The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

haven’t lost my head so much to do otherwise.”
    “Then I’m pleased for you, and proud already.” She laid a hand on Darcy’s shoulder, rubbed at the tension. “Now tell me how he hurt you.”
    “I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. I thought he would tell me he loved me and wanted me to belong to him. Can you imagine that?”
    “I can.” And now Brenna hurt as well. “Perfectly.” “Sure and his vision’s not so sharp as yours. He hasn’t a clue.” She gripped the sides of the sink, breathed slow and deep. “I’m not going to cry. He won’t get tears out of me.”
    “Come sit down and tell me.”
    When she did and when she had, Brenna held her hand. All sympathy, she said, “Bastard!”
    “Thanks for that. I hate that it’s partly my fault. Oh, that’s a bitter pill. But I set myself up for it, no mistake there. Spinning romantic fantasies in the shower like some fluff-brained girl.”
    “Why shouldn’t you? You love him.”
    “I do, the cad, and I’ll make him pay for it before we’re done.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Trap him, of course. Blind him with lust, confuse him with my many moods, toy with him. All the things I’m best at when it comes to men.”
    “I won’t say you aren’t skilled in that area,” Brenna said carefully. “But if you go this way, and win, it won’t be enough for you.”
    “I’ll make it enough. Many’s the relationship that has its seeds in sex. Lust and love aren’t so far apart.”
    “Maybe not in the flaming dictionary. But Darcy, when one party’s in lust and the other in love, they’re distant as moons. And between those places is so much room to be hurt.”
    “I can’t hurt any more than I did this morning at Saint Declan’s Well. And I survived.”
    She stepped to the window. Out there, she thought, Trevor was building his dream, but he’d needed some of what was hers for it. Well, she could build her own and take some of his. Of him.
    “I’ll risk the rest. I can make him need me, Brenna. Need’s the step between wanting and loving. It’ll be enough for me.”
    She shook her head before Brenna could speak, crossed back. “I have to try.”
    “Of course you do.” Hadn’t she? Brenna thought. Didn’t everyone who knew what love was and longing?
    “But at the moment, I need to vent out this foul mood. Shawn’ll be coming along shortly. I’ll just go down and torment him until I feel better.”
    “If that’s the case, I’ll get back on the job and out of harm’s way.”

 
     
     
     
EIGHTEEN
     
     
    A STORM HOVERED over the village, marching down from the northeast to camp on the border as an army digs in for a siege. The rising winds and splattering rain that were its leading edge chased people from the beaches, and brought a nasty chill. The sky, thick and bruised and ominous, had even the locals glancing upward with apprehension.
    Had you ever seen that green tint to the clouds’ edges before? Had you ever tasted air that had such a flavor of mean in it?
    She would hit, they said, and hit hard.
    Those who’d been through such things before checked their stock of candles and lamp oil and batteries. Supplies were laid in, and children ordered to stay close to home. Boats were secured in their docks as Ardmore prepared for the coming battle.
    But when the door of the pub burst open, Jude’s face was bright as sunbeams. “It came.”
    Excitement had her barely able to speak above a whisper that didn’t carry over the voices to where Aidan was busy at the taps. It was Darcy who saw her, standing there with her bound-back hair damp with raindrops, her cheeks flushed pink. And the book clutched to her breast like a beloved child.
    Darcy dumped her tray immediately, and unceremoniously, on a table where four baffled French students stared at the toasted sandwiches, piles of slaw and chips they hadn’t ordered, and began consulting their phrase books.
    “Is it the book? Yours?” Thrilled, Darcy tried to pry it out of Jude’s grip.
    “No, I have to show it to Aidan first. He has to see it first.”
    “Of course he does, well, of course. Come on, then. Make way there, Jack, you’re like a hulking bear. Move aside, will you, Sharon, we’ve business of a vital nature here.”
    Snaking her way, Darcy reached the pass-through, tossed it up, then hustled Jude ahead of her behind the bar. “Hurry,” she ordered. “I’m dying to see it.”
    “Okay, all right.” Jude exclaimed with the book