The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

hardship, she supposed, to ride around in a classy car with a handsome man. Who was, when it came down to it, paying for the privilege.
    “I imagine you always have your destination firmly in mind before taking the first step.”
    “The purpose,” he corrected. “That’s a different matter.”
    “And your purpose today is to see the near area, to put a picture in your mind of what people might be coming to your theater, and how they’d go about getting there.”
    “Yes, that’s one purpose. The other is to have some time with you.”
    “So it’s clever you are to find a way to do both now. Traveling this way,” she continued, “you’ll go to Dungarvan. If you take the coast road, you’ll go to Waterford City; go north instead and you come to the mountains.”
    “Which way would you like to go?”
    “Oh, I’m just along for the ride, aren’t I? The tourists often enjoy a stop by An Rinn, between here and Dun-garvan. It’s a little fishing village where they still speak Gaelic. There’s nothing much otherwise, but a fine view of cliffs or the mountains, but the tourists often go there, finding it quaint to hear the old language spoken routinely.”
    “Do you speak any Gaelic?”
    “A bit, but not enough for any real conversation.”
    “It’s a pity such things are lost.”
    “You think so because you’ve a sentimental view of the matter. When the simple fact is, English is easier all around. When I was in Paris, I could always find someone who knew enough English so I could be understood. I wouldn’t have found anyone who’d’ve understood the Gaelic.”
    “No sentiment about things Irish, Darcy?”
    “Are you sentimental about things American?”
    “No,” he said after a moment. “I take them for granted.”
    “There you have it.” She watched the rain patter, and the shift of light that brought a pearly gleam to the edges of the gray. “It’s going to clear. You might spot a rainbow if you enjoy such things.”
    “I do. Tell me, what do you enjoy best about Ardmore, about where you are? The place itself.”
    “The place?” She couldn’t remember ever being asked such a question, and was surprised that the answer was right there. “The sea. The moods of it, and smell of it, the feel of it in the air. There’s a softness to it on a quiet morning, and a fury about it during a storm.”
    “The sound of it,” Trevor murmured. “Like a heart beating.”
    “That’s poetic. More something I’d expect Shawn to say than you.”
    “The third stage of the legend. Jewels from the heart of the sea.”
    “Ah, yes.” She liked it that he thought of the legend. She’d been giving it considerable thought herself just lately. “And she let them go to flowers, which wouldn’t buy her family supper. I’ve a great deal of respect for pride, but not when it’s so costly.”
    “You’d trade your pride for pretty stones.”
    “That I wouldn’t.” She sent him a sly and confident look. “I’d find a way to keep both.”
    If anyone could, he thought, it would be Darcy. He wondered why that annoyed him.
    Sunshine streamed through the clouds, sparkled off the still falling rain and turned the light into something found inside a polished seashell. Those luminous,,magical colors streaked across the sky in three distinct rainbows. It seemed to Trevor that the air simply bloomed, a simple and delicate flower unfurling petal by petal.
    Enchanted, he stopped the car right in the middle of the road and watched those three arcs of color shimmer against the fragile blue canvas of the sky.
    Darcy was more interested in watching him. It was like seeing a shield drop. And under it, hidden under that toughness, the sophistication, was a core of sweetness she’d never imagined. It touched her the way he could stare at those pretty tricks of light and wet, with the pure pleasure of it gleaming in his eyes.
    When he turned his head and flashed a blinding grin in her direction, she gave in to impulse. Leaning toward him, she caught his face in her hands and kissed him quick and light and friendly, as his grin had been.
    “For luck,” she said when she sat back again. “There must be something about rainbows and kisses and luck.”
    “If there isn’t, there should be. Let’s see where they take us—the rainbows,” he said when her eyebrow lifted. “I like to think I know where the kisses are leading, and my luck’s been pretty good lately.”
    He turned down a narrow, poorly marked road.