by Nora Roberts
When she saw another house it was almost a shock. It was nestled just off the road behind the hedgerows and rambled front, back, and sideways as if different pieces of it had been plopped down carelessly on a whim. And somehow it worked, she decided. It was a charming combination of stone and wood, juts and overhangs with flowers rioting in both the front yard and the back. Beyond the gardens in the rear was a shed—what her grandmother would have called a cabin—with tools and machines tumbling out the door.
In the driveway she saw a car, covered with stone-gray paint, and looking as though it had come off the assembly line years before Jude had been born.
A big yellow dog slept, in a patch of sunlight in the side yard, or she assumed it slept. It was on its back with its feet in the air like roadkill.
The O’Tooles’ house? Jude wondered, then decided it must be so when a woman came out the back door with a basket of laundry.
She had brilliant red hair and the wide-hipped, sturdy frame that Jude would imagine in a woman required to carry and birth five children. The dog, proving she was alive, rolled over to her side and thumped her tail twice as the woman marched to the clothesline.
It occurred to Jude that she’d never actually seen anyone hang clothes before. It wasn’t something even the most dedicated of housewives tended to do in downtown Chicago. It seemed like a mindless and thereby soul-soothing process to her. The woman took pegs from the pocket of her apron, clamped them in her mouth as she bent to take a pillowcase from the basket. Snapped it briskly, then clamped it to the line. The next item was dealt with in the same way and shared the second peg.
Fascinating.
She worked down the line, without any obvious hurry, with the yellow dog for company, emptying her basket while what she hung billowed and flapped wetly in the breeze.
Just another part of the painting, Jude decided. She would title this section Country Wife.
When the basket was empty, the woman turned to the facing line and unhooked clothes already hanging and dry, folding them until her basket was piled high.
She cocked the basket on her hip and walked back into the house, the dog prancing behind her.
What a nice way to spend the morning, she thought.
And that evening, when everyone came home, the house would smell of something wonderful simmering in the kitchen. Some sort of stew, Jude imagined, or a roast with potatoes browned from its juices. The family would all sit around the table, one crowded with bowls and plates wonderfully mismatched, and talk about their day and laugh and sneak scraps to the dog, who begged from under the table.
Large families, she thought, must be a great comfort.
Of course, there was nothing wrong with small ones, she added, immediately feeling guilty. Being an only child had its advantages. She’d gotten all her parents’ attention.
Maybe too much of their attention, a little voice murmured in her ear.
Considering that voice very rude, she blocked it out and turned to return to her cottage and do something practical with her time.
Because she felt disloyal, she immediately phoned home. With the time difference she caught her parents before they left for work, and squashed her guilt by chatting happily, telling them she was rested, enjoying herself, and looking forward to this new experience.
She was well aware that they both considered her impulsive trip to Ireland a kind of experiment, a quick forty-five-degree turn from the path she’d been so content to pursue for so long. They weren’t against it, which relieved her. They were just puzzled. She had no way to explain it to them, or to herself.
With family on her mind, she placed another call. There was no need to explain anything to Granny Murray. She simply knew. Lighter of heart, Jude filled her grandmother in on every detail of the trip, her impressions, her delight with the cottage while she brewed a pot of tea and made a sandwich.
“I just had a walk,” she continued, and with the phone braced on her shoulder, set her simple lunch on the table. “I saw the ruins and the tower from a distance. I’ll have a closer look later.”
“It’s a fine spot,” Granny told her. “There’s a lot to feel there.”
“Well, I’m very interested in seeing the carvings and the arcading, but I didn’t want to wander that far today. I saw the neighbor’s house. It must be the O’Tooles’.”
“Ah, Michael O’Toole. I remember him when he was just a lad—a quick grin Mick had and a way of talking you out of tea and cakes. He married that pretty Logan girl, Mollie, and they had five girls. The one you met, Brenna, she’d be the oldest of the brood. How’s she faring, pretty Mollie?”
“Well, I didn’t go over. She was busy with laundry.”
“You’ll find no one’s too busy to take a moment, Jude Frances. Next time you’re roaming you stop in and pay your respects to Mollie O’Toole.”
“I will. Oh, and Gran?” Amused, she smiled as she sipped her tea. “You didn’t tell me the cottage was haunted.”
“Sure and I did, girl. Haven’t you listened to the tapes, or read the letters and such I gave you?”
“No, not yet.”
“And you’re thinking there goes Granny again, with her make-believe. You just go through the things I sent along with you. The story’s there about Lady Gwen and her faerie lover.”
“Faerie lover?”
“So it was said. The cottage is built on a faerie hill with its raft, or palace, beneath, and she waits for him still, pining because she turned off happiness for sense, and he losing it for pride.”
“That’s sad,” Jude murmured.
“Well, it is. Still, it’s a good spot, the hill, for looking inside yourself to your heart’s desire. You look inside yours while you’re there.”
“Right now I’m just looking for some quiet.”
“Take as much of it as you need, there’s plenty to go around. But don’t stand back too long and watch the rest of the world. Life’s so much shorter than you think.”
“Why don’t you come out, Gran, stay here with me?”
“Oh, I’ll come back, but this is your time now. Pay attention to it. You’re a good girl, Jude, but you don’t have to be good all the time.”
“So you’re always telling me. Maybe I’ll find some handsome Irish rogue and have a reckless love affair.”
“It wouldn’t hurt you any. Put flowers on Cousin Maude’s grave for me, will you, darling? And tell her I’ll come see her when I’m able.”
“I will. I love you, Gran.”
Jude didn’t know where the time went. She’d meant to do something productive, had really intended to go out to play with the flowers for a few minutes. To pick just a handful to put in the tall blue bottle she’d found in the living room. Of course she’d picked too many and needed another bottle. There didn’t seem to be an actual vase in the house. Then it had been such fun sitting on the stoop arranging them and wishing she knew their names that she’d whiled away most of the afternoon.
It had been a mistake to carry the smaller squat green bottle up to her office to put on the table with her computer. But she’d only meant to lie down for a minute or two. She’d slept for two solid hours on top of the little bed in her office, and woke up groggy and appalled.
She’d lost her discipline. She was lazy. She’d done nothing but sleep or piddle for more than thirty hours now.
And she was hungry again.
At this rate, she decided as she foraged for something quick in the kitchen, she’d be fat, slow, and stupid in a week.
She would go out, drive down to the village. She’d find a bookstore, the bank, the post office. She’d find out where the cemetery was so that she could visit Old Maude’s grave for her grandmother. Which is what she should have done that morning. But this way it would be done and she could spend the next day going through the tapes and letters her grandmother had given her to see if there was a paper in them.
She changed first, choosing trim slacks, a turtleneck, and a blazer that made her feel muc
h more alert and professional than the thick sweater and jeans she’d worn all day.
She attacked her hair—“attack” was the only term she could use to describe what she had to do to tame it into a thick, bound tail when all it wanted to do was frizz up and spring out everywhere at once.
She was cautious with makeup. She’d never been handy with it, but the results seemed sufficient for a casual tour of the village. A glance in the mirror told her she didn’t look like a day-old corpse or a hooker, both of which could and had happened on occasion.
Taking a deep breath, she headed out to attempt another session with the leased car and the Irish roads. She was behind the wheel, reaching for the ignition when she realized she’d forgotten the keys.
“Ginkgo,” she muttered as she climbed back out. “You’re going to start taking ginkgo.”
After a frustrated search, she found the keys on the kitchen table. This time she remembered to turn a light on, as it might be dark before she returned, and to lock the front door. When she couldn’t remember if she’d locked the back one, she cursed herself and strode around the cottage to deal with it.
The sun was drifting down in the west and through its light a thin drizzle was falling when she finally put the car in reverse and backed slowly out into the road.
It was a shorter drive than she remembered, and a much more scenic one without rain lashing at the windshield. The hedgerows were budded with wild fuchsia in drops red as blood. There were brambles with tiny white flowers that she would learn were blackthorn and friesia hazed and yellow with spring.
As the road turned she saw the tumbled walls of the cathedral on the hill and the spear of the tower lording over the seaside village.
No one walked there.
Eight hundred years they had stood. That, Jude thought, was a wonder of its own. Wars, feast and famine, through blood and death and birth, the power remained. To worship and to defend. She wondered if her grandmother was right, and if so, what one would feel standing in their shadow on soil that had felt the weight of the pious and the profane.
What an odd thought, she decided, and shook it off as she drove into the village that would be hers for the next six months.
THREE
INSIDE GALLAGHER’S PUB the light was dim and the fire lively. That’s how the customers preferred it on a damp evening in early spring. Gallagher’s had been serving, and pleasing, its customers for more than a hundred and fifty years, in that same spot, by providing good lager or stout, a reasonable glass of whiskey that wasn’t watered, and a comfortable place to enjoy that pint or glass.
Now when Shamus Gallagher opened his public house in the Year of Our Lord 1842, with his good wife, Meg, beside him, the whiskey might have come cheaper. But a man has to earn his pence and his pound, however hospitable he may be. So the price of the whiskey came dearer than once it had, but it was served with no less a hope of being enjoyed.
When Shamus opened the pub, he’d sunk his life’s hopes and his life’s savings into it. There had been more thin times than thick, and once a gale wind had whipped over the sea and lifted the roof clean off and carried it to Dungarvan.
Or so some liked to say when they’d enjoyed more than a glass or two of the Irish.
Still, the pub had stood, with its roots dug into the sand and rock of Ardmore, and Shamus’s first son had moved into his father’s place behind the old chestnut bar, then his son after him, and so forth.
Generations of Gallaghers had served generations of others and had prospered well enough to add to the business so more could come in out of the damp night after a hard day’s work and enjoy a pint or two. There was food as well as drink, appealing to body as well as soul. And most nights there was music too, to appease the heart.
Ardmore was a fishing village and so depended on the bounty of the sea, and lived with its capriciousness. As it was picturesque and boasted some fine beaches, it depended on the tourists as well. And lived with their capriciousness.
Gallagher’s was one of its focal points. In good times and bad, when the fish ran fast and thick or when the storms boiled in and battered the bay so none dared venture out to cast nets, its doors were open.
Smoke and fumes of whiskey, steam from stews and the sweat of men had seeped deep into the dark wood, so the place forever carried the smell of living. Benches and chairs were covered in deep red with blackened brass studs to hold the fabric in place.
The ceilings were open, the rafters exposed, and many was the Saturday night when the music was loud enough that those rafters shook. The floor was scarred from the boots of men, the scrape of chair and stool, and the occasional careless spark from fire or cigarette. But it was clean, and four times a year, needed or not, it was polished glossy as a company parlor.
The bar itself was the pride of the establishment, a rich, dark chestnut bar that old Shamus himself had made from a tree folks liked to say had been lightning-struck on Midsummer’s Eve. In that way it carried a bit of magic, and those who sat there felt the better for it.
Behind the bar, the long mirrored wall was lined with bottles for your pleasure. And all were clean and shiny as new pennies. The Gallaghers ran a lively pub, but a tidy one as well. Spills were mopped, dust was chased, and never was a drink served in a dirty glass.
The fire was of peat because it charmed the tourists, and the tourists often made the difference between getting by and getting on. They came thick in the summer and early fall to enjoy the beaches, sparser in winter and at the dawn of spring. But they came nonetheless, and most would stop in at Gallagher’s to lift a glass, hear a tune, or sample one of the pub’s spiced meat pies.
Regulars trickled in soon after the evening meal, as much for conversation or gossip as for a pint of Guinness. Some would come for dinner as well, but usually on a special occasion if it was a family. Or if it was a single man, because he was tired of his own cooking, or wanted a bit of a flirt with Darcy Gallagher, who was usually willing to oblige.
She could work the bar or the tables and the kitchen as well. But the kitchen was where she least liked to be, so she left that to her brother Shawn when she could get away with it.
Those who knew Gallagher’s knew it was Aidan, the eldest, who ran the show now that their parents seemed bent on staying in Boston. Most agreed he seemed to have settled down from his wanderlust past and now tended the family pub in a manner that would have made Shamus proud.
For himself, Aidan was content in where he was, and what he did. He’d learned a great deal of himself and of life during his rambles. The itchy feet were said to come from the Fitzgerald side, as his mother had, before she married, traveled a good bit of the world, with her voice paying the fare.
He’d strapped on a knapsack when he was barely eighteen and traveled throughout his country, then over into England and France and Italy and even Spain. He’d spent a year in America, being dazzled by the mountains and plains of the West, sweltering in the heat of the South, and freezing through a northern winter.
He and his siblings were as musical as their mother, so he’d sung for his supper or tended bar, whichever suited his purposes at the time. When he’d seen all he longed to see, he came home again, a well-traveled man of twenty-five.
For the last six years he’d tended the pub and lived in the rooms above it.
But he was waiting. He didn’t know for what, only that he was.
Even now, as he built a pint of Guinness, drew a glass of Harp, and tuned in with one ear to the conversation in case he was obliged to comment, part of him sat back, patient and watchful.
Those who looked close enough might see that watchfulness in his eyes, eyes blue as a lightning bolt under brows with the same dark richness as the prize bar where he worked.
He had the rawboned face of the Celts, with the wild good looks that the fine genes of his parents had blended, with a long, straight nose, a mouth full and shamelessly sensual, a tough, take-a-punch chin with just a hint of a cleft.
He was bu
ilt like a brawler—wide of shoulder, long of arm, and narrow of hip. And indeed, he had spent a good portion of his youth planting his fists in faces or taking them in his own. As much, he wasn’t shamed to admit, for the fun of it as for temper.
It was a matter of pride that unlike his brother, Shawn, Aidan had never had his nose broken in battle.
Still, he’d stopped looking for trouble as he’d grown from boy to man. He was just looking, and trusted that he’d know what it was when he found it.
When Jude walked in, he noticed—first as a publican, and second as a man. She looked so tidy, with her trim jacket and bound-back hair, so lost with her big eyes scanning the room as a doe might consider a new path in the forest.
A pretty thing, he thought, as most men do when they see an attractive female face and form. And being one who saw many faces in his career, he noted the nerves as well that kept her rooted to the spot just inside the door as if she might turn and flee at any moment.
The look of her, the manner of her, captured his interest and a low and pleasant hum warmed his blood.
She squared her shoulders, a deliberate move that amused him, and walked to the bar.
“Good evening to you,” he said as he slid his rag down the bar to wipe up spills. “What’s your pleasure?”
She started to speak, to ask politely for a glass of white wine. Then he smiled, a slow, lazy curving of lips that inexplicably set her insides a fluttering and turned her mind into a buzzing mess of static.
Yes, she thought dimly, everyone was gorgeous here.
He seemed in no particular hurry for her answer, only leaned comfortably on the bar, bringing that truly wonderful face closer to hers, cocking his head and his brow at the same time.
“Are you lost, then, darling?”
She imagined herself melting, just sliding onto the floor in a puddle of hormones and liquid lust. The sheer embarrassment of the image snapped her back to herself. “No, I’m not lost. Could I have a glass of white wine? Chardonnay if it’s available.”
“I can help you with that.” But he made no move to, just then. “You’re a Yank, then. Would you be Old Maude’s young American cousin come to stay in her cottage awhile?”
“Yes. I’m Jude, Jude Murray.” Automatically she offered her hand and a careful smile that allowed her dimples a brief appearance in her cheeks.
Aidan had always had a soft spot for dimples in a pretty face.
He took her hand, but didn’t shake it. He only held it as he continued to stare at her until—she swore she felt it—her bones began to sizzle. “Welcome to Ardmore, Miss Murray, and to Gallagher’s. I’m Aidan, and this is my place. Tim, give the lady your seat. Where are your manners?”
“Oh, no, that’s—”
But Tim, a burly man with a mass of hair the color and texture of steel wool, slid off his stool. “Beg your pardon.” He shifted his gaze from the sports event on the television over the end of the bar and gave her a quick, charming wink.
“Unless you’d rather a table,” Aidan added as she continued to stand and look mildly distressed.
“No, no, this is fine. Thank you.” She climbed onto the stool, trying not to tense up as she became the center of attention. It was what troubled her most about teaching, all those faces turned to hers, expecting her to be profound and brilliant.
He finally released her hand, just as she expected it to dissolve in his, and took the pint glass from under the tap, to slide it into welcoming hands. “And how are you finding Ireland?” he asked her as he turned to take a bottle of wine from the mirrored shelf.
“It’s lovely.”
“Well, there’s no one here will disagree with you on that.” He poured her wine, looking at her rather than the glass. “And how’s your granny?”
“Oh.” Jude was amazed that he’d filled the glass perfectly without so much as a glance at it, then set it precisely in front of her. “She’s very well. Do you know her?”
“I do, yes. My mother was a Fitzgerald and a cousin to your granny—third or fourth removed, I’m thinking. So, that makes us cousins as well.” He tapped a finger on her glass. “Slainte, cousin Jude.”
“Oh, well . . . thank you.” She lifted her glass just as the shouting started from the back. A woman’s voice, clear as church bells, accused someone of being a bloody, blundering knothead with no more brains than a turnip. This was answered, in irritated male tones, that he’d rather be a bleeding turnip than dumb as the dirt it grew in.
No one seemed particularly shocked by the shouts and curses that followed, nor by the sudden crash that had Jude jolting and spilling a few drops of wine on the back of her hand.
“That would be two more of your cousins,” Aidan explained as he took Jude’s hand yet again and efficiently dried it. “My sister, Darcy, and my brother, Shawn.”
“Oh. Well, shouldn’t someone see what’s the matter?”
“The matter with what?”
She only goggled as the voices in the back rose.
“You throw that plate at my head, you viper, and I swear to you, I’ll—”
The threat ended on a vicious curse as something crashed against the wall. Seconds later, a woman swung out of the door behind the bar, carrying a tray of