“I’ll make a point of it, and the stables.”
“Make sure you have a kind word for Kevin and Mooney.” Boyle lifted his beer. “As your newest acquisition battered both of them.”
“Got spirit, he does, and an iron will. Has he battered you as well?”
“Not for lack of trying. He likes this one.” Boyle nodded toward Iona.
Locking eyes with Iona again, Fin tapped his fingers on the table as if to an inner tune. “Does he now.”
“After doing his damnedest to buck me across to Galway, the Yank here mounts him and takes him around the ring like a show horse.”
Fin smiled slowly. “Is that a fact? Are you a horsewoman then, Iona?”
“It is, and she is,” Boyle answered. “She’s now in our employ, which I’m keeping you up to date with in person.”
“Happy to have you. A working holiday for you, is it?”
“I . . . I’m going to live here. That is, I’m living here now.”
“Well then, welcome home. Your grandmother’s well, I hope. Mrs. O’Connor?”
“Very. Thanks.” To keep them still, Iona clutched her hands together under the table. “I needed a job, so Branna asked Boyle to meet with me. I worked at Laurel Riding Academy in Maryland. I have references, and my resume. That is, Boyle has them now, if you need to see them.”
Shut up, shut up, she ordered herself, but nerves overwhelmed her. “You have a wonderful operation. Meara showed me around. And you’re right. Alastar has spirit, and a strong will, but he’s not mean. Not innately. He’s just mad and unsettled, finding himself in a strange place, with people and horses he’s not used to. Now he has something to prove, especially to Boyle.
“Thank God,” she breathed when the tea arrived. She could use it to stop her mouth.
“You make her nervous.” Amused now, Branna spoke to Fin. “She tends to chatter on when she’s nervous.”
“I do. Sorry.”
“And apologizes continually. That really has to stop, Iona.”
“It does. Why did you buy him—Alastar?” she began. Then held up a hand. “Sorry. None of my business. Plus you said you didn’t want to talk business.”
“He’s beautiful. I have a weakness for beauty, and strength, and . . . power.”
“He’s all that,” Meara agreed. “And anyone who knows bloody anything about horses knows he’s not meant to plod around with tourists on his back every day.”
“No, he’s meant for other things.” He looked at Branna. “Needed for other things.”
“What are you about?” she murmured.
“He spoke to me. You understand me,” he said to Iona.
“Yes. Yes.”
“So, he’s here, and on her way is the prettiest filly in the West Counties. Spirited, too, a two-year-old, fine as a princess. She’s Aine, for the faerie queen. We’ll be playing matchmaker there, Boyle, when she’s mature enough. Until she is, she’ll do well on the jump course, even, I think, with novices.”
“You’ve more than breeding on your mind.” Branna nudged her tea aside.
“Ah, darling, breeding’s ever on it.”
“You knew she’d come, and what it would mean. It’s already begun.”
“We’ll talk about it.” Fin laid a hand over Branna’s on the table. “But not in the pub.”
“No, not in the pub.” She drew her hand from under his. “You know more than you say, and I’ll want the truth of it.”
Irritation simmered in his eyes. “I’ve never lied to you, mo chroi. Not in all our lives, and you know it. Even when a lie could have given me what I wanted most.”
“Leaving gaps is no different from a bold lie.” She pushed to her feet. “I’ve work yet. Boyle, use your truck to see Iona back to the hotel, would you? I won’t have her walking through the wood at night.”
“Oh, but—”
“I’ll see to it.” Boyle interrupted Iona’s protest smoothly. “Not to worry.”
“I’ll get that salve to you in the morning. And see you, Iona, tomorrow, after work. We’ve much more to do.”
“Well and hell.” Connor sighed, started to rise as Branna left.
“No, stay and finish your pint.” Meara rubbed at Connor’s arm as if to soothe even as she pushed back her chair. “I’ll go with her. It’s time I started home anyway. Thanks for the tea, Fin, and welcome back. I expect I’ll see the lot of you tomorrow.”
Grabbing her jacket, Meara dragged it on as she hurried out of the pub.
Connor patted Iona’s arm. “You’ll need to get used to that.”
“That’s God’s truth,” Fin muttered, then very deliberately eased back, smiled. “I tend to put our Branna in difficult moods. So tell us, Iona from America, what is it you’ve seen and done in Ireland?”
“I . . .” How could they just pick up the small talk when the air actively pulsed with temper and heartbreak? “Ah . . . not very much. And a lot, I guess. I came to meet Branna and Connor, and to find a place, to find work. Now I have. But I haven’t had time, yet, to see anything but here. It’s so beautiful, it’s enough.”
“We’ll have to get you out and about more than that. You say you found a place, to live you mean? That’s quick work.”
“I’m staying at Ashford for a few more days.”
“Now there’s a rare treat.”
“It really is. Then I’m going to live with Branna and Connor.” She saw his eyes flicker, narrow, shift quickly to Connor. “Is that a problem?”
In answer, Fin leaned over the table, kept those eyes focused on her face. “She knew you. She reaches out to many, but holds precious few. Home is sanctuary. If hers is yours, she knew you. Have a care with them,” he murmured to Connor. “By all the gods.”
“Don’t doubt it.”
“Speaking of gaps.” Frustrated, Iona looked from one man to the other, and to Boyle who sat, saying nothing at all. She’d get nothing out of any of them, not there and then. “I should go. Thanks for dinner, Connor, and for the tea, Fin. You don’t have to drive me back to the hotel, Boyle.”
“She’ll skin my arse if I don’t, and it could be literal. I’ll see you back at home,” he said to Fin.
“I’ll be coming along shortly.”
Stuck, Iona walked to the door. She took one glance back, caught a glimpse of Fin brooding into his pint, and Connor leaning over the table, talking quick and low.
She stepped out into windy rain, and found herself grateful after all for the ride.
“You and Fin live together?”
“I keep my place over the garage, and make use of his house when I’ve a mind to, as he’s out as much as in. It’s handy for both of us, living there near the big stables.”
He opened the door of an old truck with faded red paint, and reaching in, shoved at the clutter on the seat. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t expecting a passenger.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s a relief to see someone’s as messy as I am.”
“If that’s the way of it, take a warning. Hide and confine your debris. Branna’s orderly, and she’ll hound you like a dog if you leave things flung about.”
“So noted.”
She boosted up, slid in among clipboards, wrappers, an old towel, rags, and a shallow cardboard box holding hoof picks, bridle rings, a couple of batteries, and a screwdriver.
He got in the opposite door, shoved a key in the ignition.
“You didn’t say much in there.”
“Being friends with all parties, I find it best to stay out of it altogether.”
The truck rattled, the rain pattered, and Iona settled back.
“They’re a thing.”
“Who’s a thing?”
“Branna and Fin. They either are, or were, involved. The sexual buzz was so loud my ears are still ringing.”
He shifted, frowned out at the road. “I’m not after gossiping about friends.”
“It’s not gossip. It’s an observation. It must be complicated, for both of them. And it’s clear I need to know what’s going on. You know more about any of it than I do, and I’m in it.”
“Put yourself there from what I can see.”
“Maybe I did. So what? How did you know I’m like them?”
“I’ve known them most of my life, been a part of theirs. I saw it in you, with the horse.”
Brows knit, she shifted to face him. “Most people wouldn’t be so casual about it. Why are you?”
“I’ve known them most of my life,” he repeated.
“I don’t see how it can be that simple. I can do this.” She held out her palm and, focusing hard, managed to flick a small flame in its center.
It was pitiful compared to Branna, but she’d been working on it off and on.
He barely glanced her way. “Convenient if you’re backpacking and misplace the matches.”
“You’re a cool customer.” She had to admire it. “If I’d pulled that on the guy I’d been dating, he’d have gone through the door, leaving a cartoon-guy hole in it.”
“Must not have been much for backpacking.”
She started to laugh, then caught her breath when fog rose up on the road ahead like a wall. Her hands balled into fists as the truck punched through it, tightened as the fog blanketed over them.
“Do you hear that? Can you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“My name. He keeps saying my name.”
Though he was forced to slow to a crawl, Boyle kept his hands steady on the wheel. “Who’s saying your name?”
“Cabhan. He’s in the fog. Maybe he is the fog. Can’t you hear him?”
“I can’t.” And so far, never had. He wouldn’t mind keeping it that way. “I’m thinking you’ll work with Meara again tomorrow.”
“What? What?”
“I’ll want her go-ahead before you take any guests out on your own.” He spoke easily, drove slowly. He could navigate this road blindfolded, and thought he damn nearly was. “And I’ll want to see how you handle instruction. We’ll have you work with Mick there, or with me from time to time. Do you do any jumping?”
He knew she did, and had the blue ribbons and trophies to prove it, the certification to teach it. He’d read her resume.
“Yes. Competitively since I was eight. I wanted to try for the Olympic team, but . . .”
“Too much commitment?”
“No. I mean, yes. In a way. You need a lot of family support for that kind of training. And the financial backing.” While her eyes tracked right and left, she rubbed a hand from between her br**sts up to her throat, back again. “Did you hear that? God, can’t you hear that?”
“That I did.” The wild howl shot cold fingers up his spine. And that, he thought, was new, at least to him. “I expect he doesn’t like us talking over him.”