"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 ringer. "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."

CHAPTER 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."