Those who made their living from the sea waited it out with the grim patience honed in them over generations.

Wind screamed against windows and doors in a constant banshee call and snuck through any crack or crevice to chill the bones. Smoke belched back down chimneys in nasty, fitful streams. Plucking fingers of wind tore a few shingles from the roof of the market so that they careened away like drunken birds. One swooped down and sliced at the back of young Davey O'Leary's head as he rode his bike home with a quart of milk and a dozen eggs. The head required seven stitches. The eggs were a total loss.

Flowers that had wintered over happily enough and those that had begun to show their spring faces were chewed to pieces by the last teeth of winter. Dooryards went to mud.

Tourists steered clear, and reservations were canceled as the storm gleefully battered Ardmore. Power and phone lines gave out on the third day.

The village huddled down, as it had time and again, to weather the storm. Under more than one roof the mood was edgy. Young children, bored and restless, drove their mothers mad. Tears and warmed bottoms were daily occurrences.

Brenna and her father, shielded with slickers and Wellingtons, stood knee-deep in mud and worse as they searched out the break in the Duffys' septic system.

"Filthy work, this." Mick rested against his shovel.

"More than one lowlander's going to find himself wading in shit if this keeps up."

"If those bastards from Waterford had showed up, we'd have the tank pumped out, at least."

"If they ever get here with their big pumper, I say we toss them headfirst into the muck."

"That's my girl."

"Christ Jesus, what a smell. But I think here's the matter, Dad."

They hunkered down, rain beating over their heads, and studied the old cracked line with identical expressions of interest and thoughtfulness on their faces. "It's just as you figured, Dad. The pipe's old and gave out under the added pressure. It runs from tank to field and bursting's turned Mrs. Duffy's nice yard into a dung heap."

"Well, once she's cleared out Kathy'll have herself a well-fertilized garden, won't she?" As the stench was enormous, Mick breathed through his teeth. "It was a good job of you to think of going and getting the PVC pipe ahead of time. We'll replace it and see what's what."

With a grunt, Brenna got to her feet. They squished over to the truck together. The work was nasty, but the teamwork routine. As they worked, she shot little glances at him.

He'd said nothing about Shawn, not a word. And though she understood her father would have some delicacy of feeling about the situation, she couldn't stand having it between them. Unsaid, it was a wedge, and she needed to knock it loose.

"Dad."

"Ha, nearly got her now. Bitch may be cracked, but she's tough on the joinings."

"Dad, you know I'm still seeing Shawn."

Mick rapped his knuckles hard against the pipe and his tool squirted out of his hand like wet soap. Keeping his eyes lowered, he plucked it out again, then wiped it on his equally filthy trousers. "I suppose I do."

"Are you ashamed of me?"

He worked another moment in silence. "Never have you done anything to shame me, Brenna. But the fact is, you're stepping onto boggier ground than we're swimming in. Working with you, respecting and admiring your skills is on the one hand. But on the other, you're my daughter. It's not an easy thing for a man to discuss such areas with his daughter."

"Sex?"

"Damn it, Brenna." Under the filth on his face, his cheeks went pink as peonies.

"It's there, isn't it?" When the ruined pipe was wrenched free, she shoved it aside.

"So is the shit I'm sitting in at the moment, but I'd just as soon not dwell on it. You've been reared as best as your mother and I could, and the steps you take as a grown-up woman are your own. You can't ask me for my blessing in such a thing, Brenna, but I'm not judging you, either."

"He's a good man, Dad."

"When did I say he wasn't?" Exasperated, embarrassed, and wanting an end to the topic at hand, Mick scooted, slithered so they could fit the new pipe.

"It's just- what Mary Kate said last week. She was mad as spit, and we've come to our terms on it. But I don't want you to think that it's cheap between us."

The girl, he thought, was as ever like a terrier with a bone. She wouldn't have done until it was chewed to her satisfaction. "What Mary Kate said to you was uncalled for between sisters, and it's pleased I am the two of you have made it up. As for the other- do you care for him?"

"I do, of course. Yes."

"And respect him?" The slight hesitation had Mick looking over the pipe, meeting Brenna's eyes. "Ah, well, now."

"I do respect him. He has a good brain when he bothers to use it, and he has a kind heart and a good humor. That doesn't make me blind to his faults. I know he's lazy about things, and careless with his own talents."

"On this I do have something to say, though you'll go your own way no matter." He straightened, rolled his shoulders. "You don't fix a man the way you do a fault in a pipe or a leak in a roof. You take him as he is, Mary Brenna, or you don't take him at all."

She frowned. "It's not like that, but more of a turning in the right direction."

"Right for who?" He gave her a pat on the arm. "Adjustments can't be all on one side, darling, else the balance goes off and what's being built just falls down."

For Shawn, Brenna's appearance at the back door in the middle of the lunch shift was a shock to all his senses. She was filthy from cap to boot and, even with the distance, let off an aroma that watered the eyes.

"Mother of God, what've you been doing?"

"Septic tank," she said cheerfully. "We scraped and hosed off the worst of it."

"You missed a few spots from where I'm standing."

"Well, we've got to do what we can to put Mrs. Duffy's yard back together, so we didn't bother with all of it. But the fact is, we're near to starving."

He held up a hand. "If you're thinking of coming in here, O'Toole, pause and reflect."

"I'm not coming in. I told Dad I'd walk up and get us a couple of sandwiches to keep us going. And we could use a couple bottles of beer."

"Step back out and close the door."

"I will not." To annoy him, she leaned against the jamb. "I'm not hurting anything way over here. Whatever makings you have handy'll do. We aren't particular."

"That's obvious enough." He bumped back the orders he'd been filling and got out bread and meat.

It amused her to see him work with a great deal more speed than was his habit. "We'll be a couple hours yet. Then I've a few things to do."

"I hope bathing's one of them."

"It's on the list. From the looks of things in here, the weather's not slowing down your business."

"Half the village is in day or night. People look for company as much as anything else, and a change of view from their own four walls." He layered meat and cheese generously. "We've a seisiun going most the time and a few heated tempers over whatever sporting match is on the telly now that we've got the generator running."

"It's keeping us hopping as well. I don't think we've had an hour free, Dad and me, since the storm rolled in."

"I'm looking forward to it rolling out. Haven't seen sun nor star in a week now. Tim Riley says she's breaking, though."

It was easy talk, weather and work, the sort she could have with anyone she knew. Wasn't it nice, she mused, that she liked having it with Shawn best of all? That was a kind of treasure, one she hadn't cherished enough in the past.

"Well, whether Tim's right or he's wrong, I was thinking I might wander up to Faerie Hill later on. Say a bit after midnight."

"The door's open, but I'd appreciate you cleaning off your Wellies first." He put the sandwiches in a sack, added a couple of bags of crisps and two bottles of Harp. When she started to dig out payment, he shook his head. "No, this is on the house. I don't think I want any coin you might have in those pockets."

"Thanks." She took the bag, rested it on her hip. "Aren't you going to kiss me?"

"No. But I'll make it up to you later."

"See that you do." With a grin that might have been flirtatious under different circumstances, she sauntered off and left him to close the door.

She was a woman of her word, and she opened the door of his cottage at the stroke of midnight. Too early, she knew, for him to be home from work. But she liked the quiet of the place, the mood of it when she was there alone.

She took off her boots at the door, as Shawn often did himself, and wandered around in her stocking feet lighting candles and oil lamps, as the power had yet to be restored. And as she did, she was half hoping Lady Gwen might show herself.

Wasn't it the perfect time for a ghost, after all? A stormy night alive with rain and whistling wind, a little cottage alight with candles and the glow of a fire.

"I know you're here, and there's no one but me." She waited, but the air was still, the only sounds the ticking of the cottage as it settled and the incessant call of the wind. "I wanted you to know that I think I understand what you were telling me that first time. His heart's in his song, and I have listened. I hope what I did was the right thing."

Again she fell silent, and again only silence answered her.

"Well, a lot of help you are." Irked, she marched upstairs.

She didn't need any ghostly visitations or words from beyond to tell her what to do and how to do it. She knew what she was about. She had a man she intended to keep. Since her mind was set on it, it was just a matter of seeing to the details.