She hadn’t said she loved me.
Maybe she hadn’t heard me over the air rushing through the windows.
Maybe she was too angry to say it.
One misunderstanding didn’t mean she would stop loving me. I’d been trying to keep her safe. She had to know that.
I tugged on my hair again then let my hands drop.
“How did we lose that?”
Birthdays were normal. They marked a time of love, and those who loved you holding you dear. Giving that to Lula, I hoped, would be a celebration of the life we were building toward, instead of the death we’d been living through.
She met with the hunter who tried to kill her. The hunter who shot Lorde.
“Fragile,” I whispered. How could I prove to her I could hold my own?
“It can be easy again,” Abbi said softly. “All you have to do is kiss the Blarney Stone and make a wish. Then it will come true, and everything will be easy forever.”
I let out a breath. “At best, that rock gives you luck, Abbi. It doesn’t grant wishes.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You don’t believe in magic very much, do you?”
“Of course I do. But a rock in the middle of Shamrock, Texas, isn’t going to solve our problems. If that stone does have real magic, don’t you wonder where that magic comes from, and how much it costs to use it?”
She squinted at me like I’d lost my mind. “It comes from Ireland, Brogan. It costs a kiss and a wish. You need to try it. Maybe Lula would love you again if you wished for it.”
The door to the bathroom opened.
No, it shut. Lula wasthrawan. She was silent as the fog when she wanted to be. I wondered how much she’d overheard.
From the carefully blank mask she wore, I knew she had heard all of it.
I held her gaze. “I want that. Can we talk about this, love? I won’t break. Let me help with whatever it is you’re trying to get from the hunter.”
Her lips parted. For a moment, I thought she was going to tell me what was going on. What she had wanted from Hatcher, and why she’d risked meeting with him without telling me.
I knew it wasn’t his death—she hadn’t called him there to kill him. If she had, he would be dead.
So why would she put herself in his sights again?
“Lu?”
She cleared her throat. “I’m going for a walk. Alone,” she added. “I’m not meeting anyone. I just need…I just need some time.”
“All right,” I said more calmly than I felt. “Abbi wants to see the stone. Maybe we can all…”
“You can go without me.” She gave me a faint smile that didn’t reach her eyes and walked to the door.
“Lula?”
The door was open, heat shouldering into the room.
“I’m okay,” she said. “I am.” She waited to see if I believed her.
“Okay. But we can…”
“I’ll be back soon.” Then she shut the door behind her.
