Recovering, Shawn narrowed his eyes at the door. 'Darcy.' He said it darkly, bitterly, and with a hint of the violence he intended.
'Darcy?' With a rumbling laugh, Kathy lined up the bowls. 'Now why would I need Darcy to be telling me what I can see with my own eyes? Wasn't I in the pub myself last night?'
'I barely spoke to Brenna last night in the pub.' Sulking now, Shawn set the cakes to sizzling. 'We were, the both of us, busy.'
'I might expect that sort of answer from most men, but you're a poet, and you know very well just how much can be said with a look. The two of you clicked eyes together every blessed time you stepped out of the kitchen. Nothing I haven't been expecting for years.'
'Oh, bloody hell.' He muttered it, well under his breath, but the woman had ears like a rabbit.
'Now, what's the matter? It's a pretty business seeing the two of you starting to dance in the same direction.'
And a mouth, Shawn thought, that flapped like a sheet in a gale. 'Ah, the thing of it is, Mrs. Duffy-and I'm hoping you'll take this as delicate as it's meant-if, as things are, Brenna hears any talk of the two of us- dancing in the same direction, as you put it, she'll do a very fast jig the opposite way.'
Judging the progress of the frying, she reached up for soup bowls. 'And since when has Mary Brenna O'Toole heard anything if it didn't please her to? The girl's ears are as stubborn as the rest of her-and good luck to you with her.'
He shook the fry basket to drain more chips. 'You've a point there, well taken.'
'I've known the two of you since you were both bumps under your mothers' aprons.' She ladled up soup and was generous with dumplings. 'And ten years back-aye ten, as I recall it was the summer my Patrick broke his arm falling off the cabin roof, where he had no business being in the first place. Ten years ago this summer I said to Mr. Duffy as we sat out in the pub of an evening, and Brenna sat with her family at a near table, and you were playing one of your tunes on the fiddle while your father worked the bar-'
She trailed off as she set the bowls aside for Darcy. 'I said to him, as I watched her watching you, and saw that now and again a glance of yours would land in her direction, there's something that will come around when the time's right.'
'I never thought of her that way back then.'
'Of course you did,' Kathy said comfortably. 'You just didn't know it.'
When it was time for the evening shift, Darcy lay in wait for Brenna. And nearly missed her, as Brenna came in the front instead of the back.
'You missed a great crowd today.' Darcy sauntered over. It took only a strategic shift of her body to corner Brenna by the coatrack. 'Shawn was late for work,' she continued in a whisper, 'and was drunk besides. What's going on?'
'I can't talk about it now. I made a mess of things, I can say that much.'
Darcy laid a hand on Brenna's shoulder until she finished her study. 'You look terrible. Was it a big fight or a little one?'
'It wasn't a fight at all with Shawn.' She glanced over at the kitchen door, wondering how they were going to deal with it all, and with each other, now. 'Got drunk, did he? Well, now, I wish I'd thought of that. Let me go on to work, Darcy. It's going to be a long night, and the sooner it's started, the sooner it's done.'
If anyone expected her to leave it at that, they didn't know Darcy Gallagher. At the first opportunity, she was in the kitchen. She took a good look at her brother as she relayed orders. Though he was a bit rough around the edges still, he appeared sober and steady.
'Brenna's come in.' Darcy noted with interest that Shawn's steady motion with the rolling pin broke. 'She looks unhappy. And so do you.'
He went back to rolling out the pastry for meat pies. 'We'll be all right.'
'I'll help you.'
He flicked his eyes up. 'Why?'
'Because she's my oldest and dearest friend in all the world, and you, though an accident of fate, are my brother.'
Humor flickered across his face. 'We'll be all right, Darcy,' he repeated. 'It's for us to work it out.'
'You're turning down the assistance of an expert in this particular field of battle.'
He began to score the dough, measuring it into neat squares. 'I'll hold you in reserve, if it's all the same to you.'
'Well, it's your choice, after all.' She started out, stopped, turned around. 'Does she matter?'
Knowing how well his sister read faces, Shawn kept his head lowered. 'Do you think I don't know what comes out of my mouth goes in your ear, then off your tongue and into her ear?'
'It won't. If you ask me.'
He looked up then. Loyalty was her finest trait, as far as he was concerned. And he knew she'd sooner break her arm than her word. 'Then I'm asking you. I feel it's my life up on a thin and slippery line. Step off one way, the ground's solid, off the other it's a bog. You sink in, and it's over.'
'Then watch your step,' Darcy advised, and went back into the pub.
The noise level was already rising. It would be a din, hushed down once the music started, and peaking again at every break the band took. Brenna worked the taps with both hands, even while she listened to Jack Brennan lumber his way through a joke he'd heard about a princess and a frog. Though her heart wasn't in it, she laughed at the end.
When the band began to set up, she ordered herself to pay no mind, no mind at all. But her gaze wandered over nonetheless and locked on the blond singer.
Just the type Shawn would drift back to, she thought. Shallow bastard. What would it take him? A month, a week, a bloody night before he rolled atop another woman?
'I'm almost afraid to ask,' Jude said as she slid onto a stool. 'But can I have a mineral water?'
'You can.' Brenna got the glass, remembered ice as Jude had that Yank preference for it. 'Why would you be afraid to ask?'
'Because you look as if you want to punch someone. I wouldn't want it to be me.'
'It'd more likely be myself, or that blonde over there.'
'Eileen? Why?'
'To start, she has tits.' Brenna set the glass down, ordered herself to put the rest aside. 'You look well tonight, Jude Frances. Well and happy.'
'I'm both. I've gained two more pounds. I can't get my trousers hooked anymore.'
Brenna took orders and coin, continued to work the taps. 'So you'll make use of all those maternity clothes Darcy talked you into. Don't you want a table-a chair for your back?'
'No, I'm fine here for now. I'm just staying long enough for the first set, and a bowl of soup.'
'You want a meal?' It came out as an accusation, making Jude stare.
'Well, I'd considered it.'
'You'll want a table,' Brenna said briskly. If Jude ordered from a table it would be Darcy's job to go into the kitchen.
'No, I don't. I've gotten some bits and pieces about trouble between you and Shawn. You can't deal with it, Brenna, if you can't so much as open that door and shout out an order for soup.'
'Maybe I don't want to deal with it.' When Jude only folded her hands on the bar, Brenna hissed out a breath. 'You know, I'm finding married women a pain in the ass.' She finished building a Guinness, pulled a pint and a glass of lager, and exchanged them for the price. 'You've got fairy tales on your brain,' she continued. 'That's not how it is here.'
'I might agree with you but for one thing. Well two things. Carrick and Lady Gwen.'
Brenna snorted and started another pair of pints. 'They've nothing to do with me. I'll tell you how I'd end a fairy tale,' she continued, thinking of Jack Brennan's joke. 'In mine, the princess doesn't kiss the frog, but dines well on frog legs at end of day. I'll get your damn soup.'
Spoiling for a fight, she strode to the door, shoved it open. Shawn was at the stove, a wooden spoon in one hand, a spatula in the other. The heat had his hair curling just a bit, and he needed a trim. He hadn't bothered to shave, which was an odd thing for Shawn. But under the day's growth on his jaw was unmistakable bruising.
