“Do I want Shawn? I do. I haven’t figured it all out as yet, but the wanting’s there, and I can’t deny it. I’m facing you here, woman to woman, and telling you he wants me as well. I’m sorry, Mary Kate, for the unhappiness it causes you, but he isn’t looking at you that way.”
Mary Kate’s chin came up, and Brenna thought her own would have done the same under the circumstances. “He might if you weren’t warming his bed.”
That caused a hitch in her stomach, but she nodded. “The fact is, I am in his bed. And I won’t be rolling out of it to make room for you. Yesterday I might have, because I couldn’t stand seeing you so hurt and knowing I was part of the cause. But I’m looking at you here, Mary Kate, in clear light with a clear head. And you’re not hurting now. You’re just mad.”
“How do you know what I feel for him?”
“I don’t. Tell me.”
She threw up her head so her hair flew in the frisky wind. “I love him.” It was a passionate and almost sweetly dramatic declaration. Brenna gave her full marks for it, knowing she herself could never have pulled it off so impressively.
“Why?”
“Because he’s handsome and sensitive and kind.”
“Aye, he’s all of those things—as is the Clooney dog. What of his flaws?”
“He doesn’t have any.”
“Of course he does.” The fact of them smoothed out Brenna’s nerves and made her feel oddly sentimental. “He’s stubborn and slow to move and absentminded. There are times you’ll be talking to him and you might as well be talking to yourself, as his brain’s gone off somewhere else. He lacks ambition and needs to be prodded along every other step or he’d stay happy in the same place forever.”
“That’s how you see him.”
“I see him as he is, not as a pretty picture out of a book. Mary Kate.” She stepped forward, knowing it was too soon to reach out. “Let’s be honest here, we two. There’s something in the way he looks, in the air of him that makes a woman want. I understand how he makes you feel in that area. And I’ve wanted him myself since I was no older than Alice Mae.”
Something flickered in Mary Kate’s eyes. “I don’t believe you. You don’t wait for anything.”
“I thought I’d get over it. Then I thought I’d make a fool of myself.” Brenna pushed at her hair, wished she’d thought to tie it back before coming up the cliff. “In the end it was more than a wanting. It was a needing.”
“You don’t love him.”
“I think I might.” The minute the words were out, Brenna pressed a hand to her heart, as if someone had just delivered a blow to it. “I think I might,” she said again, then just slid down to her knees. “Oh, sweet God Almighty, what am I to do?”
Mary Kate could only gape. Her sister had gone dead white and was rocking on her knees and clutching her chest as if she was having a seizure. “Stop that. You’re playacting.”
“I’m not. I can’t. I can’t seem to breathe right.”
Suspicious, Mary Kate walked over and gave Brenna a hefty thump on the back. “There.”
Her breath whooshed out, wheezed in. “Thanks.” She sank weakly onto her heels. “I can’t deal with this now, I can’t. I shouldn’t be expected to. It was bad enough the way things were, but this won’t do. It won’t do at all. This fixes nothing, but only shifts the weight. Damn it.”
Since Brenna made no move to get up, Mary Kate sat down. “I think I could forgive you if you were in love with him. Are you just saying you are so I will?”
“No. And I didn’t say I was, I said I might be.” Desperate, Brenna grabbed her sister’s hand. “You’re to tell no one. I want your word you’re to say nothing of this, or I’ll strangle you in your sleep. Swear it to me.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why should I go around telling anyone? So I can look like a bigger horse’s ass?”
“It’ll probably go away.”
“Why should you want it to?”
“In love with Shawn Gallagher.” Brenna rubbed her hands over her face, ran them back into her hair. “What a pretty mess that would be. We’d drive each other crazy inside a year—me always wanting to get things done, him dreaming the time away. The man can’t remember to plug in a cord, much less fix one that’s gone off.”
“What difference does that make? You can fix it. And dreaming’s what he does. How else could he make up all that music?”
“And what’s the point of making it up if you do nothing with it?” Brenna waved it away. “Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s not what either of us was after when we started. I’m just doing the bloody female thing, and it annoys me. Why do women have to turn attraction into love?”
“Maybe there was love hiding under the attraction all along.”
Brenna lifted her head. “Why do you suddenly have to get wise?”
“Maybe because you’re not treating me like a foolish girl anymore. And maybe because when I look at you right now, it occurs to me that it might not have been love I was feeling for him. It didn’t make me go pale and tremble, that’s for certain. And . . .” She sat back, a faint sneer on her face. “Maybe because it’s satisfying under the circumstances to see you look weak and terrified. You damn near pulled my hair out by the roots yesterday.”
“You got your licks in.”
“Well, it was you taught me to fight.” At the memory of it sentimental tears clouded Mary Kate’s eyes. “I’m sorry I called you a whore. I did it the first time out of anger, and the others out of spite.” She dabbed at her eyes. “And I’m sorry for the things I wrote about you in my diary—well, sorry for some of them.”
“We won’t let it matter.” Their fingers linked. “I don’t want him, or anyone, between us. I’m asking you not to make me push him away.”
“So you can feel righteous and me guilty? No, I’ll have none of that.” A ghost of a smile flitted around her mouth. “I can get me own man when I want one. But . . .” She angled her head. “There’s one thing I’d like to know.”
“What would it be?”
“Does he kiss as well as it seems he would from looking at him?”
“When he puts his mind to it, he can melt every bone in your body.”
Mary Kate sighed. “I had a feeling.”
She walked to the cottage, but her mind wasn’t much clearer when she arrived than it had been when she’d started out. There was rain coming, a soft one, Brenna thought, from the way the sun was shining under the clouds.
A good day to curl up by a fire, she thought. But of course there wasn’t a puff of smoke rising from the chimney at Faerie Hill Cottage. Shawn forgot such things twice as often as he remembered them.
His car was gone, so she imagined he’d taken himself off to church. She’d wait. She passed through the garden gate, and glancing up, half expected to see the quiet green eyes of Lady Gwen watching. But nothing stirred, mortal or otherwise.
She stepped in, nearly tripped over his work boots that lay where he’d kicked them off the night before, with a good coating of dirt on the heels. She nudged them aside with the toe of her own, then crossed over into the little front parlor to build a fire.
His music sheets were scattered over the piano, and a cup that would have held his tea was sitting carelessly on a table. As was a squat green bottle that held a clutch of flowers from the front garden.
He would think of such things, she mused. He wouldn’t remember to clean off his boots, and neither did she more often than not, but he’d take the time and have the thought to put flowers out.
Why didn’t she think of things like that? She liked a house with flowers, and with candles sitting about. And the scents they created together that made the air delicate. She would think of cleaning the chimney out, and laying by turf or wood, but she would never think of the little touches that turned house to home.
Hanging curtains was one thing, she decided. Thinking of lace was another altogether.
After the fire was going, she rose to wander to the piano. Ha
d he worked here last night? she wondered.He’d been angry with her. Did he work off a mad here as well as dream?
His heart’s in his song. She frowned as she sifted through the pages scribbled with notes and words. If that were true, why did he leave his music all tossed about this way? Why didn’t he do something with it?
How could she care so much for a man who lacked basic drive? Surely it wasn’t enough for a man to have such a light inside him if he didn’t use it for something.
“These pearls I now lay at your feet,” she murmured, reading his work, “are only moon-shed tears. For every time my heart does beat, it weeps for you across the years. Night by night the spell holds fast, until the day love breaks the past.”
So he sings of legends, Brenna thought—and waits for what?
She set the sheet aside again when she heard his car.
He’d seen the smoke and knew it would be Brenna. What he would do about it, he was less certain. He had to hope, as he did with his music, that the next passage would just come to him. He stepped into the house and turned as she walked to the parlor doorway.
“There’s a chill in the mornings yet. I lit your fire.”
He nodded. “Do you want some tea?”
“No.” She couldn’t read his face, and it worried her. “You were angry with me last night. Are you still?”
“Not as much.”
“Well . . .” The sense of awkwardness was something new, and not at all welcome. “I thought I should tell you I had some words with Mary Kate this morning. Private words.”
“Then it’s better between you.”
“It is, yes.”
“I’m glad of it. With a little time, I hope she’ll be comfortable with me again as well.”
“She’ll be embarrassed for a while, but as for the rest . . . after I pointed out all of your flaws, she thinks perhaps she’s not in love with you after all.”
He lifted his brows. “That was clever of you.”
“Shawn.” She laid a hand on his arm when he started into the room, so they stood, framed in the doorway. “I’m sorry for how we left things last night.”
“I’m sorry” were words that didn’t slide easily off her tongue, he knew. So they meant more. “Then so am I.”
“And I don’t mind your flaws—or most of them— very much.”
She smelled of Sunday, shampoo and soap, and her eyes were full of apologies. “Then it’s better between us as well?”
“I want it to be.”
He crossed over, sat in the single chair that wasn’t full of sheet music. “Why don’t you come sit with me awhile, Mary Brenna?”
Her eyes twinkled as relief sparkled through her. She thought she knew what he was about. She couldn’t think of a finer way to make up. After walking to him, she sat on his lap, angling herself so their faces were close. “Friends again?”
“We ever were.”
“I hardly slept for worrying we’d never be easy with each other again, though I know we promised we’d stay friends.”
“And we will. Is friends all you’re wanting to be just now?”
For an answer she closed the distance between them and laid her lips on his. Her little sigh slid into him, warm, familiar now. He drew her closer, lingering over the kiss, drawing it out soft and sweet before trailing his lips up to her brow.
Then he tucked her head on his shoulder, circled his arms comfortably around her. Puzzled, she sat still, waiting for his hands to move in the way, and to the places, she expected. But he only held her while the fire smoked and simmered, and the rain flowed in to splat and patter.
Gradually she relaxed against him, sinking into the comfort and coziness, lulled by the intimacy of silence.
She’d never had a lover like him, one who understood her, who was content to cuddle away a rainy morning. Was that why she’d fallen in love with him? Or had she always felt the same without knowing it? Whatever the answer, it had to be dealt with, explored and examined until the pieces fit.
“I’m wondering,” she began, “if the next evening you have free you’d like to go with me up to Waterford City. I’ll take you to dinner.”
He smiled into her hair. She’d taken her time working up to courting him, but this was a fine start at it. “Would you be wearing that dress you put on for the Dubliner some time back?”
“I could.”
“I like the way it fits you.”
“If I’m wearing a dress, we’d best take your car. I’ll give it a good going-over today. Your engine’s missing, and your oil’s filthy. From the quick look I had under the hood, I’d say the last time your battery connections were cleaned was when I did it myself.”
“I prefer leaving such matters to the experts.”
“You’re just lazy about it.”
“There’s that as well. Was that one of the flaws that has Mary Kate reconsidering?”
“It was. You’re a feckless sort, Shawn Gallagher.”
“Well, now, ‘kless’ is a harsh word.”
“I’m sorry if it insults you.” She shifted, and didn’t look sorry at all. “But you must admit ambition isn’t your middle name.”
“I’ve ambition enough when it matters.”
“Doesn’t your music matter?”
He’d leaned forward to nip at her ear, but she’d thrown him off his rhythm. “What does my music have to do with it?”
Careful, Brenna, she thought. Take the pieces apart, but don’t damage them. “You sit here and make it, then leave it all tossed about.”
“I know where everything is.”
“The point is, what are you doing with it?”
“Getting pleasure from it.”
A block here, she noted, studying the way his face closed up. It would take deft hands to work around it— but she was determined to do it. It was one of the steps that needed to be taken.
“That’s fine and good, but don’t you want more? Don’t you want other people to have the pleasure of it as well?”
“You don’t even like my music.”
“Now when have I said that?” At his bland stare she shrugged. “Well, if I did ’twas only to annoy you. I like it very well. And now and then when you’ve played one of your tunes in the pub or at a ceili , others have too.”
“That’s friends and family.”
“Exactly. I’m a friend, aren’t I?”
“You are.”
“Then will you give me a tune?”
He shifted, wary. “What do you mean, ‘give you a tune’?”
“Just that. Let me have a song, for my own. A barter, for fixing your car.” On impulse she got up, gestured to the piano. “You’ve dozens, and they’re just lying about. I’d like to have one.”
He didn’t believe that for a minute, but he couldn’t see the trap or the harm. “It’s some mood you’re in, O’Toole, but all right. I’ll give you one.”
He rose, but when he started to push through the piles, she slapped his hand away. “No, I get to pick it. It’s only fair.” She snatched up the one she’d been reading, the one, she realized, she’d been picking out on the keyboard when Lady Gwen had first shown herself. “I like this one.”
“It’s not finished yet.” He couldn’t put a finger on the point of his panic, he only knew he felt it. “It needs work.”
“It’s the one I want. You wouldn’t be stepping back from a bargain, would you?”
“No, but—”
“Good.” She folded the sheets in a way that made him wince, and tucked them in her back pocket. “It’s mine now, and thank you.” She rose up on her toes, kissed him lightly. “I’ll drive you to the pub, drop you off for work. That way I can bring your car back to my house where my tools are. I’ll have it running smooth for you.”
“I’ve a bit of time yet.”
“Well, I don’t. I’ve considerable to do today. If I brought your car down to you before closing, would you give me a lift back?”
He tried to put the song out of his mind
. She’d forget it soon enough, he decided. “Back to where?”
She smiled slowly. “Here would be just far enough.”
• • •
She had one stop to make before she drove home to change and get out her tools. With Shawn safely at the pub, Brenna drove down to Jude’s house and parked. Jude was out in the front garden, getting a jump on spring. Her gloves were already dark with dirt, and there were a number of sketches on the walkway beside her. At Brenna’s approach, she sat back on her heels and tipped up the straw hat she was using to protect her head from the drizzling rain.
“Something wrong with your lorry?”
“No, I’m doing some work on Shawn’s car, as he’d rather be nibbled by ants than lift the bonnet. Your drawings are getting wet.”
“I know. I have to stop. I just wanted to hurry spring along.”
“Ah, you’ve sketched out your ideas for your gardens.” Crouching, Brenna used her back to protect the papers. “Like a blueprint. That’s a clever notion.”
“It helps me see it. Let’s go inside, out of the wet.” She started to rise, then shifted and put a hand on the slope of her belly. “My center of gravity’s changing.”
“Another few months, you won’t be able to get up off your knees without a rope and pulley. Here, I’ll get these.” Brenna picked up the sketches and Jude’s garden basket.
“I saw Colleen Ryan going into the market the other day. She’s due any minute. She waddles,” Jude said as they stepped into the house. “It’s very sweet, but I intend to glide, Madonna-like, through my term.”
“You keep thinking that, darling.”
Brenna carried the basket back to the little mudroom off the kitchen and spread the drawings out on the counter to dry.
The kettle went on. The biscuit tin came down.
“I told Aidan I’d come into the pub for lunch.” With a sheepish grin, Jude bit into a sugar cookie. “But I’m always hungry these days. Nothing spoils my appetite.”
“Expecting looks good on you, Jude. I remember the first time I saw you, a year ago, standing in the rain at the door to Faerie Hill Cottage, looking lost. You’re found now.”
“What a lovely way to put it. Yes, I’m found now. Things I wanted, and could hardly admit even to myself that I wanted, happened.”
“You made them happen.”
“Some of it.” She nibbled on the cookie while Brenna paced the kitchen. “And some things are meant to be. You have to be willing enough, brave enough, to let them happen.”
“When you discovered you loved Aidan, did you tell him? Straight out?”
“No, I was afraid to. I didn’t trust myself enough.”
Brenna’s eyes sharpened. “Or him?”
“Or him,” Jude admitted. “Before I came here, I never made things happen, and it wasn’t courage that had me letting them happen around me or to me. It was fear and passivity. I had to learn the difference. To take charge of some things, to trust others to fall into place.”
“But you had to take steps.”
“Yes. Are you in love with Shawn?”
Frowning, Brenna sat. “It seems I am. I’m not ashamed to say it’s a shock to the system.”
“Love looks well on you, Brenna.”
At the turn of her own words, Brenna let out a short laugh. “It doesn’t feel well. But I suppose I’ll get used to it. I’ll get the tea,” she said when the kettle sputtered.