'I've better things to be jealous of than some softheaded woman kissing a Gallagher.'
'She must be mad at Shawn again.' Aidan buried his face in Jude's hair. He wasn't sure he was breathing. He knew he didn't want to move for another ten years or so.
'Men are all boneheads, and your worthless brother's bonier than most.'
'Oh, leave off complaining about Shawn,' Darcy ordered as she breezed in. 'What happened in here? The place is full of feathers. Jude, let go of that man, you have to get dressed, don't you? And so do I. Aidan, get out there and help Shawn with the kegs. You can't be expecting him to deal with all that himself.'
Aidan merely turned his head to lay his cheek on Jude's hair. The look on his face gave his sister such a jolt, she stared a full ten seconds, then began to shove Brenna toward the kitchen. 'We'll just put these dishes in the kitchen and fetch a broom.'
'Stop pushing. Bloody hell, I've had it to the ears with Gallaghers for the day.'
'Quiet, quiet. I have to think.' Flustered, Darcy dropped the dishes she carried onto the counter and paced. 'He's in love with her.'
'Who?'
'Aidan, with Jude.'
'Well for pity sake, Darcy, so you already thought. Isn't that why we're fussing here for a ceili?'
'But he's really in love with her. Didn't you see his face? I think I should sit down.' She did so abruptly, then blew out a breath. 'I didn't realize, not really. It was all more of a kind of game. But just now, when he was holding her. I never thought to see him look like that, Brenna. A man looks like that over a woman, she could hurt him, slice right into the heart.'
'Jude wouldn't hurt a fly.'
'She wouldn't mean to.' Darcy's stomach was fluttering with worry. Aidan was her rock, and she'd never thought to see him defenseless. 'I'm sure she cares for him, too, and she's all caught up in the romance of it.'
'Then what would the problem be? It's just as we said.'
'No, it's nothing of what we said.' Hadn't she avoided the desperation of love long enough to recognize it when it bashed her own brother on top of the head? 'Brenna, she's got that fancy education with initials after her name, and a life in Chicago. Her family is there, and her work, and her fine home. Aidan's life is here.' Genuine distress poured out of her heart and into her eyes. 'Don't you see? How can he go, and why would she stay? What was I thinking, putting them together like this?'
'You didn't put them together. They were together.' Because what Darcy was saying was beginning to trouble her as well, Brenna got out the broom. She thought better when her hands were busy. 'Whatever happens happens. We've done nothing more than push her into giving a party.'
'On the solstice,' Darcy reminded her. 'Midsummer's Eve. We're tempting the fates, and if it blows wrong, we're to blame.'
'If we've tempted the fates, then it's up to the fates. There's nothing else to be done,' Brenna announced and began to sweep.
Jude decided on the blue dress, another Dublin acquisition she'd never have bought if Darcy hadn't badgered her. The minute she slipped it on, she blessed Darcy and her own lack of will.
It was a long sweep of a dress, very simple, without a frill or a flounce as it dropped square at the bodice from thin straps and fell with just the most subtle of flares to the ankles. The color, a silvery blue, echoed the hue of midsummer moonlight. She wore small pearl drops at her ears. More moon symbols, she thought.
She very much wanted to take the rest of Mollie's advice and dance with Aidan under the glow of the full moon.
But on this, the longest day of the year, just as evening drifted in, the sky remained light and lovely. Color shimmered outside the cottage window, blues and greens achingly vivid. The air seemed painted with fragrance.
Nature had decided Midsummer's Eve would be one of her triumphs.
All Jude could think as she watched and listened and absorbed was that there was music playing in her living room, bouncing in it. Soaring through it. There were people crowded together in her house, dancing and laughing.
Nature's triumph, she thought, was nothing against her own.
Already more than half of her ham had been devoured.
No one seemed to show any ill effects because of it. She'd managed a bite or two herself, but for the most part was too excited to do more than nibble, or sip now and then from her glass of wine.
Couples were dancing in her hallway, in the kitchen, or out in the yard. Others juggled babies or just cozied in for a gossip. She'd tried to play hostess for the first hour, moving from group to group to make certain everyone had a glass or a plate. But no one seemed to need her to do anything in particular. They all helped themselves to the banquet of dishes jammed into the kitchen or set out on the board stretched across sawhorses that some clever soul had set up in the side yard.
There were children racing around or tucked onto laps. A baby might fuss for some milk or attention, and both were cheerfully provided. More than half the faces that passed through were strange to her.
She finally did what she realized she'd never tried at one of her own parties. She sat down and enjoyed it.
She was jammed up between Mollie and Kathy Duffy, half listening to the conversation and forgetting the slice of cake on a plate in her lap.
Shawn was playing a fiddle, bright, hot licks that made her wish desperately she knew how to dance. Darcy, radiant in the borrowed red dress, teased out notes on a flute while Aidan pumped music from a small accordion. Every now and again, they switched instruments, or brought out another. Pennywhistles, a bodham drum, a knee harp, slipping from hand to hand without a break in rhythm.
She liked it best when they added their voices, producing such intricate, intimate harmony it made her heart ache.
When Aidan sang of young Willie MacBride being forever nineteen, Jude thought of Maude's lost Johnnie, and didn't care that she shed tears in public.
They moved from the heartbreaking to the foot-stomping, never letting the pace flag. Each time Aidan would catch her eye or send her that slow smile, she was as starstruck as a teenager.
When Brenna settled down at Jude's feet and rested her head against her mother's leg, Jude passed her down the plate of cake.
'He's a way with him when he's into his music,' Brenna murmured. 'Makes you forget-nearly-he's a bonehead.'
'They're wonderful. They should record. They should be doing this onstage, not in a living room.'
'Shawn plays for his own pleasure. If ambition came up and knocked him on the head with a hammer, it wouldn't make a dent.'
'Not everyone wants to do everything at one time,' Mollie said mildly. But she stroked Brenna's hair. 'Like you and your father.'
'The more you do, the more gets done.'
'Ah, you're Mick through and through. Why aren't you dancing like your sisters instead of brooding? Lord, girl, you're O'Toole to the bone.'
'Oh, I've some Logan in me.' Brightening, Brenna leaped up and grabbed her mother's hand. 'Come on, then, Ma, unless you're feeling too old and feeble.'
'I can dance you breathless.'
A cheer went up as Mollie began a quick, complicated series of steps. Other dancers gave way with claps and whistles.
'Mollie was a champion step dancer in her day,' Kathy told Jude. 'And she passed it along to her daughters. They're a pretty lot, aren't they?'
'Yes. Oh, just look at them!'
One by one, Mollie's girls joined in until they were three by three facing each other. They were six small women, a mix of the fair-haired and the bright, with hands sassily on hips and legs flying. The faster the music, the faster their feet until Jude was out of breath just from watching.
It wasn't just the skill and the dazzle, Jude thought, that caught at her throat with both envy and admiration. It was the connection. Female to female, sister to sister, mother to daughter. The music was just one more
