'Never, no more,' he said with a wink, then took the hand she'd laid on the window to examine the skinned knuckles. 'What have you done to yourself now?'
'Bloody bastard refrigerator took a bite out of me.'
He clucked his tongue, lifted the scrape to his lips. But his gaze drifted to Jude. 'And where are you two lovely ladies bound for?'
'I'm just bringing Jude back from a visit with my mother, and I'm off to Betsy Clooney's to bang on her windows.'
'If you or your dad has the time tomorrow, the stove at the pub's acting up and Shawn's sulking over it.'
'One of us'll have a look.'
'Thanks. I'll just take your passenger off your hands.'
'Have a care with her,' Brenna said as he walked around the truck. 'I like her.'
'So do I.' He opened the door, held out a hand. 'But I make her nervous. Don't I, Jude Frances?'
'Of course not.' She started to climb out, then ruined the casual elegance she'd hoped for by jerking back again because she'd forgotten to unhook her seat belt.
Before she could fumble with it, Aidan released it himself, then simply nipped her by the waist and lifted her down. Since that tangled her tongue into knots, she didn't manage to thank Brenna again before that young woman, with a wave and a grin, took the truck barreling down the road.
'Drives like a demon, that girl.' With a shake of his head, Aidan released Jude, only to take her hands. 'You haven't been down to the pub all week.'
'I've been busy.'
'Not so busy now.'
'Yes, actually, I should-'
'Invite me in and fix me a sandwich.' When she simply gaped at him, he laughed. 'Or failing that, go walking with me. It's a fine day for walking. I won't kiss you unless you want me to, if that's what's worrying you.'
'I'm not worried.'
'Well, then.' He lowered his head, got within an inch of his pleasure when she stumbled back.
'That's not what I meant.'
'I was afraid of that.' But he eased away. 'Just a walk then. Have you been up to Tower Hill to look at the cathedral?'
'No, not yet.'
'And with your curious mind? Then we'll walk that way, and I'll tell you a story for your paper.'
'I don't have my recorder.'
Slowly, he lifted one of the hands he still held and brushed his lips over the knuckles. 'Then I'll make it a simple one, so you remember it.'
CHAPTER Eight
He was right about the day. It was a perfect one for walking. The light glowed like the inside of a pearl. Luminous, with a slight sheen of damp. She could see, over the hills and fields rolling toward the mountains, a thin and silvery curtain that was certainly a line of rain.
Sunlight poured through it in beams and ripples, liquid gold through liquid silver.
It was the kind of day that begged for rainbows.
The breeze was just a teasing shimmer on the air, fluttering leaves growing toward their summer ripeness and surrounding her with the scent of green.
He held her hand with the careless, loose-fingered grip of familiarity and made her feel simple.
Relaxed, at ease, and simple.
Words rolled off his tongue to charm her.
'Once, it's said, there was a young maid. Fair as a dream was her face, with skin white and clear as milk and hair black as midnight, eyes blue as a lake. More than her beauty was the loveliness of her manner, for a kind maid was she. And more than her manner was the glory of her voice. When she sang, the birds stilled to listen and the angels smiled.'
As they climbed the hill, the sea began to sing as backdrop, or so it seemed, to his story.
'Many's the morning her song would carry over the hills, and the joy of it rivaled the sun,' he continued, and tugged her along the path. As they walked on, the breeze turned to wind and danced merrily over sea and rock.
'Now the sound of it, the pure joy of it, caught the ear and the envy of a witch.'
'There's always a catch,' Jude commented and made him chuckle.
'Sure and there's a catch if the story's a good one. Now this witch had a black heart and the powers she had she abused. She soured the morning milk and caused the nets of the fisherfolk to come up empty. Though she could use her arts to disguise her vile face into beauty, when she opened her mouth to sing, a frog's croaking was more musical. She hated the maid for her gift of song, and so cast a spell on her and rendered her mute.'
'But there was a cure-involving a handsome prince?'
'Oh, there was a cure, for evil should always be confounded by good.'
Jude smiled because she believed it. Despite all logic, she believed in the happy-ever-after. And such things seemed more than merely possible here, in this world of cliffs and wild grass, of sea with red fishing trawlers streaming over deep blue, of firm hands clasped warm over hers.
They seemed inevitable.
'The maid was doomed to silence, unable to share the joy in her heart through her songs, as the witch trapped it inside a silver box and locked it with a silver key. Inside the box, the voice wept as it sang.'
'Why are Irish stories always so sad?'
'Are they?' He looked sincerely surprised. 'It's not sad so much as- poignant. Poetry doesn't most usually spring from joy, does it, but from sorrows.'
'I suppose you're right.' She brushed absently at her hair as the wind tugged tendrils free. 'What happened next?'
'Well, I'll tell you. For five years the maid walked these hills and the fields, and the cliffs as we walk them now. She listened to the song of the birds, the music of the wind in the grass, the drumbeat of the sea. And these she stored inside her, while the witch hoarded the joy and passion and purity of the maid's voice inside the silver box, so only she could hear it.'
As they reached the top of the hill with the shadow of the old cathedral, the sturdy spear of the round tower, Aidan turned to Jude, whisked her hair back from her face with his fingers. 'What happened next?' he asked her.
'What?'
'Tell me what happened next.'
'But it's your story.'
He reached down to where little white flowers struggled to bloom in the cracks of tumbled rocks. Picking one, he slid it into her hair. 'Tell me, Jude Frances, what you'd like to happen next.'
She started to reach up for the flower, but he caught her hand, lifted a brow. After a moment's thought, she shrugged. 'Well, one day a handsome young man rode over the hills. His great white horse was weary, and his armor dull and battered. He was lost and injured from battle, and a long way from home.'
She could see it, closing her eyes. The woods and shadows, the wounded warrior longing for home.
'As he moved into the forests, the mists swirled in so he could hear nothing but the labored breathing of his own heart. With each beat counted, he understood he came closer to the last.
'Then he saw her, coming toward him through the mists like a woman wading through a silver river. Because he was ill and in need, the maid took him in and tended his wounds in silence, nursed him through his fevers. Though she was unable to speak to comfort him, her gentleness was enough. So they fell in love without words, and her heart almost burst from the need to tell him, to sing out her joy and her devotion. And without hesitation, without regret, she agreed to go with him to his home far away and leave behind her own, her friends and family
