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  burning up, and then he’s ripping off a drumstick and chomping into it before he’s so much as put his shirt on again. It all just boiled my brain until I was all but crawling over him and kissing him.”

  “Well,” Branna said after Meara sucked in a breath.

  “But I stopped—you have to know—well, after the second time I stopped.”

  Though Branna’s mouth quirked at the corner, her tone stayed utterly even. “The second time?”

  “I— It— He— It was a mad reaction to the evening.”

  “And did he have a mad reaction as well—to the evening?”

  “I’d have to say, thinking on it, the first one took him by surprise, and who could wonder. And the second . . . he’s a man, after all.”

  “He is that, indeed.”

  “But it went no further. I’ll make that clear to you. I had him drop me home and drive on. It went no further.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Blank, Meara just stared. “He dropped me home as I said.”

  “Why didn’t he go with you?”

  “With me? He needed to go home, to you.”

  “Ah, bollocks to that, Meara.” Annoyance flicked out. “I won’t be used as an excuse.”

  “I don’t mean that, not at all. I . . . I thought you’d be irritated or amused, or puzzled at least. But you’re not.”

  “I’m none of those, no, or surprised in the least. I’ve wondered why it’s taken the pair of you so bloody long to get to it.”

  “Get to what?”

  “Get together.”

  “Together?” Pure shock had Meara surging to her feet. “Me, Connor. No, that can’t be.”

  “And why can’t it?”

  “Because we’re friends.”

  Meara sipped her tea, looked into the fire. “When I think of a lover who would touch more than my body, I think of a friend. To have only the heat without the warmth? It would do, and does, but only just.”

  “And what happens to the friend when the lover ends?”

  “I don’t know. I see our parents, Connor’s and mine, happy still. Not blissful every second of every day, for who could stand that? But happy, and in tune most of the time.”

  “And I see mine.”

  “I know.” Branna reached up, took Meara’s hand to draw her down to sit again. “Those who made us give us each a different place to stand on it, don’t they? I want, when I let myself want, that happy, that in tune. And you won’t let yourself want at all because you see the ruin, the misery, and the selfishness under it all.”

  “He means too much to me to risk the ruin. And we’ve too much to fight for—as yesterday and today have proved—to tangle up our circle with sex.”

  “I believe Iona and Boyle have sex at every opportunity.”

  Now Meara laughed. “They’re mad in love, and suited for it, so it’s different.”

  “It’s up to you, of course, and to Connor.” And Connor, Branna thought, would very likely have a different thing or two to say about the matter. “But know I’ve no objection at all, if that was a worry to you. Why would I? I love you both. I’ll say as well that sex is a powerful magick of its own.”

  “So I should sleep with Connor to aid the cause?”

  “You should do what makes you happy.”

  “It’s all a bit confusing right now to be sure what does, what doesn’t. But what I have to do is get back to work before Boyle gives me the boot.”

  “I’ll make the charm first, and Kathel and Roibeard will go back with you. Walk clear of Sorcha’s place, Meara.”

  “Believe me, I’ll do that.”

  “Tell Iona and Boyle what happened. Boyle will see Fin’s told, and I’ll speak with Connor. Cabhan’s growing bold again, so we best all be on our toes.”

  * * *

  BRANNA DIDN’T HAVE TO TELL CONNOR, AS FIN WENT BY the school that afternoon, took Connor aside.

  “Is she all right? Are you sure of it?”

  “I saw her myself not an hour ago. She’s fine and fit as ever.”

  “I’ve been busy,” Connor said. “I barely noticed Roibeard wasn’t about, then when I did, I knew he was at the stables. He likes it there, with the horses. With Meara. So I thought nothing of it, and he never sent me any alarm.”

  “As he and Kathel were all she needed. Branna made her a charm. It’s a strong one—I had Meara show me. And the woman’s strong as well. Still, it’s time we were all a bit more careful.”

  Connor paced, boots crunching on gravel. “He’d have raped her. Strong or not, she couldn’t have stopped him. I’ve seen what he’s done to women over his time.”

  “He didn’t touch her, Connor, and won’t. We’ll all see to that.”

  “I’ve worried for Branna on this. He wants power, and she is full of power. Named for Sorcha’s firstborn, and the first of the three in the now to be passed the amulet. And . . .”

  “The woman I love, who loves me even if she won’t have me. You’re not alone in your worry.”

  “And Meara is a sister to Branna. That might be making her more appealing to him,” Connor considered.

  “To strike at Branna through Meara.” Fin nodded. “It would be his way.”

  “It would. And after last night . . .”

  “After what he did to you? What has that to do with Meara?”

  “Nothing at all. Well, indirectly.” A man shouldn’t lie or evade with his mates. In any case there was more on the line than discretion. “We had a moment, Meara and I, after leaving Branna at the cottage. A moment or two in the lorry, on the side of the road.”

  Fin’s eyebrow winged up. “You moved in on Meara?”

  “The other way.” Distracted, Connor twirled a finger. “She moved in on me. And moved in with great enthusiasm. Then stopped cold, said that’s the end of that, and take me home. I love women, Fin. I love them top to toe, minds, hearts, bodies. Breasts. What is there about a woman’s breasts?”

  “How long do we have to discuss it?”

  Connor laughed. “True enough. We could take hours on breasts alone. I love women, Fin, but for the life of me there’s so much of them impossible to understand.”

  “And that discussion would take days and never be resolved.” Obviously intrigued, Fin studied Connor’s face. “Tell me this, did you want that to be the end of it?”

  “After I got over wondering where all this had been hiding, from both of us, all our lives, no, I didn’t. Don’t.”

  “Then, mo dearthair.” Fin slapped Connor’s shoulder. “It’s up to you to follow through.”

  “I’m thinking on it. And now wondering if that moment or two on the side of the road might be why Cabhan took an interest in her today. Because I did, in that way? It’s not far thinking.”

  “It’s not, no. He hurt you last night. It may be he tried to hurt you again, through Meara, today. So have a care, both of you.”

  “I will, and I’ll see she does. Ah, there’s the three o’clocks. A mister and missus from Wales. Want to go along? I’ll fetch you a pack and glove.”

  Fin started to decline, then realized it had been too long since he’d done a hawk walk with Connor. “I wouldn’t mind that, but I’ll get my own gear.”

  Connor glanced up, spotted Merlin in the sky. “Will you take him? Trust one of them with him?”

  “He’d enjoy it as well.”

  “It’ll be a bit like old times then.”

  When Fin went off for the gear, Connor took a quick glance at the time. As soon as he was able, he’d search out Meara. They had considerable to talk about, like it or not.

  9

  AS IF HER DAY HADN’T BEEN FRAUGHT ENOUGH, MEARA added on a frantic and weepy call from her mother that sent her searching out Boyle.

  He sat in his office scowling as he was prone to scowl over paperwork.

  “Boyle.”

  “Why is it the numbers never tally the first time you do them? Why is that?”

  “I couldn’t say. Boyle, I’m sorry
to ask but I need to go. My mother’s had a fire at the house.”

  “A fire?” He shoved up from his desk as if he’d rush off to put it out himself.

  “A kitchen fire, I think. It was hard getting anything out of her, as she was near hysterical. But I did get she’s not hurt, and didn’t burn the place down around her. Still, I don’t know how bad it all is, so—”

  “Go. Go on.” He rounded the desk, taking her arm, drawing her out of the office. “Let me know what’s what as soon as you can.”

  “I will. Thanks. I’ll do extra tomorrow to make up for it.”

  “Just go, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I’m going.”

  She jumped in her lorry.

  It would be nothing, she told herself. Unless it was something. With Colleen Quinn, you never knew which.

  And her mother had been all but incoherent, wailing one minute, babbling the next. All about the kitchen, smoke, burning.

  Maybe she was hurt.

  The image of Connor, the black bubbling burn on his arm flashed through her mind.

  Burning.

  Cabhan. Fear spurted through her at the thought he might have played some part. Had he gone after her mother because in the end she’d resisted his call?

  Meara punched the accelerator, rocketed around curves, raced her way with her heart at a gallop to the little dollhouse nestled with a handful of others just along the hem of Cong’s skirts.

  The house stood—no damage she could see to the white walls, the gray roof, the tidy dooryard garden. Tidy, true enough, as the small bit of garden in front and back was her mother’s only real interest.

  She shoved through the short gate—one she’d painted herself the previous spring, and ran up the walk, digging for her keys, since her mother insisted on locking the doors day and night in fear of burglars, rapists, or alien probes.

  But Colleen rushed out, hands clasped together at her breast as if in prayer.

  “Oh, Meara, thank God you’ve come! What will I do? What will I do?”

  She threw herself into Meara’s arms, a weeping, trembling bundle of despair.

  “You’re not hurt? For certain? Let me see you’re not hurt.”

  “I burned my fingers.” Like a child she held up her hand to show the hurt.

  And nothing, Meara saw with relief, a bit of salve wouldn’t deal with.

  “All right then, all right.” To soothe, Meara brushed a light kiss over the little burn. “That’s the most important thing.”

  “It’s terrible!” Colleen insisted. “The kitchen’s a ruin. What will I do? Oh, Meara, what will I do?”

  “Let’s have a look, then we’ll see, won’t we?”

  It was easy to turn Colleen around and pull her inside. Meara had gotten her height from her long-absent father. Colleen made a pretty little package—a petite, slim, and always perfectly groomed one, a fact of life that often made Meara feel like a hulking bear leading a poodle with a perfect pedigree.

  No damage in the front room, another relief, though Meara could smell smoke, and see the thin haze of it.

  Smoke, she thought—more relief—not fog.

  Three strides took her into the compact, eat-in kitchen where the smoke hung in a thin haze.

  Not a ruin, but sure a mess. And not one, she determined immediately, caused by an evil sorcerer, but a careless and inept woman.

  Keeping an arm around her weeping mother, she took stock.

  The roasting pan with the burned joint, now spilled onto the floor beside a scorched and soaking dish cloth told the tale.

  “You burned the joint,” Meara said carefully.

  “I thought to roast some lamb, as Donal and his girl were to come to dinner later. I can’t approve him moving in with Sharon before marriage, but I’m his mother all the same.”

  “Roasting a joint,” Meara murmured.

  “Donal’s fond of a good joint as you know. I’d just gone out the back for a bit. I’ve had slugs in the garden there, and went to change the beer.”

  Fluttering in distress, Colleen waved her hands at the kitchen door as if Meara might have forgotten where the garden lay. “They’ve been after the impatiens, so I had to see about it.”

  “All right.” Meara stepped over, began to open the windows, as Colleen had failed to do.

  “I wasn’t out that long, but I thought since I was, I’d cut some flowers for a nice arrangement on the table. You need fresh flowers for company at dinner.”

  “Mmm,” Meara said, and picked up the flowers scattered over the wet floor.

  “I came in, and the kitchen was full of smoke.” Still fluttering, Colleen looked tearfully around the room. “I ran to the oven, and the lamb was burning, so I took the cloth there to pull it out.”

  “I see.” Meara turned off the oven, found a fresh cloth, picked up the roasting pan, the charcoaled joint.

  “And somehow the cloth lit, and was burning. I had to drop everything and take the pan there, where I had water for the potatoes.”

  Meara picked up the potatoes while her mother wrung her hands, dumped the lot in the sink to deal with later.

  “It’s a ruin, Meara, a ruin! What will I do? What will I do?”

  The familiar mix of annoyance, resignation, frustration wound through her. Accepting that as her lot, Meara dried her hands by swiping them on her work pants.

  “The first thing is to open the windows in the front room while I mop this up.”

  “The smoke will soil the paint, won’t it, Meara, and you see the floor there, it’s scorched from the burning cloth. I don’t dare tell the landlord or he’ll set me out.”

  “He’ll do nothing of the kind, Ma. If the paint’s soiled, we’ll fix it. If the floor’s damaged, we’ll fix that as well. Open the windows, then put some of Branna’s salve on your fingers.”

  But Colleen only stood, hands clasped, pretty blue eyes damp. “Donal and his girl are coming at seven.”

  “One thing at a time, Ma,” Meara said as she mopped.

  “I couldn’t ring him up to tell him of the disaster here. Not while he’s at work.”

  But you could ring me, Meara thought, as you’ve never understood a woman can work, does work, wants or needs to work, the same as a man.

  “The windows,” was all she said.

  Not a mean bone in her body, Meara reminded herself as she cleaned the floor—not scorched at all, but only smudged with ash from the cloth. Not even selfish in the usual way, but simply helpless and dependent.

  And was that her fault, really, when she’d been tended and sheltered the whole of her life? By her parents, then by her husband, and now by her children.

  She’d never been taught to cope, had she? Or, Meara thought with a hard stare at the roasting pan, how to cook a fecking joint.

  After wringing out the mop, she took a moment to text Boyle. No point in keeping him worried.

  Not a fire but a burnt joint of lamb and a right mess. No harm.

  Meara carted out the ruined meat to dump in the bin, scrubbed off the potatoes and set them to dry—as they were still raw because her mother had forgotten, all to the good, to turn the heat on under them.

  She set the roasting pan in the sink to soak, put the kettle on for tea, all while Colleen despaired of being evicted.

  “Sit down, Ma.”

  “I can’t sit, I’m that upset.”

  “Sit. You’ll have some tea.”

  “But Donal. What will I do? I’ve ruined the kitchen, and they’re coming for dinner. And the landlord, this will put him in a state for certain.”

  Meara did multiplication tables in her head—the sevens, which buggered her every time. It kept her from shouting when she turned to her mother. “First, look around now. The kitchen’s not ruined, is it?”

  “But I . . .” As if seeing it for the first time, Colleen fluttered around. “Oh, it cleaned up well, didn’t it?”

  “It did, yes.”

  “I can still smell the smoke.”

  �
��You’ll keep the windows open a bit longer, and you won’t. At the worst, we’ll scrub down the walls.” Meara made the tea, added a couple of chocolate biscuits to one of her mother’s fancy plates—and because it was her mother, added a white linen napkin.

  “Sit down, have your tea. Let’s have a look at your fingers.”

  “They’re much better.” Smiling now, Colleen held them up. “Branna’s such a way with things, hasn’t she, making up her lotions and creams and candles and so on. I love shopping in the Dark Witch. I always find some pretty little thing or other. It’s a lovely little shop she has.”

  “It is.”

  “And she comes by now and then, brings me samples to try out for her.”

  “I know.” So Colleen could have her pretty little things, Meara knew as well, without spending too much.

  “She’s a lovely girl, is Branna, and always looks so smart.”

  “She does,” Meara agreed, and knew Colleen wished her daughter would dress smart instead of cladding herself for the stables.

  We’ll have to keep on being disappointed in each other, won’t we, Ma? she thought, but said nothing more.

  “The kitchen did clean up well, Meara, and thanks for that. But I haven’t a thing now, or the time really, to make a nice dinner for Donal and his girl. What will Sharon think of me?”

  “She’ll think you had a bit of a to-do in the kitchen, so you called round to Ryan’s Hotel and made a booking for the three of you.”

  “Oh, but—”

  “I’ll arrange it, and they’ll run a tab for me. You’ll have a nice dinner, and you’ll come back here for tea and a bit of dessert—which I’ll go pick up at Monk’s Cafe in a few minutes. You’ll serve it on your good china, and feel fine about it. You’ll all have a nice evening.”

  Colleen’s cheeks pinked with pleasure. “That sounds lovely, just lovely.”

  “Now, Ma, do you remember the proper way to deal with a kitchen fire?”

  “You throw water on a fire. I did.”

  “It’s best to smother it. There’s the extinguisher in the closet with the