by Nora Roberts
“Oh, she has a fondness for the ladies, particularly.” Folding her arms on the open window, Brenna rested her chin there. She wondered why the woman seemed embarrassed to have been caught petting a dog. “So you’re fond of dogs, are you?”
“Apparently.”
“Whenever she wears out her welcome, you just shove her out the gate, and she’ll head home. Our Betty knows a soft touch, and she doesn’t mind taking advantage.”
“She’s wonderful company. But I suppose I’m keeping her from your mother.”
“She’s more on her mind than Betty’s presence at the moment. Refrigerator’s out again. I’m heading down to kick it for her. Haven’t seen you at the pub this week.”
“Oh. No, I’ve been working. I haven’t really been out.”
“But you’re heading off today.” She nodded her head toward Jude’s purse.
“I thought I’d drive into Waterford, hunt up those gardening books.”
“Oh, now there’s no need to go all that way, unless you’re set on it. Come down the house and talk to my mother while I’m banging on the icebox. She’d enjoy that, and it’d keep her from badgering me with questions.”
“She wouldn’t be expecting company. I wouldn’t want to—”
“Door’s always open.” The woman was so interesting, Brenna thought. And hardly said more than one short string of words at a time unless you bumped and nudged at her. If anyone could pry bits and pieces out of her, to Brenna’s mind, it was Mollie O’Toole.
“Come on, hop in,” she added, then whistled for the dog.
Betty yapped once, cheerfully, then bounded to the truck and leaped neatly into the back.
Jude searched for a polite excuse, but everything that came to mind seemed stilted and rude. Smiling weakly, she latched the gate and walked around the truck to the passenger side. “You’re sure I won’t be in the way.”
“Not a bit of it.” Pleased, Brenna beamed at her, waited until she climbed in, then roared backward out of the drive.
“God!”
“What?” Brenna slammed on the brakes, forcing Jude to slap her hands on the dash before her face plowed into it. She hadn’t had time to fasten her seat belt.
“You. . . ah.” Regulating her breathing, Jude hastily dragged the belt around her. “You don’t worry that a car might be coming?”
Brenna laughed, a rollicking sound, then gave Jude a friendly pat on the shoulder. “There wasn’t, was there? Don’t fret, I’ll keep you in one piece. Those are lovely shoes,” she added. Though Brenna didn’t see how they’d be as comfortable as a stout pair of boots. “Darcy wagers you wear shoes made in Italy. Is that the truth?”
“Um . . .” With a vague frown, Jude stared down at her neat black flats. “Yes, actually.”
“She’s a keen eye for fashion, Darcy does. Loves looking through the magazines and such. Dreamed through them even when we were girls together.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Oh, she is, yes. The Gallaghers are a fine, handsome family.”
“It’s odd that such attractive people aren’t involved with anyone. Particularly.” Even as she said it, casually as she could, she cursed herself for prying.
“Darcy has no interest, never has, in the local lads. Above a bit of flirting, that is. Aidan—” She jerked a shoulder. “Seems married to the pub since he came back, else the man is very discreet. Shawn . . .”
A frown marred Brenna’s brow as she whipped the truck into the drive at her house. “He doesn’t look hard enough at what’s in front of his face, if you’re asking me.”
The dog leaped out of the truck and raced around the back of the house.
The frown vanished as Brenna hopped out. “If you’re of a mind to do some shopping in Waterford City, or Dublin, Darcy’s your girl. Nothing she likes better than wandering the shops and trying on clothes and shoes and playing at the paints and powders. But if your stove’s acting up, or you find a leak in your roof—” She winked as she led Jude to the front door. “You give me a call.”
There were flowers here, snugged together in color and shape into a lovely blanket outside the door, trailing and tangling up a trellis, spilling happily out of pots of simple red clay.
They seemed to grow as they chose, yet there was a tidiness, an almost ruthless neatness, Jude thought, to the entrance of the house. The stoop was scrubbed so clean it looked adequate as a table for major surgery. And Jude felt herself wince when Brenna carelessly left dirt from her boots over its surface.
“Ma!” Brenna’s voice rang out, down the pretty hallway, up the angled staircase, as a fat gray cat slid out of a doorway to wind around her boots. “I’ve brought company.”
The house smelled female, was Jude’s first thought. Not just the flowers, or the polish, but the underlying scent of women—perfume, lipstick, shampoo—the sort of candy-coated fragrance young women and girls often carried with them.
She remembered it from college, and wondered if that was why her stomach clutched. She’d been so miserably awkward and out of place among all those recklessly confident females.
“Mary Brenna O’Toole, I’ll let you know when my hearing’s gone, and then you can shout at me.” Mollie came down the hallway, tugging off a short pink apron.
She was a sturdy-looking woman, no taller than her daughter but certainly wider. Her hair was only slightly less brilliant than Brenna’s but quite a bit tidier. She had a plump, pretty face with an easy smile and friendly green eyes that beamed welcome even before she held out her hand.
“So you brought Miss Murray to see me. You’ve the look of your granny, a dear woman she is. I’m happy to meet you.”
“Thank you.” The hand that clasped Jude’s was strong and hard from a lifetime of making a home. “I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time.”
“Not at all. If it’s not one thing than for sure it’s another around the O’Tooles’. Come in and sit in the parlor, won’t you? I’ll fix us some tea.”
“I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“Of course you’re not.” Mollie gave her a comforting squeeze on the shoulder as she might to any of her girls if they felt out of place. “You’ll keep me company while the lass here is in the kitchen, banging and cursing. Brenna, I’m telling you just as I’ll tell your dad when I get hold of him. It’s time that refrigerator was hauled out of my house and another brought in.”
“I can fix it.”
“And so both of you say, time and time again.” She shook her head as she led Jude into the front parlor with its company chairs and fresh flowers. “It’s a cross to bear, Miss Murray, having those that are handy with things in your life, for nothing ever gets tossed away. It’s always ‘I can fix it,’ or ‘I have a use for it.’ Make Miss Murray at home, Brenna, while I see to the tea. Then you can have at it.”
“Well, I can fix it,” Brenna mumbled when her mother was out of earshot. “And if I can’t it’s good for parts, isn’t it?”
“Parts of what?”
Brenna glanced back, focused on Jude again and grinned. “Oh, for this and for that, or else for the other thing entirely. So I hear Jack Brennan came to beg your pardon with a fistful of posies Sunday last.”
“Yes, he did.” Jude perched on her chair and looked with some envy at the way Brenna slouched comfortably in hers. “He was very sweet and embarrassed. Aidan shouldn’t have made him do it.”
“It was one way to pay Jack back for the fat lip.” Twinkling now, she shifted in her chair, hooking one booted ankle over the other. “How did he manage it? It’s a rare thing for a fist slowed by whiskey to land on Aidan Gallagher.”
“It was my fault, I suppose. I called out—” Screamed, Jude thought in self-disgust. “I must have distracted him and then he had a fist in his face, and his head was snapping back, his mouth bleeding. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Haven’t you?” Fascinated, Brenna pursed her lips. Even in a female household, she’d grown up with th
e stray fist flying. It would often be her own. “Don’t they have the occasionally donnybrook in Chicago?”
It was a word that made Jude smile, and think for some reason of baseball. “Not in my neighborhood,” she murmured. “Does Aidan often have fistfights with his customers?”
“No, indeed, though he started his own fair share of brawls once upon a time. These days if someone’s reached his limit and is feeling a bit frisky, Aidan talks them around it. Most don’t want to push him in any case. Gallaghers are known for their dark moods and black temper.”
“Unlike the O’Tooles,” Mollie said dryly as she carted in a tea tray. “Who are of a sunny nature night and day.”
“That’s the truth.” Brenna leaped up and planted a loud kiss on her mother’s cheek. “I’ll see to your fridge, Ma, and have it working like new for you.”
“Hasn’t worked like new since Alice Mae was born, and she’s fifteen this summer. Go on then before the milk sours. She’s a good girl, my Brenna,” Mollie went on when Brenna strolled out. “All my girls are. Will you have some biscuits with your tea, Miss Murray? I baked yesterday.”
“Thank you. Please call me Jude.”
“I will, then, and you call me Mollie. It’s nice to have a neighbor in Faerie Hill Cottage again. Old Maude would be pleased you’ve come as she wouldn’t want the house sitting lonely. No, none for you, you great lump.” Mollie addressed this to the cat who leaped onto the arm of her chair. She nudged him off again, but not before scratching his ears.
“You have a wonderful house. I like looking at it when I’m walking.”
“It’s a hodgepodge, but it suits us.” Mollie poured the tea into her good china cups, smiling as she set the pot down again. “My Mick was always one for adding a room here and a room there, and when Brenna was big enough to swing a hammer, why the two of them ganged up on me and did whatever they liked to the place.”
“With so many children, you’d need room.” Jude accepted the tea and two golden sugar cookies. “Brenna said you have five daughters.”
“Five that sometimes seems like twenty when the lot of them are running around tame. Brenna’s the oldest, and her father’s apple. My Maureen’s getting married next autumn, and driving us all mad with it and her squabbles with her young man, and Patty’s just gotten herself engaged to Kevin Riley and will, I’m sure, be putting us through the same miseries as Maureen is before much longer. Then my Mary Kate’s at the university in Dublin, studying computers of all things. And little Alice Mae, the baby, spends all her time with animals and trying to talk me into taking in every broken-winged bird in County Waterford.”
Mollie paused. “And when they’re not here, underfoot, I miss them something terrible. As I’m sure your mother’s missing you with you so far from home.”
Jude made a noncommittal sound. She was sure her mother thought of her, but actively miss her? She couldn’t imagine it, not with the schedule her mother kept.
“It—” Jude broke off, goggling as harsh, vicious curses erupted from the rear of the house.
“Damn you to fiery hell, you bloody, snake-eyed bastard. I’ve a mind to drop your worthless hulk off the cliffs myself.”
“Brenna takes after her dad in other aspects as well,” Mollie continued, topping off the tea with a serene grace as her daughter’s curses and threats were punctuated by banging and crashing. “She’s a fine, clever girl, but a bit short of temper. So, she tells me you’ve an interest in flowers.”
“Ah.” Jude cleared her throat as the cursing continued. “Yes. That is, I don’t know much about gardening, but I want to keep up the flowers at the cottage. I was going to buy some books.”
“That’s fine, then. You can learn a lot from books, though for Brenna she’d rather be tied facedown on a hill of ants than have to read about the workings of a thing. Prefers to rip it apart for herself. Still, I’ve a bit of a hand with a garden myself. Maybe you’d like to take a walk around with me, take a look at what I’ve done. Then you could tell me what it is you’ve a need to know.”
Jude set down her cup. “I’d really like that.”
“Fine. Let’s leave Brenna alone so she can raise the roof without us worrying it’ll crash down on our heads.” She rose, hesitated. “Could I see your hands?”
“My hands?” Baffled, Jude held them out, found them firmly gripped.
“Old Maude had hands like yours. Of course, they were old and troubled with the arthritis, but they were narrow and fine, and I imagine her fingers were long and straight and slender like yours when she was young. You’ll do, Jude.” Mollie held her hands a moment longer, met her eyes. “You’ve good hands for flowering.”
“I want to be good at it,” Jude said, surprising herself.
And Mollie’s eyes warmed. “Then you will be.”
The next hour was sheer delight. Shyness and reserve melted away as Jude fell under the spell of the flowers and Mollie’s innate patience.
Those feathery leaves were larkspur that Mollie said would bloom in soft and showy colors, and the charming bicolored trumpets were columbine. Dancing around as they chose were flowers with odd and charming names like flax and pinks and lady’s mantel and bee balm.
She knew she’d forget names, or mix them up, but it was a wonder to be shown which bloomed in spring, what would flower in summer. What was hardy and what was delicate. What drew the bees and the butterflies.
She didn’t feel foolish asking what she was certain were almost childishly basic questions. Mollie would just smile or nod and explain.
“Old Maude, we would trade back and forth, a clump or a cutting or some seeds. So most of what I have here, you have at the cottage. She liked romantic flowers, and me the cheerful. So between us we ended up with both. I’ll walk up your way one day, if you wouldn’t mind, and take a look to see if there’s something you need to be doing that you’re not.”
“I’d appreciate that so much, especially knowing how busy you are.”
Mollie cocked her head; her face was bright, as cheerful as her gardens. “You’re a nice girl, Jude, and I’d enjoy spending some time with you now and again over the gardens. And you’ve a pretty bit of polish on you. I wouldn’t mind seeing some of it rub off on my Brenna. She’s a wide heart and a clever mind, but she’s rough on the edges.”
Mollie’s gaze drifted over Jude’s shoulder, and she sighed. “Speaking of it. Have you finally killed the beast, then, Mary Brenna?”
“It was a struggle, a battle of sweat and tears, but I won.” Brenna swaggered around the side of the house. There was a smear of grease on her cheek and a dry crust of blood over her left knuckles. “It’ll run for you now, Ma.”
“Damn it, girl, you know I’ve my heart set on a new one.”
“Ah, that one’s years left in it.” Cheerfully, she kissed her mother’s cheek. “I’ve got to get on now. I’ve promised to go by and see to fixing the windows in Betsy Clooney’s house. Do you want to ride back with me, Jude, or would you rather stay awhile?”
“I should get back. I really enjoyed myself, Mollie. Thank you.”
“You come back whenever you want a bit of company.”
“I will. Oh, I left my purse inside. I’ll just run in and get it, if that’s all right.”
“Go right on.” Mollie waited until the door shut. “She’s thirsty,” she murmured.
“Thirsty, Ma?”
“For doing. For being. But she’s afraid to drink too fast. It’s wise to take things in small sips, but once in a while . . .”
“Darcy thinks Aidan has his eye on her.”
“Oh, is that so?” Amused, Molly turned to wiggle her eyebrows at her daughter. “That would be some fine and fast drinking now, wouldn’t it?”
“Darcy told me she once spied on him while he was courting the Duffy girl, and when he’d finished kissing the lass, she staggered like a drunk.”
“Darcy’s no business spying on her brothers,” Mollie said primly, then slid her gaze back to Brenna. “Whi
ch Duffy girl? Tell me later,” she added quickly when Jude came out again.
“So you had a nice visit then,” Brenna began when they slid back into the truck.
“Your mother’s wonderful.” On impulse, Jude swiveled to wave as Brenna pulled out of the drive with her usual speed and enthusiasm. “I’ll never remember half of what she told me about gardening, but it’s a good start.”
“She’ll like having you to talk with. Patty has a hand with flowers, but she’s got her head in the clouds over Kevin Riley these days and spends most of her time sighing and looking moony.”
“She’s awfully proud of you and your sisters.”
“That’s part of a mother’s job.”
“Yes, but it doesn’t always glow out of them,” Jude decided. “You’re probably used to it, so you don’t really notice, but it’s a lovely thing to see.”
“Being what you are,” Brenna mused, “you pay more attention to such things. Do you learn that, or do you just have it in you?”
“I suppose it’s both—like the way I noticed that she was proud you’d been able to fix the refrigerator, even though she was hoping you couldn’t.”
Brenna turned her head to laugh into Jude’s eyes. “Nearly didn’t manage it this time, frigging temperamental heap. But the thing is, my dad’s wheeled a deal for a brand-new one, oh, and a beauty it is, too. But we can’t seal the bargain and have it delivered for another week or two. So if we’re to keep the pleasure of the surprise, that wheezing son of a bitch has to last a bit longer.”
“That’s so lovely.” Jude embraced the idea of it, then tried to imagine her mother’s reaction if she and her father surprised her with a new refrigerator.
Bafflement, Jude imagined, and not a little insult. Amused by the idea, she chuckled. “If I gave my mother a major appliance as a gift, she’d think I’d lost my mind.”
“But then, your mother’s a professional woman, as I recall.”
“Yes, she is, and she’s wonderful at her job. But your mother’s a professional woman, too. A professional mother.”