The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

so ashamed.”
    He’d have narrowed his eyes into a glare, but there was too much blood in them to risk it. “Are you laughing?”
    “Of course I am.” She tugged his arm, drawing him back into the bedroom. “But that’s neither here nor there. Here we go now, that’s the way, sit yourself down.”
    She was entirely too good at it, he thought. Just how many drunken men had she tucked back into bed the morning after? It was a vile thought, an unworthy thought, but even knowing that he couldn’t stop it from taking root.
    “Had a lot of practice at this?”
    Something in his tone slapped, but she shrugged it off because he was suffering. “You can’t run a pub and not have the occasional experience with someone who’s overindulged. You need a bit of the cure, is all.”
    “If you think you’re going to get more whiskey into me, you’re crazy.”
    “No, no, I’ve something better than hair of the dog. Just rest yourself.” She fluffed pillows behind him, gentle and efficient as a nurse. “It’ll take me a minute. I should have made some up last night, but with all the excitement I didn’t think of it.”
    “I just want a goddamn aspirin.” Preferably one the size of Pluto.
    “I know.” She touched her lips to his throbbing head. “I’ll be right back.”
    What game was this? he wondered. Why was she being so nice, so sweet? He’d awakened her at four in the morning and snarled at her. Why wasn’t she snarling back? Why wasn’t she suffering any effects of last night’s celebration?
    Suspicious, he forced himself to get up again, and with his jaw clenched, managed to tug on jeans. He found her in the kitchen, and once his abused eyes adjusted to the laser beam of light, saw she was mixing ingredients in a jar.
    “You stayed sober.”
    She stopped what she was doing, glanced back at him. Oh, the man looked as raw and rough as they came, and still managed to be handsome. “I did, yes.”
    “Why?”
    “It was clear even before we got to the pub that you were going to be drunk enough for both of us. And you were entitled. Darling, why don’t you sit down? There’s no need to pay the piper any more than his due. Your head must be big as the moon this morning.”
    “I don’t make a habit of getting drunk.” He said it with some dignity, but because he felt decidedly queasy, he retreated to the living room to sit on the arm of a chair.
    “I’m sure you don’t.” Which was why, she supposed, he wasn’t just feeling sick this morning, but insulted as well. It was adorable. “But it was a night for exceptions, and you were having such a grand time, too. It was surely the best party we’ve had around here since Shawn and Brenna’s wedding, and that went on all day and half the night.”
    She came out, her robe flowing around her legs, carrying some dark and suspicious-looking liquid in a glass. “We had so much to celebrate, after all. Jude and the baby, then the theater.”
    “What about the theater?”
    “The naming of it. Oh, that likely washed away in the beer, didn’t it? You announced the naming of the theater. Duachais. I was never so pleased, Trevor. And those in the pub, which by the time we closed was everyone and their brother, were just as delighted. It’s a fine name, the right name. And it means something to all of us here.”
    It annoyed him that he couldn’t get a handle on the moment, that he’d announced it when he hadn’t been in control. Where was the dignity in that? “You thought of it.”
    “I told you the word. You put it in the right place. Here, now, wash the aspirin down with this, and you’ll be right as rain in no time.”
    “What is it?”
    “Gallagher’s Fix, a little potion passed down in my family. Come on, now, there’s a good lad.”
    He scowled at her, plucked the aspirin out of her outstretched hand, then the glass. She looked gorgeous, rested, perfect, with her hair loose and glossy, her eyes clear and amused, her lips slightly curved, in what might have been sympathy. He wanted, desperately, to lay his aching head on her lovely breasts and die quietly.
    “I don’t like it.”
    “Oh, now, it’s not such a bad taste all in all.”
    “No.” With nothing else available, he drank, glared. “I don’t like the whole deal.”
    This need, he thought as she patiently waited for him to drink the rest. It was too big, too sharp. Even now, when he felt as vile as a man could and still live, he was all but eaten up with need for her. It