The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

“Just how many of these bottles did the man drink down before I got here, Finn, my lad?”
    “I haven’t been drinking. I want you to understand my feelings and thoughts before things change on us again. And they will change if we make this deal.”
    “They’ll change, but we’ll be the ones guiding the direction of it.”
    “It’ll take more of your time.”
    He’d thought of that, and what use he would make of the time it took. “I’ve time to spare.”
    “And Darcy’s—she won’t be pleased with that.”
    “No.” Shawn let out a breath. “But she’ll be pleased enough with the baubles and trinkets she can buy with the profits. And she’ll stand for Gallagher’s, Aidan.” Shawn met his brother’s eyes. “You can give her credit for that.”
    “At least till she bags that rich husband.”
    “After she does, and she deigns to visit with those of us who remain peasants, you could still ask her to put on an apron and pick up a tray.”
    “And have her bash me head in with it.” But Aidan nodded, understanding. “Aye, she’d lend her hand if the need was there, I know it.”
    “Don’t take this weight all on yourself—the deal and the worry and the work of it,” Shawn told him. “There’s three of us—well, four now that we’ve our Jude Frances. Gallagher’s is family. We’ll do well with this business, Aidan. I’ve a good feeling about it.”
    “It’s good you came by. I’m clearer in my head than I was.”
    “Well, then, that should be worth one more beer before I—” Shawn broke off as he heard voices, light and female. “Oh, blessed Mary, there’s the women. I’m off. I’ll use the back door.”
    “Next time, I’ll get you drunk and pry out what’s got you so spooked over women.”
    “If I don’t figure out what to do about it in the next little while, I’ll tell you.” With this, Shawn escaped out the back door.

 
EIGHT
     
     
     
    T HE TUNE WALTZING its way through Shawn’s head put him in the best of moods. While the smoke from his pots and pans drifted up, and the oil he was heating began to sizzle, he let it play through, bar to bar, then a key change for a bit of drama. The words weren’t clear to him yet, but they would come. It seemed to him a summer song, full of light. And the thinking of it, the listening to it inside his head, chased the winter gloom away.
    The shared beer and conversation in Aidan’s kitchen the day before had settled him down. Which was just where Shawn preferred to be.
    At the moment he couldn’t understand why he’d gotten so nervy about matters. Little Mary Kate was just going through one of those phases girls went through, and it would pass as quickly as it had reared up. He’d gone through phases himself, hadn’t he? He could remember clearly mooning and sighing over pretty Colleen Brennan when he’d been about eighteen. Fortunately, he’d never worked up the courage to do anything but moon and sigh, as pretty Colleen Brennan had been two and twenty at the time and engaged to marry Tim Riley.
    He’d gotten over it in a matter of weeks, then had sighed over another pretty face. That was the way of things, after all. Eventually, of course, he’d done more than sigh and had discovered the rare wonder of having a woman naked under him. And that was a fine thing.
    Still, he took care whom he touched and how he touched, so that when the time was over each could walk away happy with the experience. He wasn’t a man to take the act of love as a casual matter. Which he supposed, was why he hadn’t participated in that rare wonder for some months now.
    And that, he imagined, was most likely why the O’Toole had set his glands to stirring.
    Not that he was at all certain, as yet, if he intended to do anything about it. No, Brenna was a puzzle, and one he thought it might be best to leave unsolved. A little time, he decided, a little care, and the two of them would be back on their old familiar ground, if they could just let things be.
    His mind would be quiet again, and life would slide along the way it was meant to.
    All he had to do was forget how stimulating it was to have his mouth on hers.
    He checked on the crubeens he was boiling with cabbage and jacketed potatoes. He added a bit more marjoram to the broth to flavor it up, a trick he’d learned by experimentation.
    He particularly liked to present the dish when there were Yanks in the pub. Their varying reactions to being served pigs’ trotters was always an