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“Who wouldn’t want to please such a pretty girl?” He leaned over to stroke her neck. “I’m getting serious about having a horse of my own, and when I talked to Harken, he said I should ride her for a few days, see if we fit. I already feel like we do, and if we do, I’m going to barter for her. But I don’t know what I’ve got or can get that Harken needs or wants.”
“Are you kidding me? First, you could help him out at the farm. I don’t know exactly how it works or when, but spring planting’s bound to start soon. And more, cook. He does most of that, with Morena taking a couple nights a week, but say you did enough for them when you do your usual, and added to it for them when you bake?”
“Well, I sort of do that off and on already. It’s just being friends and, you know, neighbors.”
“Exactly how it works.”
Already more than half in love, he stroked the mare again.
“It seems so damn simple. You know, Breen, how we used to always have to worry about making ends meet up, every damn monthit felt like. Now, we’ve got all we could want, and all we have to do is live and share and do what we love anyway.”
“You haven’t dealt with the Trolls yet.” But she said it with a laugh as she looked up and saw some of the mine workers taking their break on the ledges of the mountain. “They drive a hard bargain.”
“I can always bake more cookies. How about we ride to the waterfall? Sedric and I rode there once, and I’d like to see it again.”
“It or Brian?”
“It can be both. Never saw a real waterfall before we came to Ireland, and never saw one like this anywhere, anytime.”
“It’s unique.”
He heard it in her voice, so shot her a quick look. “If it gives you bad vibes, we can skip it.”
“It doesn’t. It does,” she corrected. “It gives me all kinds of vibes. We should go. Vibes are something I should go toward rather than avoid.”
“It was always in you.” Marco tapped his wrist in the spot where Breen had her tattoo. “You just had to find it.”
Courage, she thought. She had to remind herself to hold on to it, every day. She sent Bollocks a glance, a suggestion.
He raced ahead.
“How about we see what that pretty girl can do against Boy in a race?”
Before Marco answered, she kicked into a gallop.
Imagine it, imagine it, she thought. The two of them racing horses with the wind streaming and the sun flashing bright to warm the winter-cold ground. She watched Bollocks streak into the woods for his shortcut. She heard the call of a magpie just before a pair flew across her vision.
Two is for joy.
They reached their own turn into the woods almost neck and neck.
“You had a head start.”
“Boy and I held back some so you could catch up.”
“Maybe.” Marco stroked the mare again, and Breen recognized love. “But my girl canmove.”
“She likes apples.”
“Yeah? I’ll get her one.”
They walked the horses through the trees, and the trees changed. The light changed from bright and light to soft and green, a kind of pulse drawn from the moss-covered bark and stones.
The thunder of the waterfall rumbled in the air as the river, eerily green like the light, ribboned its way.
“Spooky place, but excellent spooky.” Wide-eyed and enchanted, Marco looked all around. “Gives me the vibes, too, but like I get when I settle in to watch a really good spooky movie.”
No movie here, she thought. Odran had trapped the child she’d been in a glass cage in this river. Yseult had lured her here with the drugging fog.
