by Nora Roberts
to his business side even as it irked on a personal level. Since jealousy made him feel ridiculous, he concentrated on the business angle.
When the song was over, she reached over the bar to grab Shawn by the collar and haul him halfway across it for a loud kiss. “Moron,” she said, with obvious affection.
“Shrew.”
“Three fish and chips, two stews, and two portions of your porter cake. Now back into the kitchen where you belong.” She ran her hand absently across Trevor’s shoulder as she turned to Aidan. “Three pints each Guinness and Harp, a glass of Smithwick’s, and a pair of Cokes. The one Coke’s for Connor, so there’s no charge. Do you mind?” she said to Trevor, and picked up his pint for a small sip.
“So, do you take requests?”
“Hmm. I’m here to do nothing but.”
“Sing another.”
“Oh, it’s likely I will before the evening’s done.” She transferred the drinks that were poured onto her tray.
“No, now.” He pulled a twenty-pound note out of his pocket, held it up between two fingers. “A ballad this time.”
Her gaze shifted from his face to the bill, then back again. “That’s a considerable tip for a bit of a tune.”
“I’m rich, remember?”
“That’s something I haven’t forgotten.” She reached out for the twenty, narrowed her eyes when he jerked it away.
“Sing it first.”
She considered ignoring him on principle and perhaps a little spite. But it was twenty pounds, and singing wasn’t a trial to her. So she smiled at him, then lifted her voice as she lifted her tray.
Come all ye maidens young and fair / All you that are blooming in your prime / Always beware and keep your garden fair / Let no man steal away your thyme.
Connor picked up the melody, flushing a bit when she winked at him and served his soft drink. She served the others as well, singing as she did a song of regret and the loss of innocence. Conversations hushed, and more than a few hearts sighed. Because he was paying for it, she looked at Trevor as she walked back to the bar. She gave the last lines to him.
Satisfaction warmed her eyes when applause broke out. It gleamed there as she nipped the bill from his hand. “At twenty each, I’ll sing as many tunes as you like.” Then taking the Guinnesses Aidan had finished, she moved off to serve them.
“Hell, I’ll do one for half that,” someone called out, and over a roar of laughter, began on “Biddy Mulligan.”
“There’s formal music over the weekend,” Aidan told Trevor. “And Gallagher’s pays the band.”
“I’ll check it out.” He watched Darcy go back behind the bar, into the kitchen. “Do the three of you ever play together?”
“Shawn and Darcy and myself? At ceilis now and again, or in here for a bit of fun. I sang for my supper a time or two when I was traveling. It can be a hard life.”
“Depends on the booking.”
Trevor stayed another hour, nursing his pint, enjoying his stew, and listening to the apparently tireless Connor play tune after tune.
He got up once to open the door for a couple who each had a sleeping child over a shoulder. It was families, he noted, who left for home, and a couple of men with weather-beaten faces. Fishermen, he imagined, who would be up before dawn to head out to sea.
Food orders began to taper off after nine o’clock, but the taps ran steadily as he rose to go.
“Are you calling it a night, boss?” Brenna called out.
“Yeah. Until I find out what vitamins you’re taking that keep you going strong for fifteen hours’ work.”
“Ah, it’s not vitamins.” She leaned over to pat the gnarled hand of the old man who’d sat on the same stool for hours. “It’s being near my true love, Mr. Riley, here that keeps me going.”
Riley let out a cackle. “Come give us a last pint, then, my darling, and a kiss to go with it.”
“Well, the pint will cost you, but the kiss is free.” She glanced back at Trevor as she drew it. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I need to borrow your sister a minute,” Trevor told Aidan, then took Darcy’s hand before she could move past him. “It’s your turn to walk me out.”
“I suppose I can spare you a minute.” She set down her tray and, ignoring Aidan’s frown, strolled to the door.
The rain was a fine mist that drenched the air. Smoky drifts of fog crept in from the sea to crawl along the ground. Through it came the steady beat of the water,and the far-off call of a horn as a boat passed in the night.
“Ah, it’s cool.” Closing her eyes, Darcy lifted her face to the thin rain. “It gets stuffy in there by this time of night.”
“Your feet must be killing you.”
“I won’t deny they could use a good hard rub.”
“Come back with me, and I’ll give them my attention.”
She opened her eyes at that. “Now, sure and that’s a tempting offer, but I’ve work yet, then I need my sleep.”
He lifted her hand to his lips as he had once before. “Come to the window in the morning.”
She didn’t mind the way her heart gave one hard thud, or the tingle low in her belly. She was a woman who believed in enjoying sensations, in savoring every one of them. But she had to think past that and remember how the game was played.
“I might.” Slowly, she ran a fingertip along his jaw. “If the thought of you comes into my mind.”
“Let’s make sure it does.” His arms slid around her, but the forward motion stopped when she laid a hand against his chest.
Her pulse was beating fast, an exciting feeling of anticipation. She liked the smell of the rain, and wet skin, the strong band of his arms around her. It had been some time since she’d allowed a man to put his arms around her.
That was the key, after all. The allowing. Her choice, her move, her mood. It was important, always, to stay in charge of those parts, and of the man she allowed to touch her.
Once you turned the reins over, you could forget that sensations, however lovely, were only fleeting after all.
It was safe enough here to have a sample of him, she decided. And to see if she really wanted more. So she slid her hand up his chest, around the back of his neck, and with her eyes open brought his mouth down to hers.
He took his time, she had to give him that, and didn’t go grabbing and fumbling and trying to extract her tonsils with his tongue. He had a nice style about him, firm,confident, with just a hint of bite. Not so dangerous as she’d thought, which was rather a shame all in all.
Then he shifted the angle of his body, his hands running up her back, his lips slanting over hers.
The edges of her mind blurred, and she thought, Oh, God! Then didn’t think at all.
He wanted to eat her alive, in fast, greedy bites. And imagined that was just what she expected from a man.Greed and heat and desperation. She had them all churning inside him. He’d seen it in a kind of mild disdain in her eyes when he’d reached for her.
So he moved slow, watched as he tasted, seen the shift to approval, even pleasure. Along with a measuring that annoyed him even as the flavor of her poured into him. Then he needed more, just needed more, and took it.
He felt the change register dimly in some far corner of his mind. A tension in her mixed with a soft and slow yielding that was as quiet as the rain around him.
His eyes closed even as hers did, and all calculation between them was lost.
The hand at his neck skimmed into his hair. Her body lifted, pressed against his, seemed to flow into him as he moved until her back was pressed to the stone wall of the pub. Heart thundered against heart.
He drew back, wanting to clear his head, catch his breath. Think. She stayed against the wall, then gave one long, feline sigh and opened her eyes.
“I liked that.” A little more, she was sure, than was good for her. Still, she ran her tongue over her bottom lip, as if to steal a bit more taste, and had his blood swimming again. “Why don’t you do it aga
in?”
“Why don’t I?”
This time he framed her face in his hands, combed his fingers through her hair until they fisted in it. Then hesitated, waited, suffered, with his mouth a whisper from hers until her breath, and his, quickened.
“We’ll drive each other crazy.”
The sound she made was more gasp than laugh. “I’ve come to the same conclusion. Let’s start right now.” She closed the distance by catching his bottom lip between her teeth, tugging lightly, then not so lightly before soothing the nip with her tongue.
“Good start,” he managed and crushed his mouth to hers.
Her head went spinning, quick, dancing circles that left her giddy and dizzy and delighted. Every sensation was a burst through her system—the taste, the hard lines of him, the damp stone at her back, the shimmer of rain on her skin.
She wanted to push him to urgency, to make him weak, to hear him beg—before she did. She threw herself into the kiss, into the moment, and as a result gave him more than she’d intended.
Again, it was he who drew back. It was either that or drag her off to the car and tumble her in the backseat with all the finesse and control of a kid on prom night. She’d taken him right to the edge with a kiss on a wet sidewalk outside of a crowded pub.
“We’re going to need more privacy,” he decided.
“Eventually.” She needed to get her legs back under her. “But at the moment we’ve stirred each other up enough. I don’t think we’ll get much sleep tonight, but I don’t mind that.” Steadier, she brushed a hand through her hair, scattering fine drops of rain. “You know, the last time I kissed a Yank, I slept like a baby after.”
“That would be a compliment.”
“Oh, indeed it would. I’ll enjoy thinking about kissing you again at the next opportunity, but for now I have to go back inside, and you should go home.”
She turned to go, stopping when he took her arm. She wasn’t quite steady enough to resist if he recognized his advantage and pressed it. So she sent him a bright and sassy look over her shoulder. “Behave yourself, Trevor.If I’m any longer out here, Aidan will lecture me and spoil my nice mood.”
“I want your next evening off.”
“And I’ve a mind to give it to you.” She gave his hand a friendly pat, then slipped quickly inside again.
It was a surprise and an annoyance to find himself shaken. He had to sit in the car, listening to the rain,waiting for his blood to cool and his hands to steady. He knew what it was to want a woman, even to crave the feel of one under his hands, under his body. Just as he knew, and accepted, that the need brought with it certain vulnerabilities and risks.
But whatever it was he wanted, needed, craved from Darcy Gallagher was on a different level than anything that had come before.
She was different, he admitted, frowning at the pub for a moment before starting his car. Sexy, selfish, seductive. There were other women he knew with those attributes, but they were rarely so unapologetic and honest about it.
She was toying with him, and doing nothing to hide the fact. And by God, he had to admire her for it. Just as he had to admire her for being perfectly aware that he was playing the same game.
It was going to be fascinating to see who won, and how many rounds it took.
Relaxing since he was confident he’d handle her, he bumped along the track toward home and found himself smiling. Christ, he liked her. He couldn’t remember another woman who’d heated his blood, engaged his mind, and sparked his humor in quite the way she managed to do all three. Often at the same time.
If there’d been no physical spark between them, he would still have enjoyed being with her, picking his way through that marvelous and straightforward brain of hers. As it was, he thought he was about to explore the best of all possible worlds, romantically speaking. And what a relief it was to head toward intimacy knowing that both parties looked for nothing more than mutual gratification and interesting companionship.
The business end of their relationship was relatively uncomplicated. The pub belonged to her, as much as to her brothers, but it was Aidan Trevor had dealt with, and would continue to deal with in that area.
There was that voice of hers, which was a separate and intriguing matter. He had a couple of ideas he wanted to let simmer before he discussed them with her. In that area he was confident that she’d be guided by his experience. And lured by what he could, and would, offer her.
She appreciated money and wanted enough to live stylishly. Well, he had a feeling he was going to be able to help her out there.
Profit was the bottom line, she’d told him that day on the beach. He had some ideas how that bottom line could be reached by both of them. For a song.
He turned into his street next to his cottage, very satisfied at how well his time in Ireland was being spent, and how successful the results were to date.
He got out of the car, locking it out of habit, then used the light he’d left burning to guide him through the mist to the garden gate.
He didn’t know why he looked up, why he was compelled to lift his eyes to the window. The jolt that went through him was like a lightning bolt through the center of his body, one hard sizzle from head to foot.
At first he thought of Darcy, of the way she’d stood framed in her bedroom window the first time he’d seen her. A similar jolt then, not of recognition but of desire.
This woman stood framed in the window as well, was lovely as well. But her hair was pale, like the mists around him. Her eyes he knew, though it was too dark to see their color, were a haunted sea green.
This woman had been dead for three centuries.
He kept his eyes on her face as he pushed open the gate. Saw a single tear shimmer as it slipped slowly down her cheek. His heart was a trip-hammer in his chest as he walked quickly along the path through drenched flowers, through the faint music that was the wind chimes dancing in the breeze. The air was ripe, almost overpowering, with the wet perfume, the tinkling notes.
He unlocked the door, shoved it open.
There wasn’t a sound. The single light he’d left burning caused long shadows to slant into corners, over the old wooden floor. With the keys still in his hand, forgotten, he started up the stairs. As he stepped to the bedroom doorway, Trevor took a breath, held it, then flipped on the light.
He hadn’t expected her to be there. Illusions faded in the light. When it flashed on, flooded the room, he let out the breath he’d been holding in one short whoosh.
She stood facing him, her hands folded neatly at her waist. Her hair, delicately gold, spilled over the soulders of a simple gray dress that flowed down to her feet. The tear, bright as silver, was drying on her cheek.
“Why do we waste what’s inside us? Why do we wait so long to embrace it?”
Her voice lifted and fell, the rhythm of Ireland, and stunned him more than the vision of her.
“Who—” But of course he knew who she was, and asking was a waste of time. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s always more comforting to wait at home. I’ve waited a long time. He thinks you’re the last. I wonder, could he be right when you don’t wish to be, and wish it so strongly?”
It was impossible. A man didn’t hold a conversation with a ghost. Someone, for some reason, was playing games, and it was time to put a stop to it. He strode forward, reached out to take her arm. And his hand passed through her as it would through smoke.
The keys slipped out of his numb fingers and clattered on the floor at her feet.
“Is it so difficult to believe that more exists than what you can touch?” She said it kindly, because she understood what it was to fight beliefs. She could have allowed him to touch an illusion of what she had been, but it would have meant less to him. “You already know it in your heart, in your blood. It’s only a matter of letting your mind follow.”
“I’m going to sit down.” He did so, abruptly, on the side of the bed. “I dreamed of you.”
And
for the first time, she smiled. Mixed with gentle humor was compassion. “I know it. Your coming here to this place at this time was determined long ago.”
“Fate?”
“It’s a word you don’t like, one that makes you want to brace for battle.” She shook her head at him. “Such a thing as fate takes us to certain points along a path. What you do here and now is up to you. The choice at the end of a path. I made mine.”
“Did you?”
“Aye. I did what I thought right.” Annoyance filtered into the musical voice. “It doesn’t make it right, but only what I thought, and what I felt needed to be done. My husband was a good man, a kind one. We had children together who were the joy of my life, a home that contented us.”
“Did you love him?”
“I did, oh, aye, I did after a time. A warm and settled love we had, and he would have asked no more of that from me. ’Twasn’t the flash and burn I felt for another. Do you see that’s what I believed it was I felt for Carrick? A fire that would flame hot and high, then die away to nothing but ash. And there I was wrong.”
She turned, as if looking out the window, beyond the glass, beyond the rain. “I was wrong,” she repeated.“I’ve bided in this place a long time, a long and lonely time, and still the burn of that love, the ache and the joy of it’s inside me. It’s so easy for love to hide itself under passion and not be recognized.”
“Most would say it’s easy to mistake passion for love.”
“Both are true enough. But for me, I feared the fire, even as I longed for it. And fearing, and longing, never looked into the flames for the jewels that waited there for me.”
“I know about passion, but I don’t know about love. And still, I’ve looked for you in other women.”
Her eyes met his again. “You haven’t realized what you look for, and I hope you will. We’re coming to the end of it, one way or the other. Look hard at what you want to build, then make your choices.”
“I know what—” But she was fading away. He leaped to his feet, reached out again. “Wait. Damn it!” Alone, he tried to pace off nerves, but they stretched and snapped inside him.
How the hell was he supposed to handle this? Dreams and magic and ghosts. There was nothing solid there, nothing tangible. Nothing believable, if it came to that.
But he did believe, and that was what worried him.
SIX
“YOU’ RE LOOKING A bit the worse for wear this morning.” Trevor took another gulp of the coffee he’d brought to the site with him and sent Brenna a murderous look. “Shut up.”
She didn’t bother to disguise her snort of amusement. She was used to him now and didn’t worry overmuch about his bark. When the likes of him meant to bite, they didn’t warn you first.
“And cross as well. There now, I can have someone bring out a nice rocking chair and you can sit under an umbrella and have a bit of a nap.”
He sipped again. “Have you ever seen a cement mixer from the inside?”
“As rough as you look ’round the edges this morning, I could take you one-handed. Seriously, you can go into the kitchen and have your coffee in peace and in quiet.”
“Construction zones cheer me up.”
“And me.” She glanced around at the tacks of equipment, the hulking machines, the men hefting pipe and cheerfully insulting each other. “Odd creatures, aren’t we? Dad’s off this morning doing a spot of repair jobs here and there, so I’m glad you’re here and in the mood for working off your sulks.”
“I’m not sulking. I don’t sulk.”
“Ah, well, brooding, then. I enjoy a good brood myself, though most often I