“Did you take off what I gave you because you thought I might have used it to hold you, to keep you with me, to make you feel for me?”
Shock ripped through the sorrow, pushed her one stumbling step back. “Oh no, God no. You would never do such a thing. I would never think any such thing, never of you. Never, Connor, on my life.”
“All right.” That, at least that, stanched the worst of a bleeding heart. “Be calm again.”
“It was temper,” she said, “temper and . . . fear. Honest, be honest,” she ordered herself. “Fear more than anything, and that sparked the temper, and together the roar of it made me blind and deaf to any sort of sense. I swear to you, I swear I never meant to go out without it. I forgot. I was so turned around and wound up, that when Boyle booted me out, I changed jackets without a thought I’d left all the protection in the other.”
She had to stop, press her fingers to her eyes. “Read me. Go in here—” She moved her fingers to her temple. “Read my thoughts, for you’d find the truth.”
“I believe you. I know when I hear the truth.”
“But will you forgive me?”
Was it as hard for her to ask, he wondered, as for him to accept? He thought perhaps it was. And still they needed to clear it all before the answers.
“I gave you something that mattered to me because you mattered.”
“And I was careless with it, and with you. Careless enough to cost us all.” She took a step toward him. “Forgive me.”
“I give you love, Meara, of the kind I’ve never given to another. But you don’t want it.”
“I don’t know what to do with it, and that’s a different thing. And I’m afraid.” She pressed both hands to her heart. “I’m afraid because I can’t stop what’s happening in me. If you don’t forgive me, if you can’t forgive me, I think something inside me would die of grief.”
“I forgive you, of course.”
“You’re more than I deserve.”
“Ah, Meara.” He sighed it. “Love isn’t a prize given on merit, or something to be taken back when there’s a mistake. It’s a gift, as much for the giver as the one who’s given it. The day you’ll take it, hold it, you won’t be afraid.”
He shook his head before she could speak. “It’s enough. You’re more weary than you know, and you’ve still a tale to tell. You should sit, and we’ll see what Branna’s cooked up as, Jesus, it’s been a long time since breakfast.”
When he crossed to her, she reached for his hand. “Thank you. For the light, for the breath, for my life. And thank you, Connor, for the gift.”
“Well now, that’s a start,” he told her, and led her back to the kitchen.
* * *
SHE TOLD THE STORY HALTINGLY WHILE SHE DUG INTO THE spaghetti and meatballs—a particular favorite. It seemed she couldn’t get enough to eat or drink—though she found even a few sips of wine made her unsteady.
“You’ll do better with water tonight,” Branna told her.
“I think part of me knew it wasn’t real, but it looked and felt and smelled and so
unded so real. The gardens, the fountain, the paths, just as I remember them. The house, the suit my father wore, the way he tapped his finger to the side of his nose.”
“Because he built the spell on your thoughts and images.” Fin poured her more water.
“The way he called me princess.” Meara nodded. “And how it could make me feel like one when he paid special attention to me. He was . . .”
It pained her to speak of it. “He was the fun in our home, you see. His big laugh, and how he’d slip us extra pocket money or a bit of chocolate like it was a secret shared. I worshiped him, and that all came back, those feelings, as we walked around the garden with a bird singing in the mulberry tree.”
She had to stop a moment, gather herself. “I worshiped him,” she repeated, “and he left us—left me—with never a backward glance. Sneaking off like a thief, and indeed it turned out he was just that, as he took everything of value he could with him. But there, in the gardens, it was all as it had been before. The sun shining, and the flowers, and feeling so happy.
“Then he turned on me, so quickly. He’d left because of me, he said, because I was friends with you. I’d shamed him by consorting, conspiring—he used those words—with witches. I was damned for it.”
“A trick, using some of your thoughts again,” Branna explained, “then twisting them.”
“My thoughts? But I never thought he left because we were friends.”