“Every one of them is coming to enjoy themselves.” Mollie got down a bottle. “And that’s what they’ll do. A ceili’s just hospitality, after all. The Irish know how to give it and how to take it.”
“What if there isn’t enough food?”
“Oh, that’s the least of your worries.”
“What if—”
“What if a frog jumps over the moon and lands on your shoulder.” With amused exasperation, Mollie lifted her hands. “You’ve made your home pretty and welcoming. Do the same with yourself, and the rest, as I told you, will take care of itself.”
It was good advice, Jude decided. Even if she didn’t believe a word of it. Since a bubble bath was a fail-safe method of relaxation, she took one in her beloved claw-foot tub, indulging herself until her skin was pink and glowing, her eyes drooping, and the water going cold.
Then she opened the cream she’d bought in Dublin and slathered herself in it. It never failed to make her feel female.
Totally relaxed, she toyed with the idea of a short pre-party nap. Then walked into the bedroom and shrieked.
“Finn! Oh, God!”
He was in the middle of her bed, waging a fierce and violent war with her pillows. Feathers flew everywhere. He turned to her, tail thumping triumphantly as he held the vanquished pillow in his teeth.
“That’s bad. Bad dog!” She waved feathers away and rushed to the bed. Sensing fun, he leaped down, tearing off with the pillow. Feathers leaked out and left a downy trail in his wake.
“No, no, no! Stop. Wait. Finn, you come back here this minute!”
She rushed after him, robe flapping as she tried to scoop up feathers. He made it all the way downstairs before she caught up, then she made the mistake of grabbing the pillow instead of the pup.
His eyes went bright with the notion of tug-of-war. Snarling playfully, teeth dug in, he shook his head and sent more feathers billowing.
“Let go! Damn it, look what you’re doing.” She made a grab, and between the wax and the feathers on the floor, went skidding. She managed one short scream as she sailed, belly-first, across the living room.
She heard the door open behind her, glanced over her shoulder, and thought, Perfect. Absolutely perfect.
“What are you up to there, Jude Frances?” Aidan leaned on the jamb while Shawn peeked in over his shoulder.
“Oh, nothing.” She blew hair and feathers out of her eyes. “Nothing at all.”
“Here I thought you’d be slaving away polishing the polish and scrubbing the scrubbing as you’ve been every day for a week, and I find you’re lazing about playing with the dog.”
“Ha ha.” She untangled herself into a sitting position, rubbing the elbow that had banged against the floor. Finn bounced over and generously spit the pillow at Aidan’s feet.
“Oh, that’s right. Give it to him.”
“Well, you’ve killed it, haven’t you, boy-o? Deader than Moses.” After giving Finn a congratulatory pat, Aidan crossed the room to offer Jude a hand. “Have you hurt yourself, darling?”
“No.” She sent him a sulky look. “It’s not a laughing matter.” She slapped his hand aside, spreading the glare out to Shawn as he began to chuckle. “There are feathers everywhere. It’ll take me days to find them all.”
“You could start with your hair.” Aidan reached down, gripped her by the waist, and hauled her up. “It’s covered with them.”
“Fine. Thanks for the help. Now I have work to do.”
“We’ve brought some kegs from the pub. We’ll set them around back for you.” He blew a feather off her cheek, then leaned in to sniff her neck. “You smell perfect,” he murmured as she shoved at him. “Go away, Shawn.”
“No, don’t you dare. I don’t have time for this.”
“And close the door behind you,” Aidan finished and pulled Jude closer.
“I’ll just take the dog, too, since he’s finished here. Come on, you terrible beast.” Shawn clucked to the dog and dutifully shut the door behind them.
“I have to clean up this mess,” Jude began.
“There’s time for that.” Slowly, Aidan walked her backward.
“I’m not dressed.”
“That’s something I noticed.” When he had her back to the wall, he ran his hands down her body, and up again. “Give us a kiss, Jude Frances. One that will hold me through the longest day.”
It seemed a perfectly reasonable request, at least when his eyes were holding hers so intimately, and his body was so hard and warm and close. To answer it she lifted her arms to wrap them around his neck. Then, on impulse, she moved quickly, yanking him around until it was his back to the wall and her body pressed firm to his, her mouth crushed hard and hot to his.
The sound he made was like a man drowning, and drowning willingly. His hands gripped her hips, fingers digging in to remind her of the night he’d lost all patience and control. The thrill of it whipped through her, potent and strong with a snap of the possessive.
He was hers, as long as it lasted. To touch, to take, to taste. It was her he wanted. Her he reached for. She was the one who made his heart thunder.
It was, she realized, the truest power in the world.
The door opened, slammed. Jude kept her mouth fused to his. She didn’t care if every man, woman, and child in the village trooped in.
“Jesus Mary and holy Joseph,” Brenna complained. “Can’t the pair of you think of something else to do? Every time a body turns around, you two are locked at the lip.”
“She’s just jealous,” Jude said, nuzzling at Aidan’s neck.
“I’ve better things to be jealous of than some softheaded woman kissing a Gallagher.”
“She must be mad at Shawn again.” Aidan buried his face in Jude’s hair. He wasn’t sure he was breathing. He knew he didn’t want to move for another ten years or so.
“Men are all boneheads, and your worthless brother’s bonier than most.”
“Oh, leave off complaining about Shawn,” Darcy ordered as she breezed in. “What happened in here? The place is full of feathers. Jude, let go of that man, you have to get dressed, don’t you? And so do I. Aidan, get out there and help Shawn with the kegs. You can’t be expecting him to deal with all that himself.”
Aidan merely turned his head to lay his cheek on Jude’s hair. The look on his face gave his sister such a jolt, she stared a full ten seconds, then began to shove Brenna toward the kitchen. “We’ll just put these dishes in the kitchen and fetch a broom.”
“Stop pushing. Bloody hell, I’ve had it to the ears with Gallaghers for the day.”
“Quiet, quiet. I have to think.” Flustered, Darcy dropped the dishes she carried onto the counter and paced. “He’s in love with her.”
“Who?”
“Aidan, with Jude.”
“Well for pity sake, Darcy, so you already thought. Isn’t that why we’re fussing here for a ceili?”
“But he’s really in love with her. Didn’t you see his face? I think I should sit down.” She did so abruptly, then blew out a breath. “I didn’t realize, not really. It was all more of a kind of game. But just now, when he was holding her. I never thought to see him look like that, Brenna. A man looks like that over a woman, she could hurt him, slice right into the heart.”
“Jude wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“She wouldn’t mean to.” Darcy’s stomach was fluttering with worry. Aidan was her rock, and she’d never thought to see him defenseless. “I’m sure she cares for him, too, and she’s all caught up in the romance of it.”
“Then what would the problem be? It’s just as we said.”
“No, it’s nothing of what we said.” Hadn’t she avoided the desperation of love long enough to recognize it when it bashed her own brother on top of the head? “Brenna, she’s got that fancy education with initials after her name, and a life in Chicago. Her family is there, and her work, and her fine home. Aidan’s life is here.” Genuine distress poured out of her heart and into her eyes. “Don’t you see? How can he go, and why would she stay? What was I thinking, putting them together like this?”
“You didn’t put them together. They were together.” Because what Darcy was saying was beginning to trouble her as well, Brenna got out the broom. She thought better when her hands were busy. “Whatever happens happens. We’ve done nothing more than push her into giving a party.”
“On the solstice,” Darcy reminded her. “Midsummer’s Eve. We’re tempting the fates, and if it blows wrong, we’re to blame.”
“If we’ve tempted the fates, then it’s up to the fates. There’s nothing else to be done,” Brenna announced and began to sweep.
Jude decided on the blue dress, another Dublin acquisition she’d never have bought if Darcy hadn’t badgered her. The minute she slipped it on, she blessed Darcy and her own lack of will.
It was a long sweep of a dress, very simple, without a frill or a flounce as it dropped square at the bodice from thin straps and fell with just the most subtle of flares to the ankles. The color, a silvery blue, echoed the hue of midsummer moonlight. She wore small pearl drops at her ears. More moon symbols, she thought.
She very much wanted to take the rest of Mollie’s advice and dance with Aidan under the glow of the full moon.
But on this, the longest day of the year, just as evening drifted in, the sky remained light and lovely. Color shimmered outside the cottage window, blues and greens achingly vivid. The air seemed painted with fragrance.
Nature had decided Midsummer’s Eve would be one of her triumphs.
All Jude could think as she watched and listened and absorbed was that there was music playing in her living room, bouncing in it. Soaring through it. There were people crowded together in her house, dancing and laughing.
Nature’s triumph, she thought, was nothing against her own.
Already more than half of her ham had been devoured.
No one seemed to show any ill effects because of it. She’d managed a bite or two herself, but for the most part was too excited to do more than nibble, or sip now and then from her glass of wine.
Couples were dancing in her hallway, in the kitchen, or out in the yard. Others juggled babies or just cozied in for a gossip. She’d tried to play hostess for the first hour, moving from group to group to make certain everyone had a glass or a plate. But no one seemed to need her to do anything in particular. They all helped themselves to the banquet of dishes jammed into the kitchen or set out on the board stretched across sawhorses that some clever soul had set up in the side yard.
There were children racing around or tucked onto laps. A baby might fuss for some milk or attention, and both were cheerfully provided. More than half the faces that passed through were strange to her.
She finally did what she realized she’d never tried at one of her own parties. She sat down and enjoyed it.
She was jammed up between Mollie and Kathy Duffy, half listening to the conversation and forgetting the slice of cake on a plate in her lap.
Shawn was playing a fiddle, bright, hot licks that made her wish desperately she knew how to dance. Darcy, radiant in the borrowed red dress, teased out notes on a flute while Aidan pumped music from a small accordion. Every now and again, they switched instruments, or brought out another. Pennywhistles, a bodham drum, a knee harp, slipping from hand to hand without a break in rhythm.
She liked it best when they added their voices, producing such intricate, intimate harmony it made her heart ache.
When Aidan sang of young Willie MacBride being forever nineteen, Jude thought of Maude’s lost Johnnie, and didn’t care that she shed tears in public.
They moved from the heartbreaking to the foot-stomping, never letting the pace flag. Each time Aidan would catch her eye or send her that slow smile, she was as starstruck as a teenager.
When Brenna settled down at Jude’s feet and rested her head against her mother’s leg, Jude passed her down the plate of cake.
“He’s a way with him when he’s into his music,” Brenna murmured. “Makes you forget—nearly—he’s a bonehead.”
“They’re wonderful. They should record. They should be doing this onstage, not in a living room.”
“Shawn plays for his own pleasure. If ambition came up and knocked him on the head with a hammer, it wouldn’t make a dent.”
“Not everyone wants to do everything at one time,” Mollie said mildly. But she stroked Brenna’s hair. “Like you and your father.”
“The more you do, the more gets done.”
“Ah, you’re Mick through and through. Why aren’t you dancing like your sisters instead of brooding? Lord, girl, you’re O’Toole to the bone.”
“Oh, I’ve some Logan in me.” Brightening, Brenna leaped up and grabbed her mother’s hand. “Come on, then, Ma, unless you’re feeling too old and feeble.”
“I can dance you breathless.”
A cheer went up as Mollie began a quick, complicated series of steps. Other dancers gave way with claps and whistles.
“Mollie was a champion step dancer in her day,” Kathy told Jude. “And she passed it along to her daughters. They’re a pretty lot, aren’t they?”
“Yes. Oh, just look at them!”
One by one, Mollie’s girls joined in until they were three by three facing each other. They were six small women, a mix of the fair-haired and the bright, with hands sassily on hips and legs flying. The faster the music, the faster their feet until Jude was out of breath just from watching.
It wasn’t just the skill and the dazzle, Jude thought, that caught at her throat with both envy and admiration. It was the connection. Female to female, sister to sister, mother to daughter. The music was just one more bond.
It wasn’t only legends and myths that made up the traditions of a culture. Aidan had been right, she realized. She couldn’t forget the music when she wrote of Ireland.
War drums and pub songs, ballads and great, whirling reels. She would have to research them as well, their sources, their irony, their humor and despair.
She hugged the new inspiration to her, and let the music sweep her away.
By the time they were done, the room was crammed with those who’d wandered in from other areas of the house or outside. And the last note, the last sharp stomp of feet were greeted by wild applause.
Brenna staggered over and dropped at Jude’s feet again. “Ma’s right, I can’t keep up with her. The woman’s a wonder.” Swiping an arm over her brow, she sighed. “Someone have mercy and get me a beer.”
“I’ll get it. You earned it.” Jude got to her feet and tried to squeeze her way through to the kitchen. She received several requests for a dance that she laughingly declined, compliments on her ham that gave her a dazzled glow and on her looks that made her think several of her guests had been enjoying the kegs quite a bit.
When she finally reached the kitchen, she was surprised that Aidan was behind her and already had her hand caught in his. “Come outside for a breath of air.”
“Oh, but I told Brenna I’d get her a beer.”
“Jack, take our Brenna a pint, will you?” he called it out as he pulled Jude through the back door.
“I love listening to you play, but you must be tired of it by now.”
“I never mind making a few hours of music. It’s the Gallagher way.” He continued to pull her along, past the pack of men huddled near the back door, toward the curving path of candles nestled in the grass and garden. “But it hasn’t given me time to be with you, or to tell you how lovely you’re looking tonight. You left your hair down,” he said, tangling his fingers in the tips of it.
“It seemed to go better with the dress.” She shook it back and lifted her face to the sky. It was a deep, deep blue now, the color of a night that would never fully become night because of the white ball of moon.
A magic night of shadows and light when the faeries came out to dance.
“I can’t believe what a state I got myself into over this. Everyone was right. They said it would just happen, and it did. I guess the best things do.”
She turned when they reached the spot where she’d imagined putting an arbor. Behind them the house—her house, she thought with warm pride—was lit up bright as Christmas. The music continued to pour out, tangled with voices and laughter.
“This is how it should be,” she murmured. “A house should have music.”
“I’ll give you music in it whenever you like.” When she smiled and slipped into his arms, he guided her into a dance, just as she’d dreamed he would.
It was perfect, she thought. Magic and music and moonlight. One long night where the darkness was only a brief flicker.
“If you came to America and played one song, you’d have a recording contract before you’d finished it.”
“That’s not for me. I’m for here.”
“Yes, you are.” She leaned back to smile at him. Indeed, she couldn’t imagine him anywhere else. “You’re for here.”
And it was the magic and the music and the moonlight that pushed him before he had the words ready. “And so are you. There’s no reason for you to go back.” He eased her away. “You’re happy here.”
“I’ve been very happy here. But—”
“That’s enough right there to keep you. What’s wrong with just being happy?”
His abrupt tone had her smile turning puzzled. “Nothing, of course, but I need to work. I have to support myself.”
“You can find work to content you here.”
She had, she thought. She’d found her life’s work in writing. But old habits die hard. “There doesn’t seem to be much call for psychology professors in Ardmore at the moment.”
“You didn’t like doing that.”
He was starting to make her nervous. A chill slid up her arms and made her wish for a jacket. “It’s what I do. What I know how to do.”
“So you’ll figure out how to do something else. I want you here with me, Jude.” Even as her heart gave one wild leap at the words, he continued on. “I need a wife.”
She wasn’t sure if the thud was her heart dropping again, or just simple shock. “Excuse me?”
“I need a wife,” he repeated. “I think you should marry me, then we’ll figure out the rest of the business later.”
SEVENTEEN
“YOU NEED A wife,” she repeated, keeping her voice calm, spacing the words evenly.
“I do, yes.” It wasn’t precisely how he’d meant to put it, but it was too late now. “We need each other. We mesh well, Jude. There’s no point in you going back to a life that didn’t satisfy you, when you can have one here that does.”
“I see.” No, she didn’t see, she thought. It was like trying to look through dark, murky water. But she was trying to see. “So, you think I should stay here and marry you because you need a wife and I need . . . a life?”
“Yes. No.” There was something wrong with how she’d phrased that. Something not quite right about the tone of it. But he was too flustered to figure it out. “I’m saying I could support you well enough until you find the kind of work you enjoy doing, or if you’d just rather work at making a home instead, that’s fine as well. The pub does well enough. I’m not a pauper, and though it may not be the style of living you’re accustomed to, we’d manage it all right.”
“We’d manage it. While you . . . support me in the style I’m not quite accustomed to. Support me, until I bumble around and find what I might be good at doing?”
“Look.” Why couldn’t he get the words to line up the right way? “You have a life here, is what I’m saying. You have one with me.”
“Do I?” She turned away as she struggled to hold back something dark and bubbling that wanted to spew out of her. She didn’t recognize it, wasn’t sure she wanted to, but she sensed it was dangerous. The Irish, she mused, were supposed to be poets, to have the most charming of words flow right off the tongue.
And here, for the second time in her life, she was being told she should marry a man because it would be good for her.
William had needed a wife, too, she remembered. To help cement his position, to entertain, to look presentable. And of course, she’d needed a man to tell her what to do and when and how to do it. A wife for one, a life for the other. What could be more logical?
The first time she’d been told that, she’d obeyed. Quietly, almost meekly. It infuriated and it shamed to remember that. It infuriated and it shamed to realize how much a part of her wanted to do the same with Aidan.