Heart Of The Sea

CHAPTER Twenty

Most of it was a blur. Faces, voices, movement. He lost track of how many pints had been pushed into his hands, how many times his back had been slapped. He remembered being kissed, repeatedly.

Many had shed tears. He was mortally afraid one of them had been himself.

There'd been singing-he was pretty sure he'd done a solo. Dancing-he vaguely remembered rounding the floor with his chief electrician, a burly man with a tattoo. At one point, he thought, he'd made a speech.

Sometime during the chaos, Darcy had pulled him into the kitchen, poured some soup into him. Or stuck his head in the bowl, he wasn't quite sure which.

But he recalled trying to wrestle her to the floor, which wouldn't have been such a bad idea if Shawn hadn't been in the room at the time. And if he hadn't lost the bout to a woman he outweighed by a good fifty pounds.

Jesus Christ. He'd been stinking drunk.

It wasn't that he'd never been drunk before. He'd gone to college, for God's sake. He knew how to get drunk and party if he wanted to. The thing was, this one had snuck up on him, and he didn't enjoy being quite so hazy on the details of his behavior.

There was, however, one little item that came through clear. Waterford-crystal clear.

Darcy guiding him up to bed, him stumbling, and yes, still singing, an embarrassingly schmaltzy rendition of "Rose of Tralee." During which he stopped long enough to inform Darcy that his mother's aunt's cousin's daughter had been the Chicago Rose in 1980-something.

Once he was prone, he made a suggestion that was so uncharacteristically lewd, he imagined another woman would have kicked him back down the stairs. But Darcy had only laughed and remarked that men in his condition weren't nearly as good at it as they thought they were, and he should go on to sleep.

He'd obliged her, and saved himself what would have been certain humiliation, by passing out.

But he was awake now, in the full dark, with approximately half the sand of Ardmore Bay in his mouth and the full cast of Riverdance step-toeing inside his head.

He lay there, hoping for oblivion.

When his wish wasn't granted, he imagined the pleasure of sawing off his head and setting it aside to cure while the rest of him got some sleep. But to do that he'd need to find a damn saw, wouldn't he?

Deciding a bucket of aspirin was probably wiser, he eased himself up. Every inch was a punishment, but he managed to bite back a groan and keep at it until he could sit on the side of the bed.

Through bleary eyes, he stared at the glowing dial of the bedside clock. Three forty-five. Well, it just got better and better. Gingerly, he turned his head and saw that Darcy slept on, peaceful and perfect.

Bitter resentment mixed with the sand in his mouth. How could the woman just sleep when a man was dying beside her? Had she no sensibility, no compassion? No goddamn hangover?

He had to fight the urge to give her one rude shove so misery could have company.

He gained his feet, grinding his teeth when the room swam sickly. His stomach suited up, joined the other branches of his body in mutiny, and churned queasily.

Never again, he vowed. Never again would he drink himself drunk. He didn't care if he delivered triplets in a tornado. The thought of that made him want to smile, the wonder of holding that small, raging life in his hands. But all he could manage was a grimace as he hobbled toward the bathroom.

Without thinking, he switched the light on, then heard the high whine that was his own gasping scream. Blind, tortured, he slapped at the switch, came perilously close to whimpering when the blessed dark descended again.

He could only stand, his back braced against the wall, and try to get his breath back.

"Trevor?" Darcy's voice was low, her hand gentle as she laid it on his arm. "Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm just dandy, thanks. And you?" The words ground out of a throat currently lined with heavy-gauge sandpaper.

"Ah, poor darling. Well, if you didn't have a head after last night, you wouldn't be human. Come on, then, lie back down and let Darcy fix you up."

Perversely, now that she was awake and prepared to soothe, annoyance added to the ugly mix brewing inside him. "You and your horde of sadists fixed me up already."

"Oh, it was terrible. I'm so ashamed."

He'd have narrowed his eyes into a glare, but there was too much blood in them to risk it. "Are you laughing?"

"Of course I am." She tugged his arm, drawing him back into the bedroom. "But that's neither here nor there. Here we go now, that's the way, sit yourself down."

She was entirely too good at it, he thought. Just how many drunken men had she tucked back into bed the morning after? It was a vile thought, an unworthy thought, but even knowing that he couldn't stop it from taking root.

"Had a lot of practice at this?"

Something in his tone slapped, but she shrugged it off because he was suffering. "You can't run a pub and not have the occasional experience with someone who's overindulged. You need a bit of the cure, is all."

"If you think you're going to get more whiskey into me, you're crazy."

"No, no, I've something better than hair of the dog. Just rest yourself." She fluffed pillows behind him, gentle and efficient as a nurse. "It'll take me a minute. I should have made some up last night, but with all the excitement I didn't think of it."

"I just want a goddamn aspirin." Preferably one the size of Pluto.

"I know." She touched her lips to his throbbing head. "I'll be right back."

What game was this? he wondered. Why was she being so nice, so sweet? He'd awakened her at four in the morning and snarled at her. Why wasn't she snarling back? Why wasn't she suffering any effects of last night's celebration?

Suspicious, he forced himself to get up again, and with his jaw clenched, managed to tug on jeans. He found her in the kitchen, and once his abused eyes adjusted to the laser beam of light, saw she was mixing ingredients in a jar.

"You stayed sober."

She stopped what she was doing, glanced back at him. Oh, the man looked as raw and rough as they came, and still managed to be handsome. "I did, yes."

"Why?"

"It was clear even before we got to the pub that you were going to be drunk enough for both of us. And you were entitled. Darling, why don't you sit down? There's no need to pay the piper any more than his due. Your head must be big as the moon this morning."

"I don't make a habit of getting drunk." He said it with some dignity, but because he felt decidedly queasy, he retreated to the living room to sit on the arm of a chair.

"I'm sure you don't." Which was why, she supposed, he wasn't just feeling sick this morning, but insulted as well. It was adorable. "But it was a night for exceptions, and you were having such a grand time, too. It was surely the best party we've had around here since Shawn and Brenna's wedding, and that went on all day and half the night."

She came out, her robe flowing around her legs, carrying some dark and suspicious-looking liquid in a glass. "We had so much to celebrate, after all. Jude and the baby, then the theater."

"What about the theater?"

"The naming of it. Oh, that likely washed away in the beer, didn't it? You announced the naming of the theater. Duachais. I was never so pleased, Trevor. And those in the pub, which by the time we closed was everyone and their brother, were just as delighted. It's a fine name, the right name. And it means something to all of us here."

It annoyed him that he couldn't get a handle on the moment, that he'd announced it when he hadn't been in control. Where was the dignity in that? "You thought of it."

"I told you the word. You put it in the right place. Here, now, wash the aspirin down with this, and you'll be right as rain in no time."

"What is it?"

"Gallagher's Fix, a little potion passed down in my family. Come on, now, there's a good lad."

He scowled at her, plucked the aspirin out of her outstretched hand, then the glass. She looked gorgeous, rested, perfect, with her hair loose and glossy, her eyes clear and amused, her lips slightly curved, in what might have been sympathy. He wanted, desperately, to lay his aching head on her lovely breasts and die quietly.

"I don't like it."

"Oh, now, it's not such a bad taste all in all."

"No." With nothing else available, he drank, glared. "I don't like the whole deal."

This need, he thought as she patiently waited for him to drink the rest. It was too big, too sharp. Even now, when he felt as vile as a man could and still live, he was all but eaten up with need for her. It was humiliating.

"Thanks." He shoved the glass back at her.

"You're very welcome." A little twist of temper snaked through her, but she cut it off, reminding herself he deserved a bit of patience and pampering.

He'd brought her niece into the world, and for that she would owe him for a lifetime. He'd named his theater from a word she'd given him. That was an honor she wouldn't slight by snapping at him when he was laid low.

So she sucked it in and prepared to spoil him a bit.

"I'll tell you what you need now, and that's a good hot breakfast to set you right. And your coffee. So I'll be your loving mother and see to it for you."

She started back toward the kitchen, stopped, shook her head. "For heaven's sake, where's my mind? Speaking of mothers, yours called to the pub last night."

"What? My mother?"

"It was when you were outside, serenading the Duffys on their way home. Shawn spoke with her, and she said just to give you a message."

He'd gotten to his feet. "Nothing's wrong?"

"No, not at all. Shawn said she sounded very pleased and happy and added a congratulations for Ailish. In any case, she said to tell you yes, of course it's supposed to, and that she couldn't be more delighted. She asked that you call her back today so you can tell her all about it."

"Supposed to what? All about what?"

"I couldn't say." She moved back into the kitchen, her voice carrying through the opening.

"I don't know what she's-" He broke off, staggered, and braced himself with a hand to the back of a chair.

I'm in love with her. Is it supposed to make me feel like an idiot?

But he hadn't sent that post. He'd been about to delete that part when the power had gone out, the laptop had died. He had never hit Send. It wasn't possible for her to have gotten a message he'd never sent.

Then he rubbed his hands over his face. Hadn't he already learned the impossible was almost the ordinary here?

Now what? His mother was delighted that he felt like an idiot. That was good, he decided, pacing restlessly now, because he was feeling more like one every minute.

The woman in the next room was making him weak and senseless and stupid. And part of him was thrilled knowing he could be weakly and senselessly and stupidly in love. That worried him.

He stopped to stare at the painting of the mermaid and felt his temper strain. And who was he in love with? Who the hell was she really? How much of her was the siren depicted here, and how much the affectionate woman fixing breakfast? Maybe it was all a spell, some sort of self-serving magic woven over him that had taken his own emotions out of his control to satisfy someone else's-something else's needs.

Maybe she knew it.

Duachais. The lore of a place, he thought grimly. Darcy knew the lore of this place. Gwen had been offered jewels, from the sun and moon and sea. And had refused them. What had Darcy said when he'd asked her if she would trade her pride for jewels?

That she'd find a way to keep both.

He'd lay odds on it.

She had kept this painting, hadn't she? Kept it, hung it on her wall long after she'd shown the artist the door.

"I've no breakfast meats up here," Darcy said as she came out. "So I'll have to go down and pilfer from Shawn. Would you like bacon or sausage, or have you room for both?"

"Did you sleep with him?" It was out, stinging the air, before he could stop it.

"What?"

"The artist, the one who painted this." Trevor turned, faced his own senseless outrage. "Did you sleep with him?"

She took a moment to try to think over the wild beat of blood in her head. "You're trying my patience, Trevor, and I'm not known for it to begin with. So I'll only say that's none of your concern."

Of course it wasn't. "The hell it isn't. Was he in love with you? Did you enjoy that, being that fantasy for him, before you sent him on his way?"

She wouldn't let it hurt. It wouldn't be permitted. So she concentrated on the bright fury in Trevor's eyes and let her own rise to meet it. "That's a fine opinion you have of me, and not so far from the mark. I've had men, and make no excuses for it. I've taken what suited me, and so what?"

He jabbed his hands into his pockets. "And what suits you, Darcy?"

"You did, for a time. But we seem to be at the end of that. Take yourself off, Trevor, before each of us says something that makes it impossible for us to deal with one another again."

"Deal?" She was a cool one, wasn't she? Cool and composed while he wanted to rage. "There's always the deal, isn't there? Contracts and payments and benefits. You keep your eyes on the prize."

She went white, her eyes a blazing blue in contrast. "Get out. Get out of my house. I don't take a man to my bed who looks at me and sees a whore."

Her words slapped him back, to sense and to shame. "I never meant that. I never thought that."

"Didn't you? Get out, you bastard." She began to shake. "And before you go I'll tell you this: Jude painted that for me, for my birthday."

She whirled around, strode into the bedroom.

"Darcy, wait!" He managed to block the door before it slammed in his face. "I'm sorry. Listen-" That was as far as he got before whatever she threw shattered against the door an inch from his face. "Jesus!"

"I said get out of my house."

She wasn't pale now. She was flushed with rage and already grabbing for a pretty china trinket box. He had an instant to decide-advance or retreat. An instant too long, as the box bounced smartly off his shoulder before he could reach her.

"I'm sorry," he said again, gripping her arms before she could select the next missile. "I was out of line, completely wrong. No excuse. Please, listen to me."

"Let go of me, Trevor."

"Throw anything you want. But then listen to me. Please."

She was vibrating like a bow sharply plucked. "Why should I?"

"No reason. Listen anyway."

"All right, but let me go, and step back. I don't want you touching me now."

His hands flexed on her arms, a jerk of reaction. Then he nodded, released her. He'd deserved that, he told himself. That and worse. Because he was afraid she intended to give him worse, to turn him out of her life, he was prepared to beg.

"I've never been jealous before. Believe me, I don't like it any more than you do. It's contemptible."

"You've had women before me. Do I throw them in your face and cheapen you that way?"

"No." He'd cut deep, he realized, and they were both bleeding. "I had no right, and no reason. I wasn't thinking about the painting, really. My feelings for you are out of control. So I'm out of control." Her eyes, shocked, stared back at his when he stroked her hair. "They make me stupid."

Her heart began to thud. "I've thought of no man but you since we met. Is that enough for you?"

"It should be." He dropped his hand. "But it's not." He paced away, back, away. Plans and schedules were out of the picture now, he decided. It was time to act. "I need something more than that from you, and I'm willing to give you whatever you want."

The rapid beating of her heart skipped in a quick stab of pain. "What do you mean?"

"I want, let's say, exclusive rights. For that, for you," he added, turning back to her. "You can name it. I've got an apartment in New York. If it doesn't suit you, we'll find another. Personally, and through the company, I have several homes in a number of countries. If you like, I can buy property here, build a house to your specifications. Whatever traveling's required between us, I assume you'd want a base here."

"I see." Her voice was quiet, her eyes lowered. "That's considerate of you. And would I also have access to bank accounts, credit cards, that sort of thing?" His hands went back in his pockets, balled into fists. "Of course."

"And for all this." She traced a finger over the bracelet she'd worn since he'd first clasped it on her wrist. That she'd loved first for its beauty, and then simply because he'd given it to her. "I would, in turn, keep myself only for you."

"That's one way of putting it. But I-" He never saw it coming. The little Belleek vase smacked dead between his eyes. Through the stars wheeling in front of him, he saw her face. Pale again, rigid with outrage.

"You low-lying son-of-a-toad! What's the difference between a whore and a mistress but the type of payment?"

"Mistress?" With shock, he touched his forehead, stared at the blood on his fingers. Then he was dodging crockery. "Who said-cut it out!"

"You miserable worm. You badger!" She sent all the pretty things she'd collected over the years crashing. "I wouldn't have you on the silver platter you were born on. So take all your fancy houses and your bank drafts and your credit line and stuff them. Choke on them!"

Tears spoiled her aim, but the ricochets and flying debris were awesome. Trevor blocked the lamp she'd yanked out of the wall, stepped on glass, swore. "I don't want a mistress."

"Go to hell." It was the best she had left, and knowing it, she snatched up a small carved box and ran out with it.

"For God's sake." He had to sit down on the bed to pick the glass out of his feet. He had the hideous notion she might be getting a knife or some other sharp implement, then his head snapped up when he heard the door slam.

"Darcy! Damn it." Leaping up, leaving blood smeared on the floor, he rushed after her.

He supposed he could have handled it all with less finesse. If he'd been a gibbering ape. He streaked down the stairs, swore again when he heard the boom of the pub door crashing shut. For Christ's sake, here they were, neither of them dressed, and where does she take the crisis but outside? A sensible man would run in the opposite direction.

Trevor bolted through the kitchen after her.

She let the box fly as she ran, and closed her fist tight on the stone she'd kept inside it. Wishes be damned, she thought in fury. Love be damned. Trevor be damned. She was throwing it and all it meant into the sea.

She'd have no part of it now, no part of hopes and dreams and promises. If loving meant burying everything she was for a man who had such contempt for her, she would have no part of that either.

Hair flying, she raced along the seawall under a sky softening toward dawn. She didn't hear her own sobbing over the pulse and pump of the sea, nor Trevor's call and the sudden, frantic plea in it.

She stumbled onto the beach, would have fallen if he hadn't caught her.

"Darcy, wait. Don't." His arms shook as they wrapped around her. He'd thought she'd meant to plunge into the water.

She turned on him like a wildcat, kicking, scratching, biting. In shock as much as defense, he pulled her down to the sand where he could lie on top of her and hold her still.

A hangover, he discovered, was nothing compared to the pain inflicted by Darcy Gallagher in a temper. "Easy." He panted it out. "Just take it easy."

"I'll kill you, first chance."

"I believe it." He looked down at her. Her face was streaked with tears, and they continued to fall though her eyes were burning with fury. Here, he thought, was the first time he'd seen her weep for herself. And he'd caused it.

"I deserve it for fumbling this so badly. Darcy, I wasn't asking you to be my mistress-which is a ridiculous term and completely unsuitable when applied to you. I was trying to ask you to marry me."

He knocked the breath out of her as surely as if he'd rammed his elbow into her belly. "What?"

"I was asking you to marry me."

"Marry, as in husband and wife, rings on our fingers, till death do us part?"

"That's the one." He risked a smile. "Darcy, I-"

"Will you get off me? You're hurting me."

"Sorry." He rolled aside, helped her up. "If I could just start over."

"Oh, no, let's pick up where you left off. When you were offering me houses and bank accounts. That's how you chose to propose to the likes of me?"

Her voice was like sugar, with each crystal honed like a razor. "Ah-"

"You think I'd marry you for what you have, for what you can give me?" She shoved him back two full steps. "You think you can buy me like one of your companies?"

"But you've said-"

"I don't care what I've said. Any moron would see it was just talk if they took the time to listen, to look. I'll tell you what you can do with your fine houses and your big accounts, Magee. You can burn them to the ground for all I care. I'll buy the fucking torch and light it."

"You made it clear-"

"I made nothing clear, as nothing was clear to me. But now I will. I'd have taken you with nothing. Now I'll take you not at all."

She turned, flung back her arm. It was blind instinct that made him grab her, pry her fingers open. "What is this?"

"It's mine, given to me by Carrick. Sapphire." She jerked away from him as her voice began to hitch again. "The heart of the sea. I could wish on it, he told me. One wish only, for my heart's desire. But I didn't use it and never will. Do you know why?"

"No. Don't cry any more. I can't stand it."

"Do you know why?" Her voice rose, thick with tears.

"No. I don't know why."

"I wanted you to love me without it. That was my wish, so how could I use it and have it come true?"

Magic, he thought. He'd worried about magic, and she'd held it in her hand. He'd offered her things, and she'd wanted him. Enough to have thrown the fortune he'd let himself believe she desired most back into the heart of the sea.

"I did love you without it. I do." He took her hand again, closed her fingers over the stone. "Don't throw it away. Don't throw us away because I've been stupid. I swear to you I've never handled anything as badly as I've handled this. Let me fix it."

"I'm tired." She closed her eyes and turned to face the sea. "I'm just so tired."

"A long time ago-it seems like a long time-when I told you I couldn't fall in love, I meant it. I believed it. There was no one- There was never any magic with anyone else."

She stared down at the gem in her hand. "I didn't use it."

"You didn't have to. You just had to be. I haven't been the same since I met you. I tried to compensate for that. Stay in control, stay focused. I didn't come here looking for you, Darcy, looking for this. That's what I told myself. I was wrong, and I knew it. Somehow I've always been looking for you, always been looking for this."

"Do you think I'm so hard, so small of heart that I can't love where there isn't gain?"

"I think there are countless parts to you. Every time I see a new one, I'm more in love with you. I wanted you to belong to me, and it was easier to believe I could hold on to you by offering you things."

Through the weariness was just enough shame to make her honest. "That's what I wanted once. Before you."

"Whatever either of us wanted once doesn't count now."

No, nothing had to count but this. If they wished it. So she turned to him. "Do you mean it?"

"I mean it."

"Then so will I."

"More than anything, right now, I want you to look at me and tell me you love me."

She shivered in the wind, crossed her arms over her breasts, gazed out to sea. It was the moment, she thought, when her life changed, when dreams trembled, when spells were cast and broken.

"Damn it, Darcy." His impatient voice shattered her romantic images. "Do you want me to crawl?"

She looked at him then, the beginnings of amusement lighting eyes still damp from tears. "Yes."

He opened his mouth, was on the verge of dropping literally and metaphorically to his knees. And that, he decided, would just put the cap on everything else he'd suffered that morning. "No. Damned if I will."

Her heart simply soared. After one wild laugh, she threw herself into his arms. "There, now. There's the arrogant bastard I love." She pressed her lips to his, warm and welcoming. "There's my heart's desire."

"Say it once," he murmured against her mouth. "Without swearing at me."

"I love you, just exactly as you are." She drew back, made a sympathetic sound. "Oh, no, look at that, you're bleeding."

"Tell me about it."

"Well, I'll bandage you up in a bit of a while, but I want you to ask me again, and ask me proper. Here, between the moon and the sun and the sea, before the light breaks through to morning. There's magic here, Trevor, and I want our slice of it."

He felt it, as she did, the trembling edge of power just held in check. He had no ring to give her, no symbol to seal the moment. Then he remembered the silver disk and slipped the chain over his head, over hers.

She remembered the words that had come as in a dream. Forever love.

"A charm," he said. "A promise. Marry me, Darcy. Make a life with me. Make a home and children with me."

"I will, and gladly. Here." She pressed the stone into his hand. "A charm. And a promise."

"You humble me."

"No, never that." She brushed her fingers over his cheek. "I'd take you, Trevor, prince or pauper. But, loving me, you'll understand I'm pleased you're more in line with the prince."

"You're perfect for me."

"I am, indeed." She sighed, laid her head on his shoulder when he drew her close. "Do you hear it?" she murmured. "Over the beat of the sea."

"Yeah, I hear it."

Music, full of joy and celebration, the lilt of pipes, the herald of trumpets.

"Look, Darcy." He touched her hair. "Over the water."

She turned her head, stayed in the circle of his arms and watched. As the sun broke through in the east, shimmered its light over the sea, turning the sky to the polished glow of seashells, the white horse flew with a flash of wing.

On his back rode Carrick, his silver doublet aglint, his dark hair swirling. In his arms, her head on his heart, rode his lady, her eyes of misty green bright with love.

Up they rose, a triumphant sweep of motion, over green hills shimmering with dew. And in their wake left a rainbow that glimmered like jewels.

"They're together at last," Darcy whispered. "And happily now, ever after. The spell's broken."

"That one is. This one-" He turned her face back to his. "It's just getting started. Can you handle ever after, Darcy?"

"That I can, Trevor Magee." She kissed him, sealed the vow. "I can handle it, and you."

While the sun strengthened, they walked away from the sea. The music drifted into the hush of dawn, under a rainbow that arched from beginnings to ever afters.