“Same here.” Clare blinked as wetness seeped from her eyes. “I guess this means we start over from the beginning. We’re not getting married or playing like we’re lovers. I’m not a changeling or fairy queen, just an ordinary woman with an overactive imagination.”
“Sounds exciting to me,” he said as he pulled into traffic. “I’m just an ordinaryepileptic who can’t hold down a job.”
“You already have a job being duke or inheriting from your grandfather,” she said.
He rolled his eyes. “Please. I know when I’m being mocked. If I want to make something of my life, I need to step away from the world of pretend and face reality head on.”
“As boring and dull as it is?” she asked, remembering how he’d admitted his life wasas dull as dishwater without the high stakes and drama of a fictional existence.
“We can make it interesting.” He reached over and took her hand. “By taking it one day at a time. I still find you the most fascinating creature in my short current existence, and that’s without you being Brigid or the Morrigan or even a changeling.”
“You’d settle for a mere human friendship?”
Despite her question, she liked the turn of their conversation. Her heart couldn’t distinguish between pretending and real affection, and as starved as she was for a sense of permanence and belonging, she could have fallen for an illusion.
“I’d like to think we’re a wee bit more than friends.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “But I will leave the decision up to you. After you give me back myHeart of Brigid, you’re free to go.”
“Do you want me to go?” Her voice took on a flirtatious lilt. “Didn’t you say the Heart of Brigid points you to your true love?”
A smile quirked his lips, and he nodded while keeping his eyes on the winding road. “Ah, yes. Let’s see if it works its magic. Would it bother you if it turns out to be you?”
Clare felt her cheeks warm, and shedidn’t dare look him in the eye. All her life, she’d been careful about guarding her heart. She had no real family, other than her friends and her recently acquired genetic cousins. The nuns at the abbey had drilled it into the girls’ minds that men were scoundrels up to no good.
Like Seamus O’Toole, the man who talked smooth, drew big dollar signs in her eyes, and absconded with all hermoney.
“I’ll let the Heart of Brigid decide,” she scrambled for something to say when the silence dragged too long.
If Griffin was putting his heart out on a sleeve for her, she surely didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Of course, he was an extremely eligible bachelor.
“Good, I can’t wait to find out.” He pulled the car onto a narrow, rutted lane. “We’re almost there.”
Clare raised her eyes to the dark shadows of the tumble-down walls of the abbey.
“Stop,” she said. “Let’s not go to the gate. See that gap in the walls? I know a way to the fairy mound through there.”
