HauntingBeauty
Chapter Eighteen
“HAVE they left you, Danni?” a male voice asked, pulling Danni from the vision and back into the MacGrath kitchen. She gave a yelp of surprise, releasing the stainless steel pot in her slippery hands. It splashed into the sink.
The sink. The dishwater in it was still hot, the suds still fluffy. The pot she’d carried into the vision bobbed, sloshing water over the side.
Disoriented, she spun to find Cathán MacGrath standing at the doorway, staring at her with a humorous expression. But in her mind, she could still hear the echo of Edel’s screams, still see her blackened eyes and the fear on Fia’s face.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Cathán was saying, tilting his head curiously.
“I guess I was daydreaming,” Danni managed, but her mouth was dry, her throat tight. She blotted the puddled water from the counter and dried her hands on a towel. “I’m not usually so jumpy.”
“Ah well, new place and all that. Do you need to sit down? You look a bit pale.”
“No, I’m fine. Thank you though.”
Cathán smiled again, moving to lean against the counter beside her. His eyes sparkled and there was open friendliness on his handsome face, but there was also something shadowed in it—as if he was presenting a front. She thought of her mother and the hollow ring there’d been to the happy story she’d told of their meeting.
“Can I help you with something?” she asked.
He shook his head, still watching her. “Where are the others?”
“Bronagh went to the market. I think Brenda and Maureen are polishing silver in the dining room.”
His smile took on a devilish quality, and for a moment she thought she must have mistaken that desolation she’d seen lurking in his eyes. He straightened and crossed to the refrigerator. “I’m a lucky shite,” he said, sticking his head inside and rummaging. “I missed lunch, but I’d rather starve to death than battle it out with Bronagh for a snack.”
Danni stared at his bent back with surprise. Her dad was afraid of the cook? She’d never have guessed it.
“I think I saw some lamb chops in the back,” she said.
“Yes!” With a triumphant grin he pulled the container out. “You are an angel, Danni.”
“I didn’t cook them,” she began awkwardly, but he was smiling and shaking his head as he took a bite.
“Doesn’t matter. You guided me to them. Shout a warning if you see Hitler coming though.”
She nodded, gazing at her father, wanting to drink in the sight of his features. This was her dad, a man she’d longed to meet her entire life. And now here he was, striking up a casual conversation with her. Somehow the scenario was nearly as hard to believe as traveling through time.
She forced herself to go back to washing the dishes while he ate. She felt a mess. She was tired, dirty, and probably as ripe as her father had been after his match of hurling, whatever that was. Her ponytail hung loose and lank down her back and her skin felt coated with flour and oils, perspiration and cooking smells. She wanted a shower. A long one.
“You look so familiar, Danni,” he said, making her glance over her shoulder at him. “Is there a chance we’ve met before?”
A small laugh escaped her, reminding her of her mom’s habit of tittering when nervous. “I doubt it, but I’ve heard that I look familiar more than once today,” she said, keeping a smile in place even though her heart was stuttering in her chest. “The general consensus is that I must have ancestors from here.”
“That would be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it now?” At her frown, he went on. “Meeting a husband in America who is from the very place your people haled.”
Only unbelievable, she thought. She said, “Not so much. Everyone claims to have some Irish in them.”
“You do have a point.” He’d polished off the first lamb chop and started on a second. “You seem to have made good friends with my wife in a short time.”
His tone was still casual, barely curious. But her nerves had been stretched too far in the past twenty-four hours. She felt defensive as she said, “She’s very nice.”
“That she is. Too nice, I fear. People take advantage of her.”
Danni looked up to see if he’d meant that to be a warning of some kind. Did he think Danni was going to take advantage of her? But he was focused on his food and didn’t even glance at her. Deciding she was being paranoid, Danni began drying the pots and pans and putting them away.
“I guess I was wondering if you’d known each other before you came here,” Cathán went on. “She’s usually much more reserved with people when she first meets them.”
“Oh,” Danni said, suddenly wondering if her mother had sensed a kinship with Danni on some subconscious level. She felt pleased by the idea of it, no matter how far-fetched it was. “No, we’ve never met before.”
“Of course not . . .” He paused, seemed to consider his next words carefully; the dark look was back in his eyes and Danni could see it was worry by the pull of his brow and the line of his mouth. “This is going to sound a strange thing for me to be asking you under the circumstances, but . . . does she seem . . . all right to you?”
“I’m sorry?”
He shrugged and a flush turned his fair skin red. “I’m not in the habit of grilling the servants about my wife’s well-being, I swear it. It’s just, she . . .” He cursed under his breath. “She was laughing and smiling with you. It’s been forever since I’ve seen her laugh and . . . she’s been so miserable and I don’t know why. I’m at my wits’ end over what to do about it.”
Danni watched him, moved by the distress she saw in his eyes. He must feel desperate to be asking Danni, a kitchen helper he hardly knew.
“She seemed fine to me, Mr. MacGrath,” Danni murmured. “More than fine.”
“Happy?” he asked hopefully.
Danni’s hesitation answered for her. He exhaled and wiped his hands on a paper towel he jerked from the roll. Finished, he looked up, and the pain she’d seen was once more hidden behind a calm mask.
“How long have you been married to Ballagh?” he asked suddenly, catching her off guard yet again.
“Not long.”
“A week? A month? A year?”
“A few weeks.”
“Was it love at first sight?”
“Something like that.”
“Ah,” he said in a knowing tone.
“Ah, what?”
“That was just a telling answer,” he said. “Something like love at first sight isn’t exactly one and the same with the real thing. Is it? Did you have to get married?”
Danni frowned at him. “Have to . . . ? No, of course not.”
He held his hands up at her sharp tone. “No offense intended. I’m sorry—I have no tact. Fia is always scolding me for it. I think the circuitry from my brain to my mouth was damaged during birth. It’s always the wrong thing I’m saying.”
“Don’t worry about it,” she mumbled.
“But now you’re irritated with me, and we were getting on so well.”
She glanced at the door leading to the dining room, wondering when the other girls would come back in. But the door remained closed. The kitchen isolated.
“You seem a bit anxious,” he noted. “Am I making you nervous?”
She managed to stop that annoying titter of laughter that wanted to erupt before it reached her lips. But suddenly he was making her nervous. She hoped he’d stop with the questions.
He finished his lamb chops, put the leftovers back in the refrigerator, and washed his hands. She dried and put away the last of the pans and turned to find him standing just behind her, boxing her into the corner. For a moment he stared at her, his blue eyes probing. Then he pointed at the necklace Sean had given her last night.
“That’s beautiful,” he said. “It looks very old.”
Her fingers came up to smooth it against her throat. “Thank you.”
“Where did you get it?”
She wanted to sidestep, but unless he moved that would bring her closer to him. It wasn’t that he had her pinned, but she was uncomfortable. He’d stepped into her personal space and now seemed determined to stay there.
“Was it a gift?” he asked.
“Yes,” she answered and then pushed forward anyway, forcing him to move back.
“From your husband?”
She frowned at him. “Why do you want to know?”
His smile was guileless, his blue eyes wide. “I’m a collector of sorts. Amateur, of course, though I’m fascinated by the history.” At her blank look, he said, “Celtic spirals. The symbol on your necklace—do you know about them?”
She shook her head, relaxing a little. She wasn’t sure what had made her so uptight. Perhaps her own paranoia. Her own dislike of tight places. He was just being friendly, and she was acting like a woman who had something to hide. Surprise, surprise.
“No one really knows what they mean,” he went on. “Some think the symbols have to do with the constellations, others think they have to do with balance and harmony.” He pointed at the spiral pattern. “This one—the tri-spiral—is thought to be the spiral of life.”
Danni looked down at the intricate pattern with new curiosity.
“But see,” he went on, “that’s only one school of thought. There are others who say it represents the triple goddess. Three is a sacred number.”
“Which one do you think it is?”
Cathán touched the pendant with his finger and then quickly jerked it back. “I’m sorry, may I?” She gave a tight nod and watched as he lifted it from where it rested against her skin. “There is no way to prove one theory over the other. So much of our history was oral that we can only guess at it. The spirals are ancient so they could be the circle of life—life, death, and rebirth. It’s a mystical symbol though. Seems it should be something beyond life and death. To me anyway. It could also represent eternal truth.”
“Eternal truth? Interesting. How do you know so much about them?” she asked, looking up. He was standing very close again, and she tried to be calm about it. He seemed completely focused on the necklace and probably wasn’t even aware he was crowding her.
“I’m a bookworm as well as a history lover,” he said. Another flush crept up his face, and his smile had a shy quality that she found endearing. She had a sudden mental image of him as a boy, reading-under the covers long after bedtime. “I’m . . . what do you Ameri cans call it? A nerd.”
She laughed. Her father was anything but a nerd. Complex, yes. Confusing—one moment concerned about his wife’s emotional well-being and the next focused completely on a necklace a new servan-t wore—absolutely. But he was far from the horn-rimmed stereotypi cal nerd.
“It’s a personal obsession of mine, I guess,” he was saying. “Ever since I was a boy. I suppose it’s the mystery of it. These symbols are everywhere and yet no one has ever cracked the code. What do they mean? Why do some spiral clockwise and others counterclockwise—like this one. It’s significant, you know. Many believe the spirals that curl this way are connected to pagan spells. They were used to manipulate the natural order of things.”
“Spells? Like magic?”
He raised his brows and grinned. “Aye. You could be wearing a powerful charm around your lovely neck, Danni. Have a care what you do with it.”
He laughed and finally stepped away. Danni smiled back, but his words unsettled her. Sean had called it a charm as well, but she hadn’t though much of it—not in the way her dad meant it. A charm . . .
She’d been touching the necklace when the walls had thinned and the floor beneath their feet vanished. Coincidence? Wasn’t Danni and Sean being here proof that magic was at work?
There was a knock on the back door and it made her jump. Grateful for the distraction, she hurried to it and flung it open to find Sean on the other side. His very presence—tall and strong and . . . fascinating, if she was honest—took her breath away. If he’d really been her husband, the sight of him would have made her pulse race every day. He was little more than a stranger to her now and look what he did to her equilibrium.
Aware of her father’s watchful eyes, she gave Sean a tight smile and stood back so he could enter. “I was just finishing up,” she said, hurrying back to wipe the sink and fold the towel. Bronagh expected the kitchen to gleam at the end of the day, and Danni didn’t want to incur her displeasure.
“I’ll wait on the porch,” Sean said. “Don’t want to dirty your floor.” Then he noticed Cathán leaning so casually against the counter and frowned.
“Sean, this is Mr. MacGrath.” Danni said. To her father, “This is my h-husband, Sean.”
Cathán gave Sean a nod, but didn’t move closer. Didn’t offer to shake hands. In his eyes, there was something wary, guarded. A sense that he was missing the bigger picture and knew it.
“Danni tells me you’re second cousin to Niall,” Cathán said.
“That’s right,” Sean answered.
“Who is your father?”
Sean blinked, lifting his chin so he could look Cathán in the eye. “Why do you care who my father is?”
“I only wonder that I never heard of you.”
“Well, I’ve never heard of you either.”
This brought Cathán’s brows up in surprise. “Truly? Where did you grow up?”
“Killarney.”
“And what brings you to Ballyfionúir?”
“Work.”
“There’s none to be had in Killarney?”
“I’m sure there is. But my—Colleen—is getting old. She’s all the family I have left, so I wanted to be near.”
“What about Niall?”
“What about him?”
“He’s family, too, isn’t that right?”
Sean shrugged, taking Danni’s hand as she reached his side. His touch was warm, his grip big and encompassing. It steadied her—made her realize just how off-kilter she felt. Surprised, she shot him a grateful smile.
The exchange was not lost on her father. He continued to study them for a while longer and then said, as if conceding, “Well, there’s plenty of work here. At least for the time being.”
“I’m ready,” Danni said abruptly. “It was nice talking to you Mr. MacGrath.”
She took Sean’s arm and turned him away from the house. But before they’d taken a step, Cathán said softly, “You still haven’t told me who your father is, Sean Ballagh. Is it ashamed, you are?”
Sean stilled and faced him again. There could be no misinterpreting the intent of Cathán’s comment, though Danni couldn’t understand what compelled him to taunt Sean that way. Cathán meant to insult, and from the look on Sean’s face, he’d succeeded.
“Now why would you think that?” Sean asked tightly.
The slow smile that spread over Cathán’s face was cool. “Just a feeling,” he said lightly. “No offense intended, of course.
Sean’s answering smile was equally cold. “None taken . . . of course. You’re not the first MacGrath to be jealous of what a Ballagh has, are you now?”
Cathán’s face flooded with color, but before he could sputter out his denial, Sean had closed the door behind them.
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