The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

didn’t say a word to me about it, or anyone else as far as I know.”
    Since it was news both fresh and surprising, Darcy pondered over it. “He’s been known to give a lass a trinket from time to time, but that’s usually for an occasion.”
    “That’s what I’m thinking as well.”
    “And flowers,” Darcy continued. “He’s always been one for taking flowers to a woman who’s caught his eye, but this is different altogether.”
    “Exactly different.” Brenna slapped the table lightly for emphasis. “This is a live and permanent thing. A sweetheart sort of thing, it is, not just the I’m-enjoying-myself-in-your-bed sort of thing.” To punctuate the opinion, she lifted her glass and drank.
    “Well, she gave him that painting she bought in Dublin, and he’s taken with it out of all proportion if you ask me. Maybe he was after giving her something back, and just happened on the pup.”
    “If it was to give her something back in kind for the painting—and I thought it a lovely painting—he’d have given her a trinket or a bauble or something of the sort. A token for a token,” Brenna said firmly. “A puppy is several steps up from a token.”
    “You’re right about that.” Darcy drummed her fingers, narrowing her eyes at her brother as he worked the bar. “You think he’s in love with her?”
    “I’d risk a wager on it that he’s heading in that direction.” Brenna shifted. “We ought to be able to find out, and if not us, Shawn could. And we can wheedle it out of him easy enough, for he never thinks twice about what’s coming out of his mouth.”
    “No, but he’s fierce loyal to Aidan. I’d like her for a sister,” Darcy considered. “And seems to me she suitsAidan down to the ground. I’ve never seen him look at a woman as he does our Jude. Still, Gallagher men are notorious slow to move to marriage once the heart’s engaged. My mother said she had to all but pound my father over the head with orange blossoms before he came to ask her.”
    “She’s planning to be here more than three months more.”
    “We’ll need to move him along faster than that. They’re both the marrying kind, so it shouldn’t be that hard. We’ll give this some thought.”
     
    Aidan was right. Finn was good company. He walked the hills with Jude, entertaining himself when she stopped to admire wildflowers or pluck the buttercups and cowslips that flourished as May coasted to June. Summer came to Ireland on a lovely stream of warmth, and to Jude the air was like poetry.
    When the weather was soft, with the rain falling like silk, she kept her wandering short so she could tuck herself cozy in the cottage.
    And when days were dry, she indulged herself and Finn with those long walks in the morning so he could run wild circles around an indulgent Betty.
    Whenever she did, rain or shine, she thought of the man she’d seen on the road from Dublin, walking with his dog. And how she had dreamed of doing the same whenever and wherever she wanted.
    Like the dog she’d imagined, Finn slept by the hearth when she made her first attempt at soda bread. And he whimpered when he woke lonely at three in the morning.
    When he dug at her flowers, they had to have a serious talk, but he made it through two full weeks without chewing on her shoes.
    Except that one time they’d agreed to forget.
    She let him walk and race until he was tuckered out, then when weather allowed, she set out her table and worked outdoors in the afternoons while he napped under her chair.
    Her book. It was so secret, she’d yet to fully acknowledge to herself just how much she wanted to sell it, to see it with a beautiful cover, one with her name on it, on the shelf of a bookstore.
    She kept that almost painful hope buried and threw herself into the work she’d discovered she loved. To add to it, she often took an hour or two in the evening to sketch out illustrations to go with the stories.
    Her sketches were primitive at best, in her opinion, and awkward at worst. She’d never considered the art lessons her parents had insisted on to be particularly fruitful. But the drawing entertained her.
    She made certain they were all tucked away whenever anyone came by to visit. Now and then, it took some scrambling.
    She was in the kitchen going over the latest sketch of the cottage, the one she considered the best of a mediocre lot, when she heard the quick knock on her door, then the sound of it slamming.
    She jumped up, sending Finn into