by Nora Roberts
“You’ll think clearer when you’re head’s not aching. Shall I bring you some tea and toast?”
“No, but thanks. I love you so much.”
“There, now, don’t start crying again. Any more tears today and I’ll need an oar. Let’s have off your boots and tuck you in.”
As she had with Mary Kate, Mollie fussed and stroked and settled Brenna under the covers. She sat a little while, and when Brenna was quiet, she rose to let sleep do a bit of healing.
As she passed the window, she stopped, stepped back, stared down at the sight of her husband weaving and stumbling his way home.
“Saints in heaven, the man’s drunk and it’s not yet noon.” She pushed at her hair. “What a family this is.”
SIXTEEN
GETTING READY TO go to work was quite an undertaking. He was dressed already, which was a fortunate thing. Shaving was out of the question. Even if he’d wanted to deal with scraping a razor over his tender jaw, he was just sober enough to fear cutting his face to ribbons in the process. So he left it as it was, and stumbling over his shoes, he thought it might be a fine idea to put them on.
Bub, being the perverse creature that he was, took the opportunity to crawl all over him, then laid stinging furrows over the back of Shawn’s hand when he tried to push him aside.
“Vicious bastard.” He and the cat eyed each other with mutual dislike and from a respectful distance. “I might have to take a swipe from Mick O’Toole, but I don’t have to take one from you, you black-hearted spawn of Satan.” He lunged, missed as the cat streaked away, and ended up rapping his already sore jaw on the floor. “Fuck me, that’s about enough.”
With his ears ringing, he managed to get to his hands and knees. The fiend of a cat was in for dire consequences. Later. He’d let the fiend believe he’d won the war, then seek revenge at an unexpected moment.
Still sulking over it, Shawn nursed his hand as he headed out of the house. As a matter of habit, he turned toward his car, then paused, balancing himself on the garden gate.
He was certain he could drive. He was a man who could hold his drink, wasn’t he? For Christ’s sake, his name was Gallagher. But the way things were going, he’d likely run off the road and smash his teeth out on the steering wheel.
Much better to walk, he decided. Clear his head, settle his thoughts. He started down the road, mindful of the ruts and bumps, singing to entertain himself on the journey.
He stumbled a time or two, but fell only the one time. Of course, the one time was enough to have his knee find the single sharp rock in the bloody road. He was picking himself up from that, not far from the village proper, when Betsy Clooney, with her car full of her children, stopped beside him.
“Shawn, what’s happened? You’ve had an accident?”
He smiled at her. She had a pretty brood of children, all of them fair of hair and blue of eye. The two in the back were squabbling, but the youngest, secured in her car seat, watched Shawn like a little owl as she sucked on a red lollipop.
“Well, hello, Betsy. How’s it all going, then?”
“Did you have a car crash?” She pushed open her door to hurry around to him, grinning as he was at her baby and weaving like a man who’d gone a hard round with the champ.
“I didn’t, no. I’ve been walking.”
“Your hand’s bleeding, and you’re bruised on the face. Your trousers are ripped at the knee.”
“Are they?” He glanced down, saw the mud and the tear. “Shit, look at that, will you? Begging pardon,” he said quickly, remembering the children.
But she was close enough now to see, and to smell, just what the matter was. “Shawn Gallagher, you’re drunk.”
“I am, I suppose, a little.” They’d gone to school together, so he patted her shoulder in a friendly manner. “You’ve darling children, Betsy, but your oldest girl there is trying to throttle her brother, and doing a damn fine job of it.”
Betsy merely glanced back and barked out one sharp warning. The children broke apart.
“My mother could do the same.” Sheer admiration shone on Shawn’s face. “Half the time it only took a look to curdle the blood in your veins. Well, I must be going.”
“Get in the back of the car, for heaven’s sake, and I’ll take you home.”
“Thanks, but I’m for work.”
She rolled her eyes, jerked open the car door. “Get in all the same, and I’ll drive you the rest of the way.” And let the Gallaghers deal with their own, she thought.
“That’s kind of you. Thanks, Betsy.”
The children were so entertained by drunk Mr. Gallagher that they behaved themselves until their mother dropped him off behind the pub.
He waved cheerfully, then opened the door, tripped over the threshold, and as his balance was already impaired, nearly went facedown on the floor for the second time that day. He caught himself, hung on to the side of the counter, and waited for the pub kitchen to stop revolving.
With the careful steps of the drunk, he walked over to the cupboard to get out a pan for frying, a pot for boiling.
He was weaving in front of the refrigerator, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do with what was inside it, when Darcy marched in. Fire in her eyes.
“You’re near to an hour late, and while you’re lazing in bed, we’ve got two bloody buses coming in full of tourists and nothing to put in their bellies but beer nuts and crisps.”
“Sure I’ll be dealing with that directly.”
“And what, I’d like to know, are we to put on the daily while you—” She broke off, took a good look at him. His eyes, she noted, were all but wheeling around in his head. “Look at the sight of you. Dirty and torn up and bleeding. You’ve been drinking.”
“I have.” He turned, gave her the sweet, harmless smile of the very drunk. “Considerably.”
“Well, you knothead, sit down before you fall down.”
“I can stand. I’m going to make fish cakes, I’m thinking.”
“I’ll bet you are.” Amused, she pulled him to the table and shoved him into a chair. She took a look at his hand, decided she’d seen worse. “Stay where you’re put,” she ordered and went out to get Aidan.
“What d’you mean, drunk?” Aidan said after Darcy hissed in his ear.
“I think you’re familiar with the term, but if you need refreshing on it, you’ve only to go into the kitchen and have a look at our brother.”
“Christ, I don’t have time for this.” The pub had only a scatter of customers, as the doors had barely opened, but within thirty minutes, there would be sixty piling in, hungry from the bus trip down from Waterford City.
“Mind the bar, then,” he told her.
“Oh, no, not for a million pounds would I miss this.” So saying, she followed him into the kitchen.
Shawn was singing in his break-your-heart voice, about the cold nature of Peggy Gordon. And with one eye closed, his body swaying gently, he dripped lemon juice into a bowl.
“Oh, fuck me, Shawn, you are half pissed.”
“More of three-quarters if the truth be known.” He lost track of the juice and added a bit more to be safe. “And how are you today, Aidan, darling?”
“Get away from there before you poison someone.”
Insulted, Shawn swiveled around and had to brace a hand on the counter to stay upright. “I’m drunk, not a murderer. I can make a goddamn fish cake in me sleep. This is my kitchen, I’ll thank you to remember, and I give the orders here.”
He poked himself in the chest with his thumb on the claim and nearly knocked himself on his ass.
Gathering dignity, he lifted his chin. “So go on with you while I go about my work.”
“What have you done to yourself?”
“The devil cat caught me hand.” Forgetting his work, Shawn lifted a hand to scowl at the red gashes. “Oh, but I’ve plans for him, you can be sure of that.”
“At the moment, I’d lay odds on the cat. Do you know anything about putting fi
sh cakes together?” Aidan asked Darcy.
“Not a bloody thing,” she said cheerfully.
“Then go and call Kathy Duffy, would you, and ask if she can spare us an hour or so, as we have an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Shawn looked glassily around. “Where?”
“Come with me, boy-o.”
“Where?” Shawn asked again, and Aidan hooked an arm around his waist.
“To pay the piper.”
“If you’re taking him upstairs,” Darcy called out as she reached for the phone, “I’ll thank you to clean up whatever mess is made during the sobering.”
“Just call Kathy Duffy and mind the bar.” Aidan took Shawn’s weight and dragged him upstairs.
“I can cook, drunk or sober,” Shawn insisted. “I don’t know what you’re in such a taking over. It’s just fucking fish cakes.” And he pressed a noisy kiss to Aidan’s cheek.
“You always were a cheerful drunk.”
“And why not?” Shawn hooked an arm around Aidan’s shoulder, stumbled. “My life’s in the toilet, and it looks better through the whiskey.”
Making sympathetic noises, Aidan half carried him into Darcy’s tidy little bathroom. “You had words with Brenna, did you?”
“No, but with everyone else in God’s creation. I spent the night making love to the woman I want to marry. I tell you, Aidan, it’s a different matter altogether being inside a woman when you love her. Who knew?”
Aidan considered the trouble of getting Shawn out of his clothes, and the mess that would be made if he didn’t. So he propped his brother against the wall. “Just hold this up for a bit,” he said.
“All right.” Obligingly, Shawn braced his weight against the wall. “She thinks it’s just sex, you know.”
“Aye, well . . .” Working as fast as he could, Aidan crouched to take off Shawn’s boots, which, he noted in disgust, had been tied into nasty little knots. “Women are the oddest of creatures.”
“I’ve always liked them myself. There’s so many varieties. But this is like having a lightning bolt smash right into my heart so it’s all hot and bright and shaky. I’m not letting her go, and that’s the end of it.”
“That’s the spirit.” He got the boots off, and the jeans, and working briskly as a man with experience in such matters, efficiently stripped his brother down to the skin.
Knowing what was to follow, he shrugged out of his own shirt and tugged off his pants. “In you go.”
“I can’t go anywhere. I’m naked. I’ll be arrested.”
“I’ll post your bond, not to worry.” And not without sympathy, Aidan turned the shower on full cold and shoved his beloved brother under the heartless spray.
Oh, the scream all but peeled the skin off his face, and the curses that followed battered his ears. But Aidan held ground, dodged a fist when he had to, and clamping Shawn in a headlock, held him mercilessly under.
“You’re drowning me, you bastard.”
“Not yet.” In a ruthless move, Aidan used his free hand to yank Shawn’s head back by the hair so the icy spray showered his face. “Just shut your mouth and hold your breath, and you’ll live through it.”
“I’ll kill you dead as Abraham when I’m out of here.”
“You think I’m enjoying this, do you?” Laughter rose into his throat as he yanked Shawn’s head back again. “You’d be right. Head clearing?”
Since Shawn’s answer was a glug, Aidan gave it another minute, then switched off the spray. He was wise enough to move quickly out of range before tossing his brother one of Darcy’s fancy towels. “Well, you’re a sorry picture, but your eyes are clear. Are you going to be sick on me now?”
Though his limbs were weak as a baby’s, Shawn wrapped the towel around his waist and tried for dignity. “Drowning me’s one thing, insulting me’s another. I ought to break your face for it.”
Crisis passed, Aidan decided, then lifted a brow. “It appears someone tried to break yours. Did Brenna put that bruise on your chin?”
“No. Her father did.”
“Mick O’Toole?” Aidan paused in the act of drying his own chest. “Mick O’Toole popped you one?”
“He did. But we’ve come to terms now.” Shawn stepped out of the shower, annoyed that the blissful cushion of whiskey had been washed away, so now he could hurt all over—face, hand, leg. And heart.
“At a guess I’d say you got drunk together.”
“That was part of the process.” He flipped down the lid of the toilet, sat, and as he dressed again he filled Aidan in on the morning.
“You’ve had a busy day.” Aidan laid a hand on his shoulder. “I can ask Kathy Duffy to do the whole of the shift.”
“No, I can work. It’ll keep my hands busy while I figure out what to do next.” He stood up. “I mean to have her, Aidan, however it has to be done.”
“You gave me advice once, on matters of the heart. Now I’ll return the favor. Find the words, the right ones, and give them to her. I imagine there’s different ones for different women, but when it’s all cleared away, it means the same.”
• • •
Before he came down again, Shawn tidied himself up as best he could and did the same for Darcy’s bathroom. Nothing was worth the spitting lecture she’d spew over him if he left it as it was. Since he felt the beginnings of a filthy head coming on, he rooted out the makings of the hangover remedy his family called Gallagher’s Fix and downed a full glass of it. He couldn’t say he was feeling his best, but he thought he could get through the day now without making a bigger muck of things.
From the look of sympathy that Kathy Duffy sent him when he entered the kitchen again, he imagined he wasn’t looking his best either.
“There now, lad.” She clucked over him and had a strong cup of tea ready. “You just drink this and gather your wits. I’ve got things under control for now.”
“I’m grateful to you. I know I left things turned ’round here.”
“If a body can’t indulge himself foolishly now and again, what’s the point?” She bustled around as she talked, dealing with the fry pan and the pot she had simmering. “I’ve got the fish cakes doing and they’re selling brisk. You had fresh cockles, so I did up the soup, and it’s ready for serving now if any’s a taste for it. Now most are wanting chips, but I’ve done up some pan boxty as well.”
“It’s a treasure you are, Mrs. Duffy.”
She pinked and fluttered at that. “Oh, go on with you. It’s nothing your dear mother wouldn’t have done for one of mine if the need were there.” She flipped fish cakes onto plates, spooned up chips that had drained, and added bits of parsley and pickled beets.
As if timed to a turn, Darcy came in to pick up the orders. “Well, the dead have arisen,” she said with a quick study of her brother. “Though you look like you need to be buried.”
“Oh, he’s just a little shaky on his pins is all. Don’t poke at him, Darcy, there’s a good girl.”
Shawn sent his sister a wide and sour grin behind Kathy’s back as she loaded her tray. “We’ll need two servings of your soup, Mrs. Duffy, and another of the fish cakes, with the boxty, and one further of fish and chips. And all would care for the green salad you were kind enough to make while my brother was indisposed.”
“In two shakes, darling.”
Darcy balanced her tray, and after shooting an evil look at Shawn, she headed out, singing “Whiskey for Breakfast.”
“I’ll deal with the frying, Mrs. Duffy, if you wouldn’t mind seeing to the salads.”
“Are you feeling up to it, lad?”
“I am, yes, thanks.”
“It’s best to keep busy, but mind your hand. Those are nasty scratches.” She gave him a little pat as they passed each other. “And when Brenna comes in later to work, the two of you will make it up, mark my words.”
If she’d smacked him over the head with the rolling pin, he’d have been less staggered. “Brenna?”
“I’m thinking the two of you ha
d a bit of a spat,” Kathy went on, cheerfully scooping up salad. “Lovebirds don’t always sing pretty tunes.”
Recovering, Shawn narrowed his eyes at the door. “Darcy.” He said it darkly, bitterly, and with a hint of the violence he intended.
“Darcy?” With a rumbling laugh, Kathy lined up the bowls. “Now why would I need Darcy to be telling me what I can see with my own eyes? Wasn’t I in the pub myself last night?”
“I barely spoke to Brenna last night in the pub.” Sulking now, Shawn set the cakes to sizzling. “We were, the both of us, busy.”
“I might expect that sort of answer from most men, but you’re a poet, and you know very well just how much can be said with a look. The two of you clicked eyes together every blessed time you stepped out of the kitchen. Nothing I haven’t been expecting for years.”
“Oh, bloody hell.” He muttered it, well under his breath, but the woman had ears like a rabbit.
“Now, what’s the matter? It’s a pretty business seeing the two of you starting to dance in the same direction.”
And a mouth, Shawn thought, that flapped like a sheet in a gale. “Ah, the thing of it is, Mrs. Duffy—and I’m hoping you’ll take this as delicate as it’s meant—if, as things are, Brenna hears any talk of the two of us . . . dancing in the same direction, as you put it, she’ll do a very fast jig the opposite way.”
Judging the progress of the frying, she reached up for soup bowls. “And since when has Mary Brenna O’Toole heard anything if it didn’t please her to? The girl’s ears are as stubborn as the rest of her—and good luck to you with her.”
He shook the fry basket to drain more chips. “You’ve a point there, well taken.”
“I’ve known the two of you since you were both bumps under your mothers’ aprons.” She ladled up soup and was generous with dumplings. “And ten years back—aye ten, as I recall it was the summer my Patrick broke his arm falling off the cabin roof, where he had no business being in the first place. Ten years ago this summer I said to Mr. Duffy as we sat out in the pub of an evening, and Brenna sat with her family at a near table, and you were playing one of your tunes on the fiddle while your father worked the bar . . .”
She trailed off as she set the bowls aside for Darcy. “I said to him, as I watched her watching you, and saw that now and again a glance of yours would land in her direction, there’s something that will come around when the time’s right.”
“I never thought of her that way back then.”
“Of course you did,” Kathy said comfortably. “You just didn’t know it.”
When it was time for the evening shift, Darcy lay in wait for Brenna. And nearly missed her, as Brenna came in the front instead of the back.
“You missed a great crowd today.” Darcy sauntered over. It took only a strategic shift of her body to corner Brenna by the coatrack. “Shawn was late for work,” she continued in a whisper, “and was drunk besides. What’s going on?”
“I can’t talk about it now. I made a mess of things, I can say that much.”
Darcy laid a hand on Brenna’s shoulder until she finished her study. “You look terrible. Was it a big fight or a little one?”
“It wasn’t a fight at all with Shawn.” She glanced over at the kitchen door, wondering how they were going to deal with it all, and with each other, now. “Got drunk, did he? Well, now, I wish I’d thought of that. Let me go on to work, Darcy. It’s going to be a long night, and the sooner it’s started, the sooner it’s done.”
If anyone expected her to leave it at that, they didn’t know Darcy Gallagher. At the first opportunity, she was in the kitchen. She took a good look at her brother as she relayed orders. Though he was a bit rough around the edges still, he appeared sober and steady.
“Brenna’s come in.” Darcy noted with interest that Shawn’s steady motion with the rolling pin broke. “She looks unhappy. And so do you.”
He went back to rolling out the pastry for meat pies. “We’ll be all right.”
“I’ll help you.”
He flicked his eyes up. “Why?”
“Because she’s my oldest and dearest friend in all the world, and you, though