“Another dreaming spell?” Now Connor crossed the room. “When do we go for him?”
“It’s not for that, not yet.” Branna shoved her hands through her hair again, muttered a curse at herself, and this time just pulled the pins out. “What time is it? Well, bloody hell, where did the day go?”
“Into that.” Fin pointed to the bottle. “She nearly ate my head when I was so bold as to suggest we take an hour and have lunch.”
“She’ll do that when she’s working,” Connor agreed, giving Fin a bolstering pat on the shoulder. “Still, there’s always supper.” He gave Branna a hopeful smile. “Isn’t there?”
“Men and their bellies.” She took the bottle to a cupboard so it could cure. “I’ll put something together as it’s best we all talk through what Fin and I worked out today. Get out of my house for a bit.”
“I’ve only just got into the house,” Connor objected.
“You’re after a hot meal and wanting me to make it, so get out of the house so I can have some space to figure on it.”
“I just want a beer before—”
Fin took his arm, grabbed his own coat. “I’ll stand you one down the pub as I could use the air and the walk. And the beer.”
“Well then, since you put it that way.”
When Kathel trotted to the door with them, Branna waved at the three of them. “He could use the walk himself. Don’t come back for an hour—and tell the others the same.”
Without waiting for an answer, she turned and walked through to her kitchen.
Spotless, she thought, and so beautifully quiet—a lovely thing after hours of work and conjuring. She would’ve enjoyed a glass of wine by the fire, and that hour without a single thing to do, so she had to remind herself she enjoyed the domestic tasks.
She put her hands on her hips, cleared her head of clutter.
All right then, she could sauté up some chicken breasts in herbs and wine, roast up some red potatoes in olive oil and rosemary, and she had green beans from the garden she’d blanched and frozen—she could do an almondine there. And since she hadn’t had time to bake more yeast bread, and the lot of them went through it like ants at a picnic, she’d just do a couple quick loaves of beer bread. And that was good enough for anyone.
She scrubbed potatoes first, cut them into chunks, tossed them in her herbs and oil, added some pepper, some minced garlic and stuck them in the oven. She tossed the bread dough together—taking a swig of beer for the cook, and with plenty of melted butter on top of the loaves, stuck them in with the potatoes.
As the chicken breasts were frozen, she thawed them with a wave of her hand, then covered them with a marinade she’d made and bottled herself.
Satisfied things were well under way, she poured that wine, took the first sip where she stood. Deciding she could use some air, a little walk herself, she got a jacket, wrapped a scarf around her neck, and took her wine outside.
Blustery and cold, she thought, but a change from all the heat she and Fin had generated in the workshop. As the wind blew through her hair, she walked her back garden, picturing where her flowers would bloom, where her rows of vegetables would grow come spring.
She had some roses still, she noted, and the pansies, of course, who’d show their cheerful faces right through the snow or ice if they got it. Some winter cabbage, and the bright orange and yellow blooms of Calendula she prized for its color and its peppery flavor.
She might make soup the next day, add some, and some of the carrots she’d mulched over so they’d handle the colder weather.
Even in winter the gardens pleased her.
She sipped her wine, wandered, even when the shadows deepened, and the fog teased around the edges of her home.
“You’re not welcome here.” She spoke calmly, and took out the little knife in her pocket, used it to cut some of the Calendula, some hearty snapdragons, a few pansies. She’d make a little arrangement, she thought, of winter bloomers for the table.
“I will be.” Cabhan stood, handsome, smiling, the red stone of the pendant he wore glowing in the dim light. “You’ll welcome me eagerly into your home. Into your bed.”
“You’re still weak from your last welcome, and delusional besides.” She turned now, deliberately sipped her wine as she studied him. “You can’t seduce me.”
“You’re so much more than the rest of them. We know it, you and I. With me, you’ll be more yet. More than anyone ever imagined. I will give you all the pleasure you deny yourself. I can look like him.”
Cabhan waved a hand in front of his face. And Fin smiled at her.
And oh, it stabbed her heart as if she’d turned the little knife on herself. “A shell only.”
“I can sound like him,” he said in Fin’s voice. “Aghra, a chuid den tsaol.”