Chapter 16
IONA CHANGED INTO RIDING BOOTS, AND TOOK TEN SECONDS to put on some lip gloss in case she ran into Boyle.
They both had obligations that evening—his paperwork, her spell casting—but she hoped to talk him into a ride after work the next day, maybe a casual dinner out, then a cozy night in, at his place.
Outside, she hooked her arm through Connor’s. The air might have blown cool and damp, but spring rode with it and nudged the blackthorn into bloom.
“Have you ever been in love?” she asked him.
“Sure countless times, and never the way you mean. Though my heart’s been bruised and bumped, never has it been broken.”
“I had the bumps, too, and some bruises. When I was in high school, I actively wished for actual heartache, just to know what it felt like. I always wanted those big feelings, you know? The rush and the fall. What I got was mostly even ground. Settling for someone I knew was settling for me. It makes you feel forever mediocre.”
“And now?”
“Now I feel powerful, purposeful.” She circled her fingers, made tiny lights dance. “Joyful.”
“And all look good on you.”
“Do you want to? Fall in love?”
“Sure one day. She’ll walk into the room, beautiful and brilliant, a sexual goddess with the mind of a scholar and an angel’s temperament. She’ll cook like my aunt Fiona, who can’t be equaled in the kitchen, match me pint for pint at the pub, and like little better than to go hawking with me.”
“You don’t ask much.”
His eyes, green as the moss, twinkled at her. “Why not ask for all, as you never know what life’s going to hand you?”
“Good point,” she said, and made another dance of lights.
* * *
IN THE STABLES BOYLE brUSHED DARLING AS MUCH TO soothe himself as to groom her. He’d sent his stable hands home a bit early, as he’d coveted a little time alone. Now, with the sweet mare for company in the quiet stables, he could roll through all the things crowding his mind.
There were bills to pay and orders to make, and he’d get to all that, wouldn’t he? He had all evening for that, as he needed.
Wanted, he corrected.
A man needed time and space of his own without a woman expecting his attention.
So he shouldn’t be thinking about going by and scooping her up so she’d be in his time and space.
If anything, once the paperwork was seen to, he should take some of that time to think about all that had happened that day.
He’d have to tell Fin the whole of it, of course, and would whenever Fin got back. They’d talk it out over a pint, so there was no room for Iona, even if he was inclined for her.
Which he was, all the damn time.
What the hell did it mean when a man couldn’t keep a woman out of his space, much less his mind?
Bewitched is what he was, by blue eyes and an easy laugh, and a pretty body he couldn’t keep his bloody hands off of. And that utter faith in the good and the happy that lived inside her, though he understood, more and more, how little of either she’d had.
Finding himself wanting to give her the good and the happy troubled him more than a little.
Hadn’t he planned out the entire day with the goal of giving her just that?
Not that it had worked out in all cases, considering dark visions and a scare that had near stopped his heart.
But he’d planned it all, with her in mind.
Always in his mind, she was.
It was time to remind himself that what a man needed, when it came down to it, was room, work, a good horse, and a pint at the end of a hard day.
“That’s it, isn’t it, Darling? We’ve got what counts right here.”
In the next stall Alastar snorted and blew.
“I’m not after talking to you, am I? Bad-tempered beast.”
“And you’d know about that,” Fin said from behind him. “What are you brooding about, brother?”
The man could sneak up on a body, Boyle thought, like smoke from a flue. “Who says I’m brooding?”
“I do.” Fin reached out, stroked Darling’s neck. “Sent the men off early, did you?”
“A bit. Everything’s done needs doing today.”
“I thought you’d be out rambling still with Iona.”
“We did enough, maybe more than.”
“Trouble then? Of a personal sort or a magickal sort?”
“Both, I’m thinking. It started early this morning, as you know, when I shared a dream with her and came to blows with that cursed bastard.”
“You had more trouble from that?”
When Fin gripped his shoulder, Boyle just kept brushing the horse. “Nothing serious or lasting. So I’ll tell you the rest.”
And he did, from the beginning, right on through to when he carried Iona out of the friary. Only grunted when Fin grabbed his hand.
“I told you she fixed it, and Connor had a look as well.”
“I’ll look for myself now.” Once he did, Fin nodded, let Boyle’s hand go. “You said you hurt him. You’re sure of it now that some time’s passed and you’ve thought it through?”
Boyle curled his hand into a fist. “I know when I land a blow, mate.”
“Aye, you would.” Fin paced away and back again. “I’ve given it some thought, and we’ll use that; I’ll think on it more, but use it we will. And I’ve a protection charm for you before you turn in for the night. Is she coming by?”
“She’s not, no. I need a night to myself, don’t I? I’ve work, and I’ve thinking of my own to do without being crowded.”
Fin lifted an eyebrow at the tone. “Had a row?”
“We did not. After I carted her out of the cursed friary, she packed away fish and chips like a starving woman. I took her around to Clew Bay, as she wanted to see the water, then she spotted more ruins, another graveyard, so she wandered about, but there was nothing for her there like the other places. And that was a relief.”
“She handles it well, for someone coming into it later than most.”
“I suppose she does, and it’s a lot on her plate for all her appetite. And it makes me wonder.”
Fin gestured an opening. “Wonder away.”
“I want her here, even when I don’t. Or I think I don’t, then I do.
” The words sounded mad to his own ears, but he couldn’t stop them now that he’d started.
“And I never have much liked women in my place, as they tend to fuss or leave things behind, or bring little bits over, look to change the order of things.”
“Hmm. And does she?”
“She doesn’t, and that’s suspect, isn’t it?” Boyle jabbed a finger in the air as if his point had been made.
“So if she does those things, she’s encroaching. If she doesn’t, she’s suspect? Mo dearthair, you’re acting the gom.”
“I’m not.” Insulted, Boyle rounded on Fin. “It’s not being a fool to wonder if she’d got some plan under there. She talked of weddings, mind you. Of a wedding at Ballintubber Abbey.”
“Which it’s famed for. Did she propose to you then, along the Stations? I’m seeing no ring on your finger or through your nose.”
“Smirk if you must, but I’m wondering. I think about her too much.
’Tisn’t comfortable. When I have her in bed it’s like nothing else ever was.
No one else. So I end up staying, or having her stay, and then there’s breakfast, and on to work.
I have to work, don’t I? And she’s pushed into my mind even then.
It’s fucking annoying now that I say it out loud. ”
“I can see that. It has to be a trial to you, having a woman as pretty as a spring morning, and as fresh and sweet, taking up your time and attention.”
“I’ve a life to live, don’t I?” Boyle snapped back, as every word Fin spoke made him, well, feel as if he acted the gom. “And a right to like that life just as it is—was—before.”
“Sure as I’m standing here I’d trade places with you if I could, to have a woman in my mind and heart who was pleased and willing to have me in hers. But you have, of course, every right to live your life without a sweet and fresh and pretty woman in it.”
“She’s more than that, as well you know. I’ve never seen the like of her, and I’ve seen you, Branna, Connor. But when it’s on her, I’ve never seen the like. It takes my breath. I don’t know why that is.”
“I’ve a speculation on it.”
Boyle mimicked Fin’s gesture. “Speculate away.”
“You sound like a man in love to me.”
“Oh sure and that’s helpful.” Boyle resisted throwing the brush only because it would startle Darling.
“I’m telling you, she’s pushed herself into my mind, my life, my bed so I’ve barely a minute to myself.
I took a day off work, which I don’t do, as you know, to drive her all around Mayo and Galway.
I can’t get away from her even when I’m sleeping.
“I think she’s bewitched me.”
“Oh Christ Jesus, Boyle.”
But Boyle had the bit between his teeth now. “She’s come into it late, as you said, and she’s full of the power of it. So she’s done a love spell to wrap me up this way.”
“Bollocks. Even if she were inclined, and I don’t see it, Branna would never allow it.”
“Branna doesn’t know everything,” Boyle muttered, and glanced over darkly as Alastar kicked the wall of the stall.
“She’s new to it, Iona is, testing her footing so to speak.
She’s testing it on me so I’m tangled up taking walks and rides and drives and fixing her breakfast after a night of her sleeping wrapped around me like a vine.
So if she’s put a love spell on me, you need to break it. ”
“Is that what you think?” Very quietly, Iona stepped up to the stall. “I’m sorry but you were too busy shouting to hear me come in. What a lot you think of yourself, Boyle, and how little you think of me.”
“Iona—”
She stepped back, chin jerking up. “Do you really think I’m so weak, so sad, so pitiful that I’d want someone who didn’t want me of their own free will? That I’d use magick to enchant you into spending time with me, having feelings for me?”
“No. I’m only trying to work it out.”