“And? That should be enough for anyone. It would send most people into hospital with collapsed nerves.”
“You’re not most people.” Now Iona moved in closer, crowding the space. “What happened after you left Fin’s?”
“Why would anything happen?”
“There!” Iona pointed. “You looked at the ground. Something happened, and you’re evading.”
Why, oh why, was she such a miserable liar when it mattered? “I’m looking at the horse shit I’m not shoveling.”
“I thought we were friends.”
“Oh, oh, that’s below the belt.” It was Meara’s turn to point an accusatory finger. “That sorrowful look, the little catch in your voice.”
“It is,” Iona admitted with a quick smile. “But it’s still true.”
Losing the battle, Meara leaned on her pitchfork again. “I don’t know what to say about it, or do about it.”
“That’s why you tell a friend. You’re close to Branna—and I don’t mean that below the belt. If you can talk to her, I’ll cover for you while you go over.”
“You would,” Meara said with a sigh. “I’ll need to talk to her, that’s clear enough. I’m not sure how. It might be better to talk to a cousin rather than a sister right off. Sort of like stepping-stones. It’s just that . . .”
She stepped to the opening of the stall, looked up, looked down to be sure Boyle, Mick, or any of the stable hands weren’t loitering nearby.
“It was scary, last night. And I was turned upside down right off at being whisked magickally from one kitchen to the next in a couple blinks of the eye.”
“You’d never flown before? Oh God, Meara, you had to be upside down. I guess I assumed Branna would have taken you now and then. For, well, fun.”
“It’s not that she won’t use power for a bit of fun now and then. But she’s pretty bloody responsible with it.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“Then we’re there, where we weren’t, and Connor . . . In that first moment, I thought he was dead.”
“Oh, Meara.” Instinctively, Iona reached out to hug her. “I knew he wasn’t—that connection among the three—and I nearly lost it.”
“I thought I’d—we’d—lost him, and my head was already spinning, my guts twisted sideways. Then Branna and Fin working on him, and you as well. And I could do nothing.”
“That’s not true.” Iona pulled back, gave Meara a little shake. “It took us all. It took our circle, our family.”
“I felt useless all the same, but that’s not important. It was such a relief when he came back, and so much himself. And I thought I’d calmed and settled. But when he drove me home, it started rolling around inside me again, and before I knew it, before I could think straight, I told him to pull over.”
“Were you sick? I’m so sorry.”
“No, no, and he thought the same. But I went a bit mad, really. I just jumped him, right there in his lorry.”
Shock had Iona’s mouth falling open as she took a jerky step back. “You— You hit him?”
“No! Don’t be an idjit! I kissed him. And not at all like a brother or a friend, or someone you’re welcoming back from death.”
“Oh.” Iona drew the syllable out.
“Oh,” Meara echoed, doing a restless circle around the stall. “Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I pulled back. You’d think I’d’ve got my head back in place, but no, I did it all over again. And being a man, after all, he had no objections, and would’ve moved on from there if I hadn’t found my sanity again.”
“I shouldn’t be surprised. I’m not really surprised. I thought there was something . . . but when I first got here this winter, I thought there was something between you and Boyle.”
“Oh Jesus.” Completely done, Meara covered her face with her hands.
“I know there wasn’t, ever, anything but family, friends. So I decided the something I thought I felt between you and Connor was the same.”