Sorley sat in the vacant chair between Ronan and Erin. "Sorry I was late. The feckin'-"

he glanced at Clarissa, "I mean the weather is gettin' weird again. A front is comin' in.

Might snow again before it clears for a good strip tomorrow."

"Lovely," Micky said with a sigh. "I think we've had enough snow for awhile."

"On a different subject, I thoughtGilda and Tom were comin', too?" Sorley asked.

"Mark has the flu," Lachlan said, then turned his gaze on Clarissa. "Gilda works with Erin at the library and Tom is her husband. Mark is their son."

Erin poured more wine for herself, then offered the bottle around the table. "Before you came in, Sorley, Clarissa was telling us about why she needed to meet with us tonight and what brings her to Pine Forest."

Clarissa reached for her water glass and took a fortifying sip. "It's a long story."

"We've got all evening," Jared said.

Unfortunately her nerves jumped and pinged with worry. She stared at the tablecloth.

"When I was a little girl, I used to have precognitive dreams. Sometimes I still do."

She waited, glancing around the table to see the reactions she obtained. Everyone gazed at her with genuine interest. Maybe they wouldn't think she'd lost her mind after all.

"And?" Micky asked softly.

"I was a toddler when I started having night terrors. I never remembered what they were about until I was about five. I dreamt the same thing over and over, sometimes as much as three times a week."

"That must have been horrible," Erin said, her expression sincere and worried.

Clarissa nodded. "I didn't know what to do or how to make it go away. My parents took me to a local doctor, a psychiatrist. He claimed I was trying to get attention from my parents, even if it was negatively. When he questioned me about the dreams, I always felt like he was patronizing and telling me to stop making things up." She toyed with her food, pushing her chicken around the plate. "My parents stopped taking me to him after about a month of appointments. They thought I was cured because I didn't mention the dreams anymore. At least not for a while. I figured if I was going to get punished every time I told them about the dream, there was no point in telling them."

Ronan frowned. "Your parents punished you for telling them about a dream?"

His incredulous, angry expression made her feel gratified in a strange way. Every time this man defended her, regardless of how small the gesture, something deep and profound moved inside her. Satisfaction. A sense of belonging and a deepening of feeling inside where she'd never been touched before.

She didn't want to feel anything extraordinary for this odd, yet compelling man. The more she tried to resist the reaction, the more it tortured her.

She continued. "The punishment was metaphorical. If a child discovers there are negative consequences like going to a psychiatrist who tells you that you're making it all up, the child sometimes stop what they're doing. In my case I pretended I wasn't having the dreams any more."

"That must have been so hard on you." Micky's voice held sympathy. "What happened then?"

"The dreams continued into my teens, though by then I had the nightmares maybe once a month."

"What were the dreams about?" Ronan asked, his eyes a liquid warm brown that encouraged her.

Clarissa put down her fork. Despite the resolve she'd felt returning to her childhood stomping ground and coming here to confess what she knew, a wave of uncertainty washed over her. She stared at them, frozen.

"It's all right, sweet colleen, you can tell us." Ronan's endearment, spoken in that husky, unmistakably Irish tone, reassured her. "We aren't going to condemn you."

"Sure, and we've seen enough buggered strange things in our lives to tell forty more tales," Sorley said.

"Believe me, whatever it is, you can trust us," Micky said. "And if it helps us to save this town, we need all the information we can get."

Clarissa couldn't seem to speak of it, her throat tight. Tears filled her eyes.

Embarrassment followed close behind. "No...I...maybe this was all a mistake." Flustered beyond anything she expected, she pushed back her chair and stood up. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have come here and-"

She didn't know how to explain her behavior. She didn't know what to think. As she headed into the living room, awash in mortification and unbelievable sadness, she heard Ronan mutter a curse.

She hadn't gone far before he clasped her shoulders from behind and halted her. "Wait.

It's all right."

Clarissa shivered, her mind filled with confusion at how she'd come this far and now couldn't seem to push the words passed her throat. "I...no. I can't."

Ronan turned her to face him. Instead of anger she saw worry and determination. "Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"To talk."

His big palm and fingers enclosed her much smaller hand as he led her down the hall and into a room a couple of doors down on the right. Ronan clicked on the light and turned the dimmer switch to a lower, less glaring illumination. He released her hand and closed the door with a solid click.

He returned to Clarissa and cupped her shoulders, his grip more reassuring than anything. "Let's cut to the chase. Everyone in this house understands the paranormal and believes in it. Do you honestly think we'd chastise you for telling us about the dreams?"

Clarissa wanted to believe him the way she wanted to breathe. "I'm sorry. I thought I was all prepared. Then, in spite of the weird things I've experienced the last two days, I couldn't tell you about my dreams."

"Do you know why?"

She pulled out of his grip, unwilling to give away all her secrets in a rush. If she allowed him to touch her, she'd lose her perspective. Maybe touch made it easier for him to read her mind.

She glanced around the room, noticing details for the first time. Decorated like the rest of the house in an understated Victorian motif, the large bedroom featured blue and green tones in the wallpaper and in the fluffy comforter that covered the dark wood four-poster double bed.

Before she could turn back to Ronan, he clasped her upper shoulders by her neck and restarted that maddening yet comforting massage. "You came to this town to write a book and take photographs of haunted places, right?"

"Yes."

"And you want to capture other haunted places here, eh?" His fingers pressed into her muscles, kneading away the tension with slow rhythm.

"Of course."

"Let me be your escort while you're here."

She did turn around then, surprised at his offer. The caring in his dark eyes made her stomach flutter with attraction, that steadily melting combustion that hovered whenever he came near. This close she felt his heat, his force of personality.

"Why would you want to?" she asked.

"You have to ask?"

"Yes."

With slow deliberation, he leaned in and placed a tender kiss on her lips, then drew back slightly. "This is why." Her lips tingled, her breath coming faster, her heartbeat calling to the male in him. "And this is why." His lips tasted her again, then he pulled back. Again he dipped in for a soft kiss. "And this is why."

She put her hand up, covering his mouth with index and middle finger. "Everyone is going to wonder what is taking us so long."