Shadow Spell (The Cousins O'Dwyer Trilogy 2)

He’d given her guided to Iona—hardy souls from the midlands who weren’t put off by the sodding rain. Mick had a ring lesson, so the sodding rain didn’t matter for that, not a bit. Nor did it matter to Patty, who was cleaning tack, or to Boyle, who’d closed himself off in his office.

So it was left to her to tromp around in the sodding rain, and to the majestic turning of the shit pile.

She wrapped a scarf around her neck, pulled a cap low on her head, and clomped her way out—carting a shovel and a long metal stick—well behind the stables to what was not-so-lovingly referred to as Shite Mountain.

A stable of horses produced plenty for the mountain, and this by-product—if she wanted to use a fancy term—had to be dealt with. And wiser, eco-minded souls did more than deal. They used.

It was a process she approved of, on normal days. On days she wasn’t pissed off at the world in general. On days when it wasn’t raining fecking buckets.

Manure, properly treated, became compost. And compost enriched soil. So Fin and Boyle had built an area—far enough the odors didn’t carry back—to do just that.

When she reached Shite Mountain, she cursed, realizing she left her iPod and earbuds back at the stable. She wouldn’t even have music to distract her.

All she could do was mutter as she pulled the old, empty feed bags off the big pile, and began to use the shovel to turn the manure.

Proper compost required heat to kill the seeds, the parasites, to turn manure into a rich additive. It was a job she’d done countless times, so she continued automatically, adding fertilizer to help break down the manure, turning the outer layers into the heart and the heat, making a second pile, adding ventilation by shoving the stick down deep.

At least she didn’t have to drag out the hose as the sodding rain added all the water required to the mucky mix.

Mucky mix, she thought, putting her back into it. That’s just what Connor had tossed them into.

Why did he have to bring love into it? Love and promises and notions of futures and family and forever? Hadn’t it all been going well? Hadn’t they been doing fine and well with sex and fun and friendship?

/>

Now he’d said all those words—and said many of them in Irish. A deliberate ploy, she thought as she shoveled and turned and spread. A ploy to twist up her heart. A ploy to make her sigh and surrender.

He’d made her weak—he had, he had—and she didn’t know what to do with weakness. Weakness was an enemy, and he’d set that enemy on her. And more, he’d made her afraid.

And she’d started it all, hadn’t she? Oh, she only had herself to blame for the situation, for the trouble it was bound to cause all around.

She’d kissed him first, she couldn’t deny it. She’d taken him into her bed, changing what they were to each other.

Connor was a romantic—she’d known that as well. But the way the man flitted from woman to woman, she couldn’t be blamed entirely for never expecting proclamations of love.

They had enough to deal with, didn’t they? The time to All Hallow’s Eve grew shorter every day, and if they had a true and solid plan for that, she’d yet to hear it.

Connor’s optimism, Branna’s determination, Fin’s inner rage, Iona’s faith. They had all that, and Boyle’s loyalty as well as her own.

But those didn’t amount to strategy and tactics against dark magicks.

And instead of keeping his brain focused on finding those strategies and tactics, Connor O’Dwyer was busy telling her things like she was the beat of his heart, the love of all his lifetimes.

In Irish. In Irish while he did impossible things to her body.

And hadn’t he looked her straight in the eye in the morning, after they woke from that strange dreamworld, and said straight out he loved her?

Grinned at her, she thought now, steaming up. As if turning her world upside down was a fine and funny joke.

She should’ve knocked him out of bed onto his arse. That’s what she should’ve done.

She’d set things right with him, by God she would. Because she wouldn’t be weak, not for him or anyone. She wouldn’t be weak and afraid. Wouldn’t have her heart twisted up so she made promises she’d only break.

She wouldn’t let herself become soft and foolish like her mother. Helpless to care for herself. Shamed and mourning the betrayal dealt like an axe blow by a man.

More—worse—she wouldn’t let herself become careless and selfish like her father. A man who would make promises, even keep them as long as his life stayed smooth. Who would heartlessly break them, and the hearts of those who loved him, when the road roughened.

No, she’d be no man’s wife, no man’s burden, no man’s heartbeat. Especially not Connor O’Dwyer’s.