The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy
her mother’s cheek. “I’ll see to your fridge, Ma, and have it working like new for you.”
“Hasn’t worked like new since Alice Mae was born, and she’s fifteen this summer. Go on then before the milk sours. She’s a good girl, my Brenna,” Mollie went on when Brenna strolled out. “All my girls are. Will you have some biscuits with your tea, Miss Murray? I baked yesterday.”
“Thank you. Please call me Jude.”
“I will, then, and you call me Mollie. It’s nice to have a neighbor in Faerie Hill Cottage again. Old Maude would be pleased you’ve come as she wouldn’t want the house sitting lonely. No, none for you, you great lump.” Mollie addressed this to the cat who leaped onto the arm of her chair. She nudged him off again, but not before scratching his ears.
“You have a wonderful house. I like looking at it when I’m walking.”
“It’s a hodgepodge, but it suits us.” Mollie poured the tea into her good china cups, smiling as she set the pot down again. “My Mick was always one for adding a room here and a room there, and when Brenna was big enough to swing a hammer, why the two of them ganged up on me and did whatever they liked to the place.”
“With so many children, you’d need room.” Jude accepted the tea and two golden sugar cookies. “Brenna said you have five daughters.”
“Five that sometimes seems like twenty when the lot ofthem are running around tame. Brenna’s the oldest, and her father’s apple. My Maureen’s getting married next autumn, and driving us all mad with it and her squabbles with her young man, and Patty’s just gotten herself engaged to Kevin Riley and will, I’m sure, be putting us through the same miseries as Maureen is before much longer. Then my Mary Kate’s at the university in Dublin, studying computers of all things. And little Alice Mae, the baby, spends all her time with animals and trying to talk me into taking in every broken-winged bird in County Waterford.”
Mollie paused. “And when they’re not here, underfoot, I miss them something terrible. As I’m sure your mother’s missing you with you so far from home.”
Jude made a noncommittal sound. She was sure her mother thought of her, but actively miss her? She couldn’t imagine it, not with the schedule her mother kept.
“It—” Jude broke off, goggling as harsh, vicious curses erupted from the rear of the house.
“Damn you to fiery hell, you bloody, snake-eyed bastard. I’ve a mind to drop your worthless hulk off the cliffs myself.”
“Brenna takes after her dad in other aspects as well,” Mollie continued, topping off the tea with a serene grace as her daughter’s curses and threats were punctuated by banging and crashing. “She’s a fine, clever girl, but a bit short of temper. So, she tells me you’ve an interest in flowers.”
“Ah.” Jude cleared her throat as the cursing continued. “Yes. That is, I don’t know much about gardening, but I want to keep up the flowers at the cottage. I was going to buy some books.”
“That’s fine, then. You can learn a lot from books, though for Brenna she’d rather be tied facedown on a hill of ants than have to read about the workings of a thing.Prefers to rip it apart for herself. Still, I’ve a bit of a hand with a garden myself. Maybe you’d like to take a walk around with me, take a look at what I’ve done. Then you could tell me what it is you’ve a need to know.”
Jude set down her cup. “I’d really like that.”
“Fine. Let’s leave Brenna alone so she can raise the roof without us worrying it’ll crash down on our heads.” She rose, hesitated. “Could I see your hands?”
“My hands?” Baffled, Jude held them out, found them firmly gripped.
“Old Maude had hands like yours. Of course, they were old and troubled with the arthritis, but they were narrow and fine, and I imagine her fingers were long and straight and slender like yours when she was young. You’ll do, Jude.” Mollie held her hands a moment longer, met her eyes. “You’ve good hands for flowering.”
“I want to be good at it,” Jude said, surprising herself.
And Mollie’s eyes warmed. “Then you will be.”
The next hour was sheer delight. Shyness and reserve melted away as Jude fell under the spell of the flowers and Mollie’s innate patience.
Those feathery leaves were larkspur that Mollie said would bloom in soft and showy colors, and the charming bicolored trumpets were columbine. Dancing around
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