The Mystic Cove Series Boxed Set (Wild Irish Books 5-7)

by Tricia O'Malley

  “You’ve had another one of your dreams, haven’t you?”

  “Haven’t I told you it’s rude to be popping into a person’s living room uninvited, old woman?” Grace complained, glancing over her shoulder to where Fiona sat at the kitchen table, looking as human as ever, surveying with a critical eye the various supplies and ingredients laid out in front of her.

  “You’ll be remembering it was my cottage first,” Fiona said, her nose in the air, but a twinkle in her eye took the sting from her words. Sure and it had been a shock to Grace when she’d walked into Fiona’s cottage the day after the funeral to begin sorting through Fiona’s stuff and had found the old woman relaxing in her rocking chair as if nothing unusual had come to pass. It wasn’t the first time Grace had seen a ghost, but it was certainly her longest and most involved interaction with one. Having Fiona near had brought great comfort to Grace and her family, and even though she’d taken on the role as a translator of sorts for her family, she quickly found that they could all still communicate with Fiona in their own ways.

  Hers was just the most direct.

  “How could I forget? You still live here,” Grace grumbled.

  Fiona laughed, knowing that Grace loved having her around. “You’ve a need for me yet,” she said, her eyes knowing as she continued to catalog the contents of the kitchen table that had once been hers. It had served thousands of meals and hundreds of visitors through the years.

  “Of course I do,” Grace said, moving to the stove where her teapot had begun to sing. “Your wisdom transcends all time. Though you’re welcome to go visit the others, you know. You don’t always have to hang out here.” Grace feigned grumpiness while she poured her tea, knowing that Fiona enjoyed their banter.

  “My other chicks are well sorted. It’s you I’ve got my eye on,” Fiona said, tilting her head to study the shadows under Grace’s eyes. “You’ve lost a bit of weight.”

  “And I’ve more that I could lose. A slender build is not in my bloodline,” Grace said, adding sugar and milk to her tea. Being voluptuous didn’t bother Grace overmuch; in olden days it had been a sign of wealth and prestige – signifying that she was prosperous enough to feed herself and her family. It was only in this world that it seemed everyone was so involved in looking perfect, paying so much attention to a number on the scale, that they forgot to just live their lives. Grace knew how fleeting a lifetime could be. Wasting that time fussing over whether her bum looked good in a skirt was useless. If one man didn’t find it appealing, another would – or so she reminded herself with a sigh as she settled at the table. Her dating life had been virtually nonexistent in the past year, and not for lack of interest.

  “You don’t need to lose weight and you know that. Now, tell me, was it the same dream?” Fiona asked, her gaze shrewd as she studied her granddaughter’s face.

  “It was, once again. And…” Grace was shocked to hear her voice catch, and she rushed to sip her tea, which she immediately regretted when it scalded her tongue. Choking, she shook her head for a moment and held up a finger for Fiona to wait while she swallowed and ran some quick magick to deal with her pain. Once she was sorted, she met Fiona’s eyes. “And… I wake up feeling like I’ve lost the love of my life. Over and over. It’s exhausting. I don’t know what I’m meant to do or how to rid myself of these dreams.”

  “Maybe you’re not meant to rid yourself of them,” Fiona said.

  “But I can’t keep living like this. How can I grieve the loss of a lover I’ve never had? Never known? At least not in this lifetime.”

  “Have you asked him for a message? In your dream?” Fiona asked. “Maybe he’s trying to communicate something.”

  “I… no, I haven’t,” Grace admitted, tucking one foot beneath her and absently rubbing Rosie’s ear, who had come to sit by her at the table, resting her head on Grace’s leg. “I get so swept up in reliving those moments on the shore that I’m just there, you know? I know it’s me and it’s not me at the same time, but I feel it so deeply that I forget I can guide or ask for things in my dream. Lucid dreaming… I just… it’s like the dam breaks on my emotions and all I can do is feel, not think, and I’m both the happiest and the saddest I’ve ever been in one night.”

  “That does sound exhausting,” Fiona said, leaning back a bit as she studied her granddaughter. “Living with loss is incredibly difficult.”

  “You lived it. With losing John so young. How did it not break you?” Grace asked, propping her head on her hand as she toyed with a scone she’d put on a plate in front of her.

  “I had Margaret to worry about. As an empath, she was basically a sponge for my emotions. My anguish was killing her. I taught myself to lock it away and to only bring it out in small moments – down in the cove – or when one of the family would take her away. It was a lesson in strength and compartmentalizing.”

  “See? That’s amazing to me. I admire you so much for the hardships you dealt with in your life, and how you turned around and created good for so many people. You helped thousands of people in your lifetime, even through your grief. I come from an incredibly strong line of badass women. And I’m sitting here losing sleep over a man I knew centuries ago in another lifetime? It’s embarrassing, if I’m to be honest,” Grace shrugged, getting to the root of the matter.

  “Even strong women need support. A tree can’t stand without its roots. Your roots are all of us, and you need to lean on us before you topple,” Fiona said, her eyes full of love as she looked at Grace.

  “I’m used to figuring things out on my own.”

  “I know you are, Gracie. Since the moment you were born, you’ve done things your way and your way only. You’ve gotten your way through charm, magick, arguing, and every other tactic in the book. You’re headstrong, brilliant, and have a huge heart. It is no surprise to me that you once ruled the coasts with an iron fist as our famous pirate queen. But have you considered that perhaps you’re being too hard on yourself?”

  “I… I can’t quite say.” Grace shrugged once more.

  “Maybe instead of trying to will the dreams away, you need to learn what the message is. For not everything can bend to your will – not even your own subconscious. I suggest you stop trying to force it and instead go within and ask what the message is.”

  “I suppose…” Grace said, grumpy from lack of sleep and from not having an easy solution to her problem. “Or I could just drink a bit too much of the Irish and sleep peacefully.”

  “That’s an option, but I suspect not the solution to your problem,” Fiona twinkled at her from across the table.

  “Fine. But I’m still having a wee sip before bed because I like the taste and it’s lovely to have by the fire at night,” Grace grumbled.

  Fiona held up her hands in agreement.

  “You’ve no arguments from me on that front.”

  Chapter 3

  The afternoon slipped by in a cozy blur of stories of the past, instructions from Fiona on tweaking a few of her magickal recipes for some of the elixirs Grace was working on, and the warm glow of spending time doing something she loved. She knew she was putting off going to sleep when Rosie nudged her head against Grace’s leg once more.

  The fire had drawn low, and aside from a few candles she had lit, Grace sat in darkness. The darkness never bothered her overmuch. It was hard to surprise her, let alone scare her. Her senses – both physical and psychic – were so heightened that anything that went bump in the night was quickly identifiable.

  “I want the night. Before sleep, Rosie. I must have the night,” Grace said, finishing her single pour of whiskey and standing from the chair to stretch and work the mild aches from her neck and back, the result of hunching over a table all day.

  Stepping from the cottage, Grace inhaled the scents of damp earth and salt carried to her on the breeze. It whipped along the ocean and danced over the cliffs, strong enough to fling her braid back over her shoulder, and causing her to wrap a scarf more firmly over her neck. The moo
n, a mere crescent of light in the sky, cast a dim pallor across the hills that rolled to the cliff’s edge. Waves crashed far below, the sound of the ocean meeting the stark shoreline as soothing as a lullaby to Grace.

  Oh, but she loved it here. Some would find the silence maddening, or be bored by the lack of things to do, but that wasn’t the case for Grace. Cities could drive her to the brink of sensory overload with their hustle and bustle, their constant noises and annoyances. With her heightened psychic capabilities, car horns and the rush of people’s thoughts and emotions were an attack on her senses that was almost too much to bear. She’d learned, over the years, how to shield herself from the onslaught of stimuli, but it always proved to be exhausting for her.

  But not in this space. Letting her shields down, Grace danced her way across the dark field, allowing herself to feel the fabric of the universe around her. Even at night, the colors popped to her: The green of fresh spring grass, the budding of a bloom on a bush, the velvet blue of the night sky all created a lush painting worthy of the masters. Music –to her at least – came on the brush of the wind on her face, the singing of leaves fluttering in the breeze, the percussion of the waves crashing on the rocks, the humming of insects at night, all creating nature’s most beautiful symphony. Grace loved the night, for she could see and feel what others could not – and it sang to her soul in ways that nothing else could.

  Grace found herself standing on the edge of the cliffs that hugged the cove in an almost perfect half-circle, irresistibly drawn there as she had been so many centuries before. Though she lived in the now, her memory of a past time was stronger here, at the edge of the cove that she had made her own and had protected with her very own blood magick.

  She could still feel that day – that moment – when she’d enchanted the cove. Using a strong ritual that required her to give up her life in exchange for the greater good, she’d blessed her bloodline with powerful magick and had protected her final resting place. At least, she’d thought it was final at the time.

  Grace smiled down at the dark waters, the moonlight unable to reflect there, and shook her head at her silliness. Even as powerful as she was, Grace still had to admit that she didn’t know – hadn’t known – it all. It appeared that ‘final’ was never really final; Fiona’s continued presence in Grace’s life was a testament to that fact.

  Closing her eyes, Grace let herself feel the hum of the universe. She allowed its energy to flow into her and took a deep breath.

  “My angels, my Goddess, I ask you for your help in showing me the meaning of the dream I continue to have. I understand that I’m missing a message. Please guide me this night, as I walk through my dreams and visit lovers of centuries past.”

  That would have to do, Grace thought. Opening her eyes, she blew a kiss to the cove and sauntered back to where her cottage stood, the dim light from the candles still lit inside beckoning to her from across the hills. She whistled to Rosie – who loved to race across the grass, but loved bedtime even more – and laughed as the dog beat her to the door, tail wagging in delight.

  “Yes, you’ve earned yourself a biscuit before bed,” Grace said, going to the cheerful blue ceramic treat jar with dogs painted on it and pulling out a treat. Rosie’s eyes never left the treat as Grace held it in front of her.

  “Lock up,” Grace ordered and Rosie raced to the door and pulled the rope Grace had attached to the latch so that the dog could lock the door each night. Once she’d pulled it closed, Rosie ran to each candle and carefully huffed out a breath which sounded almost like a sneeze to put the candles out. The dog stopped in front of the stove and cocked her head, her signal that she’d stay there until Grace came to inspect that the coals were down and there was no chance of fire.

  “Good girl,” Grace said, and gave an overjoyed Rosie the treat while she made sure the stove was secure. It was a silly little routine they had at bedtime, but when Grace had discovered just how smart Rosie was, she’d learned quickly that the dog liked having little tasks to accomplish through the day. She supposed she was a working dog, as Irish setters were known to be. Sometimes Grace sent her across the fields to Grace’s childhood home, to go along with Flynn on a fishing outing or to visit the animals in the stables. It wasn’t a bad life for a dog, Grace mused.

  Nor for herself, either, she thought as she readied herself for bed. Her work fulfilled her, she had a lovely family, if she was bored she had but to nip into the village and have a pint at the pub with friends, and she always had books for company on stormy nights. Or Fiona would drop in to check on her.

  So why was she feeling so lonely these days? Grace hugged her arms around herself after she climbed into bed, smiling as Rosie propped her paws at the end of the bed and looked at her.

  “Go on then, you know you want to come up.” Grace smiled and Rosie hopped up, circling three times before curling into a ball at the foot of the bed, always close by if needed.

  Grace had taken the same room her mother, Keelin, had slept in when she’d first moved to Ireland from the States, before she’d met Grace’s father. It just felt strange to sleep in Fiona’s room, especially considering the old woman was still virtually living there, and Grace secretly loved the smaller guestroom – hers now – and the way the bed was tucked under the beams directly under the window. She had but to nudge the lace curtains aside in the morning and slide the window open to have what felt like the whole world at her feet. Some days she would kneel there, her body half hanging out the window as she watched the gulls dive far down the cliffs into the waves, or a fat bee buzz lazily by on the quest for its next flower. This room, sparse in decoration but huge in charm, was for dreamers – and above all else, Grace was a dreamer.

  Now if only she could find the answer in one particular dream.

  Sighing, she pulled the covers up and began the process of easing herself into sleep, slowing letting her thoughts go until she moved into the softness of her dreams. There, he waited, as she knew he would, once more laughing to her from the shoreline.

  “Aye, there she is, my pretty Gráinne,” Dillon said, his eyes alight with love and welcome.

  The same feeling of insurmountable love washed over her, staggering her with its welcome, and she found herself once again smiling shyly at the man as he came forward to wrap his arms around her. Like a drug, she needed his kiss and leaned into it, feeling the same rush as she always did. Helpless to stop the dream – nor did she want to – Grace allowed herself to be carried inside, where the lovers rediscovered each other once again. After, instead of looking out to the horizon as she always did, Grace turned to Dillon, pressing her hand to his face.

  “What worries you, my beauty?” Dillon asked, turning his mouth to kiss her palm.

  “Why do I keep having this dream? What is your message for me? I worry for you,” Grace said, changing the script a bit this time to see what he would say.

  Dillon smiled, brushing his lips over hers in a kiss so tender that Grace’s heart ached to hold him – just this once – in real life.

  “You’ll have this moment, forever, here in your heart. Once a love like ours is known, it can never be taken from us, and transcends all barriers – those of mortal law, those of time, and beyond what most can comprehend. It’s an endless love, one that grows through the ages, and we’ll meet, time and time again, our souls knowing each other, our love binding us for centuries. Be it but weeks of time in this lifetime, know that we’re promised for more, Gráinne O’Malley, for it is written in the tapestry of the universe.”

  “I know, Dillon. So you’ve said, many a time. I just… I wish you were near. That you could answer my questions,” Grace said, pouting as the threads of the dream began to unravel and consciousness started to claim her.

  “I’m here, my beautiful Gráinne. I’m here,” Dillon said, his eyes laughing at her as she snapped awake. The dream splintered at her feet and she was left, once again, gasping for breath as sadness washed over her.

  “If only tha
t were true,” Grace said, and wiped away the single tear she had allowed to spill from her cheek. “I so wish you were here.”

  Chapter 4

  There was no way around it. Grace was in a mood and there wasn’t anything to be done about it except try and avoid human interaction. She’d already responded harshly to an email from a blogger who wanted to interview her on the history of Grace’s Cove and had asked if Grace would comment on the rumors of a curse that surrounded the sacred waters.

  “The idiot doesn’t know the first thing about magick. And she’s going to try and write about it? That’s how the wrong information gets spread,” Grace grumbled, slamming her laptop closed and then immediately regretting it when Rosie whined gently at her feet.

  “Sorry, baby,” Grace said, reaching down to scratch Rosie’s ears as she took a few deep breaths and tried to work her way through her funk. She’d been in a huff all morning – whether from the lack of answers or lack of sleep, she wasn’t entirely sure. There was just something about this day that felt bad to her, and she really didn’t want to deal with it. To amuse herself and Rosie, she focused on the dog’s tennis ball, which sat in a basket across the room. With a quick mental shove, she sent the ball hovering into the air, much to the delight of Rosie who raced across the room and leapt to try and nip it from the air. This game never failed to cheer them both up, and it also served to keep Grace’s telekinesis skills sharp.

  Fiona had told her that the first time she’d used this particular skill of hers, she’d been only about six months old and had desperately wanted a stuffed lamb that had been sitting across the room from her crib. Apparently, her mother had been given quite the fright when the lamb had sailed through the air and hit Grace directly in the face. Grace chuckled at the image, glad she’d honed her skills through the years to exert a bit more control over her magick.