"Steady. This time next year you'll be able to walk down and take in a show."

"I'm looking forward to it, very much. It must be satisfying to turn your visions into reality."

"Isn't that what you're doing? With your books, with your baby?"

"I like you. Are you comfortable enough to tell me what's on your mind?"

He waited a beat. "I forgot you're a psychologist."

"I taught psychology." In a gesture of apology, she lifted her hands, let them fall again. "In the last year or so I've cured myself of being too shy to say what I'm thinking. The result has pros and cons. I don't mean to be pushy."

"I came here to ask you something, talk to you about something. You figured it out. That's not pushy, that's- efficient," he said after a moment. "One of my favorite words lately. Carrick and Gwen."

"Yes?" Now she folded her hands, looking serene and easy. "What about them?"

"You believe they exist? Existed?" he corrected.

"I know they exist." She saw the doubt in his eyes and took a moment to gather her thoughts. "We're from a different place, you and I. New York, Chicago. Urban, sophisticated, our lives based on facts and the tangible of the everyday."

He saw where she was going and nodded. "We're not there anymore."

"No, we're not there anymore. This is a place that-'thrives' isn't the word I want, because it doesn't need to thrive. It just is. This place that's home for me now, this place that's drawn you to build one of your dreams here, isn't just apart from where we came from because of history or geography. It understands things we've forgotten."

"Reality is reality, whatever part of the world you're standing in."

"I thought that once. If you still do, why do Carrick and Gwen worry you?"

"Interest me."

"Have you seen her?"

"No."

"Him, then."

Trevor hesitated, remembering the man who'd appeared near Saint Declan's Well. "I don't believe in faeries."

"I imagine Carrick believes in you," Jude murmured. "I want to show you something." She started to rise, cursed under her breath, then held up a hand, waving it testily when Trevor got to his feet. "No, damn it, I'm not ready to be hauled up every time I sit down. Just a minute." She shifted, then boosted herself out, belly first, by pushing her hands against the arms of the chair. "Relax. It'll take me a minute. I'm not as light on my feet as I used to be."

As she walked out, Trevor sat back down. He and Finn eyed each other with interest and suspicion. "I'm not going to steal the silverware, so let's both just stay in our respective corners."

As if it had been an invitation, Finn sauntered over and planted both forepaws in Trevor's lap.

"Christ." Gingerly, Trevor lifted the dog's feet out of his crotch. "Perfect aim. Now I know why my father never let me have that puppy. Down!"

At the command Finn's butt hit the floor, then he lovingly licked Trevor's hand.

"There, you've made friends."

Trevor glanced up at Jude and barely resisted squirming to relieve the throbbing in his balls. "You bet."

"Go lie down, Finn." Jude gave the dog an absent pat before sitting on the hassock at Trevor's feet. "Do you know what this is?" She opened her hand, held it out. Centered in her palm was a clear and brilliant stone.

"At a glance it looks like a diamond, and given the size, I'd say it's a very nicely faceted piece of glass."

"A diamond, first water, between eighteen and twenty carats. I got a book, a loupe, and figured it out. I didn't want to take it to a jeweler. Go ahead," she invited, "take a closer look."

Trevor took it out of her hand, held it to the light streaming through the front window. "Why didn't you want to take it to a jeweler?"

"It seemed rude, as it was a gift. I visited cousin Maude's grave last year, and I watched Carrick pour a flood of these out of the silver bag he wears at his belt. I watched them bloom into flowers, except for this one that lay sparkling in the blossoms."

Trevor turned the stone over in his hand, and wondered. "Jewels of the sun."

"My life changed when I came here. This is a symbol. Whether it's pretty glass or a priceless gem doesn't matter really. It's all how you look at things. I saw magic, and it opened my world."

"I like my world."

"Whether you change it or not is your choice. You came here for a reason. To Ardmore."

"To build a theater."

"To build," Jude said quietly. "How much, is up to you."

CHAPTER Five

Trevor's decision to spend the evening in the pub was a logical one. A professional one. He preferred thinking of it that way, as it was just a little too hard on the ego to admit he was there largely to look at Darcy. He wasn't a horny teenager, he was a businessman. Gallagher's Pub was now very much part of his interests.

And it appeared to be a thriving one.

Most of the tables were full-families, couples, tour groups huddled together over pints and glasses and conversations. A young boy who couldn't have been more than fifteen sat in a corner playing a weepy tune on a concertina. A fire had been lit, as with evening the weather had gone chilly and damp, and around the red glow of the simmering turf a trio of old men with wind-raw faces sat smoking contemplatively and tapping booted feet to the music.

Nearby, a child who couldn't have seen his first birthday bounced and giggled on his mother's knee.

His own mother, Trevor thought, would have loved this. Carolyn Ryan Magee was fourth-generation Irish, born of parents who'd never set foot on Irish soil, any more than their parents before them had. And she was unabashedly sentimental over what she considered her roots.

She was, he understood, the only reason he knew as much as he did about family history on his father's side. Family, no matter if they'd been dead and buried for generations, meant something to her. When something mattered to his mother, she made certain it mattered to her men. Neither of whom, Trevor mused, could resist her.

It was she who'd played Irish music in the house while his father had rolled his eyes and tolerated it. It was she who had told her son stories at bedtime of the Good People and silkies and pookas.

And it had been she, Trevor knew, who had smoothed over in her fiercely determined way whatever hurts and resentments his father had felt toward his parents. Even with her powers, she hadn't been able to add warmth, but at least she'd built a shaky bridge that had allowed for civility and respect on both sides.

In fact, Trevor wondered if he'd have noticed the distance between his father and his father's parents if it hadn't been for the love and openness of his own home.

Of all the couples he knew, he'd never known any as cheerfully devoted to each other as the one who'd created him. It was a marvelously intimate miracle, and one he never took for granted.

He imagined his mother would sit here, as he was now, and soak it all up, join in the songs, chat with all the strangers. Thinking of it, he scanned the room through the pale blue haze of smoke, and thought of ventilation systems. Then he shook his head and headed to the bar. Whatever the health hazards, he supposed this was precisely the atmosphere those who came here were looking for.

He saw Brenna at the far end of the bar, working the taps and having what appeared to be the most serious of discussions with a man who had to be a hundred and six.

The only stool left was at the opposite end, and sliding on, Trevor waited while Aidan passed out glasses and made change.

"Well, how's it all going, then?" Aidan asked, and added the next layers to a pair of Guinnesses he was building.

"Fine. You're busy tonight."

"And busy we should be most nights from now till winter. Can I quench your thirst for you?"

"You can. I'll have a pint of Guinness."

"That's the way. Jude said you were by to see her today, and having some concerns about our local color."

"Not concerns. Curiosity."

"Curiosity, to be sure." Aidan began the slow, intricate process of building Trevor's pint while he finished off the two in progress. "A man's bound to have some curiosity about the matter when he finds himself plunked down in the middle of it. Jude's publisher has the notion that when her book comes out, it could stir more interest in our little corner of the world. Good business that, for both of us."

"Then we'll have to be ready for it." He glanced around, noted that Sinead was moving with a great deal more energy tonight. But Darcy was nowhere to be seen. "You're going to need more help in here, Aidan."

"I've given that some thought." He filled a basket with crisps and set them on the counter. "Darcy'll be talking to some people when the time comes."

As if hitting the cue, Darcy's voice rang through the kitchen doorway in a peal of heartfelt and inventive curses.

"You're a miserable excuse for a blind donkey's ass, and why you require a head hard as rock when you've nothing inside it needing protection, I'll never know, for you're brainless as a turnip and twice as disagreeable."

When Trevor cocked his head in question, Aidan merely continued to work his taps. "It's a bit of a temper our sister has, and Shawn needs only to exist to provoke it."

"A shrew is it? I'll give you a shrew, you slant-eyed, toothless toad."

There was an audible thud, a yelp, more cursing, then Darcy, face flushed, eyes lightning-hot, swung through the door with a large and loaded tray on her hip.

"Brenna, I brained your husband with a stewpot-though why an intelligent woman such as yourself would choose to wed a baboon like that escapes me."

"I hope it wasn't full, as he makes a fine stew."