The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

sudden.”
    “I’ve my limits, and you should know them well enough by this time. So . . . how much is Magee willing to pay me for the tune?”
    “I didn’t ask,” she said stiffly.
    “Ah, so you can keep your fingers out of some pies. It’s good to know.”
    “You’re a hateful man. I told you it wasn’t about the money.” She pushed at him, and rather than humiliate herself with the bloody gate again, stomped down the path. “I don’t know how I could have been blind to that part of your nature all these years. How I could have thought myself in love with you, I’ll never know. The very idea of spending my life with the likes of you gives me a cold chill.”
    He couldn’t stop the grin. It was so lovely to have all the parts of his life nicely in order again. “We’ll get to that in just a minute. It matters that it wasn’t about money, Brenna, matters that you weren’t thinking, ‘Well, if I’m going to be with this man he’d damn well better prove he’s man enough to make a living off his talents. And since he won’t, I will.’ ”
    “I don’t give a tinker’s damn how you make your living.”
    “That’s what I’m seeing now. It was more of, ‘I want to be with this man, and feeling as I do about him, I want to help him with that which matters to him.’ It’s a lovely thought, but that doesn’t change the fact you should’ve left it to me.”
    “You can be sure I’ll be leaving such matters, and everything else, to you in the future.”
    “If that vow lasts a week, I’ll expect to see pigs flying over Ardmore Bay. And in case you’re wondering in that calculating brain of yours, I’ll be contacting Magee myself, and I’ll send him music if what he says convinces me—which is what I intended to do once he came here and I got his measure.”
    She stopped at that, eyed him suspiciously. “You were going to show him your work?”
    “I was, most likely. I’ll admit that dozens of times in the past I’ve come close to sending it off and then pulled back. When something comes out of you, it’s precious. There was a fear of others finding it wanting. It was safer not to risk it. I was afraid of losing something that mattered to me. Does that make me less in your eyes, Brenna?”
    “It doesn’t, no. Of course it doesn’t. But if you don’t ask,” she said, remembering her father’s words, “the answer’s always no.”
    “I’m not arguing your point, just your methods. Now tell me this, if Magee had said to you, ‘Why, what are you sending me this silly amateur music for? Whoever wrote it has no talent whatsoever,’ would you have thought less of me?”
    “Of course not, you pinhead. I’d’ve known that Magee had no taste other than what he may have in his own mouth.”
    “Ah, well, now, that’s tidied up a considerable mess. Can we go back to the part where you’re in love with me?”
    “No, because I’m not anymore. I’ve come to my senses.”
    “That’s a damn shame, that is. You’ll have to wait here a minute. There’s something I need from inside.”
    “I’ll not stand out here. I’m going home.”
    “I’ll only come after you, Brenna,” he called over his shoulder as he walked to the door. “And what I have in mind is best done here, and in private.”
    She considered climbing over the gate just to spite him, but the whole emotional mess had made her tired. It might as well get finished now as later.
    So she waited, arms crossed. When he came out, he carried nothing, which only made her scowl.
    “The moon’s full,” he commented as he went to her. “Maybe there’s others have more to do with the timing of all this than we know. But it was meant to be in moonlight, and it was meant to be here.”
    He slipped a hand into his pocket, kept it there. “I had a plan at one time, how I’d let you chase me down, wear at my resistance and convince me there was nothing for me to do but give up and marry you.”
    Her eyes went blurry with shock. “I beg your pardon?”
    “Do you really think you were tugging me around like a puppy on a leash? Is that the kind of man you want when the day is done, O’Toole? The kind you want walking beside you through life, fathering your children?”
    “Is this a game you’ve been playing?”
    “Partly, and as much as you were. Game’s over now, and I find I want this done more in what might be the traditional manner. Brenna.” He took her hand, not at all displeased that it was trembling. “I love