The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

have asked no more of that from me. ’Twasn’t the flash and burn I felt for another. Do you see that’s what I believed it was I felt for Carrick? A fire that would flame hot and high, then die away to nothing but ash. And there I was wrong.”
    She turned, as if looking out the window, beyond the glass, beyond the rain. “I was wrong,” she repeated.“I’ve bided in this place a long time, a long and lonely time, and still the burn of that love, the ache and the joy of it’s inside me. It’s so easy for love to hide itself under passion and not be recognized.”
    “Most would say it’s easy to mistake passion for love.”
    “Both are true enough. But for me, I feared the fire, even as I longed for it. And fearing, and longing, never looked into the flames for the jewels that waited there for me.”
    “I know about passion, but I don’t know about love. And still, I’ve looked for you in other women.”
    Her eyes met his again. “You haven’t realized what you look for, and I hope you will. We’re coming to the end of it, one way or the other. Look hard at what you want to build, then make your choices.”
    “I know what—” But she was fading away. He leaped to his feet, reached out again. “Wait. Damn it!” Alone, he tried to pace off nerves, but they stretched and snapped inside him.
    How the hell was he supposed to handle this? Dreams and magic and ghosts. There was nothing solid there, nothing tangible. Nothing believable, if it came to that.
    But he did believe, and that was what worried him.

 
     
     
     
SIX
     
     
    “Y OU’ RE LOOKING A bit the worse for wear this morning.”
    Trevor took another gulp of the coffee he’d brought to the site with him and sent Brenna a murderous look. “Shut up.”
    She didn’t bother to disguise her snort of amusement. She was used to him now and didn’t worry overmuch about his bark. When the likes of him meant to bite, they didn’t warn you first.
    “And cross as well. There now, I can have someone bring out a nice rocking chair and you can sit under an umbrella and have a bit of a nap.”
    He sipped again. “Have you ever seen a cement mixer from the inside?”
    “As rough as you look ’round the edges this morning, I could take you one-handed. Seriously, you can go into the kitchen and have your coffee in peace and in quiet.”
    “Construction zones cheer me up.”
    “And me.” She glanced around at the tacks of equipment, the hulking machines, the men hefting pipe and cheerfully insulting each other. “Odd creatures, aren’t we? Dad’s off this morning doing a spot of repair jobs here and there, so I’m glad you’re here and in the mood for working off your sulks.”
    “I’m not sulking. I don’t sulk.”
    “Ah, well, brooding, then. I enjoy a good brood myself, though most often I prefer just punching something and being done with it.”
    “Shawn must lead an interesting life.”
    “He’s a darling man, and the love of my life, so I do my best to keep him from tedium.”
    “Tedium,” Trevor muttered, “kills.”
    She nodded. He didn’t look cool and reserved this morning, nor did his voice hold that faint tint of distance. She judged him to be a man that put all of that up as a barrier until the one he dealt with proved trustworthy.
    She was glad to have passed the mark.
    “I should tell you the lines from the new well and those from the septic are to be inspected this morning. All goes okay, we’ll be burying them by end of day.”
    She headed over to show Trevor the progress. The ground was muddy from the night’s rain, which continued to fall steadily. It dripped off the brim of Brenna’s cap, glimmered on the little silver faerie she had pinned on it, as she hunkered down beside a trench.
    The smell of mud and men and gasoline pleased her enormously.
    “As you see, we’ve used the grade of material you specified, and a pretty job it is, too. Dad and I dealt with a busted septic line during the flood last winter, and it’s not an experience I’m after repeating any time in the near future.”
    “This’ll hold.” He crouched where he was, scanned the area. He could see it perfectly, the long, low sweep of the theater, faced with stone to blend with the existing pub, the trim of dark, distressed wood. Charming and simple, but what it was built of, and built on, would be the best that modern technology offered.
    That was the dream, after all. Taking what was here, respecting it, even showcasing it,