The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

gun, then pulled nail and hammer from the tool belt slung around her waist. She wouldn’t brood, that she’d promised herself. And by going about her daily business, she’d be over whatever these feelings were for Shawn soon enough.
    There were plenty of things she wanted she couldn’t have. A kind and generous heart like Alice Mae, a tidy nature like Maureen, the patience of their mother. Another bloody few inches in height, she added as she dragged the stepladder over so she could secure the top of the trim.
    She lived without all that, didn’t she, and managed very well. She could live without Shawn Gallagher. She could live without men altogether if it came to that.
    And one day she’d build her own home with her own hands, and would live her own life her own way. She’d have a herd of nieces and nephews to spoil and no one cluttering up the place with demands and complaints.
    A body couldn’t ask for more than that, could she?
    She wouldn’t be lonely. Brenna fit the next piece of trim in place, precisely matching the edges. Why, she didn’t think she’d been lonely a single day of her life, so why should she start now? She had her work and her friends and her family.
    Damn it, she missed the bastard something fierce.
    There’d been hardly a day in her twenty-four years when she hadn’t seen him. In the pub, around the village, in his house or her own. She missed the conversations, the sniping, the look and the sound of him. Somehow she had to quash this wanting of him so they could go back to being friends.
    It was her own fault, her own weakness. She could fix it. With a sigh, she rested her cheek on the smooth trim. She was good at fixing things.
    The minute she heard footsteps in the hall, she jerked herself back and began to hammer busily again.
    “Oh, Brenna!” Jude stepped into the doorway and glowed. “I can’t believe how much you’ve gotten done in just a few days. It’s wonderful!”
    “Will be,” Brenna agreed. She climbed down from the ladder to get the next piece of trim. “Dad’s just gone off to have some lunch, but we’ll have the shelves done today. I think it’s coming along fine.”
    “So’s the baby. I felt him move last night.”
    “Oh, well, now.” Brenna turned away from her work. “That’s lovely, isn’t it?”
    Jude’s eyes misted over. “I can’t describe it. I never thought I’d have all these feelings, or be so happy, have someone like Aidan love me.”
    “Why shouldn’t you have all that and more?”
    “I never felt good enough, or smart enough, or clever enough.” Resting a hand on her belly, she wandered over to run a finger down the new trim. “Looking back now, I can’t see why I felt so, well, inadequate. No one made me feel that way but myself. But you know, I think I was meant to be that way, feel that way, so that step by step my life would lead me right here.”
    “Now that’s a fine and Irish way to look at things.”
    “Destiny,” Jude said with a half laugh. “You know, sometimes I wake up at night, in the dark, in the quiet with Aidan sleeping beside me, and I think, here I am. Jude Frances Murray. Jude Frances Gallagher,” she corrected with a smile that brought out the dimples in her cheeks. “Living in Ireland by the sea, a married woman with a life growing inside me. A writer, with a book about to be published and another being written. And I barely recognize the woman I was in Chicago. I’m so glad she’s not me anymore.”
    “She’s still part of you, or you wouldn’t appreciate who you are now, and what you have.”
    Jude lifted her brows. “You’re absolutely right. Maybe you should have been the psychologist.”
    “No, thanks all the same. I’d much sooner hammer at wood than at someone’s head.” Brenna set her teeth and whacked a nail. “With a few minor exceptions.”
    Ah, Jude thought, just the opening she’d been hoping for. “And would my brother-in-law be at the top of that list of exceptions?”
    At the question Brenna’s hand jerked, missing the mark and bashing her thumb with the hammer. “Bloody, buggering hell!”
    “Oh, let me see. Is it bad?”
    Brenna hissed air through her teeth as pain radiated and Jude fluttered around her. “No, it’s nothing. Clumsy, flaming idiot. My own fault.”
    “You come down to the kitchen, put some ice on it.”
    “It’s not much of a thing,” Brenna insisted, shaking her hand.
    “Down.” Jude took her arm and pulled her toward the door.