“You’re in a bit of a mood most days.” But he smiled and tapped the bill of her cap down over her eyes. “I’m too used to your nips to mind much.”
The problem was, she wanted to take a real nip—right there, just along his jaw. To see how it tasted. And if she tried it, she imagined he’d be the one to faint. “I won’t be able to get started in here until Monday or Tuesday, so there’s no real rush getting your things out. But . . .”
She lifted a finger, tapped it against his chest. “I meant what I said about hanging pictures at the cottage.”
He only laughed. “If I get the urge to pick up a hammer,” he began, then threw her off balance by bending down to place a quick, friendly kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be sure to call the O’Toole.”
“Aye, do that.” Irritated all over again, she started to stride out. Aidan, looking frazzled, came to the doorway.
“She’s fine. She says she’s fine. I called the doctor, and he says she’s fine. Just to rest a bit and keep her feet up.”
“Darcy’s making her some tea.”
“That’s good, that’s fine, then. Jude’s fretting some because she’d planned to take flowers to Old Maude this afternoon. I’d run them up myself, but—”
“I’ll do it,” Shawn told him. “You’ll feel better if you can stay with her a bit longer. I can drive up, have a bit of a visit with Old Maude, then be back in time for the pub.”
“I’d be grateful—am grateful,” he corrected, his face clearing a little now. “She told me how you picked her up and carted her off to bed. Made her stay there.”
“Just ask her not to go into a swoon around me again. My heart won’t take it.”
Shawn took flowers to Maude, the cheerful purple and yellow pansies that Jude had already gathered. He didn’t often come to the old cemetery. He’d lost no one truly close to him who’d been laid to rest there. But he thought since the cottage was close, he could take over the task from Jude until she was more up to the climb. The dead were buried near the Saint Declan’s Well, where those who had made the pilgrimage to honor the ancient Irish saint had washed the travel from their hands and feet. Three stone crosses stood nearby, guarding the holy place, and perhaps, he thought, giving comfort to the living who came high on this hill to honor the dead.
The view was spectacular—Ardmore Bay stretched out like a gray swath under storm-ready skies. And the beat of the Celtic Sea, the heart that pulsed day and night, spread to the horizon. Between that drumming and the wind there was music, and birds, undaunted by winter, sang to it.
The sunlight was weak and white, the air damp and going raw. The wild grass that fought its way among the stones and cobbles was pale with winter. But he knew winter never had much of a march here, and soon enough fresh green shoots would brave their way among the old.
The cycle that such places stood for never ended. And that was another comfort.
He sat beside Maude Fitzgerald’s grave, folding his legs companionably and laying the pansies under her stone where the words “Wise Woman” were carved.
His mother had been a Fitzgerald before her marriage, so Old Maude had been a cousin of sorts. Shawn remembered her well. A small, thin woman with gray hair and eyes of a misty, far-seeing green.
And he remembered the way she’d sometimes looked at him, deep and quiet, in a manner that hadn’t made him uneasy so much as unsettled. Despite it, he’d always been drawn to her, and as a child had often sat at her feet when she’d come into the pub. He’d never tired of listening to her tell stories, and later, years later, had made songs out of some of them for himself.
“It’s Jude who sends you the flowers,” he began. “She’s resting now, as she had a bit of a spell with the baby. She’s fine, so there’s nothing to worry about. But as we wanted her to lie down for a while, I said I’d bring her flowers to you. So I hope you don’t mind.”
He fell silent a moment, letting his gaze wander. “I’m living in your cottage now that Aidan and Jude have moved into the house. That’s the Gallagher way, as I’m sure you know. And now with the baby coming, the cottage would be a wee bit small. Jude’s granny, that would be your cousin Agnes Murray, signed the cottage over to her as a wedding gift.”
He shifted to find more comfort on the ground, and his fingers began to tap on his knee in an unconscious match to the rhythm of the sea.
“I like living there, in the quiet. But I wonder that I haven’t seen Lady Gwen. Do you know she showed herself to Brenna O’Toole? You’ll remember Brenna, she’s the oldest of the O’Toole girls who live down from your cottage. She’s the redhead—well, most of the O’Toole girls are redheaded, but Brenna’s got like . . . sunfire at the edges of it. You’d think it would burn your fingers to touch it, and instead it’s just warm and soft.”
He caught himself, frowned a little, cleared his throat. “In any case, I’ve been living there near to five months now, and she hasn’t shown herself to me, not clearly. And there’s Brenna come by to fix the stove, and the lady not only shows herself but speaks to her as well.”
“Women are perverse creatures.”
Shawn’s heart gave one quick thud, as he hadn’t expected anyone to speak back to him in such a place. He looked up and saw a man with long black hair, eyes of piercing blue, and a smile wicked at the corners.
“So I’ve often thought myself,” Shawn said calmly enough, but his heart had decided one quick thud wasn’t enough and began to gallop in his chest.
“But we can’t seem to do without them, can we?” The man unfolded himself from the stone chair that crouched near the trio of crosses. His movements were graceful as he walked over grass and stone on soft leather boots, then sat on the opposite side of the grave.
The wind, the chilly snap of it, played through his hair, fluttered the short red cape tossed regally over his shoulders.
The light brightened, cleared so that everything— stones, grass, flowers—stood out in sharp relief. In the distance, entwined with the sound of sea and wind, came the dance of pipes and flutes.
“Not for any real length of time,” Shawn answered, kept his gaze level and hoped his heart rate would soon do the same.
The man laid his hand on his knees. He wore hose and a doublet of silver, both shot through with threads of gold. And on one hand was a silver ring with a brilliant blue stone. “You know who I am, don’t you, Shawn Gallagher?”
“I’ve seen pictures Jude’s drawn of you for her book. She’s clever with a sketch.”
“And well and happy now, is she? Wedded and bedded?”
“Aye, she’s all of that, Prince Carrick.”
Carrick’s eyes gleamed, both power and amusement alive in them. “Does it worry you to converse with the prince of the faeries, Gallagher?”
“Well, I’ve no desire to be taken off to a faerie raft for the next century or so, as I’ve things I prefer to do here.”
With his hands still resting on his knees, Carrick threw back his head and laughed. It was a full, rich sound. Seductive, engaging. “Some of the ladies in court would enjoy you, I’m certain, for your looks and your musical gifts. But I’ve a use for you here, on your side. And here you’ll stay, so don’t trouble yourself.”
He sobered abruptly, leaned forward. “You said Gwen spoke to Brenna O’Toole. What did she say to her?”
“Don’t you know?”
He was on his feet without seeming to move at all. “I’m not permitted in the cottage, nor past the borders of its gardens, though my home is beneath it. What did she say?”
Sympathy stirred in Shawn’s heart. The question had been more plea than command. “ ‘His heart is in his song.’ That’s what she said to Brenna.”
“I never gave her music,” Carrick said softly. He lifted an arm and with a flick of his wrist had the light blazing. “Jewels plucked from the fire of the sun. These I gave her, these I poured at her feet when I asked her to come with me. But she turned away from them, from me. From her own heart. Do you know what it
is, Gallagher, to have the one you want, the only one you’ll ever want, turn from you?”
“No. I’ve never wanted like that.”
“There’s a pity for you, for you’re not alive until you do.” He lifted his other hand, and darkness fell with silver beams and sparkles. Fog, thin and damp, crawled over the ground. “Even so, even when she took another at her father’s bidding, I gathered the teardrops from the moon, and these I spilled into pearls at her feet. And still she wouldn’t have me.”
“And the jewels of the sun, the tears of the moon became flowers,” Shawn continued. “And these she tended, year after year.”
“What is time to me?” Impatience shimmering now, Carrick glared at Shawn. “A year, a century.”
“A year is a century when you’re waiting for love.”
Emotion swam into Carrick’s eyes before he closed them. “You’re clever with words as well as tunes. And you’re right.”
Once more he snapped his wrist and the sun was back, winter pale. “Still, I waited, and too long I waited, to go to her that last time. And from the sea, through the deep blue depths of it, I took its heart. And from this, hundreds of sapphires I gathered for her, and these, too, I poured at her feet. For my Gwen, all that I had and more for Gwen. But she told me she was old, and it was too late. For the first time, I saw her weep about it, weep as she told me if I’d once given her the words that were in my heart instead of jewels, instead of promises of eternities and riches, she might have been swayed to give up her world for mine, her duty for love. I didn’t believe her.”
“You were angry.” Shawn had heard the story too many times to count. When he’d been a boy, he’d often dreamed of it. The dashing faerie prince astride a white winged horse, flying to the sun, to the moon, to the sea. “Because you had loved her, and didn’t know how else to show it, how else to tell her.”
“What more can a man do?” Carrick demanded, and this time Shawn smiled.
“That I can’t tell you. But casting a spell that has you both waiting over the centuries was probably not the wisest action.”
“I’ve my pride, don’t I?” Carrick said, tossing his head. “And my temper. Three times I asked, and three times she refused. Now we wait until love meets love three times and accepts all. Flaws and virtues, sorrows and joys. You’re clever with words, Gallagher,” Carrick said, and the edgy smile was back. “I’ll be displeased if you take so long to make use of them as your brother did.”
“My brother?”
“Three times.” Carrick was on his feet now, his eyes dark and brilliantly blue. “And one is met.”
It was Shawn’s turn to rise, and his fists were bunched. “Are you speaking of Aidan and Jude? Are you telling me, you bastard, that you put a spell on them?”
Carrick’s eyes flashed, and thunder rumbled in answer. “You great fool of a man. Love spells are nothing but wives’ tales. You can’t play magic inside the heart, for it’s more powerful than any spell. Lust you can order up with a wink, desire with a smile. But love is love, and there is nothing can touch it. What your brother has with his Jude Frances is as real as the sun and the moon and the sea. You’ve my word on it.”
Slowly Shawn relaxed. “I’ll beg your pardon, then.”
“I’ll take no offense at a brother standing for a brother. If I did,” Carrick added with a thin sneer, “you’d be braying like a jackass. You’ve my word on that as well.”
“I appreciate your restraint,” Shawn began, then tensed up again. “Are you after thinking that I’ll be the second stage in the breaking of your spell? For if you are, you’re looking in the wrong direction.”
“I know where I’m looking well enough, young Gallagher. It’s you who doesn’t. But you will, soon enough. You will.” Carrick bowed gallantly. And vanished just as the skies opened and rain fell in a fury.
“Well, that’s perfect, isn’t it?” Shawn stood in the driving rain, angry and puzzled. And very late for work.
FOUR
HE WAS A man who liked to take his time with things. To mull and consider, to weigh and to measure. So that’s what he did, telling no one, for the moment, of his meeting with Carrick at the side of Old Maude’s grave. It concerned him a bit. Oh, not the meeting with a faerie prince so much. It was in his blood to accept the existence of magic, and in his heart to appreciate it. The manner of the discussion was what worried him, and the direction it had taken.
He’d be damned if he’d find himself picking out, or being picked out by, a woman, and stumbling into love just to fall in line with Carrick’s plans and wishes.
He just wasn’t the marrying and settling-in sort, as Aidan was. He liked women, that he did. The smell of them, the shape of them, the heat of them. And there were, well, so many of them out there. All fragrant and rounded and warm.
As much as he tended to write about love, in all its delightful and painful varieties, on the personal level he preferred to skirt around its edges.
Love, the sort that grabbed the heart with both hands and took it over, was such a bloody responsibility. And life was so pleasant just as it was. He had his music and the pub, his friends and his family, and now the little cottage on the hill that was all his.
Well, except for the ghost, who didn’t appear to want his company in any case.
So he took his time, thinking it all through and going about his business. He had fish to fry and potatoes to slice and a great whopping shepherd’s pie cooking in the oven. The sounds of Saturday night were beginning to heat up in the pub beyond his kitchen door. The musicians from Galway that Aidan had booked were slipping into a ballad, and the tenor was doing a fine job singing about Ballystrand.
Since Darcy had gotten in her shopping fix with Jude in Dublin, she was in a rare mood, all smiles and cooperation. Orders she called out to him like a song, then danced back out with them when he’d finished his part. Why, they hadn’t had a hard word between them for the whole of the day.
He thought it might be a record.
When he heard the kitchen door swing open, letting in a flood of music, he slid a long slice of golden fish onto a plate. “I’ve all but got this last order done here, darling. And the pie needs only five minutes more.”
“I’d love some of it when it’s done.”
He glanced over his shoulder and beamed. “Mary Kate! I thought you were Darcy. And how are you, then, sweetheart?”
“I’m fine and well.” She let the door swing shut behind her. “And you?”
“The same.” He drained chips and arranged the orders even as he studied her.
Brenna’s younger sister had blossomed during her university years. He thought she’d be about one and twenty now, and pretty as a picture. Her hair was a sunnier, more golden red than Brenna’s, and she wore it in soft waves that fell just past her chin. Her eyes had a touch of gray over the green, and she smudged them up prettily. She wasn’t much taller than her oldest sister, but fuller at the bust and hip, and she wore a dark green Saturday-night dress to show off a very attractive figure.
“You look more than fine and well to me.” He tucked the orders under the warmer, then leaned back on the counter so they could have a little chat. “When did you manage to grow up on me? You must be flaying the lads off with sticks on a daily basis.”
She laughed, struggling to make the sound mature and female rather than the giggle that wanted to bubble out of her throat. The crush she’d developed on Shawn Gallagher was very recent, and very strong. “Oh, I’ve been too busy to do much flaying, what with working at the hotel and all.”
“You like your work there.”
“Very much. You should come ’round.” She stepped closer, trying to keep her movements both casual and seductive. “Have yourself a busman’s holiday and let me treat you to a meal there.”
“That’s a thought, isn’t it?” He gave her a wink that set her pulse skipping, then turned to open the oven and check his pie.
She moved closer. “That smells wonderful. You’
ve such a hand with cooking. So many men are bumblers in the kitchen, it seems.”
“When a man, or a woman for that matter, bumbles about in the kitchen it’s usually because they know someone will come along and chase them out and deal with the matter to save the time and annoyance.”
“That’s wise.” She all but whispered it, with reverence. “But though you’re so good at it, I’ll bet you’d like to have someone fix you a meal now and then instead of always fussing with it yourself.”
“Sure and I can’t say as I’d mind it.”
When Brenna walked in the back door, the first and only thing she saw was Shawn Gallagher smiling into her sister’s dazzled eyes.
“Mary Kate.” Her voice was sharp as the tip of a whip, and at the sound of it her sister flushed and jerked back. “What are you doing?”
“I’m . . . just talking with Shawn.”
“You’ve no business being back here in the kitchen wearing your good dress and getting in Shawn’s way.”
“She’s not in the way.” Used to being scolded by his elders, Shawn gave Mary Kate a comforting pat on the cheek. And being a man, he didn’t see the dream clouds come into her eyes.
But Brenna saw them. Teeth gritted, she strode forward, took Mary Kate’s arm in an iron grip, and pulled her toward the door.
The humiliation of it whisked away the mature sophistication Mary Kate had worked so hard to display. “Let go of me, you gnat-assed bully.” Her voice spiked upward as she struggled. They very nearly plowed Darcy over when she came in while they were going out. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve no right hauling me about. I’m telling Ma.”
“Oh, fine, you go ahead.” Without breaking stride, or loosening her grip, Brenna yanked her sister into the snug at the end of the bar, then shut the door of the little private room. “You go right ahead, you lamebrain, and I’ll be sure to tell her how you were throwing yourself at Shawn Gallagher.”
“I was not.” Freed, Mary Kate sniffed, lifted her chin, and very meticulously smoothed down the sleeves of her best dress.
“You were all but biting his neck when I walked in. What’s got into you? The man’s nearly thirty, and you barely twenty. Do you know what you’re asking for when you rub your breasts up against a man that way?”
Mary Kate merely lowered her gaze to her sister’s baggy sweater. “At least I have breasts.”
It was a sore point, a very tender area, as Brenna had resented the fact that every one of her sisters, including young Alice Mae, had more bosom than she did. “That being the case, you ought to have more respect for them than to go shoving them into a man’s face.”
“I was not. And I’m not a child who needs to be lectured by the likes of you, Mary Brenna O’Toole.” She stiffened her spine, rolled back her shoulders. “I’m a grown woman now. I’ve been to university. I have a career.”
“Oh, that’s fine, then. I suppose it’s past time you jump the first man who catches your fancy and take a wild ride.”
“He’s not the first who’s caught it.” With a slow smile that made Brenna’s eyes go cold and narrow, Mary Kate tossed her hair. “But caught it he has, and there’s no reason not to let him know it. It’s my business, Brenna. And not yours.”
“Oh, you’re my business, all right. Are you still a virgin?”
The utter shock in Mary Kate’s eyes was enough to reassure Brenna that her sister hadn’t been throwing herself naked around the corridors of the university in Dublin. But before she could so much as sigh, Mary Kate’s temper lashed out. “Who the hell are you thinking you are? My romantic dealings are my business. You’re not my mother or my priest, so mind your own.”
“You are my own.”
“Just stay out of it, Brenna. I’ve a right to talk to Shawn or go out with him or anything else I choose. And if you think you’ll go running to Ma with tales on my behavior, well, we’ll just see what she thinks about how I came on you and Darcy playing poker with your holy cards.”
“That was years ago.” But Brenna felt a little panic at the thought. Her mother wouldn’t consider the years between. “Harmless girls’ foolishness. What I came in on in the kitchen isn’t harmless, Mary Kate, but it is foolish. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
“I can take care of myself.” Mary Kate gave one last toss of her head. “If you want to be jealous because I know how to attract a man instead of going about trying to be one, that’s your problem. Not mine.”
The slice came so fast and true, Brenna stood frozen, hardly realizing that she bled until Mary Kate stormed out and slammed the door behind her. Tears stung at her eyes and made her want to slide into one of the old sugan chairs and just let them come.
She wasn’t trying to be a man, she was just trying to be herself.
And she’d only wanted to protect her sister. To stop her before she did something that would hurt or embarrass her. Or worse.
It was all Shawn’s fault, she decided. The little voice inside her head that whispered differently was ignored. It was Shawn’s fault for luring her young and innocent sister into infatuation, and she was just going to deal with that right this minute.
She strode out, shaking her head as Aidan shifted to lay a hand on her arm and ask her what was the matter. When she stalked into the kitchen now, her eyes were bright. But not with tears. It was something closer to murder.
“Now, why did you go dragging Mary Kate out like that for, Brenna? We were just—”
He broke off because she’d marched up to him, the toes of her boots ramming hard against the toes of his, and her finger was drilling a hole in his chest. “You just keep your hands off my sister.”