Her hair was dark and hung past her waist. Her eyes were the moody green of the ocean at dawn. She smiled and rested her hand on Hugh’s head as he sat patiently beside her.
“I didn’t know anyone was here.” Could be here, she thought. “I—” She looked back now, with some alarm, and couldn’t see the cottage. “I walked farther than I realized.”
“It’s a good morning for a walk, and for berry picking. Those you have there’d make a fine mixed jam.”
“I’ve picked too many. I wasn’t paying attention.”
The woman’s face softened. “Sure, you can never pick too many as long as someone eats them. Don’t fret,” she said quietly. “He’s sleeping still. His mind’s quiet when he sleeps.”
Allena let out a long breath. “Who are you?”
“Whoever you need me to be. An old woman in a shop, a young boy in a boat.”
“Oh.” Surrendering to shaky legs, she sat on the rock. “God.”
“It shouldn’t worry you. There’s no harm meant. Not to you, or to him. He’s part of me.”
“His great-grandmother. He said—they say—”
The woman’s smile widened. “They do indeed.”
Struggling for composure, Allena reached under her sweater, drew out the pendant. “This is yours.”
“It belongs to whom it belongs to…until it belongs to another.”
“Conal said he threw it into the sea.”
“Such a temper that boy has.” Her laugh was light and rich as cream over whiskey. “It does me proud. He could throw it to the moon, and still it would come to whom it belongs to when it was time. This time is yours.”
“He doesn’t want to love me.”
“Oh, child.” She touched Allena’s cheek, and it was like the brush of wings. “Love can’t be wanted away. It simply is, and you already know that. You have a patient heart.”
“Sometimes patience is just cowardice.”
“That’s wise.” The woman nodded, obviously pleased, and helped herself to one of the berries in the pot. “And true as well. But already you understand him, and are coming to understand yourself, which is always a more difficult matter. That’s considerable for such a short time. And you love him.”
“Yes, I love him. But he won’t accept love through magic.”
“Tonight, when the longest day meets the shortest night, when the star cuts through with power and light, the choice you make, both you and he, will be what was always meant to be.”
Then she took Allena’s face in her hands, kissed both her cheeks. “Your heart will know,” she said and slipped into the mist like a ghost.
“How?” Allena closed her eyes. “You didn’t give us enough time.”
When Hugh bumped his head against her legs, she bent down to bury her face in his neck. “Not enough time,” she murmured. “Not enough to mope about it, either. I don’t know what to do, except the next thing. I guess that’s breakfast.”
She wandered back the way she had come, with Hugh for company on this trip. The fog was already burning off at the edges and drawing into itself. It seemed that fate had decreed one more clear day for her.
When the cottage came into view, she saw Conal on the little back porch, waiting for her.
“You worried me.” He walked out to meet her, knowing his sense of relief was out of proportion. “What are you doing, roaming away in the mist?”
“Berries.” She held up the pot. “You’ll never guess what I…” She trailed off as his gaze tracked down to the pendant.
“I’ll never guess what?”
No, she thought, she couldn’t tell him what had happened, whom she had seen. Not when the shadows were in his eyes, and her heart was sinking because of them. “What I’m going to make for breakfast.”
He dipped a hand into the pot. “Berries?”
“Watch,” she told him and took her gatherings into the house. “And learn.”
He did watch, and it soothed him. He’d wakened reaching for her, and that had disturbed him. How could a man spend one night with a woman, then find his bed so cold, so empty when she wasn’t in it? Then that panic, that drawing down in the gut, when he hadn’t been able to find her. Now she was here, mixing her batter in a bowl, and the world was right again.
Was there a name for this other than love?
“You really need a griddle.” She set the bowl aside to heat a skillet. “But we’ll make do.”
“Allena.”
“Hmm?” She glanced back. Something in his eyes made her dizzy. “Yes?” When she turned, the pendant swung, and caught at the sunlight.