Shannon opened her mouth, closed it on a laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“Just slainté’s enough,” Murphy said as he brought the teapot to the table. “She’s just tormenting you.”

“Slainté then.” Shannon lifted her glass, then remembered something from her childhood. “Oh, and may you have a dozen children, Maggie, just like you.”

“A toast and a curse.” Gray snickered. “Well done, pal.”

“Aye.” Maggie’s lips curved. “She’s done well enough.”

Chapter Nine

The hours Murphy spent with his horses was his purest pleasure. Working the land was something he had always done, always would do. There was joy in it, and frustration, and disappointment and pride. He enjoyed the soil in his hands, under his feet, and the scent of growing things. Weather was equal parts his friend and his enemy. He knew the moods of the sky often better than he knew his own.

His life had been spent plowing the earth, planting it, reaping it. It was something he had always known, yet it was not all he knew.

The fine spring that the west was enjoying meant his work was hard and long, but without the bitter sorrow of root crops that rotted in soaked earth, or grains that suffered from the bite of frost or the plague of pests.

He planted wisely, combining the ways of his father and grandfather with the newer, and often experimental means he read of in books. Whether he rode his tractor toward the brown field with its rows of dark green potato plants, or walked into the shadowy dairy barn at dawn to start the milking, he knew his work was valuable.

But his horses were for him.

He clucked to a yearling, watching as the wide-chested bay gave a lazy swish of tail. They knew each other these two, and the game of long standing. Murphy waited patiently, enjoying the routine. A glossy mare stood farther out in the field, cropping grass patiently while her colt nursed. Others, including the mare who was mother to the yearling, and Murphy’s prize, the chestnut filly, perked up their ears and watched the man.

Murphy patted his pocket, and with equine pride the yearling tossed his head and approached.

“You’re a fine one, aren’t you? Good lad.” He chuckled, stroking the yearling’s flank as the horse nuzzled at the pocket, and the others walked his way. “Not above bribery. Here then.” He took a chunk of the apples he’d quartered and let the colt eat out of his hand. “I’m thinking you’re going on a fine adventure today. I’ll miss you.” He stroked, automatically checking the colt’s knees. “Damned if I won’t. But lazing in pasture all day isn’t what you were born for. And all of us have to do what we were meant to do.”

He greeted the other horses, sharing the bits of apple, then with his arm slung around the yearling’s neck, he gazed over the land. Harebells and bluebells were springing up wild, and the madwort was beginning to bloom yellow beside the near wall. He could see his silo, and the barn, the cabins, the house beyond, looking like a picture against a sky of layered clouds.

Past noon, he judged, and considered going in for a cup of tea before his business appointment. Then he looked west, just beyond the stone dance, away by the wall that separated grazing from grain.

And there she was.

His heart stumbled in his chest. He wondered if it would always be so when he saw her. It was a stunning thing for a man who had gone more than thirty years without feeling more than a passing interest in a woman to see one, once, and know without doubt that she was his fate.

The wanting was there, a churning deep that made him long to touch and taste and take. He thought he could, with a careful and patient approach. For she wasn’t indifferent to him. He’d felt her pulse leap, and seen the change that was desire slip into her eyes.

But the love was there, deeper yet than the wanting. And stranger, he thought now, as it seemed to have been there always, waiting. So it would not be enough to touch, to taste, to take. That would only be a beginning.

“But you have to begin to go on, don’t you?” Murphy gave the yearling a last caress, then walked over the pasture.

Shannon saw him coming. Indeed, she’d been distracted from her work when he’d come among the horses. It had been like a play, she thought, the man and the young horse, both exceptional specimens, passing a few moments together in a green field.

She’d known, too, the exact moment when he’d seen her. The distance hadn’t kept her from feeling the power of the look. What does he want from me? she asked herself as she went back to the canvas she’d started.

What do I want from him?

“Hello, Murphy.” She continued to paint as he came to the wall that separated them. “Brianna said you wouldn’t mind if I worked here for a while.”

“You’re welcome for as long as you like. Is it the dance you’re painting?”

“Yes. And yes, you can take a look.” She changed brushes, clamping one between her teeth as he swung over the wall.

She was catching the mystery of it, Murphy decided as he studied the canvas that was set on an easel. The entire circle was sketched in, with a skill he admired and envied. Though both back and foregrounds were blank still, she’d begun to add color and texture to the stones.

“It’s grand, Shannon.”

Though it pleased her, she shook her head. “It has a long way to go before it’s close to being grand. And I’ve nearly lost the right light today.” Though she knew, somehow, she could paint the standing stones in any light, from any angle. “I thought I saw you earlier, on your tractor.”

“Likely.” He liked the way she smelled when she worked—paint and perfume. “Have you been at it long?”

“Not long enough.” Frowning, she swirled her brush in paint she’d smeared on her palette. “I should have set up at dawn to get the right shadows.”

“There’ll be another dawn tomorrow.” He sat on the wall, tapping a finger against her sketchbook. “That shirt you’re wearing, what does CM stand for?”

She set down her brush, took a step back to examine the canvas, and smeared more paint from her fingers to the sweatshirt. “Carnegie Mellon. It’s the college I went to.”

“You studied painting there.”

“Umm.” The stones weren’t coming to life yet, she thought. She wanted them alive. “I concentrated on commercial art.”