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He swiveled to take another look at Darcy. “I think I’m in love.”
“A complete ass. You’re not eating,” Trevor said to Jude. “Is Darcy wrong about tonight’s stew?”
“No.” Guilty, Jude took another spoonful. “It’s wonderful. It’s just I’m not really hungry. I had a late . . . mmmm.”
“Cravings?” When she flushed, Trevor laughed. “For my sister, all three times, it was Fig Newtons for breakfast. She ate truckloads.”
“Chocolate ice cream, at teatime. Gallons.” Jude shot a wary glance toward Aidan. “I haven’t made a full confession yet. Aidan’s afraid I’ll waste away.” She put a hand on her belly. “As if.”
“Here we are, now, gin and tonic and a Harp.” Darcy set them down. “Will you have a meal with us, then?”
“We’ll have the stew,” Trevor said before Nigel could order. “Will you sing later?”
“I might.” With a saucy wink, she sauntered off.
“I might have wanted a look at the menu,” Nigel complained.
“You’re coming to the lady’s rescue here. We eat the same thing, and that way we can each take a portion of her stew and save her.”
“God bless you,” Jude said with feeling and passed Trevor the basket of bread.
Their bowls had barely been served when music started. Just a fiddle and pennywhistle at first from a couple of the people crammed around the table at the front. The table itself was loaded with pints and glasses, ashtrays and packs of cigarettes.
Conversation didn’t stop with the music, but it lowered. It was Darcy, Trevor noted, who worked the table, taking away the empties, the overflowing ashtrays and replacing them with fresh. An old man with a squeeze box gave her a little pat on the bottom, in much the same way an adult pats a baby, then, tapping his foot, picked up the tune and filled it out.
“That’s Brian Fitzgerald on the fiddle,” Jude told them. “We’re cousins of some sort. And that’s young Connor on the pennywhistle and Matt Magee, likely a cousin of yours, Trevor, on the little accordion. The young woman with the guitar is Patty Riley, and I don’t know the other woman, the other fiddler. I don’t think she’s local or I would.”
Nigel nodded, sampled his stew. “Do you get many musicians in for an informal who aren’t local?”
“All the time. Gallagher’s has a reputation with its sessions, formal and informal.” She looked on Trevor with warm affection when he casually spooned some of her stew into his bowl, then Nigel’s. “I’d name the baby after you for this, but Aidan would be suspicious.”
“It’s not a hardship. Shawn’s a genius.”
“I thought Trev was exaggerating the culinary skills of our newest artist.” Happily now, Nigel dug into the stew again. “I should’ve known better. He’s never wrong.”
It was the laugh that caught Nigel first. Warm, female, sexy. He glanced over, toward it, and watched as Darcy laid a hand on the old man’s shoulder, counted off the time with her toe, then caught the tune with her voice.
As I was going over the far-famed Kerry mountains/ I met with Captain Farrell and his money he was counting.
He laid his spoon down, focused, and shut out the background noise.
I first produced me pistol, and then produced me rapier/ Saying stand and deliver for you are my bold deceiver.
It was a bright, jumpy song with bouncy lyrics. Nothing that put great demands on a voice but for its quickness. But it took no more than the first verse for him to know.
He looked at Trevor, nodded. “No, you’re never wrong.”
There were reels, jigs, waltzes, and ballads, with or without voices joining in. When Shawn finally came out of the kitchen, Nigel got his first look at the three Gallaghers together.
“Excellent genes there,” he murmured, and Jude beamed.
“Aren’t they beautiful? And listen,” she added when they began to sing of the bold Fenian men.
Despite her enjoyment of her family, she caught the look that passed between Nigel and Trevor. These, she thought, were men who had something to say to each other, and wouldn’t while she could hear. Well, she owed them. So when the song was over, she patted Trevor’s arm.
“I’m going for a quiet cup of tea in the kitchen.” And then slip out the back door and home. “Thanks for the company and the rescue. Lovely to meet you, Nigel. Enjoy your stay with us.”
She started to scoot out, couldn’t manage it, then was grateful once again as Trevor somehow got her smoothly to her feet. Now, following impulse, she kissed his cheek. “Good night.”
As the fiddlers had gone into a duel, Nigel had only to wait until Jude was two steps away before she was out of earshot. “They’re a gold mine.”
“That may be, but Aidan won’t give up the pub, and neither will Shawn.” Trevor nursed his single pint. “They’ll do the performance here, and the recording. That’s for family, and for Gallagher’s, but the long term. No.”
“You didn’t mention Darcy.”
“I’m working on her. Her loyalty’s here, too, and with her brothers. But she has a taste for the rich life. I just have to convince her she can have both.” He drummed his fingers, watching as one of the fiddlers passed her the instrument instead of his empty pint. Then rose to refill it himself while she picked up the tune.
“With a face like that, a voice like that, and Christ, listen to her play, she can have anything she wants.”
“I know.” The fact that it didn’t entirely please him had Trevor setting down his glass. “And so, believe me, does she.”
“No naive Irish lass, huh? Still, I’ve never known you to fail when your mind’s set. You’ll sign her, Trev.” Nigel lit one of his dwindling pack of Players, eyed Trevor through the smoke. “What else are you looking for from her?”
Too much for comfort, Trevor thought. Entirely too much. “I haven’t decided.”
“If you decide to keep it strictly business, I wouldn’t mind—” He cut himself off when Trevor’s eyes, scalpelsharp, met his. “I think we’ll just leave that unsaid. I’ll just go to the bar and order another G and T.”
?
?Good idea.”
“I think so, as we haven’t snarled over a girl since first term at Oxford, and you won that one anyway.” Nigel rose, nodded toward Trevor’s glass. “Another pint?”
“No, thanks. I’ll just keep my head clear. And Nigel, make this one your last, will you? You’ll be driving back to the cottage on your own.”
“I see. You always were a lucky bastard.”
Luck, as far as Trevor could see, was only part of what he would need to handle Darcy Gallagher.
He waited for her, in what she liked to call her parlor. And waited restlessly among her pretty things. The scent of her seemed to be everywhere, a subtle reminder that kept him on edge. He didn’t want a reminder. He wanted her.
Everything in her rooms was feminine. Not the flouncy sort, but the sleek. Slippery pillows he had no idea she’d made herself were tossed artistically over the couch. A tall, slim vase held tall, slim flowers with bold red heads.
There was a painting on the wall of a mermaid, wild wet hair of gleaming black raining down her back and naked breasts as she surfaced in a triumphant arch of body from a blue sea.
It was stunning, sensual and somehow innocent.
It was simply and rather beautifully rendered. Anyone seeing it would note the resemblance, he was sure, in the shape of the face, the full curve of lips.
He wondered when Darcy had posed for it and immediately wanted to strangle the artist.
That, he realized, was a serious problem, every bit as serious as this unrelenting desire for her. He detested jealousy and possessiveness in relationships. They weren’t just deadly, weren’t just weak, they were . . . unproductive.
He needed to step back, clear himself out of this sexual haze he’d been in ever since he’d seen her at the damn window.
Then she opened the door, and that haze simply engulfed him.
“Did you send Nigel off to home all by himself, then?” She closed the door behind her, leaned back against it.
“He’s a big boy.”
She reached down, flipped the lock. “I hope you told him not to wait up.”
Trevor stepped to her. “You’ve been on your feet all night.”
“That I have, and they’re letting me know it.”
“Why don’t I get you off them?” He scooped her up and into his arms.
Chuckling, she nuzzled his neck. “Well, what do you know, that’s better already.”
“Sweetheart, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
FIFTEEN
“COFFEE.”
A man couldn’t be expected to survive on three hours’ sleep without coffee. Sex might satisfy, food might fuel, love might sustain, but without coffee, what was the point?
Especially at five-thirty in the morning.
