Dark Witch (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #1)(53)

“No man?”

“For what?” Meara laughed. “For the keeping or for the fun?”

“Either or both.”

“I’d take the fun, there’s been a lack of that sort of amusement in my life in recent months. Keeping though, that’s not what I’m after. Men come and go,” she added as she settled back with her fragrant tea. “Except for sweet and plodding Sean, as far as I’ve seen. Best not to expect or want them to stay, then it’s less fraught.”

“But fraught means you’re living,” Iona said. “And I want one to keep, one who wants me just as much. I want wild, crazy love, the sort that never goes away. And kids—not just one—a dog, a horse, a house. A big, sloppy family. What about you?” she asked Branna.

“What do I want? To live my life. To end this curse that hangs over all of us, and crush what remains of Cabhan.”

“That’s not just for you. Just you, Branna,” Iona insisted. “Money, travel, sex? Home, family?”

“Enough money to travel to exotic places and have reckless sex with exotic men.” She smiled as she poured more tea. “That should cover the lot.”

“I’ll travel with you.” Meara laid a hand over Branna’s. “We’ll break hearts the world over. You’re welcome to join us,” she told Iona. “We’ll see all the wonders, and take our pleasures where we find them. Then you can come back, pick the one you’ll keep, and make the babies. I’ll build my house and barn, and Branna will live her life exactly as she pleases, curse-free.”

“Agreed.” Branna lifted her teacup to toast. “We’ve only to vanquish ancient evil and earn great wealth, and the rest is but details.”

“Both of you could have all that exotic sex now,” Iona protested. “It’s not hard to have your pick of men when you look like Celtic goddesses.”

“We’re keeping her,” Meara told Branna. “She’s a wonder for my ego.”

“It’s true. Branna looks like something out of a fairy tale without even trying, and you’re this image of a warrior princess. Men should be falling at your feet.”

The door opened, bringing in the rain, along with Connor, Boyle, and Fin.

“Not all of them,” Meara murmured.

“Look what I’ve dragged in.” Connor shook rain from his hair like a dog as Kathel bounded over to greet the newcomers. “It was haul them in or build a bleeding ark. Have you tea and biscuits to spare?”

“Of course. Don’t track up my floor. Has the business world shut its doors then?”

“For the day,” Boyle told Branna. “We were nudging Fin along to buy us dinner, but damn near drowned considering the where.”

“And here’s better.” Connor walked over to hold his hands out to the fire. “Especially if someone could be cajoled into making a vat of soup.”

“Someone?”

Connor merely smiled at Branna. “And I thought of my own darling sister.”

“You think of me in the kitchen entirely too often.”

“But you’re brilliant in it.” He leaned down to kiss her.

“I’ll peel and chop whatever you need.” It was, Iona calculated, sort of like asking Boyle to dinner. “You can peel and chop, can’t you, Boyle?”

“I can, especially if it gets me dinner.”

“I’m willing to be a kitchen slave for a hot meal on a night like this,” Meara added. “What of you, Fin?”

He continued to unwind the scarf from around his neck. “Whatever Branna needs or wants tonight.”

“Then I’d best go see what there is to put together for this famous vat of soup.” She rose, and moved through the rear doorway. The dog left Fin’s side to follow her.

“She’d be easier if I went on,” Fin said.

“You’ll not.” A rare edge of anger laced Connor’s voice. “It can’t be that way, and she knows it as well as you do. We need you. I’ve told Fin and Boyle what happened a few days ago,” he told Iona.

“What happened?” Meara demanded.

“I’ll tell you as well, in a moment. But it stands, Fin. We need you, and she understands that. In the end she won’t let what’s tangled between you get in the way of it.”

“Maybe someone should tell me about the tangle.” Iona shoved her tea away. “It might help to know all the details instead of trying to figure everything out with pieces of them.”

Fin walked over to the table, then tugged down the neck of his sweater. “This is his mark, the mark your blood put on mine. I bear it, and Branna won’t see past it to what she is to me or what I am to her.”

Iona rose to study it closely. A pentagram, as the legend claimed, and as clear and defined as a tattoo. “It doesn’t look like a birthmark, but more like a scar or a tattoo. Were you born with it?”

“No. It . . . manifested much later than that. I was more than eighteen.”

“Did you always know?”

“Not where the power had come from, no, but only that I had it.” He adjusted his sweater. “You’re a steady one, Iona.”

“Not really, or not enough. Yet.”

“I think you’re wrong there.” He tipped her head up with a hand on her chin. “You’ll hold when it counts most, I think. She’ll need that steadiness from you, and that open mind.”