"Well, whether Tim's right or he's wrong, I was thinking I might wander up to Faerie Hill later on. Say a bit after midnight."

"The door's open, but I'd appreciate you cleaning off your Wellies first." He put the sandwiches in a sack, added a couple of bags of crisps and two bottles of Harp. When she started to dig out payment, he shook his head. "No, this is on the house. I don't think I want any coin you might have in those pockets."

"Thanks." She took the bag, rested it on her hip. "Aren't you going to kiss me?"

"No. But I'll make it up to you later."

"See that you do." With a grin that might have been flirtatious under different circumstances, she sauntered off and left him to close the door.

She was a woman of her word, and she opened the door of his cottage at the stroke of midnight. Too early, she knew, for him to be home from work. But she liked the quiet of the place, the mood of it when she was there alone.

She took off her boots at the door, as Shawn often did himself, and wandered around in her stocking feet lighting candles and oil lamps, as the power had yet to be restored. And as she did, she was half hoping Lady Gwen might show herself.

Wasn't it the perfect time for a ghost, after all? A stormy night alive with rain and whistling wind, a little cottage alight with candles and the glow of a fire.

"I know you're here, and there's no one but me." She waited, but the air was still, the only sounds the ticking of the cottage as it settled and the incessant call of the wind. "I wanted you to know that I think I understand what you were telling me that first time. His heart's in his song, and I have listened. I hope what I did was the right thing."

Again she fell silent, and again only silence answered her.

"Well, a lot of help you are." Irked, she marched upstairs.

She didn't need any ghostly visitations or words from beyond to tell her what to do and how to do it. She knew what she was about. She had a man she intended to keep. Since her mind was set on it, it was just a matter of seeing to the details.

She lighted the fire here as well, and banked it for the night. After setting the flame to a pair of candles, she dropped onto the bed, propped the pillows at her back, and settled down to wait.

And the day's work caught up with her.

There was no wind, no rain. The sky was midnight silk studded with stars that flashed ruby, sapphire, citrine. The moon, full and white, sailed high, spilling its light over a sea as calm as a lake.

The wings of the white horse beat like a heart, steady and true. Astride him, the man in silver rode with his back straight and proud while his dark mane of hair streamed back like a cape.

"It wasn't wealth or stature or even immortality she wanted from me."

It seemed not odd at all to be riding with the prince of faeries and sweeping over Ireland. "What was it she wanted from you?"

"Promises, vows, words that come out of the heart. Why is it that saying 'I love you' is so hard for some?"

"Saying it lowers all shields."

He turned his head, his eyes bright and bitter. "Exactly so. It takes courage for that, does it not, Mary Brenna O'Toole?"

"Or foolhardiness."

"If love doesn't make a fool of us, what will?"

The horse swooped downward at a speed that had her heart bounding with excitement. She saw the light glow against the window glass, and the shape and shadows of the cottage on the faerie hill.

Hooves sent sparks shooting when they met ground.

"A simple place," Carrick murmured, "for so much drama. There, that pretty garden gate. It might be the wall of a fortress, for I can't pass through it as once I did."

"She walks the cliffs as well, your love."

"She does, I'm told, but we can't so much as see each other, though we might stand near as side by side."

There wasn't bitterness in his eyes now, but sorrow.

And, Brenna thought, a painful kind of longing.

"At times I feel her there, or catch the scent of her hair or her skin. But not once in a hundred years times three have I been able to see or to touch or so much as speak my heart to her."

"You cast a harsh spell on the both of you," Brenna commented.

"I did, yes, and I have paid for that rash moment of temper. You know of such things," he said.

"I do, indeed. And fortunate it is I haven't the power to conjure or cast."

"Mortals." Amusement softened his face. "You've no concept of what powers you hold, and so you use what you have most carelessly on yourselves and each other."

"That's pot calling kettle."

"As you see it," he agreed with a nod. "But there was no faerie magic in what began between me and Gwen. I neither tricked nor lured her to me, as some tell the tale. She came to me willing, until her father forbade her. Until he promised her to another for fear of me."

"I believe the truth of that." Because she did, she laid a comforting hand on his arm. "A maid had less say in such choices then."

Carrick tossed his leg over the horse, slid down. "Then make yours."

"I have." She mirrored his move, watched his mouth twitch. "But I'll follow through in my own way."

"Listen," was all he said.

The music drifted out on the air, wove around her like a silk net. "It's Shawn playing. The song he gave me. Oh!" She closed her eyes. "It fills the heart right up. There's nothing in your raft lovelier than that," she said, reaching down to open the gate.

But it held fast, no matter how she pushed or pulled.

"I can't open it." Panicked, she whirled around, but horse and rider were gone. She turned back, gripping the gate with both hands, shoved.

"Shawn!"

"There, now." She was in his arms, and there was a chuckle in his voice. "You were dreaming. An excitable one."

"Dreaming." Her mind was full of mists and stars and music. "I couldn't open the gate. I couldn't get in."

"You are in."

"I am in. God, I'm fuzzy-brained yet. I must've dropped off like a rock." She pushed at her hair. "Give me a minute to wake up."

"I've some news that might clear the cobwebs."

"What is it?"

"Aidan's taken with your drawings of the theater."

As he'd suspected they would, the clouds in her eyes cleared immediately. "Really? Is he?"

"He is, yes. So pleased, in fact, he's already spoken of them to the Magee."

"What did he say?"

"Which of them?"

"Both, either." She gripped his arms and shook. "Don't play with me, Shawn, or I'll have to hurt you."

"Sure and that's a frightening thought, so I'll tell you. I can't relay exactly what Magee said, as it was Aidan who spoke with him, but it seems that the man's interested enough to want to take a look at what you've drawn up." Shawn toyed with her hair as he spoke, a new habit he was enjoying. "So they're going off to New York City, and we'll see what we see."

"It's a good design."

"It looked good to me."

"It would work and work well." Worrying over it, she gnawed at her lip. "Any dunderhead would see that it blends with what's here, adds to it rather than overpowering. He won't get better from any of his fancy architects."

"You have to work on your confidence, Brenna. So much modesty's unseemly."

She only snorted. "But how is Magee to know that if he can't actually see? The way the pub sits and how the land is and so on."

"He has photographs," Shawn reminded her. "Finkle took dozens while he was here."

"It's not the same. I should talk to Magee myself, is what I should do."

"You may be right, but wouldn't it be best to give it a bit of time, then see what he thinks before jumping in boots first and pushing at him?"

"Some take a good push." Her lips slanted into a sneer. "As yourself is a perfect example. When is Aidan sending them? Maybe I should take another look at them first."

"They're already on the way. He shipped them off in yesterday's post, by special courier as Magee requested."

"Well, then. Well." They would stand or fall on their own, she thought, as Shawn's song would. She nearly blurted out that she'd already spoken to Magee herself, and that between them they were keeping the man busy looking over their efforts.

No, better to wait, then give Shawn the results instead of the worry of wondering.

"And what are you thinking of so hard and long?"

"The next steps, and what happens after they're taken. It seems when one thing changes, everything changes with it."

"I've thought the same myself." Look at us, he thought, and brushed her hair back from her face.

Her pulse stumbled. Another change, she realized, that his just touching her could cause that sudden and vivid awareness. "Does it worry you?"

"No. But if it concerns you at the moment, I'd rather just take you dreaming again." His lips cruised over hers as he laid her back. "If you hold on to me, we'll go together."

"I want to be with you. You're the only one." It was the closest she could come to lowering her shields.

He took her dreaming, gliding up, sinking down with the lights of the candles and turf fire shimmering everywhere. There was a tenderness in her she hadn't explored before. A welling need to give whatever was asked, and give gently.

They undressed each other. No tugs, no pulls this time. Fingers slid over skin, and lips followed, lingered so that each caress, each taste was precious. Sigh answered murmur. A mingling of breath.

Desire, without the red flash of flames, was gilded at the edges. Even when he urged her up to that fine and trembling peak, the glow held steady.

They watched each other as he slipped inside her.

It was like coming home.

His lips curved as they lowered to hers, another link. Her hands lifted, framed his face, held him there, just there while the beauty of it had tears swimming to her eyes.

"Come with me." She murmured it against his mouth. "Let go and come with me."

Her breath caught as she began the tumble, then released in a sigh when he took her hand and fell with her.

His mouth was on hers again before the mists cleared. "Stay."

She shouldn't. Even as he shifted to draw her against his side she thought of all the reasons why it was best if she left now, crept quietly into her own bed.

"All right," she said and settling her head on his shoulder, slept.

Of course, by dawn he'd shoved her to the edge of the bed. That was a little something they'd have to work on, Brenna thought as she got up in the half-light. She'd be damned if she'd spend every night of her life fighting for space on the mattress.

Begin as you mean to go on, her mother often said. Well, she'd begin by shoving her elbow into his ribs several times a night until he learned to share.

But her eyes were warm, watching him as she dressed. And the kiss she gave him before she left was unashamedly loving. "We'll get a bigger bed," she whispered, then hurried out to get home before her mother came down to make breakfast.

An hour later, he woke alone and vaguely dissatisfied. Couldn't the woman have said good-bye at least? That was going to change. In fact, the whole business was going to change, and sooner than she might expect.

He wanted her in his life altogether, and not just for snatches of time in his bed. He rose, and gauging his time, figured he had plenty of it to have a look at the land he'd gotten word was for sale.

CHAPTER Nineteen

The price was as steep as the lay of the land, but Shawn liked the feel of it. As he stood in what was no more than a drizzle now, he could see the water from one direction, stone gray to mirror the sky, and calmer now.

The storm had died in the night, but the beach was littered with shells and kelp and debris that had been heaved out of the sea.

He imagined they would face the house that way, with at least one good-size window in the front room so they could watch the moods of the water.

In back there was the rise of distant mountains, shadowy bumps up into the cloudy sky. Then on either side was the fall of hills and fields, the deep, wet green shimmering through winding ribbons of mist.

He didn't have the talent to build a house in his mind, sketch one on paper, or take materials and tools and make it a reality. Not as Brenna did. But he could, particularly when the interest was personal, conjure up a glimmer of it.

He wanted a music room-well, not just for music, he thought, as he walked away from the area that he thought most likely for planting a house. It would have to be comfortable and welcoming so others would feel easy about coming in and staying awhile. But a room, and not a tiny, cramped one, where he could have his piano, and his fiddle. He'd want a kind of cabinet-perhaps Brenna could build it-for his music. And a stand, or whatever could be devised for a good tape recorder.