“I can’t.”
“I know you value your own space—who’d understand more—but until we’ve settled on what we do next, it’s best if—”
“I kissed him.”
“What? What?” Stunned, Branna jerked back. “You kissed Cabhan? But you said you didn’t go through. What—”
“Connor. I kissed Connor. Last night. I all but molested him on the side of the road. I lost my mind for a minute, that’s all it was. The flying along, the seeing him lying on Fin’s kitchen floor, all the pain in his face when the healing started. I thought, he’s dead, then he wasn’t, then he’s shaking and
burning up, and then he’s ripping off a drumstick and chomping into it before he’s so much as put his shirt on again. It all just boiled my brain until I was all but crawling over him and kissing him.”
“Well,” Branna said after Meara sucked in a breath.
“But I stopped—you have to know—well, after the second time I stopped.”
Though Branna’s mouth quirked at the corner, her tone stayed utterly even. “The second time?”
“I— It— He— It was a mad reaction to the evening.”
“And did he have a mad reaction as well—to the evening?”
“I’d have to say, thinking on it, the first one took him by surprise, and who could wonder. And the second . . . he’s a man, after all.”
“He is that, indeed.”
“But it went no further. I’ll make that clear to you. I had him drop me home and drive on. It went no further.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Blank, Meara just stared. “He dropped me home as I said.”
“Why didn’t he go with you?”
“With me? He needed to go home, to you.”
“Ah, bollocks to that, Meara.” Annoyance flicked out. “I won’t be used as an excuse.”
“I don’t mean that, not at all. I . . . I thought you’d be irritated or amused, or puzzled at least. But you’re not.”
“I’m none of those, no, or surprised in the least. I’ve wondered why it’s taken the pair of you so bloody long to get to it.”
“Get to what?”
“Get together.”
“Together?” Pure shock had Meara surging to her feet. “Me, Connor. No, that can’t be.”
“And why can’t it?”
“Because we’re friends.”
Meara sipped her tea, looked into the fire. “When I think of a lover who would touch more than my body, I think of a friend. To have only the heat without the warmth? It would do, and does, but only just.”
“And what happens to the friend when the lover ends?”
“I don’t know. I see our parents, Connor’s and mine, happy still. Not blissful every second of every day, for who could stand that? But happy, and in tune most of the time.”
“And I see mine.”