Page 84 of A Celtic Memory
Strangely upbeat, Madison slipped her a piece of muffin. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”
Naturally, Luna kept quiet, enjoying the muffin as she eyed Riona’s sketchbook. Madison looked from the dog to something her sister never shared with anyone. If she didn’t know better, she would say the little husky wanted her to take a peek.
“No,” she chastised. “That wouldn’t be right.”
Yet her gaze kept wandering. Rionahadsnapped it shut rather abruptly when Madison came down, hadn’t she?
“It’s wrong,” she whispered but heck if Luna’s eyes didn’t get a little crazy and kept going to it.
“Fine then,” she muttered. “If you insist.”
Quick, before she second-guessed herself, she opened the sketchbook and literally lost her breath. Riona was always so busy with her camera that she’d forgotten what a talented artist she was with nothing more than a pencil. How she made things come alive on the page.
She leafed through as fast as she could, enchanted by her sister's take on this house. The old oak. Everything around her. The drawings were remarkably lifelike but, at the same time, unique.
Seen through her view of the world.
She kept flipping the pages until one caught her attention, and she stopped. It was a sketch of the image Riona had caught with her camera when she spoke to Madison across time, only more in-depth. The aura of the man obvious where it hadn’t been in the snapshots she took. Not like Cian’s had been.
Each page flip led to more and more definition. As though Riona saw it clearer and clearer as time went on. Saw what her camera had not. She stopped at the last one. It was clear as day.
And it wasn’t Liam.
But he was most definitely related to Cian and Liam. So said the chiseled contours of his face. His hair was slightly lighter and his eyes harder, but there was a hint of a grin on his lips. A look in his eyes similar to what she had seen in Cian’s when he looked at her.
“Declán?” she whispered.
“What are you doing?” Riona stopped short at the door with an armful of ingredients and rounded her eyes. “That’s...” She shook her head, flustered. “That’s...” Where Shannon would have said it was none of her business, confrontation wasn’t Riona’s strong suit. “You just shouldn’t have, Madison.” She shook her head and set the ingredients down. “Not without asking first.”
“I know. I’m so sorry.” She went to hand the book back, but her ring snagged on the corner of the page and turned it. “I didn’t mean to...”
“Madison?” Riona said, suddenly sounding far away. “Are you okay?”
Was she? It was hard to know as she stared at the image Riona had clearly been sketching when Madison came downstairs. So said her scribble when she closed the book quickly.
“What is this?” she whispered, trying to understand what she looked at. The sweeping cliffs over a frothing sea. It seemed so familiar. Most definitely Ireland, but...where? Because it called to her every bit as much as her initial dream had.
“I don’t know.” Rather than continue being upset, Riona eyed the picture and shook her head. “Honestly, I was half asleep when I sketched it.”
“Are you usually half asleep when you sketch?”
“More often than I’d like to admit,” she confessed. Her gaze seemed a little distant when she ran her fingers over the cliffs. Across the undulating, white-tipped waves. Over the frothing bubbles as they crashed into the rock wall. “I don’t know where this is, Madison. Only that it’s...important somehow.”
She nodded, certain now more than ever that everything Riona caught on camera and sketched was important.
“I won’t say a word when Shannon and Constance come down but do you mind if I keep looking at your images?” She gave Riona a sheepish smile, knowing she would deny her nothing. “They just feel so...well...they help me somehow.”
Mainly the last image.
Clearly protective of her work, Riona hesitated a moment before she nodded and smiled. “Of course.” Her smile dropped as soon as it blossomed. “What do you mean, once Constance comes down? She’s not here.”
“Of course she is,” she replied. “She popped into my bedroom last night to make sure I was okay.”
“Um...no.” Riona shook her head. “She texted saying sorry, she wouldn't be here for a few more days.” When Madison shook her head as well, Riona gestured at the window. “Go look for yourself. Her car’s not here.”
She wasn’t kidding. Constance’s carwasn’there.
“That’s impossible.” She frowned. “She sat on my bed last night. Told me I wasn’t alone.Zekewas even there.”
