The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

wrong about them.”
    Brooding now, he stuck his chin on his fist. “The hell I am,” he decided, but it didn’t lighten his mood. “They’re stupid in love with each other, and there, I think, lies the problem. Neither of them knows how to handle stupidity. Afraid of it is what they are. Afraid to give in to senselessness and let love rule.”
    He sighed a little, then waved his wrist and took a bite of the golden apple that appeared. “You’d say I was the same. And you’d be right enough. Magee’s set on the same path I took. Promise her this, offer her that, vow to give her the world, as the world’s safe when you’ve plenty of it to spare. But you’ve only one heart, after all, and giving that is a more difficult deal. I didn’t look inside my Gwen, and he doesn’t look inside his Darcy. He thinks it’s sense, but it’s nothing but fear.”
    He gestured toward the headstone with the apple, as if the old woman sat there, listening. Perhaps she did. “And she’s no better when it comes to it. As different from my quiet, modest Gwen as sun from moon, but the same in this aspect. She wants him to offer his heart, but will she just bloody say so, for Finn’s sake? No, she won’t. Females—who can figure them?”
    He sighed then, munched his bright apple, contemplated. He’d nearly lost patience, had been on the edge of springing out of the air to order them both to get on with it. They were in love, admit it and be done.
    But that was beyond what was permitted. The choices, the timing, the steps of their dance together had to be theirs. His . . . contribution, Carrick decided—he didn’t care for the word “interference”—could be only minor.
    He had done what he could do. Now he had to wait as he had waited three centuries already. His fate, his happiness, at times he thought his very life, depended on the hearts of these two mortals.
    He’d dealt with the other pairs of them. You’d have thought he’d have learned enough to know how to hurry these last two along. But all he’d learned was that love was a jewel with too many facets to count. Strength and weakness running side by side through it. And that no one could give or take it with any less than an open hand.
    He lay back on the grass, and with his mind sketched Gwen’s beloved face in the clouds. “I ache for you. Heart, body, mind. I would give all that’s in my power to give to touch you again, to breathe your scent, to hear your voice. I swear to you, when you come back to me at last, it’s love I’ll pour at your feet. The grandeur and humility of it. And the flowers that bloom from that will never die.”
    He closed his eyes, and weary with waiting, vanished into sleep.

The effort of being cheerful and sexy and witty left Darcy near to exhaustion by the time Trevor drove her down to the pub. But determined to play it all out, she walked around the back with him so she could make happy noises about the progress of the work.
    She realized that temper had her overplaying it when Trevor narrowed his eyes at her. So she beat a hasty retreat, giving him a warm but brief kiss.
    She made it as far as the kitchen door when Brenna shoved in behind her. “What’s the matter?” Brenna asked immediately.
    They’d known each other since birth, understood each other’s moods often better than they understood their own.
    “Come upstairs, can you?” Such was the nature of their friendship that Darcy didn’t have to wait for an answer. She went up fast, shedding her brightness and cheer as she might have shed clothes.
    “I’ve a headache.” The brutal pounding sent her straight to the bathroom cupboard for aspirin. She chased it with water, drinking the whole glass down.
    Their eyes met in the mirror. Brenna knew that sleek and shiny look hid some deep hurt.
    “What did he do?”
    How marvelous it was to have a friend who simply knew where the blame lay even before the offense was cited. “He offered me a fortune. A small one, I suppose, by his standards, but hefty enough by mine. Enough to set me on the way to where I’m going, and in fine style.”
    “And?”
    “I’m taking it.” She tossed her head, and the edgy defiance worried her friend. “I’m signing his recording contract.”
    “That’s grand, Darcy, truly it is, if it’s what you want.”
    “I’ve always wanted more than I have, and now I’m about to get it. I wouldn’t sign if it didn’t suit me. I promise you I’m doing it for me first. I