"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."