"I want to know what's going on."

"Well, I'm putting on this first coat of sealer. It takes a day or two to dry good and hard. Then I'll put on another, and that will be that."

"With you and Shawn. Damn it, Brenna, you can't go around letting him kiss you that way. People'll get the wrong impression."

Brenna kept rolling. She hadn't worked up the nerve to look at her Mend. "Actually, I imagine they'd get the right one. I should've told you, Darcy, I just didn't know how."

Darcy braced herself with a hand on the doorjamb as the blood drained out of her face. "There's-there's something to tell me?"

"Well, not so much, really. But not for lack of trying on my part." Time to face the music, Brenna told herself, and she turned around. "I want to sleep with him. That's all."

"You want to-" Because her throat had snapped shut, Darcy broke off and rubbed a hand over it. "You want to sleep with Shawn? Well, why?"

"The usual reasons."

Darcy started to speak, then raised a hand to hold Brenna off while she gathered her own thoughts. "All right, I'm thinking. You've been in somewhat of a sexual drought just recently, so I can see you'd- No, no, I'm not quite seeing. It's Shawn we're speaking of here. Shawn who's been a thorn in both our sides since we were babies."

"Sure and it's an oddity, I admit. But the thing here is, Darcy, I've had a bit of a- of a yen for him for- well, forever. I just thought it was time to act on it or I'd always have one, and where would that get me?"

"I'm sitting down." She did so, right in the doorway. "You acted on it."

"I did, and he was as surprised as you are by the idea, at least initially. And he wasn't very flattering about it, either. But he's in the way of interested now. It's just that I've discovered this is yet one more thing you can't rush Shawn over. And it's fair to killing me."

Meticulously, she coated her roller with varnish and spread it thin and smooth. "I'm sorry you're upset about it. I'd hoped that we could just get it done, so to speak, with no one the wiser."

"Don't you have any feelings for him, then?"

"Of course I do." Brenna's head came up again. "Of course I do, Darcy. We're all like family. This is just- it's just different."

"It's different, that's the truth." Struggling to adjust, Darcy sighed out a breath. "I was going to protect you from him-knowing that he has a way with women that can make them softheaded over him, and him barely noticing half the time. But now that I've heard what you've said, Brenna, I have to turn that coin over."

Genuinely surprised, Brenna set her roller on the end of the pan. "You think he needs protecting from me? Darcy, I'm not exactly your femme fatale sort of woman." She spread her arms, knowing very well how she looked in her grubby work clothes and battered boots. "I think Shawn's safe from the likes of me."

"Then you don't understand him, not in his heart. There's romance in him, the kind of dreaminess that builds castles in the air. He has a delicacy of feeling. He'd cut off his arm before he'd cause hurt to another. Cut them both off because he caused a moment's pain to someone he cared for. And he cares for you. It's not so far a step from caring for to loving. What will you do if he falls in love with you?"

"He won't." She nearly took a step back, from the question and the idea. "Of course he won't."

"Don't hurt him." Darcy got to her feet. "Please don't hurt him."

"I-" But as Darcy had already turned away, Brenna had to hurry after her. "Darcy, you mustn't worry so." Brenna gripped the banister when Darcy turned, halfway down the stairs. "We both know what we're about, I promise you. We've already taken a vow to stay friends through it."

"Make sure it's a vow you don't break. You both mean a great deal to me." She worked up a smile because her friend seemed to need it. "Sleeping with Shawn," Darcy said with her usual bite. "What is the world coming to?"

CHAPTER Ten

After closing, when the village was so quiet that only the heartbeat of the sea could be heard, the Gallaghers gathered around the kitchen table of their family home with tea and with whiskey.

"Here's where we stand."

Aidan laid a hand over Jude's as he spoke, and hers turned under his so their fingers linked. He had a sudden, vivid picture of his parents joining hands in exactly the same manner when they'd sat at table's head for a family meeting.

The Gallagher way, he thought. One link leading to another in a chain of tradition.

"Well, where do we stand?" Darcy demanded.

"Sorry." Aidan shook his head. "My mind went wandering. So, at the start. Finkle may be a Yank, but he's no green one when it comes to horse trading. I wouldn't believe as successful a man of business as Magee is reputed to be would send any but a sharp individual to look after his interests."

"Be that as it may," Shawn considered, "he fell for the man from London."

Aidan grinned in appreciation and nodded. "Well, now, we're not green either, come to that. And the Irish were horse traders before those looking for America ever found her. But that's neither here nor there."

He started to -toss the patiently waiting Finn a biscuit, then remembered the presence of his wife and cleared his throat. "Finkle, he liked the look of the land, the setup, the location, and so forth. I'm sure of that, though he made little noises and grunts and pulled on his lip rather than commit. He said again how the Magee is set on buying, and I said again how that was easy to understand, and a man likes his own and so on and so forth. But how we're set on leasing."

"We'd have more money sooner, and could put it to work for us making more if we just sold," Darcy piped up.

"That's true enough." Aidan nodded toward her.

"And we'd have more control," Shawn put in, "part of the profit, and a hand in what's done with what's ours if we hold the lease. Look ahead, Darcy, to ten years down the road. And twenty, and the legacy to your children."

"Who says I'm having any?" She shrugged her shoulders. "But I see your point. It's a hard thing for me to resist grabbing the money held out at the moment."

"A hundred years' lease is our offer."

"A hundred?" Darcy's eyes popped wide, and Aidan merely looked at his wife.

"A hundred's the number of magic."

"This is business, not fairy spells."

"You use the fairies where you find them." Shawn added a drop of whiskey to his tea. It seemed to go with these dealings. "If Magee is forward-thinking, a lease of a hundred years will appeal to him. Brenna knows something of his company." He caught Darcy's jerk to attention out of the corner of his eye at his mention of Brenna. "From what she told me, he's a fair man, but far from green himself. So I'm thinking he'll look even beyond the century."

"As should we. A pound a year for a hundred years."

"A pound?" Darcy threw up her hands. "Why not just give him the bloody land, then?"

"For that price we ask for fifty percent of his theater."

Darcy settled again, her eyes sharpening. "And settle for?"

"Twenty. And at the end of the term the land, and the theater, are owned, equal shares. Gallagher and Magee."

"It's a sweet deal if the theater takes hold." Darcy agreed. "And leaning heavily in our direction."

"It'll take hold," Aidan said with a gleam in his eye. "With Gallagher luck and Magee money."

"I'm willing to trust that. Now, why should he agree to those terms?"

"I-" Jude started to speak, then closed her mouth.

"No, have your say." Aidan gave her hand a squeeze. "You're part of this."

"Well, I think he will agree. After some negotiations and posturing and perhaps a few more adjustments. You may have to give a bit more, but in the end you'll have fairly close to what you're after-because in the end, all parties want the same thing."

"Magee wants his theater," Darcy put in.

"More than that." In an automatic gesture, Jude slapped Shawn's hand before he could sneak Finn a biscuit. "He has a reason for choosing this place, and the kind of man who helms that successful a business can indulge himself from time to time. His people came from here," she went on. "His great-uncle was engaged to my great-aunt."

"Of course." Shawn tapped a finger against the whiskey bottle as it came to him. "John Magee who was lost in the first great war. His youngest brother-Dennis, was it-went off to America to make his fortune. I didn't put it together before now."

"I don't know how much sentiment is in the motive for this Magee selecting Ardmore," Jude went on, "but it's bound to be part of the motivation. If this Magee had anything like my background, he grew up on stories of Ireland, and of this area in particular. Now he wants a more tangible tie with the place his family came from. I understand that."

"That Yank sentiment over ancestors." Amused, Darcy helped herself to the whiskey. "I'll never understand it. Ancestors- sure and they've been dead for long years, haven't they? But if sentiment helps glue the deal, that's fine with me."

"That'll be part of it, but-sorry, it's the psychologist in me again-he'll also have his eye on profit. If he didn't, he wouldn't have one of the largest companies in the States. And for the same reasons, he'll have his eye on his reputation."

"And ours will be on our own." Shawn lifted his glass.

"You've quite the reputation, don't you?" Darcy sent Shawn a sour smile.

"Not as well rounded as yours, darling."

"At least I don't go around seducing childhood friends."

Slowly, and with a dangerous gleam in his eye, he set his glass down again. Before feathers could fly, Aidan stretched an arm between them. "Now what? What's all this?"

"Ah, she's got her nose out of joint because I kissed Brenna."

"Well, there's nothing to squabble about-" Aidan's hand dropped onto the table. "Brenna O'Toole?"

"Of course Brenna O'Toole."

"What were you doing kissing our Brenna?"

"Aidan." Jude tugged on his sleeve. "This is Shawn's business."

"It's ours as it's Brenna."

"Mother of God. It's not as if I grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the kitchen floor to force myself on her in a carnal fashion while she tried to fight me off."

"You were on the kitchen floor?"

"We were not." At his wits' end, Shawn pressed his fingers to his eyes. "A man can't have a simple life in this family. I kissed Brenna, and not for the first time. Neither do I plan on it being the last. And I fail to see why that's such a puzzlement to everyone who knows us. And an outrage as well."

Darcy folded her hands. She'd learned something she'd hoped to by the poking at him. He hadn't mentioned that it was Brenna who'd initiated the shift in relationship. With another man she'd chalk it up to ego. But with Shawn she knew it was instinctive protection of the woman involved.

The fact both pleased and worried her.

"It's just- surprising," Aidan said.

"I'm not outraged." Darcy sent Shawn a sweet, sisterly look. "But puzzled I am. After all, Brenna's seen you naked already-some years ago, to be sure, but still such things linger in the mind. And having had a good look at your equipment, I can't think why she'd be the least bit interested."

"That's a question you'll have to put to her." He wanted to leave it at that, dignified, dismissive, but it rankled. "I wasn't more than fifteen, and the water was cold. A man's not at his best just out of frigid water, you know."

"That's your story, son, and you stick with it."

"And you shouldn't have been looking in that direction. But you always were a perverted sort."

"Why shouldn't I have looked? Everyone else was. He lost his trunks in the sea," she explained to Jude, "and didn't realize it till he was standing clear of the surf, jay naked. I've always regretted the lack of a camera."

Jude glanced at Shawn with sympathy. "I used to regret being an only child. But there are some circumstances when-oh!"

"What is it?" Aidan was on his feet like a shot, prepared to haul his wife into his arms, when she pressed her finger to her belly. "There, you've upset her with your bickering."

"No, no. The baby's moving." Thrilled, she grabbed Aidan's hand and laid it over her middle. "Do you feel it? It's like a rippling inside me."

Panic shifted to awe, filling his eyes, his heart. "He's lively."

"It's a family meeting, after all. Why shouldn't he be part of it?" Shawn raised his glass again. "Slainte."

He went to visit Maude. Since he'd been used to seeing her once or twice a week most of his life, Shawn saw no reason that should change after death. And her resting place was a good spot for thinking.