The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

could, and would, offer her.
    She appreciated money and wanted enough to live stylishly. Well, he had a feeling he was going to be able to help her out there.
    Profit was the bottom line, she’d told him that day on the beach. He had some ideas how that bottom line could be reached by both of them. For a song.
    He turned into his street next to his cottage, very satisfied at how well his time in Ireland was being spent, and how successful the results were to date.
    He got out of the car, locking it out of habit, then used the light he’d left burning to guide him through the mist to the garden gate.
    He didn’t know why he looked up, why he was compelled to lift his eyes to the window. The jolt that went through him was like a lightning bolt through the center of his body, one hard sizzle from head to foot.
    At first he thought of Darcy, of the way she’d stood framed in her bedroom window the first time he’d seen her. A similar jolt then, not of recognition but of desire.
    This woman stood framed in the window as well, was lovely as well. But her hair was pale, like the mists around him. Her eyes he knew, though it was too dark to see their color, were a haunted sea green.
    This woman had been dead for three centuries.
    He kept his eyes on her face as he pushed open the gate. Saw a single tear shimmer as it slipped slowly down her cheek. His heart was a trip-hammer in his chest as he walked quickly along the path through drenched flowers, through the faint music that was the wind chimes dancing in the breeze. The air was ripe, almost overpowering, with the wet perfume, the tinkling notes.
    He unlocked the door, shoved it open.
    There wasn’t a sound. The single light he’d left burning caused long shadows to slant into corners, over the old wooden floor. With the keys still in his hand, forgotten, he started up the stairs. As he stepped to the bedroom doorway, Trevor took a breath, held it, then flipped on the light.
    He hadn’t expected her to be there. Illusions faded in the light. When it flashed on, flooded the room, he let out the breath he’d been holding in one short whoosh.
    She stood facing him, her hands folded neatly at her waist. Her hair, delicately gold, spilled over the soulders of a simple gray dress that flowed down to her feet. The tear, bright as silver, was drying on her cheek.
    “Why do we waste what’s inside us? Why do we wait so long to embrace it?”
    Her voice lifted and fell, the rhythm of Ireland, and stunned him more than the vision of her.
    “Who—” But of course he knew who she was, and asking was a waste of time. “What are you doing here?”
    “It’s always more comforting to wait at home. I’ve waited a long time. He thinks you’re the last. I wonder, could he be right when you don’t wish to be, and wish it so strongly?”
    It was impossible. A man didn’t hold a conversation with a ghost. Someone, for some reason, was playing games, and it was time to put a stop to it. He strode forward, reached out to take her arm. And his hand passed through her as it would through smoke.
    The keys slipped out of his numb fingers and clattered on the floor at her feet.
    “Is it so difficult to believe that more exists than what you can touch?” She said it kindly, because she understood what it was to fight beliefs. She could have allowed him to touch an illusion of what she had been, but it would have meant less to him. “You already know it in your heart, in your blood. It’s only a matter of letting your mind follow.”
    “I’m going to sit down.” He did so, abruptly, on the side of the bed. “I dreamed of you.”
    And for the first time, she smiled. Mixed with gentle humor was compassion. “I know it. Your coming here to this place at this time was determined long ago.”
    “Fate?”
    “It’s a word you don’t like, one that makes you want to brace for battle.” She shook her head at him. “Such a thing as fate takes us to certain points along a path. What you do here and now is up to you. The choice at the end of a path. I made mine.”
    “Did you?”
    “Aye. I did what I thought right.” Annoyance filtered into the musical voice. “It doesn’t make it right, but only what I thought, and what I felt needed to be done. My husband was a good man, a kind one. We had children together who were the joy of my life, a home that contented us.”
    “Did you love him?”
    “I did, oh, aye, I did after a time. A warm and settled love we had, and he would