When Conal came back in, the old teapot was sitting snugly in a frayed and faded cozy. Cups and saucers were set on the table, and the table scrubbed clean. The sink was empty, the counters sparkling, and the chocolate biscuits he’d had in a tin were arranged prettily on a plate.
“I was hungry.” She was already nibbling on one. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“No.” He’d nearly forgotten what it was like to sit down and have tea in tidiness. Her little temper snap appeared to be over as well, he noted. She looked quietly at home in his kitchen, in his shirt.
“So.” She sat down to pour. The one thing she was good at was conversation. She’d often been told she was too good at it. “You live here alone?”
“I do.”
“With your dog.”
“Hugh. He was my father’s. My father died some months back.”
She didn’t say she was sorry, as so many—too many—would have. But her eyes said it, and that made it matter more. “It’s a beautiful spot. A perfect spot. That’s what I was thinking before I fell into your garden. You grew up here?”
“I did.”
“I grew up in New York, in the city. It never fit, somehow.” She studied him over her teacup. “This fits you. It’s wonderful to find the right fit. Everyone in my family fits except me. My parents and Margaret and James—my brother and sister. Their mother died when Margaret was twelve and James ten. Their father met my mother a couple of years later, then they married and had me.”
“And you’re Cinderella?”
“No, nothing as romantic as that.” But she sighed and thought how lovely it would be. “Just the misfit. They’re all brilliant, you see. Every one of them. My father’s a doctor, a surgeon. My mother’s a lawyer. James is a wildly successful cosmetic surgeon, and Margaret has her own business with A Civilized Adventure.”
“Who would want an adventure civilized?”
“Yes.” Delighted, Allena slapped a palm on the table. “That’s exactly what I thought. I mean, wouldn’t regimenting it mean it wasn’t an adventure at all? But saying that to Margaret earned me a twenty-minute lecture, and since her business is thriving, there you go.”
The light was already shifting, he noted, as a new sea of clouds washed in. But there was enough of the sun yet to sprinkle over her hair, into her eyes. And make his fingers itch for a pencil.
He knew just what he would do with her, exactly how it would be. Planning it, he let his gaze wander over her. And nearly jolted when he saw the pendant. He’d all but forgotten it.
“Where did you get that?”
She’d seen those vivid blue eyes travel down, had felt a shiver of response, and now another of relief that—she hoped—it was the pendant that interested him.
“This? It’s the heart of my problem.”
She’d meant it as a joke, but his gaze returned to her face, all but seared the flesh with the heat of it. “Where did you get it?”
Though the edge to his voice puzzled her, she shrugged. “There was a little shop near the waterfront. The display window was just crammed with things. Wonderful things. Magic.”
“Magic.”
“Elves and dragons, books and jewelry in lovely, fascinating shapes. A hodgepodge, but a crafty one. Irresistible. I only meant to go in for a minute. I had time before we were to meet at the ferry. But the old woman showed me this, and somehow while we were talking, time just went away. I didn’t mean to buy it, either. But I do a lot of things I don’t mean to do.”
“You don’t know what it is?”
“No.” She closed her hand over it, felt that low vibration that couldn’t be there, blinked as something tried to slide in on the edge of her vision. “It feels old, but it can’t be old, not valuably old, because it only cost ten pounds.”
“Value’s different for one than for another.” He reached out. It was irresistible. With his eyes steady and level he closed his hand over hers that held the pendant.
The jolt snapped into her, sharp as an electric current. The air seemed to turn the blue of lightning. She was on her feet, her head tipping back to keep her eyes locked with his as he shoved back from the table with enough violence to send his chair crashing.
That same violence was in him when his mouth crushed hers. The need, so bright, so strong, so right, whipped through her even as the wind rushed sudden and sharp through the window at her back. Her hand fisted in his hair, her body lifted itself to his.
And fit.
The pounding of her heart was like a song, each note a thrill. Here, with him, it was enough, even if the world crumbled to dust around them.