"Yes, I play."

"Well, then, let's hear it." He gave her a nudge, hip against hip, that surprised her into sitting down on the bench.

"I haven't played in months," she began, but he was already riffling through the sheet music, setting a piece in front of her before joining her on the bench.

"Try this one."

Because she only intended to play a few chords, she didn't bother digging her reading glasses out of her purse. Without them, she had to lean closer and squint a little. She felt the skitter of nerves, wiped damp palms on her thighs, and told herself it wasn't one of the childhood recitals that had scared her into desperate nausea.

Still, she had to take two deep breaths, which made Shawn's lips twitch before she began to play.

"Oh!" She flowed from the first bar into the second. "Oh, this is lovely." She forgot her nerves in sheer pleasure as the notes drifted out dreamily, as her throat began to ache from it. "It's heartbreaking."

"It's meant to be." He cocked his head, listening to the music as he studied her. He could see easily why she'd caught his brother's eye. The pretty face, the quiet manner, and those surprising expressive and misty eyes.

Yes, Shawn mused, the combination would draw Aidan's interest, then wind around his heart. As for her heart, it was a yearning one. That he understood well.

"You play very well indeed, Jude Frances. Why did you say you didn't?"

"I'm used to saying I don't do things well, because I usually don't." She answered absently, losing herself in the music. "Anyone could play this well. It's wonderful. What's it called?"

"I haven't named it yet."

"You wrote it?" She stopped playing to stare at him. Artists of all kinds, any kind, left her awestruck. "Really? Shawn, it's gorgeous."

"Oh, don't start flattering the man. He's irritating enough." Brenna strode into the room and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her baggy jeans.

"The O'Toole here has no appreciation for music unless it's a rebel song and she's drinking a pint."

"When you write one, I'll lift a glass to you as well."

They sneered companionably at each other.

"What are you doing here? There's nothing broken that I know of."

"Do you see my toolbox in my hand?" Would he never just look at her? she wondered. The bloody bat-blind moron. "I'm going to Dublin with Jude and Darcy." Brenna lifted a shoulder. "I got weary of Darcy badgering me about it, so I've surrendered." She turned and shouted up the stairs, "Darcy, for sweet Jesus' sake, what's taking you so bloody long? I've been waiting an hour."

"Now you'll have to confess that lie to Father Clooney," Shawn told her, "as you just walked in the house."

"It's only venial, and it may get her down here before next week." She dropped into a chair. "Why aren't you down to the pub helping Aidan? It's delivery day."

"Because, Mother, he asked me to stay and see to Jude until Darcy made her entrance. But since you're here, I'll be off. You'll come back and play again, Jude Frances." He smiled as he rose. "It's a pleasure to hear my tunes played by someone who appreciates music."

He started out, pausing by Brenna's chair long enough to tug the bill of her cap over her eyes. She yanked it back up as the front door slammed behind him.

"He acts as if I were still ten and kicking his ass at football." Then she gave a twinkling grin. "It's a fine ass, too, isn't it?"

Jude laughed and rose to straighten the sheet music. "The rest of him isn't bad, either. And he writes wonderful music."

"Aye, he's a rare talent in him."

Jude turned, lifted her eyebrows. "You didn't seem to think so a minute ago."

"Well, if I told him, he'd just get all puffed up about it and be more unbearable than usual."

"I suppose you've known him forever."

"Forever and a day, it seems," Brenna agreed. "There's four years between us, and he came along first."

"And you've been in this house too many times to count. You can walk into it as though it's your own, because that's the kind of house it is."

Jude rose to wander, to look at family photographs scattered here and there in frames that didn't match, an old pitcher with a chipped lip that held a brilliant array of spring flowers. The wallpaper was faded, the rug worn.

"I suppose I've run as tame here as Darcy and her brothers have in my own house," Brenna told her. "Sure, Mrs. Gallagher's laid the flat of her hand across my bottom with as much enthusiasm as she did her own children."

Jude marveled a little at that. No one had ever laid the flat of their hand across her bottom. Reason was always employed in discipline, and passive-aggressive guilt laid. "It would have been wonderful, don't you think, to grow up here, surrounded by music."

She circled the room, noting the comfortably faded cushions and old wood, the clutter and the patterns of light through the windows. It could use some sprucing, without a doubt, she mused. But it was all here. Home, family, continuity.

Yes, this was the place for family, for children, the way her cottage was the place for solitude and contemplation.

She imagined the walls in this house held the echoes of too many voices raised in temper, in joy, to ever be truly quiet.

The clatter on the stairs had her turning to see Darcy race down them, her hair billowing out. "Are you just going to laze around all day?" Darcy demanded. "Or are we off to Dublin?"

It was a much different trip to Dublin than it had been from. The car was full of chatter, leaving Jude barely any room for nerves. Darcy was full of village gossip. It seemed young Douglas O'Brian had gotten Maggie Brennan in trouble and there was to be a wedding the minute the banns were called. And James Brennan had been so outraged by the idea of his daughter sneaking out to wrestle with Douglas, he'd gotten drunk as three princes and spent the night sleeping in the dooryard, as his wife locked him out of the house.

"I heard that Mr. Brennan went hunting for young Douglas, and the lad hid out in his father's hayloft-where the smart wagers are the deed was first done-until the crisis passed." Brenna stretched out like a lazy cat in the backseat, with the bill of her cap over her eyes. "Maggie's going to have second thoughts soon enough, when she finds her belly swelled and that feckless Douglas with his boots under the bed."

"The pair of them not yet twenty," Darcy added with a shake of her head. "It's a sorry way to start a life."

"Why do they have to get married?" Jude wanted to know. "They're too young."

Darcy just stared at her. "Well, they're having a baby, so what else is to be done?"

Jude opened her mouth, shut it before she could logically point out the variety of alternatives. This, she reminded herself, was Ireland. Instead, she tried another route. "Is that what you'd do?" she asked Darcy. "If you found yourself pregnant?"

"First, I'd be careful not to have sex with someone I wasn't prepared to live with should the need arise. And second," she said after some thought, "I'm twenty-four and employed, and not afraid of village gossip so much that I wouldn't raise the child on my own if I'd made a blunder."

She turned her head then, lifted a brow at Jude. "You're not pregnant, are you?"

"No!" Jude nearly swerved off the road before she recovered. "No, of course not."

"Why 'of course not' when you've been sleeping with Aidan every night for the past week? Protection's all well and good, but it's not infallible, is it?"

"No, but-"

"Ah, stop scaring her, Darcy. You know you're just jealous because she's having regular sex and you're not."

Darcy tossed a sneering look toward the backseat. "And neither are you, my girl."

"And more's the pity." Brenna shifted, came forward to prop her arms on the back of the front seats. "So tell us poor deprived women about sex with Aidan. There's a pal, Jude."

"No." She said it with a laugh.

"Oh, don't be a prude." Brenna poked her shoulder.

"Tell me, does he take his sweet time about it, or is he a member of the Irish Foreplay Club?"

"The Irish Foreplay Club?"

"Ah, you've not heard of it," Brenna said soberly as Darcy snickered. "Their battle cry is 'Brace yourself, Bridget.' Then they're in and out before their lager's gone warm."

Surprising herself, Jude all but screamed with laughter. "He doesn't call me Bridget unless I call him Shamus."

"She's made a joke." Darcy wiped an imaginary tear from her eye. "Our Jude. What a proud moment this is."

"And a fine one," Brenna agreed. "But tell us, Jude, does he take his time with it, sort of sliding around and nibbling in the right places, or is it all hot and fast and over with before you can call out you've seen God?"

"I can't talk about sex with Aidan with his sister in the car."

"Well, then, let's dump her out so you can tell me."

"Why can't you talk of it?" Darcy demanded, with barely a pause for a glare at Brenna. "I know he has sex. The bastard. But if it troubles you, don't think of me as his sister for the moment, but as your friend."

Exasperated, Jude blew out a breath. "All right, I'll just say it's the best I've ever had. Although with William it was like- a precise military march," she decided, shocking herself again. "And before him there was only Charles."

"Charles, was it? Brenna, our Jude has a past."

"And who was Charles?" Brenna prompted.

"He was in finance."

"So he was rich." Darcy pounced eagerly on the magic word.

"His family was. We met during my last year of college. I suppose the physical relationship with him was- Well, let's say that when it was done all the figures added up, but it was a rather tedious process. Aidan's romantic."

Her companions made oohing noises that had her giggling helplessly. "Oh, stop. I'm not saying another word about it."

"What a bitch to tease us that way." Brenna tugged on Jude's hair. "Sure you can give us just one little example of his romantic side as relates to good sex."

"One?"

"Just one and we'll be satisfied, won't we, Darcy?"

"Why, of course. We wouldn't pry into her personal life, would we?"

"All right. The first time, he picked me up right off the floor at the cottage and carried me upstairs. All the way upstairs to the bedroom."

"Like Rhett carried Scarlett?" Darcy asked. "Or over the shoulder like you were a sack of potatoes?''

"Like Rhett and Scarlett."

"That's a good one." Brenna pillowed her cheek on her arms. "He gets high marks for that."

"He treats me like I'm special."

"Why shouldn't he?" Darcy demanded.

"No one ever has. And, well, since we're on the subject, and it's not exactly a secret what's going on, I don't have anything- well, pretty, sexy. Lingerie and that kind of thing. I thought maybe you could help me pick some out."

"I know just the place for it." Darcy all but rubbed her hands together.

"I spent two thousand pounds on underwear."

Dazed, Jude walked down bustling Grafton Street. There were people everywhere, swarming. Shoppers, tourists, packs of teenagers, and every few feet, it seemed, musicians playing for coins. It was dazzling, the noise and colors and shapes. But nothing was more dazzling than what she'd just done.

"Two thousand. On underwear."

"And worth every penny," Darcy said briskly. "He'll be a slave to you."

They were loaded with shopping bags, and though Jude had gone into the foray determined to buy recklessly, her idea of reckless was Darcy's notion of conservative. Somehow, within two hours she accumulated what seemed like an entire wardrobe, with accessories, all at Darcy's ruthless instigation.

"I can't carry anything else."

"Here." Stopping, Darcy snatched some of the bags from Jude and shoved them at Brenna.

"I didn't buy anything."

"So you have free hands, then, don't you? Oh! Look at those shoes." Darcy barreled through the crowd gathered around a trio of fiddlers, homing in on target. "They're darling."

"I want my tea," Brenna muttered, then scowled at the strappy black shoes with four-inch heels that Darcy was drooling over. "You'd have blisters and calf cramps before you'd walked a kilometer in those things."

"They're not for walking, you idiot. I'm having them." Darcy breezed through the door of the shop.

"I'll never get my tea," Brenna complained. "I'll die of starvation and dehydration and the pair of you won't even notice as I'll be buried under a mountain of shopping sacks, in which, I'll add, is not a single thing of my own."

"We'll have tea as soon as I try on the shoes. Here, Jude, these are for you."