by Nora Roberts
But he had his own way of getting things done. One step might not follow the other in such a straight line, and he preferred a meandering pace. After all, marching head-on you missed the little things that happened all around you.
He was one for treasuring the little things. Like the clear call of the magpie, or the shine of the sun on a particular blade of grass. And there, the way the cliffs stood strong against the incessant beat of the sea.
He could wander for hours, and did when he forgot himself. He was well aware that most people thought he got nothing done during his dreaming time, and they smiled indulgently. But in truth he got everything done. The thinking, the restoring, the watching.
And because he was watching, he didn’t see Mary Kate until she hailed him and ran in his direction.
“It’s a fine day for walking.” To be on the safe side, he tucked his hands into his pockets.
“Warmer than it’s been in days.” She smoothed her hair in case her little dash had mussed it. “I was just thinking I might walk down to your cottage, then here you are.”
“My cottage?” She’d changed out of her Sunday dress, he noted, but she wore what looked to be a new sweater, and she had on earrings, scent, fresh lipstick. All the little lures women use.
He was suddenly sure that Brenna had been right about the situation. And it terrified him.
“I was hoping to take you up on what you said last night.”
“Last night?”
“About how I could listen to your music anytime. I love hearing you play your tunes.”
“Ah . . . I was just coming over to your own house, to speak with Brenna about a matter.”
“She’s not home.” Deciding he needed a little encouragement, Mary Kate slid her arm through his. “Something needed to be fixed at Maureen’s, so off she went, and Ma and Patty with her.”
“A word with your father, then—”
“He’s not at home either. He took Alice Mae down to the beach to look for shells. But you’re welcome to come.”
Knowing it was bold, she let her hand run up and down his arm as they walked. The feel of muscle—a man’s arm, not a boy’s—had her pulse dancing. “I’ll be happy to fix you some tea, and a bite to eat.”
“That’s kind of you.” He was a dead man. He caught sight of the O’Toole house as they topped the hill. Though thin smoke plumed from the chimney, it had the general air of being empty.
Brenna’s lorry wasn’t parked in the street. The dog was nowhere to be seen. Apparently even Betty had deserted him in his hour of need.
The only choice left was a quick and cowardly retreat.
“What was I thinking?” He stopped short and clapped a hand to his forehead. “I’m supposed to be helping Aidan . . . at the house. Slipped my mind.” As quickly as he could manage, he untangled his arm, gently nudging her hand away, as he might a puppy who was inclined to nip. Down, girl. “Things are always slipping my mind, so I don’t suppose he’ll be surprised that I’m late.”
“Well, but if you’re already late . . .” She leaned toward him, nearly into him, in a gesture that even a distracted coward such as himself recognized as an invitation.
“He’ll be looking for me.” This time he patted her on the head, as he might a child, and saw from the pout beginning to form that she’d taken it as he’d meant it. “I’ll stop in for tea sometime soon. Give my best to your family, now, won’t you?”
He was twenty strides away before he let out a relieved breath. And what, he wondered, was this with the O’Toole girls all of a sudden? Now instead of a quiet walk, perhaps a cup of tea in a friendly kitchen, and a little time alone in the cottage working on his music, he was honor-bound to go into the village and find something to do at Aidan’s.
“What are you doing here?” Aidan asked him.
“It’s a long and complicated story.” Shawn glanced around cautiously as he stepped inside. “Is Jude at home?”
“She’s upstairs with Darcy. Our sister’s having some trouble deciding what to wear to drive this Dubliner she’s seeing crazy.”
“That should be keeping them busy for a while. Good. I’ve had enough of women lately,” he explained when Aidan looked at him questioningly. “Now there’s the handsome dog.” He bent down to give Finn’s head a scratch. “Growing into his feet, this one is, and fast.”
“He is that, and good-natured with it, aren’t you, lad?”
Finn turned adoring eyes on Aidan, and his tail swished with such enthusiasm that it drummed from Shawn’s knees to the table by the door. “He grows much more, he’ll be knocking lamps off the table with that whip of his. Can you spare a beer?”
“I can spare two, one for each of us. Women,” Aidan continued as they made their way into the kitchen, “as we were on the subject, are always going to be giving you grief of one sort or another. It’s that pretty face of yours.”
Amused, Shawn sat at the table while Aidan got two bottles of Harp and opened them. He laid a hand absentmindedly on Finn’s head when the dog bumped under it. “You did fair in the lady department yourself, as I recall. And you’re not nearly so pretty as I am.”
“But I’m smarter.” With a grin, Aidan passed his brother the bottle. “I held out for the best of them.”
“I can’t argue with that.” After tapping his bottle to Aidan’s, Shawn took a long, appreciative swallow. “Well, then, it wasn’t to talk about women that I came by, but to get away from them for a time.”
“If you’ve a mind to discuss business, I’ve some of that.” He got down a tin of crisps, set it between them before he sat. “I had a call from Dad this morning. He and Ma send their love. He was going to ring you as well.”
“I was out walking. I suppose I missed them.”
“Well, the immediate news is he’s off to New York next week to meet with the Magee.” Since his dog was looking at him hopefully, and Jude wasn’t around to disapprove, he tossed Finn a crisp. “He wants a feel for the man before we go any further on this deal.”
“No one sizes a man up quicker and more true than Dad.”
“Aye. And in the meantime, Magee is sending his man here, to do some sizing up of his own. His name is Finkle, and he’ll be staying at the cliff hotel. Dad and I agree we won’t discuss hard monetary terms with Finkle until we’ve got a better handle on this Magee.”
“You and Dad would know best about such matters. But . . .”
“But?”
“It seems to me that one of the handles we’re looking to grip would be what we’ll make out of the deal. In pounds, yes, but also in how this project of Magee’s will enhance the pub.”
“That’s a fact.”
“So the trick would be,” Shawn said after a contemplative sip of beer, “how to gain information without giving so much of it in return.”
“Dad’ll be working on that in New York.”
“Which doesn’t stop us from working on it here.” As easy a mark as Aidan, Shawn fed Finn another crisp. “What we have in our happy little family, Aidan, is the businessman”—Shawn tipped his beer toward his brother—“that would be you.”
“So it would.”
“And,” Shawn aimed a finger at the ceiling, “upstairs we have two lovely women. One, gracious and charming, has a shyness of manner that masks, to those who don’t look close enough, a clever brain. The other, flirtatious and beautiful, has a habit of wrapping men around her finger before they realize she has a steel spine.”
Aidan nodded slowly. “Go on.”
“Then there’s me, the brother who doesn’t have a brain cell working in his head for business. The affable one, who pays no attention to money matters.”
“Well, you’re an affable enough sort, Shawn, but you’ve as good a head for business as I do.”
“No, that I don’t, but I’ve enough of one to get by. Enough of one to know it’ll be you Finkle concentrates on.” He gestured absently toward Aidan with his beer as he thought it through. “And while he’s doing th
at, the rest of us can surround him and poke in, so to speak, in our own fashions. I think by the time the deed is done, we’ll know what we need to know. Then you make your deal, Aidan. And Gallagher’s will be the finest public house in the country, the place they speak of when they speak of Irish hospitality and music.”
Aidan sat back, his eyes dark and sober. “Is that what you want, Shawn?”
“It’s what you want.”
“That’s not what I’m asking you.” Before Shawn could lift the bottle again, Aidan gripped his wrist, held it firm enough that Shawn cocked his head in question. “Is it what you want?”
“Gallagher’s is ours,” Shawn said simply. “It should be the best.”
After a moment, Aidan released him, then restless, rose. “I never figured you for staying.”
“Where would I go? Why would I?”
“I always thought there’d come a day when you’d figure out what you wanted from your music, then you’d go to get it.”
“I have what I want from my music.” As the crisps were no longer coming his way, Finn settled under the table at Shawn’s feet. “It pleasures me.”
“Why have you never tried to sell it? Why have you never taken yourself off to Dublin or London or New York to play in the pubs there so it can be heard?”
“It’s not ready to sell.” It was an excuse, but all he had. The rest, at least, could be plain truth. “And I’ve no yearning to go to Dublin or London or New York, Aidan, or anywhere to sing for supper. This is my place. It’s where my heart is.”
He settled back, absently rubbing Finn’s side with his foot. “I’ve no wanderer’s thirst inside me like you had, or like Darcy and Ma and Dad. I want to see what I know when I wake in the morning, and hear sounds I’m familiar with. It centers me, you see,” he went on while Aidan studied him, “to know the names of the faces around me, and to be home no matter where I look.”
“You’re the best of us,” Aidan said quietly and made Shawn laugh with both surprise and embarrassment.
“Well, now, there’s a statement for the ages.”
“You are. You’ve the heart that draws in the land here, and the sea and the air and holds it with respect and with love. I couldn’t do that until I’d gone off to see all I could see. And when I left, Shawn, I’m telling you I didn’t think I’d be back. Not to stay.”
“But that’s what you did, what you’ve done.”
“Because I came to realize what you’ve always known. This is our place in the world. By rights, if we went by heart instead of birth order, you’d head the pub.”
“And run it into the ground within a year. Thanks, but no.”
“You wouldn’t, though. I haven’t always given you the credit you deserve.”
Shawn turned the Harp over in his hand, eyed it thoughtfully, and sent the dog at his feet a wink. “Just how many of these bottles did the man drink down before I got here, Finn, my lad?”
“I haven’t been drinking. I want you to understand my feelings and thoughts before things change on us again. And they will change if we make this deal.”
“They’ll change, but we’ll be the ones guiding the direction of it.”
“It’ll take more of your time.”
He’d thought of that, and what use he would make of the time it took. “I’ve time to spare.”
“And Darcy’s—she won’t be pleased with that.”
“No.” Shawn let out a breath. “But she’ll be pleased enough with the baubles and trinkets she can buy with the profits. And she’ll stand for Gallagher’s, Aidan.” Shawn met his brother’s eyes. “You can give her credit for that.”
“At least till she bags that rich husband.”
“After she does, and she deigns to visit with those of us who remain peasants, you could still ask her to put on an apron and pick up a tray.”
“And have her bash me head in with it.” But Aidan nodded, understanding. “Aye, she’d lend her hand if the need was there, I know it.”
“Don’t take this weight all on yourself—the deal and the worry and the work of it,” Shawn told him. “There’s three of us—well, four now that we’ve our Jude Frances. Gallagher’s is family. We’ll do well with this business, Aidan. I’ve a good feeling about it.”
“It’s good you came by. I’m clearer in my head than I was.”
“Well, then, that should be worth one more beer before I—” Shawn broke off as he heard voices, light and female. “Oh, blessed Mary, there’s the women. I’m off. I’ll use the back door.”
“Next time, I’ll get you drunk and pry out what’s got you so spooked over women.”
“If I don’t figure out what to do about it in the next little while, I’ll tell you.” With this, Shawn escaped out the back door.
EIGHT
THE TUNE WALTZING its way through Shawn’s head put him in the best of moods. While the smoke from his pots and pans drifted up, and the oil he was heating began to sizzle, he let it play through, bar to bar, then a key change for a bit of drama. The words weren’t clear to him yet, but they would come. It seemed to him a summer song, full of light. And the thinking of it, the listening to it inside his head, chased the winter gloom away.
The shared beer and conversation in Aidan’s kitchen the day before had settled him down. Which was just where Shawn preferred to be.
At the moment he couldn’t understand why he’d gotten so nervy about matters. Little Mary Kate was just going through one of those phases girls went through, and it would pass as quickly as it had reared up. He’d gone through phases himself, hadn’t he? He could remember clearly mooning and sighing over pretty Colleen Brennan when he’d been about eighteen. Fortunately, he’d never worked up the courage to do anything but moon and sigh, as pretty Colleen Brennan had been two and twenty at the time and engaged to marry Tim Riley.
He’d gotten over it in a matter of weeks, then had sighed over another pretty face. That was the way of things, after all. Eventually, of course, he’d done more than sigh and had discovered the rare wonder of having a woman naked under him. And that was a fine thing.
Still, he took care whom he touched and how he touched, so that when the time was over each could walk away happy with the experience. He wasn’t a man to take the act of love as a casual matter. Which he supposed, was why he hadn’t participated in that rare wonder for some months now.
And that, he imagined, was most likely why the O’Toole had set his glands to stirring.
Not that he was at all certain, as yet, if he intended to do anything about it. No, Brenna was a puzzle, and one he thought it might be best to leave unsolved. A little time, he decided, a little care, and the two of them would be back on their old familiar ground, if they could just let things be.
His mind would be quiet again, and life would slide along the way it was meant to.
All he had to do was forget how stimulating it was to have his mouth on hers.
He checked on the crubeens he was boiling with cabbage and jacketed potatoes. He added a bit more marjoram to the broth to flavor it up, a trick he’d learned by experimentation.
He particularly liked to present the dish when there were Yanks in the pub. Their varying reactions to being served pigs’ trotters was always an amusement to him. Jude was doing the waitressing tonight, and he didn’t think she’d disappoint him.
Meanwhile, he had fish to fry for the two hikers from Wexford. He slid the haddock into the oil, then glanced up as the back door opened.
Instantly his spine stiffened, his eyes narrowed, and a prickly ball bounced around in his gut.
“Smells good,” Brenna said easily and sniffed the air. “Would that be crubeens you’re doing there? I doubt we’ll have such fare in Waterford City.”
She was wearing paint, and sparkly things at her ears. And for God’s sake a dress—one that didn’t leave the matter of curves to a man’s imagination and showed a great deal of slim, well muscled leg.
“What are you doing, done up like that?�
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“Having dinner with Darcy and her Dubliners.” She’d rather, much rather pull up a chair at the table, snag a portion and tuck into the crubeens, but she’d given her word. And that was that.
“You’re going out with a man you’ve never laid eyes on.”
“Darcy has, and I’d best go up and drag her away from her mirror or she’ll primp another hour and I’ll never get my dinner.”
“Just a damn minute.”
His tone alone would have stopped her, it was very sharp and un-Shawnlike. But even before she could turn back, he had her arm. “Well, what’s lit into you, then?”
“Perfume, too,” he said in disgust, as he got a good, heady whiff of her scent. “I should’ve known it. Well, you can just turn straight around and go back home. I’m not having you go off dressed like this.”
Temper would have snapped out, would have bitten him on the neck, but it couldn’t get through the thick wall of shock. “You’re not having it? Dressed like what?”
“I’m not, no. And you know very well dressed like what. It’s surprised I am that your mother let you out of the house this way.”
“I’m twenty-four, if you’ve forgotten. My mother stopped approving my choice of attire some years ago. And it’s surely no business of yours what I’m wearing.”
“I’m making it my business. Now go home and wash that stuff off your face.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” The fact was, she’d used the lipstick and so forth only because she knew Darcy would have slathered twice as much on her if she’d shown up without it. But there was no reason to mention that, especially since that temper was busily gnawing through the shock.
“Fine, then, I’ll do for you here and now.” He hauled her up under one arm, ignoring her shrieked curse and the fist that swiped at his temple, and carted her toward the sink. He had a vision through the black haze of his fury of dumping her in headfirst and turning the water on full and ice cold.