The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

around early enough to hold her down and work on her until she’s so lovely Aidan’s eyes will fall out on his boots. If that doesn’t do the trick, well, then, he’s hopeless.”
    “As far as I’ve been able to judge, Gallagher men are as hopeless as they come.”

SIXTEEN
    “A ND HOW ,” J UDE asked, “am I supposed to give a party when I don’t know how many people are coming? When I have no menu, no time schedule? No plan?”
    Since Finn was the only one within earshot, and he didn’t appear to have the answer, Jude dropped into a chair in her now spotless living room and shut her eyes. She’d been cleaning for days. Aidan had laughed at her and told her not to take on so. No one was going to hunt up dust in the corners and have her deported for the shame of it.
    He didn’t understand. He was, after all, only a man.
    How the cottage looked was the only aspect of the entire business she could control.
    “It’s my house,” she muttered. “And a woman’s house reflects the woman. I don’t care what millennium we’re in, it just does.”
    She’d entertained before, and she’d managed to hold reasonably satisfactory parties. But they’d been weeks, if not months, in the planning. She’d had lists and themes andcaterers and carefully selected hors d’oeuvres and music.
    And gallons of antacids.
    Now she was expected to simply throw open her doors to friend and stranger alike.
    At least a half a dozen people she’d never laid eyes on had stopped her in the village to mention the ceili . She hoped she’d looked pleased and said the appropriate thing, but she’d all but felt her eyes wheeling in her head.
    This was her first ceili . It was the first real party she’d given in her cottage. The first time she’d entertained in Ireland.
    She was on a different continent, for God’s sake. How was she supposed to know what she was doing?
    She needed an aspirin the size of Ardmore Bay.
    Trying to calm herself again, to put things into perspective, she laid her head back and closed her eyes. It was supposed to be informal. People were bringing buckets and platters and mountains of food. She was only responsible for the setting, and the cottage was lovely.
    And who was she trying to fool? The entire thing was headed straight for disaster.
    The cottage was too small for a party. If it rained she could hardly expect people to stand outside under umbrellas while she passed them plates of food out the window. There simply wasn’t room to stuff everyone inside if even half the people who’d spoken to her showed up.
    There wasn’t enough floor space or seating space. There wasn’t enough air in the house to provide everyone with oxygen, and there certainly wasn’t enough of Jude F. Murray to go around as hostess.
    Worse, she’d gotten lost in the writing of her book several times over the last few days and had neglected to keep the party preparation list she’d made up on schedule. She’d meant, really she had, to stop writing at one o’clock. She’deven set a timer after the first time she ran over. Then she turned it off, intending only to finish that one paragraph. And the next time she surfaced it was after three, and neither of her bathrooms had been scrubbed as planned.
    Despite all that, in a matter of hours, people she didn’t know would be swarming into her house expecting to be entertained and fed.
    She wasn’t to worry about a thing. She’d been told that over and over again. But of course she had to worry about everything. It was her job. She had to think about the food, didn’t she? It was her house, and damn it, she was neurotic, so what did people expect?
    She’d attempted tarts that had come out hard as rock. Even Finn wouldn’t touch them. The second effort was an improvement—at least the dog had nibbled on them before spitting them out. But she was forced to admit that she would never win gold stars for her pastry baking.
    She had managed to put together a couple of simple casseroles following a recipe in one of Old Maude’s cookbooks. They looked and smelled good enough. Now she could only hope no one came down with food poisoning.
    She had a ham in the oven. She’d already called her grandmother three times to check and recheck the process of baking it. It was so big, how could she possibly be sure it was done? It would probably be raw in the center and she’d end up giving her guests food poisoning. But at least she’d serve it in a clean house.
    Thank God it