Tears Of The Moon

CHAPTER Six

"Hand me my crooked stick, will you, darling?"

Brenna picked up her father's level-he had affectionate names for most of his tools-and walked across the paint-splattered drop cloth to pass it to him.

The nursery was taking shape, and already in Brenna's mind it was the baby's room rather than Shawn's old one. Some might not be able to see the potential of the finished project beyond the clutter of tools and sawhorses, the missing trim and the snowy shower of sawdust. The fact was, she loved the messy middle of a project every bit as much as she did the polished end of it.

She enjoyed the smells and the noises, the good, healthy sweat brought on by swinging a hammer or hefting lumber. Now as she stood back to watch her father snug the level onto the vertical length of the shelves they were building, she thought how much she liked the little pieces of work. Measuring, cutting, checking, rechecking until what you had built was the perfect mirror of what had been inside your head.

"Right on the money," Mick said cheerfully, then propped his level in the corner. Without realizing it, they stood as a pair: hands on hips, legs comfortably spread, feet planted.

"And as it's built by O'Toole, it's built to last."

"Aye, that's the way of it." He slapped her companionably on the shoulder. "Now there's a good morning's work here. How about we go down to the pub for a bit of lunch, then we'll finish the unit this afternoon?"

"Oh, I'm not feeling hungry." Avoiding his eyes, Brenna walked over to examine the trim they'd already made to frame the shelves. "You go ahead. I think I'll just go on and trim this out."

Mick scratched the back of his neck. "You've not been into Gallagher's all the week."

"Haven't I?" She knew damn well she'd not set foot in the door since Saturday last. And she calculated she'd need another day or two before her humiliation level bottomed out enough for her to stroll in and see Shawn.

"No, you haven't. Monday it was 'Well, I brought something from home,' and Tuesday it was 'I'll eat later.' Then yesterday it was how you wanted to finish something up and would come down when you had-which you didn't." He angled his head, reminding himself she was a woman, and women had their ways. "Have you and Darcy had a fight?"

"No." She was grateful he'd assumed that, and that she didn't have to lie about it. "I just saw her yesterday when she dropped over here. You'd gone on to see about the Clooneys' drainpipe."

Keeping her voice and movements casual, she held up the trim. "I suppose I'm just anxious to see how this will all look when we're done. And I had a big breakfast. You go on and get your lunch, Dad. If I feel peckish after a while, I'll go downstairs and raid Jude's kitchen."

"As you like, then." His daughters, bless them all, were often a puzzle to him. But for the life of him he couldn't think of a thing that could be wrong with his Mary Brenna. So he winked at her as he pulled on his jacket. "We get this done, the least we can do is lift a pint at the end of the day."

"Sure, and I imagine I'll be thirsty." And she would find some excuse to head straight home.

When he was gone, she set the trim in place with the glue gun, then pulled nail and hammer from the tool belt slung around her waist. She wouldn't brood, that she'd promised herself. And by going about her daily business, she'd be over whatever these feelings were for Shawn soon enough.

There were plenty of things she wanted she couldn't have. A kind and generous heart like Alice Mae, a tidy nature like Maureen, the patience of their mother. Another bloody few inches in height, she added as she dragged the stepladder over so she could secure the top of the trim.

She lived without all that, didn't she, and managed very well. She could live without Shawn Gallagher. She could live without men altogether if it came to that.

And one day she'd build her own home with her own hands, and would live her own life her own way. She'd have a herd of nieces and nephews to spoil and no one cluttering up the place with demands and complaints.

A body couldn't ask for more than that, could she?

She wouldn't be lonely. Brenna fit the next piece of trim in place, precisely matching the edges. Why, she didn't think she'd been lonely a single day of her life, so why should she start now? She had her work and her friends and her family.

Damn it, she missed the bastard something fierce.

There'd been hardly a day in her twenty-four years when she hadn't seen him. In the pub, around the village, in his house or her own. She missed the conversations, the sniping, the look and the sound of him. Somehow she had to quash this wanting of him so they could go back to being friends.

It was her own fault, her own weakness. She could fix it. With a sigh, she rested her cheek on the smooth trim. She was good at fixing things.

The minute she heard footsteps in the hall, she jerked herself back and began to hammer busily again.

"Oh, Brenna!" Jude stepped into the doorway and glowed. "I can't believe how much you've gotten done in just a few days. It's wonderful!"

"Will be," Brenna agreed. She climbed down from the ladder to get the next piece of trim. "Dad's just gone off to have some lunch, but we'll have the shelves done today. I think it's coming along fine."

"So's the baby. I felt him move last night."

"Oh, well, now." Brenna turned away from her work. "That's lovely, isn't it?"

Jude's eyes misted over. "I can't describe it. I never thought I'd have all these feelings, or be so happy, have someone like Aidan love me."

"Why shouldn't you have all that and more?"

"I never felt good enough, or smart enough, or clever enough." Resting a hand on her belly, she wandered over to run a finger down the new trim. "Looking back now, I can't see why I felt so, well, inadequate. No one made me feel that way but myself. But you know, I think I was meant to be that way, feel that way, so that step by step my life would lead me right here."

"Now that's a fine and Irish way to look at things."

"Destiny," Jude said with a half laugh. "You know, sometimes I wake up at night, in the dark, in the quiet with Aidan sleeping beside me, and I think, here I am. Jude Frances Murray. Jude Frances Gallagher," she corrected with a smile that brought out the dimples in her cheeks. "Living in Ireland by the sea, a married woman with a life growing inside me. A writer, with a book about to be published and another being written. And I barely recognize the woman I was in Chicago. I'm so glad she's not me anymore."

"She's still part of you, or you wouldn't appreciate who you are now, and what you have."

Jude lifted her brows. "You're absolutely right. Maybe you should have been the psychologist."

"No, thanks all the same. I'd much sooner hammer at wood than at someone's head." Brenna set her teeth and whacked a nail. "With a few minor exceptions."

Ah, Jude thought, just the opening she'd been hoping for. "And would my brother-in-law be at the top of that list of exceptions?"

At the question Brenna's hand jerked, missing the mark and bashing her thumb with the hammer. "Bloody, buggering hell!"

"Oh, let me see. Is it bad?"

Brenna hissed air through her teeth as pain radiated and Jude fluttered around her. "No, it's nothing. Clumsy, flaming idiot. My own fault."

"You come down to the kitchen, put some ice on it."

"It's not much of a thing," Brenna insisted, shaking her hand.

"Down." Jude took her arm and pulled her toward the door. "It's my fault. I distracted you. The least I can do is nurse it a little."

"It's just a bump." But Brenna let herself be towed down the stairs and back to the kitchen.

"Sit down. I'll get some ice."

"Well, it won't hurt to sit a minute." She'd always been easy in the Gallagher kitchen. Little had changed in it since she'd been a girl, though Jude was adding her mark here and there.

The walls were cream-colored, and looked almost delicate against the dark wood that trimmed them. The windowsills were thick and wide, and Jude had set little pots of herbs along them to catch the sun. The old cabinet with its glass front and many drawers that ran along the side wall had always been white and comfortably shabby. Now Jude had painted it a pale, pale green so it looked fresh and pretty and somehow female.

The good dishes were displayed behind the glass-dishes the Gallaghers had used for holidays and special occasions. They were white with little violets edging the plates and cups.

The small hearth was of cobbled stone, and the carved fairy that Brenna had given Jude for her thirtieth birthday guarded the fire that simmered there.

It had always been a home, Brenna thought, and a fine, warm one. Now it was Jude's.

"This room suits you," Brenna said as Jude carefully wrapped an ice-filled cloth around Brenna's injured thumb.

"It does, yes." Jude beamed, not noticing that she was already picking up the rhythm of Irish speech. "I only wish I could cook."

"You do fine."

"It's never going to be one of my strengths. Thank

God for Shawn." She walked to the refrigerator, hoping to keep it casual. "He sent some soup home with Aidan last night. Potato and lovage. Since you didn't go to the pub for lunch with your father, I'll heat some up for both of us."

She started to refuse, but her stomach was threatening to rumble, so she gave in. "Thanks for that."

"I made the bread." Jude poured soup into a pan and set it on to warm. "So I won't guarantee it."

Brenna eyed the loaf with approval when Jude took it out of the bread drawer. "Brown soda bread, is it? I favor that. It looks lovely." u "I think I'm getting the hang of it."

"Why do you bother, when you've only to have Shawn send some over for you?". "I like it. The process of it. Mixing and kneading and rising." Jude set the slices she'd cut on a plate. "It's good thinking time, too."

"My mother always says so. But for me, I'd rather take a nice lie-me-down to do my thinking. You go to all that trouble to cook something, and-" Brenna snatched a slice from the plate, bit in. "Gone," she said with a grin.

"Watching it go is one of the cook's pleasures." Jude went to the stove, gave her heating soup a stir. "You've had a fight with Shawn, and not one of your usual squabbles."

"I don't know that it was really a fight, but I can't say it was usual. It'll pass, Jude. Don't worry yourself over it."

"I love you. Both of you."

"I know you do. It's a bit of nothing, I promise."

Saying no more, Jude got out bowls and spoons. How much, she wondered, did one friend interfere in the business of another? Where was the line? Then sighing, she decided there simply wasn't one. "You have feelings for him."

Brenna's nerves jittered at the quiet tone. "Well, sure, and I have feelings for the man. We've been in and out of each other's pockets all our lives. Which is only one of the many reasons he irritates me so I want to bash him with a hammer more often than not."

She smiled when she said it, but Jude's face remained sober. "You have feelings for him," Jude repeated, "that have nothing to do with childhood or friendship and everything to do with being a woman attracted to a man."

"I-" Brenna felt the color rush hot to her cheeks-the curse of a redhead. "Well, that's not-" Lies trembled on her tongue and simply refused to fall. "Oh, hell." She rubbed her uninjured hand over her face, then stopped abruptly, fingers spread around eyes that went suddenly wide and appalled. "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, it shows?"

Before Jude could answer, Brenna was up, pacing, knocking the heels of her hands against the sides of her head, moaning out curses. "I'll have to move away, leave my family. I can go to the west counties. I have some people, on my mother's side, in Galway. No, no, that's not far enough. I'll have to leave the country entirely. I'll go to Chicago and stay with your granny until I get on me feet. She'll take me in, won't she?"

She spun back, teeth gritted once again as Jude ladled soup into bowls and chuckled. "Oh, well, now, maybe you find this a laughing matter, Jude Frances, but to me it's dire business. I'm humiliated in front of everyone who knows me, and all because I've an itch for some pretty-faced, soft-brained man."

"You're not humiliated, and I'm sorry to laugh. But your face- well." Choking back another chuckle, Jude set the soup bowls on the table, then patted Brenna's shoulder. "Sit down, take a deep breath. You don't have to leave the country."

When Brenna stood her ground, Jude took the deep breath herself. "I don't think it shows, not obviously. But I'm used to watching people, analyzing, and on top of it I think, really, that when you're in love you're more tuned to emotions. Something- I don't know, ripples in the air when the two of you are in the same room. After a while I realized it wasn't the usual affectionate animosity that friends and family sometimes have, but something more, well, elemental."

Brenna waved a hand in dismissal. She'd hooked on to only one point. "It doesn't show?"

"No, not unless you look really close. Now sit down."

"All right, then." She blew out a breath now as she sat, but she didn't feel completely relieved. "If Darcy'd noticed, she'd have said something. She wouldn't be able to resist needling at me about it. So if it's just you and Shawn that know, I can manage that."

"You've told him?"

"It seemed time I did." Without much interest, Brenna spooned up soup. "I've been having these urges, so to speak, for a long time where he's concerned. Thinking on it just recently, it seemed to me that if we just went to bed together a time or two I'd get it out of my system."

Jude set down her own spoon with a clatter. "You asked him to go to bed with you?"

"I did, and you'd think I'd smashed him in the balls with my wrench. So that's the end of that."

Jude folded her hands, leaned forward. "I'm going to pry."

Brenna's lips twitched. "Oh, you haven't started that yet?"

"Not nearly. What exactly did you say to him?"

"I said, plain enough, that I thought we should have sex. And what's wrong with that?" she demanded, gesturing with her spoon. "You'd think a man would appreciate clear, honest speaking."

"Hmmm" was all Jude could think of. "I take it Shawn didn't appreciate it."

"Hah. I'm like a sister to him, he says. And how I should be ashamed. Ashamed," she repeated, firing up. "Then he tells me right out he doesn't want me in that way. So I jumped him."

"You-" Jude coughed and picked up her spoon again. She needed something to soothe the tickle in her throat. "You jumped him."

"Aye. Planted a kiss on him that he won't forget anytime soon. And the man didn't exactly fight me off like his life depended on it." She tore a slice of bread in two, shoved half in her mouth. "After I was done with that, I left him standing there, looking shell-shocked."

"I imagine. He kissed you back?"

"Sure he kissed me back." She tossed that off with a shrug. "Men are predictable that way. Even if a woman isn't to their taste, they're likely to take a sample, aren't they?"

"Um, yes, I suppose." Unsure of her ground, Jude went back to hmmm.

"Now I'm steering clear of him for a while," Brenna continued, "as I can't decide if I'm more angry or embarrassed about the matter."

"He's been very distracted the last few days."

"Has he now?"

"And short-tempered."

Brenna found her appetite coming back. "I'm delighted to hear it. I hope he suffers, the donkey's ass."

"If I wanted a man to suffer, I think I'd want to watch him while he did it." Jude swallowed more soup. "But that's just me."

"I suppose there's no harm in stopping by the pub after work today." Brenna sent Jude a quick and wicked grin. "Thanks."

"Oh, anytime."

Brenna went through the rest of her workday whistling, her mood bright and her hands nimble. She supposed it wasn't very charitable of her to take such pleasure in the idea of another's unhappiness. But she was human, after all.

When she walked into Gallagher's, she was more cheerful than she'd been in days. It was early enough to be quiet, with only a scattering of the tables occupied. Far from being worked off her feet, Darcy was standing at the bar talking to big Jack Brennan.

"You go on and sit with your friends," she told Mick when she spotted a couple of his cronies already planted by the fire with pints. "I'll just sit at the bar and catch up with Darcy."

"I'll do that, and you'll have her bring me a pint, won't you, darling?"

"I will." Brenna angled left and slid onto a stool beside Jack.

"Well, now, here's a stranger." Aidan automatically put a pint and a glass under the taps, as he knew the preferences of his regulars. "Where is it you've been hiding yourself, Mary Brenna?"

"In your own home. You have a look at your baby's room when you get there, and let me know what you think."

"That I'll do."

"We left your bride sighing and sniffling over the shelves we've just finished." Even as she spoke, Brenna had one eye on the kitchen door. "And how are you, Jack?"

"I'm fine and well, Brenna, and you?"

"The same. You're not falling in love with our Darcy here, now, are you?"

He blushed like a ripe beet. Jack had a face as big as the moon and shoulders wide as County Waterford, and he never failed to color like a schoolboy when teased about women.

"I've more sense than that. She'd squash my heart like a bug."

"Ah, but you'd die a happy man," Darcy told him.

"Don't listen to her, Jack." Aidan worked the taps as he spoke, expertly building the Guinness. "For she's as fickle and flighty as they come."

"All true," Darcy agreed with a careless and beautiful laugh. "I'm holding out for a rich man, one who'll set me on a pedestal and strew jewels at my feet. But in the meantime-" She played her fingertips over Jack's flushed face. "I enjoy the attention of big and handsome men."

"Ah, go on and take my father his pint, before our Jack here loses all power of speech." Brenna cocked her boot on her knee and lifted the glass Aidan passed her. "You're safe with me, Jack darling."

"You're as pretty as she is."

"Don't be saying such things loud enough for herself to hear you, or she'll skin us both." Touched and amused, she kissed his cheek. And Shawn came through the door.

It would have been comical, she decided, and was a pity that no one noticed but herself the way he stopped dead in his tracks, stared, then jolted when the door swung back and slapped him in the ass.

Secretly delighted, she merely lifted her eyebrows and left her hand cozily on Jack's broad shoulder. "Good evening to you, Shawn."

"Brenna." So much was going on inside him he couldn't separate one sensation from the other. He knew one was irritation, another was discomfort. And, damn it, another altogether was straight lust that had no business being there. But the rest of it was just a mess.

She sipped her beer, watched him over the foam. "I had some of your soup at lunch today with Jude. It had a fine flavor."

"We've ciste on the menu tonight; Mrs. Laury butchered some pigs this week."

"Well, that'll stick to your ribs, won't it, Jack?"

"That it will. Are you staying to eat, then, Brenna?"

"No, I'm for home after my Guinness."

"If you change your mind, you can have a meal with me. I've a fondness for ciste, and Shawn makes it well."

"He's a hand in the kitchen, isn't he?" She smiled when she said it, but the expression in her eyes was sharp and derisive. "Do you cook at all, Jack?"

"Sausage and eggs I can manage. And I can boil a potato." Being Jack, he took her question seriously and furrowed his brow as he thought through his culinary repertoire. "I can make a sandwich well enough when I have the fixings about, though that's not the same as cooking when it comes to it."

"That'll get you by." She gave Jack's shoulder a friendly pat. "You and me, we'll leave the cooking for the likes of Shawn here. Aidan, will you be needing me at all this weekend for working the pub?"

"I could use your hands on Saturday night if you can fit it in. The band we've booked is a popular one, and your Mary Kate let us know there's a tour group coming into the cliff hotel for Saturday as well. I'm thinking some of them will wander into Gallagher's."

"I'll come at six, then." She drained her glass, slid off the stool. "Will you be stopping in the pub here on Saturday, Jack?"

"I will, yes. I like the band."

"I'll see you then." She glanced back, noted her father was deep into talk with his friends. An hour more, she calculated, then called to him, "I'm for home, Dad. I'll tell Ma you'll be along by and by. Darcy, you see that the man's up and out within the hour now, won't you?"

"I'll show him the door." Darcy carted a tray full of empties to the bar. "I've a date Tuesday next with a Dubliner who passed through here. He's taking me into Waterford City for dinner. Why don't you get yourself a man and come along?"

"I might do that."

"Better, I'll ask the Dubliner to bring a friend."

"All right." Brenna didn't have any interest in having dinner in Waterford with strangers, but it was so satisfying to plan it with Shawn listening. "I'll just stay with you after, as I expect we'll get in late."

"He's picking me up at six, prompt," Darcy called out as Brenna started to the door. "So be here on time and looking like a female."

Jack sighed into his beer when Brenna strode out. "She smells of sawdust," he said more to himself than otherwise. "It's very pleasant."

"What are you doing sniffing at her?" Shawn demanded. Jack just blinked at him. "What?"

"I'll be back in a minute." He shoved up the pass-through on the bar, let it fall with a bang that had Aidan cursing him, then rushed through the door after Brenna. "Wait a minute. Mary Brenna? Just a damn minute."

She paused by the door of her truck, and for one of the first times in her life felt the warm glow of pure female satisfaction stream through her. A fine feeling, she decided. A fine feeling altogether.

Schooling her face to show mild interest, she turned. "Is there a problem, then?"

"Yes, there's a problem. What are you doing flirting with Jack Brennan that way?"

She let her eyebrows rise up under the bill of her cap. "And what business might that be of yours, I'd like to know?"

"A matter of days ago you're asking me to make love with you, and I turn around and you're cozying up to Jack and making plans to have dinner with some Dubliner."

She waited one beat, then two. "And?"

"And?" Flustered and furious, he glared at her. "And it's not right."

She only lifted a shoulder in dismissal, then turned to open the truck door.

"It's not right," he repeated, grabbing her again and turning her to face him. "I'm not having it."

"So you said, in clear terms."

"I don't mean that."

"Oh, well, if you've decided you'd like to have sex with me after all, I've changed my mind."

"I haven't decided-" He broke off, staggered. "Changed your mind?"

"I have. Kissing you wasn't altogether what I thought it would be. So you were right and I was wrong." She gave him a deliberately insulting pat on the cheek. "And that's the end of it."

"The hell it is." He trapped her against the truck, quickly and firmly enough to have both excitement and annoyance rising inside her. "If I want you, I'll have you, and that's the end of it. Meanwhile, I want you to behave yourself."

She couldn't speak. She was certain that if she tried she would strangle on the words. So she did the only thing she could think of. She plowed her bunched fist into his gut.

It cost him some breath, and the color that temper had brought to his face drained completely. But he held his ground. The fact that he did, that he could, when she knew she had a solid punch, sent another trickle of excitement sliding through her.

"We'll talk about this, Brenna, in private."

"That's fine. I've plenty to say."

Satisfied that he'd made his point, he stepped back. "You can come by the cottage in the morning."

Seething, she climbed into the truck, slammed the door. "I could," she told him as she started the engine, "but I won't. I came to you once, and you spurned me. I won't be back."

He stepped back again, to save his toes from being run over. If she wouldn't come to him, he thought as she drove away, he'd find another way to get her alone so they could- come to terms, he supposed it was.

In private.