The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

he grabbed her jacket. “You always do.” Then ignoring her protests, he bundled her into it.
    “What’s your hurry?” But she decided to be mollified with the compliment and let him have his way.
    That, she liked to think, was a fine give-and-take in a relationship. Letting a man have his way when it didn’t really matter one way or the other.
    It wasn’t particularly damp out, not to her way of thinking. The fog was thin, a lovely filter on the air that turned ordinary shapes into fanciful ones. Bright colors in the cottage garden were softly muted, the hills beyond wonderfully mysterious. Already she could see some breaks in the clouds, hopeful little patches of quiet blue among the gray.
    The world was so hushed, they might have been alone in it. All the warmth and intimacy of the night before flowed back into her when he took her hand as they walked.
    They went over the field, circling, and for a time she was silent, lost in the romance.
    “Where are we heading?”
    “Saint Declan’s.”
    A chill ran up her spine. Nerves, superstitions, anticipation, she couldn’t be sure. “If I’d known we were going by Old Maude’s grave, I’d’ve brought some flowers.”
    “There are always flowers on her grave.”
    Magic flowers, she thought, put to grow there by powers beyond the mortal. In the distance, through the thinning fog, the stone ruin stood, like something waiting. She shivered.
    “Cold?” “
    “No. I . . .” But she didn’t mind when he released her hand to tuck his arm around her. “It’s an odd place to come on a misty morning.”
    “Too early for tourists. It’s a great spot. Terrific view if the fog lifts.”
    “Too early for tourists,” she agreed, “but not for faeries.” In such a place who knew what was sleeping under a hillock of grass or in the shadow of a stone? “
    “Are you looking for Carrick?”
    “No.” Though he wondered. “I wanted to come here with you.” He passed the well and its crosses, moved with her into the ancient, roofless church where Maude lay. The rough stones that marked ancient dead tilted up through ground and haze. In contrast, flowers swept lovingly over Maude’s and thrived.
    “They don’t pick her flowers.” “
    “Hmm?”
    “The people who come here,” Trevor said. “Tourists and students and the locals who walk this way. They don’t pick her flowers.”
    “It would be disrespectful.”
    “People don’t always give respect, but they seem to here.”
    “This is holy ground.”
    “Yes.” He still had his arm around her, leaned down almost absently to press a kiss to her damp hair.
    And the thrill moved through her, fast and bright.Alone in the world on holy ground, she realized. The morning after they’d loved each other, and in a way had discovered each other. He’d brought her here, to the cliff above sea and village, in the mist and the magic.
    To tell her he loved her. She closed her eyes, trembled Aa little from the soaring joy of it. Of course, nothing could be more perfect. He wanted such a place to tell her his heart, to ask her to be his wife.
    What could be more romantic, more dramatic? More quietly right?
    “Fog’s lifting,” he murmured.
    Together, standing on the windy hill, they watched the veil tear gently, and the sun shimmer through, silveredged, to touch the air with its pearly light. Far below was the village that was home, and the sea that guarded it swam slowly clear as if hands had drawn open a filmy curtain.
    The beauty of it, what she saw with her eyes, what she saw with her heart, brought tears stinging. Home, she thought. Yes, Aidan was right. This would always be home, no matter where she traveled with the man beside her. Her love for it filled her as gently as the sunlight that brushed through the clouds.
    “It looks perfect from here,” she said quietly. “Like something from out of a storybook. I forget that when I’m down in it, going from day to day doing what’s needed to be done.”
    Swamped with emotions, she rested her head on Trevor’s shoulder. “I used to wonder why Maude chose to rest here, away from family and friends, and most of all away from her Johnnie. But this is why. This was the place for her, and she’s not away from her Johnnie at all. She never was.”
    “That kind of love’s a miracle.” He wanted one for himself, and meant to make it happen.
    “Love’s always miraculous.” Tell me, tell me quickly, she thought. So I can tell you back.
    “It seems to be