The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

for that. Is this what you planned all along, to send it off somewhere, have another put a price on it?”
    Something was wrong, badly and dangerously wrong. The only way she knew how to deal with it was temper. “What if it was? It got results, didn’t it? What good is it to make songs without doing something with them? Now you can.”
    He met heat with ice. “And it’s for you to decide, is it, what I can and should do, and how and when I should do it?”
    “You weren’t doing anything about it.”
    “How do you know what I’m doing or not, planning on doing or not?”
    “Haven’t I heard you say a thousand times you weren’t ready to show it for sale?”
    The minute the words were out of her mouth, she recognized her mistake. Even as she searched for a way around it, he was plowing on. “That’s right, you have. But that didn’t suit you, didn’t sit well with the way you want things done. What good is it, you’re thinking, if you can’t make a living from it. If you don’t have coin to show for it at end of day.”
    “It’s not the coin—”
    “My music is the most personal thing in my life,” he interrupted. “Whether I ever make a pound from it doesn’t change what it is to me. You don’t understand that, Brenna, or respect that. Or me.”
    “That’s not true.” She was beginning to feel something other than anger. It was a clawing in the gut, in the throat, that had nothing to do with temper. “I only wanted you to have something out of it.”
    “I had something out of it.”
    She’d never seen anger so cold, so controlled. There was no mistaking it in that rigid face, those hard eyes. It made her feel like a bug not worthy of being squashed. “For Christ’s sake, Shawn, you should be dancing instead of hammering at me. The man wants to buy your song. He thinks it should be recorded.”
    “What he thinks matters more than what I do?”
    “Oh, you’re twisting this all around. You have an opportunity, and you’re too stubborn to take it.”
    “Is that how it is between us? You make the decisions, you do the thinking, and I’m just to follow, to fall in line and be grateful you’re looking out for me as I’m too half-witted to look after myself?”
    “Why are you turning this one thing into everything?” Her hand shook as she dragged it through her hair. “Didn’t you arrange for the man to look at my design?” It struck her suddenly that she’d forgotten about that, about everything Magee had said to her about her own work. She’d forgotten all that in the thrill of his offering for Shawn’s.
    “I did,” Shawn countered. “And you can’t see any difference in that, Brenna, than this? I talked to you of showing your design, I didn’t go behind your back with it, or pull tricks.”
    “It wasn’t a trick, wasn’t meant as one.” But she was beginning to see the wrong turn, and the sinking sensation in her stomach layered sickness over understanding. “You never said you didn’t want to do something with your music. It was always you weren’t ready.”
    “Because I wasn’t ready.”
    “Well, if we’re stuck on that one point, I say you were.” Fear made her lash out. “And so does a man who appears to be something of the expert on such things. Damn you, you gave the song to me, and I did what I chose with it. I thought you’d be pleased, but it’s not a mistake I’ll make again.”
    He stared her down, viciously pleased when she began to tremble. “And neither will I.” Without another word, he turned and walked out of the house.
    “You son of a bitch.” She kicked the door behind him. “You shortsighted, ungrateful, simple bastard. This is the thanks I get for trying to do something for you. If you think I’m running after you, you’ll have a long wait.”
    She snatched up her glass, downed the contents. Bubbles exploded in her throat, set her eyes to watering.
    To think of all the time and trouble she’d gone to, only to have him act as if she were some sort of shrew or bully. Well, she wasn’t crying over it, or him for that matter.
    She braced her hands on the counter, leaning forward and breathing slow to try to relieve the horrible pressure in her chest.
    Oh, God, what had she done? She just couldn’t get her mind around where she’d gone so completely wrong. The method, yes, there she had surely mis-stepped. But the results . . . How could something she’d thought would be a joy to him whip out of her hands to lash at them