Her shoulders wanted to hitch up in defense at the angry tone and she forced them to stay straight. "I'm making breakfast, if you don't mind."

He muttered something, then flung out his hands. A plate of lightly browned toast appeared on the counter. "There. Though how you can call that breakfast is beyond me. Now sit down with it."

"I'm perfectly capable of making my own." But she carried the plate to the table before deliberately going to the refrigerator and taking her own sweet time choosing jam.

"Rowan, you're trying my patience. I'm only asking you to sit down and talk to me."

"Asking is exactly what you didn't do, but now that you have, I will." Surprised at just how smug she felt over that small victory, she came back to the table and sat down. "Do you want some toast?"

"No, I don't." And hearing the snap in his voice, sighed. "Thank you."

She smiled at him with such sudden, such open sweetness, his heart stumbled. "I hardly ever win arguments," she told him as she spread jam on the toast. "Especially when I don't know what the argument's about."

"Well, you won that one, didn't you?" Her eyes danced as she bit into the toast. "I like winning."

He had to laugh. "So do I." He laid a hand on her wrist as she lifted her mug. "You didn't add your cream and all that sugar. You know you don't like your coffee black."

"Only because I make lousy coffee. Yours is good. You said you wanted to talk about your family."

"About family." He moved his hand so he was no longer touching her. "You understand what runs through mine."

"Yes." He was watching her so closely, his eyes so focused on hers she had to fight the urge to squirm. "Your gift. The Donovan Legacy." She smiled. "That's what you named your company."

"Aye, that's right. Because I'm proud of where I come from. Power has obligations, responsibilities. It's not a toy, but it's not something to fear."

"I'm not afraid of you, Liam, if that's what worries you."

"Maybe, in part."

"I'm not, I couldn't be." She wanted to reach out to him, to tell him she loved him, but he pushed back from the table and began to prowl about the room just as he'd asked her not to.

"You're seeing it as a storybook. Magic and romance and happy-ever-after. But it's just life, Rowan, with all its messes and mistakes. Its needs and demands. Life," he repeated, turning back to her, "that has to be lived."

"You're only half right," she told him. "I can't help but see it as magical, as romantic, but I understand the rest. How could I not understand after meeting your cousins, seeing their families? That's what I met yesterday, a family. Not a picture in a book."

"And you were- comfortable with them?"

"Very much." Her heart began to trip in her throat. It mattered to him, she could see it. Mattered that she accepted his family, and him. Because- was it possible it was because he loved her, too? That he wanted her to be part of his life? Joy spurted through her in one long liquid gush. "Rowan." He came back to sit, so that she hid her trembling hands under the table. "My cousins are many. Here, in Ireland. In Wales, Cornwall. Some are Donovans, some Malones, some Rileys. And some are O'Mearas."

Her heart had bounded into her head to spin dreamily. "Yes, you said your mother was an O'Meara. We might even be distant relatives. Wouldn't that be nice? Then in some convoluted way I might be connected to Morgana and the rest." He bit back a sigh, then reaching for her hands, he took them firmly in his and leaned closer. "Rowan, I didn't say we might be cousins, but that we are cousins. Distant, it's true, but we share blood. A legacy." Puzzled by the sudden intensity she frowned at him. "I suppose we might be. Tenth cousins or something, however many times removed. I'm not entirely clear how that works. It's interesting, but-"

This time her heart seemed to stop. "What do you mean?" she said slowly. "We share a legacy?"

"Your great-grandmother, Rowan O'Meara was a witch. As I am. As you are."

"That's absurd." She started to jerk her hands free, but he held them fast. "That's absurd, Liam. I didn't even know her, and you certainly didn't."

"I know of her." He spoke calmly now. "Of Rowan O'Meara from Clare, who fell in love and married, and left her homeland, and abjured her gifts. She did this because the man she loved asked it of her. She did this freely, as was her right. And when she birthed her children, she said nothing of their heritage until they were grown."

"You're thinking of someone else," was all she could say.

"So they thought her eccentric, and perhaps a bit fey, but they didn't believe. When they birthed children of their own, they only said Rowan O'Meara was odd. Kind and loving, but odd. And when the daughter of her daughter birthed a daughter, that child was raised not knowing what ran in her blood."

"A person would have to know. How could you not know?" This time he released her hands so she could pull back, spring to her feet. "You'd feel it. You'd sense it."

"And haven't you?" He got to his feet as well, wishing he'd found a way to tell her without frightening her. "Haven't you felt it, from time to time? Felt that stirring, that burn in the blood, wondered at it?"

"No." That was a lie, she thought and backed away. "I don't know. But you're wrong, Liam. I'm just ordinary."

"You saw pictures in the flames, dreamed your dreams as a child. Felt the tingle of power under your skin, in your mind."

"Imagination," she insisted. "Children have wonderful ones." But she felt a tingle now, and part of it was fear.

"You said you weren't afraid of me." He said it softly, as he might to a deer startled in the woods. "Why would you be afraid of yourself?"

"I'm not afraid. I just know it's not true."

"Then you'd be willing to test it, to see which of us is right?"

"Test what? How?"

"The first skill learned and the last to leave is the making of fire. What's inside you already knows how it's done. I'll just remind you." He stepped to her, taking her hand before she could evade. "And you have my word that I won't do it myself, just as I want your word that you won't block what comes."