The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

she can do what you tell her she shouldn’t. Aidan won’t let her overdo, I promise you. The man adores her.”
    “Yes, I’ve noticed. The Gallagher men seem to be devoted to their women.”
    “So they’d better be, or their women will know why.” Relaxed, she kicked back, pulled off her cap. Those red curls tumbled down. “So you aren’t finding it, I guess we’d say ‘too rustic’ for you—out in the countryside here after being used to New York City?”
    He thought of the job sites he’d experienced: mud slides, floods, blistering heat, petty vandalism, and sabotage. “Not at all. The village is exactly what I expected after Finkle’s reports.”
    “Ah, yes, Finkle.” She remembered Trevor’s scout very well. “Now there’s a man I believe prefers urban conveniences. But you’re not so . . . particular, then.”
    “I’m very particular, depending. That’s why I incorporated most of your design into the theater project.”
    “Now that’s a fine and sneaky compliment.” And nothing could have pleased her more. “I suppose I was angling more toward the personal. I have a special fondness for the cottage on Faerie Hill, and I wasn’t sure you’d find the place to your liking. Thinking, I suppose, a man with your background and wherewithal would be more inclined to settle at the cliff hotel with maid service and the restaurant and so forth.”
    “Hotel rooms become confining. And I find it interesting to stay in the house where the woman who was engaged to one of my ancestors was born, and lived, and died.”
    “She was a fine woman, Old Maude. A wise woman.” Brenna kept her eyes on Trevor’s face as she spoke. “Her grave’s up near the well of Saint Declan, and it’s there you can feel her. She’s not the one in the cottage now.”
    “Who is?”
    Brenna lifted her eyebrows. “You don’t know the legend, then? Your grandfather was born here, and your father as well, though he was a babe when they sailed to America. Still, he visited many years back. Did neither of them tell you the story of Lady Gwen and Prince Carrick?”
    “No. So it would be Lady Gwen who haunts the cottage?”
    “Have you seen her?”
    “No.” Trevor hadn’t been raised on legends and myths, but there was more than enough Irish in his blood to cause him to wonder about them. “But there’s a feminine feel to the place, almost a fragrance, so odds are for the lady.”
    “You’d be right about that.”
    “Who was she? I figure if I’m sharing quarters with a ghost, I should know something about her.”
    No careless dismissal of the subject, no amused indulgence of the Irish and their legends, Brenna noted. Just cool interest. “You surprise me again. Let me see to something first. I’ll be right back.”
    Fascinating, Trevor mused. He had himself a ghost.
    He’d felt things before. In old buildings, empty lots, deserted fields. It wasn’t the kind of thing a man generally talked about at a board meeting or over a cold one with the crew after a sweaty day’s work. Not usually. But this was a different place, with a different tone. More, he wanted to know.
    Everything to do with Ardmore and the area was of interest to him now. A good ghost story could draw people in just as successfully as a well-run pub. It was all atmosphere.
    Gallagher’s was exactly the kind of atmosphere he’d been looking for as a segue into his theater. The old wood, blackened by time and smoke and grease, mated comfortably with the cream-colored walls, the stone hearth, the low tables and benches.
    The bar itself was a beauty, an aged chestnut that he’d already noted the Gallaghers kept wiped and polished. The age of customers ranged from a baby in arms to the oldest man Trevor believed he’d ever seen, who was balanced on a stool at the far end of the bar.
    There were several others he took as locals just from the way they sat or smoked or sipped, and three times that many who could be nothing other than tourists with their camera bags under their tables and their maps and guidebooks out.
    The conversations were a mix of accents, but predominant was that lovely lilt he’d heard in his grandparents’ voices until the day they died.
    He wondered if they hadn’t missed hearing it themselves, and why they’d never had a driving urge to come to Ireland again. What were the bitter memories that had kept them away? Whatever, curiosity about them had skipped over a generation and now had caused him to come back and