Page 28 of Harnessed in Gold

He wraps an arm around my back and squeezes as he bends past me to greet her. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

She waves off his politeness. “Call me Barbara.”

When he does, rolling those two R’s, she grins. “You Irish?”

“That I am.”

“So’s my whole line. My granda came over in nineteen-fourteen.”

Hence, another reason Rime is pretending to be Irish. A shared heritage makes for an immediate connection, and this area of NorthCarolina is positively overflowing with descendants of the Scots-Irish.

While Rime and our new friends discuss Irish family names, I search the crowd for Avery and Topaz, finally spotting them on the opposite side of the hall at a table full of church ladies. Avery’s going to have too much fun with this. And with torturing Topaz.

My eyes continue to roam about the room—until they crash into Leo’s. Beside him Aaron chatters, pointing to the game sheets, but Leo isn’t paying attention. He’s watching me.

I attempt a smile and a wave, but they’re as hesitant and awkward as I feel. Like a bingo hall Mr. Darcy, he nods without returning the smile, his expression unreadable. But his warm, dark eyes linger on mine another second before he looks away.

Next to me Barbara dumps six—no, eight—daubers from her tote bag, and across from us, Linda secures three game sheets to the table with blue painter’s tape. She holds the roll out. “Here, dear. Tape your green sheet down. We always start with green.”

I’m not sure what the point of taping is; it’s not like it’s windy in here. But I say, “Okay,” and begin sticking my game sheet to the plastic tabletop.

When I’m finished, I hand the tape to Rime and ask her, “So you really won twelve hundred dollars? Here, at bingo?”

“Sure did.”

“Wow. I’ve never met anyone who’s won that much money. This girl I know won five hundred in the lottery once. She says it’s because she had a psychic pick out her numbers.”

“You don’t believe her?” asks Barbara, who, thankfully, considers herself part of the conversation.

I turn to her and declare, “I don’t believe in psychics.”

Behind me, Rime chuckles, “But you believe in ghosts.”

“No, I don’t,” I protest, throwing in a flirtatious giggle.

He loops an arm around my shoulders. “Then why wouldn’t you go up in the attic in my parents’ house?”

“Because it’s old, and in Ireland. Everybody knows there’re noghosts in North Carolina.” I hate that I’m so good at pretending to be a dumb blonde.

Barbara smiles at me charitably. “You ain’t from these parts, are you, dear?”

“Pennsylvania,” Rime says, pronouncing the I as an E and not a Y. I’m pretty sure that, until recently, it’s the only state the fae knew existed.

I hold my breath as Barbara tells us, “There’s spirits in these mountains. If you’ve been around as long as I have, you’d know it.” She couldn’t be taking our bait any better than if she were reading a script.

With a nervous laugh, I accuse her and Rime, “Oh, you two are just trying to scare me.”

“No, it’s true,” says Linda.

I lay an affectionate hand on Rime’s knee. “Ryan says there’re faeries in Ireland, but I didn’t see any.”

“Because, a ghrá, you didn’t know where to look.”

“There’s faeries here, too,” Barbara states matter-of-factly. “Where there’s the Irish, there’s the she.”

“She?” I know she can’t possibly mean the feminine personal pronoun.

“Ask your fella there,” she says with a grin.