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imagined herself queen.
* * *
Echo slept sprawled across his bed. Naked, beautiful, sated...his, for now.
It was not long after dawn, hours before the pub would open, when Rye pulled on a pair of jeans and headed downstairs to make a pot of coffee. Sleeping with Echo had not been the smartest move he’d ever made, but he didn’t regret it. It had been a long time, a very long time...
“Hello.”
He jumped at the sound of Cassidy’s voice, spun to face her. She stood near the bar, still dressed in her nightgown. The one her grandmother had made for her. It was old-fashioned and worn, and Cassidy swore it was the most comfortable nightgown ever. She would soon outgrow it. The hem hung well above her ankles. Last year it had almost touched the floor.
“Honey, I told you to stay out of sight while the Raintree woman is here.”
“Echo.” Cassidy smiled. “Her name is Echo, not ‘the Raintree woman.’ I like her. Is she going to be my new mother?”
“No.” Echo could not stay here. It would be too dangerous—for him, for Cassidy, for every resident of Cloughban.
“Then why is she upstairs in your room?” Long red hair still tangled from sleep, Cassidy looked up as if she could see through the ceiling.
“She’s a friend, that’s all. A friend who isn’t going to stay in Cloughban much longer.”
“Oh. I like her, and I thought she might stay for a long time. But now I hope she leaves soon.”
“Why?” Had Cassidy seen something? Had she sensed a danger?
Cassidy shrugged her shoulders. “I’m tired of staying home all the time. It’s boring.”
Rye relaxed. “Your grandmother takes good care of you.”
“She does, but I miss my friends. I miss you, Da.” She stuck out her tongue, then said, “I used to see you almost every day, for breakfast or for tea, or right after school. Now you’re here all the time. You don’t want Echo to know you even have a daughter.”
“It’s for your own good.” He sounded like a father with those words.
“That’s silly.” Cassidy’s face shifted, was suddenly older—much older—than her eleven years. She looked wiser, and far too powerful. She’d seen something, felt something, that made her thoughts shift. “It’s okay to be the good guy, Da. You don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to be who you once were.”
He wished, as he had many times in the past, that he could protect Cassidy from knowing who and what he had been. He wanted to protect her from the past, a past long before her birth. What he’d done...it was behind him, well behind, but he could not erase it.
Rye wanted to give his daughter a hug, but if he reached for her his arms would go through her as if she were made of mist. Cassidy was not here. She was in the cottage she and her grandmother called home. That cottage was not far from Cloughban, but it was far enough away to keep her safe.
“It won’t be much longer, I promise.”
“I really would like a new mother someday,” Cassidy said, and then she was gone. She didn’t fade away, she just disappeared.
He liked Echo more than he should. Last night had been great, and he was realist enough to accept that they weren’t done.
But no matter how much he liked her, how much he wanted her, she couldn’t stay.
If the Raintree found out about Cassidy, they would take her away. She was too powerful, too unpredictable. He had never known or even heard of anyone who could do the things Cassidy could do. They’d lock her away, study her or use her as a weapon. He didn’t trust them; he didn’t trust them at all.
And that meant he couldn’t trust Echo. Much as he wanted to, he could not afford to trust her.
Chapter 11
Echo woke warm and happy, and sore. Holy cow, Duncan knew what he was doing in the bedroom.
Ryder, not Duncan. A name no one but she called him, a name that suited him. She liked the way it rolled off her tongue. Ryder.
She’d only been awake a few minutes when he came into the room with a tray. She sat up as he presented the tray for her inspection. Breakfast in bed. Eggs over easy, toasted brown bread, marmalade, both coffee and tea. No one had ever brought her breakfast in bed before!
