Shadow Spell (14 page)

“It was nothing. Go on now.”

He squinted at her. “You look terrible.”

“And that's all I needed to finish off my fecking day. Thanks for that.”

She started to shut the door in his face, but he put a shoulder to it. For a foolish minute, each pushed against the other. She tended to forget the man was stronger than he looked.

“Fine, fine, come in then. The day's been nothing but a loss in any case.”

“Your head hurts, and you're tired and bitchy with it.”

Before she could evade, he laid his hands on her temples, ran them over her head, down to the base of her skull.

And the throbbing ache vanished.

“I'd taken something for it already.”

“That works faster.” He added a light rub on her shoulders that dissolved all the knots. “Sit down, take your boots off. I'll get you a beer.”

“I didn't invite you for a beer and a chat.” The bad temper in her tone after he'd vanished all those aches and throbs shamed her. And the shame only added more bad temper.

He cocked his head, face full of patience and sympathy. She wanted to punch him for it.

She wanted to lay her head on his shoulder and just breathe.

“Haven't eaten, have you?”

“I've only just gotten home.”

“Sit down.”

He walked over to the kitchen—such as it was. The two-burner stove, the squat fridge, miserly sink, and counter tucked tidily enough in the corner of her living space, and suited her needs.

She grumbled rude words under her breath, but she sat and took off her boots while she watched him—eyes narrowed—poke around.

“What are you after in there?”

“The frozen pizza you never fail to stock will be quickest, and I could do with some myself for I haven't eaten either.”

He peeled it out of the wrap, stuck it in the oven. And unlike her mother, remembered to set the timer. He took out a couple bottles of Harp, popped them open, then strolled back.

He handed her a beer, sat down beside her, propped his feet on her coffee table, a man at home.

“We'll start at the end of it. Your mother. A kitchen fire, was it?”

“Not even that. She burned a joint of lamb, and from her reaction, you'd think she'd started an inferno that leveled the village.”

“Well then, your ma's never been much of a cook.”

Meara snorted out a laugh, drank some beer. “She's a terrible cook. Why she got it into her head to have a little dinner party for Donal and his girl is beyond me. Because it's proper,” she said immediately. “In her world, it's the proper thing, and she must be proper. She's bits of Belleek and Royal Tara and Waterford all around, fine Irish lace curtains at the windows. And I swear she dresses for gardening or marketing as if she's having lunch at a five-star. Never a hair out of place, her lipstick never smudged. And she can't boil a potato without disaster falling.”

When she paused, drank, he patted her leg and said nothing.

“She's living in a rental barely bigger than the garden shed where she lived with my father, keeps it locked like a vault in defense against the bands of thieves and villains she imagines lie in wait—and can't think to open a bleeding window when she has a house full of smoke.”

“She called for you then.”

“For me, of course. She couldn't very well call for Donal, as he was at his work, and I'm just playing with the horses. At my leisure.”

Then she sighed. “She doesn't mean it that way, I know it, but it
feels
that way. She never worked at a job. She married my father when she was but a girl, and he swept her up, gave her a fine house with staff to tend it, showered her with luxuries. All she had to do was be his pretty ornament and raise the children—entertain, of course, but that was being a pretty ornament as well, and there was Mrs. Hannigan to cook and maids to see to the rest.”

Tired all over again, she looked down at her beer. “Then her world crashed down around her. It's not a wonder she's helpless about the most practical things.”

“Your world crashed down as well.”

“It's different. I was young enough to adjust to things, and didn't feel the shame she did. I had Branna and you and Boyle and Fin. She loved him. She loved Joseph Quinn.”

“Didn't you, Meara?”

“Love can die.” She drank again. “Hers hasn't. She keeps his picture in a silver frame in her room. It makes me want to scream bloody hell every time I see it. He's never coming back to her, and why would she have him if he did? But she would.”

“It's not your heart, but hers.”

“Hers holds on to an illusion, not to reality. But you're right. It's hers, not mine.”

She leaned her head back, closed her eyes.

“You got her settled again?”

“Cleaned up the mess—she'd swamped the kitchen floor with water and potatoes—and I can be grateful she'd forgotten to turn the flame on under the potatoes so I didn't have that secondary disaster to deal with. She'll be having dinner at Ryan's Hotel with Donal and his girl now.”

He rubbed a hand on her thigh, soothing. “On your tab.”

“The money's the least of it. I rang Maureen, and had it out with her. It's her turn, fuck it all. Mary Clare lives too far. But from Maureen's, Ma could see Mary Clare and her children as well as come back here for visits. And my brother . . . His wife's grand, but it would be easier for Ma to live with her own daughter than her son's wife, I'm thinking. And Maureen has the room, and a sweet, easy-goer of a husband.”

“What does your mother want?”

“She wants my father back, the life she knew back, but as that's not happening, she'd be happy with the children. She's good with children, loves them, has endless patience with them. In the end Maureen came around, for at least a trial of it. I believe—I swear this is the truth—I believe it'll be good for all. She'll be a great help to Maureen with the kids, and they love her. She'll be happy living there, in a bigger, finer house, and away from here where there are too many memories of what was.”

“I think you're right on it, if it matters.”

She sighed again, drank. “It does. She's not one who can live content and easy alone. Donal needs to start his life. I need to have mine. Maureen's the answer to this, and she'll only benefit from having her own mother mind the children when she wants to go out and about.”

“It's a good plan, for all.” He patted her hand, then rose at the buzz of the timer. “Now it's pizza for all, and you can tell me what's all this about Cabhan.”

It wasn't the evening she'd imagined, but she found herself relaxing, despite all. Pizza, eaten on the living room sofa, filled the hole in her belly she hadn't realized was there until the first bite. And the second beer went down easy.

“As I told Branna, it was all soft and dreamy. I understand now what Iona meant when it happened to her last winter. It's a bit like floating, and not being fully inside yourself. The cold,” she murmured. “I'd forgotten that.”

“The cold?”

“Before, right before. It got cold, all of a sudden. I even took my gloves out of my pocket. And the wind came up strong. The light changed. It had been a bright morning, as they said it would, but it went gray and gloomy. Clouds rolling over the sun, I thought, but . . .”

She dug back now, mind clear, to try to see it as it had been.

“Shadows. There were shadows. How could there be shadows without the sun? I'd forgotten, didn't tell Branna. I was too wound up, I suppose.”

“It's all right. You're telling me now.”

“The shadows moved with me, and in them I felt warm—but I wasn't, Connor. I was freezing, but I
thought
I was warm. Is that sensible at all?”

“If you mean do I understand, I do. His magick's as cold as it is dark. The warmth was a trick for your mind, as the desire was.”

“The rest is as I told you. Him calling my name, and me standing there, with my hand about to part the vines, wanting to go in, so much, wanting to answer the call of my name. And Roibeard and Kathel to my rescue.”

“If you've a mind to walk from work to the cottage, or when you guide your customers, stay clear of that area, much as you can.”

“I will, of course. It's habit takes me by there, and habits can be broken. Branna made me a charm in any case. As did Iona, and then Fin pushed yet another on me.”

Connor dug into his pocket, pulled out a small pouch. “As I am.”

“My pockets will be full of magick pouches at this rate.”

“Do this. Keep one near your door here, and one in your lorry, one near your bed—sleep's vulnerable. Then one in your pocket.” He put the pouch into her hand, closed her fingers over it. “Always, Meara.”

“All right. That's a fine plan.”

“And wear this.” Out of his pocket he drew a long thin band of leather that held polished beads.

“It's pretty. Why am I wearing it?”

“I made it when I was no more than sixteen. It's blue chalcedony here, and some jasper, some jade. The chalcedony is good protection from magick of the dark sort, and the jade's helpful for protection from psychic attack—which you've just experienced. The jasper's good all around as a protective stone. So wear it, will you?”

“All right.” She slipped it over her head. “You can have it back when we're done with this. It's cleverly done,” she added, studying it. “But you've always been clever with your hands.”

The instant the words were out, she winced inwardly at the phrase. “So, that's filled you in on the highs and lows of my day, and I'm grateful for the pizza—even if it came from my own freezer.”

She started to get up, clear the dishes, but he just put a hand on her arm, nudged her back again.

“We haven't finished the circle yet, as we've been working backward. And that takes us to last night.”

“I already told you nothing was meant by it.”

“What you told me was bollocks.”

The easy, almost cheerful tone of his voice made her want to rail at him, so she deliberately kept her tone level. “I've had enough upheaval for one day, Connor.”

“Sure we might as well get it all over and done at once. We're friends, are we not, Meara?”

“We are, and that's exactly the point I'm making.”

“It wasn't the kiss of a friend, even one upset and shaken, you gave me. Nor was it the kiss of a friend I gave you when I got beyond the first surprise of it.”

She shrugged, to show how little it all meant—and wished her stomach would stop all the fluttering. You'd think she'd swallowed a swarm of butterflies instead of half a frozen pizza.

“If I'd known you'd be so wound up about a kiss, it wouldn't have happened.”

“A man who wasn't wound up after a kiss like that would've been dead for six months. And I'm betting he'd still feel a stir.”

“That only means I'm good at it.”

He smiled. “I wouldn't argue with your skill. I'm saying it wasn't friend to friend, and distress. Not that alone.”

“So there's a bit of lusty curiosity as well. That's not a surprise, is it? We're adults, we're human, and in the strangest of situations. We had a quick, hot tangle, and that's the end of it.”

He nodded as if considering her point. “I wouldn't argue with that either, but for one thing.”

“What one thing?”

He shifted so quickly from his easy slouch she didn't have an instant to prepare. He had her scooped up, shifted as well, and his mouth on hers.

Another hot tangle, fast and deep and deadly to the senses. Some part of her mind said to give him a punch and set things right, but the rest of her was too busy devouring what he gave her.

Then he tugged on her braid—an old, affectionate gesture, so their lips parted, their faces stayed close. So close the eyes she knew as well as her own took on deeper, darker hues of green with little shimmers of gold scattered through.

“That one thing.”

“It's just . . .” She moved in this time, couldn't resist, and felt his heart race against hers. “Physicality.”

“Is it?”

“It is.” She made herself pull back, then stand—a bit safer, she thought, with some distance. “And more, Connor, we need to think, the both of us need to think. It's friends we are, and always have been. And now part of a circle that can't be risked.”

“What's the risk?”

“We have sex—”

“A grand idea. I'm for it.”

Though she shook her head, she had to laugh with it. “You'd be for it on an hourly basis. But it's you and me now, and with you and me what if there are complications, and the kind of tensions that can happen, that
do
happen, when sex comes through the door?”

“Done well, sex relieves the tensions.”

“For a bit.” Though just now the thought of it, with him, brought on plenty. “But we might cause more—for each other, for the others when we can least afford it. We need to keep ourselves focused on what's to be done, and keep the personal complications away from it as much as we can.”

Easy as ever, he picked up his beer to finish it off. “That's your busy brain, always thinking what's next and not letting the rest of you have the moment.”

“A moment passes into the next.”

“Exactly. So if you don't enjoy it before it does, what's the point of it all?”

“The point is seeing clear, and being ready for the next—and the next after it. And we need to think about all of this, and carefully. We can't just jump into bed because we both have an itch. I care about you, and all the others too much for that.”

“There's nothing you can do, not anything, that could shake my friendship. Not even saying no on this when I want you to say yes more than . . . well, more than I might want.”