The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

by Nora Roberts

  He kept it simple, a bowl of soup, and waited until Darcy was serving the next batch of meals. “I need to do some research in the area, and this seems like a good day for it. Why don’t you play guide for me?”

  “It’s kind of you to think of me, but I wouldn’t have time to do it justice.”

  “I can only spare a couple of hours myself. How about it, Aidan, can I borrow your sister between shifts?”

  “Her time’s her own until five.”

  “Borrow, is it?” Darcy let out a short laugh. “I think not. But if you’ve a mind to hire me for the service of guiding you here and about, we could negotiate a reasonable fee.”

  “Five pounds an hour.”

  Her eyes were sharp and somehow sweet. “I said reasonable. Ten, and I’ll spare you the time.”

  “Greedy.”

  “Piker,” she shot back and had several customers chuckling.

  “Ten it is, and you’d better be good.”

  “Darling”—she fluttered her lashes—“no man’s ever told me otherwise.”

  She headed toward the kitchen, and Trevor dipped into the soup Sinead set in front of him. Both of them were completely satisfied with the arrangement.

  She had to fuss a bit. It would have gone against both nature and habit for Darcy not to take time to put on fresh lipstick, dab on some perfume, rearrange her hair, debate about changing her clothes. In the end she decided the sage green shirt and black weskit and trousers were more than adequate for a daytime tour.

  Yanks, as far as she could tell, were mad keen on driving around Irish roads, rain or shine, as if they’d never seen a field of grass in their lives.

  Mindful of the weather, she tied back her hair with a black ribbon and tossed on a jacket before meandering back downstairs.

  She was used to men waiting for her.

  Shawn was whistling over the last of the lunch shift cleanup. It surprised her that Trevor wasn’t, as she’d expected, cooling his heels in the kitchen and drinking a cup of the coffee he seemed to live on.

  “Trevor out in the pub, then?”

  “Couldn’t say. I heard him mention to Brenna he had some calls to make. That was before you went upstairs to redo your war paint.”

  Since that remark didn’t rate a response, she sailed out into the pub, only to find Aidan alone, and preparing to lock up.

  “Did you kick the man out and make him wait in the car?”

  “Hmm? Oh, Trevor? No, I think he said he had someone to ring up.”

  Shock ran straight down to her pretty painted toenails. “He left?”

  “I imagine he’ll be back directly. Since you’re waiting, I’ll leave you to lock up. And see that you’re back on time, Darcy.”

  “But—” She could barely stutter out the single syllable, which didn’t matter in the least, as Aidan was already out the door.

  She never did the waiting. It was just wrong somehow to be ready and not have the man pacing about and looking at his watch for the second or third time. It set the wrong tone entirely.

  More baffled than annoyed she turned to go back up to her rooms and forget the entire arrangement. The door opened, letting in a damp chill and Trevor.

  “Good, you’re ready to go. Sorry, I got hung up.” He stood, holding the door, smiling easily. The puzzled irritation on her face was very close to what he’d expected. He was certain that every man she’d ever dealt with had waited, panting, for her to finally make her entrance.

  Your move, gorgeous, he thought.

  “My time’s worth considerable, even if yours isn’t.” She strode past him, flashing him an annoyed look before she stepped outside.

  “Time’s part of the problem.” He stood, shielding her from the worst of the wet as she locked the pub doors. “Everybody wants a piece of it. What I want is a couple of hours away from phones and demands for answers.”

  “Then I won’t ask you any questions.”

  He led her to the car, held her door until she was settled. And wondering how long she was going to steam, rounded the hood to the driver’s side.

  “I thought we’d head north for a while. Maybe hook up with the coast road, then just . . . see.”

  “You’ve the wheel, and the wallet.”

  He pulled away from the curb. “Everyone says getting lost in Ireland is part of its charm.”

  “I don’t imagine those with a destination in mind would find it charming.”

  “Fortunately I don’t have one at the moment.”

  Darcy shifted, settled comfortably. It was a fine vehicle, roomy and with an expensive smell to it, even if it was leased. It wasn’t such a hardship, she supposed, to ride around in a classy car with a handsome man. Who was, when it came down to it, paying for the privilege.

  “I imagine you always have your destination firmly in mind before taking the first step.”

  “The purpose,” he corrected. “That’s a different matter.”

  “And your purpose today is to see the near area, to put a picture in your mind of what people might be coming to your theater, and how they’d go about getting there.”

  “Yes, that’s one purpose. The other is to have some time with you.”

  “So it’s clever you are to find a way to do both now. Traveling this way,” she continued, “you’ll go to Dungarvan. If you take the coast road, you’ll go to Waterford City; go north instead and you come to the mountains.”

  “Which way would you like to go?”

  “Oh, I’m just along for the ride, aren’t I? The tourists often enjoy a stop by An Rinn, between here and Dun-garvan. It’s a little fishing village where they still speak Gaelic. There’s nothing much otherwise, but a fine view of cliffs or the mountains, but the tourists often go there, finding it quaint to hear the old language spoken routinely.”

  “Do you speak any Gaelic?”

  “A bit, but not enough for any real conversation.”

  “It’s a pity such things are lost.”

  “You think so because you’ve a sentimental view of the matter. When the simple fact is, English is easier all around. When I was in Paris, I could always find someone who knew enough English so I could be understood. I wouldn’t have found anyone who’d’ve understood the Gaelic.”

  “No sentiment about things Irish, Darcy?”

  “Are you sentimental about things American?”

  “No,” he said after a moment. “I take them for granted.”

  “There you have it.” She watched the rain patter, and the shift of light that brought a pearly gleam to the edges of the gray. “It’s going to clear. You might spot a rainbow if you enjoy such things.”

  “I do. Tell me, what do you enjoy best about Ardmore, about where you are? The place itself.”

  “The place?” She couldn’t remember ever being asked such a question, and was surprised that the answer was right there. “The sea. The moods of it, and smell of it, the feel of it in the air. There’s a softness to it on a quiet morning, and a fury about it during a storm.”

  “The sound of it,” Trevor murmured. “Like a heart beating.”

  “That’s poetic. More something I’d expect Shawn to say than you.”

  “The third stage of the legend. Jewels from the heart of the sea.”

  “Ah, yes.” She liked it that he thought of the legend. She’d been giving it considerable thought herself just lately. “And she let them go to flowers, which wouldn’t buy her family supper. I’ve a great deal of respect for pride, but not when it’s so costly.”

  “You’d trade your pride for pretty stones.”

  “That I wouldn’t.” She sent him a sly and confident look. “I’d find a way to keep both.”

  If anyone could, he thought, it would be Darcy. He wondered why that annoyed him.

  Sunshine streamed through the clouds, sparkled off the still falling rain and turned the light into something found inside a polished seashell. Those luminous,,magical colors streaked across the sky in three distinct rainbows. It seemed to
Trevor that the air simply bloomed, a simple and delicate flower unfurling petal by petal.

  Enchanted, he stopped the car right in the middle of the road and watched those three arcs of color shimmer against the fragile blue canvas of the sky.

  Darcy was more interested in watching him. It was like seeing a shield drop. And under it, hidden under that toughness, the sophistication, was a core of sweetness she’d never imagined. It touched her the way he could stare at those pretty tricks of light and wet, with the pure pleasure of it gleaming in his eyes.

  When he turned his head and flashed a blinding grin in her direction, she gave in to impulse. Leaning toward him, she caught his face in her hands and kissed him quick and light and friendly, as his grin had been.

  “For luck,” she said when she sat back again. “There must be something about rainbows and kisses and luck.”

  “If there isn’t, there should be. Let’s see where they take us—the rainbows,” he said when her eyebrow lifted. “I like to think I know where the kisses are leading, and my luck’s been pretty good lately.”

  He turned down a narrow, poorly marked road. Away from the coast, and still distant from the mountains, the land rolled wet and green. Lines of gray from stone walls, deeper green from rough trees, ran through the fields and turned function into charm. He spotted a cottage, much like the one on Faerie Hill, with its creamy walls and thatched roof. A scatter of sheep, little white blobs wandering over the postcard.

  And above it all, those three smears of color on a pale sky.

  He opened the sunroof, chuckling when Darcy cursed as the water that had pooled on the glass showered in. It smelled fresh, gloriously clean, and added something elemental to the scent of her skin.

  Then, as the road climbed, he saw it. Dull and gray and forbidding against the seashell sky. Only three walls of the structure were standing, the fourth long fallen into a tumble of stones. But what was left was defiant,spearing up out of the quiet country field as a monument to blood, to power, to vision.

  He swung off the road, stopped the car. “Let’s go see it.”

  “See what? Trevor, it’s only a ruin. You can find one by doing hardly more than turning a corner in Ireland. There are far better ones than this if such things interest

  you. You’ve the oratory or the cathedral in Ardmore, for that matter.”

  “This one’s here, and so are we.” He reached across her to open her door. “This is just the sort of thing that draws people to an area.”

  “Those who haven’t the sense to take holiday where there’s a nice pool and a collection of five-star restaurants.” Grumbling a bit, she climbed out, then sighed and followed after him. “Just one of the many ruined castles or forts, probably sacked by the Cromwellians— they seemed to like nothing so much as sacking and burning.”

  The grass was damp, which made her glad she’d thought to wear boots. Knowing just what sheep and cows did in fields, she watched her step.

  “No sign, no marker, nothing. It just stands here.”

  Darcy cocked her head, deciding it was more productive to be amused than annoyed. “And what do you think it should do but stand here?”

  He only laid a hand on the stone and looked up. “How many men, I wonder, did it take to build this? How long? Who ordered it built here, and why? Shelter and defense.”

  He stepped inside and, humoring him, Darcy followed.

  Grass had grown up, wild and tough, through fallen stones. The walls, open to the elements, dripped with wet from the recent storms. His builder’s eyes could make out where the separate stories had been, and he marveled at the sheer size of the broken wooden beams.

  “It would’ve been drafty, smelly as well,” Darcy commented.

  The light was shifting again, growing, and he could still see the rainbows overhead. “Where’s your romance?”

  “Ha. I doubt many of the women who had to cook and clean between having their babies thought it was very romantic. Survival would have been the point.”

  “Then they made their point. This survived. The people survived. The country survived. That’s the magic that draws people here, the magic you miss because it’s all around you.”

  “It’s history, not magic.”

  “It’s both. That’s what I’m building here, that’s why I came.”

  “That’s a large ambition.”

  “Why have small ones?”

  “Now that’s a sentiment I can agree with. And as that ambition includes Gallagher’s, I’ll do my best to help you realize it.”

  “That’s something else I want to talk to you about. Another time.”

  “What’s wrong with now?”

  “Because now I need a little more luck.”

  He took her hands, threading his fingers through hers. This time instead of drawing her toward him, he stepped to her. “In an ancient castle, under a trio of rainbows, I think this ought to be worth big pots of luck.”

  “You’ve your myths confused. The pot’s at the end of the rainbow.”

  “I’ll take my chances right here.” He touched his lips to hers, light and friendly, as she had to his. He liked the glint of amusement it brought to her eyes and did it again, a little firmer this time, a little warmer.

  “I’ve also heard it said, third time’s the charm,” he murmured, and took her mouth again. Fast and deep and hot. The change deliberately abrupt to test both of them.

  She answered as if she’d known, as if she’d only waited. Her lips parted for his. No surrender, but demand. Equal to equal, hunger to hunger. Together their fingers curled until they formed taut fists, held as if it was understood that if either let go they’d rush blindly to the next step.

  Her heart leaped against his, a quick kick of excitement that sent his own racing.

  It thrilled and it stunned her that it should be as wild, as near to feral as it had before. A storm brewed inside her, wanted to whip high and free. And God, she wanted to ride it, even at the risk of finding herself battered and wrecked at the end.

  Here, now, what did it matter where they were, or who they were or why it seemed so desperately right?

  When his lips left hers to trail to her temple, into her hair, to rest quietly there, the sweetness of the gesture after the passion left her shaken and weak. And allowed caution to return.

  “If such activities under rainbows bring luck,” Darcy began, “the pair of us are set for life.”

  He couldn’t laugh, nor come up with a joke in return. Something was churning inside him, something complicated, folding itself cannily in with simple desire. “How many times have you felt like that?”

  Before she could answer he released her hands, put his own on her shoulders to draw her away enough for their eyes to meet. “Give me a straight answer. How many times have you felt the way you felt just now?”

  She could have lied. She knew herself skilled at the careless and casual lie. But only when it didn’t matter. His eyes were intense, direct, and, she thought, just a little angry. She found she couldn’t blame him for it. “I can’t say I ever have, excepting last night.”

  “Neither have I. Neither have I,” he repeated, and let her go so he could pace. “That’s something to think about.”

  “Trevor, I think we both know that the hotter the flame, the quicker it flashes, and the sooner it goes cold.”

  “Maybe.” He thought of Gwen, the words she’d spoken to him. “We’d both know that going in.”

  “We would.” Just as they both accepted they weren’t capable of falling in love. He was right, she thought. They were a sad pair. “We’d know,” she agreed. “Just as we both know we’ll sleep together before we’re done, but there are matters that tangle it up. Business matters.”

  “Business isn’t involved in this.”

  “No, and it shouldn’t be. But since we have a business relationship—mutual professional interests that involve my family, there are things to be discussed and agreed upon before we roll ourselves into bed. I want y
ou, and having you is my intention, but I have terms.”

  “What do you want, a goddamn contract?”

  “Nothing so formal—and don’t take that tone with me. You’re just annoyed that the blood’s still in your lap and you didn’t think of it first.”

  He opened his mouth, then closed it again and turned away. She had a point, damn it. “So we work out what we want and expect out of our personal relationship and agree to keep it separate, entirely, from the business one.”

  “We do, yes. And, as you said, that’s something to think about. You might think that I sleep with anyone I find appealing or even handy.” She kept her voice cool as he turned back. “But the fact is, I don’t. I’m careful and selective, and I have to have some affection for a man, some understanding of him, before I take him to bed.”

  “Darcy, I understood that after an hour in your company. I’m also selective.” He walked back to her. “I like you, and I’m beginning to understand you. And when the time comes, we’ll take each other to bed.”

  She relaxed into a smile. “I think we’ve just had a serious conversation. We’ll have to be careful not to get in the habit of it and frighten ourselves. Now, I’m sorry to say, you have to take me back.”

  She held out a hand.

  “Next time we’ll drive along the coast.”

  “Next time, you’ll be taking me out to a candlelight dinner, buying me champagne, and kissing my hand in that way you have.” She glanced up, caught another glimpse of the fading rainbows as they crossed the wet grass. “But we can drive along the coast road to get there.”

  “Sounds like a deal. Get a night off.”

  “I’ll start working on that.”

  SEVEN

  W ARM, DRY WEATHER returned to paint both sky and sea the vivid blue of coming summer. Clouds that hovered were white and harmless, and the flowers of Ardmore drank in the sun as they had the rain. The round tower cast its long and slender shadow over the graves it guarded. And high on the cliffs the wind blew gentle ripples over the water in the well of the saint.