The dark here was like crushed velvet, thick and soft and yielding. She moved through it in silence, following the melody to a cavern lit by alternating brightness as the tide rushed forward, blocking the sun, then pulled away to let it back in. The ground beneath her bare feet was made of gravel and shells layered over stone. The walls were roughly hewn, carved out by the sea and worn by the grit of the unceasing tide. But as she looked closer, she saw a pattern etched onto every surface, repeated over and over on the walls and ceiling. Even on the boulders that crouched defensively around the churning pool in the middle. Spirals. They were everywhere.

She fingered the pendant at her throat and shivered before cautiously moving on, past the tide pool to the back, where another door opened into the darkness. The song was coming from there. She stepped closer and looked in to see rough-cut stairs making a circular route up.

Surprise made her breathless. She was in a cave beneath the castle. And perhaps the stairs led to a secret passage. A hidden place that offered escape, though at no small peril.

The haunting song grew louder, and Danni backed up, tucking herself into the shadows, though a part of her knew she wasn't really here. But the instinct drove her as the woman with a voice more beautiful than the stark scenery emerged from the stairwell.

It was Fia. Danni shouldn't have been surprised.

Fia carried a small lantern and a blanket in her hands. Honey brown hair hung loose and silky to swing against thin shoulders. Her song was in Gaelic, and she sang it with feeling, closing her eyes as the wrenching notes echoed against the cavern walls.

Danni swallowed a lump in her throat.

The song ended, and Fia stood very still for a moment, as if it had drained her strength with its sadness. She stared at the rippling water, nearly black where it lapped the rocks, gray green where it surged out of the arched opening. Her expression filled Danni with unease. The look in her eyes seemed to beg for miracles. As if she hoped for a ship to suddenly appear in that opening and whisk her away. Was that what she wanted?

Unable to help herself, Danni lifted her hand and brushed an errant strand of hair back from her mother's face. Fia turned, without noticing.

Still naked, still cold, Danni followed her mother to a flat, smooth area where she set down her lantern and spread the blanket.

Fia seemed oblivious to the cold as she stripped her clothes and folded them neatly. Danni saw the mottled greens and yellows of bruises on her back and ribs. She'd seen them before, that first time when Sean had guided her through the vision. What had happened to her? Had she been in an accident? Had she fallen?

Lower, on the pearly white skin of her forearm, Danni saw the rose-shaped birthmark, just like the one on her own arm.

Fia turned away, and with only a moment's hesitation, she stepped into the pool. Danni followed her in. The water was bracing, icy even, but Fia didn't seem to mind. She swam and splashed like a mermaid, freed from the boundaries of gravity. Danni watched her, thinking how young, how beautiful her mother was. Lost in the magic and the mystery of this stranger who she longed to know, Danni didn't hear the footsteps until they stopped just behind her. Frowning, she glanced over her shoulder.

Niall Ballagh stood against the backdrop of the ragged and harsh cavern walls. What was he doing here?

Like Sean, Niall was a big man. Broad of shoulder, lean of hip, long of leg. In the photograph she'd seen, Niall hadn't seemed so large and solid. But here, now, he was all muscle and sinew, looming and somehow frightening.

In her head, she could hear Sean's pained and angry words. He killed my mother. . . . Was he here to do the same to Danni's? Stalking her as an overture to the final act?

Fia hadn't noticed him yet, and he moved in, his gaze riveted on the flashes of pearl skin streaming with water, dipping beneath the surface. He stopped when he reached the flat boulder and sat beside her blanket and clothes, waiting.

Frightened, Danni swam to her mother's side, wanting to alert her. To warn her. Momma, there's a man here and he wants to hurt you.

As if hearing her daughter, Fia came up for air and turned to see Niall sitting patiently beside the pool.

They stared at one another for a long, bated moment as Danni watched from the freezing water. Neither spoke.

Then slowly, with a deliberation born of intent, Fia moved to the side of the pool and climbed out. Danni followed, dismayed by her nudity even though she knew Niall couldn't see her. Fia seemed to have no such compunctions. She crossed to stand just in front of him, breasts heaving with ragged inhalations, skin puckering with a thousand shivery goose bumps. The water ran down her body, pooling in the hollow of her throat, tunneling through the valley between her breasts, sluicing over her rounded hips and thighs. Niall's look should have made all that wet turn to steam. He stood slowly, gracefully, one small step away.

A deep breath from Fia would have brushed Niall's hard chest in a whispered touch. But neither moved. They only stared at one another, absorbed, transfixed. Fia's gaze traversed his face, lingering on his strong brow, shadowed eyes, and sculpted mouth with something akin to anguish. Then tears turned her eyes shiny before overflowing to mix with the sea drops that clung to her skin.

Watching them, a burning anger and crippling sense of betrayal filled Danni's gut. She wanted to launch herself at Niall Ballagh. She wanted to scratch his face, kick and pull and push him away from her mother. In a moment of clarity, she understood that this-the magnetic force that seemed to hold the two captive, not merely Niall himself-was the prelude to doom. She knew without a doubt that Niall was to blame for the tragedy that would take place tomorrow night. Niall had been obsessed with her mother. He'd destroyed his own happiness and family and then moved on to Danni's.

She thought hard at Fia, tried to move her mother by will alone. She wanted to believe that Fia was too frightened of Niall to even scream. That's why she stood so still, bare and trembling. That's why she didn't tell him to leave.

Danni moved forward, tried to grip Niall's arm and drag him away. Tears of rage filled her eyes as she shouted at him to leave her mother alone. But it was no use. She wasn't there. Not for Niall, not for her mother.

Niall made a sound deep in his throat-one of resistance overcome, one of barriers brought tumbling down. And then he breached that tiny gap that held them apart and pulled Fia's dripping body against him. His hands skimmed her wet skin, sliding over her silky curves then up to cup her face.

"I can't stay away," he said, and the words were demand, apology . . . defeat.

Danni felt his agony, his yearning, and it fired her helpless fury. "Try harder," she shouted. "She's not yours. My father loves her. I love her."

And Niall would destroy all that.

He trailed his fingers over the flat of her breastbone to the valley between and down to settle on the small rise above her pelvis. He dropped to his knees, his big hands circling her hips, holding her there as he subjugated himself at her feet. Pressing his face to the swell just over the tight mass of red gold curls, he whispered, "I will be this baby's father in more than seed." Then, fiercely, "Please, Fia, please let me."

Danni came back to the shower with a gasp that burned her lungs and made her choke on the sudden spray of water in her face. She coughed, bending with the force of emotion, the need to clear her lungs, her heart.

He'd said father. He'd said baby.

The implications of that rolled over her like the unharnessed power of the sea. Danni quickly rinsed the soap from her hair and body. She fumbled with the faucet, turning off the water as she sank to the floor of the shower and pulled up her knees.

He'd said father. He'd said baby.

The words repeated in her head, a screeching echo that shredded her beliefs, her hopes and dreams. Niall Ballagh was the father of the baby Fia carried. Not Cathan. Not her husband.

She stood on trembling legs, pulling a towel from the rack and wrapping it around her. She was cold and shaky and sick to her soul. Sean said that after Fia and the children disappeared, there was talk of an affair, and Danni had defended her. Said she knew, in her heart, that there couldn't have been another man. The bitter truth burned her like an oily flame.

While Cathan was trying so hard to please Fia, to make her happy-Fia was sleeping with Niall Ballagh, a man who'd killed his own wife.

Danni clenched her fist in hurt and anger. She tucked the towel around her, realizing she'd forgotten clean clothes when she'd come in. With a growl of frustration, she scooped up the pile on the floor and yanked open the door.

Sean looked up from the fireplace with surprise and stared at her. For a moment, she could only stare back. The fire gilded him in warm gold, making the dark of his hair into a glittery cap of silken light. It gleamed with hues of blue black and starlit velvet. His face, wind burned and sun touched, glowed with an inner luminance, turning his eyes into bright green and silver orbs surrounded by sooty lashes and shifting shadows. In that moment, he looked nothing like his father, nothing like the man who would destroy her world, and Danni was more grateful than she could say or even understand.

He stood, graceful even in the small action. She watched his tall body unfold and stretch. Drank in the sight of his broad shoulders, the power of his strong arms flexing, the lithe beauty of his form. He watched her watching him, an unfathomable gleam deep in his shining eyes.

"That was a quick shower," he said.

It felt like days had passed while she'd waded through that icy pool of betrayal with her mother.

"Are you okay, Danni?" he asked, stepping closer.

She caught his scent. Bracing wind, salty ocean, man. Even after the long day, he smelled good to her. She inhaled, letting him chase away the lingering memory of the cave, the steaming scent of dark secrets. She wanted to bury her face against Sean's chest and breathe him in, forever.

Tentatively Sean reached a hand out and touched her shoulder. Danni stared into his eyes, helpless to fight the pain eating her from inside out. He seemed confused and yet he knew just what to do. He pulled her into his arms, cradled her head against his chest, and held her while she cried.

Chapter Twenty-one.

SEAN didn't ask why she was crying. Some part of him knew to do so would be to invite an even greater breakdown. Somehow Sean sensed that Danni's tears sprang from a deeper well of emotion than fear and confusion over how they'd ended up here. Her pain came from a part of her as hot and central as the core of the earth. She didn't just cry, she wept as if wounded to her very soul. Her misery could not be mistaken for anything less than grieving. But what did she mourn?

Everything that made him a man wanted to demand an explanation. Wanted to fix whatever was wrong and make her world right again. He managed to control the urge, perhaps because the same man who drove it also recognized the fault in it. He couldn't fix anguish. No matter how he wanted to, he couldn't. And in this, trying and failing her would be worse than not trying at all.

So he did what he could. He held her. Tried to give comfort through strength. Weathered her storm. His shirt was wet with her tears and still they flowed, a river of loss that had become too much to dam. He'd taken her bundle of clothes and set them aside then rocked her slowly, gently. Rubbed her back, his hands occasionally slipping higher than the towel to meet warm and silky skin. The contact was electric and it distracted him, but he stayed the course, offering nothing more than his strength and his embrace.

He couldn't have said how long he held her before her sobs became sniffles and her tears finally ceased. He'd become lost in the feel of her, lost in her scent and the warm vibration of her body. She lifted her head from the hollow of his shoulder where it fit so perfectly and looked at him with those tear-soaked eyes. Her lashes were dark and spiky, her pupils huge and black, ringed by a circle of smoky light that shimmered with her pain.

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to touch her as he'd done that morning-if in fact it had been more than a dream, more than a fantasy that played endlessly in his mind. But she looked embarrassed now and vulnerable, and he couldn't bring himself to cross that line of trust. With a control he didn't know he was capable of, he pressed his lips to her forehead and stepped back.

"I'm sorr-" she began.

"Don't, Danni," he said.

Those beautiful eyes rounded and she nodded once. Quickly, curtly.

"I was going to unpack the supper Nana sent," he said, turning, giving her a moment to compose herself. "Why don't you put some warm clothes on?"

She gave another jerky nod. "I will. Go ahead and shower. I'll unpack the food when I'm dressed."

He sensed her desperation for a task to fill her mind and nodded.

"I hope I left you some hot water," she said, turning toward the curtained bedroom.

"You did, I'm sure. I thought I would have to drag you out to get a turn, but you were only in there for a few minutes."

She paled at this, and he glanced into the tiny room wondering again what had sent her out in such a state of shock. What thoughts had poured over her with the spray of water? But he didn't ask.

His shower was considerably longer than hers, and the hot water lasted nearly to the end. As he seemed to be doing with everything of late, he found himself entranced by the feel of the spray against his skin, the sensation of lather in his hands. Why did everything feel so different here? So vivid and tangible. Since waking that morning, it seemed even the act of breathing-of existing at all-was like a seduction in itself.

Dry, he dressed in clean boxers and a pair of worn jeans that were only a bit too big. They hung low on his hips, and he thought of the rappers who wore them around their thighs as a fashion statement. A fashion statement that was years from being made in this time or place. Colleen had sent several shirts, but most were too small. Left with only two that fit, both too heavy for indoors, he opted to go without.

He felt like a new man when he emerged to find Danni sitting in front of the fire he'd started. Her golden brown hair had almost dried and it shone in the muted light. She wore an oversized man's T-shirt-one that would have been too small for him-and a pair of stretchy pants that ended at thick white socks. She glanced at him over her shoulder with wide, shell-shocked eyes.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi."

Her gaze moved from his face to his chest, slowly down then quickly up again. She blushed, and something within him, something deep and male, growled with satisfaction.

They ate the cold meal Colleen had sent and cleaned the dishes afterwards. They spoke very little, but between them there buzzed a tension as real as the air in their lungs and the food they'd consumed. It was full dark outside, but Sean suspected it was no later than seven or eight. He was bone tired, but also alert, attuned to the woman beside him.

"Have you ever been married, Danni?" he asked her suddenly.

"No."

"Why is that, do you think? Are the men of Arizona entirely daft?"

Her smile was tight and sad. "I came close-twice."

"What happened, then?"

He thought she might not answer. He was prying, and she didn't owe him any explanations about herself or her past. But he hoped she'd tell him. He wanted to know about the other men in her life. He wanted the power to drive them from her memory.

"The first time, I was very young. My . . . Jack. That was his name. He met someone else." She looked down at her white socks. "He didn't tell me though. I think he might have actually gone through with the marriage rather than face up to what he was doing if I hadn't caught him at it. I don't understand it. To this day, I don't. But I saw them together."

He waited, wondering if she'd seen them in person, or if she'd "dreamed" them like she had the banshee. She hadn't said as much, but he suspected she saw things the same way Nana did. He wondered if her sudden questions about the Book of Fennore had been spurred from such a sighting.

"Jack tried to deny it when I confronted him," Danni was saying, "but I knew too many details. He said he didn't love her and it was a mistake." She looked up at Sean with another tight smile. "I wanted to believe him. I wanted it so badly that I forgave him, even knowing that I could never forget what he'd done. Yvonne thought I was nuts. I guess she was right. But getting married, having a family. Being part of a family . . . It's all I've ever wanted."

He swallowed hard, remembering how he'd used that very lure to bring her back home. Is it not what you've wished for, Danni?

"The second time I caught him, I knew that even if I married Jack, we'd never be a couple. We'd just be two people who shared a last name and liked to pretend they were together. That probably doesn't make sense, but it's how I felt. But even then, I still couldn't bring myself to kill my dream. I waited for him to do it."

"He left you?" Sean said, surprised.

"Yes." She took a deep breath, pulled her knees up under her chin, and wrapped her arms around them. "He left me."

Sean wanted to move closer. He wanted to hold her again, to smooth out the silky skin puckered between her brows. "What about the other guy you almost married?"

"His name was David. He didn't cheat on me, but he didn't want me either. He said I was too reserved, too cold. He wanted a woman he could love, not just admire." She blinked, and Sean suspected tears would have been in her eyes had she not already cried an ocean. "I never understood what he meant by that. Do you think I'm cold?" she asked.

Hell, no. She was a flame, and he felt raw and open from the burn of her. "I think he was a fucking idiot."

She studied him, looking for something false in his words, in his eyes. Something she wouldn't find. She smiled then. It was but a whisper of the real thing, but it was for him and only him.

With the kitchen cleared, she poured them both tea and sat at the table. She looked small in the man's shirt, fine boned and pale as the moonlight. Once more she drew her knees up, wrapped her arms around them.

"How about you?" she asked after a moment. "Have you been married?"

"No. Not even close."

He saw something in the look she gave him that nudged a dark place in his mind. He sensed there was a purpose behind it, but he couldn't begin to fathom what it was or how to question it.

"Why not?" she asked. "Don't you want to get married? Have children?"

He shrugged, realizing he hadn't thought of it for years, hadn't even considered it a possibility. The reason why eluded him now though. "I never met anyone I trusted enough, I guess," he said, answering both himself and the woman across the table from him.

"Trusted enough? What about loved enough? They go together, don't they?"

"Not always. I've known men who didn't trust their wives alone in the next room, but they loved them anyway."

Danni set her jaw and shook her head. "It has to be both for me. Doesn't it for you?"

"Yes."

She stared at him again with that same probing look. He felt like he was under a spotlight, a glaring search beam that rousted out the slumbering mongrels crouching and snarling in his memory. What did she want to know? Why did he fight so hard to keep it from her? He didn't like her questions, but it was his refusal to answer even himself that made him stand and pace a few steps away.

"You've had serious relationships, though. Haven't you?" she asked.