awful little trickster, Caitlin had reeled away in shock and horror. After that, coupled with her father accusing her of bringing ‘shame and disgrace’ on him, by behaving like a little slut with Flynn MacCormac of all people,’ she’d had no choice but to phone her aunt Marie in London and ask if she could go and stay there for a while. Especially as she had also just found out that she was indeed pregnant with Flynn’s baby…
It would have done no good trying to talk to him and explain. He would hardly have been likely to believe anything she’d said after his mother had done her worst. And, although Flynn had passionately demonstrated that he wanted to be with her, he’d never actually said that he loved her. In fact he’d hardly ever opened up to her about his personal feelings at all. Consequently Caitlin had found herself unable to trust him with her doubts and fears. So, instead of screwing up her courage and confronting him, she had fled to London.
She hadn’t meant to make it a permanent move, but time had overtaken her and, consumed by her new parental responsibilities, she had had no choice but to stay and try and make the best of it. Every day she’d been away from her homeland…away from Flynn…her heart had grown heavier. But how could she ever have gone back when her news might only have confirmed to him his mother’s belief in her motives? She’d had no choice but to let him go.
As the years had passed and she’d made a life for herself and Sorcha it had grown ever harder for Caitlin to contemplate returning home. She’d always known Flynn must despise her by now, and she’d been heartbroken at the thought of facing his contempt…as she was facing it right now. And he didn’t even know about the child they had made together yet…
‘So, what is it you want to do now, Flynn?’ Her heavy sigh made a plume of steam as it hit the near freezing air, and Caitlin at last lifted her gaze to face him again. The formidable chill in his glance had not lessened any.
‘What is it I want to do?’ His green eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to cross back over the road the way I came and pretend I hadn’t seen you! Why couldn’t you have just stayed in London and not cursed me with the sight of you again? Why did you have to come back at all?’
She’d never heard him sound so frighteningly bitter. His tongue lashed her like a whip, almost cutting her knees from under her and making her shake. Her blue eyes watered alarmingly.
‘My father died…I told you. I only came back for the funeral.’
‘I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you, and it had better be soon! You’re damn right you owe me an explanation, and I’m not letting you run away from me again without it!’ Letting out a harsh breath, as though every word he’d uttered had caused him some considerable pain, Flynn raked her from head to foot with his burning stare, as though daring her to even think of defying him.
‘The standing stones at the top of Maiden’s Hill.’ Her voice sounded as if it had been dragged through gravel. ‘I’ll meet you there tomorrow afternoon at three. I want to sort through some of my father’s belongings in the morning and decide where they’re going to go.’
‘Three it is, then. And, Caitlin?’
Her heart slammed like a wrecking ball against her ribs at the look he was wearing. ‘Yes?’
‘Don’t let me down. If you do…I’ll come and find you.’
And with that he left her there on the pavement, her legs shaking so hard and her heart beating so fast that she couldn’t move for several minutes, until she had calmed down sufficiently again to think what she was doing. By which time she was numb with cold and desperately in need of some warmth.
Seeing the little blue and yellow sign above Mrs O’Callaghan’s bakery swinging back and forth in the wind, Caitlin headed over there—to the prospect of a steaming mug of milky coffee to help thaw the chill and the dread from her bones.
CHAPTER TWO
CAITLIN arrived at the standing stones early, bundled up warmly in corduroy jeans and a chunky knitted sweater beneath her coat, to stave off the relentless slicing wind that was already making her face burn with cold. Standing on the edge of the ridge with the stone circle behind her—all six-feet-high shale stones erect, apart from one recumbent in the middle—she stared out at the stormy Irish Sea, smashing wildly onto the rocks hundreds of feet below, and sensed a small flame of pleasure light inside her. It was a breathtaking location, and one she’d often yearned to go back to when she was far away in the busy traffic-jammed streets of London.
A magical haunt, with or without the numerous legends that surrounded it, it had taken on an extra enchanting quality after many times spent there with Flynn. They had even made love there one warm midsummer’s night, with the moon’s shining face showering them with its silvery light…as if it approved of their being there together.
Her blood throbbed with a primitive and powerful need at the recollection. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea after all that this be the place they meet? There were too many memories that lingered here…stirring, soul-ringing memories of love that were only taunting shadows of a path not taken. And now Flynn wanted answers…answers that behoved Caitlin to tell him that she’d had a child, and that he was the father.
She knew exactly the moment he arrived, because there was a frisson of electricity running through the air that made her scalp tingle in alert. It was ever thus that she had been so psychically attuned to his presence. As if they’d had some strange other worldly bond that mysteriously linked them together.
Wrenching her hypnotised gaze from the commanding sight of the foaming white-capped sea below her, Caitlin turned and saw his masculine dark figure striding towards her over the brow of the hill. The savage wind that was swiftly gathering force was now accompanied by spots of sleet that flattened his clothing against his lean hard body and turned his gleaming black hair to wet silk. Her violent shiver wasn’t just because of the icy cold that seemed to penetrate her own clothing and lay its death-like fingers on her bare flesh. A powerful swathe of want and need throbbed through her, and—too swept up in its passionate grip to move—she remained where she stood, a prisoner to its force, nervously watching him approach.
‘You came.’
Flynn didn’t smile as he released the words that were swiftly borne away on the soughing wind. Instead, he stared at her like a man possessed by a dream. Sleet clung to his ebony lashes and made the fascinating jade of his remarkable eyes glitter like flawless gemstones.
‘It’s bitter.’ Her teeth chattering and her boots shifting on the slippery frost beneath her, Caitlin wrenched her gaze free from his unsettling, diverting glance and started to move past him. ‘It’s a day for staying by the fire…not freezing to death!’
‘Let’s go over by the stones,’ he sombrely suggested. ‘It might shelter us a bit.’
Trying to brush back the windblown hair from her face, Caitlin glanced up into his solemn visage as she stood with her back to one of the standing stones, its dark companions making up a loose enclosure around them. Closely observing the way the taut skin stretched over his hollowed-out cheekbones, she saw how it rendered the implacable bones of his jawline rigid as iron. There was no spare flesh there. None. Its stark and fascinating definition could have emerged out of granite or marble, it was so faultlessly constructed. There was a fair smattering of dark growth shadowing the mainly smooth surface, though it was likely he had probably shaved only that morning, and his face reflected an austere and sombre beauty that seemed to come from the earth herself. It was no wonder
