The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

“It’s my fault. I distracted you. The least I can do is nurse it a little.”
    “It’s just a bump.” But Brenna let herself be towed down the stairs and back to the kitchen.
    “Sit down. I’ll get some ice.”
    “Well, it won’t hurt to sit a minute.” She’d always been easy in the Gallagher kitchen. Little had changed in it since she’d been a girl, though Jude was adding her mark here and there.
    The walls were cream-colored, and looked almost delicate against the dark wood that trimmed them. The windowsills were thick and wide, and Jude had set little pots of herbs along them to catch the sun. The old cabinet with its glass front and many drawers that ran along the side wall had always been white and comfortably shabby. Now Jude had painted it a pale, pale green so it looked fresh and pretty and somehow female.
    The good dishes were displayed behind the glass— dishes the Gallaghers had used for holidays and special occasions. They were white with little violets edging the plates and cups.
    The small hearth was of cobbled stone, and the carved fairy that Brenna had given Jude for her thirtieth birthday guarded the fire that simmered there.
    It had always been a home, Brenna thought, and a fine, warm one. Now it was Jude’s.
    “This room suits you,” Brenna said as Jude carefully wrapped an ice-filled cloth around Brenna’s injured thumb.
    “It does, yes.” Jude beamed, not noticing that she was already picking up the rhythm of Irish speech. “I only wish I could cook.”
    “You do fine.”
    “It’s never going to be one of my strengths. Thank God for Shawn.” She walked to the refrigerator, hoping to keep it casual. “He sent some soup home with Aidan last night. Potato and lovage. Since you didn’t go to the pub for lunch with your father, I’ll heat some up for both of us.”
    She started to refuse, but her stomach was threatening to rumble, so she gave in. “Thanks for that.”
    “I made the bread.” Jude poured soup into a pan and set it on to warm. “So I won’t guarantee it.”
    Brenna eyed the loaf with approval when Jude took it out of the bread drawer. “Brown soda bread, is it? I favor that. It looks lovely.”
    “I think I’m getting the hang of it.”
    “Why do you bother, when you’ve only to have Shawn send some over for you?”
    “I like it. The process of it. Mixing and kneading and rising.” Jude set the slices she’d cut on a plate. “It’s good thinking time, too.”
    “My mother always says so. But for me, I’d rather take a nice lie-me-down to do my thinking. You go to all that trouble to cook something, and . . .” Brenna snatched a slice from the plate, bit in. “Gone,” she said with a grin.
    “Watching it go is one of the cook’s pleasures.” Jude went to the stove, gave her heating soup a stir. “You’ve had a fight with Shawn, and not one of your usual squabbles.”
    “I don’t know that it was really a fight, but I can’t say it was usual. It’ll pass, Jude. Don’t worry yourself over it.”
    “I love you. Both of you.”
    “I know you do. It’s a bit of nothing, I promise.”
    Saying no more, Jude got out bowls and spoons. How much, she wondered, did one friend interfere in the business of another? Where was the line? Then sighing, she decided there simply wasn’t one. “You have feelings for him.”
    Brenna’s nerves jittered at the quiet tone. “Well, sure, and I have feelings for the man. We’ve been in and out of each other’s pockets all our lives. Which is only one of the many reasons he irritates me so I want to bash him with a hammer more often than not.”
    She smiled when she said it, but Jude’s face remained sober. “You have feelings for him,” Jude repeated, “that have nothing to do with childhood or friendship and everything to do with being a woman attracted to a man.”
    “I . . .” Brenna felt the color rush hot to her cheeks— the curse of a redhead. “Well, that’s not . . .” Lies trembled on her tongue and simply refused to fall. “Oh, hell.” She rubbed her uninjured hand over her face, then stopped abruptly, fingers spread around eyes that went suddenly wide and appalled. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it shows?”
    Before Jude could answer, Brenna was up, pacing, knocking the heels of her hands against the sides of her head, moaning out curses. “I’ll have to move away, leave my family. I can go to the west counties. I have some people, on my mother’s side, in Galway. No, no,