by Nora Roberts
“She’s planning to be here more than three months more.”
“We’ll need to move him along faster than that. They’re both the marrying kind, so it shouldn’t be that hard. We’ll give this some thought.”
Aidan was right. Finn was good company. He walked the hills with Jude, entertaining himself when she stopped to admire wildflowers or pluck the buttercups and cowslips that flourished as May coasted to June. Summer came to Ireland on a lovely stream of warmth, and to Jude the air was like poetry.
When the weather was soft, with the rain falling like silk, she kept her wandering short so she could tuck herself cozy in the cottage.
And when days were dry, she indulged herself and Finn with those long walks in the morning so he could run wild circles around an indulgent Betty.
Whenever she did, rain or shine, she thought of the man she’d seen on the road from Dublin, walking with his dog. And how she had dreamed of doing the same whenever and wherever she wanted.
Like the dog she’d imagined, Finn slept by the hearth when she made her first attempt at soda bread. And he whimpered when he woke lonely at three in the morning.
When he dug at her flowers, they had to have a serious talk, but he made it through two full weeks without chewing on her shoes.
Except that one time they’d agreed to forget.
She let him walk and race until he was tuckered out, then when weather allowed, she set out her table and worked outdoors in the afternoons while he napped under her chair.
Her book. It was so secret, she’d yet to fully acknowledge to herself just how much she wanted to sell it, to see it with a beautiful cover, one with her name on it, on the shelf of a bookstore.
She kept that almost painful hope buried and threw herself into the work she’d discovered she loved. To add to it, she often took an hour or two in the evening to sketch out illustrations to go with the stories.
Her sketches were primitive at best, in her opinion, and awkward at worst. She’d never considered the art lessons her parents had insisted on to be particularly fruitful. But the drawing entertained her.
She made certain they were all tucked away whenever anyone came by to visit. Now and then, it took some scrambling.
She was in the kitchen going over the latest sketch of the cottage, the one she considered the best of a mediocre lot, when she heard the quick knock on her door, then the sound of it slamming.
She jumped up, sending Finn into a fit of barking, and hastily shoved the sketches into the folder she used to file them.
She barely got it closed and stuffed into a drawer before Darcy and Brenna strolled in.
“There’s the fierce warrior dog.” Brenna dropped down on the floor to engage in her usual wrestling match with Finn.
“Do you have something cold for a weary friend, Jude?” Darcy slid into a chair at the table.
“I have some soft drinks.”
“Were you working?” Darcy asked as Jude opened the refrigerator.
“No, not really. I’ve finished most of what I’d planned to do this morning.”
“Good, for Brenna and I have plans for you.”
“Do you?” Amused, Jude set out the drinks. “You can’t possibly want another shopping spree so soon.”
“I’m always wanting another shopping spree, but no, that’s not it. You’ve been with us for three months now.”
“More or less,” Jude agreed and tried not to think that her time was half over.
“And Brenna and I’ve decided it’s time for a ceili.”
Interested, Jude sat as well. She’d always enjoyed hearing her grandmother talk of the ceilis she’d been to as a girl. Food and music and dancing all spilling out of the house. People crowded into the kitchen, flooding out into the dooryard. “You’re going to have a ceili?”
“No.” Darcy grinned. “You’re having it.”
“Me.” With something akin to terror, Jude gaped. “I couldn’t. I don’t know how.”
“There’s nothing to it,” Brenna assured her. “Old Maude used to have one every year at this time, before she took poorly. The Gallaghers will give you the music, and there are plenty more who’ll be more than happy to play. Everyone brings food and drink.”
“All you have to do is open the door and enjoy,” Darcy assured her. “We’ll all help you put things together and make sure the word gets out. We thought a week from Saturday, as that’s the solstice. Midsummer’s Eve’s a fine night for a ceili.”
“A week?” Jude croaked it out. “But that’s not enough time. It can’t be enough time.”
“More than enough.” Darcy winked at her. “We’ll help you with everything, so don’t worry a bit. Do you think I can borrow that red dress of yours? The one with the little straps and the jacket.”
“Yes, of course, but I really can’t—”
“You’re not to fret.” Brenna climbed into a chair. “My mother’s all set to lend a hand as well. She’s been looking for distractions since Maureen’s making her crazy about the wedding. Now my advice would be to have the music in the parlor, the main of it anyway, and the kegs and that outside the back door. That gives you a nice flow from one to the other.”
“We’ll need to move some of the furniture for dancing,” Darcy put in. “And if it’s a fine night, we could set some chairs outside as well.”
“The moon will just be coming full. My mother had the thought of setting candles about outdoors, to make it festive and to keep people from tripping over things.”
“But I—”
“Can you get Shawn to make colcannon, Darcy?” Brenna interrupted before Jude could get the protest out.
“Sure he’ll make plenty, and the pub will donate a keg and some bottles. Maybe your mother would make some of her stew pies. No one has a finer hand at it.”
“It’ll please her to do it.”
“Really.” Jude felt as if she were going under for the third time, and her friends were smiling indulgently after tossing her an anchor instead of a rope. “I couldn’t ask—”
“Aidan’ll close the pub for the night, so I’ll be able to come along early and help with anything that needs it.” Darcy let out a satisfied breath. “There, we’re all but done with it.”
All Jude could do was lay her head on the table.
“I think that went well,” Darcy said as she and Brenna climbed back in the lorry.
“I feel a bit guilty, running over her that way.”
“It’s for Jude herself we’re doing it.”
“We’ve left her stuttering and pale, but it went well enough.” With a laugh, Brenna started the engine. “I’m glad I recalled how my father proposed to my mother at a ceili right here in this cottage. It’s a fine omen.”
“Friends look out for friends.” Some might have called her flighty, but there was no firmer friend once made than Darcy Gallagher. “She’s mad in love with him and too shy to push him where she wants him. We’ll see they have the night and the music, and I’ll come around early enough to hold her down and work on her until she’s so lovely Aidan’s eyes will fall out on his boots. If that doesn’t do the trick, well, then, he’s hopeless.”
“As far as I’ve been able to judge, Gallagher men are as hopeless as they come.”
SIXTEEN
“AND HOW,” JUDE asked, “am I supposed to give a party when I don’t know how many people are coming? When I have no menu, no time schedule? No plan?”
Since Finn was the only one within earshot, and he didn’t appear to have the answer, Jude dropped into a chair in her now spotless living room and shut her eyes. She’d been cleaning for days. Aidan had laughed at her and told her not to take on so. No one was going to hunt up dust in the corners and have her deported for the shame of it.
He didn’t understand. He was, after all, only a man.
How the cottage looked was the only aspect of the entire business she could control.
“It’s my house,” she muttered. “And a woman’s house reflects th
e woman. I don’t care what millennium we’re in, it just does.”
She’d entertained before, and she’d managed to hold reasonably satisfactory parties. But they’d been weeks, if not months, in the planning. She’d had lists and themes and caterers and carefully selected hors d’oeuvres and music.
And gallons of antacids.
Now she was expected to simply throw open her doors to friend and stranger alike.
At least a half a dozen people she’d never laid eyes on had stopped her in the village to mention the ceili. She hoped she’d looked pleased and said the appropriate thing, but she’d all but felt her eyes wheeling in her head.
This was her first ceili. It was the first real party she’d given in her cottage. The first time she’d entertained in Ireland.
She was on a different continent, for God’s sake. How was she supposed to know what she was doing?
She needed an aspirin the size of Ardmore Bay.
Trying to calm herself again, to put things into perspective, she laid her head back and closed her eyes. It was supposed to be informal. People were bringing buckets and platters and mountains of food. She was only responsible for the setting, and the cottage was lovely.
And who was she trying to fool? The entire thing was headed straight for disaster.
The cottage was too small for a party. If it rained she could hardly expect people to stand outside under umbrellas while she passed them plates of food out the window. There simply wasn’t room to stuff everyone inside if even half the people who’d spoken to her showed up.
There wasn’t enough floor space or seating space. There wasn’t enough air in the house to provide everyone with oxygen, and there certainly wasn’t enough of Jude F. Murray to go around as hostess.
Worse, she’d gotten lost in the writing of her book several times over the last few days and had neglected to keep the party preparation list she’d made up on schedule. She’d meant, really she had, to stop writing at one o’clock. She’d even set a timer after the first time she ran over. Then she turned it off, intending only to finish that one paragraph. And the next time she surfaced it was after three, and neither of her bathrooms had been scrubbed as planned.
Despite all that, in a matter of hours, people she didn’t know would be swarming into her house expecting to be entertained and fed.
She wasn’t to worry about a thing. She’d been told that over and over again. But of course she had to worry about everything. It was her job. She had to think about the food, didn’t she? It was her house, and damn it, she was neurotic, so what did people expect?
She’d attempted tarts that had come out hard as rock. Even Finn wouldn’t touch them. The second effort was an improvement—at least the dog had nibbled on them before spitting them out. But she was forced to admit that she would never win gold stars for her pastry baking.
She had managed to put together a couple of simple casseroles following a recipe in one of Old Maude’s cookbooks. They looked and smelled good enough. Now she could only hope no one came down with food poisoning.
She had a ham in the oven. She’d already called her grandmother three times to check and recheck the process of baking it. It was so big, how could she possibly be sure it was done? It would probably be raw in the center and she’d end up giving her guests food poisoning. But at least she’d serve it in a clean house.
Thank God it didn’t take any talent to scrub a floor or wash windows. That, at least, she knew was well done.
It had rained during the night, and fog had slithered in from the sea. But the air had cleared that morning to bright sun and summer warmth that lured out the birds and the blossoms.
All she could do now was hope the weather held.
She had those sparkling windows open wide to keep the house airy and welcome. The scents of Old Maude’s roses and sweet peas tangled together and slipped through the screens. The fragrance smoothed out Jude’s stretched nerves.
Flowers! She bolted out of the chair. She hadn’t cut any flowers to arrange in the house. She raced into the kitchen for the shears, and Finn raced after her. He lost purchase on the newly waxed floor, skidded, and ran headfirst into the cabinets.
Of course then he needed to be cuddled and comforted. Murmuring reassurances, Jude carried him outside. “Now, there’ll be no digging in the flower beds, will there?”
He gave her an adoring look, as if the thought never crossed his mind.
“And no chasing butterflies through the cornflowers,” she added and set him down with a little pat on the butt.
She picked up a basket and began to select the best flowers for cutting.
It was a task that relaxed her, always. The shapes, the scents, the colors, finding the most interesting mix. Wandering through the banks and flows on the narrow rock path with the hills stretched to forever and the country quiet sweet as the air.
If she were to make her home here, permanently, she thought, she would extend the gardens in the back. She’d have a little rock wall built on the east side and cover it with rambling roses or maybe a hedge of lavender. And in front of that, she’d plant a whole river of dahlias. And maybe she’d put an arbor on the west side and let some sweet-smelling vine climb and climb until it arched like a tunnel.
She’d have a path through it, so that she could walk there—with camomile and thyme and nodding columbine scattered nearby. She would wind her way through flowers, under them, around them, whenever she set out to walk the hills and fields.
There’d be a stone bench for sitting. And in the evenings, when work was done, she’d relax there and just listen to the world she’d made.
She’d be the expatriate American writer, living in the little cottage on the faerie hill with her flowers and her faithful dog. And her lover.
Of course, that was fantasy, she reminded herself. Her time was already half gone. In the fall she’d go back to Chicago. Even if she had the courage to pursue the idea of actually submitting the book to a publisher, she would have to get a job. She could hardly live off her savings forever. It was . . . wrong.
Wasn’t it?
It would have to be teaching, she supposed. The idea of private practice was too daunting, so teaching was the only option. Even as depression threatened at the thought, she shook it off. Maybe she could look for a position in a small private school. Someplace where she could feel some connection with her students. It would give her time to continue writing. She simply couldn’t give that up now that she’d found it.
She could move to the suburbs, buy a small house. There was nothing forcing her to stay in the condo in Chicago. She’d have a studio there. A little space just for her writing, and she would have the courage to submit the book. She wouldn’t allow herself to be a coward about something that important. Not ever again.
And she could come back to Ireland. A couple of weeks every summer. She could come back, visit her friends, rejuvenate her spirit.
See Aidan.
No, it was best not to think about that, she warned herself. To think of next summer or the summer after and Aidan. This time, this . . . window she’d opened was magic, and it needed to be cherished for what it was. All the more precious, she told herself, because it was temporary.
They would both move on. It was inevitable.
Or he would move on, and she would go back. But she had the pleasure of knowing she’d never go back to just how things had been. She wasn’t the same person anymore. She knew she could build a life now. Even if it wasn’t one of her fantasies, it could be satisfying and productive.
She could be happy, she thought. She could be fulfilled. The last three months had shown her she had potential. She could, would, finish what she’d started.
She was mentally patting herself on the back when Finn barked joyfully and dashed to the garden gate right through her pansies.
“Good day to you, Jude.” Mollie O’Toole let herself in, and Finn out so that he could leap on Betty. The two dogs dashed happily toward the hills. “I
thought I’d stop by and see if I could do anything for you.”
“Since I don’t know what I’m doing, your guess is as good as mine.” She glanced down at her basket and sighed. “I’ve already cut too many flowers.”
“You can never have too many.”
Mollie, Jude thought with gratitude and admiration, always said just the right thing. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
Mollie waved that off even as her cheek pinkened with pleasure. “Well, isn’t that nice of you to say?”
“I mean it. I always feel calmer around you, like nothing can go too terribly wrong when you’re nearby.”
“Well, I’m flattered. Is there something you’re afraid’s gone terribly wrong?”
“Only everything.” But Jude smiled as she said it. “Would you like to come inside while I put them in water? Then you can point out the six dozen things I’ve forgotten to do.”
“I’m sure you’ve forgotten nothing at all, but I’d love to come in and help you with the flowers.”
“I thought I’d scatter them through the house in different bottles and bowls. Maude didn’t have a proper vase.”
“She liked to do the same. Put little bits of them everywhere. You’re more like her than you realize.”
“I am?” Odd, Jude thought, how the idea of being like a woman she’d never met pleased her.
“Indeed. You pamper your flowers, and take long walks, nest down in your little house here, and keep the door open for company. You’ve her hands,” she added. “As I told you before, and something of her heart as well.”
“She lived alone.” Jude glanced around the tidy little house. “Always.”
“It was what suited her. But alone she wasn’t lonely. There was no man she loved after her Johnny, or as Maude used to say, there was no man she loved in this life once he was gone. Ah.” Mollie took a sniff of the air as they went inside. “You’ve a ham in the oven. It smells lovely.”
“Does it?” Jude sniffed experimentally as they started toward the kitchen. “I guess it does. Would you take a look at it, Mollie? I’ve never made one and I’m nervous.”
“Sure, I’ll take a peek.”
She opened the oven, did her inspection while Jude set down her basket and stood gnawing her lip.
“It’s fine. Nearly done, too,” she pronounced after a quick check to see how easily the skin tugged free. “From the smell of it, you won’t have a scrap left for your lunch tomorrow. My Mick’s fond of baked ham, and will likely make more of a pig of himself than where this one came from.”
“Really?”
With a shake of her head, Molly closed the oven. “Jude, never have I known a woman who’s always so surprised at a compliment.”
“I’m neurotic.” But she said it with a smile rather than an apology.
“Well, you’d know, I suppose. You’ve shined this cottage up like a penny, too, haven’t you now? And left not a thing for a neighbor to do but give you a bit of advice.”
“I’ll take it.”
“When you finish with your flowers and take your ham out to cool, put it up high enough that your pup can’t climb up and sample it. I’ve had that experience, and it’s not a pretty one.”
“Good point.”
“After that, go on up and give yourself the pleasure of a long, hot bath. Put bubbles in it. The solstice is a fine time for a ceili, and it’s a finer time for romance.”
In a maternal gesture, Molly patted Jude’s cheek. “Put a pretty dress on for tonight and dance with Aidan in the moonlight. The rest, I promise you, will take care of itself.”
“I don’t even know how many people are coming.”
“What difference does it make? Ten or a hundred and ten?”
“A hundred and ten?” Jude choked out and went pale.