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“It’ll take more of your time.”
He’d thought of that, and what use he would make of the time it took. “I’ve time to spare.”
“And Darcy’s—she won’t be pleased with that.”
“No.” Shawn let out a breath. “But she’ll be pleased enough with the baubles and trinkets she can buy with the profits. And she’ll stand for Gallagher’s, Aidan.” Shawn met his brother’s eyes. “You can give her credit for that.”
“At least till she bags that rich husband.”
“After she does, and she deigns to visit with those of us who remain peasants, you could still ask her to put on an apron and pick up a tray.”
“And have her bash me head in with it.” But Aidan nodded, understanding. “Aye, she’d lend her hand if the need was there, I know it.”
“Don’t take this weight all on yourself—the deal and the worry and the work of it,” Shawn told him. “There’s three of us—well, four now that we’ve our Jude Frances. Gallagher’s is family. We’ll do well with this business, Aidan. I’ve a good feeling about it.”
“It’s good you came by. I’m clearer in my head than I was.”
“Well, then, that should be worth one more beer before I—” Shawn broke off as he heard voices, light and female. “Oh, blessed Mary, there’s the women. I’m off. I’ll use the back door.”
“Next time, I’ll get you drunk and pry out what’s got you so spooked over women.”
“If I don’t figure out what to do about it in the next little while, I’ll tell you.” With this, Shawn escaped out the back door.
EIGHT
THE TUNE WALTZING its way through Shawn’s head put him in the best of moods. While the smoke from his pots and pans drifted up, and the oil he was heating began to sizzle, he let it play through, bar to bar, then a key change for a bit of drama. The words weren’t clear to him yet, but they would come. It seemed to him a summer song, full of light. And the thinking of it, the listening to it inside his head, chased the winter gloom away. The shared beer and conversation in Aidan’s kitchen the day before had settled him down. Which was just where Shawn preferred to be.
At the moment he couldn’t understand why he’d gotten so nervy about matters. Little Mary Kate was just going through one of those phases girls went through, and it would pass as quickly as it had reared up. He’d gone through phases himself, hadn’t he? He could remember clearly mooning and sighing over pretty Colleen Brennan when he’d been about eighteen. Fortunately, he’d never worked up the courage to do anything but moon and sigh, as pretty Colleen Brennan had been two and twenty at the time and engaged to marry Tim Riley.
He’d gotten over it in a matter of weeks, then had sighed over another pretty face. That was the way of things, after all. Eventually, of course, he’d done more than sigh and had discovered the rare wonder of having a woman naked under him. And that was a fine thing.
Still, he took care whom he touched and how he touched, so that when the time was over each could walk away happy with the experience. He wasn’t a man to take the act of love as a casual matter. Which he supposed, was why he hadn’t participated in that rare wonder for some months now.
And that, he imagined, was most likely why the O’Toole had set his glands to stirring.
Not that he was at all certain, as yet, if he intended to do anything about it. No, Brenna was a puzzle, and one he thought it might be best to leave unsolved. A little time, he decided, a little care, and the two of them would be back on their old familiar ground, if they could just let things be.
His mind would be quiet again, and life would slide along the way it was meant to.
All he had to do was forget how stimulating it was to have his mouth on hers.
He checked on the crubeens he was boiling with cabbage and jacketed potatoes. He added a bit more marjoram to the broth to flavor it up, a trick he’d learned by experimentation.
He particularly liked to present the dish when there were Yanks in the pub. Their varying reactions to being served pigs’ trotters was always an amusement to him. Jude was doing the waitressing tonight, and he didn’t think she’d disappoint him.
Meanwhile, he had fish to fry for the two hikers from Wexford. He slid the haddock into the oil, then glanced up as the back door opened.
Instantly his spine stiffened, his eyes narrowed, and a prickly ball bounced around in his gut.
“Smells good,” Brenna said easily and sniffed the air. “Would that be crubeens you’re doing there? I doubt we’ll have such fare in Waterford City.”
She was wearing paint, and sparkly things at her ears. And for God’s sake a dress—one that didn’t leave the matter of curves to a man’s imagination and showed a great deal of slim, well muscled leg.
“What are you doing, done up like that?”
“Having dinner with Darcy and her Dubliners.” She’d rather, much rather pull up a chair at the table, snag a portion and tuck into the crubeens, but she’d given her word. And that was that.
“You’re going out with a man you’ve never laid eyes on.”
“Darcy has, and I’d best go up and drag her away from her mirror or she’ll primp another hour and I’ll never get my dinner.”
“Just a damn minute.”
His tone alone would have stopped her, it was very sharp and un-Shawnlike. But even before she could turn back, he had her arm. “Well, what’s lit into you, then?”
“Perfume, too,” he said in disgust, as he got a good, heady whiff of her scent. “I should’ve known it. Well, you can just turn straight around and go back home. I’m not having you go off dressed like this.”
Temper would have snapped out, would have bitten him on the neck, but it couldn’t get through the thick wall of shock. “You’re not having it? Dressed like what?”
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“I’m not, no. And you know very well dressed like what. It’s surprised I am that your mother let you out of the house this way.”
“I’m twenty-four, if you’ve forgotten. My mother stopped approving my choice of attire some years ago. And it’s surely no business of yours what I’m wearing.”
“I’m making it my business. Now go home and wash that stuff off your face.”
“I’ll do nothing of the sort.” The fact was, she’d used the lipstick and so forth only because she knew Darcy would have slathered twice as much on her if she’d shown up without it. But there was no reason to mention that, especially since that temper was busily gnawing through the shock.
“Fine, then, I’ll do for you here and now.” He hauled her up under one arm, ignoring her shrieked curse and the fist that swiped at his temple, and carted her toward the sink. He had a vision through the black haze of his fury of dumping her in headfirst and turning the water on full and ice cold.
He had his hand on the tap when Jude rushed in. “Shawn!”
The stunned and somehow maternal tone stopped him, but barely.
“What in the world are you doing? Put Brenna down this minute!”
“I’m doing what needs to be done. Look how she’s flaunted herself up, Jude, and all to go out with some strange man. ’Tisn’t right.”
Between curses, Brenna managed to turn her head and try for a good chomp out of his torso, but she only got a mouthful of flannel. She threatened to do something so particularly vile and vicious to his manhood that Shawn cautiously tightened his grip.
Well, well, Jude thought and struggled not to be amused. “Put her down,” she said quietly. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“ I should? She might as well be naked as wearing this dress, and I should be ashamed?”
“Brenna looks lovely.” Seeing no other choice, Jude walked up to him, carefully avoiding Brenna’s kicking feet and snagged him by the ear. “Put her down.”
“Ouch! Bloody hell.” The last woman to pinch his ear in such a manner had been his own mother—and he’d been every bit as unable to defend himself. “I’m only looking out for her. All right, leave off,” he said when Jude ruthlessly twisted.
He dumped Brenna back on her feet, then took the deep breath of the aggrieved. “You don’t understand the situation,” he began, then staggered when Brenna snatched up a pan and rapped it smartly over his head.
“Bastard. I’m not your dog in the manger, and don’t you forget it.”
He gripped the edge of the sink and watched triple Brennas march to the back stairs. “She coshed me.”
“You deserved it.” But Jude took him gently by the hand. “You should sit down. It’s lucky for you she didn’t grab the cast iron, or you’d be flat on your back.”
“I don’t want her going out with some Dubliner.” Dizzy, he let Jude nudge him into a chair. “I don’t want her going ’round looking that way.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t.”
Patient, and more sympathetic than she let him know, Jude ran her fingers delicately through his hair. “You don’t always get what you want. It didn’t break the skin, but you’re going to have a bump, a good one.” Jude tipped his face up to hers, and touched by the stubborn and miserable look in his eyes, kissed him lightly. “I never realized you had such a hard head. If you don’t want Brenna going out with someone else, why haven’t you asked her to go out with you?”
He shifted in his chair. “It’s not that way.”
This time she cupped his cheek. “Isn’t it?” Leaving him stewing over that, she walked over to turn off the fish that was already burned beyond redemption.
“I don’t want it to be that way.”
Her mouth tipped up at the corners. Keeping her back to him for now, Jude got out fresh portions of fish. “I’ll have to repeat, you don’t always get what you want.”
“I do.” He got to his feet, gave himself a moment for the room to settle. “I’m careful about what I want.”
“So was I once. Wanting more’s what got me here.”
“Well, I’m already where I want to be, so I can afford to be careful.”
Still holding the fish, she gave him a bland stare. “Hard head, indeed.”
