Wild Irish Heart (The Mystic Cove Series Book 1) Read Free Page B

around her right hand.
    "Um, what? How am I supposed to respond to that? Can you just say it straight?" Keelin liked to work with facts.
    Margaret sighed. Her twisting movements became faster. Keelin reached out and put her hand on her mother's.
    "Mom, just say it."
    "That book is your grandmother's. She was constantly devoted to it. She carried it everywhere and was always writing carefully in it. Your grandmother is famous throughout Ireland as a wise woman – a healer. There are those that claim she is a witch. I don't believe that. Yet, I've seen her cure people where modern medicine was unable to. She never let me see the book. She told me it was for my daughter and that I had other gifts. I never planned to get pregnant, so I didn't think about leaving Grace's Cove until I was surprised with you. I couldn't let you grow up with such nonsense. What kind of life would that be for you? People only come to healers if they need their services and healers are often shunned in other places. Healers are the focus of constant whispered gossip. With Fiona as my mother, no matter if we went into a pub or a store – someone always talked. The more religious members of the town would switch directions and cross themselves when we walked by. I just wanted a normal upbringing for you, not like the one that I had. I just wanted the best for you. You have to understand. I gave up my everything. My love, my family, my life so that you could be a normal child. And I still fear that I was never able to give you what you needed. She may have been right."
    "Mom. I had a great childhood. It's fine," Keelin said quickly. Too quickly.
    "Keelin. No, you didn't." Margaret sighed deeply and clutched Keelin's hand.  "You had constant visions, daydreams, and night terrors. You would scare the crap out of our friends when you told them they were sick or what would happen with a family member. And that time that you healed our cat that was hit by a car? You were five. Five! You are not normal and there is nothing that I can do to change that. You are touched with something special. Maybe it is time that I embrace this and do what I can to help you. You'll never find happiness if you don't address this."
    Keelin was surprised to feel her cheeks were wet with tears. She hadn't felt herself start crying but it was like a part of her heart had cracked open. Her walls had been up for so long that she rarely thought of her childhood or how difficult her life could be at times. Her mother knew. She saw all of it. All of her struggles as a child. Her difficulty in relationships because Keelin always knew too much. She had a tendency to scare people without meaning to. It had taught her to pick her relationships wisely and to keep her bonds tenuous.
    "Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. Don't cry. I always knew this day would come, though I wish your grandmother had picked a less dramatic way of doing this, without sending that book to you. I love you no matter what. Even if you may have a touch of Grace O'Malley's "power" in you. I mean, would you really be Irish if you didn't have a little extra something in you?" Margaret cracked a small smile.
    "Mom, can you heal people? Do you have the same thing that I do?" Keelin was eager for answers.
    "No, Keelin, I do not. My strengths come in other ways. I can read people's emotions from a mile away. Why do you think that I can close a sale in a heartbeat?" Margaret smiled her ferocious realtor's smile. Keelin nodded. It made sense, after all. A single mom straight off the boat from Ireland would have had to have an extra "something" to rocket to the top of the real estate empire in Boston.
    "So, what does this mean for me? I don't know what to do." Keelin stared at the book.
    "I don't want you to go. I really don't. In fact, I am terrified that I will lose you. But, if you want to learn about yourself, you may have to go to Ireland. If you want to ignore it and carry on here – I completely support that," Margaret said