If it was a day for courage, she would stand on her own when she asked him. Shannon stepped back. “The man and white horse, the woman in the field. You see them.”

“I do. Hazily when I was a boy, then clearer after I found the broach. Clearer yet since you stepped into Brianna’s kitchen and looked at me with eyes I already knew.”

“Tom Concannon’s eyes.”

“You know what I mean, Shannon. They were cool then. I’d seen them that way before. And I’d seen them hot, with anger and with lust. I’d seen them weeping and laughing. I’d seen them swimming with visions.”

“I think,” she said carefully, “that people can be susceptible to a place, an atmosphere. There are a number of studies—” She broke off when his eyes glinted at her. “All right, we’ll toss out logic temporarily. I felt—feel—something at the dance. Something strange, and familiar. And I’ve had dreams—since the first night I came to Ireland.”

“It unnerves you. It did me for a time.”

“Yes, it unnerves me.”

“There’s a storm,” he prompted, trying not to rush her.

“Sometimes. The lightning’s cold, like a spear of ice against the sky, and the ground’s hard with frost so you can hear the sound of the horse thundering across it before you see it and the rider.”

“And the wind blows her hair while she waits. He sees her and his heart’s beating as hard as the horse’s hooves beat the ground.”

Clutching her arms around her, Shannon turned away. It was easier to look at the sea. “Other times there’s a fire in a small dark room. She’s bathing his face with a cloth. He’s delirious, burning with fever that’s spread from his wounds.”

“He knows he’s dying,” Murphy said quietly. “All he has to hold him to life is her hand, and the scent of her, the sound of her voice as she soothes him.”

“But he doesn’t die.” Shannon took a long breath. “I’ve seen them making love, by the fire, in the dance. It’s like watching and being taken at the same time. I’ll wake up hot and shaky and aching for you.” She turned to him then, and he saw a look he’d seen before in her eyes, the smoldering fury of it. “I don’t want this.”

“Tell me what I did, to turn your heart against me.”

“It isn’t against you.”

But he took her arms, his eyes insistent. “Tell me what I did.”

“I don’t know.” She shouted it, then, shocked by the bitterness, pressed against him. “I don’t know. And if I do somehow I can’t tell you. This isn’t my world, Murphy. It’s not real to me.”

“But you’re trembling.”

“I can’t talk about this. I don’t want to think about it. It makes everything more insane and impossible than it already is.”

“Shannon—”

“No.” She took his mouth in a desperate kiss.

“This won’t always be enough to soothe either of us.”

“It’s enough now. Take me back, Murphy. Take me back and we’ll make it enough.”