He started to follow up, pulled back. “Fuck it,” she heard him mutter as he simply put a boot on Riley’s ass and shoved him facedown on the ground.
“Oh God. My God.”
“There now.” Meara patted her shoulder. “It’s just a bit of a dustup.”
“No. It’s . . .” She fluttered her fingers over her belly.
Meara snorted out a laugh. “Aye, a fascination to me you are.”
A few feet away, Fin sat astride a restless Alastar. “Again?” he said mildly.
“Fucker wouldn’t walk away.” Boyle sucked at his raw knuckles. “And I gave him every chance.”
“I saw you giving him those chances as I rode up, and how could he be walking away with your fist in his face?”
Boyle only grinned. “That was after the chances.”
“Well, let’s make sure you haven’t killed him, as I’ve no desire to help you hide a body this morning.” As he dismounted, he crooked a finger at Iona. “Yes, you. Be a darling and tie Alastar to the post. Don’t unsaddle him.”
When he held out the reins, she hurried over to take them.
Using his boot again, Boyle rolled Riley onto his back. “Broke his nose, that’s for certain, and loosened some teeth, but he’ll live through it.”
Fin stood, hands in his pockets as they both studied the unconscious Riley. “This goes back to that horse you won off him, I take it.”
“It does.”
“Bloody git.”
Whistling cheerfully through his teeth, Mick strolled out carrying a bucket of water. “Thought you could be using this.”
Fin took it. “Stand clear then,” he advised, then tossed the water in Riley’s face.
The man sputtered, coughed. His eyes opened and rolled in his head.
“Good enough.” Boyle crouched down, took one arm. On a sigh, Fin took the other.
Absently stroking Alastar, Iona watched them haul the man to his truck, shove him up and in. She couldn’t hear what words were exchanged, but in moments, the truck drove away, weaving a bit.
As she did, the men watched it. Then Fin said something that had Boyle letting out a laugh before he slung an arm around Fin’s shoulders and turned to walk back.
She saw it then, the ease between them. More than partners, she realized. More still than friends. Brothers.
“Performance is over for the day,” Boyle called out. “There’s work needs doing.”
At his words, the staff that had gathered, scattered.
Iona cleared her throat. “You should put something on those knuckles.”
Boyle merely glanced at them, sucked at them again. And shrugging, continued inside. Fin stopped by Iona.
“He’s a brawler, is Boyle.”
“The other guy started it.”
Now Fin laughed. “No doubt. Maturity’s given Boyle the sense to wait until he’s well provoked, and rare is it for him to throw the first punch. Otherwise, he’d have given Riley the hammering he deserved weeks ago instead of making the wager.”
She should mind her own business. She should . . . “What was the wager?”
“Riley’s a horse trader of the lowest sort. He had in his possession a mare he’d neglected. I’m told she was skin and bones and sick and lame. He planned to sell her off for dog food.”
Eyes fired, lips peeled back in a snarl. “I’d like to punch him myself.”
“You don’t have the hands for it.” Fin watched Alastar nuzzle at Iona’s shoulder, and the way she leaned her head to his. “Best to use your feet for such matters, and aim for the balls.”
“I’d be happy to, in this case.”
“I’ll tell you, as Boyle likely won’t, as he’s a man of few words—or none at all if he can manage it. He offered Riley what he’d have gotten for selling her off, and more besides, but Riley doesn’t care much for Boyle, or for me, and he demanded double that. So being a cannier businessman than you might think, Boyle wagered him on who could drink the most whiskey and stay on his feet. If Riley won, Boyle would pay the asking price. If Boyle won, Riley turned over the mare for what was offered. The publican wrote it in the book, and considerable money changed hands, I’m told.”
As he spoke, Fin unlooped the reins from the post. “And at the end of the long night, it was Boyle still on his feet. Though I’d wager he had the devil’s own head the next morning, he had the mare as well.”
“A drinking bet.”
“As I said, our Boyle’s matured. Now then.” Fin handed the reins to Iona, made a hammock with his hands. “Up you go.”
Her mind full of questions, impressions, she put her boot in Fin’s hands, mounted Alastar smoothly. “Where do you want him?”
“I want both of you in the ring. Let’s see what you can do.”
8
AT THE END OF THE WORKDAY, SHE LET HERSELF THINK OF MAGICK. What would Branna teach her today? What new wonder would she see, feel, do? She said good-bye to the horses, to her coworkers before starting out.
And saw Boyle in his little office, all beetled brow and swollen knuckles as he hacked away at paperwork.
Definitely a flutter going on, she thought. Not that she intended to flirt with her boss. Plus, for all she knew, he had a parade of girlfriends. Or maybe even more daunting, didn’t find her attractive.
Besides, she wasn’t looking for a relationship, or an entanglement. She needed to get her feet firmly planted in her new life, learn more about her awakening powers—and hone them if she intended to be a real help to her cousins.
When a woman planned to go up against ancient evil, she shouldn’t allow herself to become distracted by sexy eyebrows or broad shoulders or—
“In or out,” Boyle ordered, and kept pecking at his keyboard. “Stop the bleeding hovering.”
“Sorry. I, ah, wasn’t sure if . . . I’m finished for the day,” she told him.
He glanced up, held her eyes for a beat. Grunted and looked back down at his work.
His hands had to hurt, she thought. She could practically see them throbbing. “You really should ice down those knuckles.”
“They’ll be all right. I’ve had worse.”
“Probably, but if they’re swollen and stiff—or worse, get infected—you won’t be much good around here.”
“Don’t need a nurse, thanks.”
Stubborn, she thought. But so was she. She went back in, got the first-aid kit, a couple of ice packs. Marched back to his office.
“Some would say you’re being stoic and manly,” she began as she dragged over a chair. “But my take is sulky baby because your hands hurt.”
“I enjoyed the getting of them, so I’m not sulky. Put that away.”
“When I’m done with it.” She got out the antiseptic, gripped his wrist. “This is going to sting.”
“Don’t be— Shit! Bloody f**king hell.”
“Baby,” she said with some satisfaction, but blew on the sting. “If you’re going to punch somebody in the face with bare knuckles, you’re going to pay the price.”
“If you disapprove of fighting, you’re in the wrong place. Likely the wrong country.”
“I don’t—that is situationally, and that jerk deserved it. Just let this lie while I clean this one up.” She set the ice pack on one hand while she doctored the other. “You knew what you were doing. Did you box in college?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Resigned—and in any case the ice pack felt just grand—he sat back a little. “Are you trying to set my hand on fire to purify it?”
“It’ll only sting for a minute. What manner of speaking?”
The look he gave her could only be described as a glower. She’d always wondered what a glower actually looked like.
“You’re full of questions.”
“It’s only one,” she pointed out. “And talking will distract you. What manner of speaking?”
“Jesus. I worked my way through university fighting. Bare-knuckle matches, so this current situation isn’t new to me. I know how to tend to myself.”
“Then you should have done it. That’s a hard way to earn tuition.”
“Not if you like it, and not if you win.”
“And you did both.”
“I liked it better when I won, and I won my share.”
“Good for you. Is that how you got that scar through your eyebrow?”
“That’s another question. A different kind of fight—pub fight, and a broken bottle. As I’d been drinking myself, my reflexes were a bit slow.”
“You’re lucky you have the eye.”
Surprised by her response, and the matter-of-fact tone, he cocked that scarred brow. “Not that slow.”
She only smiled. “Switch hands.”
He had big ones, she thought. Strong, with blunt fingers and wide palms. The rough hands of a man who worked with them, and she respected that.
“Fin told me about the mare, and the bet.”
He didn’t glower this time, but shifted a little on the chair. “Fin loves a story, and the telling of one.”
“I’d like to meet her.”
“We keep her at the big stables. She’s skittish around strangers yet, and needs more time and pampering.”
“What do you call her?”
He shifted again, as she knew now he did when uncomfortable or mildly embarrassed. “She’s Darling. It fits her. Haven’t you done with that yet?”
“Nearly. I like that you drank him under the table for the horse that needed you. And I like that you knocked the crap out of him today. I probably shouldn’t. My parents tried to raise me to be someone who wouldn’t. But they failed.”
She glanced up to find his eyes on her again. “You can’t be what you aren’t.”
“No, you really can’t. I’m a mild disappointment to them, which is worse somehow than being a serious disappointment. So I’m working hard not to be any kind of disappointment to myself.”
She eased back. “There.” And took his hands gently by the fingers to examine the knuckles. “Better.”
Oh yeah, she thought as their eyes met yet again. Flutters and tingles, and a quick churning to top it off. She’d be in serious trouble if she didn’t watch herself.
But it was Boyle who drew away. “Thanks. You’d better get on. You’ll have things to do.”
“I do.” She started to reach for the kit, but he brushed her away.
“I’ll deal with it. Eight tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here.”
When she left, he brooded down at his hands. He could still feel her touch on them. A different kind of sting. He looked up when Fin eased into the doorway, leaned on the jamb. Smiled.
“Don’t start with me.”
“She’s a pretty thing. Bright, eager. And if she’d been flirting any harder, I’d have been forced to shut the door for privacy.”
“She was doing no such thing. She’d had it stuck in her head to tend to my hands, that’s all.”