The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

she’d seen a ghost twice now.
    Could it be she’d tumbled off the edge of the breakdown that had been so worrying her when she left Chicago?
    But she didn’t feel so unsteady now. She hadn’t had a tension headache or a queasy stomach or felt the smothering weight of oncoming depression in days.
    Not since she’d stepped over the threshold of Faerie Hill Cottage for the first time.
    She felt . . . good, she decided after a quick mental check. Alert, calm, healthy. Even happy.
    So, she thought, either she’d seen a ghost and such things did exist, which meant readjusting her thinking to quite an extent . . .
    Or she’d had a breakdown and the result of it was contentment.
    She nibbled thoughtfully on another cookie and decided she could live with either situation.
    At the knock on the front door she quickly brushed crumbs from her sweater and glanced at the clock. She had no idea where the morning had gone, and she had deliberately put Aidan’s promised visit out of her head.
    Apparently he was here now. That was fine. They’d work in the kitchen, she decided, shoving pins back into her hair as she walked down the hall to the door. Despite her initial, well, chemical reaction to him, her interest in him was purely professional. A man who fought with drunks on the street and flirted so outrageously with women he barely knew had no appeal to her whatsoever.
    She was a civilized woman who believed in using reason, diplomacy, and compromise to solve disputes. She could only pity someone who preferred using force and bunched fists.
    Even if he did have a beautiful face and muscles that just rippled when put into use.
    She was much too sensible to be blinded by the physical.
    She would record his stories, thank him for his cooperation. And that would be that.
    Then she opened the door, and he was standing in the rain, his hair gleaming with it, his smile warm as summer and just as lazy. And she felt about as sensible as a puppy.
    “Good day to you, Jude.”
    “Hello.” It was a testament to his effect on her that it took her a full ten seconds to so much as notice the enormous man beside him clutching flowers in his huge hand. He looked miserable, she noted, the rain dripping off the bill of his soaked cap, his wide face pale as moonlight, his truck-grill shoulders slumped.
    He only sighed when Aidan rammed an elbow hard into his ribs.
    “Ah, good day to you, Miss Murray. I’m Jack Brennan. Aidan here tells me I behaved badly last night, in your presence. I’m sorry for that and hope to beg your pardon.”
    He shoved the flowers at her, with a pitiful look in his bloodshot eyes. “I’d had a bit too much of the drink,” he went on. “But that’s no excuse for using strong language in front of a lady—though I didn’t know you were there, did I?” He said that with a slide of his eyes toward Aidan and a mutinous set to his mouth.
    “No.” She kept her voice stern, though the wet flowers were so pathetic they melted her heart. “You were too busy trying to hit your friend.”
    “Oh, well, sure Aidan’s too fast for me to plant a good one on him when I’m under the influence, so to speak.” His lips curved, for just a moment, into a surprisingly sweet smile, then he hung his great head again. “But despite circumstances being what they were, it’s no excuse for behaving in such a manner in front of a lady. So I’m after begging your pardon and hoping you don’t think too poorly of me.”
    “There now.” Aidan gave his friend a hearty slap on the back. “Well done, Jack. Miss Murray’s too kindhearted to hold a grudge after so pretty an apology.” He looked back at her, as if they were sharing a lovely little joke. “Aren’t you, Jude Frances?”
    Actually she was, but it irritated her to be so well pegged. Ignoring Aidan, she nodded at Jack. “I don’t think poorly of you, Mr. Brennan. It was very considerate of you to come by and bring me flowers. Would you like to come in and have some tea?”
    His face brightened. “That’s kind of you. I wouldn’t mind—”
    “You’ve got places to go, Jack.”
    Jack’s brows drew together. “I don’t. Particularly.”
    “Aye, you do. This and the other. You take my car and be about it. You’ll remember I told you Miss Murray and I have business to tend to.”
    “All right, then,” he muttered. “But I don’t see how one bloody cup of tea would matter. Good day, Miss Murray.” Shoulders hunched, cap dripping, he lumbered