“I’m sorry to say it, as they’re your ma and da, but it strikes me, Iona, your parents are right shits.”
She laughed a little. “I guess they sort of are. I think they love me, as much as they can, because they’re supposed to, but not because they want to. The boys and men I’ve tried to fall in love with? They’d want me back for a while, but they never wanted me enough, or wanted to want me enough, so it went away. And then I’m left wondering, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t someone love me without reservations, without all the buffers? Or worse, that I’m a kind of placeholder till someone better comes along.”
Had he done that? he wondered. Had he added to that? “There’s nothing wrong with you, and it’s nothing of the kind.”
“I’m working on believing that, and I can’t unless I stop accepting less. And that’s my problem, my issue. Maybe I didn’t really, all the way, realize that until you punched me in the face with it. Metaphorically,” she added with an easier smile than she’d expected to pull off.
Because he could see her face still, as she’d stood there in the stables, he felt as though he’d struck her. “Oh Christ, Iona. I’d give anything to take the words back, to stuff them down my own throat and choke on them.”
“No. No.” She took his hands a moment and squeezed. “Because it knocked me down, I had to get up. And this time deal all the way. Because before that, Boyle, I’d have taken anything you’d given. I’d have wrapped my own gauzy layers around it and convinced myself that it was right. But it would never have been right. I can’t be happy, not really down-to-the-bone happy, with less than I need. And if I’m not happy, I can’t make someone else happy.”
“Tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you.”
“It doesn’t work like that.” And God, she loved him more that he would try, that he’d be willing to try. “Maybe it is magick after all. What makes us love and need and want one person, over everyone else. Love and need and want them absolutely. I want the magick. I’m not settling for less. You’re why. So in a strange way I’m grateful.”
“Oh yeah, thank me now and put a fine, foamy head on it.”
“You showed me that I’m worth more than I thought, or let myself think. And that’s a lot to be grateful for. I’m the one who rushed in, so I’m the one responsible for the fallout. It was all too fast, too intense. It’s no wonder you felt cornered.”
“I never felt . . . I don’t know what I was talking about.”
“You’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, the flowers are beautiful, and so was your apology.” She carried them over, put them on the table. “On second thought, I can tell you some things I need.”
“Anything.”
“I need to go on working for you and Fin, not only because I need to make a living, but because I’m good at it. And because I love it, and I want to do what I love.”
“There’s no question about that. I told you.”
“And I need to be friends with you, so we’re not awkward or uncomfortable around each other. It’s important. I couldn’t handle working for you or with you if we held on to resentment or difficult feelings. I’d end up walking away from the job to spare us both, and then I’d just be pissed off and sad.”
“There’s no resentment from me. I can’t promise no difficult feelings, for
that’s what they are. They’re all tangled for me, and slippery with it. If you’d just—”
“Not this time.” Not with you, she thought, because with him, she’d never get up again whole. “I don’t just. I’m responsible for my feelings, and you for yours. You’ll figure it out,” she repeated. “But we both have good work that matters to us, good friends in common. And more important than anything, right here, right now, we have a common enemy and purpose. We can’t do all we have to do if we’re not on solid footing.”
“When did you get so bloody logical?” he muttered.
“Maybe I’m borrowing a little from Branna. She’s taught me a lot, shown me more than I ever imagined I’d see. I have a legacy, and I’m going to be true to it. I’m going to fight for it. And I’m going to be true to myself.”
“So it’s work together, fight together, and be friends? And that’s the lot of it?”
She offered another smile. “That’s a lot for most people. And I’m not holding back sex as a punishment.”
“I wasn’t meaning . . . Though now that you say it, it has that effect. It wasn’t just sex, Iona. Don’t think it.”
“No, it wasn’t. But I pushed there, too. Jumping in, as I tend to, well, boots first.”
“I like the way you jump in. But if it’s what you need, it’s friends.” For now, he thought.
“Good. Want that beer now?”
He nearly said yes, to buy more time, and maybe to soften the line she’d drawn between them. But she’d told him what she needed from him, and he’d give it.
“I’d best be on. I’ve all that untangling to do, after all.”
“Might as well get started.”