Born in Shame

  It only took her a moment. " 'Scarborough Fair'." It meant Simon and Garfunkel to her, on the oldies station on the radio.

  "Do you sing, Shannon?"

  "As much as anyone who has a shower and a radio." Fascinated, she bent her head closer. "How do you know which buttons to push?"

  "First you have to know what song you've a mind to play. Here."

  "No, I-" But he had already slipped an arm around her and was drawing her hands under the straps beneath his.

  "You have to get the feel of it first." He guided her fingers to the buttons, pressed down gently as he opened the bellows. The chord that rang out was long and pure and made her laugh.

  "That's one."

  "If you can do one, you can do another." To prove it he pushed the bellows in and made a different note. "It just takes the wanting, and the practice."

  Experimentally she shifted some fingers around and winced at the clash of notes. "I think it might take some talent." Then she was laughing again as he played his fingers over hers and made the instrument come to life. "And quick hands. How can you see what you're playing?"

  With the laugh still in her eyes, she shook back her hair and turned her face to his. The jolt around her heart was as lively as the tune, and not nearly as pleasant.

  "It's a matter of feeling." Though her fingers had gone still, he moved his around them, changing the mood of the music yet again. Wistful and romantic. "What do you feel?"

  "Like I'm being played every bit as cleverly as this little box." Her eyes narrowed a bit as she studied him.

  Somehow their positions had shifted just enough to be considered an embrace. The hands, those hard-palmed, limber hands, were unquestionably possessive over hers. "You have some very smooth moves, Murphy."

  "It occurs to me you don't mean that as a compliment."

  "I don't. It's an observation." It was shocking to realize the pulse in her throat was hammering. His gaze lowered to her mouth, lingered so that she could feel the heat, and his intention as a tangible thing. "No," she said very quietly, very firmly.

  "As you please." His eyes came back to hers, and there was a subtle and simple power in them that challenged. "I'd rather kiss you the first time in a more private place myself. Where I could take my time about it."

  She thought he would-take his time, that is. He might not have been the slow man she'd originally perceived. But she had a feeling he was thorough. "I'd say that completes the lesson." Determined to find some distance, she tugged her hands from under his.

  "We'll have another, whenever you've a mind to." And indeed taking his time, he lifted his arm from around her, then set down the concertina to drink the last of his beer. "You've got music in you, Shannon. You just haven't let yourself play it yet."

  "I think I'll stick to the radio, thanks." More agitated than she cared to admit, she rose. "Excuse me." She went off in search of the rest room, and time to settle down.

  Murphy was smiling to himself when he set his empty glass down. His brow lifted when he caught Maggie's frowning stare.

  "What are you about, Murphy?" she demanded.

  "I'm about to have another beer-once Rogan gets back with it."

  "Don't play games with me, boy-o." She wasn't sure herself if it was temper or worry brewing in her, but neither was comforting. "I know you've an eye for the ladies, but I've never seen that look in them before."

  "Haven't you?"

  "Stop hounding him, Maggie." Gray kicked back in his chair. "Murphy's entitled to test the waters. She's a looker, isn't she?"

  "Close your mouth, Grayson. And no, you've no right to be testing these waters, Murphy Muldoon."

  He watched her, murmuring a thanks when Rogan set fresh drinks on the table. "You've an objection to me getting to know your sister, Maggie Mae?"

  Eyes bright and sharp, she leaned forward. "I've an objection to seeing you walking toward the end of a cliff that you'll surely fall off. She's not one of us, and she's not going to be interested in a west county farmer, no matter how pretty he is."

  Murphy said nothing for a moment, knowing Maggie would be simmering with impatience as he took out a cigarette, contemplated it, lighted it, drew in the first drag. "It's kind of you to worry about me, Maggie. But it's my cliff, and my fall."

  "If you think I'm going to sit by while you make an ass of yourself and get your heart tromped on in the bargain, you're mistaken."

  "It's none of your business, Margaret Mary," Rogan said and had his wife's wrath spewing on him.

  "None of mine? Damn if it isn't. I've known this softheaded fool all of his life, and loved him, though God knows why. And this Yank wouldn't be here if it weren't for me and Brianna."

  "The Yank's your sister," Gray commented. "Which means' she's " probably as prickly and stubborn as you."

  Before Maggie could bare her teeth at that, Murphy was holding up a hand. "She's the right of it. It's your business, Maggie, as I'm your friend and she's your sister. But it's more my business."

  The hint of steel under the quiet tone had her temper defusing and her worry leaping. "Murphy, she'll be going back soon where she came from."

  "Not if I can persuade her otherwise."

  She grabbed his hands now, as if the contact would transfer some sense into him. "You don't even know her."

  "Some things you know before it's reasonable." He linked his fingers with hers, for the bond there was deep and strong. "I've waited for her, Maggie, and here she is. That's it for me."

  Because she could see the unarguable certainty of it in his eyes, she closed her own. "You've lost your mind. I can't get it back for you."

  "You can't, no. Not even you."

  She only sighed. "All right then, when you've had your fall and lay broken at the bottom, I'll come around and nurse your wounds. I want to take Liam home now, Sweeney." She rose, bundling the sleeping boy into her arms. "I won't ask you to talk sense to him," she added to Gray. "Men don't see past a comely face."

  When she turned, she saw that Shannon had come out of the rest room and been waylaid by the Conroys. She sent Shannon a hard look, was answered in kind, then strode out of the pub with her son.

  "They've got more in common than either one of

  them realizes." Gray watched Shannon stare at the pub door before giving her attention back to the old couple.

  "It's the common ground that's between them as much as under their own feet."

  Gray nodded before looking back at Murphy. "Are you stuck on that comely face, Murphy?"

  More out of habit than design, Murphy fiddled out a tune. "That's part of it." His lips curved, but the look in his eyes was distant and deep. "It's the face I've been waiting to see again."

  She wasn't going to let Maggie get under her skin. Shannon promised herself that as she readied for bed later that night. The woman had set detectives on her, had her researched and reported, and now that she'd tried to be open minded enough to meet with the Concannons face-to-face, Maggie treated her like an intruder.

  Well, she was staying as long as she damn well pleased. A couple of weeks, Shannon mused. Three at the outside. No one was going to chase her away with cold looks and abrasive comments. Margaret Mary Concannon was going to come to realize that America bred tougher nuts to crack.

  And the farmer wasn't going to spook her, either. Charm and good looks weren't weapons that worried her. She'd known plenty of charming, good-looking men.

  Maybe she'd never met one with quite Murphy's style, or that odd something flowing so placidly under it all, but it didn't concern her. Not really.

  She climbed into bed, tugged the covers up to her chin. The rain had made the air just a little cooler than comfortable. Still it was snug and almost childishly pleasant to be bundled into bed with the sound of the rain pattering and the steaming cup of tea Brianna had insisted she take with her cooling on the nightstand.

  Tomorrow she'd explore, Shannon promised herself. She would swallow her pride and take the car. She'd find her art supplie
s, maybe some ruins, a few shops. She'd done enough traveling with her parents not to be concerned about knocking about a foreign country on her own.

  And on her own is where she wanted to be for a day, without anyone watching her movements, or trying to dissect them.

  Snuggling down lower in the bed, she let her mind drift to the people she'd become involved with.

  Brianna, the homebody. A new mother, new wife. And a businesswoman, Shannon reminded herself. Efficient, talented. Warm hearted, certainly, but with something like worry behind her eyes.

  Gray-her fellow Yank. Easygoing-on the surface, at any rate. Friendly, sharp witted, dazzled by his wife and daughter. Content, apparently, to shrug off the high life he could be living in a major city with his fame.

  Maggie. The scowl came automatically. Suspicious by nature, hotheaded, frank to the point of rudeness. Shannon considered it too bad that she respected those particular traits. Unquestionably a loving wife and mother, indisputably a major talent. And, Shannon though, overly protective and fiercely loyal.

  Rogan was cultured, smooth, the ingrained manners as much a part of him as his eyes. Organized, she would guess, and shrewd. Sophisticated, and sharp enough to run an organization that was respected around the world. And, she thought grimly, he had to have a sense of humor, and the patience of Job, to live with Maggie.

  Then there was Murphy, the good friend and neighbor. The farmer with a talent for music and flirtation. Strikingly handsome and unpretentious-yet not nearly as simple as it appeared at first glance. She didn't think she'd ever met a man as completely in tune with himself.

  He wanted to kiss her, she thought as her eyes grew heavy, some place private. Where he could take his time about it. It might be interesting.

  The man controlled the impatient horse with no visible effort. Rain continued to pelt, icily, so that it sounded like pebbles striking the ground. The white stallion snorted, sending out frosty clouds of smoke as man and woman watched each other.

  "You waited."

  She could feel the heavy thud of her own heart. And the need, the terrible need was as strong as her pride. "Walking in my own field has nothing to do with waiting."

  He laughed, a full, reckless sound that rolled over the hills. At the crest of one of those hills stood the stone circle, watching.

  "You waited." In a move as graceful as a dance, he leaned down and scooped her off her feet. With one arm he lifted her, then set her in the saddle in front of him. "Kiss me," he demanded, twining gloved fingers in her hair. "And make it count."

  Her arms dragged him closer until her breasts were flattened against the traveling armor over his chest. Her mouth was as hungry, as desperate and rough as his. On an oath, he flung out a hand so that his cloak enfolded her.

  "By Christ, it's worth every cold, filthy mile for a taste of you."

  "Then stay, damn you." She pulled him close again, pressed her starving lips to his. "Stay."

  In sleep Shannon murmured, rocked between pleasure and despair. For even in sleep, she knew he wouldn't.

  Chapter Eight

  Shannon took a day for herself, and was better for it. The morning was damp, but cleared gradually so that as she drove, the landscape surrounding her seemed washed and skillfully lit. Furze lining the road was a blur of yellow blossoms. Hedges of fucshia hinted at droplets of blood red. Gardens were drenched with color as the flowers sunned themselves in the watery light. Hills, the vivid green of them, simply shimmered.

  She took photographs, toying with the idea of using the best of them as a basis for sketches or paintings.

  It was true enough that she had some trouble negotiating the Irish roads, and the left-side drive, but she didn't intend to admit it.

  She shopped for postcards and trinkets for friends back home along the narrow streets of Ennis. Friends, she mused, who thought she was simply taking a long overdue vacation. It was lowering to realize there was no one back home she felt intimate enough with to have shared her connection here, or her need to explore it.

  Work had always come first-with the ambition scrambling behind it. And that, she decided, was a sad commentary on her life. Work had been a huge part of who she was, or considered herself to be. Now she'd cut herself off from it, purposely, so that she felt like a solitary survivor, drifting alone in an ocean of self doubt.

  If she was not Shannon Bodine by birth, and the hot young commercial artist by design, who was she?

  The illegitimate daughter of a faceless Irishman who'd bedded a lonely woman who'd been on her own personal oddessy?

  That was a painful thought, but one that kept worrying at her mind. She didn't want to believe that she was so unformed, so weak hearted that the bald fact of her birth should matter to the grown woman.

  Yet it did. She stood on a lonely strand of beach with the wind whipping through her hair and knew it did. If she'd been told as a child, had somehow been guided through life with the knowledge that Colin Bodine was the father who chose her if not the father who'd conceived her, she felt she couldn't be so hurt by the truth now.