too."
"I'm not blushing." She could feel the heat in her cheeks. "I'm impatient. I need to be off, Grayson." "How about this, I'll take you where you need to go."
Before she could speak, he lowered his mouth, brushed it lightly over hers. "I've missed you, Brianna."
"You can't have. I've been right here."
"I've missed you." He watched her lashes lower. Her shy, uncertain responses to him gave him an odd sense of power. All ego, he thought, amused at himself. "Where's your list?"
"My list?"
"You've always got one."
Her gaze shifted up again. Those misty-green eyes were aware, and just a little afraid. Gray felt the surge of heat spear up from the balls of his feet straight to the loins. His fingers tightened convulsively on her waist before he forced himself to step back, let out a breath.
"Taking it slow is killing me," he muttered.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Never mind. Get your list and whatever. I'll drive you."
"I don't have a list. I've only to go to my mother's and help her and Lottie pack for their trip. There's no need for you to take me."
"I could use the drive. How long will you be there?"
"Two hours, perhaps three."
"I'll drop you off, pick you up. I'm going out anyway," he continued before she could argue. "It'll save petrol."
"All right. If you're sure. I'll just be a minute."
While he waited, Gray stepped into the path of the front garden. In the month he'd been there, he'd seen gales, rain, and the luminous light of the Irish sun. He'd sat in village pubs and listened to gossip, traditional music. He'd wandered down lanes where farmers herded their cows from field to field, and had walked up the winding steps of ruined castles, hearing the echos of war and death. He'd visited grave sites and had stood on the verge of towering cliffs looking out on the rolling sea.
Of all the places he'd visited, none seemed quite so appealing as the view from Brianna's front garden. But he wasn't altogether certain if it was the spot or the woman he was waiting for. Either way, he decided, his time here would certainly be one of the most satisfying slices of his life.
After he dropped Brianna off at the tidy house outside Ennis, he went wandering. For more than an hour he clambered over rocks at the Burren, taking pictures in his head. The sheer vastness delighted him, as did the Druid's Altar that drew so many tourists with their clicking cameras.
He drove aimlessly, stopping where he chose-a small beach deserted but for a small boy and a huge dog, a field where goats cropped and the wind whispered through tall grass, a small village where a woman counted out his change for his candy bar purchase with curled, arthritic fingers, then offered him a smile as sweet as sunlight.
A ruined abbey with a round tower caught his eye and had him pulling off the road to take a closer look. The round towers of Ireland fascinated him, but he'd found them primarily on the east coast. To guard, he supposed, from the influx of invasions across the Irish Sea. This one was whole, undamaged, and set at a curious slant. Gray spent some time circling, studying, and wondering how he could use it.
There were graves there as well, some old, some new. He had always been intrigued by the way generations could mingle so comfortably in death when they rarely managed it in life. For himself, he would take the Viking way-a ship out to sea and a torch.
But for a man who dealt in death a great deal, he preferred not to linger his thoughts overmuch on his own mortality.
Nearly all of the graves he passed were decked with flowers. Many of them were covered with plastic boxes, misty with condensation, the blossoms within all no more than a smear of color. He wondered why it didn't amuse him. It should have. Instead he was touched, stirred by the devotion to the dead.
They had belonged once, he thought. Maybe that was the definition of family. Belong once, belong always. He'd never had that problem. Or that privilege. He wandered through, wondering when the husbands, the wives, the children came to lay the wreaths and flowers. On the day of death? The day of birth? The feast day of the saint the dead had been named for? Or Easter maybe. That was a big one for Catholics.
He'd ask Brianna, he decided. It was something he could definitely work into his book.
He couldn't have said why he stopped just at that moment, why he looked down at that particular marker. But he did, and he stood, alone, the breeze ruffling his hair, looking down at Thomas Michael Concannon's grave.
Brianna's father? he wondered and felt an odd clutch around his heart. The dates seemed right. O'Malley had told him stories of Tom Concannon when Gray had sipped at a Guinness at the pub. Stories ripe with affection, sentiment, and humor.
Gray knew he had died suddenly, at the cliffs at Loop Head, with only Maggie with him. But the flowers on the grave, Gray was certain, were Brianna's doing.
They'd been planted over him. Though the winter had been hard on them, Gray could see they'd been recently weeded. More than a few brave blades of green were spearing up, searching for the sun.
He'd never stood over a grave of someone he'd known. Though he often paid visits to the dead, there'd been no pilgrimage to the resting place of anyone he'd cared for. But he felt a tug now, one that made him crouch down and brush a hand lightly over the carefully tended mound.
And he wished he'd brought flowers.
"Tom Concannon," he murmured. "You're well remembered. They talk of you in the village, and smile when they say your name. I guess that's as fine an epitaph as anyone could ask for."
Oddly content, he sat beside Tom awhile and watched sunlight and shadows play on the stones the living planted to honor the dead.
He gave Brianna three hours. It was obviously more than enough as she came out of the house almost as soon as he pulled up in front of it. His smile of greeting turned to a look of speculation as he got a closer look.
Her face was pale, as he knew it became when she was upset or moved. Her eyes, though cool, showed traces of strain. He glanced toward the house, saw the curtain move. He caught a glimpse only, but Maeve's face was as pale as her daughter's, and appeared equally unhappy.
"All packed?" he said, keeping his tone mild.
"Yes." She slipped into the car, her hands tight around her purse-as if it was the only thing that kept her from leaping up. "Thank you for coming for me."
"A lot of people find packing a chore." Gray pulled the car out and for once kept his speed moderate.
"It can be." Normally, she enjoyed it. The anticipation of going somewhere, and more, the anticipation of returning home. "It's done now, and they'll be ready to leave in the morning."
God, she wanted to close her eyes, to escape from the pounding headache and miserable guilt into sleep.