the pub doors opened. He kept up with the orders, fell into the easy routine, but the music that usually filled his head kept stalling on him. He’d start to play with a tune while he worked, let the notes and the rhythm go their own way. Then he’d be back in the soft rain, with Brenna wrapped around him, and the only music he heard was the hum in his own blood. And that he didn’t care for.
She was his friend, and a man had no business thinking about a friend in that manner. Even if she’d started it herself. He’d grown up teasing her as he had his own sister. Whenever he’d kissed her, and of course he had, it had always been a brotherly peck.
How the hell was he supposed to go back to that when he knew what she tasted like now? When he knew just how her mouth fit to his, and how much . . . heat there was inside that small package? And just how was he supposed to get rid of this hard, hot ball of awareness in his gut, an awareness he’d never asked for?
She wasn’t his type—no, not a bit. He liked soft women with female ways who liked to flirt and cuddle. And by God, women who let him make the moves. He was a man, wasn’t he? A man was supposed to romance a woman toward bed, not be told to jump into one because she had a—what had she called it? A yen. An itch.
He’d be damned if he’d be anyone’s itch.
He told himself he was going to steer well clear of Brenna O’Toole for the next bit of time. And that he wasn’t going to be looking around to see that ugly cap of hers or to hear her voice every time he walked from the kitchen into the pub.
Still, his eyes scanned the crowd, and his ears were pricked. But she didn’t come to Gallagher’s that Sunday evening.
He did his work, and those who sampled it walked home at closing with full bellies and satisfaction. When he’d put his kitchen to rights and headed home himself, his own belly felt empty despite the meal he’d had, and satisfaction seemed a long way off.
He tried to lose himself in his music again, and spent nearly two hours at the piano. But the notes seemed sour somehow, and the tunes jarring.
Once, as he ran his fingers over the keys, shaking his head when the chords gave him no pleasure, he felt the change in the air. The faintest shimmer of movement and sound. But when he looked up, there was nothing but his little parlor and the empty doorway leading to the hall.
“I know you’re here.” He said it softly, waited. But nothing spoke to him. “What is it you want me to know?”
As the silence dragged on, he rose to bank the fire, to listen to the whisper of the wind. Though he was sure he was too edgy to sleep, he went upstairs and prepared for bed.
Almost as soon as his head settled on the pillow, he drifted into dreams of a lovely woman standing in the garden while the moonlight silvered her pale gold hair. The wings of the white horse beat the air, then settled as hooves touched ground. The man astride it had eyes only for the woman. As he dismounted, the silver bag he carried sparkled, shot light like little sparks of flame.
At her feet he poured pearls as white and pure as the moonlight. But she turned away from him, never looked at the beauty of the gems. Behind the sweep of her nightrobe, the pearls bloomed into flowers that glimmered like ghosts in the night.
And in the night, surrounded by those moon-washed flowers, Shawn reached for the woman. The pale hair had turned to fire and the soft eyes became sharp and green as emerald. It was Brenna he drew into his arms, Brenna he surrounded with them.
In sleep, where reason and logic have no place, it was Brenna he tasted.
SIX
“HAND ME MY crooked stick, will you, darling?” Brenna picked up her father’s level—he had affectionate names for most of his tools—and walked across the paint-splattered drop cloth to pass it to him.
The nursery was taking shape, and already in Brenna’s mind it was the baby’s room rather than Shawn’s old one. Some might not be able to see the potential of the finished project beyond the clutter of tools and sawhorses, the missing trim and the snowy shower of sawdust. The fact was, she loved the messy middle of a project every bit as much as she did the polished end of it.
She enjoyed the smells and the noises, the good, healthy sweat brought on by swinging a hammer or hefting lumber. Now as she stood back to watch her father snug the level onto the vertical length of the shelves they were building, she thought how much she liked the little pieces of work. Measuring, cutting, checking, rechecking until what you had built was the perfect mirror of what had been inside your head.
“Right on the money,” Mick said cheerfully, then propped his level in the corner. Without realizing it, they stood as a pair: hands on hips, legs comfortably spread, feet planted.
“And as it’s built by O’Toole, it’s built to last.”
“Aye, that’s the way of it.” He slapped her companionably on the shoulder. “Now there’s a good morning’s work here. How about we go down to the pub for a bit of lunch, then we’ll finish the unit this afternoon?”
“Oh, I’m not feeling hungry.” Avoiding his eyes, Brenna walked over to examine the trim they’d already made to frame the shelves. “You go ahead. I think I’ll just go on and trim this out.”
Mick scratched the back of his neck. “You’ve not been into Gallagher’s all the week.”
“Haven’t I?” She knew damn well she’d not set foot in the door since Saturday last. And she calculated she’d need another day or two before her humiliation level bottomed out enough for her to stroll in and see Shawn.
“No, you haven’t. Monday it was ‘Well, I brought something from home,’ and Tuesday it was ‘I’ll eat later.’ Then yesterday it was how you wanted to finish something up and would come down when you had— which you didn’t.” He angled his head, reminding himself she was a woman, and women had their ways.“Have you and Darcy had a fight?”
“No.” She was grateful he’d assumed that, and that she didn’t have to lie about it. “I just saw her yesterday when she dropped over here. You’d gone on to see about the Clooneys’ drainpipe.”
Keeping her voice and movements casual, she held up the trim. “I suppose I’m just anxious to see how this will all look when we’re done. And I had a big breakfast. You go on and get your lunch, Dad. If I feel peckish after a while, I’ll go downstairs and raid Jude’s kitchen.”
“As you like, then.” His daughters, bless them all, were often a puzzle to him. But for the life of him he couldn’t think of a thing that could be wrong with his Mary Brenna. So he winked at her as he pulled on his jacket. “We get this done, the least we can do is lift a pint at the end of the day.”
“Sure, and I imagine I’ll be thirsty.” And she would find some excuse to head straight home.
When he was gone, she set the trim in place with the glue gun, then pulled nail and hammer from the tool belt slung around her waist. She wouldn’t brood, that she’d promised herself. And by going about her daily business, she’d be over whatever these feelings were for Shawn soon enough.
There were plenty of things she wanted she couldn’t have. A kind and generous heart like Alice Mae, a tidy nature like Maureen, the patience of their mother. Another bloody few inches in height, she added as she dragged the stepladder over so she could secure the top of the trim.
She lived without all that, didn’t she, and managed very well. She could live without Shawn Gallagher. She could live without men altogether if it came to that.
And one day she’d build her own home with her own hands, and would live her own life her own way. She’d have a herd of nieces and nephews to spoil and no one cluttering up the place with demands and complaints.
A body couldn’t ask for more than that, could she?
She wouldn’t be lonely. Brenna fit the next piece of trim in place, precisely matching the edges. Why, she didn’t think she’d been lonely a single day of her life, so why should she start now? She had her work and her friends and her family.
Damn it, she missed the bastard something fierce.
There’d been hardly a day in her twenty-f
our years when she hadn’t seen him. In the pub, around the village, in his house or her own. She missed the conversations, the sniping, the look and the sound of him. Somehow she had to quash this wanting of him so they could go back to being friends.
It was her own fault, her own weakness. She could fix it. With a sigh, she rested her cheek on the smooth trim. She was good at fixing things.
The minute she heard footsteps in the hall, she jerked herself back and began to hammer busily again.
“Oh, Brenna!” Jude stepped into the doorway and glowed. “I can’t believe how much you’ve gotten done in just a few days. It’s wonderful!”
“Will be,” Brenna agreed. She climbed down from the ladder to get the next piece of trim. “Dad’s just gone off to have some lunch, but we’ll have the shelves done today. I think it’s coming along fine.”
“So’s the baby. I felt him move last night.”
“Oh, well, now.” Brenna turned away from her work. “That’s lovely, isn’t it?”
Jude’s eyes misted over. “I can’t describe it. I never thought I’d have all these feelings, or be so happy, have someone like Aidan love me.”
“Why shouldn’t you have all that and more?”
“I never felt good enough, or smart enough, or clever enough.” Resting a hand on her belly, she wandered over to run a finger down the new trim. “Looking back now, I can’t see why I felt so, well, inadequate. No one made me feel that way but myself. But you know, I think I was meant to be that way, feel that way, so that step by step my life would lead me right here.”
“Now that’s a fine and Irish way to look at things.”
“Destiny,” Jude said with a half laugh. “You know, sometimes I wake up at night, in the dark, in the quiet with Aidan sleeping beside me, and I think, here I am. Jude Frances Murray. Jude Frances Gallagher,” she corrected with a smile that brought out the dimples in her cheeks. “Living in Ireland by the sea, a married woman with a life growing inside me. A writer, with a book about to be published and another being written. And I barely recognize the woman I was in Chicago. I’m so glad she’s not me anymore.”
“She’s still part of you, or you wouldn’t appreciate who you are now, and what you have.”
Jude lifted her brows. “You’re absolutely right. Maybe you should have been the psychologist.”
“No, thanks all the same. I’d much sooner hammer at wood than at someone’s head.” Brenna set her teeth and whacked a nail. “With a few minor exceptions.”
Ah, Jude thought, just the opening she’d been hoping for. “And would my brother-in-law be at the top of that list of exceptions?”
At the question Brenna’s hand jerked, missing the mark and bashing her thumb with the hammer. “Bloody, buggering hell!”
“Oh, let me see. Is it bad?”
Brenna hissed air through her teeth as pain radiated and Jude fluttered around her. “No, it’s nothing. Clumsy, flaming idiot. My own fault.”
“You come down to the kitchen, put some ice on it.”
“It’s not much of a thing,” Brenna insisted, shaking her hand.
“Down.” Jude took her arm and pulled her toward the door. “It’s my fault. I distracted you. The least I can do is nurse it a little.”
“It’s just a bump.” But Brenna let herself be towed down the stairs and back to the kitchen.
“Sit down. I’ll get some ice.”