by Brynna Curry
Conscious of her parents resting in the other room, she used a pot to boil the water instead of the kettle that would have whistled, and then grabbed her favorite cup out of the dish drainer.
Slippered footsteps shifted down the hall. Mama was still awake.
Rhiannon lifted a second mug out of the cupboard. Looked like she’d have company after all.
She turned and leaned against the counter as her mother walked into the kitchen. “I’m sorry, Mama. Did I wake you? I thought I’d have some tea before going to bed.”
“No, I was listening for you. Busy night?” The steady touch of her mother’s hand brushed her shoulder before Maggie moved to take a seat at the table. Unlike Rhia’s long, curly locks, Mama’s red hair was cut short to accentuate the same heart shaped face she’d passed to her daughter.
“Very. One of the barmaids quit. Had to fire one, Maegan, so we’re two hands down.”
“Nasty girl, that one. Can’t understand what Skye sees in her. I can come in if you need me.”
“They aren’t together anymore. I’m glad to be rid of her, to tell the truth. What a drama queen. No. I feel better knowing you’re taking care of Daddy. I’ll manage. How is he tonight?” Rhia reached across and patted her hand.
“Not good, baby. They tried to bring in a hospital bed today. He’s not having any of it. Said by God if he was going to die, he’d do it in his bed. His pain is so severe I can’t even sit on the bed without hurting him. He’s fading so fast…”
“Oh, Mama. I know. I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do. Taking care of what’s his is all I can do. But it’s not enough. Where have you been sleeping?” Rhia took a pot holder off the hook above the counter, turned off the eye and lifted the pot off the stove. After setting the sugar bowl and a small pitcher of milk on the table in front of her mother, she added tea bags to the empty mugs and filled them with the hot water.
“The recliner. As hard as this is, I know it’s worse on you. You never rest. What time do you have to get up?”
Why hadn’t she realized that? Because her parents had always been so close and openly loving to each other. She couldn’t imagine them sleeping in separate beds.
“Seven. You should have just taken my bed. I can sleep on the couch. I want to talk to you about the apartment over the pub. I know we were planning on renting it, but–”
“You want to use it.” Mama rubbed her bad shoulder unconsciously. The rain would have it aching again.
“It makes sense. I have to be at work early, and when I have to work late I’d only need to go upstairs.”
“I feel like we’re kicking you out of the house.”
“And I feel like I’m leaving you alone with a heavy burden, but something has to give or I’m afraid it’s going to be me.”
“When do you plan to move your things?”
“We’re closed until one tomorrow for Sunday service, so I guess I’ll start loading up the lorry in the morning. It may take several trips to move everything and then set up. Maybe God will forgive the lapse.”
“Wake me and I’ll help you.”
* * * *
Even after the tea, Rhia didn’t rest easy. The memory of Skye’s touch, his unexpected kiss burned through her mind, leaving her aching to explore the newfound attraction. She’d known him most of her life, though he was five years older. Her mama had been Molly’s first friend when Skye’s mother had elected to stay in Ireland and marry Michael Corrigan. Skye’s older brother Ryan had been a teenager by the time she was old enough to remember playing with her dolls on Molly’s kitchen floor while her mother visited over a cup of tea and sugar cookies.
Skye and Liv would have been about ten or eleven and allowed to explore the beach and the dance. Kate was always there, running tame in the Corrigan’s house. The three were like peas in a pod, always together. Rhia had been the baby. Always too young. Never allowed to go with them.
With the power of Skye’s kiss still tingling on her lips, she fell asleep thinking of a young boy with ancient eyes.
Dark as night, just as dangerous, and ten times more deadly, Daemon possessed a great power within gifted from his heritage. The child of a nixie and a Scottish highlander with psychic talents, his name meant demon, abomination, cursed into the pits of hell, but for her he was husband, lover, hope, light. Many feared him, as they should. Distrusted the good he did with his devilish power. So, he became protector of those who shunned him, because he loved her. Her people accepted his help because Briella was their healer, and she loved him.
Waiting within the circle of ancient stones, she looked up at the full white moon and pulled her heavy cloak tighter around her shoulders against the chill. He would meet her here at midnight as always. Daemon would take of her, both body and magic. She would give freely and take the same. Tonight a child would be made, a magical child who would change everything. The future was never clear and always changing. Still, she knew and already ached to hold his child in her arms. Would she have a daughter? A son?
Briella felt his power first as he ascended the hill where the dance stood, and heard her own breath hitch with anticipation. As always Daemon waited just outside the dance, for magic rules must be observed. For the demon to enter her circle of power, she must invite him in. Crossing to him, she linked hand and mind, welcoming him into the ring of stones.
“Brie, love. My eyes ache for the sight of you, darling. Kiss me, love.”
“I missed you.”
Daemon kissed her as though she were a wine of which he could never drink his fill.
Gripping his strong shoulders, her nails dug frantically for purchase and met only the heavy wool of his black cloak.
“I need you.”
“Daemon.” She fell with her husband onto the soft grass. Heard the wind quiet and felt the air inside the dance warm. The breeze flitted across her skin as he put up a barrier to block out the world. He slipped the robe from her shoulders, parted the material until she was naked beneath him, and then quickly shed his clothing. He rose above her, slid into her waiting heat.
She looked into his eyes and they were Skye’s familiar lightning blue. Cupping his face with her hands, she kissed him, moved with him as the past and present blurred.
“I love you. I’ll never leave you, Rhia.”
“You can’t make that promise.”
“Always, my love. Be it five or five thousand years, my heart will know yours.” He sighed in her ear as they fell over the edge together.
The alarm clock beeped on the nightstand, jarring Rhiannon out of the disturbing and yet familiar dream. She looked over at the dial. Four o’clock. She had barely slept. Used to the dreams, their meaning didn’t worry her, but the ache around her heart was unbearable. How could she miss him? How could she feel the love of a man she’d never known? At least she hadn’t known him, but it was obvious Briella had. Residual memories. Past life? Whatever their label, it didn’t change the visions, couldn’t stop the dreams she’d had since childhood.
Rhia had grown up too close to the Corrigans to have never heard Liv’s legend. The witch and the healer dominated her dreams, always from Brie’s perspective. Funny she called her that. She could still hear the way Daemon said the name, a scorching whisper full of magic, lust, and unending love.
I love you. I’ll never leave you, Rhia. A hot shiver caressed her skin with the remembered words. Daemon’s voice, Skye’s words. Okay, the words she had always wished Skye would say, until last night. He called her love, honey, darling all the time, but in the spirit they’d been given, the endearments had hurt all the more. Now he’d declared his love in his usual all-out style. She’d told him she loved him and now she was terrified of the magnitude of that love. What it might cost terrified her.
No point in lying abed when there was work to be done. She tossed the blanket aside and climbed out of bed. Padding across the hall into the bathroom, she locked the door and turned the shower on hot. Stripping out of her nightgown, Rhiannon st
epped under the spray and tried to drown her thoughts in the steam.
It would take at least two trips to get everything over to the upstairs apartment at the pub, and several hours to get it all put away and set up. Maybe she should call him, ask for help, but could she handle seeing him yet?
Her heart broke a just a little more. She wouldn’t wake within the familiar room of her childhood again. Here, where the water ran hot and she was alone, salty tears slid down her cheeks as Rhia finally cried out her heart.
Chapter 5
Another kiss. Another taste. He met his love on the soft grass, cushioned her fall with his arms. So beautiful and kind. Mine. My Brie. The night air was cool around them. Summoning his magic, Daemon cast a wordless spell conjuring a barrier between them and the world outside the standing stones. Whispering another incantation, he used his manipulation of fire to warm the air inside the dance.
“Brie.” Just her name brought a thousand fantasies to mind. Fantasies he didn’t dare name. The demon inside begged to unleash those dark delights, but her touch calmed the monster. Gods how he loved her.
Daemon slipped the velvet robe down her shoulders, brushing the exposed pale skin with his fingertips. His mouth traced the line of her throat, nipping her collarbone, and back to her lips. Teasing her, taunting. “I need you.” Her tongue met his in a playful dance and she tasted like heaven.
Desperate for her touch, he removed his clothing. She pulled him into her embrace, welcomed him, and kissed him as he pressed into her. Then the healer he’d loved for so long, so completely in that other life he could barely remember except in dreams, shifted and became Rhiannon. Her green eyes open on his, her fiery red hair spilled out across the grass. It was Rhia’s body he craved and held.
“I love you. I’ll never leave you, Rhia.” His heart ached and wanted to give her those words over and over until she believed him. Would he ever have the chance to make love to her as he did now? Did she remember their shared past? Could she accept what had been? He gentled his pace, moving slowly, savoring the feel of her touch, the warmth of her body. The sweet thump of her heart against his chest. Her eyes clouded, lips parted, fingers dug for purchase into the bare skin of his shoulders.
“Always, my love. Be it five or five thousand years, my heart will know yours.”
Skye woke hot and achy with the ghost of his dream still lingering in his thoughts. Rhiannon. He had to see her. She’d all but kicked him out of the kitchen after their steamy kiss last night, claiming she had to work on the books, write payroll.
He moved around the house, turning off the lights he’d left on the night before. Sunday meant no work today. Normally he’d spend the time painting, or trying to, since none of the paintings he’d started lately had turned out right. Why did he feel like he needed an excuse to drop by her house and see her? Because she wasn’t just a friend anymore.
It was way too early for anyone to be up yet. That was it. Breakfast. He could bake muffins and take them over this morning. He started coffee and began to get out the ingredients to make muffins, deciding on lemon poppy seed since they were Rhia’s favorite, just a little sweet and tart. Preheating the oven, Skye mixed the batter and filled three twelve-cup pans with the mixture. He remembered to set the timer and went to dress while they baked.
Twelve minutes later, he walked back into the kitchen in faded jeans, boots and a black t-shirt. The timer chimed. Slipping on an oven mitt, he opened the oven. Ready. Turning off the stove, Skye removed the pans and set them on the counter to cool.
A wave of sadness rolled through him as he filled the covered basket with the last muffins. Rhia had finally given in to the grief she’d been fighting since learning of her father’s prognosis. He fought back his first instinct, comfort. She would want to be alone. Snatching his jacket off the peg by the door, Skye grabbed his keys and the basket, locked the door behind him, got in the lorry, and headed toward the O’Malleys’ farm. Her father couldn’t have passed away. Not yet, he prayed.
* * * *
Rhia was trying to muscle an iron headboard into the back of her Da’s lorry when Skye pulled up in the yard. Leaving the basket on the seat, he shut the door and made it across the way just in time to catch the heavy iron railing before it could bobble and whack her in the head.
“Easy there. You’ll hurt yourself.” He lifted it over the tailgate and wedged it so it wouldn’t fall out. She wore a red flannel shirt and faded jeans against the morning chill. Her hair was pulled back in a braid, meaning she had serious work planned to do today.
“I can handle it.”
“Mmm-hmm. I like helping you.” Skye twirled a loose tendril of her hair around his index finger before tucking it back behind her ear.
“It’s six o’clock in the morning. What in the world are you doing here?” Her pretty face flushed. Clearly she wasn’t prepared to see him so soon after last night.
“Bringing you muffins. Helping load furniture, apparently. Why are we loading furniture? And where are we taking it?”
“I decided to move into the apartment over the pub. I’ve already made two trips. The bed is the last of it, but I could use a hand setting it up.”
Skye pulled her into an embrace and waggled his eyebrows at her.
“Setting up, not trying out.”
“Pity. I can still dream.”
“Skye. Mama’s up. Someone might see us.”
“I’m wildly, madly in love with you and I don’t care if the world sees us. You’ve been in my dreams all night, Rhia.” He whispered into her ear. “I heard your sighs while I slept. Felt you wrapped around me. I want you and it’s killing me. Kiss me good morning, love.” When his mouth met hers, she melted into the kiss.
“All your good nights and mornings are a bad influence on my morals.” She closed her eyes and seemed to consider something. “Hell, you were in mine too. Just one more.”
“Ah. No longer worried about propriety, are we?”
“I’m worried about how I’ll get over you when you cast me off like the others. I must be crazy.”
Her body was a fever pressed against him. Skye felt the line of every curve as she took the kiss deeper than he expected. After the erotic dream, to hold her and not have her was sheer torture.
“Open your eyes and look at me, Rhiannon.” When she did, Skye looked deep into them, begging silently for her to see his soul. He echoed the words from his dream. “I’ll never leave you.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Yes. I can. Unless you really want those morals shot to hell, we’d better go inside. Maggie is watching from the kitchen window.”
Rhia’s face turned beat red. “Oh, God.”
* * * *
Rhia opened the door and walked into the kitchen with Skye. As he’d predicted, her mama was standing at the sink pretending to wash dishes. Rhia was sure she’d been watching them. A soft, wistful smile graced her face.
She hadn’t seen her mother smile in weeks.
“Good morning to you, Skye.”
He surprised her by setting the basket on the table and kissing Mama on the cheek. “Good morning. I brought you muffins. How is John doing today?”
“Aren’t you the sweetest man. Thank you, dear. He’s probably resting. I had to give him another pain pill about an hour ago, so I expect he’ll be out of it for awhile.”
“I wanted to see him for a moment, but it can wait.”
Mama set a stack of saucers on the table. “No. Go on in and see if he’s awake. John still keeps farm hours. I guess years of habit are just too hard to break. Even when you are–” She crumbled into Skye’s arms and wept.
He caught her, let her cry on his shoulder, so used to others’ emotions reaching out to him.
“Dear God. How can I do this? How can I just sit back and watch my John die?”
“There now.” He patted her shoulder.
From out in the hall, the tin sound of a bell rang.
“I’m sorry. I can’t,” Mama sai
d.
Skye motioned for Rhia to check on her father.
“I’ll see about him, Mama.” She mouthed a thank you to him, and stepped out into the hall.
* * * *
“You’ll be alright, Maggie. You’re strong. You have to be strong for John now. He needs you. Take it one day, one moment at a time.”
“I wish we had found out sooner. Maybe we could have done something. He has so many regrets. He’ll never see his daughter marry or hold his grandchildren. Never see another Christmas.”
Skye listened while Rhia’s mother poured out her heart. Maggie was his mother’s dearest friend. He’d known her since he could crawl. Rhia’s parents had always seemed so close. This illness, the coming separation was tearing her apart. Their pain was a living beast that suffocated him, but he bore it even though he could feel death waiting. It wouldn’t be long. A few days, maybe a week. Rhia had been right. Magic couldn’t save him. The cancer had eaten away at his organs, claiming territory in every inch of his body.
When Maggie finally settled a bit and began to dry her eyes, Skye pulled away, poured her a cup of black coffee and gave her a plate of the muffins. He couldn’t do anything to help them. Nothing except be there.
“I’m so embarrassed. I don’t normally cry like that, at least not in front of other people.” She smoothed her hair back into place.
“There is nothing to be embarrassed about. Curse of the empath, just blame it all on me. You can’t help yourself. I know what it’s like to grieve, Maggie.”
“I suppose you do.” She took a bite of the poppy seed muffin. “I saw you and Rhiannon outside.”
“Warning me off?”
“And if I was?”
“I’d respect that and tell you too bad. I love her. I think I must have loved her all my life.”
“She’s in love with you. She may not know it yet or want to see it, but she is. It’s good. I want her to be happy.”
“I want that too. She’s so headstrong and independent.”
“I raised her to be able to stand on her own two feet, but it doesn’t hurt to lean on someone now and again. Can I ask something of you?”