AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“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.
