by Nora Roberts
enough to know what she wanted. It was simply that they believed in destiny—and a good wager.
With the stake in her pocket, Brenna drove into town to tell Darcy what a great boob her brother was—and to start the pool.
Fortunately ignorant of this, Jude walked back to her house feeling lighter of heart and stronger in the spine. She wasn’t going to bother confronting Aidan. She told herself it wasn’t worth the time or effort. She would be calm, she would remain firm, and this time he would be the one humiliated.
Pleased with herself, she went directly to the phone in her kitchen and took the next step without a moment’s hesitation.
Thirty minutes later, she sat at the table and laid her head on her arms.
She’d done it. She’d actually done it.
Her condo was going on the market. As the couple Jude had rented to had already made inquiries about the possibility of buying it, the realtor was optimistic that it would sell quickly and with a minimum of fuss. She’d booked a flight for the end of the month so that she could go through her possessions, ship or store what she wanted to keep, and sell or give away the rest.
So much, she thought, for a life she’d built on other people’s expectations. She stayed as she was, holding her breath to see what reaction would set in.
Panic? Regret? Depression?
But it was none of those. It was done, so easily, too, and there was a huge weight off her shoulders at the idea of it. Relief was what she felt. Relief, anticipation, and a wicked little thrill of accomplishment.
She no longer lived in Chicago. She lived in Faerie Hill Cottage, County Waterford, Ireland.
Her parents were going to faint.
At the thought of that, she sat up, pressed both hands to her mouth to hold back the wild laughter. They’d think she’d lost her mind. And would never, ever understand that what she’d done was found it. She’d found her mind, and her heart and her home.
And, she thought, a little dizzy herself, her purpose.
“Gran, I found me. I found Jude F. Murray in six months or less. How about that?”
The call to New York was harder. Because it was more important, Jude realized. Beyond the symbolism of the sale of the condo. That only meant money. The call to New York equaled her future, the future she was giving herself.
She wasn’t certain whether her acquaintance from college had remembered her or had simply pretended to out of politeness. But she’d taken the call, and she’d listened. Jude couldn’t quite remember what she’d said, or what Holly had said back. Except that Holly Carter Fry, literary agent, told Jude F. Murray she very much liked the sound of her book and instructed Jude to send a sample of her work in progress.
Because the thought of doing so made her stomach pitch crazily, Jude made herself get up, walk up the stairs. Her fingers might have trembled as she sat down to type the cover letter. But she clicked her mind over to logical and wrote what she thought was both polite and professional.
She only had to stop to put her head between her knees once.
She gathered the first three stories, and the prologue, words she’d labored over, poured her heart into. She could feel herself getting weepy as she slid the drawings into a folder, packaged everything in a padded envelope.
She was sending her heart across the ocean, risking having it shattered. Easier not to, she thought, stepping away to rub her chilled arms and stare out the window. Easier to just go on pretending she meant to, one day. Easier still to go back to convincing herself it was just an indulgence, an experiment she had no real stake in.
Because once she mailed that envelope, there was no going back, no more pretending, no more safety net.
That was it, had been it all along, she realized. It was easier to tell herself she wasn’t very good at something. Safer to believe she wasn’t clever or quick. Because if you had confidence enough to try something, you had to have courage enough to fail.
She’d failed with her marriage, and ultimately with her teaching—two things she’d been certain she was suited for.
But there were so many other things she’d wanted, dreamed of, that she’d locked away. Always telling herself to be sensible because people expected her to be.
But more, deep down more, the knowing if she failed, she’d have to live with it. And she hadn’t had the courage for it.
She glanced back at the envelope, squared her shoulders. She had it now. This time, with this dream, if she didn’t try, she couldn’t live with it.
“Wish me luck,” she murmured to whatever drifted through her house, and grabbed the envelope.
She didn’t let herself think on the drive to town. She was going to mail it, then forget it, she told herself. She would not spend every day agonizing, fretting, projecting. She would know when she knew, and if it wasn’t good enough . . . somehow she’d make it better.
While she was waiting, she would finish the book. She would polish it until it gleamed like a diamond. Then, well, she’d start another. Stories that came out of her head this time. Mermaids and shape-changers and magic bottles. She had a feeling that now that she’d popped the cork on her imagination, things would spurt out so quickly she wouldn’t be able to keep up.
There was a roaring in her ears as she parked in front of the post office. Her heart was beating so fast and so thick her chest hurt. Her knees wanted to buckle, but she made herself cross the sidewalk and open the door.
The postmistress had snowy white hair and skin as dewy as a girl’s. She sent Jude a cheery smile. “Hello, there, Miss Murray. How’s it all going, then?”
“Very well, thank you.” Liar, liar, liar chanted in her head. Any second she would lose the battle with nausea and humiliate herself.
“To be sure it’s a lovely day. The finest summer we’ve had in many a year. Maybe you’ve brought us luck.”
“I like to think so.” With a smile that felt like a death grimace on her face, Jude set the envelope on the counter.
“Are you sending something to a friend in America, then?”
“Yes.” Jude kept the smile in place while the woman read the address. “An old college friend of mine. She lives in New York now.”
“My grandson Dennis and his wife and family live in New York City. Dennis, he works in a fancy hotel and makes a good wage hauling people’s luggage up and down the elevator. He says some of the rooms are like palaces.”
Jude was afraid her face might crack, but she continued to smile. She’d learned enough in three months to know one didn’t just scoot in and out of the post office, or anywhere else in Ardmore, without a bit of conversation.
“Does he enjoy his work?”
“Aye, that he does, and his pretty wife worked doing hair and such until the second baby came along.”
“That’s nice. I’d like this to get to New York as soon as possible.”
“If you’re wanting to send it special that way, it’ll be a bit dear.”
“That’s all right.” She felt as if she were moving through clear syrup as she reached into her bag for her wallet. In a daze she watched the weight and cost calculated, passed over the pounds and took the coins in change.
“Thank you.”
“It’s not a problem. No problem at all. Will your friend from New York be coming in for the wedding?”
“What?”
“No doubt your family will, but it’s nice to have old friends as well, isn’t it?”
The roaring in her head became a harsh buzzing. Nerves were so quickly smothered by blank fury, she could only stare.
“My John and I’ve been married near fifty years now, and still I remember so clear the day we wed. It rained a torrent, but it didn’t matter in the least to me. All my family was there, and John’s as well, packed into the little church so the smell of wet wool fought with the scent of the flowers. And me da, rest him, he wept like a baby when he walked me down the aisle, for I was his only daughter.”
“That’s lovely,” Jude managed when she ha
d her breath back. “But I’m not getting married.”
“Oh, now, did you and Aidan have a lovers’ spat already?” The postmistress tut-tutted kindly. “Don’t take on about that, darling, it’s natural as the rain.”
“We didn’t have a spat.” But she had a feeling they were going to have the world’s champion of spats very soon. “I’m just not getting married.”
“You make him work for it,” she said with a wink. “Doesn’t hurt them a bit, and makes for a better husband in the end. Oh, and you should talk to Kathy Duffy about the wedding cake. She makes a fine one, pretty as a picture.”
“I don’t need a cake,” Jude said between her teeth.
“Now, then, just because it’s your second time doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a cake. Every bride does. And for the dress you should talk to Mollie O’Toole, as she found a lovely shop in Waterford City for her daughter’s.”
“I don’t need a cake or a dress,” Jude said, waging a vicious war for patience, “because I’m not getting married. Thank you.”
She turned on her heel and marched to the door.
When she stepped out on the sidewalk, sucked in air, she glared at the sign for Gallagher’s.
She couldn’t go in now, couldn’t possibly. She’d kill him if she did.
And why the hell shouldn’t she? He deserved to die.
Long, purposeful strides ate up the ground until she reached the pub. And flung the door open.
“Aidan Gallagher!”
The room filled to bursting with locals and the tourists who’d stopped in for a bite to eat or a drink went dead quiet at her outburst.
At the bar Aidan paused in the draft he was drawing. When she stalked to the bar, the gleam in her eye laser-bright, he set the pint aside. She didn’t look a thing like the soft, sleepy woman he’d left shortly after dawn. That woman had looked silky and satisfied.
And this one looked murderous.
“I want a word with you,” she told him.
He didn’t think it was going to be a good word. “All right, then, give me a minute here and we’ll go upstairs where we can be private.”
“Oh, now he wants privacy. Well, forget it.” She turned to the room. The stares and interested faces didn’t embarrass her this time, didn’t give her that hollow feeling in the belly. This time they fueled an already black temper.
“You’re all welcome to listen to what I have to say, since every one of you who lives in the village is already discussing my business by now. Let me make it very clear. I am not marrying this baboon disguised as a man.”
There were a few snickers, and when she saw the kitchen door slit open, she spun back again. “Don’t stand behind the door, Shawn, come right on out. It’s not you I’m after.”
“And thank God for it,” he muttered, but being a loyal brother he came out to stand beside Aidan.
“Pretty as a picture, the pair of you. And you, too,” she said, pointing at Darcy. “I hope you both have more brains than your brother, who seems to think because he’s got a handsome face women are going to swoon at his feet at the first sign of attention.”
“Now, Jude darling.”
“Don’t you darling me.” She reared up over the bar to rap a fist on his chest. “And don’t call me Jude in that patient, infuriatingly placating tone, you. . . bloody moron.”
His own eyes flashed and temper threatened. He jerked his thumb at Shawn to take over the taps and nodded to Jude. “We’ll go upstairs and finish this.”
“I’m going nowhere with you.” She rapped her fist on his chest again, enjoying the violence of it. “I will not be bullied.”
“Bullied? Who’s bullying you, I’d like to know, when you’re the one pounding on me?”
“I can do worse.” She was suddenly, thrillingly, sure of it. “If you think that by telling everyone who’ll listen I’m going to marry you, you’ll pressure me into it, or embarrass me into it, or just wear me down, you’re in for a surprise. I have no intention of being told what to do with my life, not by you, not by anyone.”
She spun around again. “And everyone here better understand that. Just because I’m sleeping with him doesn’t mean I’m shopping for a wedding cake when he snaps his fingers. I’ll sleep with whomever I please.”
“I’m available,” someone called out and brought on hoots of laughter.
“That’s enough.” Aidan slammed a hand on the bar, and the glasses jumped. “This is private business.” He shoved past Shawn to flip up the pass-through. “Upstairs, Jude Frances.”
“No.” She kept her chin up. “And since that appears to be a word you have trouble with, I’ll ask which part of no you don’t understand.”
“Upstairs,” he said again, and took a firm grip on her arm. “This isn’t the place.”
“It’s your place,” she reminded him. “And it’s your doing. Take your hand off me.”
“We’ll discuss this in private.”
“I’m done discussing it.” When she tried to yank her arm free, he simply started hauling her toward the back. The fact that he could, that people parted way for them, that he was strong enough to drag her wherever he chose snapped something inside her. And the last lock of that dark, bubbling brew broke clean.
“I said take your hand off me, you son of a bitch.” She couldn’t quite remember doing it, not with the red haze coating her vision, but she felt the impact sing up her free arm as her fist connected with his face.
“Holy Christ.” Stars exploded in his head, and the pain was as awesome as the sheer shock of what she’d done. Instinctively he pressed a hand under his nose as blood began to pour.
“And keep them off,” she said with great dignity, as the pub once again fell silent. She turned and walked out seconds before the applause erupted.
“Here, try this.” Shawn passed him over a rag. “That’s a hell of a right jab our Jude has.”
“Aye.” He had to sit down and did so as Darcy pulled him toward a vacated stool. “What hell got into her?” He ignored the new bets being laid in the marriage pool, and took, with gratitude, the ice Shawn brought him.
He stared at the bloody rag with both amazement and disgust. “The woman’s managed what hasn’t been done in thirty-one years. She’s broke my goddamn nose.”
TWENTY
“I’M NOT GOING after her, chasing her like a puppy.”
Shawn continued to fry up fish and chips while Aidan iced down his abused nose in the kitchen. “So you’ve said, ten or twelve times in the last twenty minutes.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Fine. Be a bloody brick-headed idiot.”
“Don’t you start on me.” Aidan lowered the ice pack. “I can hit you back.”
“And so you have, more times than I care to count. Doesn’t make you less of an idiot.”
“Why am I an idiot? She’s the one who comes swaggering in here, peak hour, too, looking for trouble, badgering me, poking at me, and breaking me fucking nose.”
“That’s got you, doesn’t it?” Shawn slid the golden hunks of fish and servings of chips onto plates, added a scoop of slaw, and garnished them with a bit of parsley. “That after all these years and all the fine battles, it’s a woman half your size who did the deed.”
“’Twas a lucky punch,” Aidan muttered as his pride throbbed in time with his nose.
“Sucker punch, more like,” Shawn corrected. “And you’re the sucker,” he added as he swung out the door with the orders.
“So much for family loyalty.” Disgusted, Aidan got up to root through cupboards for some aspirin. His face ached like a bitch in heat.
Under other circumstances, he supposed he’d have admired Jude for her fine show of temper, and her aim. But he couldn’t find it in him at the moment.
She’d hurt him, face, pride, and heart. He’d never had a woman break his heart before, and didn’t know what the devil to do about it. He’d understood, at least in part, that he’d bungled things the night of the ceili. But he
’d been so sure, so confident, that he had fixed all that the night before.
Romance and teasing, perseverance and persuasion. What else did the damn woman want, damn it to the devil and back again? They fit together, anyone could see that.
Everyone, it seemed, but Jude Frances Murray herself.
How could she not want him when he wanted her so much he could barely breathe? How could she not see the life they’d make together when he could see it clear as glass?
It was all to do with that first marriage of hers, he thought darkly. Well, he’d gotten over it, why couldn’t she?
“She’s just being stubborn,” he said to Shawn when his brother came back in.
“That makes her a perfect match for you, then.”
“It’s not being stubborn to go after what you know is right.”
Shawn shook his head and began to build the sandwiches needed out in the pub. The place was a madhouse, he mused, with people staying long past their usual time, and others coming in as they got word of the situation. They’d asked Michael O’Toole and Kathy Duffy to lend a hand at the bar, and Brenna was on her way. He didn’t think Aidan would be in the mood for pulling pints and making conversation for a bit longer yet.
“No, I suppose it’s not,” he said after a moment. “But there are ways and ways of going about it with a woman.”
“A lot you know about women.”
“More than you, I wager, as I’ve never had one plant her fist in my face.”
“Neither have I up till now.” Even half frozen from the ice, his nose was pounding like a kettledrum. “It’s not the reaction a man expects when he asks a woman to marry him.”
“It wasn’t the asking, I’d say, but the way of asking.”
“How many ways do you ask?” Aidan demanded. “And why is this my fault, I’d like to know?”
“Because it’s pitiful obvious that she loves you, and needs love in return. So if you hadn’t made a mess of it, she wouldn’t have said no and broken your nose.”
While Aidan gaped at him, Shawn strode out to deliver the next order. He started to leap up and follow, then calculated he’d spread enough of his personal business out into the pub and village that day. So he paced impatiently and waited for Shawn to come back in.
He carried empty plates this time and slid them into the sink. “Make yourself useful and wash up, would you? I’ve more fish and chips wanted.”
“Maybe I made a mess of it the first time,” Aidan began. “I admit that. I even talked it over with Darcy.”
“Darcy?” All Shawn could do was roll his eyes to heaven. “Now I can say without a doubt you are an idiot.”
“She’s Jude’s friend, and a woman.”
“Without a single romantic bone in her body. Forget the washing, I’ll tend to it later,” he continued as he dredged fish in flour. “Sit down and tell me how you went about it.”
He wasn’t used to his younger brother issuing directions, and he wasn’t sure how it sat with him. But he was a desperate man ready to take desperate measures. “Which time?”
“However many there were, starting with the first.” Shawn slid the fish and potatoes into the oil and began to make a fresh batch of slaw.
He listened without a word while he worked. When the order was finished before his brother was, he held up a finger, surprising Aidan into silence, and went out again to serve it.
“Now, then.” When he came back, he sat, folded his arms on the table, and gave Aidan a level look. “I’m taking ten minutes here to tell you what I think. But first I have a question. In all this telling her what you wanted and how it would be and what should be done, did you happen to mention that you love her?”
“Of course I did.” Hadn’t he? Aidan shifted in his chair, moved his shoulder. “She knows I love her. A man doesn’t ask a woman to be his wife unless he loves her.”
“First off, Aidan, you didn’t ask her at all, but told her, and that’s a different matter entirely. Plus it seems to me the one who asked her before didn’t love her, else he wouldn’t have broken his vows to her before a year was up. Certainly she’d have no reason to think he loved her, would she?”
“No, but—”