"Are you lost, then?"
Startled, she lifted a hand, closed it tight over her pendant. There was a young man hardly more than a boy, really, she noted standing beside a small white boat. He wore a cap over his straw-colored hair and watched her out of laughing green eyes.
"No, not lost, late. I was supposed to be on the ferry." She gestured, then let her arms fall. "I lost track of time."
"Well, time's not such a matter in the scheme of things."
"It is to my sister. I work for her." Quickly now, she headed down toward him where the sea lapped the shore. "Is this your boat, or your father's?"
"Aye, it happens it's mine."
It was small, but to her inexperienced eye looked cheerful. She had to hope that made it seaworthy. "Could you take me over? I need to catch up. I'll pay whatever you need."
It was just that sort of statement, Allena thought the minute the words left her mouth, that would make Margaret cringe. But then bargaining wasn't a priority at the moment. Survival was.
"I'll take you where you need to be." His eyes sparkled as he held out a hand. "For ten pounds."
"Today everything's ten pounds." She reached for her purse, but he shook his head.
"It was your hand I was reaching for, lady, not payment. Payment comes when you get where you're going."
"Oh, thanks." She put her hand in his and let him help her into the boat.
She sat starboard on a little bench while he cast off. Closing her eyes with relief, she listened to the boy whistle as he went about settling to stern and starting the motor. "I'm very grateful," she began. "My sister's going to be furious with me. I don't know what I was thinking of."
He turned the boat, a slow and smooth motion. "And couldn't she have waited just a bit?"
"Margaret?" The thought made Allena smile. "It wouldn't have occurred to her."
The bow lifted, and the little boat picked up speed. "It would have occurred to you,'' he said, and then they were skimming over the water.
Thrilled, she turned her face to the wind. Oh, this was better, much better, than any tame ferry ride, lecture included. It was almost worth the price she would pay at the end, and she didn't mean the pounds.
"Do you fish?" she called out to him.
"When they're biting."
"It must be wonderful to do what you want, when you want. And to live so near the water. Do you love it?"
"I've a fondness for it, yes. Men put restrictions on men. That's an odd thing to my way of thinking."
"I have a terrible time with restrictions. I can never remember them." The boat leaped, bounced hard and made her laugh. "At this rate, we'll beat the ferry."
The idea of that, the image of her standing on shore and giving Margaret a smug look when the ferry docked, entertained Allena so much she didn't give a thought to the shiver of lightning overhead or the sudden, ominous roar of the sea.
When the rain began to pelt her, she looked around again, shocked that she could see nothing but water, the rise and fall of it, the curtain that closed off light.
"Oh, she won't like this a bit. Are we nearly there?"
"Nearly, aye, nearly." His voice was a kind of crooning that smoothed nerves before they could fray. "Do you see there, through the storm? There, just ahead, is where you need to be."
She turned. Through the rain and wind, she saw the darker shadow of land, a rise of hills, the dip of valley in shapes only. But she knew, she already knew.
"It's beautiful," she murmured.
Like smoke, it drifted closer. She could see the crash of surf now and the cliffs that hulked high above. Then in the flash of lightning, she thought, just for an instant, she saw a man.
Before she could speak, the boat was rocking in the surf, and the boy leaping out into the thrashing water to pull them to shore.
"I can't thank you enough, really." Drenched, euphoric, she climbed out onto the wet sand. "You'll wait for the storm to pass, won't you?" she asked as she dug for her wallet.
"I'll wait until it's time to go. You'll find your way, lady. Through the rain. The path's there."
"Thanks." She passed the note into his hand. She'd go to the visitors' center, take shelter, find Margaret and do penance. "If you come up with me, I'll buy you some tea. You can dry off."
"Oh, I'm used to the wet. Someone's waiting for you," he said, then climbed back into his boat.
"Yes, of course." She started to run, then stopped. She hadn't even asked his name. "I'm sorry, but_" When she rushed back, there was nothing there but the crash of water against the shore.
Alarmed that he'd sailed back into that rising storm, she called out, began to hurry along what she could see of the shore to try to find him. Lightning flashed overhead, more vicious than exciting now, and the wind slapped at her like a furious hand.
Hunching against it, she jogged up the rise, onto a path. She'd get to shelter, tell someone about the boy. What had she been thinking of, not insisting that he come with her and wait until the weather cleared?
She stumbled, fell, jarring her bones with the impact, panting to catch her breath as the world went suddenly mad around her. Everything was howling wind, blasting lights, booming thunder. She struggled to her feet and pushed on.
It wasn't fear she felt, and that baffled her. She should be terrified. Why instead was she exhilarated? Where did this wicked thrill of anticipation, of knowledge, come from?
She had to keep going. There was something, someone, waiting. If she could just keep going.
The way was steep, the rain blinding. Somewhere along the way she lost her bag, but didn't notice.
In the next flash of light, she saw it. The circle of stones, rising out of the rough ground like dancers trapped in time. In her head, or perhaps her heart, she heard the song buried inside them.
With something like joy, she rushed forward, her hand around the pendant.
The song rose, like a crescendo, filling her, washing over her like a wave.
And as she reached the circle, took her first step inside, lightning struck the center, the bolt as clear and well defined as a flaming arrow. She watched the blue fire rise in a tower, higher, higher still, until it seemed to pierce the low-hanging clouds. She felt the iced heat of it on her skin, in her bones.
The power of it hammered her heart.
And she fainted.
Chapter 2
The storm made him restless. Part of the tempest seemed to be inside him, churning, crashing, waiting to strike out. He couldn't work. His concentration was fractured. He had no desire to read, to putter, to simply be. And all of those things were why he had come back to the island.
Or so he told himself.
His family had held the land, worked it, guarded it, for generations. The O'Neils of Dolman had planted their seed here, spilled their blood and the blood of their enemies for as far back as time was marked. And further still, back into the murky time that was told only in songs.
Leaving here, going to Dublin to study, and to work, had been Conal's rebellion, his escape from what others so blithely accepted as his fate. He would not, as he'd told his father, be the passive pawn in the chess game of his own destiny.
He would make his destiny.
And yet, here he was, in the cottage where the O'Neils had lived and died, where his own father had passed the last day of his life only months before.
Telling himself it had been his choice didn't seem quite so certain on a day where the wind lashed and screamed and the same violence of nature seemed to thrash inside him.
The dog, Hugh, which had been his father's companion for the last year of his life, paced from window to window, ears pricked up and a low sound rumbling in his throat, more whimper than growl.
Whatever was brewing, the dog sensed it as well, so that his big gray bulk streamed through the cottage like blown smoke. Conal gave a soft command in
Gaelic, and Hugh came over, bumping his big head under Conal's big hand.
There they stood, wa
tching the storm together, the large gray dog and the tall, broad-shouldered man, each with a wary expression. Conal felt the dog shudder. Nerves or anticipation? Something, all Conal could think, was out there in the storm.
Waiting.
"The hell with it. Let's see what it is."
Even as he spoke, the dog leaped toward the door, prancing with impatience as Conal tugged a long black slicker off the peg. He swirled it on over rough boots and rougher jeans and a black sweater that had seen too many washings.
When he opened the door, the dog shot out, straight into the jaws of the gale. "Hugh! Cuir uait!"
And though the dog did stop, skidding in the wet, he didn't bound back to
Conal's side. Instead he stood, ears still pricked, despite the pounding rain, as if to say hurry!
Cursing under his breath, Conal picked up his own pace, and let the dog take the lead.
His black hair, nearly shoulder-length and heavy now with rain, streamed back in the wind from a sharply-honed face. He had the high, long cheekbones of the Celts, a narrow, almost aristocratic nose, and a well-defined mouth that could look, as it did now, hard as granite. His eyes were a deep and passionate blue.
His mother had said they were eyes that saw too much, and still looked for more.
Now they peered through the rain, and down, as Hugh climbed, at the turbulent toss of the sea. With the storm, the day was almost black as night, and he cursed again at his own foolishness in being out in it.
He lost sight of Hugh around a turn on the cliff path. More irritated than alarmed, he called the dog again, but all that answered was the low-throated, urgent bark. Perfect, was all Conal could think. Now the both of us will likely slip off the edge and bash our brains on the rocks.
He almost turned away, at that point very nearly retreated, for the dog was surefooted and knew his way home. But he wanted to go on too much wanted to go on. As if something was tugging him forward, luring him on, higher and higher still, to where the shadow of the stone dance stood, singing through the wind.
Because part of him believed it, part of him he had never been able to fully quiet, he deliberately turned away. He would go home, build up the fire, and have a glass of whiskey in front of it until the storm blew itself out.