Dangerous Attraction Romantic Suspense Boxed Set (197 page)

“DA’S SUSPICIOUS, YOU KNOW.”

The expected outburst never having come, Keelin still pretended innocence as she and Flanna entered her white-washed, thatch-roofed cottage after supper. “Of what?”

“I’m neither blind nor daft, Keelin. Nor is anyone else in our family. Everyone is feigning ignorance, when in truth your intentions to contact Aunt Rose and Uncle Raymond are as clear as the waters of Lough Danaan,” she said of the small lake edging the McKenna property.

Keelin moved to the peat-burning stove where the kettle was on the boil. “You do know me.”

“You never could tell a falsehood without turning as red as your hair.”

So true. Keelin sighed. “Tea?”

“That’d be grand.”

The cottage was merely two rooms, the larger for living, the smaller for sleeping– part of the original bedroom having been converted to a bath. Keelin loved Moira’s old house, the place where her grandmother had lived alone before Seamus had come to her rescue when she was in dire straits, and she in turn had tamed his wild heart. The cottage was simple as were the furnishings, but neither mattered to Keelin.

While she prepared the relaxing chamomile, Flanna fetched the mugs and placed them on the table, then searched the icebox for a lemon and milk. No words passed between them. They’d always had a special rapport, working together seamlessly, as if they had somehow been connected in the womb despite the three years between them. Connected and yet nothing alike. Green-eyed, strawberry blonde, petite but well-filled out, Flanna turned heads. And she was as bold as they came, Keelin knew. Unlike herself. Sometimes she envied her younger sister’s outgoing spirit and sense of adventure. By comparison, she was but a mouse.

“So how will you go about it?” Flanna asked when Keelin set down the teapot and slid into the vacant chair.

Keelin poured the steaming, aromatic liquid. “Several of the American cousins wrote Gran. She kept the letters in their envelopes, so I have the addresses.”

“Then you’ll approach Raymond and Rose through their children.” Flanna gave her tea a squeeze of lemon.

Adding a bit of milk to hers, Keelin nodded. “I thought it a wise idea. I’m certain I’ll be needing their help in reuniting three of the most stubborn Irish I’ve ever heard tell of.”

“The wound goes deep – more than thirty years.”

“Long enough.”

“Aye.”

Dreamily, Keelin sipped at her tea. “I was imagining how grand it would be if they could celebrate their sixtieth birthday together this October with as many McKennas as could be gathered round them.”

“If Rose and Raymond are both still alive,” Flanna said softly, echoing Keelin’s worst fear.

“They must be. For Da’s sake.”

Later, after Flanna left to retire to the bedroom their parents kept for her, Keelin had reason to further contemplate birthdays. She’d passed her thirty-third unnoticed while Da was in hospital. The day had transpired like any other…except for her thinking heavily on Moira’s last words to her.

Entering the bedroom, she lifted the top of the ancient music box that she’d bought from a Traveller recently, and removed a thick, cream-colored sheet of paper. She sat on the edge of her lace-trimmed bed to once again study the missive written in her grandmother’s steady hand.

To my darling Keelin,

I leave you my love and more. Within thirty-three days after your thirty-third birthday – enough time to know what you are about – you will have in your grasp a legacy of which your dreams are made. Dreams are not always tangible things, but more often are born in the heart. Act selflessly in another’s behalf, and my legacy shall be yours.

Your loving grandmother,

Moira McKenna

P.S. Use any other inheritance from me wisely and only for good lest you harm yourself or those you love.

Flanna and Curran both had received like missives, and Keelin supposed the thick cream envelopes the solicitor had sent to the American cousins held more of the same. She had been well and truly caught by the spirit of Moira’s bequest to her grandchildren. Moira had wanted them to be happy after the way each of her own children had tainted their personal lives with intolerance and jealousy.

She and her siblings had poured over the contents of the letter together several times throughout the past year, wondering if their grandmother, truly something of a
bean feasa
– an old woman with magical powers – could have seen into their futures. Wondering if there was any validity to this legacy that held both fascination and burden for each inheritor.

Keelin read Gran’s words yet again.

Within thirty-three days after your thirty-third birthday
…

Not even two weeks to go.

And the reference to dreams reminded her of the one she’d had the night before.

Act selflessly in another’s behalf
…

Keelin swept away a nagging guilt. This was different than the last time, she assured herself. Different from all the others. She didn’t know these eyes she saw through. They belonged to a stranger in a strange place. Therefore, she had no control.

Perhaps this dream had been just that, she thought desperately. A dream rather than one of her dreaded night terrors. Keelin considered. A young woman running away – and her off to America. Of course. That had to be the thing.

Had to be.

THE CITY WAS ALWAYS A SCARY PLACE. At night, it was even worse, overflowing with menacing people. Raggedy homeless with blank stares. Uniformed policemen with too sharp gazes. Billed-capped gang members with hot, hungry eyes.

The stuff nightmares were made of.

She wasn’t very brave, but she forced herself to continue on. Hands stuffed into pockets, head down so she wouldn’t have to look at anyone, she rushed east along Monroe Street, taking the bridge over the railroad yard. One foot in front of the other.

Left. Right. Left. Right.

Music beckoned her like a Pied Piper.

Almost there. Almost there.

She hurried across the edge of the lawn, dodging a hand-holding couple. Skirting a bag woman leaning against her shopping cart of belongings. Losing herself at the back of a crowd of middle-aged people with their fancy fold-up chairs, lit candles and glasses of fine wine.

In the distance stood Navy Pier with its giant Ferris wheel a lit beacon. She turned. Bandshell and illuminated city skyline before her, she slumped to the grass. Winded.

Afraid. Always afraid.

Tears flooded her eyes, but she slashed them away. She’d had no choice. She had to make the best of it.

How long?

She tried concentrating on the music, but it was classical stuff like he played. Liszt, she thought. Why that? Anything else would have been better. Anything not a reminder…

She closed her eyes, covered her mouth and rocked. She could see him – dark hair swept across his brow, pale blue eyes sparkling as he laughed with her, hugged her tight.

Lies. All lies.

The enormity of what she’d done hit her suddenly and she began to shake inside. It took all her willpower not to scream. Not to get up in front of all these people and beg for help. They would only make her go back.

Blindly, she reached for her bracelet. Fingers twined through the leather strands. Traced one charm, then another. Their familiar touch calmed her. With great effort, she settled herself down. Took deep breaths. Told herself everything was going to be all right.

Then the voice behind her saying, “There you are!” made her jerk, setting the charms to tinkling and her whirling around so fast something flew from her fingers and her head spun…

HEAD SPINNING, KEELIN SAT STRAIGHT UP IN HER SEAT, her body covered in a light sweat. For a moment, she was dazed. Disoriented. Until Liszt faded into the drone of jet engines and she realized she was on the plane to Chicago.

Another dream. The same eyes. The same fear.

Fear that she could taste as if it were her own.

She trembled inside at haunting memories. At old guilt. At her inability to act when it counted. Now it was happening again…but this time she didn’t know who.

Dear God, no. Not again.

Surely she couldn’t be held responsible for yet another life.

Chicago

“I’M IMPRESSED. YOU REALLY CAME all the way from Ireland for the sole purpose of talking my father and Aunt Rose into visiting the old sod for a reunion?”

Keelin stared across a slick black lacquered desk scattered with folders and videotapes. Her cousin Skelly McKenna, oldest child of Raymond, leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. She searched his expression for any trace of mockery, but he seemed genuinely impressed.

“Da almost died, and in his sickbed admitted he wished to see his brother and sister again. I’m certain if the situations were reversed, you would do the same for
your
father.”

Skelly laughed, the sound tinged with bitterness. “My father would never say such a thing to me. He and I are not exactly what you would call close.”

Not exactly what Keelin wanted to hear. “Are you telling me you won’t help?”

“Not at all. But I am telling you that
I
don’t have a lot of influence with Dad.” Skelly rose and paced the spacious office, outfitted with more black lacquered furniture and a couple of overstuffed black love seats. The only color in the room came from the Oriental carpet and a few well-placed pieces of art work on the walls. “My sister Aileen, on the other hand, continues to charm the socks off the old man, and I’m sure we can enlist her aid when Dad gets back from Washington.”

Raymond McKenna being a U.S. Congressman from Chicago.

Relief swept through Keelin. “I dreaded doing this alone.”

“Hey, cous, I’ll do whatever I can for the cause,” Skelly said with a wicked smile that dimpled one cheek.

Keelin started. “Grandad.”

“What?”

“Your smile…you reminded me of him just then.”

“That’s right. You knew old Seamus.”

“That I did.”

And with his black hair, blue eyes, that smile, dimple and all…Skelly looked exactly like a young Seamus McKenna.

“You knew Moira pretty well, too, right?” Skelly asked, settling a hip on the edge of his desk.

“Of course.”

“Was she…
okay
just before she died? I mean here.” He tapped his forehead.

Putting Keelin on edge. The spacious office suddenly seemed to close in on her. “Gran was the wisest woman I ever had the privilege to know,” she informed him stiffly. “And that, until the day she died.”

“Well,
after
she died, I got this strange letter…”

“Ah, the legacy.” She relaxed.

“You know about it, then?”

“I received the letter, as well, as did my brother and sister. I believe she wrote what was in her heart for each of her nine grandchildren because her own children had acted so unwisely.”

“Nicely put,” he said, a cynical note in his tone.

And why shouldn’t he be a bit cynical? Keelin thought. An anchor for
The Whole Story
, a televised tabloid news show, Skelly reported stories that often laid open people’s terrible secrets for all to dissect. Though she didn’t care for tabloid journalism herself, neither televised nor print, Keelin was not about to judge this cousin she’d just met. Who knew what road had brought him to his place in life?

“You’ll have to tell me more about Moira later,” Skelly said, rising. “But at the moment, I need to get to make-up. I’m taping this afternoon’s show in a quarter of an hour.”

“Well, then.” Keelin stood. “I’m at the Hotel Clareton–”

“Hey, I’m not chasing you out. Stay and watch the telecast. We’ll do lunch.”

Do lunch?
Realizing Skelly meant they should eat together, Keelin thought Americans certainly had some unusual ways of expressing themselves.

“You’re certain I wouldn’t be in the way?”

“You’re too polite to get in anyone’s way.”

So, a short while later, Keelin found herself sitting in a back corner of the busy control room. Having lived a simple life mostly close to the land, she was a bit intimidated by all the technology and the fast pace that was part of Skelly’s world. Looking through the plate glass window to the studio, she could see technicians adjusting lighting and sound equipment. In the control room, others talked over headphones, while images flashed across the monitors, some at double speed.

One particular image caught her interest. A man’s face filled the screen. His features were handsome, strong, magnetic, his expression intense. From the pale eyes looking out at her as he spoke – the sound was down, so she couldn’t hear his words – Keelin sensed both strength and heartbreaking emotion. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the monitor, and so when the next image flashed across the small screen, she felt as if she were suddenly sucked inside.

A young girl, barely a teenager, her light brown hair flying around her pretty face.

Something about the girl… Keelin felt a strong connection.

Then the monitor went blank.

And Keelin sat staring, heart pounding loud enough to drown out the raucous voices in the booth.

She didn’t know how long she sat there in stunned silence, mind spinning away. It couldn’t be. She was in denial as the show began. Teasers introduced the day’s stories, but the words didn’t mean anything to Keelin until the girl’s image multiplied on several monitors.

“… and then we have a story we see every day,” Skelly intoned in an authoritative voice. “Teenagers vanishing from their homes. But did Cheryl Leighton run away as the police report indicates, or was she the victim of foul play as her father, real estate magnate Tyler Leighton, wants us to believe?”

Sitting through the first two stories and myriad commercials of the half-hour program was the most difficult twenty minutes Keelin ever spent. She kept telling herself she was mistaken. There could be no connection. She’d imagined it.

But Cheryl Leighton had disappeared…and her dream had been of a runaway, the setting some unknown American city.

On edge, she watched footage of the girl and her father at some kind of building christening ceremony, as Skelly explained, “Two nights ago, fourteen year old Cheryl Leighton disappeared from the North Bluff home she shared with her widowed father. So far in the investigation, the police have turned up no evidence of foul play.”