The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

enough to stir her temper again. “Do you think that makes up for it?”
    “I’m thinking it’s all I can say.”
    “Are you giving him up?”
    “I thought I would,” Brenna said slowly. “That was part pride. ‘I’ll give him up for her,’ I thought. ‘Then she’ll see how I’d sacrifice to keep her happy.’ The other part was guilt that I’d done something to hurt you, and ending things with Shawn would be my penance for it.”
    “I’d think you’d have more guilt than pride in the way you’ve behaved.”
    Temper flashed once, a bright warning in her eyes. Then Brenna snuffed it. She knew her sister, and she knew just how clever Mary Kate could be in inciting anger to overpower her opponent’s reason.
    “I’ve no guilt over what’s been between myself and Shawn, but only that what is between us has hurt and embarrassed you.” The cool delivery only added impact to the words. “And for that I was prepared to turn from him, as a lover, and perhaps as a friend as well. Then, reconsidering, it seemed to me that doing that would be something akin to giving in to a child’s tantrum, and that’s hardly treating you or your feelings with respect.”
    “You’re just twisting it all around so you can have what you want.”
    Suddenly the four years separating them seemed like forty. And made Brenna unbearably tired. There were tears in Mary Kate’s voice, hot and spiteful ones that reminded Brenna of times they’d squabbled over a new toy or the last biscuit in the tin.
    “Do I want Shawn? I do. I haven’t figured it all out as yet, but the wanting’s there, and I can’t deny it. I’m facing you here, woman to woman, and telling you he wants me as well. I’m sorry, Mary Kate, for the unhappiness it causes you, but he isn’t looking at you that way.”
    Mary Kate’s chin came up, and Brenna thought her own would have done the same under the circumstances. “He might if you weren’t warming his bed.”
    That caused a hitch in her stomach, but she nodded. “The fact is, I am in his bed. And I won’t be rolling out of it to make room for you. Yesterday I might have, because I couldn’t stand seeing you so hurt and knowing I was part of the cause. But I’m looking at you here, Mary Kate, in clear light with a clear head. And you’re not hurting now. You’re just mad.”
    “How do you know what I feel for him?”
    “I don’t. Tell me.”
    She threw up her head so her hair flew in the frisky wind. “I love him.” It was a passionate and almost sweetly dramatic declaration. Brenna gave her full marks for it, knowing she herself could never have pulled it off so impressively.
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s handsome and sensitive and kind.”
    “Aye, he’s all of those things—as is the Clooney dog. What of his flaws?”
    “He doesn’t have any.”
    “Of course he does.” The fact of them smoothed out Brenna’s nerves and made her feel oddly sentimental. “He’s stubborn and slow to move and absentminded. There are times you’ll be talking to him and you might as well be talking to yourself, as his brain’s gone off somewhere else. He lacks ambition and needs to be prodded along every other step or he’d stay happy in the same place forever.”
    “That’s how you see him.”
    “I see him as he is, not as a pretty picture out of a book. Mary Kate.” She stepped forward, knowing it was too soon to reach out. “Let’s be honest here, we two. There’s something in the way he looks, in the air of him that makes a woman want. I understand how he makes you feel in that area. And I’ve wanted him myself since I was no older than Alice Mae.”
    Something flickered in Mary Kate’s eyes. “I don’t believe you. You don’t wait for anything.”
    “I thought I’d get over it. Then I thought I’d make a fool of myself.” Brenna pushed at her hair, wished she’d thought to tie it back before coming up the cliff. “In the end it was more than a wanting. It was a needing.”
    “You don’t love him.”
    “I think I might.” The minute the words were out, Brenna pressed a hand to her heart, as if someone had just delivered a blow to it. “I think I might,” she said again, then just slid down to her knees. “Oh, sweet God Almighty, what am I to do?”
    Mary Kate could only gape. Her sister had gone dead white and was rocking on her knees and clutching her chest as if she was having a seizure. “Stop that. You’re playacting.”
    “I’m not. I can’t. I can’t