by Nora Roberts
“Good day to you, then, Jude Frances.” He strolled to the gate, then turned. His eyes were bluer, more intense when they met hers, held hers. “Come on Saturday. I like looking at you.”
She didn’t move a muscle, not when he turned to open the gate, not when he walked through and down to the road. Not even after he was well beyond the high hedge and away.
Looking at her? What did he mean by that? Exactly.
Was that some sort of casual flirtation? His eyes hadn’t looked casual, she thought as she began to pace up and down the narrow path. Of course, how would she know, really, when this was only the second time she’d seen him?
That was probably it. Just an offhand, knee-jerk flirtation from a man used to flirting with women. More, when you considered the situation, a friendly remark.
“ ‘I’d like to see you in the pub on Saturday, come on by,’” she murmured. “That’s all he meant. And damn it all to hell and back, why do I have to pick everything apart?”
Annoyed with herself, she strode back into the house, closed the door firmly. Any sensible woman would have smiled at him when he’d said it, flirted back a little. It was a harmless, even conditioned response. Unless you were a neurotic tight-ass.
“Which, Jude F. Murray, is exactly what you are. A neurotic tight-ass. You couldn’t just open your idiot mouth and say something like, ‘I’ll see what I can do. I like looking at you, too.’ Oh, no, you just stand there like he’d shot you between the eyes.”
Jude stopped, holding up both hands, shutting her eyes. Now she wasn’t just talking to herself. She was scolding herself as if she were two different people.
Taking deep breaths, she calmed herself and decided she really wanted another of those little frosted cakes, just to take the edge off.
She marched into the kitchen, ignoring the prissy little voice in her head that told her she was compensating with oral gratification. Yeah, so what? When some gorgeous man she barely knew had her hormones erupting, she was damn well going to comfort herself with sugar.
She snatched up a cake with pale pink frosting, then whirled around at the loud thud against the back door. At the sight of the hairy face and long teeth, she cut loose with a squeal and the cake sailed up, bounced off the ceiling, then landed with a plop—frosting side down—at her feet.
It took her only the amount of time the cake was airborne to realize it wasn’t a monster at the back door but a dog.
“Jesus! Jesus Christ, what’s with this country? Every two minutes something’s coming to the door.” She dragged her fingers through her hair, setting curls free, then she and the dog eyed each other through the glass.
She had big brown eyes, and Jude decided they looked hopeful rather than aggressive. Her teeth were showing, true, but her tongue was lolling out, so what choice did they have? Huge paws had already smeared the glass with mud, but when she let out a friendly woof, Jude caved.
As she moved to the door, the dog disappeared. But there she was when Jude opened it, sitting politely on the back stoop, thumping her tail and gazing up at her.
“You’re the O’Tooles’ dog, aren’t you?”
She seemed to take this for an invitation and shoved her way in to clomp around the kitchen, spreading mud. Then she did Jude the favor of cleaning up the dropped cake before walking to the fire and sitting on her haunches again.
“I didn’t feel like starting the fire in here today.” She walked over, holding out her hand to see what the dog would do about it. When she sniffed it politely, then gave it a nudge with her nose so it landed on her head, Jude laughed.
“Clever, aren’t you?” Obligingly, she scratched between her ears. She’d never had a dog, though her mother had two ill-tempered Siamese cats that were pampered like royalty.
She imagined the dog had visited Old Maude regularly, had curled up by the kitchen fire and kept the old woman company from time to time. Did dogs feel grief when a friend had died? she wondered, then remembered she’d yet to keep her promise to take flowers to Maude’s grave.
She’d inquired about the location in the village the night before. Maude was buried east of the village, above the sea, beyond the path that ran near the hotel, and back to the ruins and the oratory and the well of Saint Declan.
A long and scenic walk, she mused.
On impulse, Jude pulled the flowers she’d put on the kitchen counter out of their bottle, then cocked her head at the dog.
“Want to go visit Old Maude?”
The dog gave another woof, got to her feet, and as they walked out the back door together, Jude wondered who was leading whom.
It felt very rural and rustic. As she hiked over hills with the yellow dog, flowers in her hand for an ancestor’s grave, Jude imagined it as part of her weekly routine. The Irish country woman with her faithful hound, paying respects to a distant cousin.
It would be something she would make a habit—well, if she actually had a dog and really lived here.
It was soothing, being out in the air and the breeze, watching the dog race off to sniff at God knew what, catching all those glorious signs of spring in the blooming hedges, the quick dart and trill of a bird.
The sea rumbled. The cliffs brooded.
As she approached the steeply gabled oratory, the sun shot through the clouds and splashed over the grass and the stone. The three stone crosses stood, casting their shadows, with the well holding its holy water under them.
Pilgrims had washed there, she remembered from her guidebook. And how many, she wondered, had secretly poured a bit of water on the ground for the gods, hedging their bets?
Why take chances, she thought with a nod. She’d have done both herself.
It was a peaceful place, she thought. And a moving one that seemed to understand life and death, and what connected them.
The air seemed warmer, almost like summer despite the wind, with the fragrance of flowers that scattered through the grass and lay on the dead suddenly wild and sweet. She heard the hum of bees and birdsong, the sound of it clear and musical and ripe.
The grass grew tall and green and just a little wild over uneven ground. A handful of small, rough stones, she noted, that marked ancient graves settled into it. And with them, the single new. Old Maude had chosen to be buried here, nearly alone, on a hill that looked over the gameboard-neat village, the blue skirt of sea, and the roll of green that led to mountain.
Tucked into a stone shelf in the ruins was a long plastic pot filled with deep red flowers. The sight of them touched Jude’s heart.
So often people forgot, she thought. But not here. Here, people remembered, and honored those memories with flowers for the dead.
“Maude Alice Fitzgerald,” the simple marker read. “Wise Woman” had been carved under her name, and below that the dates of her long, long life.
It was an odd epitaph, Jude mused as she knelt beside the gentle slope. There were flowers there already, a tiny clutch of early violets just beginning to fade. Jude lay her bouquet beside them, then sat back on her heels.
“I’m Jude,” she began, “your cousin Agnes’s granddaughter. The one from America. I’m staying in your cottage for a while. It’s really lovely. I’m sorry I never met you, but Granny used to talk about the times you spent together, in the cottage. How you were happy for her when she married and went to America. But you stayed here, at home.”
“She was a fine woman.”
With her heart leaping into her throat, Jude jerked her head up and looked into deep blue eyes. It was a handsome face, young and smooth. He wore his black hair long, nearly to his shoulders. His mouth tipped up at the corners in a friendly fashion as he stepped closer to face Jude across the grave.
“I didn’t hear you. I didn’t know you were here.”
“One walks soft on a holy place. I don’t mean to frighten you.”
“No.” Only half to death, she thought. “You just startled me.” She pushed at the hair the wind had loosened and sent dancing around her face. “You
knew Maude?”
“Sure and I knew Old Maude, a fine woman as I said who lived a rich and generous life. It’s good that you’re bringing flowers to her, for she favored them.”
“They’re hers, out of her garden.”
“Aye.” His smile widened. “That makes them all the better.” He laid his hand on the head of the dog that sat quietly at his side. Jude saw a ring glint on his finger, some deep blue stone that winked in a heavy setting of silver. “You’ve waited a long time to come to your beginnings.”
She frowned at him, blinking against the sun, which seemed stronger now, strong enough to make her vision waver. “Oh, you mean to come to Ireland. I suppose I have.”
“It’s a place where you can look into your heart and see what matters most.” His eyes were like cobalt now. Intense, hypnotic. “Then choose,” he told her. “Choose well, Jude Frances, for ’tisn’t only you who’ll be touched by it.”
The scent of flowers, grass, earth whirled in her head until she felt drunk from it. The sun blinded her, shooting up fiery facets that burned and blurred. The wind rose, a sudden, dazzling burst of energy.
She would have sworn she heard pipes playing, rising notes flying on that fast wind. “I don’t know what you mean.” Woozy, she lifted a hand to her head, closed her eyes.
“You will.”
“I saw you, in the rain.” Dizzy, she was so dizzy. “On the hill with the round tower.”
“That you did. We’ve been waiting for you.”
“Waiting? Who?”
The wind stilled as quickly as it had risen, and the music faded away into silence. She shook her head to clear it. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
But when she opened her eyes again, she was alone with the quiet dead and the big yellow dog.
FIVE
AIDAN DIDN’T OBJECT to paperwork. He bloody well hated it.
But three days a week, rain or shine, he spent an hour or more at the desk in his upstairs rooms laboring over orders and overhead, payroll and profits.
It was a constant relief to him that there was a profit. He’d never concerned himself overmuch with money before Gallagher’s had been passed into his hands. And he often wondered if that was part of the reason his parents had pushed it there. He’d had a fine time living from hand to mouth when he’d traveled. Scraping by, or just scraping. He hadn’t saved a penny or felt the need to.
Responsibility hadn’t precisely been his middle name.
After all, he’d grown up comfortable enough, and certainly he’d worked his share during his childhood and adolescence. But mopping up, serving pints, and singing a tune was a far cry from figuring how much lager to order, what percentage of breakage—thank you very much, sister Darcy—the business could bear, the juggling of numbers into ledgers, and the calculation of taxes.
It gave him a headache every blessed time, and he had no more love for sitting inside with books than he had for having a tooth pulled, but he learned.
And as he learned, he realized the pub meant more to him because of it. Yes, parents were clever creatures, he decided. And his knew their son.
He spent time on the phone with distributors trying to wangle the best price. That he didn’t mind so much, as it was a bit like horse trading. And something he discovered an aptitude for.
It pleased him that musicians from Dublin, from Waterford, from as far away as Clare and Galway were not only willing but pleased to do a turn at Gallagher’s. He took pride in knowing that in his four years at the head of it, he’d helped polish the pub’s reputation as a place for music.
And he expected the summer season, when the tourists flowed in, to be the best they’d had.
But that didn’t make the adding and subtracting any less a chore.
He’d thought about a computer, but then he’d have to learn the goddamn thing. He could admit, without shame, that the very idea of it frightened him beyond speech. When he broached the idea to Darcy, that she could perhaps learn the ins and outs of it, she’d laughed at him until tears ran down her pretty cheeks.
He knew better than to ask Shawn, who wouldn’t think to change a lightbulb if he was reading in the dark.
He wasn’t about to hire the chore out, not when Gallagher’s had managed its own since the doors had opened. So it was either continue to labor with pencil and adding machine or gather the courage to face technology.
He imagined Jude had knowledge of computers. He wouldn’t mind having her teach him a thing or two. He’d certainly enjoy, he thought with a slow smile, returning the favor in a different area altogether.
He wanted his hands on her. He’d already wondered what he would find in taste, in texture, in that lovely wide mouth of hers. It had been some time since a woman had put this hum in his blood, and he was enjoying the anticipation of it, the wondering of it.
She put him in mind of a young mare not quite sure of her legs. One who shied at the approach of a man even as she hoped for a nice, gentle stroke. It was an appealing combination, that hesitant manner with the clever mind and educated voice.
He hoped she would come that evening, as he’d asked her.
He hoped she’d wear one of her neat outfits, with her hair tidied back so he could imagine the pleasure of mussing her up.
If Jude had had a clue where Aidan’s thoughts were traveling, she would never have found the courage to leave the cottage. Even without that added complication, she’d changed her mind about going half a dozen times.
It would be impolite not to after she’d been asked.
It would look as if she expected his time and attention.
It was simply a nice way to spend a friendly evening.
She wasn’t the type of woman who spent evenings in bars.
Her own vacillation irritated her so much she decided to go on principle for one hour.
She dressed in stone-gray slacks and jacket, jazzing them up with a vest with thin burgundy stripes. It was Saturday night after all, she thought, and added silver earrings that dangled cheerfully. There would be music, she remembered, as she toyed with going crazy and adding a pair of thin silver bangle bracelets.
She had a secret and passionate love affair with jewelry.
As she slipped the bangles on her wrist, she thought of the ring the man in the cemetery had worn. That flash of sapphire in deeply carved silver, so out of place in the quiet countryside.
He’d been so odd, she thought now, coming and going so quietly it was almost as if she’d dreamed him. But she remembered his face and voice very clearly, as clearly as that sudden burst of scent, the quick kick of wind and the dizziness.
Just a sugar crash, she decided. All those cakes she’d eaten had leaped into her system and then away, leaving her momentarily giddy.
She shrugged it off, leaning forward to the mirror to make sure she hadn’t smeared her mascara. She would probably see him again, in the pub tonight or when she took flowers to Maude the next time.
With her bracelets jangling cheerfully and giving her confidence, she headed downstairs. She remembered her keys before she got all the way to the car this time, which she considered good progress. Just as she considered it a good sign that her palms didn’t sweat while she negotiated the road in the dark.
Pleased with herself, anticipating a quiet and enjoyable evening, she parked at the curb just down from Gallagher’s. Smoothing her hair as she went, she walked to the door, breathed in, pulled it open.
And was nearly knocked back again by the blast of music.
Pipes, fiddle, voices, then the wild roar of the crowd on the chorus of “Whiskey in the Jar.” The rhythm was so fast, so reckless it was a blur of sound and that sound grabbed her, yanked her inside, then surrounded her.
This wasn’t the dark, quiet pub she’d stepped into before. This one was crowded with people, spilling over at the low tables, jammed into the bar, milling about with glasses full and glasses empty.
The musicians—how could only three people make such a sound?—were
shoehorned into the front booth, taking the space over in their workingmen’s clothes and boots as they played like demon angels. The room smelled of smoke, yeast, and Saturday-night soap.
For a moment she wondered if she’d walked into the wrong place, but then spotted Darcy, her glorious cloud of dark hair tied back with a sassy red ribbon. She carried a tray loaded with empty glasses, bottles, overflowing ashtrays while she flirted skillfully with a young man whose face was as red as her ribbon with embarrassed delight and whose eyes were filled with desperate admiration.
Catching Jude’s eye, Darcy winked, then gave the infatuated young man a pat on the cheek and nudged her way through the crowd. “Pub’s lively tonight. Aidan said you’d be coming in and to keep an eye out for you.”
“Oh . . . that was nice of him, of you. I wasn’t expecting so . . . much.”
“The musicians are favored around here, and they draw a good crowd.”
“They’re wonderful.”
“They play a fine tune, yes.” Darcy was more interested in Jude’s earrings, and wondered where she’d bought them and what the price might have been. “Here now, just keep in my wake and I’ll get you to the bar safe enough.”
She did just that, winding and wending, nudging now and then with a laugh and a comment addressed to this one or that one by name. She headed for the far end of the bar, where she slipped her tray through bodies to the order station.
“Good evening, Mr. Riley, sir,” Darcy said to the ancient man at the very last stool.
“Good evening to you as well, young Darcy.” He spoke in a reedy voice, smiled at her out of eyes that looked half blind to Jude as he sipped his thick, dark Guinness. “If you marry me, darling, I’ll make you a queen.”
“Then marry we will Saturday next, for a queen I deserve to be.” She gave him a pretty kiss on his papery cheek. “Will Riley, let the Yank here have your seat next to your grandda.”
“Pleasure.” The thin man hopped off the stool and beamed a smile at Jude. “You’re the Yank, then. Sit down here, next to me grandda, and we’ll buy you a pint.”