The Wild Sight (8 page)

“But why did they go back to Ballyneagh?” Rylie asked quietly.

“They had no choice. My father lost his job and they had nowhere else to go. My sister was an infant, so Mum couldn’t work.
Plus The Troubles were bad in Belfast at that point. You know, the IRA and that lot.” Lynch’s voice mail message replayed
inside his head, and he wondered what, if anything, his father really knew about the Provos, the Provisional Irish Republican
Army.

Ghosts of old memories played on the edges of his mind, half-remembered arguments between his mother and father. Mum sending
him and Doreen off across the fields before someone arrived. “
Connacht devil,
” his mother had said . . .

Something flashed out of the mist directly in front of the car. No ghost or wraith, but a very real sheep.

Donovan jerked the wheel sharply to avoid a collision, the heel of his hand hitting the horn. Rylie gave a garbled cry that
blended with the squeal of the brakes. The car lurched then pitched to one side, sliding off the pavement and into the ditch.

Chapter 7

“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” DONOVAN GASPED AS THE CAR engine choked off, and the sheep scampered out of the range of the headlights.

“Y-yes,” Rylie shakily replied. “Are you?”

“Yes.”

Neither airbag had deployed, so that was a good sign. However, the passenger’s side of the car slanted down at a precipitous
angle while the driver’s side slanted up. Definitely
not
good.

With a muffled curse, Donovan unbuckled his seat belt and turned off the motor, but kept the headlamps on. Then he wrestled
open his door. Both wheels on his side were a good six inches off the ground. Muttering more curses under his breath, he walked
in front of the car to survey the scene.

Mud sucked at the soles of his shoes and oozed up the sides. The front passenger’s side tire nestled on the bottom of the
shallow ditch, muddy water lapping just below the hubcap.

Dandy! Just fecking dandy!

He tromped around and found the same situation with the back tire.
The bloody perfect ending to the
day.
He knew he wouldn’t be able to budge the vehicle, but he jumped and threw his weight onto the front fender anyway. It sagged
down into the wheel well, but nothing more. He cast about for something to wedge under the wheels but could see nothing for
the blasted fog.

Rylie rolled down her window and called out, “Can I help?”

“No, stay put. ’Tis a muddy mess out here.” He tried to stamp the worst of the muck off his shoes, but it stuck stubbornly.

She crawled over the console into the driver’s seat and cracked open the door. “Maybe if we both tried?”

Donovan shook his head. “Trust me, we need to call a tow truck.”

The door clicked shut and he heard her rummaging in the glove box. He stamped his feet again and extracted his mobile phone
from his pocket. A moment later, she jumped out of the car and handed him a packet of papers.

“Here’s the rental contract and stuff. I think there’s a number for roadside assistance.”

He walked up to shuffle through the papers in the glare of the headlights. After a couple of minutes, he located the number
and placed the call. Rylie stood beside him, arms wrapped around herself, her breath coming out in little white puffs that
matched the surrounding fog.

“It’s cold out here!” she exclaimed when he’d rung off.

“Let’s get back in the car and run the heat,” Donovan replied. “It’ll take them at least an hour to find us.”

They climbed back inside and Donovan started the engine, put on the emergency flashers and the heater. However, ten minutes
later, just when the interior had reached a cozy warmth, the fuel light came on.

“What is it?” Rylie asked when he muttered a curse.

“Low on petrol,” Donovan replied, turning off the engine. “We don’t want to run out because it makes a bloody shambles of
the fuel injectors.”

“Oh,” she said, and turned to brace her back against the door so that she faced him. “Guess we don’t want that.”

“Not if we can help it.” He reclined his own seat back a bit farther and tried to get comfortable. “Don’t worry, they should
be here soon.”

But a half-hour later, no one had arrived and the temperature inside the car was growing uncomfortably chilly. Donovan restarted
the engine and ran the heat for ten more minutes. He’d just shut off the ignition again when his mobile rang. The dispatcher
apologetically explained that the driver had been unable to locate them in the thick fog and that it wasn’t safe to keep looking.

“We’ll try again as soon as it’s light,” the woman assured him.

Donovan glanced at his watch. “But that will be hours. Can’t he give it one more go?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. O’Shea, but no. I can contact the PSNI to try and find you, shall I?”

“No, that won’t be necessary.” With a frustrated sigh, he rang off, then turned to face Rylie’s anxious stare. “They won’t
be able to find us until morning. Too foggy.”

She heaved an equally discouraged groan. “Great.”

“Fuel injectors be damned!” he declared. “I’m running the heater.”

“No, wait!” She reached out and stopped his fingers from turning the key. “Save it for later. Maybe if we get some sleep we
won’t feel so cold.”

Her hand on his made him think of the dance they’d shared earlier in the evening and he suddenly felt anything but cold. He
pulled his hand away and gazed out the window into the chilly darkness. “Good idea.”

He heard her shifting around in her seat trying to get comfortable.

“Why don’t you crawl in the back and stretch out?” he suggested, still not looking at her. When she started to protest, he
added, “Go on, I’m fine here.”

She clambered across the center console and heaved over into the back seat with a grunt. Having her derriere so close nearly
undid him. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut and clenched his hands into fists, not daring to breathe. When she finally stopped
rustling around, he exhaled in relief.

Another long half-hour crawled passed. From the back seat, Rylie’s even breathing told Donovan she was asleep. He blew on
his icy fingers and started the engine, shutting it down after another ten minutes, even though the heat had taken longer
to come on and the chill was scarcely out of the air. An interminable thirty minutes later, he repeated the ritual. But this
time, after eight minutes the car started to sputter. Quickly, he shut off the engine, and then the emergency flashers. No
point in running down the battery too. Folding his arms tightly across his chest, he leaned his head back and tried to sleep.

“Donovan?” Rylie’s soft query jolted him awake.

He glanced at the illuminated face of his watch and saw it was nearly three. He’d been asleep over an hour. His nose and cheeks
tingled from the cold and his feet felt like two lumps of ice.

“Wh-what is it?” he asked, his words a frosty cloud in front of his mouth.

“I know the car is out of gas,” she said, and he could hear her teeth chattering. “But I thought if we shared body heat .
. . ” Her voice faded away, while a very warm notion sprang into his sleep addled mind.

“Are you suggesting that we . . . ” Words jammed in his throat.

“ . . . huddle up to keep warm,” she finished for him. “Yes. You can crawl back here with me.”

God in heaven!
He must be still dreaming. She had to know that what she asked would court disaster.

“Or I could crawl up there with you,” she volunteered when he didn’t answer.

He gave his head a rough shake just to be sure he truly was awake. Then he answered, “We both know that’s not a wise idea.”

“I don’t care,” she retorted. Then she made an odd little sound of distress. “Please don’t make me beg. It’s so humiliating.”

Shamefaced, Rylie drew her legs up to her chest and shrank into the far corner of the back seat, shivering. She knew Donovan
was right, but if wisdom meant being this cold and miserable, she wanted no part of it. What she wanted was him. Somewhere
between Queen’s University and Callahan’s, she had lost sight of the concept that Donovan was her half-brother. Instead, she
only saw the man who, last night, gave her a bone-melting kiss. The man who, a few hours ago, left no question about his desire
for her and had threatened to break the sleazy professor’s arms. The man who shot her libido into the stratosphere and her
rational thoughts beyond reach.

The sound of the car door startled Rylie, and she jerked her head up. The front driver’s door opened and shut, then the back
door opened and Donovan slid onto the seat beside her.

“Bloody freezing,” he muttered, blowing on his clenched hands.

“F-f-for s-s-sure,” she agreed through chattering teeth, though just having him close to her suddenly made her feel a lot
warmer.

And they were very close. He was a big guy, and the back seat of the car was small. No way could they both sit here and not
touch.

He pulled one of her hands between his and rubbed, then repeated with her other hand, pressing hers between his when he was
done. Warmth spread from her fingers across her palms, and where their shoulders brushed together, heat sizzled along her
nerve endings and banished her rationality into the fog.

He stretched his arms over her head in the tight confines.

“I’m going to take off my jacket and spread it over the both of us,” he explained. “We should be warmer that way.”

Rylie could only nod her agreement.

His movements awkward, Donovan worked one arm out of a sleeve, then the other. With a grunt of satisfaction, he pulled the
jacket in front of him. In the next instant, she felt his arm around her, and before she could think, he shifted her onto
his lap. Sexual awareness sprang to life all over her, and she had to bite her lower lip to keep from moaning.

Adjusting into the corner she’d just vacated, Donovan tented the jacket over both of them.

“Better now?” he murmured into the top of her hair. Oh, God, he was warm! And solid. And irresistible.

“Ummmm,” was all she could manage.

Rylie folded her arms in front of her and snuggled against his chest, her head completely under the jacket. Her shivering
stopped as she lost herself in the intoxicating feel and scent of the most alluring man she’d ever met.

One of the three buttons on his Henley pullover dug into her cheek and she shifted her head slightly to avoid it. Beneath
her ear, his heart jumped. His arms encircled her and his hands worked their way under her windbreaker, but rested discreetly
atop her sweater.

“Go back to sleep,” he urged in a rough whisper.

Like that was going to happen!

Just like at Callahan’s when she pulled him onto the dance floor, the dark, irrational part of her took over. She snaked one
hand behind him and explored the length of his back. When she reached the bottom of the Henley, she slipped her hand under
it and felt the smooth knit of his T-shirt, his skin toasty warm just beneath. Donovan inhaled raggedly, and the unmistakable
bulge of his arousal nudged at her hip.

“Saints in heaven, Rylie,” he hissed. “You need to stop.”

“Why?” she challenged against his shirtfront. “You’re not my brother.”

He craned his neck to look down at her. “I know that, but do you?”

“I know I don’t want you to be.” She strained to make out his features in the darkness, and could faintly distinguish the
squareness of his jaw, the curve of his lips. “You can’t be. It can be anyone else in Ireland, Donovan. Just not you.”

The desire flooding her veins drowned any remaining fragments of reason and she stretched up to plant a kiss on the side of
his neck. With a groan of surrender, he dropped his head and claimed her mouth.

His hot tongue drove in hard and fast. Startled by the intensity, Rylie gasped, but quickly recovered, giving herself over
to the hunger that had been building since they’d left Ballyneagh this afternoon. Digging her fingers into his forearm, she
flattened her chest against his and delved her tongue into the tantalizing recesses inside his mouth.

He groaned again, and his hands shoved under her sweater. His fingers skimmed across the small of her back, then up her spine,
their touch creating little explosions of sensation along the way. She ground her hips against the bulge of his erection and
nipped at his bottom lip to encourage him to do more. Instead he pulled back, broke the kiss. She couldn’t stop a breathy
little moan of protest.

“Oh, God! We can’t be doing this,” he panted, his brogue distinctly more pronounced. “Not now, and surely not here.”

“Here and now is fine,” she insisted, nuzzling his neck. “I want to, and I know you do, too.”

“No, ’tis not fine.” His big hands settled around her hips and stilled their erotic movements. Then he moved one hand up and
lifted her chin with his knuckles. “I want us to have no regrets, Rylie. And until you know for certain, about Dermot I mean,
you will.”

She bit her lip to stem further argument, because– dammit!—he was probably right. Again. Taking a deep breath, she moved both
hands back in front of her and sighed.

“All right, you win . . . Saint Donovan.”

A sardonic chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I’m far from a saint. But I will admit to a preference for a proper bed.”

“A traditionalist?” she teased. “I should have known. Do I have to crawl back into the front? Or can I stay here if I promise
to keep my hands to myself?”

He gave her chin a little chuck, then pressed her head back against his chest. “As long as you keep your hands
and
lips right where they are, wee little minx, you can stay.”

“Okay,” she sighed again, hoping he didn’t realize that if she could stay snuggled close to him, she would agree to almost
anything.

She could feel the tension in his muscles relaxing under her. Her own still felt as tightly strung as the strings on the fiddle
at Callahan’s.

“We both need to get some sleep,” he murmured.

“Okay,” she said again, though she didn’t think there was any way she could actually manage to do it.

However, somehow she must have, for the next thing Rylie knew, she awoke to the rumbling of a large engine very near by. She
poked her head from under Donovan’s leather jacket and got a close up view of his darkly stub-bled jaw. The even rise and
fall of his chest directly under her signaled that he was still asleep. Over his head, the window was beaded with condensation,
and a pale grayness showed beyond it.

Morning.

“Donovan,” she whispered as the rumbling engine continued to idle seemingly on top of them. “Somebody’s out there!”

His breath hitched, and one arm tightened around her while the fingers of his other hand shifted down to her bottom. Then
he seemed to remember where they were and the corners of his mouth eased upward into a grin. He gave her butt a possessive
little pat before he slowly opened his eyes.

“Rescue at last?” he asked still smiling.

A tapping on the driver’s window froze her sassy retort in her throat. She scrambled to sit up and reach the far window, but
her arms and legs seemed to hopelessly entangle themselves with Donovan’s.