“You hurt yourself, by believing what wasn’t there. Go back to your tame world. You’ve no place in mine.”
He slapped a hand violently on Dilis’s flank. The horse reared, then lunged forward.
When she was gone, swallowed up by the forest, Flynn dropped to his knees on the ground—and grieved.
10
SHE wanted to find anger. Bitterness. Anything that would overpower this hideous pain. It had dried up even her tears, had smothered any rage or sorrow before it could fully form.
It had all been a lie. Magic was nothing but deceit.
In the end, love hadn’t been the answer. Love had done nothing but make her a fool.
Didn’t it prove she’d been right all along? Her disdain of the happy ending her mother had regaled her with had been sense, not stubbornness. There were no fairy tales, no loves that conquered all, no grand sweep of romance to ride on forever.
Letting herself believe, even for a little while, had shattered her.
Yet how could she not have believed? Wasn’t she even now riding on a white horse through the forest? That couldn’t be denied. If she’d misplaced her heart, she couldn’t deny all that she’d seen and done and experienced. How did she, logical Kayleen, resolve the unhappy one with the magnificent other?
How could he have given her so much, shown her so much, and thought of her as only a kind of temporary entertainment? No, no, something was wrong. Why couldn’t she think?
Dilis walked patiently through the trees as she pondered. It had all happened so quickly. This change in him had come like a fingersnap, and left her reeling and helpless. Now, she willed her mind to clear, to analyze. But after only moments, her thoughts became scattered and jumbled once again.
Her car was unmarked, shining in the sunlight that dappled through the trees. It sat tidily on a narrow path that ran straight as a ruler through the forest.
He’d cleared the path, he’d said. Well, he certainly was a man of his word. She slid off the horse, slowly circled the car. Not a scratch, she noted. Considerate of him. She wouldn’t have to face the hassle that a wrecked car would have caused with the rental company.
Yes, he’d cleared that path as well. But why had he bothered with such a mundane practicality?
Curious, she opened the car door and sliding behind the wheel, turned the key. The engine sprang to life, purred.
Runs better than it did when I picked it up, she thought. And look at that, to top things off, we have a full tank.
“Did you want me out of your life so badly, Flynn, that you covered all contingencies? Why were you so cruel at the end? Why did you work so hard to make me hate you?”
He’d given her no reason to stay, and every rational reason to go.
With a sigh, she got out of the car to say goodbye to Dilis. She indulged herself, running her hands over his smooth hide, nuzzling at his throat. Then she patted his flank. “Go back to him now,” she murmured, and turned away to spare her heart as the horse pranced off.
Because she wanted some tangible reminder of her time there, she picked a small nosegay of wildflowers, twined the stems together, and regardless of the foolishness of the gesture, tucked them into her hair.
She got into the car again and began to drive.
The sun slanted in thin beams through the trees, angled over the little lane. As she glanced in her mirror, she saw the path shimmer, then vanish behind her in a tumble of moss and stones and brambles. Soon there would be nothing but the silent wood, and no trace that she had ever walked there with a lover.
But she would remember, always, the way he’d looked at her, the way he would press his lips to the heart of her hand. The way he’d bring her flowers and scatter them over her hair.
The way his eyes would warm with laughter, or heat with passion when…His eyes. What color were his eyes? Slightly dizzy, she stopped the car, pressed her fingers to her temples.
She couldn’t bring his face into her mind, not clearly. How could she not know the color of his eyes? Why couldn’t she quite remember the sound of his voice?
She shoved out of the car, stumbled a few steps. What was happening to her? She’d been driving from Dublin on the way to her bed-and-breakfast. A wrong turn. A storm. But what…
Without thinking, she took another step back down the now overgrown path. And her mind snapped clear as crystal.
Her breath was coming short. She turned, stared at the car, the clear path in front of it, the impassable ground behind.
“Flynn’s eyes are green,” she said. His face came clearly into her mind now. And when she took a cautious step forward, her memory of him went hazy.
This time she stepped back quickly, well back. “You wanted me to forget you. Why? Why if none of it mattered did you care if I remembered you or not? Why would it matter if I broke my heart over you?”