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The thrill of the rough demand shivered straight up the center of her body. But the look she shot over her shoulder was designed to taunt. “We’ll see.”
The minute she was inside, she leaned back against the front door, shut her eyes. Weak, something about the man left her weak. And it was an odd sensation when tangled with the burst of energy that his offer and his promises had spurting through her.
Her knees wanted to shake, her feet wanted to dance.
And despite it all, she hadn’t a clue what it was she wanted in her heart.
She opened her eyes, nearly smiled. From the raised voices coming from the kitchen it was clear that her family hadn’t a clue either.
She started back, then stopped in the parlor doorway and looked at the old piano. Music had been as much a part of her life as the pub. For always. But the music had always been for the fun, for the pleasure of it, never for money. One of her earliest memories was of that piano, of sitting on her mother’s lap there on that same stool while the music and the laughter ran all around.
She had a good strong voice. She wasn’t a bubblehead—she knew her voice was fine enough. But to pin her hopes on it, and on Trevor Magee’s making something of it, that was a different matter entirely.
Wiser, she decided, to consider taking that first step without any real expectations. That way there couldn’t be any real disappointments.
She headed back in time to hear Brenna’s furious disgust.
“A potato’s got more sense than you, Shawn. The man’s giving you the opportunity of a lifetime, and you’re worrying it to pieces.”
“It’s my lifetime, isn’t it?”
“I think this gives me some say in your lifetime.” She held up the chain that held her rings.
“It’s my music, and even you can’t hammer it out of me.”
“You’ve agreed to show him another tune,” Aidan put in, playing peacemaker. “Let’s see where it goes once you have. As for the other, we have to look at all the angles of it.” He looked up, gestured to Darcy. “And we haven’t heard what Darcy thinks about it.”
“If it’ll put her in a spotlight and cash in her pocket,” Shawn said, “we already know what she thinks.”
Darcy merely smiled sourly. “As I’m not a peabrained idiot like some at this table, I’ve no objection to either of those things. But . . .” She trailed off until Shawn narrowed his eyes. “I’m also thinking that a man the likes of Magee isn’t after thinking in one-shot sorts of deals, or in small numbers. I’m not sure any of us are prepared for what he really has in his mind.”
“He wants Shawn’s music, and he wants the three of you to sing it.” Brenna threw up her hands. “It makes good, strong sense to me.”
“There are three of us.” Aidan spoke quietly, looking from face to face. “Each of us has different needs. Jude, the baby, the pub, this house. They’re my center. I won’t change that. Shawn has the new home and new life he’s building with Brenna, the pub as well, and his music. But the music is made in his own time and his own way. Do I have the right of that?”
“You do, yes.”
“And Darcy, I’m thinking that what was under the idea we’ve heard today, what was between the lines, which I caught as you did, might be just the sort of thing you need.”
“I haven’t decided. Music has always been a personal thing to us, something shared with family and friends. I understand what Brenna’s saying, as the simple part of the notion—just the singing that night to cement the link between the pub and the theater does make good, strong sense. And it’s not as if the three of us screech like cats at the moon and would embarrass the family name by doing it. But he’s a canny individual is Trevor Magee. So we’ll have to be cannier, and see that whatever we do or don’t is precisely what we intend.”
Aidan nodded, then turned to his wife. “You’ve said nothing, Jude Frances. Don’t you have thoughts on the subject?”
“Several.” Now that the shouting was over, she judged everyone ready to hear them. She folded her hands on her belly. “First, the practicalities. I don’t know anything about publicity or entertainment, but it seems to me the scenario Trevor outlined is simple and smart and would be effective. That benefits all of us.”
“That’s true,” Aidan agreed. “But if we take our music into the theater, what does that leave us in the pub?”
“The informality. A bigger impact because you have performed onstage, because you’ve recorded. And then anyone coming in for a pint might catch you in the mood to do a song while you’re at the bar or coming out of the kitchen. The tourists, in particular, will love it.”
“Well, now, that’s bloody brilliant,” Darcy murmured.
“Not really. It’s just that I’ve sat in the pub, and I’ve watched and I know how lovely it is. So has Trevor. He’s very much aware of how one will affect the other. Next . . .” She took a deep breath. “Individually. Aidan, it won’t change your center. Nothing could. It isn’t a matter of either/or. Whatever you decide will be right, because you have that center and it matters most to you.”
He picked up her hand, kissed it. “Isn’t she wonderful? Have you ever seen the like of her?”
Jude merely kept her hand in his and laid them both over their baby. “Shawn. You have a beautiful talent. The more Brenna loves you, and admires that, the more impatient she is with you for hesitating to share it.”
“Then she must love me a hell of a lot.”
“Which is my cross to bear.” Brenna bit into a biscuit and glared at him.
“I would think,” Jude continued, “having your family perform and record your music would be the perfect solution. You trust them, and they understand you. Won’t it be easier for you to take that step when you have that bond?”
“It shouldn’t be because of me.”
“Oh, just answer the question,” Darcy snapped. “You fish-faced jackass.”
“Of course it’d be easier, but—”
“Now shut up.” Darcy nodded smugly. “And let Jude finish. Because I think she’s about to come to me, and I love the attention.”
“You don’t shrink from attention.” Jude picked up her tea to sip. She couldn’t sit much longer in one spot. Her back was starting to ache. “Performing would be second nature to you. You’d enjoy the stage, the lights, the applause.”
Shawn snorted. “She’ll lap it up like cream. Vanity is our Darcy’s middle name.”
“Can I help it if all the good looks in the family waited for me?”
“I don’t know, as I haven’t seen your face without a layer of pa
int since you were thirteen.”
“The pity of it is I have to see yours every time I turn around.”
“Since looking at each other is the next thing to looking in a mirror, you could find something else to argue over.” Aidan held up a finger before either of his siblings could snipe. “Let Jude finish.”
“I nearly am.” Amazing, she thought, how quickly she’d become used to the rhythm of this family. “I imagine you’d enjoy being onstage, playing to the audience. But, if the idea of it terrified you, if you hated the very thought of it, you’d do it anyway. You’d do anything for these two.”
Though the statement was perilously close to the end of her conversation with Trevor, Darcy let out an amused snort. “I do to please myself.”
“In a great many things,” Jude agreed. “This you’d do for Aidan, and Aidan’s the pub. You’d do it for Shawn, and Shawn’s the music. Last of all you’d do it for yourself. For the fun.”
“The fun’s a factor, isn’t it?” Darcy rose, started to move casually to the stove, but Aidan caught her hand as she went by.
He tugged, she resisted. He tugged again. With a little sigh, she went into his lap. “Tell me what you want, Darcy darling.”
“A chance, I suppose.”
He nodded, met Shawn’s eyes across the table. “Let’s give it a day or two to simmer. Then I’ll talk to Magee again and see just what’s up his sleeve.”
NINE
THE HUMS AND grumbles and thuds outside her window drove Darcy out of bed early every morning. Whenever she thought about it going on for nearly another year, she was tempted to bury her head under the pillow and smother herself.
Since suicide wasn’t in her makeup, though, she tried to make the best of it. She could turn up her music loud, or just lie there and pretend she was in a big, noisy city.
New York, Chicago. All that noise was really traffic, and people bustling under her lovely, lofty penthouse flat.
Most of the time that worked. When it didn’t, she got up and spent quite a bit of time in the shower cursing.
Otherwise, if she was in the mood, she’d wander over to look down and watch the work for a while. And look for Trevor. She didn’t allow herself to do it daily—or allow herself to be seen daily.
That would be predictable.
She liked looking at him, seeing what he was up to that morning. Some days he was standing on the edge of things, his hair blowing in the wind, discussing something or other with Brenna or Mick O’Toole in the way men did, with thumbs tucked into pockets and wise, sober expressions on their faces.
And others—and she liked the others best—he was in the middle of the thing, hammering or hauling or drilling, stripped down to his shirtsleeves, and if the angle was right she could watch a ripple of muscle.
It was odd. Not that she hadn’t always enjoyed taking a good, long look at men, but she couldn’t remember ever being so interested in the look of one man before. Or being so fascinated by studying him as he went about manual labor.
He had a fine build, she mused as she stood framed in the window. That was part of it. A woman who didn’t appreciate a long and wiry build on a man, well, she had a problem, as far as Darcy was concerned. It was the way he moved, too. Light on his feet, confident and in control.
She imagined, and why wouldn’t she imagine, that he would be just as confident and in control with a female in bed. Control would make a man thorough, and a thorough loving was no small matter to a woman.
Still, she had to wonder what it would take to snap that control. A loving wild and fierce was no small matter either.
It concerned her in a mild sort of way that she thought of him as often as she did. Looked for him as often as she did. In the mornings like this, at midday, in the evening.
Sometimes he came into the pub. Sometimes he didn’t. She was certain it was purposeful on his part. That lack of predictability. They were gaming with each other, and both knew it perfectly well.
And damn, but didn’t she like that about him! The man was every bit as arrogant as she was herself.
She hadn’t arranged for a night off. That was purposeful on her part. It was true enough that she liked keeping him waiting. But she was keeping herself waiting as well, with a delicious sort of tension inside her. She understood that when they spent the evening together, it wouldn’t be just a matter of having dinner.
Dinner wasn’t what either of them wanted.
