“Why don’t I take you to the stables on my way, and just fetch you when we’re both done? It’d save you the petrol, and seems foolish for us to each take our lorries.”
“Then you’d have to bring me home after.”
“That was the canny part of my plan.” He hefted his tea as if toasting himself. “I’ll bring you back, stay with you again if that’s all right. Or you could just stay at the cottage.”
She downed tea he’d made strong enough to break stone. “What will Branna think of this?”
“We’ll be finding out soon enough. We wouldn’t hide it from her, either of us, even if we could. Which we couldn’t,” he added with an easy shrug, “as she’ll know.”
“They’ll all need to know.” No point, Meara decided, being delicate about it all. “It’s only right. Not just because we’re friends and family, but because we’re a circle. What we are to each other . . . that’s the circle, isn’t it?”
He scanned her face as she pushed oatmeal around in her bowl. “It shouldn’t worry you, Meara. We’ve a right to be with each other this way as long as we both want it. None who care for us would think or feel otherwise.”
“That’s right. But then as far as my other family—my blood kin—I’d as soon not bring them into it.”
“That’s for you to say.”
“It’s not that I’m ashamed of it, Connor, you mustn’t think that.”
“I don’t think that.” His eyebrows lifted as he took a spoonful of her oatmeal, brought it up to her mouth himself. “I know you, don’t I? Why would I think that, knowing you?”
“That’s an advantage between us. It’s that my mother would start fussing, and inviting you to dinner. I couldn’t take another kitchen disaster on the heels of the last—and my finances can’t take a bigger tab at Ryan’s Hotel. In any case, she’ll be off for her visit with Maureen soon—and unless that’s a fresh disaster, it’ll be a permanent move.”
“You’ll miss her.”
“I’d like the chance to.” She huffed out a breath, but ate some oatmeal before he took it into his head to feed her again. “And that sounds mean, but it’s pure truth. I think I’d have a better time with her if there was some distance. And . . .”
“And?”
“I had a moment yesterday, while I was rushing over there, not sure what I’d find. I suddenly thought, what if Cabhan’s been at her, as he’d been at me? It was foolish, as he’s no reason to, and never has. But I thought as well of what you said about feeling better knowing your parents were away from this. I’ll rest easier knowing that about my mother. This is for us to do.”
“And so we will.”
* * *
HE DROPPED HER OFF AT THE STABLES, THEN CIRCLED around to go home and change out of yesterday’s work clothes.
He found Branna already up—not dressed for the day as yet, but having her coffee with Sorcha’s spell book once again open in front of her.
“Well, good morning to you, Connor.”
“And to you, Branna.”
She studied him over the rim of her mug. “And how is our Meara this fine morning?”
“She’s well. I’ve just dropped her at the stables, but wanted to change before I went to work. And wanted to see how you fared as well.”
“I’m fit and fine, though I can say you look fitter and finer. You’ve had breakfast I take it?”
“I have, yes.” But he liked the looks of the glossy green apples she’d put in a bowl, and took one. “Does this bother you, Branna? Meara and myself?”
“Why would it when I love you both, and have seen the pair of you careful to skirt round the edges of what my brilliant brain deduces occurred last night—for years.”
“I never thought of her in that way before . . . Before.”
“You did, but told yourself not to, which is different entirely. You’d never hurt her.”
“Of course I wouldn’t.”