Tears of the Moon

by Nora Roberts

  of flowers and axle grease or some such thing.”

  “It’s motor oil, and what’s left of the perfume Alice Mae caught me with this morning.”

  “It’s quite the combination.” And very Brenna O’Toole, he thought as she strode past him. “Will you have some tea?”

  “I will.” She peeled off her jacket, tossed it on a peg, then belatedly remembered her cap and removed that as well.

  It always gave him a little jerk in the belly to watch all that hair spill out and down. Foolish, he thought as he moved to the pot. He knew it was up there, under that ugly cap. But each time she let it fall, it was a new surprise.

  “I’ve scones.”

  “No, but thanks.” She wanted to clear her throat, as it seemed coated with something thick and hot. Instead she sat at the table, casually kicked back. She’d decided as she’d walked over to ease her way into things, so to speak. “I wondered if you might want me to take a look at your car sometime this week. The last I heard it, it sounded sad.”

  “I wouldn’t mind, if you’ve time.” He watched as Bub sidled over to rub against Brenna’s legs, then leap into her lap. The O’Toole was the only human person the cat had ever fancied. Shawn decided it was because they were both prickly creatures.

  “Aren’t you busy at the house, doing the baby’s room for Jude?”

  She stroked Bub’s head so he purred like a freight train. “I’ve time enough.”

  He sat across from Brenna, and when Betty came begging, gave her half a scone. “How’s it coming, then?” And decided it was comfortable after all, sitting with her in the warm kitchen, with the animals milling about.

  “Oh, it’s fine. It’s mostly just fiddling Jude wants, prettying up and the like. But in the way of women, now she’s thinking that when the one room’s fixed and polished, the others will look shabby against it. She’s thinking to spruce up the main bedroom now.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  Brenna lifted her shoulders. “Nothing I can see, but between Jude and Darcy they’ve come up with a dozen things. New paper for the walls, fresh paint for the trim, sanding the floors. Then I just mentioned how nice the view was from the front windows there, and Jude’s saying that she longs for a window seat. I said if she wanted one, it was just a matter of this and a matter of that, and before you can blink, she’s wanting me to do it.”

  Absently, Brenna took the second half of the scone and nibbled on it. “I wager Dad and I will be going from room to room in that house, and top to bottom. She’s got the bit between her teeth now. Must be a nesting sort of thing.”

  “Well, if it pleases her and Aidan doesn’t mind it . . .” Shawn trailed off, imagining how it would be to live in the midst of all that hammering and sawing. He’d rather be roasted over a slow fire.

  “Mind it?” Brenna let out a quick snorting laugh. “He comes in during one of our discussions and just grins like a fool. The man’s besotted with her. I believe she could say, well, let’s just have Brenna turn this house around to face the other way and he’d never bat an eye.” She sighed and sipped her tea. “It’s lovely to see, really, the way they are together.”

  “She was what he was waiting for.” At Brenna’s puzzled look, Shawn shook his head. “Sure he was waiting. You’d only to study on him to see it. When she walked into the pub that first night, that was it. A life change from that instant, though neither of them knew it.”

  “But you did?”

  “I can’t say I knew precisely, just that I knew things would change.”

  Intrigued, she leaned forward. “And what are you waiting for?”

  “Me?” His eyebrow quirked. “Oh, things are fine as they are for me.”

  “That’s a problem with you, Shawn.” She jabbed a finger at him. “You walk the same line until it becomes a rut, and never notice, for your head’s in the clouds in any case.”

  “If it’s a rut it’s mine, and I’m comfortable in it.”

  “What you need to do is take charge.” She remembered her father’s words. “To move forward. If you don’t move forward you’re always in the same place.”

  Eyes mild and amused, he lifted his tea. “But I like this place.”

  “I’m ready for a change, for moving forward.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. “And I don’t mind being the one who takes charge if that’s the way it has to be.”

  “And what do you have a mind to take charge of this time around?”

  “You.” She sat back, ignoring his smirk as he sipped tea. “I think we should have sex.”

  He choked, spilling hot tea over his hand and onto his paper as he coughed violently. She made a quick sound of annoyance and dislodged an irritated Bub to get up and thump Shawn briskly on the back. “It can’t be that horrible a thought.”

  “Jesus!” was the best he could manage. “Sweet Jesus Christ!” When she plopped into her chair again, he simply goggled at her with eyes that continued to water. Finally he sucked in a breath and blew it out again. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

  “It’s plain speaking.” Determined to hold back both nerves and temper, she hooked an arm over the back of her chair. “The fact is, I’ve a yen for you. I’ve had it for some time.” This time his mouth fell open, and the shock on his face teased her temper closer to the surface. “What do you think? Only men can scratch an itch when they have one?”

  He didn’t, of course he didn’t. But neither did he believe that one just plopped down in someone’s kitchen and announced it. “What would your mother think, hearing you talk this way?”

  Brenna inclined her head. “She’s not here, is she?”

  He pushed the chair back, abruptly enough to have Betty leap to her feet. Since none of the thoughts whirling around in his head would settle, he just marched to the door. “I need air.”

  For a moment Brenna sat where she was. She ordered herself to take long, slow breaths, to wait until she could be calm. To be reasonable and mature and clearheaded. Reason fought against temper for nearly ten seconds before it turned tail and deserted the field.

  The nerve of the man! The bloody nerve of him. What was she, some kind of gargoyle a man couldn’t think of cozying up to? Did she have to strut around in short skirts with her face painted before Shawn Gallagher took notice? The hell with that.

  She was up and out the door and striding into the wind. “You’re not interested, that’s fine. You just say so.”

  She caught up with him, planted herself in front of him. He solved that problem by turning around and walking the other way.

  And was a lucky man she didn’t have a weapon in her hands.

  “Don’t you walk away from me, you yellow coward dog.”

  He shot a look over his shoulder, his eyes a ripe, glittering blue. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” He looked away and kept walking.

  He was mortified, right down to the bone. And God help him, he was . . . stirred as well. He refused to think of her that way. And always had. Well, if a time or two his thoughts had veered off in that direction, hadn’t he cut them off, sharp and fast? And that’s just what he was going to do now.

  “Ashamed?” Her voice punched like a fist. “Who the hell are you to decide what should shame me?”

  “I’m the man you just offered yourself to as easy as if you were offering me a pint and some crisps.”

  She’d caught up with him again, but his words struck her, drained the color from her face. “Is that what you think? That it’s nothing more than that? Then it’s you who should be ashamed.”

  He could see the hurt in her eyes, and it only added to the mass of confusion he found himself tangled in. “Brenna, you don’t just go around saying let’s have sex to a man. It’s just not right.”

  “But it’s fine for a man to go around saying it to a woman?”

  “No. I don’t think that either. It’s a . . . it should . . . Mother of God, I can’t have a conversation like this with you. You’re all but family.”

/>   “Why is it the men I know can’t speak of sex as a normal human function? And I’m not family.”

  It might have been cowardice, he thought, but it was also discretion. He stepped back from her. “Stay away from me.”

  “If you don’t want to go to bed with me, you’ve only to say that I don’t appeal to you in that fashion.”

  “I’m not thinking about you in that fashion.” He took another step back, right through the little herb bed. “You’re practically my sister.”

  She bared her teeth, a sure sign of temper about to snap. “But I’m not your bloody sister, am I?”

  The wind caught her hair, sent it streaming so that he wanted to take it in his hands—something he might have done a hundred other times, when it would have been a harmless gesture.

  Now he was afraid nothing between them would ever be harmless again.

  “No, you’re not. But I’ve thought of you—tried to think of you—that way most of my life. How do you expect me to just flip that about and . . . I can’t do it,” he said quickly when his blood began to stir again. “It’s just not right.”

  “You don’t want to have sex with me, that’s your business.” She nodded coolly. “Others do.” With this she turned on her heel and started to march toward home.

  “Wait a damn minute.” He could move fast when he needed to, and he had her arm before she’d taken three full strides. He whirled her around and took as firm a hold on her other arm. “If you think I’m going to let you walk off with that in your head, you’re badly mistaken. I’m not about to have you go off and throw yourself at some man because you’re mad at me.”

  The flash in her eyes should have been a warning, but her voice was so calm, so cool, he missed it. “You think far too much of yourself, Shawn Gallagher. If I want to be with a man, with him I’ll be. You’ve nothing to say about it. It may come as a shock to you, but I’ve had sex before, and I like it. I’ll have it again when I please.”

  She might as well have plowed the business end of a sledgehammer into his gut. “You—who . . .”

  “That’s a matter of my concern,” she interrupted with a smug look in her eye. “And none of yours. Now let go of me. I’ve nothing more to say to you.”

  “Well, I’ve plenty more to say to you.” But he couldn’t think of a thing, not with images of Brenna wrapped around some faceless man burning into his brain.

  She tossed back her head, and her eyes burned once more into his. “Do you want to have sex with me or not?”

  Truth or lie? He was suddenly certain that either answer would send him straight to hell. But he thought the lie safer. “No.”

  “Then that’s the end of it.” Humiliated, furious, she shoved away. Then—perhaps it was pride, or perhaps it was just need, but she acted before she thought.

  In one easy leap, she was in his arms, her legs locked around his waist, her mouth fused to his. She thought she heard Betty bark—once, twice, three times in rapid succession, almost like a laugh. She clung like a bur when Shawn staggered, then bit, not so lightly, his bottom lip. Someone moaned, she didn’t know or care who, and she poured everything she had into that fierce and hot mating of lips.

  She’d caught him by surprise. That was why he didn’t shake her loose. Of course it was. It was simply an instinctive reaction to grip that wonderfully tight bottom in his hands, then to let them slide up her back and get lost in her hair.

  And that quick intake of breath had been shock. It wasn’t his fault that the scent and flavor of her assaulted him and because of it, made his head spin.

  He had to stop. For her sake, he had to stop this now . . . in just a moment. Sooner or later.

  The wind spun around them in chilly ribbons. The sun buried itself behind clouds, shimmering out fragile light as a soft, soft rain began to fall. He all but felt the blood draining downward out of his head, leaving it empty but for the image of carrying her back inside and up the stairs so he could tumble her into bed and have more.

  Then she was shoving him again, jumping down. Through the lust clouding his vision, he saw her sharp sneer. “I thought you should have a sample of what you’ve turned away.”

  While he stood there, aroused beyond speech, she brushed off the sleeve of her shirt. “I’ll have a look at your car when I have a bit of time to spare. You’d best get down to the village. You’re running late for work.”

  He didn’t speak when she strolled away, and was still standing in the quiet rain when she and the yellow dog disappeared over the rise.

  “You’re late,” Aidan said the minute Shawn came in the kitchen door of the pub. “Then fire me or get out of my way.”

  At the unusually surly response Aidan lifted his eyebrows, watching as Shawn wrenched open the refrigerator and started pulling out eggs and milk and meat. “It’s hard to fire a man who owns as much of the business as I do myself.”

  Shawn banged a pot onto the stove. “Then buy me out, why don’t you?”

  When Darcy pushed into the kitchen, Aidan held up a hand, shook his head, and motioned her back. She didn’t look pleased about it, but she stepped back out again.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing’s the matter. I’ve things on my mind and work to do.”

  “I’ve never known you not to be able to work and run your mouth at the same time.”

  “I’ve nothing to say, and meat pies to make. What the hell’s with women, anyway?” he demanded, spinning away from the stove to scowl at his brother. “First it’s one thing, then it’s another, and you never know which way they’ll be coming at you next.”

  “Oh, well, then.” Aidan’s concern melted into amusement. He helped himself to tea and leaned back on the counter while Shawn muttered and worked. “We could talk all day and half the night and not come close to solving that particular puzzle. ’Tis a thorny one. But it’s more pleasant to have a female causing you problems than to have no female at all, don’t you think?”

  “No, not at the moment.”

  Aidan only laughed. “Well, which one is it that’s causing you grief?”

  “It’s no one. It’s nothing. It’s ridiculous.”

  “Hmm, not saying.” Aidan sipped and considered. “Must be in the way of a serious matter, then.”

  “Easy for you to smile and look smug,” Shawn tossed back with bitter annoyance. “All cozied up as you are with your Jude Frances.”

  “I reckon it is.” Aidan nodded. “But it wasn’t always, and you gave me good advice when I was at my own wits’ end. Maybe you should take some time and give yourself some on this, if you don’t want to hear from me.”

  “I don’t want a woman in my life just at the moment,” Shawn muttered. “And this particular one won’t do at all. Just won’t.”

  He tried not to think of that wild and wicked kiss, or the way Brenna’s compact body had plastered itself to his.

  “No, it won’t,” he said again, then adjusted the fire under the pot of meat filling with a sharp turn of his wrist.

  “You’d know best what suits and what doesn’t. I’ll just say there comes a time when your head’s telling you one thing, and the rest of you just won’t listen. A man can be a child when it comes to a woman, wanting what he shouldn’t have and taking more than he can handle. Knowing something’s not good for you doesn’t stop you from wanting it.”

  “I wouldn’t be good for her.” Calmer now, Shawn took out a bowl to make the pastry for the pies. “Even if there weren’t other factors involved, I wouldn’t be good for her. So that’s the end of it.”

  With the flour and water mixed to a firm dough, he covered the bowl and stuck it into the refrigerator. “I’ll be making poundies,” he told Aidan while he creamed butter and suet for the next stage of the pastry. And I’ve some samphire that young Brian Duffy picked for me that I’ve pickled into jars, so we’ll have that tonight as well, as it goes nicely with the salmon you bought this morning. You tell Jude to come over so I can fix her a plate.”

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nbsp; “I will, thanks. Shawn—” He broke off as Darcy shoved through the door again, looking aggrieved.

  “You ask me to come down early, then you push me back out the door. If the pair of you are going to stand in here and tell your little men’s secrets, I’m going back upstairs and do my nails, since we don’t open for nearly an hour as yet.”

  “Let me pour you a cup, darling, for I’ve abused you something terrible.” Aidan gave her a little pat on the cheek, then pulled a chair out at the table with a flourish.

  “Well, I’ll have a cup, but I want some biscuits with it.” She folded her hands on the table after she sat and gave her brother a challenging smile.

  “Biscuits, then.” Aidan got down a tin and set it in front of her. “I need to talk to both of you, as it concerns the pub.”

  “Then you’ll have to talk while I work.” Shawn retrieved the bowl from the refrigerator and began to roll out the pastry.

  “Well, you were late, weren’t you?” Aidan said easily. “The man from New York, the Magee? It seems he’s interested in the idea of linking the theater he’s planning with Gallagher’s. It was my thought to lease him the land, long term, but he’s holding out to buy it outright. If we do that, we forfeit the land, and some of the control we might have.”

  “How much will he pay?” Darcy asked and bit into a biscuit.

  “We’ve only danced about the terms for the moment, but he’ll meet the price we set, I’m thinking. I’ll need to call Ma and Dad on this, but as the pub is in our hands now, the three of us need to decide what we want to do.”

  “If he pays enough, I say sell it to him. We don’t use it for anything.”

  “It’s land,” Shawn said, sending Darcy a glance as he covered the rectangle of rolled-out pastry with the mixture of suet and butter. “Our land. It’s always been ours.”

  “And it’ll be money. Our money.”

  “I’ve thought on both ends of that.” Aidan pursed his lips while he turned his cup of tea around and around. “If we don’t agree to sell, Magee could find himself another plot for his project. And the theater could be a benefit to the pub, if we keep some sort of handle on it. He strikes me as a sharp one, and one I’d rather deal with face-to-face than over the phone. But he says he can’t come here now, as he’s into some other business and can’t leave it until it’s done.”

  “So send me to New York.” Darcy fluttered her inky lashes. “And I’ll charm him into opening his wallet wide.”

  Aidan let out a quick hoot. “I don’t think charm is what works with this one. It’s a pounds-and-pence matter to him, to my thinking. I’ve a mind to ask Dad to take a trip into New York to meet with this Magee, as Dad’s as sharp as any Yank wheeler-dealer. But before we do that, what do we, we three here, want from this?”

  “Profit,” Darcy said immediately and finished off a biscuit.

  “That, yes, but what in the long term?”

  “Reputation,” Shawn said, and Aidan looked up at him. “We’ve been working around to making Gallagher’s a center for music over the last few years. Have our name in the guidebooks, don’t we, as a place for good food and drink, and for the music we have or bring in? Haven’t you had bands calling you now, or the managers of them, inquiring about bookings?”

  “Sure and we do well there,” Aidan agreed.

  “If this man Magee has a mind to expand the entertainment, the music in Ardmore, and bring in more tourists, more customers, it’ll add to our reputation.”

  Shawn folded the pastry into three, then sealed the ends before putting it back in the refrigerator to chill. “But it has to be done the Gallagher way, doesn’t it?”

  Aidan leaned back in his chair as Shawn took potatoes from bin to sink and began to scrub them. “You’re a constant surprise to me, Shawn. Aye, the Gallagher way or no way at all. Which means traditional, understated, and Irish. We’ll have nothing flashy and foolish attached to our pub.”

  “Which means you have to convince him we need to work together,” Shawn added. “As we know Ardmore and Old Parish and he doesn’t.”

  “And for our input,” Aidan decided. “We’ll have a percentage of the theater. That was my thinking—and what I wanted to pass to Dad and have him work the Magee toward.”

  Darcy drummed her fingers on the table. “So, we’ll sell him the land at our price or lease it long term, on the condition that we have a part in the building, the planning, and the profits of the theater.”

  “Simply said.” Aidan gave her a wink. She had a cool and sharp brain for business, did Darcy. “It’s the Gallagher way.” Aidan rose from the table. “We’re agreed, then?”

  “Agreed.” Darcy chose another biscuit. “Let’s see if this Magee can make us rich.”

  Shawn slipped potatoes into boiling water. “Agreed. Now the pair of you get out of my kitchen.”

  “Happy to.” Darcy blew Shawn a saucy kiss and sailed out, already dreaming how she’d spend the Yank’s money.

  Because he considered that Aidan had it under control, Shawn didn’t give another thought to land deals and building and profits from either. He prepared the dishes he’d planned and had the kitchen warm and full of scent by the time