He kept the furnishings spare, she noted, but he chose what he kept around him with care.

She rose, stretched, shook back her hair. The rain made her feel beautifully lazy. Instead of looking for her clothes, she walked to his closet hoping she would find a robe to bundle into.

She found a robe, and it made her fingers jerk on the door. A long white robe with wide sleeves.

He'd worn it the night before. In the stone dance. Under the moonlight. A witch's robe.

Closing the door quickly, she spun around, looked around wildly for her clothes. Downstairs, she remembered with a jolt. He'd undressed her downstairs, and then-

What was she doing? What was she thinking of? Was this real or had she gone mad?

Had she just spent hours in bed with him?

And if it was real, if what she'd always thought was fantasy was suddenly truth, had he used it to lure her here?

For lack of anything else, she snatched up the throw, wrapped it around herself. She grasped the ends tight as the door of the bedroom opened.

He lifted a brow when he saw her, draped in the cloth his mother had woven for him when he'd turned twenty-one. She looked tumbled and lovely and outrageously desirable. He took a step toward her before he caught the glint of suspicion in her eyes.

Annoyed, he moved past her to set the tea tray he'd carried up on the bedside table. "What have you thought of that I haven't explained?"

"How can you explain what should be impossible?"

"What is, is," he said simply. "I am a hereditary witch, descended from Finn of the Celts. What powers I have are my birthright."

She had to accept that. She had seen, she had felt. She kept her shoulders straight and her voice even. "Did you use those powers on me, Liam?"

"You ask me not to touch your thoughts. Since I respect your wishes, try to be more specific in your questions." Obviously irritated, he sat on the side of the bed and picked up a cup of tea.

"I was attracted to you, strongly and physically attracted to you from the first minute. I behaved with you as I've never behaved with a man. I've just gone to bed with you and felt things-" She took a long, steadying breath as he watched her, as she saw a little gleam that had to be triumph light his eyes. "Did you put a spell on me to get me into bed?"

The gleam went dark, and triumph became fury so swiftly she stumbled back a step in instinctive defense. China cracked on wood as he slammed the cup down. From somewhere not so far away, came the irritable grumble of thunder.

But he got to his feet slowly, like a wolf, she thought, stalking prey.

"Love spells, love potions?" He came toward her.

She backed away. "I'm a witch not a charlatan. I'm a man not a cheat. Do you think I would abuse my gifts, shame my name for sex?"

He made a dismissive gesture; the window shuddered and cracked, giving her a clue just how dangerous was his temper. "I didn't ask for you, woman. Whatever part fate played in it, you came to this place, and to me, of your own will. And you're free to go in the same manner."

"How can you expect me not to wonder?" she shot back. "I'm just supposed to shrug and accept. Oh, Liam's a witch. He can turn into a wolf and read my mind and blink us from one room to the next whenever he likes. Isn't that handy?"

She whirled away from him, the throw flicking out around her bare legs. "I'm an educated woman who's just been dropped headfirst into some kind of fairy tale. I'll ask whatever questions I damn well please."

"You appeal to me when you're angry," he murmured. "Why is that, I wonder?"

"I have no idea." She spun back. "I don't get angry, by the way. And I never shout, but I'm shouting at you. I don't fall naked into bed with men or have arguments wearing nothing but a blanket, so if I ask if you've done something to make me behave this way, I think it's a perfectly logical question."

"Perhaps it is. Insulting, but logical. The answer is no." He said it almost wearily as he went back to sit on the bed and sip his tea. "I cast no spell, wove no magic. I'm Wiccan, Rowan. There is one law we live by, one rule that cannot be broken. 'An it harm none.' I will do nothing to harm you. And my pride alone would prevent me from influencing your response to me. What you feel, you feel."

When she said nothing, he moved his shoulder in a careless jerk, as if there wasn't a sharp clawed fist around his heart. "You'll want your clothes." With no more than those words, her jeans and shirt appeared on the chair.

She let out a short laugh, shook her head. "And you don't think I should be dazzled by something like that. You expect a great deal, Liam."

He looked at her again, thought of what ran in her blood. Not nearly ready to know, he decided, annoyed with his own impatience. "Aye, I suppose I do. You have a great deal, Rowan, if you'd only trust yourself."

"No one's ever really believed in me." Steady now, she walked to him. "That's a kind of magic you offer me that means more than all the flash and wonder. I'll start with trusting this much-I'll believe that what I feel for you is real. Is that enough for now?"

He lifted a hand to lay it over the one that held the ends of the throw. The tenderness that filled him was new, unexplained and too sweet to question. "It's enough. Sit, have some tea."

"I don't want tea." It thrilled her to be so bold, to loosen her grip and let the throw fall away. "And I don't want my clothes. But I do want you."

CHAPTER 9

She was under a spell. Not one that required incantations, Rowan thought dreamily. Not one that called on mystical powers and forces. She was in love, and that, she supposed, was the oldest and the most natural of magics.

She'd never been as comfortable nor as uneasy with any other man. Never been quite so shy, nor ever so bold as she was with Liam. Looking back, gauging her actions, her reactions, her words and her wishes, she realized she'd fallen under that spell the moment she'd turned and seen him behind her on the cliffs.

The wind in his hair, annoyance in his eyes, Ireland in his voice. That graceful, muscular body with its power held ruthlessly in check.

Love at first sight, she thought. Just one more page of her own personal fairy tale.

And after love, her love, they'd found their way to a friendship she treasured every bit as much. Companionship, an ease of being. She knew he enjoyed having her with him, for work, for talk, for sitting quietly and watching the sky change with evening.