Shadow Spell: Book Two of the Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy (12 page)

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.”

He stood as well. “So we’ll both think on it, give it all a little time and see how we feel.”

“That’s the best, isn’t it? It’s just a matter of taking time to cool it down, think clear so we’re not leaping into an impulse we could regret. We’re both smart and steady enough to do that.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do.”

He offered a hand to seal the deal. Meara took it, shook.

Then they both simply stood, neither backing away, moving forward, or letting go.

“Ah hell. We’re not going to think at all, are we?”

He only grinned. “Not tonight.”

They leaped at each other.

10

G
RAPPLING WASN’T HIS USUAL WAY, BUT THIS WAS
something so . . . explosive he lost his rhythm and style. He grabbed whatever he could grab, took whatever he could take. And there was so much of her—his tall, curvy friend.

He all but ripped off her shirt to get to more.

No stopping now for either of them, for here ran needs and urges far beyond careful and rational thinking. Here was the moment, and the next and the next would have to wait.

This bright new hunger for her, just her, must be fed.

But not, he realized, standing in her living room or rolling about on the floor.

He scooped her up.

“Oh Jesus, don’t try to carry me. You’ll break your back.”

“My back’s strong enough.” He turned his head to meet her mouth as he walked to her bedroom.

Crazy, she thought. They’d both gone completely mad. And she didn’t give a single bleeding damn. He carried her, and though his purpose—and hers—was hurry, it was foolishly romantic.

If he stumbled, well, they’d finish things out where they landed.

But he didn’t stumble. He dropped to the bed with her so the old springs squeaked in surprise, gave with a groan to nestle them both in a hollow of mattress and bedding.

And those hands, those magick hands were busy and beautiful.

She used her own to pull and yank off layers of clothes until, at last—God be praised—she found skin. Warm, smooth—with the good firm muscles of a man who used them.

She rolled with him, struggling as he did to strip off every barrier.

“Bloody layers,” he muttered, and made her laugh as she fought with the buckle of his belt.

“We would, both of us, work outdoors.”

“Good thing it’s worth the unwrapping. Ah, there you are,” he murmured and filled his hands with her bare breasts.

Firm and soft and generous. Beautiful, bountiful. He could write an ode to the glory of Meara Quinn’s breasts. But at the moment, he wanted only to touch them, taste them. And feel the way her heartbeat kicked up from canter to gallop at the brush of his fingers, lips, tongue.

All that was missing was . . .

He brought light into the dark, a soft, pale gold like her skin. When her eyes met his, he smiled.

“I want to see you. Beautiful Meara. Eyes of a gypsy, body of a goddess.”

He touched her as he spoke. No grappling now; he’d found his rhythm after all. Why rush through something so pleasurable when he could linger over it? He could feast on her breasts half a lifetime. Then there were her lips, soft and full—and as eager as his. And her shoulders, strong, capable. The surprisingly sweet stem of her neck. Sensitive there, just there under her jaw so she shivered when he kissed it.

He loved how she responded—a tremble, a catch of breath, a throaty moan—as he learned her body, inch by lovely inch.

Outside someone shouted out a half-drunken greeting, and followed it by a wild laugh.

But here, in the nest of the bed, there were only sighs, murmurs, and the quiet creak of the springs beneath them.

He’d taken the reins, she realized. She didn’t know how it happened, as she’d never given them over to anyone else. But somewhere between the hurry and the patience, she’d surrendered them to him.

His hands glided over her as if he had centuries to pet and stroke and linger. They kindled fires along the way until her body seemed to shimmer in the heat, to glow under her skin like the light he’d conjured.

She loved the feel of him, the long back, the narrow hips, the hard, workingman’s palms. He smelled of the woods, earthy and free, and the taste of him—lips, skin—was the same.

He tasted of home.

He touched where she ached to be touched, tasted where she longed for his lips. And found other secret places she hadn’t known longed for attention. The inside of her elbow, the back of her knee, the inside of her wrist. He murmured to her, sweet words that reached into her heart. Another light to glow.

He seemed to know when the glow became a pulse, and the pulse a throb of need. So he answered that need, drawing the pleasure up and up before spilling her over into release.

Weak from it, dazed by the flood and the flow, she clung to him, tried to right herself.

“A moment. Give me a moment.”

“It’s now,” he said. “It should be now.”

And slid inside her. Took her mouth as he took her, deep and slow.

It should be now, he thought again. For she was open for him to fill. Warm and wet for him.

Her moan, a sound of welcome; her arms strong ropes to bind him close.

She rose to him, wrapped those long legs around him. Moved with him as if they’d come together like this, just like this, over a hundred lifetimes. In the glow he’d made, in the glow that gleamed now from what they made together, he watched her.

Dubheasa
. Dark beauty.

Watched her until what they made overwhelmed him, and the pleasure deepened dark as her eyes. In the dark and the light, he surrendered to her as she had to him. And let her take him with her.

* * *

SHE LAY, BASKING. SHE’D EXPECTED—ONCE SHE’D ACCEPTED
she was having sex with Connor—a rollicking rough and tumble. Instead she’d been . . . tended, pleasured, even seduced, and with a delicate touch.

And had no complaints whatsoever.

Now her body felt all loose and soft and weak in the loveliest of ways.

She’d known he’d be good at it—God knew he’d had the practice—but she hadn’t known he’d be absolutely bloody brilliant.

So she could sigh now in utter satisfaction—with her hand resting on his very fine ass.

Just as she sighed, it occurred to her she couldn’t possibly have measured up. She’d been taken by surprise, she thought, and surely hadn’t done her best work—so to speak.

Was that why he was currently lying on her like a dead man?

She moved her hand, not quite sure now what to do or say.

He stirred.

“I suppose you’re wanting me to get off you.”

“Ah . . . Well.”

He rolled, sprawled on his back. When he said nothing at all, she cleared her throat.

“And what now?”

“I’m thinking,” he said. “That once we take a bit of a breather, we do it all over again.”

“I can do better.”

“Better than what?”

“Than I did. I was taken off-balance.”

He trailed a finger lazily down her side. “If you’d done better, I might need weeks of a breather.”

Unsure what that might mean, exactly, she pushed up enough to see his face. Since she knew what a satisfied male looked like, she relaxed again.

“So it went well for you then.”

He opened his eyes, looked into hers. “I’m considering how to answer that, for if I tell the truth you might say: Since it went so well, that’s all for you tonight. And I want you again before I’ve even caught my breath.”

He slid an arm under her, drew her over, cuddled her in so they were nose to nose. “And did it go well for you?”

“I’m considering how to answer that,” she said and made him grin.

“I’ve missed seeing you naked.”

“You haven’t seen me naked before tonight.”

“Sure have you forgotten the night you and me and Branna and Boyle and Fin snuck out and away to swim in the river?”

“We never— Oh, that.” Content, she tangled up her legs with his. “I was no more than nine, you git!”

“But naked all the same. I’ll say you grew up and around very well indeed.” He ran a hand down her back, over her ass, left it there. “Very well indeed.”

“And you yourself, if memory serves me, were built like a puny stick. You’ve done well yourself. We had fun that night,” she remembered. “Froze our arses, the lot of us, but it was grand. Innocent, all of us, and not a worry in the world. But he’d have been watching us, even then.”

“No.” Connor touched a finger to her lips. “Don’t bring him here, not tonight.”

“You’re right.” She brushed a hand through his hair. “How many, do you think, are where we are tonight who have all those years and memories between them?”

“Not many, I expect.”

“We can’t lose that, Connor. We can’t lose what we are to each other, to Branna, to all. We have to swear an oath on it. We won’t lose even a breath of the friends we’ve ever been, whatever happens.”

“Then I’ll swear it to you, and you to me.” He took her hand, interlaced his fingers with hers. “A sacred oath, never to be broken. Friends we’ve ever been, and ever will be.”

She saw the light glowing through their joined fingers, felt the warmth of it. “I swear it to you.”

“And I to you.” He kissed her fingers, then her cheek, then her lips. “I should tell you something else.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve my breath back now.”

And when she laughed, he rolled back on top of her.

* * *

SHE’D SHARED BREAKFAST WITH HIM BEFORE, COUNTLESS
times. But never at the little table in her flat—and never after sharing the shower with him.

He could count himself lucky, she decided, that she’d picked up some nice croissants from the cafe when she’d gotten dessert for her mother.

Along with them she made her usual standby—oatmeal—while he dealt with the tea as she hadn’t any coffee in the pantry.

“We’re to meet tonight,” he reminded her, and bit into a croissant. “These are brilliant.”

“They are. I don’t step foot into the cafe often as I’d buy a dozen of everything. I’ll go by the cottage straight from the stables,” she added. “And help Branna with the cooking if I can. It’s good we’re meeting regular now, though I don’t know as any of us suddenly had a genius idea on what to do, exactly, and when to do it.”

“Well, we’re thinking, and together, so something will come.”

He believed it, and the croissants only helped boost his optimism.

“Why don’t I take you to the stables on my way, and just fetch you when we’re both done? It’d save you the petrol, and seems foolish for us to each take our lorries.”

“Then you’d have to bring me home after.”

“That was the canny part of my plan.” He hefted his tea as if toasting himself. “I’ll bring you back, stay with you again if that’s all right. Or you could just stay at the cottage.”

She downed tea he’d made strong enough to break stone. “What will Branna think of this?”

“We’ll be finding out soon enough. We wouldn’t hide it from her, either of us, even if we could. Which we couldn’t,” he added with an easy shrug, “as she’ll know.”

“They’ll all need to know.” No point, Meara decided, being delicate about it all. “It’s only right. Not just because we’re friends and family, but because we’re a circle. What we are to each other . . . that’s the circle, isn’t it?”

He scanned her face as she pushed oatmeal around in her bowl. “It shouldn’t worry you, Meara. We’ve a right to be with each other this way as long as we both want it. None who care for us would think or feel otherwise.”

“That’s right. But then as far as my other family—my blood kin—I’d as soon not bring them into it.”

“That’s for you to say.”

“It’s not that I’m ashamed of it, Connor, you mustn’t think that.”

“I don’t think that.” His eyebrows lifted as he took a spoonful of her oatmeal, brought it up to her mouth himself. “I know you, don’t I? Why would I think that, knowing you?”

“That’s an advantage between us. It’s that my mother would start fussing, and inviting you to dinner. I couldn’t take another kitchen disaster on the heels of the last—and my finances can’t take a bigger tab at Ryan’s Hotel. In any case, she’ll be off for her visit with Maureen soon—and unless that’s a fresh disaster, it’ll be a permanent move.”

“You’ll miss her.”

“I’d like the chance to.” She huffed out a breath, but ate some oatmeal before he took it into his head to feed her again. “And that sounds mean, but it’s pure truth. I think I’d have a better time with her if there was some distance. And . . .”

“And?”

“I had a moment yesterday, while I was rushing over there, not sure what I’d find. I suddenly thought, what if Cabhan’s been at her, as he’d been at me? It was foolish, as he’s no reason to, and never has. But I thought as well of what you said about feeling better knowing your parents were away from this. I’ll rest easier knowing that about my mother. This is for us to do.”

“And so we will.”

* * *

HE DROPPED HER OFF AT THE STABLES, THEN CIRCLED
around to go home and change out of yesterday’s work clothes.

He found Branna already up—not dressed for the day as yet, but having her coffee with Sorcha’s spell book once again open in front of her.

“Well, good morning to you, Connor.”

“And to you, Branna.”

She studied him over the rim of her mug. “And how is our Meara this fine morning?”

“She’s well. I’ve just dropped her at the stables, but wanted to change before I went to work. And wanted to see how you fared as well.”

“I’m fit and fine, though I can say you look fitter and finer. You’ve had breakfast I take it?”

“I have, yes.” But he liked the looks of the glossy green apples she’d put in a bowl, and took one. “Does this bother you, Branna? Meara and myself?”

“Why would it when I love you both, and have seen the pair of you careful to skirt round the edges of what my brilliant brain deduces occurred last night—for years.”