The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

available on a legend local to Ardmore. References: Carrick, prince of faeries, Gwen Fitzgerald, Faerie Hill Cottage, Old Parish, Waterford. Sixteenth century.
     
    Trevor Magee
     
     
    Once he’d transmitted, he checked his watch. Though it was just past eight, it was too early to tap his other source. He’d wait an hour before he paid a visit to Jude Gallagher.
    With the business completed, the sudden and desperate urge for coffee broke through. It was strong enough to have him abandoning everything else. The one thing he missed was his automatic coffeemaker and its timer. It was something he intended to purchase at the first opportunity.
    There was, in Trevor’s mind, little more civilized in this world than waking up to the scent of coffee just brewed.
    As he came to the base of the steps, a knock sounded on the door. With his mind already in the kitchen, his system already focused on that first jolting sip, he opened the door.
    And concluded there was perhaps one thing more civilized than waking up to coffee. She was standing on his little stoop.
    A smart man, a wise man, would forgo a lifetime of coffee for a beautiful blue-eyed woman wearing a snug scoop-necked sweater and a come-get-me smile. And he was a very smart man.
    “Good morning. Do you wake up looking like that?”
    “You’ll have to do more than offer me breakfast before you get the chance to find out for yourself.”
    “Breakfast?”
    “I believe that was the nature of the invitation.”
    “Right.” His mind wasn’t clicking rapidly along without its daily dose of caffeine. “You surprise me, Darcy.”
    She’d intended to. “Are you feeding me or aren’t you?”
    “Come in.” He opened the door wider. “We’ll see what we can do.” She stepped inside with a light brush of her body against his. She smelled like candy-coated sin.
    She wandered by to glance in the front parlor. It was very much as Maude had left it, with its pretty fancies set out here and there, the shelf thick with books, and the soft old throw tossed over the faded fabric of the sofa.
    “You’re a tidy one, aren’t you?” She turned back. “I approve of a tidy man. Or perhaps you consider it efficiency.”
    “Efficiency is tidy—and it’s my life.” With his eyes on hers he laid a hand on her shoulder, pleased when she simply stared back at him with that same mild amusement on her face. “I was just wondering why it’s not cold.”
    “Cold shoulders are a predictable reaction, and predictability is tedious.”
    “I bet you’re never tedious.”
    “Perhaps on the rare occasion. I’m annoyed with you, but I still want my breakfast.” She skirted around him, then glanced over her shoulder. “Are you cooking, or are we going out?”
    “Cooking.”
    “Now I’m surprised. Intrigued. A man in your position knowing his way around a kitchen.”
    “I make a world-famous cheddar-and-mushroom omelette.”
    “I’ll be the judge of that—and I’m very . . . particular about my tastes.” She walked back toward the kitchen and left him blowing out one long, appreciative breath before he followed.
    She sat at the little table in the center of the room, draping her arm over the back of her chair and looking very much like a woman accustomed to being served. Though his system no longer needed a jump-start, Trevor made coffee first.
    “While I’m sitting here watching you deal with some homey chores,” Darcy began, “why don’t you tell me why you let me babble on yesterday about your family and ancestors and seemed so interested in information that would be already familiar to you.”
    “Because it wasn’t familiar to me.”
    She’d suspected that, after she’d calmed down. He didn’t strike her as a man who’d waste time asking questions when he already had the answers. “Why is that, if you don’t mind me asking?”
    He would mind. Usually. But he felt he owed her an explanation. “My grandfather had very little to say about his family here, or Ardmore. Or Ireland, for that matter.”
    While he waited for the coffee to brew—please, God, soon—he got out what he needed for the omelette. “He was a difficult man, with a very hard shell. My impression was that whatever he’d left here made him bitter. So it wasn’t discussed.”
    “I see.” Not clearly, Darcy mused, as it was hard to understand a family that didn’t discuss everything. At the top of their lungs as often as not. “Your grandmother also came from here.”
    “Yes.