black peat stacked across the front pasture of Sullivan Stables like a frontline of British soldiers. The Bog of Allen, Ireland’s largest peatland, surrounded Lullymore, but she hadn’t expected to find mining here, on this land. The Vivian Sullivan who’d been her best friend at the University of Galway would never have compromised her horses’ pasture for the cash to be made from fossil fuel.
In fact, the two of them had met at a student-activist group organized by Vivian to protest open pit mining. Vivian had compared it to the degradation of the Amazonian rain forests, and they’d garnered plenty of support with their demonstrations. Viv had always said that to create true and lasting change, you had to be prepared to die for your cause, or at least get arrested. Once, the Garda Síochána had hauled them in when they’d danced, draped in greenery and nothing else, encircled by smoldering blocks of peat. Her mother was out on a dig in Greece, so Sorcha spent the night in jail because there was no one to bail her out. Vivian spent the night because Mrs. Sullivan told them to teach her a lesson. She was that kind of bitch.
Sorcha chewed her bottom lip and considered her options. If Estrada wasn’t so desperate to get home and save his family, she’d wheel her pony around right now and ride back to the solstice celebration where she’d left him and Conall too wasted to walk. She’d volunteered to go ahead and promised to return, preferably with a truck and trailer. She knew Estrada was sick of riding and was betting on her old friendship with Vivian to get them out of this mess. But now she wasn’t so sure. Her fluttering gut told her something was wrong here.
Rowan pawed the grass, bored with standing idly on the verge. What should she do? Night was falling. She had no money for a B&B and knew no one else in the area. She could try to ride back to the lads, but she and the pony were both exhausted. When she loosened the reins, Rowan walked on, deciding for her.
Then, at the end of the driveway, she saw the huge white For Sale sign hammered into the ground. Jaysus. How could Vivian sell Sullivan Stables? It was all she’d ever wanted. Peat was one thing. This was something else. What had happened to her old friend? There was only one way to find out.
She took a deep breath, gave her pony a kick, and they plodded up the lane toward the estate. Shadowed by old leafy trees, this part of the farm looked much the same as she remembered, but an eerie stillness hung over it like a shroud. After almost a decade, Sorcha didn’t know how she’d be received, but her curiosity trumped her trepidation.
She rang the doorbell and waited, hoping that Vivian wouldn’t peek out, see her standing there, and refuse to answer. Images flashed through her mind of their last day together. Then the red oak door opened and Franya wavered before her. Wearing nothing but a sheer white silk slip, she held a martini glass between her lacquered fingers. Her hair was choppy, short, spiked, and dyed bright mahogany, a shade that contrasted with her pallid skin.
Franya squeezed her huge hazel eyes tightly shut, then blinked as if seeing a ghost. “Foxy?”
The sound of her nickname spoken in Franya’s sultry voice brought everything back and left Sorcha speechless. She should have been prepared for this. She knew Franya would be here. Knew Vivian and Franya had married three years ago, after Vivian’s mother died. She’d seen the story in the Irish Times, “Gay Childhood Sweethearts Marry in Kildare.” Vivian was society and it had been big news for the small community, coming soon after the legalization of same-sex marriages in Ireland. What she wasn’t prepared for was the rush of feelings. Attraction. Repulsion. Her mouth went dry, her cheeks red. She licked her lips and chided herself for standing mute as an eejit.
“It is you, Foxy. My, my.” Franya’s words slurred as her Elvish eyes flashed. “It’s been donkey’s years.”
“Nine,” Sorcha managed. Franya was unaltered, as alluring as ever.
“Well, come in.” Her head swayed, exposing her thin pale neck, and Sorcha wavered between wanting to kiss it and wring it.
“I have a pony,” Sorcha said, gesturing to Rowan, who stood grazing on the front lawn with her weathered leather reins dragging on the ground.
“Oh, so you do.” Franya downed the last dregs of her martini and set the glass on a table in the entryway. “I’ll call Declan to deal with it, shall I?” She said deal with it as if Rowan were some slithery creature meant for extermination.
“Where’s Vivian?” Sorcha blurted. Vivian had been her friend much longer than Franya had been her lover.
Franya’s eyes glazed. She took several steps backward, then swayed like a willow caught in the wind.
Sorcha stood rooted to the threshold, watching the teetering woman she’d once passionately loved. She could still see the look of wide-eyed surprise on their flushed faces when she’d returned home early from a dig one afternoon and caught the two of them in bed together. Best friend and lover, naked and sweating, and her flat wafting the scent of love.
She could have forgiven a one-night stand or entertained the notion of a triad had they invited her to join. But they hadn’t. When the women admitted they’d had a secret sexual liaison since high school, Sorcha’s understanding of the situation didn’t ease her pain. They’d claimed that Mrs. Sullivan would disown and disinherit Vivian if she found out, and that’s why they’d hidden their relationship. Sorcha had met the stuck-up matriarch and could understand their fear, but why keep that secret from her?
Their betrayal was the deal-breaker. Sorcha had suffered through her last year at university, depressed and alone, then signed on for every archaeology dig she could find that was not in Ireland. And she’d never come back. She couldn’t bear to run into them. Yet now, she stood on their doorstep with her hand out. Had she gone feckin mad?
A dark-haired stranger pushed past her just as Franya hit the floor. He scooped the slender woman up in his arms and carried her into the sitting room. Sorcha froze. Bewildered. Heart-pounding. Franya was obviously inebriated, but what had triggered her fall? Sorcha’s sudden appearance or the mention of Vivian?
After laying Franya on a chaise, the man covered her with a throw. “There now,” he said with a clipped Cork accent.
Sorcha crossed her arms over her chest and the two of them stood staring awkwardly at the dishy drunk for several seconds. The tableau would have made a decent paparazzi photo.
“Is Vivian here?” Sorcha asked at last. “I’ve just arrived and, honestly, I’m in a bit of a bind.”
“Friends, were you then?”
Were? For a moment Sorcha froze, heart wailing in her chest, then she found her words. “Aye, we were all friends at uni.”
He approached and offered his hand. “Declan Doyle. Stable manager.” When she shook it, she noted he was as sexy as Killian Jones, the fairytale Captain Hook.
“Well, Sorcha, I hate to tell you this, but . . .” When he paused, a shiver rippled up her arms. Something was off in this house. She could feel it. “Ms. Sullivan died three months back. Horse hit the jump.” Sorcha stepped back and held a fist to her mouth as a bitter bile rose in her gut. Declan exhaled, then added. “It was fast.” He gestured to Franya. “But this one, she’s sufferin’ still.”
“Jaysus.” The news, and the ease with which Declan delivered it, left Sorcha feeling faint. She leaned against the frame of the open door and took a breath. Equestrian accidents happened, of course. Fifteen-hundred pounds of horse could inflict calamitous damage, through a kick, a twist, a refusal, or a tumble, especially to a novice rider. But Vivian was no novice.
Wringing her hands, she glanced up the staircase, remembering Vivian’s butter yellow bedroom papered in blue ribbons. Horses were her life. She didn’t just compete and win. She was a teacher who’d ridden her whole life. How could such a thing happen to her? It seemed impossible.
“Ms. Rousseau will be up and at it tomorrow.” Declan ambled toward the door, and Sorcha followed, mind scrambling. “Stayin’ nearby, are you?”
“No, I . . . No.”
“You look knackered, and you’ve had a shock. Perhaps you should stay the night.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” The house felt empty without Vivian, and the idea of Franya rousing her in the night in that silk slip caused sundry sensations—some she ached to feel again, others she was desperate to forget.
“If you’re uneasy here in the big house, I’ve got a decent pull-out.”
Sorcha glanced at Franya, stretched out on the chaise like a Hollywood actress, and wondered what might have happened if she hadn’t caught them that day. After her time in Iron Age Ireland, the one thing she knew for certain was that one action affected another. How long might her mad affair with Franya have lasted had Destiny not played her hand?
She flinched when Declan spoke. “Your pony looks knackered too. How about we stable her for the night? I’ll make you a cuppa, and you can decide where you’d like to bed down.” When his dark eyes flickered, Sorcha wavered between running to and running from the sexy stableman. Anything was better than staring at Franya and remembering what the woman could do to her with one flick of a finger.
“Grand so. I’d love a cuppa.” There was no way she was going to get anywhere tonight with her plan to borrow some cash and hopefully a vehicle. And Declan was right. Both she and Rowan were exhausted. Neither had slept since escaping Ana and her prehistoric posse. What harm could it do to spend the night?
She followed him out the door and closed it behind her. Tomorrow, she’d steel herself and speak with Franya. Keep it business. A loan for an old friend. Nothing more.
Outside, Declan picked up Rowan’s reins. “She’s a sweet wee thing. Reminds me of a Connemara pony.”
“Oh, aye. She has that look about her.”
“They’re a native breed. A mix, ye know. Wild Scandinavian ponies brought here by the Vikings bred with Spanish Andalusian horses in the fourteenth century.”
“Is that right?” She rubbed Rowan’s velvet nose.
“Aye. This one. She’s a stunner. More Scandinavian than Spanish, I reckon. Closer to a Shetland.”
A stunner? Perhaps Declan was more enamored of horses than people. He seemed different with the pony, gentler, and more interested in Rowan than in herself.
Sorcha breathed a sigh of relief. The madness was passing. It was just the shock of seeing her ex again and hearing about Vivian. Touching the pony brought her back to the present moment and her mission to get them out of the Midlands.
“Aye. Sweet she is, and clever, I wager. What’s her name?”
“Rowan.” She was a native breed, all right. A twenty-two-hundred-year-old time-traveling Croghan pony.
Sorcha watched him stable the pony in a clean stall, dole out grain, brush her down, and make sure she had fresh water. Beside herself with pleasure, Rowan nickered.
“My cottage is just here.” Declan gestured to a small gray stone bungalow sheltered by oak and ash trees, quite separate from the rest of the farm. The long shadows of early evening had stretched into dusk and a crescent moon rose above a late-flowering crabapple tree. As her muscles relaxed, Sorcha yawned.
He walked ahead, then shoved open a weathered door that led into a rustic living room and waited for her to enter. Despite the heat of the day, it felt cool inside. The comforting scents of horse, leather, coffee, and burnt applewood defined the cottage as much as the man.
“I’ll get yer tea. Milk and sugar?”
“Aye. That’ll be grand.”
She wandered toward a wide stone hearth and glanced at the framed photographs on the mantle. An older couple smiling. His parents, she assumed. The same couple earlier, seated outside an RV with three small children. One had to be pre-pubescent Declan, wide-eyed and bucktoothed, his hair a messy, black mop.
His bedroom door was open and, seeing the cozy double bed framed in forest green fabric and plumped with white cotton pillows, Sorcha yawned again. How long had it been since she’d slept in a proper bed with quilt and pillows? There’d been that platform of skins at the fort and then that horrible spider-infested, dirt-floored hovel when she’d been banished. Ah, but Ruairí had made that hut feel like a palace. She rubbed her belly and sighed. They’d made a baby there—a baby that longed to sleep in a real bed as much as she did.
She turned when she heard the clatter of dishes. Declan had put a tray on the coffee table in front of the couch.
“I found a few biscuits. Not too stale, I hope.”
Sorcha smiled, lowered herself into a cozy corner of the soft brown leather couch, and reached for the teapot. Seeing two white mugs, she poured for both.
“Have you been working here long?” she asked. He seemed comfortable, but there weren’t many personal items, at least not on display.
“Well.” He scratched the dark stubble on his chin as he calculated. “It’ll be five years this summer.”
Five years? Suddenly, she had a million questions. Are you close? Why peat mining? Why is the estate for sale? Is there financial trouble? What’s really going on with Franya? Rather than ask, Sorcha sipped her tea, nibbled on a digestive biscuit, and made polite conversation.
“God, I remember these. We practically lived on them at uni.”
“I have a confession, Sorcha.” His eyebrows rose. “I recognized you right off. We all got hammered last New Year’s Eve, and Ms. Sullivan pulled out the photo albums. She missed those days.”
Ah, he knew she wasn’t a stranger. That’s why he’d invited her to stay.
“Ms. Sullivan and Ms. Rousseau. Why not Vivian and Franya?”
Declan shrugged. “It never seemed right. They’re my bosses, like.”
Sorcha nodded, finished her tea, and yawned again.
“Why don’t you take my room tonight? I’ll be fine here on the couch, and you look like you could use a solid night’s sleep.”
“I could. My friends and I’ve been sleeping rough the last few days. It started out as a lark, you know, riding and sleeping out in the pasture under the stars. Then someone stole our packs while we were bathing in the stream. We lost everything—phones, ID, credit cards, the works.”
“Jaysus. What morons.”
“Aye. We enjoyed a solstice celebration tonight. It was great craic but the fellas I was with got into the black stuff. I knew we were close to Lullymore, so I thought I’d ride ahead and see if Vivian could help an old friend.”
His lips flattened as he nodded. “Ms. Rousseau’s usually fit by noon—”
“Noon?” She blurted the word, and Declan raised his eyebrows.
“If you need to crack on, I can hook up the trailer and take you to gather up your mates and their ponies first thing. Most of the stock’s at pasture and I’m up by six.”
Sorcha considered. She’d need to get back to Estrada and Conall well before noon. Estrada was eager to collect Magus Dubh in Scotland, and arrange their flights home. And she needed to return to her camp at Kilmartin Glen, if it was still standing. She’d been missing several weeks.
She glanced at the clock. It was half-ten. No wonder she was shattered.
“If you could help me get the fellas and their horses back here, that’d be grand.”
“It would be my pleasure.” Declan smiled and nodded once. “There’s plenty of hot water, so help yourself to a shower. I’ll put the coffee on in the morning. And Sorcha, don’t fret. Old bonds hold firm.”
Crawling between those cool cotton sheets after a hot shower was the best thing Sorcha had felt since the last night she’d spent with Ruairí. As soon as she thought of him, her throat tightened, and the tears came again. It had been a fast and furious affair. For a moment, he was the center of her world, and then he was gone.
She must have fallen asleep crying because the next thing she knew, she breathed in coffee and opened her eyes to a gray haze. Sorcha patted her belly as she did every morning. “Good morning, Rónán, my little love.”
But as she stood, she felt suddenly queasy and had to race for the bathroom.