Heart of the Sea

  “Maybe we could just slide down to the floor here for a bit of a while. I can’t feel me legs, anyway. You make me dizzy, Trevor.”

  It made him laugh, and he turned his head, buried his face in her hair. “I’d say I’d carry you to bed, but I’d never make it and it would ruin the image of manly prowess. You make me weak, Darcy.”

  “It’d take quite a bit to spoil the image after this.”

  “Well, in that case.” He slipped an arm behind her knees, lifted her. His hair was tousled, his eyes sleepy and satisfied.

  She toyed with the silver disk dangling from the chain, closed her fingers around it. She started to answer his grin, then could only stare as her heart landed right at his feet.

  “What is it?” Alarmed by the shock in her eyes and the quick paling of her cheeks, he crossed quickly to the bed to set her down. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” Oh, Jesus, oh, God. Holy Mother of God. “Just dizzy for a minute, as I said. I’m better now, but I still have that powerful thirst. I could dearly use that wine, if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure.” Not quite convinced, he skimmed his knuckles over her cheek. “Just sit there. I’ll be right back.”

  The minute he was out of the room, she grabbed a bed pillow and pummeled it viciously with her fists. Damn it all to hell and back again, she’d gotten caught in a web of her own spinning. The man was supposed to be bewitched by her, intrigued, frustrated, satisfied, stupefied, and willing to be her slave before she was done.

  And now she’d kicked her own self in the ass and gone and fallen in love with him.

  It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She pounded the pillow again, then hugged it against her as her stomach took a deep, diving dip. How was she supposed to wrap the man around her finger when she was already wrapped around his?

  It had been such a good plan, too: She would use her wiles, her lures, her charm, her temper, everything at her disposal. Then when he was caught, as surely he would have been, she’d have been free to snip him loose or keep him. There would have been time to decide which suited her best by then.

  Well, this was God’s punishment, she supposed. Fate’s little joke. She’d been so certain she could keep her heart in check until she decided if she should love him or not. Now she had no choice at all.

  For the first time in her life, her heart wasn’t her own. And a terrifying sensation it was.

  She bit her knuckles, worrying over it. What did she do now? How could she think just now?

  It had been all right when it was a kind of game. It hadn’t done more than nip at her temper to think that the manner of man Trevor was wouldn’t be serious about a woman such as herself. Now, well, it was a great deal more important.

  And more infuriating.

  Because, she thought as that temper began to bubble and burn away panic, if the likes of him thought he could toss her aside just because he had a fancy education and property and money to burn, he was very much mistaken in the matter.

  The bastard.

  She was in love with him, so she would have him. As soon as she figured out the best way to get him.

  Her head came up, a she-wolf prepared to bare fangs, when she heard him coming up the stairs. It took all her control, and all her skill, to bury that instinct, force that temper back, and greet him with a silky smile.

  “Okay now?” He came to her, held out a glass of white wine.

  She took it, sipped delicately. “Never better,” she said and patted the bed beside her. “Come sit by me, darling, and tell me all about your day.”

  Her sugary tone had him wary, but he sat, tapped his glass against hers. “The end of it was the best part.”

  She laughed and walked her fingers up his thigh. “And who said it was over?”

  • • •

  Brenna wasn’t the least bit pleased about being hauled off the job at nine in the morning. She’d argued, cursed, and sulked while Darcy dragged her up the hill to the Gallagher house through a drizzling rain that sent puffs of mist creeping behind them. “Trevor’s a right to give me the boot for this.”

  “He won’t.” Darcy took a firmer hold on Brenna’s arm. “And you’re entitled to a morning break, aren’t you? Been on the job already since half-six. I need twenty minutes of your precious time.”

  “You could have had it while I was working.”

  “It’s a private matter, and I could hardly ask Jude to waddle her way down there, could I, in the wet.”

  “At least tell me what this is about, then.”

  “I’m doing it all at once, so you’ll just have to wait five more flaming minutes.” Puffing a bit—Brenna was small, but it wasn’t an easy matter to pull a reluctant woman of any size up that steep hill—Darcy continued down the little walkway between Jude’s wet flowers.

  She didn’t knock, and as the door was never locked, she hauled Brenna inside, where her work boots, unwiped, tracked mud down the hallway to the kitchen.

  They looked so cozy there, Jude and Aidan, sharing breakfast at the old table, and the big dog sprawled hopefully under it. The smell of toast and tea and flowers hung in the air. It gave Darcy a little jolt in the center, made her wonder why she’d never before realized how satisfying such quiet moments could be. How intimate they were.

  “Good morning.” Jude glanced over, and in a credit to friendship, said nothing about the mud. “Do you want some breakfast?”

  “No,” Darcy said just as Brenna moved forward to snag a piece of toast from the rack. “We didn’t come to eat,” she continued, aiming a lowering look at her friend. “I need a word with you, Jude. In private. Go away, Aidan.”

  “I haven’t finished my breakfast.”

  “Finish it at the pub.” Neat and deft, Darcy slapped the remainder of his bacon on toast, scooped the bit of egg left on his plate on top of it, and held it out. “There. Now off with you. This is women’s business here.”

  “A fine thing this is, a fine thing for a man to be shoved from his own table, out of his own house.” He may have grumbled, but he got up and shrugged into his jacket. “Females are rarely worth the trouble they take. Except this one,” he added and leaned down to kiss Jude.

  “Bill and coo later,” Darcy ordered. “Brenna only has a few minutes as it is.”

  “You might as well go.” Resigned now, Brenna got herself a cup, brought it back to the table to enjoy some tea with her toast. “She’s on a tear.”

  “I’m going. I’ll expect you to be on time,” he said to Darcy. He kissed Jude again, lingering over it as much to please himself as to annoy his sister.

  He snapped his fingers at Finn, waiting while the dog happily scrambled out. “Come along with me, lad. They don’t want our kind here.” He strode out, Finn prancing behind him. “Take a lie-down,” Aidan shouted, then the door slammed.

  “You look a little tired,” Brenna commented, pursing her lips as she studied Jude. “Aren’t you sleeping well these nights?”

  “The baby was feeling frisky last night.” Jude ran her hands in slow circles over her belly, thrilled at the impatient ripple under her palms. “Kept me awake. I don’t mind, really. It’s a lovely feeling.”

  “You need to nap when he naps.” Brenna decided to have another piece of toast, and began to load this one with jam. “That’s what I’ve heard, and do the same once he pops out as well. Sleep becomes a precious thing. How are the childbirth classes going?”

  “Oh, they’re fascinating. Wonderful. Terrifying. The last one—”

  “If you don’t mind,” Darcy interrupted, “I’ve something I need to discuss. I’d hope my two closest friends in the world would have some interest.”

  Brenna only rolled her eyes, but Jude tucked her tongue in her cheek, folded her hands on the table. “Of course we’re interested. What is it?”

  “It’s—” She found the words stuck in her throat. Hissing, she grabbed Brenna’s tea and gulped it down over her friend’s annoyed protest. “I’m in love with Trevor.”

&n
bsp; “Christ Jesus!” Brenna snatched her cup back. “You’ve dragged me up here for that?”

  “Brenna.” Jude spoke softly, her eyes on Darcy’s face. “She means it.”

  “The girl’s always making a stage production out of . . .” But Brenna trailed off, getting a good look at Darcy herself. “Oh. Oh, well, then.” With a laugh, she leaped to her feet and gave Darcy a smacking kiss on the mouth. “Congratulations.”

  “I didn’t win a bloody raffle.” Disgusted, she dropped into a chair. “Why did it happen this way?” Dismissing Brenna as useless, she appealed to Jude. “Without me having time to prepare or figure on it. It’s like a punch in the face, and I have to keep my balance here, as I’ll not be knocked on my ass by any man.”

  “You’ve knocked more than your share of them on theirs,” Brenna pointed out. “Seems you’re due for some of the same. I like him.” She took a huge bite of toast and jam. “I think he suits you.”

  “Why?”

  “Hold that thought.” Jude lifted a finger. “Darcy, does he make you happy?”

  “How do I know?” She threw up her hands, then pushed back from the table. “I’m feeling too many things at the moment to know if happy is one of them. Oh, don’t give me those smug, married-ladies’ smiles. I like his company. I’ve never known a man I like being with so much as Trevor. Just being with him. I’d look forward to seeing him even without the sex, and that’s saying quite a bit, as the sex is fantastic.”

  She hesitated for a moment, then continued. “And last night, after we’d made love it just happened. It’s like a slamming into you, so you can’t get your air proper and the blood drains right out of your head and your joints go weak. I’ve never been so furious. What business does he have making me fall in love with him before I’m damn good and ready and have decided it’s what I want?”

  “Oh, he’s a bounder all right,” Brenna said cheerfully. “Why, the nerve of that man.”

  “Oh, shut up. I should’ve known you’d take his part.”

  “Darcy.” Brenna took her hand, and though the humor still brightened her eyes, there was an understanding in them that blew away Darcy’s resentment. “He’s what you’ve always wanted. He’s handsome and clever and rich.”

  “That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?” Jude laid a hand over theirs, formed a unit. “He’s what you’ve always wanted, or told yourself you did. Now that you’ve found him, you wonder if it’s real. And if it is, will he believe it?”

  “I didn’t know it would be this way.” The tears wanted to come, and here, with friends, she let them. “I thought it would be fun, a lark. And easy. But it’s not. I’ve always been able to tell what’s going on inside a man, but I can’t with him. He’s a slick one, Trevor is, and slippery. God, I love that about him.”

  That made her cry harder and reach for a napkin to wipe her face. “Oh, if he knew what a mess he’d made out of me, he’d be so pleased about it.”

  “You may be right, but not,” Jude added, “for the reasons you might think. He has feelings for you. They show.”

  “He has feelings, all right.” Some of the bitterness came through now, and she savored the taste of it on her tongue, as she might a medicine that cured madness. “He’s talked to Carrick.”

  “I knew it.” Triumphant, Brenna slapped a hand on the table. “I knew you’d be the third. You knew, didn’t you, Jude?”

  “Logically, it followed.” But Jude was watching Darcy again. “You haven’t seen Carrick, or Gwen, have you?”

  “Apparently neither of them has time to chat with the likes of me.” And she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or annoyed by the fact. “However, they’ve time for Magee.He told me that Carrick’s aiming toward the two of us, and wanted me to know—made it very clear— that he’s no intention of falling in love with the legend. He’s not looking for love and vows of forever from me, no indeed. He wants me,” she muttered, her eyes going dark, narrowing, sparking. “In bed, and for his recording label. I’ve accommodated him on the first, to our mutual enjoyment, and I may just accommodate him on the second. But he’s going to find Darcy Gallagher doesn’t come cheap.”

  Jude felt a twinge of apprehension. “What do you have in mind?”

  Her eyes might have been wet, but determination flashed through them. “I’ll have him crawling, belly down, before I’m done with him.”

  “I don’t suppose you considered meeting on equal ground?”

  “Hah.” Darcy sat again. “If I’m to be miserable and confused and scared to the bone, then by God, he’ll be the same before I’m finished. When he’s blind in love with me, I’ll get a ring on my finger before he gets his vision back.”

  “And then?” Jude murmured.

  That part of the business was murky, so Darcy dismissed it with a shrug. “Then the rest takes care of itself. It’s the now I have to deal with.”

  FOURTEEN

  FOR DARCY, THE now had already started, and she didn’t intend to fall behind. Back at the pub, she went directly to the kitchen. Irritated that Shawn wasn’t in yet, as he made better coffee than she, she began to measure and brew. Once it was on, she checked her appearance in the mirror she’d hung by the door.

  A little damp and windswept, she decided. Perfect.

  She poured a mugful, gave her cheeks a quick slap to be sure her color was up, then stepped back out into the thin rain.

  She had to pick her way over rubble and debris, skirting the thick block wall. Trevor wasn’t up on the scaffold, which pleased her. She could hardly climb up herself and deliver the coffee. Still, she paused for a moment, looking up at the men who scrambled around. With timber now, which she could only suppose was for the roof. If she concentrated, she could almost see how it was to slope up into a gentle rise as if it had grown somehow out of Gallagher’s rather than been added on.

  It was a clever design, and clever of Trevor, she thought, to have seen that in Brenna’s drawing. But he’d be a man of vision, one who could see the potential of things and had the skill to turn a supposing into reality.

  Oh, she admired that. It was just one more side of him she’d found herself loving.

  There was the side of him for his family as well, the love he so obviously felt for his parents. And the hurt, not so obvious, from his grandfather’s lack of affection. It touched her, the loyalty and the vulnerability. It made him so much more the man.

  The bastard would make a simpering fool of her if she wasn’t careful.

  She could see where windows and doors would go from the rough openings in the dull gray block. That block, she knew, would be faced with stone and the stone would weather until it was impossible to tell where the new began and the old left off.

  A merging, she thought as she began to walk again, of tradition with change. Of Gallagher and Magee. Well, the man might have vision, but she wasn’t ready for him to see just how complete she intended that merger to be.

  She stepped through one of the openings. There was activity inside the walls as well. Planking had already been set over the concrete she’d watched them pour that first day. Pipes and wires and rough boards were poking out here and there. And the din as more were drilled and set into the block was amazing.

  She saw him now, crouched down beside one of his crew, eyeballing a pipe that jutted out of the wall. He was covered with a fine gray dust that she supposed came from drilling into the block. Why that, and the tool belt slung at his hips, should have set her mouth to watering was just another part of her dilemma.

  Still, she wasn’t so dazzled she didn’t know to bide her time, and wait until he rose, grunting in answer to something his man said, and turned. Saw her.

  She watched his eyes change, and it was perfect. That instant of awareness, the connection that was like a hot spark flying dangerously. It wouldn’t have surprised her a bit to see it land and leave a burn mark in the floor at her feet. Delighted, she stepped toward it, and him.

  “I wanted a look at what’s what before I got
to work.” She smiled, held out the mug. “And I thought you could use this to ward off the damp.”

  It only pleased her more that it was suspicion more than surprise that crossed his face. “Thanks.”

  “You’re very welcome, indeed. I suppose I’m in the way here.” But she turned a little circle, looking. “But it’s interesting, and it’s moving along so fast.”

  “It’s a good crew.” He knew at the first sip she’d made the coffee. It was good and strong, but she didn’t have the same touch as Shawn. Suspicion grew. Just what, he wondered, did she want?

  “Sometime when you’re not so busy, perhaps you’d show me how it’ll be.”

  “I can show you now.”

  “Can you? That would be lovely.”

  “We’ll come through the pub there.” He pointed toward the back wall of the pub that was snugged now between the new block. “We won’t cut through for a while yet. You can see the levels are different. We’ve sloped the breezeway down. That’ll give us more height without taking the roofline out of proportion. The breezeway widens.”

  “Like an open fan, I remember.”

  “That’s right, so it becomes the lobby rather than having it a separate area.”

  “What are all these pipes stabbing out here?”

  “Rest rooms, either side of the lobby area. Brenna thinks we should use the Gaelic for ‘Men’ and ‘Women,’ the way you have in the pub. I want dark wood, planked, for the doors.” He narrowed his eyes, brought the image into his head. “Under it all, everything will be modern, slick. But what people will see is age.”

  What he saw, among the work and supplies and equipment, was the whole of it, shining and complete. “Bare floors,” he continued. “We’ll match them to what you already have. Soft, faded colors, nothing bright or vivid. We’ll have some seating in the lobby, but keep it small, intimate. Benches, I think. We’ll get some art for the walls, but keep it spare and all of it Celtic.”

  He glanced at her, lifted his brow when he saw her staring at him. “What?”

  “I suppose I thought you’d go for the modern and slick, outside as well as in.”

  “Would you?”

  She started to speak, then shook her head. “Not here,” she realized. “No, not here, not for this. Here you want duachais .”

  “Okay. Since I want it, why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  “Oh, it’s Gaelic for . . .” She waved her hand as she tried to find the right translation. “For ‘tradition.’ No, not just that. It has to do with a place most particularly, and its roots and its lore. With, well, with what and why it is.”

  His eyes narrowed, focused. “Say it again.”

  “It’s duachais.”

  “Yeah, that’s it. That’s just exactly it.”

  “You’re very right about wanting that here, and I’m glad of it.”

  “And considerably surprised by it.”

  “A bit anyway, yes. I shouldn’t be.” Because his perception unsettled her, she moved away. “And into the theater?”

  “Yeah, doors again, two across.” He took her hand, an absentminded gesture that neither of them noticed. But others did.

  “The audience area, three sections, two aisles. Full house is two hundred and forty. Small again, and intimate. The stage is the star here. I can see you there.”

  She said nothing, only studied the empty space ahead of her.

  He waited a beat. “Are you afraid of performing?”

  “I’ve performed all my life.” One way or another, she thought. “No, I’ve no stage fright, if that’s what you mean. Maybe I need to build that image in my head, as you’re building your theater, and see if it stands as sturdy. You’re proud of what you’ve done and what you’re doing. I intend to be the same.”

  It wasn’t why she’d come out. She’d meant to surprise him, to flirt with him, to make certain he thought of her through the day. Wanted her through the day.

  “I like your theater, Trevor, and I’ll be pleased to sing in it with my brothers, as discussed. As for the rest”— she moved her shoulders, took his empty mug—“I need a bit more convincing. We’ll likely have a session tonight.” She’d make sure of it. “Why don’t you have your supper here, stay for it. Then after, you can come into my parlor. This time I’ll pour the wine.”

  Rather than wait for his answer, she slid her free hand into his hair, lifted her mouth to his. And with the promise of more, should he care for it, in her eyes, she turned and walked away.

  The minute she opened the kitchen door she smelled the baking. Apples, cinnamon, brown sugar. Shawn must have come in just behind her, and had been busy since. There was a pot already simmering on the stove, and he was chopping whatever else he intended to put in it on the thick board.

  He barely glanced at her. “You can put apple crumble as the sweet on the daily, and Mexican chile as well. We have some fresh plaice, for frying.”

  Rather than spring into action, she wandered to the refrigerator and got herself a bottle of ginger ale. Here, she thought, sipping it and eyeing her brother, was a source that would be brutally honest and one she trusted completely.

  “What do you think of my voice?” she demanded.

  “I could do with hearing a good deal less of it.”

  “It’s my singing voice I’m referring to, you bonehead.”