She chuckled but it came close to being a sob. She was hugging the teddy. Stupidly. She didn’t hug teddies. She didn’t hug anything.
‘I suppose we should get rational,’ she managed. ‘We could go through, figure what could make money, sell what we can.’
‘And make a bonfire at the end?’ he asked, still hopefully, and her bubble of laughter stayed. A guy with the prospect of a truly excellent bonfire...
‘The sideboards in the main hall are riddled with woodworm,’ she told him, striving for sense. ‘Mrs O’Reilly told me. They’d burn well.’
‘Now you’re talking.’
She turned back to the pile of unburned toys and her laughter faded. ‘You must think I’m stupid.’
‘I’m thinking you’re angry,’ Finn told her. He paused and then added, ‘I’m thinking you have cause.’
‘I’m over it.’
‘Can you ever be over not being wanted?’
‘That’s just the trouble,’ she said, and she stared up at the horse again because it was easier looking at a horse than looking at Finn. He seemed to see inside her, this man, and to say it was disconcerting would be putting it mildly. ‘I was wanted. Three separate sets of foster parents wanted to adopt me but the Conaills never let it happen. But I’m a big girl now. I have myself together.’
‘And you have Loppy.’
‘I’ll lose him. I always lose stuff.’
‘You don’t have to lose stuff. With the money from here you can buy yourself a warehouse and employ a storeman to catalogue every last teddy.’ He gestured to the pile. ‘You can keep whatever you want.’
‘I don’t know...what I want.’
‘You have time to figure it out.’
‘So what about you?’ she demanded suddenly. ‘What do you want? You’re a lord now. If you could...would you stay here?’
‘As a lord...’ He sounded startled. ‘No! But if I had time with these sheep...’
‘What would you do with them?’ she asked curiously, and he shrugged and turned and looked out towards the distant hills.
‘Someone, years ago, put thought and care into these guys’ breeding. They’re tough, but this flock’s different to the sheep that run on the bogs. Their coats are finer. As well, their coats also seem repellent. You put your hand through a fleece and you’ll find barely a burr.’
‘Could you take some back to your farm? Interbreed?’
‘Why would I do that? Our sheep are perfect for the conditions there. These are bred for different conditions. Different challenges.’ And he gazed out over the land and she thought he looked...almost hungry.
‘You’d like a challenge,’ she ventured and he nodded.
‘I guess. But this is huge. And Lord of Glenconaill... I’d be ridiculous. Have you seen what the previous lords wore in their portraits?’
She grinned. ‘You could ditch the leggings.’
‘And the wigs?’
‘Hmm.’ She looked up at his gorgeous thatch of dark brown hair, the sun making the copper glints more pronounced, and she appeared to consider. ‘You realise not a single ancestor is showing coloured hair. They wore hats or wigs or waited until they’d turned a nice, dignified white.’
‘So if I’m attached to my hair I’m doomed to peasantry.’
‘I guess.’
‘Then peasantry it is,’ he said and he smiled and reached out and touched her copper curls. ‘I don’t mind. I kind of like the company.’
And then silence fell. It was a strange kind of silence, Jo thought. A different silence. As if questions were being asked and answered, and thought about and then asked again.
The last wisps of leftover smoke were wafting upwards into the warm spring sunshine. The castle loomed behind them, vast and brooding, as if a reminder that something immeasurable was connecting them. A shared legacy.
A bond.
This man was her sort-of cousin, Jo thought, but the idea was a vague distraction, unreal. This man was not her family. He was large and male and beautiful. Yet he felt...
He felt unlike any of the guys she’d ever dated. He felt familiar in a sense that didn’t make sense.
He felt...terrifying. Jo Conaill was always in control. She’d never gone out with someone who’d shaken that control, but just standing beside him...
‘It feels right,’ Finn said and she gazed up at him in bewilderment.
‘What feels right?’
‘I have no idea. To stand here with you?’
‘I’m leaving.’
‘So am I. We have lives. It’s just...for here, for now...it feels okay.’ He paused but there was no need for him to continue. She felt it too. This sense of...home.
What was she thinking? Home wasn’t here. Home wasn’t this man.
‘My home’s my bike,’ she said, out of nowhere, and she said it too sharply, but he nodded as if she’d said something that needed consideration.
‘I can see that, though the bike’s pretty draughty. And there’s no bath for when you fall into bogs.’
‘I don’t normally fall into bogs.’
‘I can see that too. You’re very, very careful, despite that bad girl image.’
‘I don’t have a bad girl image.’
‘Leathers and piercings?’ He smiled down at her, a smile that robbed his words of all possible offence. And then he lifted her arm to reveal a bracelet tattoo, a ring of tiny rosebuds around her wrist. ‘And tattoos. My nieces and nephews will think you’re cool.’
‘Your nieces and nephews won’t get to see it.’
‘You don’t want to meet them?’
‘Why would I want to?’
‘They’re family, too.’
‘Not my family.’
‘It seems to me,’ he said softly, ‘that family’s where you find it. And it also seems that somehow you’ve found it. Your hair gives you away.’
‘If we’re talking about my red hair then half of Ireland has it.’
‘It’s a very specific red,’ he told her. ‘My daddy had your hair and I know if I’ve washed mine nicely you can see the glint of his colour in mine.’ And he lifted a finger and twisted one of her short curls. His smile deepened, an all-enveloping smile that was enough to make a woman sink into it. ‘Family,’ he said softly. ‘Welcome to it, Jo Conaill. You and your teddy.’
‘I don’t want...’
‘Family? Are you sure?’
‘Y...yes.’
‘That’s a big declaration. And a lonely one.’ He turned so he was facing her, then tilted her chin a little so her gaze was meeting his. ‘I might have been raised in poverty, but it seems to me that you’ve been raised with the more desperate need. Does no one love you, Jo Conaill?’
‘No. I mean...’ Why was he looking at her? Why was he smiling? It was twisting something inside her, and it was something she’d guarded for a very long time. Something she didn’t want twisting.
‘I won’t hurt you, Jo,’ he said into the stillness and his words made whatever it was twist still more. ‘I promise