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“All of them.” Mr. Riley wheezed out a laugh and slapped his thin hand on the bar. “Sure and I’ve never seen a female face that wasn’t pretty enough for a pinch. The Yank here has witchy eyes. You mind your step, Aidan lad, or she’ll put a spell on you.”
“Maybe she has already.” He cleared glasses, put them in the sink under the bar, got fresh ones for the tap. “Have you been out of a midnight, Jude Frances, picking moonflowers and whispering my name?”
“I might,” she heard herself say, “if I knew which were moonflowers.”
This made Mr. Riley laugh so hard she feared he’d topple off his stool. Aidan only smiled, served his pints, took the coin. Then he leaned close, watched her eyes go wide and her lips tremble apart in surprise. “I’ll point out the moonflowers for you, the next I come to call.”
“Well. Hmmm.” So much for snappy repartee, she decided, and gulped down some wine.
Either the wine, or the intimacy of the look he sent her, went straight to her head. She decided she would have to approach both with a bit more caution and respect. This time when Aidan lifted the bottle, she shook her head and put her hand over her glass.
“No, thanks. I’ll just have water now.”
“You want the fizzy sort?”
“Fizzy? Oh, yes, that would be nice.”
He brought it to her in a short glass with no ice to speak of. She sipped it, watching as he set two more glasses under taps and began the methodical process of building a Guinness.
“It takes an awfully long time,” she said more to herself than him, but he glanced over, one hand still maneuvering the taps.
“Only as long as it takes to make it right. One day, when you’re in the mood for it, I’ll build you a glass and you’ll see what you’re missing by sipping that French business there.”
Darcy swung back to the bar, set down her tray. “A pint and a half, Smithwick, pint of Guinness and two glasses of Jameson’s. And when you’re done there, Aidan, Jack Brennan’s come to his limit.”
“I’ll see to it. What time do you have, Jude Frances?”
“Time?” She stopped staring at his hands—they were so quick and clever—and glanced down at her watch. “Lord, it’s after eleven. I had no idea.” Her hour had stretched into nearly three. “I need to get back.”
Aidan gave her an absent nod, a great deal less than she’d hoped for, and filled his sister’s order while Jude searched for the money to pay for her drinks.
“My grandson’s paying.” Mr. Riley laid a fragile hand on her shoulder. “He’s a good lad. You put your money away, darling.”
“Thank you.” She offered a hand to shake, then found herself charmed when the old man lifted it to his lips. “I enjoyed meeting you.” She slid off her stool, sent a smile to the younger Riley. “Both of you.”
Without Darcy to clear the path, getting to the door was a little more problematic than getting to the bar had been. When she got there, her face was flushed from the heat of bodies, and her blood dancing to the hot lick of the fiddle.
She considered it one of the most entertaining evenings of her life.
Then she stepped outside into the cool night air. And saw Aidan just as he ducked under the violent swing of an arm the width of a tree trunk.
“Now, Jack,” he said in reasonable tones as a giant of a man with shocking red hair bunched hamlike fists again. “You know you don’t want to hit me.”
“I’ll do it! I’ll break your interfering nose this time, by Jesus, Aidan Gallagher. Who are you to tell me I can’t have a fucking drink in the fucking pub when I’ve a fucking mind to?”
“You’re well and truly pissed, Jack, and you need to go home now and sleep it off.”
“Let’s see if you can sleep this off.”
He charged, and while Aidan prepared to pivot and easily avoid the bull rush, Jude let out a short scream of alarm. It took only that to distract Aidan enough to have Jack’s wild punch connect.
“Well, hell.” Aidan wiggled his jaw, blew out a breath as Jack’s lumbering charge sent the man sprawling facedown on the sidewalk.
“Are you all right?” Terrified, Jude rushed over, skirting the sprawled form that was approximately the size of a capsized ocean liner. “Your mouth’s bleeding. Does it hurt? This is awful.” She fumbled in her bag for a tissue as she stuttered.
Aidan was irritated enough to tell her the blood was as much her fault for screaming as it was Jack’s for throwing the punch. But she looked so pretty and distressed, and was already dabbing at his painfully cut lip with the tissue.
He started to smile, and as that hurt like twice the devil, he winced.
“Oh, what a bully! We need to call the police.”
“For what?”
“To arrest him. He attacked you.”
Sincerely shocked, Aidan gaped at her. “Now, why would I want to have one of my oldest friends arrested just for bloodying my lip?”
“Friend?”
“Sure. He’s just nursing a broken heart with whiskey which is foolish but natural enough. The lass he thought he loved went off with a Dubliner, two weeks ago last Wednesday, so he’s taken to drinking out his sorrows the past few days, then causing a ruckus. He doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“He hit you in the face.” Perhaps if she said it slowly, clearly, the meaning would get through. “He said he was going to break your nose.”
“That’s only because he’s tried to break it before and hasn’t found success. He’ll be sorry for it in the morning, nearly as sorry as he’ll be because his aching head won’t just roll off his shoulders and leave him in peace.”
Aidan did smile now, but cautiously. “Were you worried for me, darling?”
“Apparently I shouldn’t have been.” She said it primly and balled up the bloody tissue. “As you appear to enjoy brawling in the street with your friends.”
“Was a time I enjoyed brawling in the street with strangers, but with maturity I prefer my friends.” He reached out, as he’d been wanting to, and toyed with the ends of her bound-back hair. “And I thank you for having concern for me.”
He stepped forward. She stepped back.
And he sighed. “One day you won’t have quite so much room to back away. And I won’t have poor drunk Jack at me feet to deal with.”
Philosophically he bent down and, to Jude’s astonishment, picked up the enormous semiconscious man and swung him handily over his shoulder.
“Is that you, then, Aidan?”
“Aye, Jack.”
“Did I break your nose?”
“No, you didn’t, but you bloodied my lip a bit.”
“Fucking Gallagher luck.”
“There’s a lady present, you knothead.”
“Oh. Begging pardon.”
“You’re both ridiculous,” Jude decided and turned away to march to her car.
“Jude, my darling?” Aidan grinned, hissed as his lip split again. “I’ll see you tomorrow, say at half-one.” He only chuckled when she continued to walk, heels clicking briskly, then turned to give him a fulminating look as she got into her car.
“Is she gone now?” Jack wanted to know.
“She’s going. But not far,” Aidan murmured as she drove decorously down the street. “No, she won’t go far.”
• • •
Men were baboons. Obviously. Jude shook her head, tapped her finger on the wheel in a disapproving manner as she drove home. Drunken brawls on the street were not amusing pastimes, and anyone who thought they were was in dire need of therapy.
God, he’d made her feel like an idiot. Standing there grinning at her while she dabbed at the blood on his mouth and babbled. An indulgent grin, she thought now, from the big, strong man to the foolish, fluttery female.
Worse, she had been foolish and fluttery. When Aidan had tossed that enormous man over his shoulder as if he was a bag of feathers, her stomach had definitely fluttered. If she hadn’t tightened up that very instant and stalked away, she might well have
whimpered in admiration.
Mortifying.
And had he been the least bit embarrassed at getting a fist planted in his face in front of her? No, indeed. Had he blushed to introduce the drunken fool at his feet as an old and close friend? No, he had not.
He was very likely behind the bar again right this minute, entertaining his customers with the story, making them laugh over her scream of alarm and trembling hands.
Bastard.
She sniffed once, and felt better for it.
By the time she pulled in the drive she’d convinced herself that she’d behaved in a scrupulously dignified and reasonable manner. It was Aidan Gallagher who’d been the fool.
Moonflowers, indeed. She slammed the door of her car sharply enough to send the echo ringing down to the valley.
After huffing out another breath and smoothing down her hair, she headed for the gate. And when her gaze was drawn up, she saw the woman in the window.
“Oh, God.”
