If she hadn’t said the last, he’d have marched right up to her flat, pushed his way in if necessary. Then they’d have seen what they’d have seen.
But because she was right, he waited until she’d shut herself inside. Then he drove home, more puzzled than he’d ever been about a woman.
And more stirred by one than he could remember.
8
MEARA TOLD HERSELF TO FORGET ABOUT IT. TO PUT IT aside as a moment of insanity caused by extreme stress. It wasn’t every day, was it, your two good friends grabbed hold of you and took you flying so you winked out of one place, winked into another?
Where you looked at a man you’d cared for the whole of your life, and thought him dead?
Some women would have run screaming, she thought as she put her back into mucking stalls. Some would have fallen into hysterics.
All she’d done was kiss the man who wasn’t dead at all.
“I’ve kissed him before, haven’t I?” she muttered and pitched soiled hay into the barrow. “You can’t know someone almost from birth, run in the same pack all along, be best mates with his sister, and not. It’s nothing. It’s not a thing at all.”
Oh God.
She squeezed her eyes shut, leaned on her pitchfork.
Sure she’d kissed him before, and he her.
But not like that. Not like that, no. Not all hot and heavy with tongues and teeth and her heart racing.
What must he think? What did she think?
More, what the bloody, bleeding hell was she to do when next she saw him?
“Okay.” Iona stepped into the stall behind her, leaned on her own pitchfork. “I’ve given you thirty-two minutes, by my mark. That’s my limit. What’s going on?”
“Going on?” Flustered, Meara tugged the brim of her cap down lower, and tossed another scoop into the barrow. “I’m pitching horse shit, as you are.”
“Meara, you barely looked at me, much less spoke when we got here this morning. And you’re in here muttering under your breath. If I did something to piss you off—”
“No! Of course you didn’t.”
“I didn’t think so, but something’s got you muttering and hunching off with your eyes averted.”
“Maybe I’ve got my monthlies.”
“Maybe?”
“I couldn’t think fast enough if I’d been bitchy recently when I did have them. My mother—”
Iona jabbed a finger to stop her. “You didn’t think fast enough there either. When it’s your mother, you spew. You’re not spewing, you’re hiding.”
“I am not.” Insulted, Meara angled away. “I’m merely taking some time with my thoughts.”
“Is it about last night?”
Meara straightened up like a flag pole. “What about last night?”
“Connor. Black magickal burn.”
“Oh. Well, yes, of course. Of course, it’s that.”
Eyes narrowed in speculation, Iona circled her finger in the air. “And?”