Kate Hoffmann - Danny

And then there was their physical compatibility. He’d always enjoyed sex, but sex with Jordan was so much more than the simple satisfying of a need. It was how they communicated, how they conveyed the feelings that they hadn’t yet put into words. Did he love her? He wasn’t sure. But was he falling in love with her? There was a very good possibility he was.

“Books,” she murmured when he finally drew away. “You have to stop distracting me.”

“All right,” he whispered. “Let’s get your books. We’ll continue this later.”

As Danny followed her around the bookstore, pointing out volumes that belonged in her library, he thought about the time they had left together. He had at least another two weeks of work to do and he could maybe stretch it into three. But her work in Ireland would eventually end.

He tried to imagine how that would look, how it would feel. Would they just kiss each other goodbye and end it? Or would they make plans to see each other again? Though he’d always been one to make a break up clean and simple, somehow he knew it wouldn’t be simple with Jordan. He was already thinking of ways they could be together, of trips to New York.

He needed time. Or he’d have to make better use of the time he had. Riley had only been given a couple of weeks with Nan. How had he managed it? Maybe it was time to find out.

THEY’D PACKED THE CAR with boxes of books, the scent of old leather filling Jordan’s station wagon. More books would be delivered to the house tomorrow and the shopkeeper had found additional sets in Dublin and Galway that he’d ordered for Jordan and send on through a delivery service.

As they drove along the coast, the sun disappeared, replaced by steely-gray clouds and a soft drizzle. Jordan stared out the window as she listened to the gentle rhythm of the wipers.

Even on such a dreary afternoon, the countryside still looked so green and magical. Until Danny had come into her life, she’d been immune to its charms. But now, caught in an affair with a sexy Irishman, she could appreciate the place that had made him.

There was something about the light, how it shimmered over the landscape, intensifying the colors and the contrasts: soft green moss growing on weathered gray rock, white clouds blowing above the deep blue of the Atlantic. Ireland was alive.

Was it the land or was it the man she was with? Had Danny made her more aware of her surroundings? Her senses were so much more heightened now. Smells and tastes could elicit an overwhelming pleasure for her. Back home, there was a quiet sameness to all her days and nights, as if she were just wandering from one day to the next, waiting for something important to happen.

Now it had. She glanced over at him, then reached out and ran her hand through his hair, brushing a stubborn curl away from his face.

“What?” he said, looking over at her.

“Nothing,” Jordan replied. “I just felt like touching you.”

Danny smiled. “I know how you feel. I pretty much think about touching you all the time.”

“I know,” Jordan said.

“You do? How do you know?”

“I just do.” She looked out the window at the landscape passing by. “I love Ireland. I didn’t think I would, but I do. Even in the rain, it’s beautiful.” She paused. “Have you ever thought of leaving?”

Danny shook his head. “No. Maybe for a holiday. I could imagine living in another country for a year or two. But I’d have to come back. Some of my cousins live in America,” he said. “In Boston. And I have cousins in New York and California, too. But I’ve never met them.”

“I feel like I haven’t really seen a lot of the country. I’ve been to almost every antique store, but I haven’t been to Blarney Castle.”

“Blarney Castle is for the tourists. We’ll go to the Burren and the Cliffs of Moher. We’ll see the natural sites, not the ones with lines of tourists.”

“What else will you show me?” Jordan asked.

“There is a place I could show you right now,” Danny said. “I think you’ll like it. And it’s on the way to Ballykirk.”

“It’s raining,” she said.

“Even better,” he replied. “We may see something interesting in the rain.”

“Is it a stone circle? I went to visit a stone circle here. I thought it would be like Stonehenge, but it was really small.”

“Our stone circles aren’t nearly as grand. But they’re populated by much more interesting spirits.”

“So, where are we going? Is it on my map?”

“I’m not going to tell you,” he said.

“Will it have a gift shop?”

Danny chuckled. “No. No gift shop.”

Jordan continued to question him, making a game of it, trying to tease the answer out of him. Danny grabbed her hand and laced his fingers through hers. “Look how happy you are when we’re out of that house,” he said. “We need to make a point of getting away more often. You never look like this when you’re sitting in your office, worrying over your reports.”

“How do I look when I’m in my office?”

He pulled a silly face and Jordan couldn’t help but laugh. “I look constipated?”

“That was cheesed off,” Danny said. “You look annoyed. As if you’d rather be doing anything else.”

“And how do I look when I’m in bed with you?”

He made another face, his eyes fluttering and his lips parted.

“Drunk,” she said. “You’re not very good at faces.”

Danny navigated the station wagon through brilliant green hillsides along the coast. At a rocky pass, they waited for a herd of sheep to cross the road and when they wouldn’t move, Danny jumped out of the car and helped the farmer hurry them along.

No matter where she looked, there was something beautiful to see-a thatch-roofed cottage, an old cemetery filled with ornate Celtic crosses, the ruin of an ancient church.

They passed a number of signs for tourist attractions, but Danny continued on. Then he turned off the main road onto a narrow lane. Drystone walls lined either side of the road and bushes arched above them until they were driving through a tunnel of thick greenery. They came out on the other side and he pulled the car into a small parking spot, cut into the stone fence.

“This is it,” he said, hopping out of the driver’s side. He reached in the backseat and grabbed his jacket, then hurried around to help her out. They found a muddy footpath leading through a grove of trees.

The drizzle had turned to a light mist and Jordan pulled her jacket more tightly around her. Danny held the umbrella over her head, helping her over rocky spots along the path. And then he stopped. “This is it,” he murmured.

Jordan glanced around. There wasn’t much to see. They stood in the middle of some sort of circle, the earth mounded up with trees planted on either side of the small ridge. The entire circle was no more than forty or fifty feet in diameter. “What is this place?”

“This is a fairy circle,” Danny said.

“It looks like a little shallow in the woods. Maybe there was a pond here at one time.”

“No, it’s a fairy circle. They’re all over Ireland. Sometimes you find them in the middle of a meadow, just a ring of mushrooms. Or they can be made of stones. The farmers won’t touch them for fear of grievous bad luck.”

“Where are the fairies?”

“They’re watching us. You should be able to see them, sidhe.”

“I’m not a fairy.”

“That’s what a fairy would say.”

Jordan slowly walked along the elevated ridge, careful not to trip on the exposed roots from the trees. “How did this happen?”

“They say the fairies dance round and round in a circle and the earth rises up beneath them. If you walk around the circle and make a wish, it will come true.”

“I don’t believe that,” Jordan said. “Someone piled up the dirt in a circle.”

“They also say, if a man finds himself alone in a fairy ring with a fairy, then he belongs to her forever.” Danny took her into the center of the ring, then stood behind her, lifting her arms up to the sky. “Close your eyes,” he whispered.

Jordan did as she was told. Without sight, her hearing became more acute. At first, she thought it was merely the wind whistling through the trees, but then she began to hear singing. Soft, sweet voices on the breeze. “I hear them,” she said, opening her eyes and searching the landscape.

The magic was all around them, like electricity in the air. “I feel their presence,” she said. Slowly she turned, searching the trees for a sight of them.

“I told you. You have fairy blood coursing in your veins. Leanan sidhe. She chooses a human to love and if the human doesn’t love her, she becomes his slave. But if he does love her, then he is hers, forever. But forever isn’t very long, because the lovers of the leanan sidhe always die young. They say that’s why so many Irish writers and poets and artists die young, because they are captivated by the leanan sidhe.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Jordan said.

Danny reached out and smoothed his hand over her cheek, tucking a windswept strand behind her ear. “I know. But sometimes it feels that way.”

Jordan closed her eyes and turned into his touch, waiting for him to kiss her. When he finally did, his mouth was warm and demanding.

“Like now,” he whispered. “I feel like I’m going to die if I can’t have you.”

Jordan parted her lips as the kiss deepened and she felt her mind spinning with desire and her body pulsing with wild sensations. The kiss ended slowly, Danny nuzzling his face into the curve of her neck.

“You have bewitched me,” he said.

“And can you escape from the leanan sidhe?”

“Only if I find someone to take my place,” he said. “Another man to capture your fancy.”

“I don’t want anyone but you,” Jordan whispered back.