The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

Harder than anyone else can be. Some people want the simple and the ordinary and the quiet. It doesn’t make those who want the complicated and extraordinary and the
    exciting greedy or selfish. Wanting’s wanting, whatever the dream.”
    Struck, she stared at him. “What a thought,” she managed at last. “I never looked at it that way.”
    “Study on it a while.” He brushed a fingertip over the stone, then closed her hand around it. “And don’t rush your wish.”
    “That I’d already concluded for myself.” She slipped it back into her pocket where it couldn’t tempt her. “Carrick may be in a fired hurry, but I’m inclined to take my time.”
    She pressed a kiss to each of Aidan’s cheeks. “You were just what I needed, just when I needed you.”
     
     
    She did give it time. Her talk with Aidan had settled her and made her able to enjoy the time. As the days passed into a week, she even found herself amused that neither she nor Trevor brought up the potential business end of their relationship.
    He was, she thought, as canny a negotiator as she was. One of them would break first. She didn’t intend for it to be her.
    Work on the theater progressed in a kind of stage by stage that she found more interesting than she would ever have believed. A change was happening right outside her window. A monumental change that had its seeds in a dream and was so much more than bricks and mortar.
    She wanted it for him. That, she supposed, was the nature of love. That you could want so intensely your lover’s dream to come true.
    Now that most of the roof was on, she missed seeing Trevor out her window. He was inside the shell of the building as often as not. As the noise was as terrible as ever, she rarely kept her windows open on the off chance of hearing his voice.
    With summer, the beaches drew people to Ardmore, and so the pub. Work kept her mind occupied, and for the first time she began to see just what the theater would mean to home.
    It wasn’t only the villagers and the neighbors talking of it now, but those who visited.
    She could stop for a moment in the crush of a lunch shift, look around at the packed tables and bar, hear the voices, and imagine what it would be like the following summer. And she could wonder where she would be.
    As both she and Trevor appreciated the distance from work, most nights she went to the cottage. It became her habit to walk whenever weather allowed, though he never failed to offer his car. She liked the quiet that slid over the air after midnight, and the balm of the breeze, and rush of starlight.
    Odd, but she wasn’t sure she’d really appreciated it before she’d understood she wouldn’t be there forever. The softness that came from the sea, and the waves that were a constant hum and lap in the night.
    When the moon was bright, she liked it best, that alone time where she could see the cliffs throw shadows.
    Whenever she reached Tower Hill, she stopped. If the wind was pushing the clouds, the spear of the tower seemed to sway, and the stones, old and new, beneath it stood silent and still.
    Flowers bloomed yet on the grave of Johnnie Magee. But Carrick, if he was there, chose not to show himself.
    She walked on. The road narrowed, and the scatter of lights in Ardmore were lost behind her. There was the scent now of fields and grass and growing things, then the glow out of the shadowed dark that was the lights in the cottage on the faerie hill.
    He was waiting for her. And that, she thought with a delicious thrill, was just how she liked it.
    As always, her heart grew lighter and she had to force herself not to rush to the gate. He called out to her the minute she stepped inside.
    “Back in the kitchen.”
    Now wasn’t that homey, she thought, amused at both of them. The little woman home from work and the man in the kitchen. It was a bit like playing house, she supposed, and tried not to worry that the house, and the game, wasn’t for either of them in the long run.
    He was at the stove, which amused her. He could cook, as he’d demonstrated at that first breakfast. But he wasn’t one to make a habit of it.
    “Want some soup?” He stirred at the little pot, sniffed. “It’s canned, but it’s food. I was stuck on the phone all night and missed dinner.”
    “Thanks, no. I managed to get some of Shawn’s lasagna, which I can promise tasted better than that will. If you’d called, I’d have brought you some.”
    “Didn’t think of it.” He