“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.”
“Work.” Her eyes filled, killing him, but the tears didn’t come. “Yeah, I know it’s so much work to care about me. So I’ll make it easy for you. There’s no need, and there’s no spell. I have too much respect for what I am to use it in such a small, selfish way. And I love you too much to ever use you at all.”
Every word came as a jab to his heart. “Come upstairs now, we’ll talk this through.”
“There’s nothing else for me to say, and I really don’t want to talk to you now.” Deliberately, she turned away from him. “Fin, could you give me a ride home?”
“I’ll take you myself—” Boyle began.
“You won’t. No, you won’t. I don’t want to be with you. I can call Connor if you can’t take me, Fin.”
“Of course I can.”
“You’re not just walking away after—”
“Watch me.” She shot him a look so full of both devastation and fury, he said nothing more when she turned and walked away.
“Let it be for now,” Fin said quietly, “and use some of this famous time and space to learn how to do a proper grovel.”
“Ah, fuck me.”
“And so you have.” He hurried out after Iona, reached down to open the car door for her.
“He’s never felt like this for anyone,” he began.
“Don’t try to smooth it over, please. If you could do me one favor, just don’t say anything. Anything at all. I just want to go home.”
He did exactly as she asked, kept his silence on the short drive. He could feel her pain. It seemed to pulse from her, sharpen the air in the car so keenly he thought it a wonder it didn’t draw blood.
Love, as he knew too well, could slice you to pieces and leave no visible scar.
He pulled up at the cottage, smoke curling from the chimney, an amazing array of colorful flowers twinkling in the evening gloom. And somewhere inside, Branna, as distant as the moon.
“Should I come in with you?”
“No. Thanks for bringing me home.”
When she started to get out, he simply touched her hand. “You’re not hard to love, deirfiúr bheag, but for some, loving is strange and boggy ground.”
“He can be careful where he steps.” Though her lips quivered, she managed an even tone. “But he can’t blame someone else for where he ends up.”
“You’d be right. I’m sorry you heard what was—”
“Don’t apologize. It’s better to see and know you’re a fool than to keep your eyes shut and keep acting like one.”
She got out quickly. He waited until she’d gone in the house before driving away. He half wished he was in love with her himself, and could show her what it was to be cherished.
But as that wasn’t an option, and it likely wasn’t wise to go home and pound on Boyle’s rock-hard head with a hammer, he’d go by and fetch Connor. They’d sit down with a bottle of whiskey, the three of them, and as good mates would, get Boyle drunk instead.
Iona went straight in. She had no intention of crying on Branna’s or anyone else’s shoulder. She had no intention of crying at all. What she intended to do was hang on to the anger, and that would see her through the worst of it.
So she went straight in, and straight back to the kitchen where Branna sat at the table with her enormous spell book with its carved and well-tended brown leather binding, an iPad, a notebook, and several keenly sharpened pencils.
Branna glanced up, cocked her head in question. “What, did you just go, turn around and come back?”