The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

you.”
    The minute she hung up the phone she let out a shout of triumph, then raced through the house to the front door. “Ma, I’ve got to go! I’ll be back when I can.”
    “Go?” Mollie dashed out of the back bedroom to the top of the stairs in time to see her daughter’s lorry bullet into the road. “That girl. If it’s not the first thing it’s the second. Go where, I’d like to know, and is my roof finished or isn’t it? I’ll give her both sides of my tongue if I have to listen to water plopping into buckets one more night.”
    Before she could go back to work, she saw Shawn’s car pull in. “All this coming and going around here,” she muttered and started down the steps. “It’s making my head spin.”
    She pushed open the door and waited while Shawn made his way to her. “Good morning to you, Shawn. I’m afraid you’ve just missed Brenna. She went tearing out of here not a minute ago like her trousers were afire.”
    “Ah, well.” He cleared his throat. “I wasn’t actually coming by to see Brenna.”
    “Weren’t you now?” She gave him a considering look, but knew better than to wait for him to explain himself. That, she knew from experience, could take half the day, and she’d as soon be sitting down for part of it. “Well, then, I’m all that’s left. Come inside, why don’t you, and we’ll have a cup.”
    “I’d be grateful.” He ducked inside behind her and trailed her into the kitchen. “I don’t want to take much of your time.”
    “Lad, you’ve been in and out of this house since you could toddle. No one’s ever booted you out the door before, and I’m not after starting now.” She waved a hand toward the table and went about the business of making tea. “Brenna’s a heart and mind of her own. As I’m sure you know.”
    “That I do. I thought I should come ’round to see if . . . to make certain you . . .”
    She had to take pity on him. “Are you afraid I don’t love you anymore, my handsome lad?” The worry in his eyes faded away as she reached over and scrubbed a hand over his hair, as she’d done as long as he could remember. “There’s no danger of that changing. Now if you’d taken up with my Katie, I’d have boxed your ears to the back of your head.”
    “I never meant to give Mary Kate any . . .”
    “ ‘ncouragement’ might be the word you’re after. Your tongue’s tied today, boy, and that’s not the usual case, for you’ve a slick one. Here now, I’ve a cinnamon bun left from breakfast. I’ll warm it for you and you’ll tell me what’s the matter.”
    “You make me miss my mother, Mrs. O’Toole.”
    “I’ll stand in her stead, as she would in mine.” She bustled around the kitchen, knowing it would put him at ease. “Is Brenna giving you headaches, then?”
    “I’m used to that—I don’t mind it so much. I think I give them back to her in fair measure. I, ah, I’m thinking Mr. O’Toole told you of our discussion a couple weeks back.”
    She sent him a look designed to wither a man. “If you’re meaning on the day he came home drunk, that he didn’t. I gathered well enough he’d got the whiskey from you, as he hasn’t a world of choices where he could walk off, drink his belly full, and walk back again in so short a time.”
    “He didn’t speak to you of it.”
    “Closed up like a clam.”
    “Well, you see, he was angry, and rightfully so, until I told him how things were.”
    “And how are things, Shawn?” Mollie set down the pot, waited.
    “I’m in love with Brenna, Mrs. O’Toole, and I want to marry her.”
    She stood still a moment, then laid her cheek on top of his head. “Of course you are, and of course you do. Don’t mind me. I’ve got to sniffle a bit.”
    “I’ll be good to her.”
    “Oh, there’s no doubt in my mind of that.” Dabbing at her eyes, she turned to get out the warmed bun. “You’ll be good for her, too, and she for you.”
    “The other part of it is, I’ve been working her around, so to speak, so she’d come to the idea herself. You know how she is when she’s got her teeth into a notion.”
    “Clamps down until she gets what she’s after or it isn’t worth having anymore. I always said you were a bright lad, Shawn.”
    “Thousands wouldn’t,” he said easily. “I thought I could wait, you see. I’m not one who needs to hurry as a rule. But it seems I can’t wait for this. I bought land today.”
    She wasn’t half as surprised as he thought she was,