“I thought it was tall, dark, and handsome?”
“Brooding is sexier.” She winked.
I snorted and shoveled another spoonful of stew into my mouth so I wouldn’t have to add to the conversation. Last thing I wanted was to reveal my crush on Boone. I wasn’t sure why I was so embarrassed about it. I was acting like a seventeen-year-old girl. Hell, I was acting like Mairead.
Still, my curiosity won out over the fact he’d never been out with anyone. “How long did you say he’s been living here?”
“About three years, I think,” Maggie replied.
“And in all that time, he hasn’t…been with anyone?”
“Nay. Not one.”
“Isn’t that weird?”
“It depends on how you look at it,” she replied, leaning against the bar. “Some people sleep around, you know? They don’t care too much about settlin’. Others wait for somethin’ more meaningful.”
“And you think Boone is the latter?” I frowned.
She smirked and raised an eyebrow.
“What?” I asked, scooping out the last of the stew and licking the spoon.
“Nothin’,” she said, picking up my empty bowl.
“Whatever,” I declared, leaving a twenty euro note on the bar. “I’m going home before this gets any more awkward than it already is. Just let me try to remember where I parked my broomstick.”
Maggie snorted and waved. “Goodnight, Skye.”
Outside, the air was cool, and it felt heavenly on my flushed cheeks. Boone had not had a girlfriend in the three years he’d been living in Derrydun? Yeah, right. He was interested in me? Yeah, right. Oh, who was I kidding? The thought he might be interested in me, like in a romantic way, had my nether regions tingling.
“Juliette…”
The sound of a man’s voice moaning somewhere in the darkness broke through my lustful thoughts, and I stepped forward without fear.
Seeing Sean McKinnon, I frowned. He’d left twenty minutes ago but hadn’t made it very far at all.
He was lying in the gutter, moaning as if he were in pain. Unsure as to what I should do—in case it wasn’t pain he was in but something more disturbing—I stood there watching him. He rolled over onto his back, and that was when I saw the tears staining his face.
“Sean?” I asked, taking a step toward him.
“Juliette,” he said with a moan. “Juliette…”
“It’s Skye,” I murmured. “Aileen’s daughter. You know, the witch.” Helping him to sit up, I knelt before him and placed my hands on his shoulders. “That’s better, right?”
“She’s gone,” he muttered, then sniffed. “She’s gone and left me all alone.”
I wasn’t sure what he was talking about, but I gathered Juliette had been his girlfriend and had broken up with him, leaving him blindsided. Now he was medicating himself with beer.
“Broken hearts suck, huh?” I said. “You know, my boyfriend broke up with me out of the blue a few days before I came here. It blows, but getting drunk and sleeping in a gutter won’t help you. You’ll just have one hell of a headache in the morning.”
Sean was listening intently, or at least, I thought he was. He blinked every so often, signaling the lights were on, but I wasn’t sure anyone was home.
Frowning, I felt a pang of sympathy for the guy. If only there were some way I could ease his pain. Taking a deep breath, I squeezed his shoulders.
“You seem harmless enough,” I declared. “How about I help you home?”
“Skye?”
I glanced up at the sound of another voice and found Boone standing over us. I opened my mouth, but at the sight of him glaring at me in annoyance, I closed it again. He was giving me one hell of a dirty look, and I had no idea what I’d done to deserve it.
“What are you doin’?” he demanded.
“I found him lying in the gutter,” I snapped, reacting to his uncharacteristic mood. “I didn’t want to leave him here. He could get run over by a crazy driver or get sick from exposure.”
“Leave him be,” he said, practically pushing me aside. “I’ll look after him.”
Standing, I took a few steps back and scowled as Boone dragged Sean to his feet.
“Go home,” Boone said irritably.
“That’s all you’ve got to say?” My mouth fell open.
“It’s dark out here,” he added.
“I’m not scared of the dark.” I pouted.
He didn’t reply this time. Anchoring Sean against his side, he turned away and began walking in the direction of the single set of traffic lights.
“She wouldn’t buy me a drink,” Sean said with a slur as Boone practically carried him down the road away from me.
I watched them stumble away with a mixture of confusion and hurt.
“What did I do?” I shouted after them.
“Go home, Skye,” Boone yelled back without even turning.
My heart sank as I stared after them, tears pricking at my eyes. What did I do? I just wanted to help. Did Boone want me to be part of this village at all? Sure didn’t feel like it right now. Maybe he was starting to resent me as Aileen’s daughter. He was as good as her son after all, and he got nothing in her will. Maybe I was wrong. Or maybe I was overreacting.
“Make an effort, you say!” I shouted into the darkness. “You’ll always have a place here, you say! Yeah right!”
Kicking a rock with all my might, it skipped down the road and disappeared into Mrs. Boyle’s hedge. Who was overreacting now?
“Kiss a donkey’s ass!” I yelled after them.
* * *
Staring at the tarot cards on the counter at Irish Moon, I scowled. Glancing at the book I’d been using to try to decipher the meanings, I scowled even harder.
I’d drawn the Nine of Swords.
It showed a crying man with swords hanging over his head and two piercing each arm. So not what I wanted to see this morning. It reminded me of Sean McKinnon—because I couldn’t refer to him as anything but his full name—and how I’d found him paralytic in the gutter last night.
The book told me it was to do with being alone in the world, and the swords hanging
