose majestically into the sky with a triumphant call that echoed over hill and forest and sea. He soared over the trees, circled, then dived. White smoke swirled, and the light shimmered, blue as a lightning flash.

And he touched down on the forest floor softly, on two booted feet.

He stood just over six feet, with a mane of silver hair, eyes of glass green and a face so sharply defined it might have been carved from the marble found in the dark Irish hills. A burnished gold chain hung around his neck, and dangling from it was the amulet of his rank.

“Runs like a rabbit,” he muttered. “Then blames herself for the fox.”

“She’s young, Finn.” The woman who stepped out of the green shadows was lovely, with gilded hair flowing down her back, soft tawny eyes, skin white and smooth as alabaster. “And she doesn’t know what’s inside her, or understand what’s inside Liam.”

“A backbone’s what she’s needing, a bit more of that spirit she showed when she spat in his eye not long ago.” His fierce face gentled with a smile. “Never was a lack of spine or spirit a problem of yours, Arianna.”

She laughed and cupped her husband’s face in her hands. The gold ring of their marriage gleamed on one hand, and the fire of a ruby sparked on the other. “I’ve needed both with the likes of you,
a stor.
They’re on their path, Finn. Now we must let them follow it in their own way.”

“And who was it who led the girl to the dance, then to the lad?” he asked with an arrogantly raised
eyebrow.

“Well then.” Lightly, she trained a fingertip down his cheek. “I never said we couldn’t give them a bit of a nudge, now and then. The lass is troubled, and Liam—oh, he’s a difficult man, is Liam. Like his da.”

“Takes after his mother more.” Still smiling, Finn leaned down to kiss his wife. “When the girl comes into her own, the boy will have his hands full. He’ll be humbled before he finds the truth of pride. She’ll be hurt before she finds the full of her strength.”

“Then, if it’s meant, they’ll find each other. You like her.” Arianna linked her hands at the back of Finn’s neck. “She appealed to your vanity, sighing over you, calling you handsome.”

His silver brows rose again, his grin flashed bright. “I am handsome—and so you’ve said yourself. We’ll leave them to themselves a bit.” He slid his arms around her waist. “Let’s be home,
a ghra.
I’m already missing Ireland.”

With a swirl of white smoke, a shiver of white light, they were home.

*  *  *

By the time Rowan got home, heated up a can of soup and devoured a section on basic plumbing repairs, it was sunset. For the first time since her arrival she didn’t stop and stare and wonder at the glorious fire of the dying day. As the light dimmed, she merely leaned closer to the page.

With her elbows propped on the kitchen table, and her tea going cold, she almost wished a pipe would spring a leak so she could test out her new knowledge.

She felt smug and prepared, and decided to tackle the section on electrical work next. But first she’d make the phone call she’d been putting off. She considered fortifying herself with a glass of wine first, but decided that would be weak.

She took off her reading glasses, set them aside. Slipped a bookmark into the pages, closed the book. And stared at the phone.

It was terrible to dread calling people you loved.

She put it off just a little longer by neatly stacking the books she’d bought. There were more than a dozen, and she was still amused at herself for picking up several on myths and legends.

They’d be entertaining, she thought, and wasted a little more time selecting the one she wanted for bedtime reading.

Then there was wood to be brought in for the evening fire, the soup bowl to wash and carefully dry. Her nightly scan of the woods for the wolf she hadn’t seen all day.

When she couldn’t find anything else to engage her time, she picked up the phone and dialed.

Twenty minutes later, she was sitting on the back steps, the backwash of light from the kitchen spilling over her. And she was weeping.

She’d nearly buckled under the benign pressure, nearly crumbled beneath the puzzled, injured tone of her mother’s voice. Yes, yes, of course, she’d come home. She’d go back to teaching, get her doctorate, marry Alan, start a family. She’d live in a pretty house in a safe neighborhood. She’d be anything they wanted her to be as long as it made them happy.

Not saying all of those things, not doing them, was so hard. And so necessary.

Her tears were hot and from the heart. She wished she understood why she was always, always pulled in a different direction, why she needed so desperately to see what was blurred at the edges of her mind.

Something was there, waiting for her. Something she was or needed to be. It was all she was sure of.

When the wolf nudged his head under her hand, she simply wrapped her arms around him and pressed her face to his throat.

“Oh, I hate hurting anyone. I can’t bear it, and I can’t stop it. What’s wrong with me?”

Her tears dampened his neck. And touched his heart. To comfort her, he nuzzled her cheek, let her cling. Then he slipped a quiet thought into her mind.

Betray yourself, and you betray all they’ve given you. Love opens doors. It doesn’t close them. When you go through it and find yourself, they’ll still be there.

She let out a shuddering breath, rubbed her face against his fur. “I can’t go back, even though part of me wants to. If I did, I know something inside me would just … stop.” She leaned back, holding his head in her hands. “If I went back, I’d never find anything like you again. Even if it were there, I wouldn’t really see it. I’d never follow a white doe or talk to an eagle.”

Sighing, she stroked his head, his powerful shoulders. “I’d never let some gorgeous Irishman with a bad attitude kiss me, or do something as fun and foolish as eat cookies for breakfast.”

Comforted, she rested her head against his. “I need to do those things, to be the kind of person who does them. That’s what they can’t understand, you know? And it hurts and frightens them because they love me.”

She sighed again, leaned back, stroking his head absently as she studied the woods with their deep shadows, their whispering secrets. “So I have to make this all work, so they stop being hurt and stop being frightened. Part of me is scared that I will make it work—and part of me is scared I won’t.” Her lips curved ruefully. “I’m such a coward.”

His eyes narrowed, glinted, and a low growl sounded in his throat, making her blink. Their faces were close, and she could see those strong, deadly white teeth. Swallowing hard, she stroked his head with fingers that trembled.

“There, now. Easy. Are you hungry? I have cookies.” Heart hammering, she got slowly to her feet as he continued to growl. She kept her eyes on him, walking backward as he came up the steps toward her.

As she reached the door, one part of her mind screamed for her to slam it, lock it. He was a wild thing, feral, not to be trusted. But with her eyes locked on his, all she could think was how he had pressed his muzzle against her, how he had been there when she wept.

She left the door open.

Though her hand shook, she picked up a cookie, held it out. “It’s probably bad for you, but so many good things are.” She muffled a yelp when he nipped it, with surprising delicacy, from her fingertips.

She’d have sworn his eyes laughed at her.

“Well, okay, now we know sugar’s as good as music for soothing savage beasts. One more, but that’s it.”

When he rose onto his hind legs with surprising speed and grace, set those magnificent front paws on her shoulders, she could only manage a choked gasp. Her eyes, wide and round and shocked, met his glinting ones. Then he licked her, from collarbone to ear, one long, warm stroke, and made her laugh.

“What a pair we are,” she murmured, and pressed her lips to the ruff of his neck. “What a pair.”

He lowered, just as gracefully, snatching the cookie from her fingers on the way.

“Clever, very clever.” Eyeing him, she closed the lid on the cookies and set them on top of the refrigerator. “What I need is a hot bath and a book,” she decided. “And that glass of wine I didn’t let myself have before. I’m not going to think about what someone else wants,” she continued as she turned to open the refrigerator. “I’m not going to think about sexy neighbors with outrageously wonderful mouths. I’m going to think about how lovely it is to have all this time, all this space.”

She finished pouring the wine and lifted her glass in toast as he watched her. “And to have you. Why don’t you come upstairs and keep me company while I have that bath?”

The wolf ran his tongue around his teeth, let out a low sound that resembled a laugh and thought,
Why don’t I?

*  *  *

She fascinated him. It wasn’t a terribly comfortable sensation, but he couldn’t shake it. It didn’t matter how often he reminded himself she was an ordinary woman, and one with entirely too much baggage to become involved with.

He just couldn’t stay away.

He’d been certain he’d tuned her out when she slammed her door behind her. Even though he’d been delighted with that flare of temper, the way it had flashed in her eyes, firmed that lovely soft mouth, he’d wanted to put her out of his mind for a few days.

Smarter, safer that way.

But he’d heard her weeping. Sitting in his little office, toying with a spin-off game for Myor, he’d heard those sounds of heartbreak, and despite the block he’d imposed, he’d felt her guilt and grief ripping at his heart.

He hadn’t been able to ignore it. So he’d gone to her, offered a little comfort. Then she’d infuriated him, absolutely infuriated him, by calling herself a coward. By believing it.

And what had the coward done, he thought, when a rogue wolf had snarled at her? Offered him a cookie.

A cookie, for Finn’s sake.

She was utterly charming.

Then he had entertained, and tortured, himself by sitting and watching her lazily undress. Sweet God, the woman had a way of sliding out of her clothes that made a man’s head spin. Then, in a red robe she hadn’t bothered to belt, she’d filled the old-fashioned tub with frothy bubbles that smelled of jasmine.

She’d lit candles. Such a … female thing to do. She ran the water too hot, and turned music on seductively low. As she shrugged out of the robe, she daydreamed. He resisted sliding into her mind to see what put that faraway look in her eyes, that faint smile on her lips.

Her body delighted him. It was so slender, so smooth, with a pearly sheen to the skin and slim, subtle curves. Delicate bones, tiny feet, and breasts tipped a fragile blush pink.

He wanted to taste there, to run his tongue from white to pink to white.

When she’d leaned over to turn off the taps, it had taken an enormous act of will to prevent himself from nipping at that firm, naked bottom.

It both irritated and charmed him that she seemed to have no vanity, no self-awareness. She piled her hair on top of her head in a gloriously messy mass, and didn’t so much as glance at herself in the mirror.

Instead she talked to him, chattering nonsense, then hissed out a breath as she stepped into the tub. Steam billowed as she gingerly lowered herself, until the bubbles played prettily over her breasts.

Until he longed to re-form and slip into the tub with her as a man.

She only laughed when he walked forward to sniff at her. Only ran a hand over his head absently while she picked up a book with the other.

Home Maintenance for the Confused and Inept.

It made him chuckle, the sound coming out as a soft
woof.
She gave his ears a quick scratch, then reached for her wine.

“It says here,” she began, “that I should always have a few basic tools on hand. I think I saw all of these in the utility room, but I’d better make a list and compare. The next time the power goes out, or I blow a fuse—or is it a breaker?—I’m handling it myself. I won’t be rescued by anyone, especially Liam Donovan.”

She gasped, then chuckled, when the wolf dipped his tongue into her glass and drank. “Hey, hey! This is a very fine sauvignon blanc, and not for you, pal.” She lifted the glass out of reach. “It explains how to do simple rewiring,” she continued. “Not that I’m planning on doing any, but it doesn’t look terribly complicated. I’m very good at following directions.”