“I was alone with my mother when she went into the coma she never revived from.” Leading with her heart, Shannon stepped closer, laid a hand on Maggie’s shoulder. “It wasn’t at the end of the earth, and the sun was shining. Technically, she was still alive. But I knew I’d lost her. There was no one there to help.”

Saying nothing, Maggie lifted her hand, rested it over Shannon’s.

“It was the day she told me about—myself. About her and Tom Concannon. I was angry and hurt and said things to her I can never take back. I know that she loved my father. She loved Colin Bodine. And I know she was thinking of her Tommy when she left me.”

“Do we blame them?” Maggie said quietly.

“I don’t know. I’m still angry, and I’m still hurt. And more than anything I don’t know who I really am. I was supposed to take after my father. I thought I did.” Her voice cracked, and she fought hard to even it again. “The man you and Brie described is a stranger to me, and I’m not sure if I can care.”

“I know about the anger. I feel it, too. And I know, for different reasons, what it’s like to not be sure who and what is really inside you.”

“He wouldn’t have asked for more than you could give, Shannon.” Brianna stepped into the room. “He never asked that of anyone.” She slipped her hand over Shannon’s so that the three of them stood together, looking out. “We’re family, by the blood. It’s up to us to decide if we can be family by the heart.”

Chapter
Twelve

She had a great deal to think about, and wanted the time to do it. Shannon knew she’d turned one very sharp corner in Maggie’s kitchen.

She had sisters.

She couldn’t deny the connection any longer, nor could she seem to stop the spread of emotion. She cared about them, their families, their lives. When she was back in New York, she imagined the contact would continue, with letters, calls, occasional visits. She could even see herself returning to Blackthorn Cottage for a week or two now and again through the years.

She’d have the paintings, too. Her first study of the stone dance was finished. When she’d stepped back from the completed canvas, she’d been stunned that the power and scope of it, the sheer passion of it, had come from her.

She’d never painted that vividly before, or felt such a fierce emotional attachment to any of her work.

And it had driven her to start another even as the paint was drying on the first. The sketch she’d done of Brianna in her garden was now a muted, undeniably romantic watercolor, nearly complete.

There were so many other ideas, varied subjects. How could she resist the luminescent light, the varied shades of green—the old man with the thick ash stick she’d seen herding his cows down a twisting road? All of it, every thing and every face she saw cried out to be painted.