"It's The Dance," she murmured. "I titled it just The Dance."
It was then, by the tone of her voice, the look in her eyes, that Rogan knew he had her. But he wasn't one to gloat. "If you'd prefer to think about that particular work," he continued in the same mild, reasonable tone, "I wonder if you'd let me take it on loan and display it in the gallery."
"I... Well-" It seemed not only stupid, but ungracious to object. "Sure. If you'd like to, I don't have a problem with that."
"I'm grateful." He rose, half his mission complete. "I need to get Liam home for his nap. Maggie and I are switching shifts about this time today. She's been working this morning, and now I'm going into the gallery. Shall I go by and pick up the painting on my way?"
"I suppose. Yes, all right. It isn't framed."
"We'll take care of that. I'm going to be drafting up a contract for you to look over."
Confused, she stared at him. "A contract? But-"
"You'll take all the time you need to read it through, think it over, and naturally, we'll negotiate any changes you might want. Thanks for the tea, Murphy. I'm looking forward to the ceili."
Murphy only grinned at him, then turned the grin on Shannon when Rogan went out to collect his son. "He's slippery, isn't he?"
She was staring straight ahead, fumbling through the conversation that had just taken place. "What did I agree to?"
"Depending on how you look at it, nothing. Or everything. He's cagey, our Rogan. I was waiting for it, watching, and still I never saw him outflank you until it was done."
"I don't know how to feel about this," Shannon muttered.
"Seems to me if I was an artist, and a man who has a reputation around the world for being an expert on it, and for having an affection and understanding of the best of it, found my work of value, I'd be proud."
"But I'm not a painter."
Patient, Murphy folded his arms on the table. "Why is it, Shannon, you make such a habit of saying what you're not. You're not Irish, you're not sister to Maggie and Brie, you're not a painter. You're not in love with me."
"Because it's easier to know what you're not than what you are."
He smiled at that. "Now, that's a sensible thing you've said. Do you always want it easier?"
"I never used to think so. I was always smug about the fact that I went after the challenges." Confused and a little frightened, she closed her eyes. "Too much is changing on me. I can't get solid footing. Every time I seem to, it all shifts again."
"And it's hard to move with it when you're used to standing firm." He rose, then pulled her into his arms. "No, don't worry." His voice was quiet when she stiffened. "I'm not going to do anything but hold you. Just rest your head a minute, darling. Let some of the care out of it."
"My mother would have been thrilled."
"You can't feel her feelings." Gently he stroked her hair, hoping she'd take the caress as it was meant. In friendship. "Do you know, my mother once hoped I'd go off to town and make my living in music."
"Really?" She found her head nestled perfectly in the curve of his shoulder. "I would have thought your whole family would have expected-wanted-you to farm."
"It was a hope she had, when I showed an interest in instruments and such. She wanted her children to go beyond what she'd known, and she loved me more, you see, than the farm."
"And she was disappointed?"
"Maybe some, until she saw this was what I wanted." He smiled into her hair. "Maybe some even after. Tell me, Shannon, are you happy in your work?"
"Of course. I'm good at it, and I've got a chance to move up. In a few years I'll have the choice between top level at Ry-Tilghmanton, or starting a business of my own.
"Mmm. Sounds more like ambition than happiness."
"Why do they have to be different?"
"I wonder." He drew her away because he was tempted to kiss her again, and it wasn't what she needed just then. "Maybe you should ask yourself, and think it through, if drawing for somebody else puts the same feeling inside you that drawing what pulls you does."
He did kiss her, but lightly, on the brow. "Meanwhile, you should be smiling instead of worrying. Rogan takes only the best for his galleries. You haven't been out to Ennistymon yet, have you?"
"No." She was sorry he'd let her go. "Is that where the gallery is?"
"Near. I'll take you if you like. I can't today," he said with a wince at the wall clock. "I've got a bit to do around here yet, and I've promised to go by Feeney's and lend him a hand with the tractor." "No, and I've kept you long enough anyway."
"You can keep me as long as you want." He took her hand, running his thumb over her knuckles. "Maybe you'd come down to the pub tonight. I'll buy you a drink to celebrate."
"I'm not sure what I'm celebrating, but I might do that." Anticipating him, she stepped back. "Murphy, I didn't come here to wrestle in the kitchen."
"I never said you did."
"You're getting that look in your eyes," she muttered. "And that's my clue to leave."
"My hands are clean now, so I wouldn't muss you up if I kissed you."
"I'm not worried about being mussed, I'm worried about being... never mind. Just keep your hands where I can see them. I mean it."
Obliging, he lifted them palms out, then felt his heart turn over when she rose on her toes and kissed his cheek.
"Thanks for the tea, and the shoulder."
"You're welcome to either, anytime."
She sighed and made herself back up another step. "I know. You make it hard to be sensible."
"If you've a mind to be insensible, Feeney can wait."
She had to laugh. No man had ever asked her to bed with quite such style. "Go back to work, Murphy. I think I'm in the mood to paint."
She went out the back, accustomed now to the way over the fields.
"Shannon Bodine."
"Yes." Laughing again, she turned, walking backward as she watched him come out the kitchen door.
"Will you paint something for me? Something that reminds you of me?"
"I might." She tossed up a hand in a wave, swiveled on her heel, and hurried away toward Blackthorn.
In the rear gardens of the inn Kayla napped in a folding crib near the flowering almond Murphy had planted for her. Her mother was weeding the perennial bed nearby, and her father was doing his level best to talk Brianna into indoor activities.
"The place is empty." Gray trailed his fingers down Brianna's arm. "All the guests are off sightseeing. The kid's asleep." He inched a little closer to nibble at the back of Brianna's neck, encouraged by her quick shiver of reaction. "Come to bed, Brianna." "I've work."
"The flowers aren't going anywhere." "Neither are the weeds." Her system went haywire as he skimmed the tip of his tongue along her skin. "Ah, look. I nearly pulled an aster. Go away now, and-"
"I love you, Brianna." He caught her hands, pressing his lips to the back of each.
Heart and body melted. "Oh, Grayson." Her eyes fluttered closed when he rubbed his lips persuasively over hers. "We can't. Shannon could be back any time." "Uh-oh. Do you think she's guessed where Kayla came from?"
"That's not the point." But her arms were twining around his neck. He slipped the first pin from her hair. "What is the point?"
She'd been sure she had one, a very simple, very valid point. "I love you, Grayson."
Strolling into the yard, Shannon stopped short. Her first reaction was amused embarrassment at having stumbled across a very private scene. The next, tripping over the first, was interest.
It was a lovely, romantic picture, she mused. The infant sleeping under a pale pink blanket, the flowers blooming, clothes blowing on the line in the background. And the man and woman, kneeling on the grass, wrapped in each other.
A pity, she thought, she didn't have a sketch pad.
She must have made some sound, as Brianna shifted, saw her, and blushed rosily.
"Sorry. 'Bye."
"Shannon." Even as Shannon turned away, Brianna w
as struggling free. "Don't be silly." •
"Go ahead," Gray corrected when Shannon hesitated. "Be silly. Scram."
"Grayson!" Shocked, Brianna batted his hands away and rose. "We-I was just weeding the pansies."
Shannon stuck her tongue in her cheek. "Oh, I could see that. I'm going to take a walk."
"You've just had a walk."
"So, let her take another one." Gray got up, wrapped an arm around Brianna's waist, and sent Shannon a meaningful look. "A really long one." Ignoring his wife's half-hearted struggles, he plucked another pin from her hair. "Better yet, take my car. You can-" He let out a groan when Kayla began to whimper.
"She needs her nappie changed." Brianna slipped away to go to the crib. Amused, and feeling wonderfully wanted, she smiled over at her husband as she lifted the baby. "You might put some of that energy into weeding, Grayson. I still have pies to bake."
"Right." With obvious regret he watched his wife, and his hopes for an intimate hour, slip out of his reach. "Pies to bake."
"Sorry." Shannon lifted her shoulders when Brianna took the baby inside. "Lousy timing."
"You're telling me." He hooked an arm around her neck. "Now you have to help me weed."
"It's the least I can do." Companionably she settled on the grass beside him. "I take it none of the guests are around."
"Off to various points of interest. We heard your news. Congratulations."
"Thanks. I guess. I'm still a little shellshocked. Rogan has a way of slipping around and through and over objections until you're just nodding and agreeing to everything he says."
"He does." Intrigued, Gray studied her profile. "You'd have objections to being associated with Worldwide?"
"No. I don't know." She moved her shoulders restlessly. "It came out of the blue. I like to be prepared for things. I already have a career." Which, she realized with a jolt, she hadn't given a thought to in weeks. "I'm used to deadlines, and a quick pace, the confusion of working in a busy organization. Paintings, this kind of painting, is solitary and motivated by mood rather than marketing." "Being used to one way of life doesn't mean you can't change gears, if the reward's big enough." He glanced toward the kitchen window. "It depends on what you want, and how much you want it."
"That's what I haven't decided. I'm floundering, Gray. I'm not used to that. I've always known what step to take next, and was confident, maybe overconfident, about what I was made of."
Thoughtful, she brushed her fingers over the bright purple face of a pansy. "Maybe it was because it was only my parents and me-no other family-that I always felt able to stand on my own, do exactly what I wanted. I never made really close attachments as a kid because we moved around so much. It made me easy with strangers, and comfortable in new places and situations, but I never felt any real connection with anyone but my parents. By the time we settled in Columbus, I'd set my goals and focused on reaching them step by careful step. Now, within a year, I've lost my parents, learned that my life wasn't what I thought it was. Suddenly I'm swimming in family I never knew I had. I don't know how I feel about them, or myself."
She looked up again, managed a small smile. "Wow. That was a lot, wasn't it?"
"It usually helps to sound the feelings out." Gently he tugged on her hair. "Seems to me if someone's good at going step by step, she'd be able to shift and keep doing just that in another direction. You only have to be alone when you want to be alone. It took me a long time to learn that." He kissed her, made her smile. "Shannon, me darling, relax and enjoy the ride."
Chapter Thirteen
In the morning she chose to paint in the garden, putting the final touches on the watercolor of Brianna. From the house came the buzz of activity as a family from County Mayo gathered themselves up to leave the inn for the next leg of their trip south.
She could smell the hot-cross buns Brianna had made for breakfast and the roses that had burst into bloom in their climb up the trellace.
Nibbling on her knuckle, Shannon stepped back to examine the completed canvas.
"Well, that's lovely." With Liam in tow, Maggie stepped across the lawn behind her. "Of course, she makes an easy subject, does Brianna." She bent down and kissed Liam on the nose. "Your aunt Brie has your buns, darling. Go get them."