Dark Witch (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy #1)(95)

“I know it. I know it.” Trying to find the words, he raked his fingers though his hair. “I’m not used to all this going on inside me. I lost my seat, and you happened to come in before I’d righted it again. Give me a chance, will you, to make it up?”

“It’s not that, or not only that.”

Balance, she thought again. She wouldn’t find it without being honest with herself, and with him.

“Everything about you came on me so fast, and I just went with it. Grabbed for it, and I think, held on too tight. I didn’t want it all to slip away. I always wanted to feel all this going on inside me. I’ve craved it like breath. So I got in your way, I got in your bed, and I didn’t let myself think what could go wrong.”

“It doesn’t have to be wrong. It’s not wrong,” he said, and took her shoulders.

“It’s not right either.” Cautious, she stepped to the side so he no longer touched her. “Do you want a beer? I didn’t even ask if you—”

“I don’t want a bloody beer. It’s you I want.”

Her eyes, blue and beautiful even touched with sadness, lifted to his. “But you don’t want to want me. That’s still true. And I can’t keep accepting that, keep settling for that just because I always have. It goes all the way back, Boyle. My parents never really noticed when I wasn’t there, or cared much when I was or I wasn’t. And more awful yet, didn’t notice that I knew.”

“I’m sorry to say it, as they’re your ma and da, but it strikes me, Iona, your parents are right shits.”

She laughed a little. “I guess they sort of are. I think they love me, as much as they can, because they’re supposed to, but not because they want to. The boys and men I’ve tried to fall in love with? They’d want me back for a while, but they never wanted me enough, or wanted to want me enough, so it went away. And then I’m left wondering, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t someone love me without reservations, without all the buffers? Or worse, that I’m a kind of placeholder till someone better comes along.”

Had he done that? he wondered. Had he added to that? “There’s nothing wrong with you, and it’s nothing of the kind.”

“I’m working on believing that, and I can’t unless I stop accepting less. And that’s my problem, my issue. Maybe I didn’t really, all the way, realize that until you punched me in the face with it. Metaphorically,” she added with an easier smile than she’d expected to pull off.

Because he could see her face still, as she’d stood there in the stables, he felt as though he’d struck her. “Oh Christ, Iona. I’d give anything to take the words back, to stuff them down my own throat and choke on them.”

“No. No.” She took his hands a moment and squeezed. “Because it knocked me down, I had to get up. And this time deal all the way. Because before that, Boyle, I’d have taken anything you’d given. I’d have wrapped my own gauzy layers around it and convinced myself that it was right. But it would never have been right. I can’t be happy, not really down-to-the-bone happy, with less than I need. And if I’m not happy, I can’t make someone else happy.”

“Tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” And God, she loved him more that he would try, that he’d be willing to try. “Maybe it is magick after all. What makes us love and need and want one person, over everyone else. Love and need and want them absolutely. I want the magick. I’m not settling for less. You’re why. So in a strange way I’m grateful.”

“Oh yeah, thank me now and put a fine, foamy head on it.”

“You showed me that I’m worth more than I thought, or let myself think. And that’s a lot to be grateful for. I’m the one who rushed in, so I’m the one responsible for the fallout. It was all too fast, too intense. It’s no wonder you felt cornered.”

“I never felt . . . I don’t know what I was talking about.”

“You’ll figure it out. Meanwhile, the flowers are beautiful, and so was your apology.” She carried them over, put them on the table. “On second thought, I can tell you some things I need.”

“Anything.”

“I need to go on working for you and Fin, not only because I need to make a living, but because I’m good at it. And because I love it, and I want to do what I love.”

“There’s no question about that. I told you.”

“And I need to be friends with you, so we’re not awkward or uncomfortable around each other. It’s important. I couldn’t handle working for you or with you if we held on to resentment or difficult feelings. I’d end up walking away from the job to spare us both, and then I’d just be pissed off and sad.”

“There’s no resentment from me. I can’t promise no difficult feelings, for that’s what they are. They’re all tangled for me, and slippery with it. If you’d just—”

“Not this time.” Not with you, she thought, because with him, she’d never get up again whole. “I don’t just. I’m responsible for my feelings, and you for yours. You’ll figure it out,” she repeated. “But we both have good work that matters to us, good friends in common. And more important than anything, right here, right now, we have a common enemy and purpose. We can’t do all we have to do if we’re not on solid footing.”