The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

sensible.
    A butterfly landed on the corner of the table, fannedwings blue as cobalt. For a moment, it seemed to study her as curiously as she studied it.
    And she heard the drift of music, pipes and flutes and the weeping rush of harp strings. It seemed to flood down the hills toward her, making her lift her gaze to all that shimmering green.
    Why in such a place did she have to be sensible Jude? Magic had already touched her here. She had only to be willing to open herself to more.
    She didn’t want to write a damn paper. She wanted, oh, God, she wanted to write a book. She didn’t want to stick with what she knew or what everyone expected of her. She wanted, finally, to reach for what she wanted to know, for what she’d never dared expect from herself. Fail or succeed, to have the freedom of the experience.
    When self-doubt muttered beside her, she rudely elbowed it aside.
     
    The rain fell and mists swirled outside the windows. A fire glowed in the little hearth in my cottage kitchen. On the counter were flowers drenched from the rain. Cups of tea steamed on the table between us as Aidan told me this tale.
    He has a voice like his country, full of music and poetry. He runs the pub in the village of Ardmore that his family has owned for generations, and runs it well so that it’s a warm and friendly place. I’ve often seen him behind the bar, listening to stories or telling them while music plays and customers drink their pints.
    He has charm in abundance and a face that draws a woman’s eye and that men trust. His smile is quick, his temper slow, but both are potent. When he sat in the quiet of my kitchen on that rainy afternoon, this is what he told me.
     
    Jude lifted her hands, pressed them to her lips. Over them, her eyes were bright and shining with discovery. There, she thought. She’d begun. She’d begun and it was exhilarating. It was hers. God, she felt almost drunk on it.
    Drawing another steadying breath, she tapped keys until she’d moved Aidan’s tale of Lady Gwen and Prince Carrick under her introduction.
    She reread the story, this time inserting how he’d spoken, what she’d thought, the way the fire had warmed the kitchen, the beam of sunlight that had come and gone in a slant over the table.
    When she was done, she went back to the beginning and added more, changed some of her phrasing. Driven now, she opened a new document. She needed a prologue, didn’t she? It was already rushing through her head. Without pausing to think, she wrote what pushed from her mind to her fingers.
    Inside her head there was a kind of singing. And the lyrics were simple and wondrous. I’m writing a book.
     
    Aidan stopped at the garden gate and just looked at her. What a picture she made, he thought, sitting there surrounded by all her flowers, banging away on the keys of that clever little machine as if her life depended on it.
    She had a silly straw hat perched on her head to shade her eyes. Glasses with black wire rims were perched on her nose. A brilliant blue butterfly danced over her left shoulder as if reading the words that popped up on the screen.
    Her foot was tapping, making him think there was music in her head. He wondered if she was aware of it, or if it played there as background to her thoughts.
    Her lips were curved, so her thoughts must be pleasing her. He hoped she’d let him read them. Was it the influenceof love, he wondered, or did she really look stunningly beautiful, somehow glowing with power?
    He had no intention of disturbing her until she was done, so he simply leaned against the gate with what he’d brought her tucked in the curve of his arm.
    But she stopped abruptly, snatching her hands from the keys and pressing one to her heart as her head whipped around. Her eyes met his, and even with the distance he could see the variety of sensations play in them. Surprise at seeing him, and the pleasure. Then the faint embarrassment that seemed to cloud them all too often.
    “Good day to you, Jude Frances. I’m sorry to interrupt your work.”
    “Oh, well . . .” She’d felt him there, felt something, she thought, however ridiculous that sounded. A change in the air. Now she was caught. “It’s all right.” She fumbled with the keys to save and close, then took off her glasses to lay them on the table. “It’s nothing important.” It’s everything, she wanted to shout. It’s the world. My own world. “I know it’s odd to be set up out here,” she began as she