Page 37 of Beer & Broomsticks
“I’m totally confused. Why?”
No plausible explanation came to mind, and she shrugged, hoping Piper wouldn’t press the issue. She couldn’t understand her own actions. How could she explain them to another?
“Men. Got it.” Piper gave her a commiserating smile.
Bridget crossed to the old hearth, now newly restored. No flame burned, and she had the desire to peek inside to see if maybe the words she and Ruairí wrote on the stone still existed. “Did you repair the inside as well, then?”
“Only the chimney. I wanted as much of the original house left alone as possible.”
Heart thudding in her chest, she asked, “Do you have a torch or something to light the inside?”
“I could conjure a flashlight if you think the light from your cellphone won’t be bright enough.”
With a tap of the heel of her palm on her forehead, Bridget reached into her back pocket and removed her phone. Turning on the torch feature, she bent slightly, prepared to enter, but the thought that Ruairí should be there, too, plagued her.
She typed out a quick text to him but held off sending it. “Can Ruairí pass through your wards without a problem, or do you need a quick charm to allow him entry?”
Piper crinkled her nose and squinted an eye. “I’d need to add a charm specific to him.”
“I think there’s something he needs to see.”
“Then I’ll get right on that.” Piper’s look and voice were full of understanding, and with a quick explanation to say she needed to get the items to make her spell work, she was gone.
Turning back to the fireplace, Bridget ran her hand lovingly along the weathered, foot-thick weathered mantle. Many an hour she and Ruairí had hidden out here, away from their families, from the feud. They would wrap in a blanket and discuss their future as they watched the flames whittle down to ash. Never once did either of them believe they wouldn’t be together. Though at the time, Bridget did wonder how she’d ever move away from her beloved siblings. Yet she’d never told Ruairí of the misgivings that the thought of leaving them brought.
Had she been foolish to believe two young lovers from warring clans could ever have a happy life together? Especially with an uncle like his and a mother like hers?
With a regretful sigh for all they’d lost, Bridget sent the text. They were older and wiser this time around. They may never find common ground and get past their differences, but she was willing to try if he was.
A tingling started in her fingertips, and she held them up in wonder. Either she was about to suffer a stroke, or that small surge was her magic waking up. Excitement turned her belly into a mosh pit of dancing butterflies, and she wished Ruairí was with her to experience the moment. As quickly as the sensation in her fingertips started, it receded.
Disappointment keen, she gave her hands a dark look. Sure, and hers had to be the power that flickered out like the bloody electricity during the worst of a storm.
Anticipating Ruairí’s quick return, she headed for the foyer.
Feelinglike ten kinds the fool for his childlike need to run away, Ruairí rushed back to where he’d left Bridget, angry at himself for leaving her unprotected at such a volatile time. Moira or Loman could’ve taken advantage of his momentary lapse in judgment and hurt her… or worse.
He was almost to the driveway when her text came through.
“All is not lost. Get your arse back here.”
He laughed. Trust her to be abrupt and to the point.
As he neared the front terrace, the door opened, and there she stood, proud and queenly with color high in her cheeks. The vision of her, so achingly beautiful, stopped him in his tracks, and all he could do was stare up at her from the bottom of the stone staircase.
“The sight of you steals the breath from me lungs,mo ghrá,” he said huskily. “If I live to be a hundred and eighty, I’ll never forget how your face causes me heart to dance a jig in me chest.”
She gave him a one-sided grin, as if she believed his statement to be malarky but enjoyed it anyway.
“’Tis true enough, Bridg. I’d not be lying about something as real as this.”
“Get up here, ya eejit, and kiss me while I’m feelin’ charitable.”
Needing no further encouragement, he bound up the steps and swept her into a tight embrace, dipping her enough to cause her breathy laughter. Her arms wound around his neck, and in a gesture as familiar as his own face, she tangled her fingers in the hair at his nape and urged his head down to hers with a wicked, anticipatory grin.
He paused an inch away. “Don’t think you’ll always be bossing me about, woman. I’ve me pride.”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
