by Nora Roberts
framed his face with her hands. For a moment they knelt, the dog gamely wagging his tail between them.
“You should take him home now.”
“Yes. Home.”
“What happened?” Connor asked. “Can you tell us? We told Iona not to come. Christ, she’s driving her grandmother from the airport in Galway.”
“Not now, Connor.” Branna pushed to her feet. “We’ll get the details of it later. Take him home, Fin. I have some tonic that would do well. I’ll get it for you. But rest is all he really needs.”
“Would you come with me?” He hated to ask, to need to ask, but still feared for the little dog. “Look after him for just a bit longer, just a bit to be sure?”
“All right. Of course. Connor, you could ride Baru back, and take the hawks, take Kathel. I’ll be home soon.”
“Well, I—”
But Branna put her hand in Fin’s. She, Fin, and the little dog winked away together.
“Well, as I was saying.” Connor ran his fingers through his hair, looked up to where Fin’s hawk and his own Roibeard circled. He gave Kathel’s head a pat, then swung onto Baru. “I’ll just see to the rest.”
• • •
IN HIS KITCHEN, THE DOG SNUGGLED IN HIS ARMS, FIN TRIED to sort out what to do next.
“I should bathe this blood off him.”
“Not in there,” Branna said, all sensibilities shocked when he walked to the kitchen sink. “You can’t be washing up a dog in the same place you wash up your dishes. You must have a laundry, a utility sink.”
Though he didn’t see the difference, Fin changed directions, moved through a door and into the laundry with its bright white walls and burly black machines. Opening a cupboard, he reached for laundry soap.
“Not with that, for pity’s sake, Fin. You don’t bathe a dog with laundry soap. You’re wanting dish soap—the liquid you’d use for hand washing.”
He might have pointed out the bloody dish soap was under the bloody kitchen sink where he’d intended to wash the dog in the first place. But she was bustling about, pulling off her coat, notching it on a peg, pushing up her sleeves.
“Give me the dog; get the soap.”
Fine then, he thought, just fine. His brain was scattered to bits in any case. He fetched the soap, stepped back in.
“You’re doing fine,” she murmured to Bugs, who stared up at her with adoration. “Just tired and a little shaky here and there. You’ll have a nice warm bath,” she continued as she ran water in the sink. “Some tonic, and a good long nap and you’ll be right as rain.”
“What’s right about rain, I’ve always wondered.” He dumped soap in the running water.
“That’s enough—enough, Fin. You’ll have the poor thing smothered in bubbles.”
He set the bottle on the counter. “I’ve something upstairs—a potion—that should do for him.”
“I’ll get him started here if you’ll get it.”
“I’m grateful, Branna.”
“I know. Here now, in you go. Isn’t that nice?”
“He’s fond of the shower.”
With the dog sitting in the sea of bubbles looking, to Fin’s eye, ridiculous, Branna turned.
“What?”
“Never mind. I’ll get the tonic.”
“The shower, is it?” she murmured when Fin left, rubbing her hands over the dog. Bugs lapped at the bubbles, at her hand, and brought on a very clear image of Fin, wearing nothing but water, laughing as he held the dog in a glass-walled shower where the jets streamed everywhere and steam puffed.
“Hmmm. He’s kept in tune, hasn’t he? Still some of the boy in there though, showering with a dog.”
It amused her, touched her, which wasn’t a problem. It stirred her, which was.
Fin brought back a pretty bottle with a hexagon base filled with deep green liquid. At Branna’s crooked finger, he unstopped it, held it out for her to sniff.
“Ah, yes, that’s just what he needs. If you have a little biscuit, you’d add three—no, let’s have four—drops to it. It’ll go down easier that way, and he’ll think it a treat.”
Without thinking, Fin reached in his pocket, took out a thumb-sized dog biscuit.
“You carry those in your pocket—what, in case you or the dog here get hungry?”
“I didn’t know how long we’d be out,” he muttered, and added the drops.
“Set it down to soak in. We could use an old towel.”
He set off again, came back with a fluffy towel the color of moss.
“Egyptian cotton,” Branna observed, and smoothly lifted the dog out, bundled him up before he could shake.
“I don’t have an old towel. And it’ll wash, won’t it?”
“So it will.” She rubbed the dog briskly, kissed his nose. “That’s better now, isn’t it? All clean and smelling like a citrus grove. An Egyptian one. Give him his treat, Fin, for he’s a good boy, a good, brave boy.”
Bugs turned those adoring, trusting eyes on Fin, then gobbled down the offered treat.
“He could do with some water before . . .” She glanced down, and stared. Truly horrified. “Belleek? You’re using Belleek bowls for the dog’s food and water.”
“They were handy.” Flustered, he took the dog, tossed the towel on the counter, then set Bugs down by the water bowl.
The dog drank thirstily, and noisily, for nearly a full minute. Let out a small belch then sat, stared up at Fin.
“He only needs a warm place to sleep for a while,” Branna told him.
Fin picked the dog up, snagged a pillow from the sofa in the great room, tossed it down in front of the fire.
Egyptian cotton, Belleek bowls, and now a damask pillow, Branna thought. The stable dog had become a little prince.
“He’s tired.” Fin stayed crouched down, stroking Bugs. “But he doesn’t hurt. His blood’s clear. There’s no poison in him.”
“He’ll sleep now, and wake stronger than he was. I had to give him a boost to bring him back. He’d lost so much blood.”
“He’ll have a scar here.” Gently, Fin traced a finger over the thin, jagged line on the dog’s throat.
“As Alastar carries one.”
Nodding, Fin rose as the dog slept. “I’m in your debt.”
“You’re not, and insult us both by saying it.”
“Not insult, Branna, gratitude. I’ll get you some wine.”
“Fin, it can’t be two in the afternoon.”
“Right.” He had to scrub his hands over his face, try to find his balance again. “Tea then.”
“I wouldn’t say no.” And it would keep him busy, she thought as he walked back into the kitchen, until he settled a little more.
“He’s for the stables. It’s been two years, thereabouts, since he wandered in. I wasn’t even here. It was Sean cleaned him up, fed him. And Boyle who named him.”
“Could be he wandered here for a reason, more reason than a bed of straw and scraps and some kind words. He’s in your home now, sleeping on a damask pillow in front of the fire. You took him on Samhain.”
“He was handy, like the bowls.”
“More than that, Fin.”
He shrugged, measured out tea. “He has a strong heart, and I never thought Cabhan would pay him any mind. He’s . . .”
“Harmless. Small and harmless and sweet-natured.”
“I brought him in one night. He has a way of looking at you, so I brought him in.”
Yes, still some of the boy, she thought, and all the kindness born in him. “A dog’s good company. The best, to my mind.”
“He chases his tail for no good reason but it’s there. I haven’t any biscuits,” he realized after a quick search. “Of the human sort.”
“Tea’s fine. Just the tea.”
Understanding he’d want to be close to the dog, she took a chair in view of the fire, waited until he’d brought the tea, sat with her.
“Tell me what happened.”
“I wanted a ride, a good, fa
st ride. The hills, the open.”
“As I wanted to walk in my garden. I understand the need.”
“You would. I thought to ride, to do some hawking, and took Bugs along to give him an adventure. Christ Jesus.”
“Your horse, your hawk, your hound.” She could almost see the guilt raging around him, hoped to smooth it down again. “Why wouldn’t you? You’re the only one of us who can link to all three.”
“I wasn’t looking for Cabhan, but in truth, I was more than pleased he found me.”
“As I was, walking in my garden. I understand that as well. Did he attack?”
“He started with his blather. I’m his blood, the lot of you will betray me, shun me, and so on. You’d think he’d be as bored with all that as I, but he never stops. Though this time out he promised to give you to me, should I want you, and that was fresh.”
Branna angled her head, and her voice was dry as dust. “Oh, did he now?”
“He did. He understands desire well enough. Understands the hungers of lust, but nothing of the heart or spirit. He knows I want you, but he’ll never understand why. I turned it on him. Began to draw him to me. It surprised him I could, for a moment, I could, and it threw him off. I called for the three—for we’d promised that—and as he became the wolf I pulled the sword from the cupboard upstairs, enflamed it.”
He paused a moment, got his bearings. “I could have held him off, I’m sure of it. I could have engaged him, with Baru and Merlin with me, until you came and we went at him together. But he didn’t come at me. He streaked to the side, had Bugs by the throat. All so fast. I went at him, struck at him, but he shifted away. He went for the dog who barely weighs a stone, tore his throat, then vanished away before I could strike a single blow. He never came at me.”
“But he did. He struck at your heart. Baru, Merlin, yourself? There’s a battle. The little dog, a strike at you with no risk to himself. A fecking coward he’s always been, will always be.”
“He rounded behind me when I went to the dog.”
Because, Branna knew, Fin thought of the dog before his own safety. “He knew you would go to the hurt and the helpless. Go to what’s yours.”
“I would have faced him man to man, witch to witch.” Now Fin’s eyes fired, molten green, as rage overcame guilt. “I wanted that.”
“As we all do, but that’s not his way. You may come from him, but you’re not of him. He keeps at you, as he can’t conceive you’d make the choice not to be.”
“You left me because I’m of him.”
“I left you because I was shocked and hurt and angry. And when that cleared, because I’m sworn.” She closed a hand around her pendant. “I’m sworn by Sorcha and all who came after her, down to me, and Connor and Iona, to use all we are to rid the world of him.”
“And all who come from him.”
“No. No.” Outrage would have come first at any other time, but she still felt his guilt under everything else he felt. “You come from him, but you’re one of us. I’ve come to know that was meant. I’ve come to believe none who’ve come before us succeeded because none who came before had you. Had his blood with them. None of them had you, Fin, with your power, your loyalty, your heart.”
He heard the words, believed she meant them. And yet. “I’m one of you, but you won’t be with me.”
“How can I think of that, Fin? How can I think of it when even now I can feel the urgency of what we’re sworn to do building again? I can’t see beyond that, and when I do, when I let myself think about what might be once this is done, I can’t see any of the life we once thought we’d make together. We were so young—”
“Bollocks to that, Branna. What we felt for each other was older than time. We weren’t the young and foolish playing at love.”
“How much easier would it have been if we had been? How much easier now? If we only played at it, Fin, we wouldn’t be bound to think of tomorrows. What future could we have? What life, you and I?”
He stared into the fire, knowing again she spoke the truth.
And yet.
“None, I know it, and still that feels like more than either of us have without the other. You’re the rest of me, Branna, and I’m tired enough right now to stop pretending you’re not.”
“You think I don’t mourn what might have been?” Hurt radiated through her, into the words. “That I don’t wish for it?”
“I have thought that. I’ve survived thinking that.”
“Then you’ve been wrong, and it may be I’m too tired as well to pretend. If it was only my heart, it would be yours.”
She took an unsteady breath as he turned his gaze from the fire to her face.
“It can’t be anyone else’s. It’s already lost. But it isn’t only that, and I can’t act on might be. When my father gave me this?” She held up the pendant. “I had a choice. He told me I had a choice, to take it or not. But if I took it, the choice was done. I would be one of the three, and sworn to try, above all, to end what Sorcha began. I won’t betray you, Fin, but neither will I betray my blood. I can’t think of wants and wishes, I can’t reach for might bes. My purpose was set before I was born.”
“I know that as well.” There were times the knowing it emptied him out. “Your purpose takes your head, your power, your spirit, but you can’t separate your heart from the rest.”
“It’s the only way I can do what needs to be done.”
“It’s a wonder to me you believe all who’ve come before you would want you unhappy.”
“I don’t, of course, I don’t. It’s that I believe all who’ve come before need me to do what must be done, what each of us have sworn. I . . .” She hesitated, not at all sure she knew how to say what was in her. “I don’t know, Fin, I don’t, if I know how to do what I must and be with you. But I can swear it’s not wanting to hurt or punish you. It may have been long ago when I was so young and so hurt and frightened. But it’s not that, not at all.”
He sat silent for a time, then looked back at her. “Tell me this. This one thing. Do you love me?”
She could lie. He would know it for a lie, but the lie would serve. And a lie was cowardly.
“I’ve loved no one as I loved you. But—”
“It’s enough. It’s enough to hear you say what you haven’t said to me in more than a dozen years. Be grateful I owe you a debt.” There was fire behind his eyes, burning hot. “I owe you for what lies sleeping there, else I’d find a way to get you into my bed, and put an end to this torment.”
“Seduction? Persuasion?” She tossed back her hair, rose. “I go to no man’s bed unless and until it’s my clear choice.”
“Of course, and one made only with your head. For such a clever woman you can be amazingly thick.”
“Now that you’re back to insulting me, I’ll be on my way. I’ve work I’m neglecting.”
“I’ll drive you. I’ll drive you,” he said even as she prepared to blast him. “There’s no point giving Cabhan another target today should he still be around. And I’ll stay and work with you, as agreed. The purpose, Branna, is mine as well, however different our thoughts on the life we live around that purpose.”
She might still have blasted him—she could work up a head of steam quickly and keep it pumping. But she caught the quick and concerned glance he sent the dog.
Bugger it.
“That’s fine then, as there’s plenty of work. Bring the dog. He’ll sleep through the ride, then Kathel can look after him.”
“I’d feel better about it. Oh, and there’s another thing. Iona tells me I’m having a party here for New Year’s Eve. So there’s that.”
“A party?”
“Why does everyone say it back to me as if I’ve used a foreign tongue?”
“That may be because I don’t recall you ever having a party.”
“There’s a first time,” he muttered, and got the dog.
8
SHE BLAMED THE DOG. HE’D SOFTENED HER UP, AND FIN, with his fancy towel
s and bowls and utter love for a stable dog, had marched right through her defenses.
She’d said more than she’d meant to, and more than she’d admitted to herself. Words had as much power as deeds to her mind, and now she’d given them to him when it might have been more rational, more practical to keep them to herself.
But that was done, and she knew well how to shore up her defenses. Where Finbar Burke was concerned she’d been doing so for more than a decade.
And in truth, there was too much to do, too much going on around her, to fret about it.
They’d had a lovely, quiet Yule, made only more special by Iona’s grandmother joining them. As they observed the solstice and the longest night, she could begin looking toward spring.
But Christmas came first.
It was a holiday she particularly enjoyed—all the fussiness of it. She liked the shopping, the wrapping, the decorating, the baking. And this year in particular, all the work of it gave her a short respite from what she’d termed to Fin her purpose.
She’d hoped they’d host a big céili during the season, but it seemed too mixed with risks with Cabhan lurking. Next year for certain, she promised herself. Next year, she’d have her parents and other cousins, neighbors and friends and the rest.
But this year, it would be her circle, and Iona’s Nan, and that was a fine thing, and a happy one.
With her breads and biscuits baked, along with mince pie she’d serve with brandy butter, she checked the goose roasting in the oven.
“Your kitchen smells of my childhood.” Mary Kate, Iona’s grandmother, came in. Her face, still flushed from cold, beamed as she crossed the room to kiss Branna’s cheek. “Iona’s slipping some gifts under the tree, and likely shaking a few as well. I thought I’d see what I could do to help.”
“It’s good to see you, and I’m more than grateful to have a pair of skilled hands in here.”
Trim and stylish in a bright red sweater, Mary Kate walked over to sniff at pots. “I’m told you’ve taught Iona to cook a thing or two, which was more than I could do.”
“She’s willing, and getting better at the able. We’ll have some wine first, before we get down to it. It’s Christmas, after all. Did you get by to see the new house?”
“I did. Oh, it’s going to be fine, isn’t it? And finished, they tell me, by the wedding—or near enough. It’s a light in my heart to see her so happy.”
She took the wine Branna offered. “I wanted a moment alone with you, Branna, to tell you what it means to me you and Connor gave her a home, a family.”
“She’s family, and a good friend as well.”
“She’s such a good heart. It was hard for me to send her here. Not to Ireland, not to you.” Mary Kate glanced toward the front of the house. “But to what it would all mean. To send her, knowing what it could mean, and what I know it does. I thought to write to you, to tell you she was coming, and then I thought no, for that would be in the way of asking you, an obligation, to take her in, to help her hone her gifts. And it should be a choice.”
Once more Branna thought of Fin. “Do we have one?”
“I believe we do. I chose to give her the amulet, though it grieved me to do it. Once done it can’t be taken back. But it was hers to wear, hers to bear. I knew the first time I held her. I held you and Connor when you were only babes. And knew, as your father knew, and your aunt. And now the three of you are grown,
