her the world, as the world's safe when you've plenty of it to spare. But you've only one heart, after all, and giving that is a more difficult deal. I didn't look inside my Gwen, and he doesn't look inside his Darcy. He thinks it's sense, but it's nothing but fear.'
He gestured toward the headstone with the apple, as if the old woman sat there, listening. Perhaps she did. 'And she's no better when it comes to it. As different from my quiet, modest Gwen as sun from moon, but the same in this aspect. She wants him to offer his heart, but will she just bloody say so, for Finn's sake? No, she won't. Females-who can figure them?'
He sighed then, munched his bright apple, contemplated. He'd nearly lost patience, had been on the edge of springing out of the air to order them both to get on with it. They were in love, admit it and be done.
But that was beyond what was permitted. The choices, the timing, the steps of their dance together had to be theirs. His- contribution, Carrick decided-he didn't care for the word 'interference'-could be only minor.
He had done what he could do. Now he had to wait as he had waited three centuries already. His fate, his happiness, at times he thought his very life, depended on the hearts of these two mortals.
He'd dealt with the other pairs of them. You'd have thought he'd have learned enough to know how to hurry these last two along. But all he'd learned was that love was a jewel with too many facets to count. Strength and weakness running side by side through it. And that no one could give or take it with any less than an open hand.
He lay back on the grass, and with his mind sketched Gwen's beloved face in the clouds. 'I ache for you. Heart, body, mind. I would give all that's in my power to give to touch you again, to breathe your scent, to hear your voice. I swear to you, when you come back to me at last, it's love I'll pour at your feet. The grandeur and humility of it. And the flowers that bloom from that will never die.'
He closed his eyes, and weary with waiting, vanished into sleep.
The effort of being cheerful and sexy and witty left Darcy near to exhaustion by the time Trevor drove her down to the pub. But determined to play it all out, she walked around the back with him so she could make happy noises about the progress of the work.
She realized that temper had her overplaying it when Trevor narrowed his eyes at her. So she beat a hasty retreat, giving him a warm but brief kiss.
She made it as far as the kitchen door when Brenna shoved in behind her. 'What's the matter?' Brenna asked immediately.
They'd known each other since birth, understood each other's moods often better than they understood their own.
'Come upstairs, can you?' Such was the nature of their friendship that Darcy didn't have to wait for an answer. She went up fast, shedding her brightness and cheer as she might have shed clothes.
'I've a headache.' The brutal pounding sent her straight to the bathroom cupboard for aspirin. She chased it with water, drinking the whole glass down.
Their eyes met in the mirror. Brenna knew that sleek and shiny look hid some deep hurt.
'What did he do?'
How marvelous it was to have a friend who simply knew where the blame lay even before the offense was cited. 'He offered me a fortune. A small one, I suppose, by his standards, but hefty enough by mine. Enough to set me on the way to where I'm going, and in fine style.'
'And?'
'I'm taking it.' She tossed her head, and the edgy defiance worried her friend. 'I'm signing his recording contract.'
'That's grand, Darcy, truly it is, if it's what you want.'
'I've always wanted more than I have, and now I'm about to get it. I wouldn't sign if it didn't suit me. I promise you I'm doing it for me first. I haven't lost my head so much to do otherwise.'
'Then I'm pleased for you, and proud already.' She laid a hand on Darcy's shoulder, rubbed at the tension. 'Now tell me how he hurt you.'
'I thought he was going to ask me to marry him. I thought he would tell me he loved me and wanted me to belong to him. Can you imagine that?'
'I can.' And now Brenna hurt as well. 'Perfectly.'
'Sure and his vision's not so sharp as yours. He hasn't a clue.' She gripped the sides of the sink, breathed slow and deep. 'I'm not going to cry. He won't get tears out of me.'
'Come sit down and tell me.'
When she did and when she had, Brenna held her hand. All sympathy, she said, 'Bastard!'
'Thanks for that. I hate that it's partly my fault. Oh, that's a bitter pill. But I set myself up for it, no mistake there. Spinning romantic fantasies in the shower like some fluff-brained girl.'
'Why shouldn't you? You love him.'
'I do, the cad, and I'll make him pay for it before we're done.'
'What are you going to do?'
'Trap him, of course. Blind him with lust, confuse him with my many moods, toy with him. All the things I'm best at when it comes to men.'
'I won't say you aren't skilled in that area,' Brenna said carefully. 'But if you go this way, and win, it won't be enough for you.'
'I'll make it enough. Many's the relationship that has its seeds in sex. Lust and love aren't so far apart.'
'Maybe not in the flaming dictionary. But Darcy, when one party's in lust and the other in love, they're distant as moons. And between those places is so much room to be hurt.'
'I can't hurt any more than I did this morning at Saint Declan's Well. And I survived.'
She stepped to the window. Out there, she thought, Trevor was building his dream, but he'd needed some of what was hers for it. Well, she could build her own and take some of his. Of him.
'I'll risk the rest. I can make him need me, Brenna. Need's the step between wanting and loving. It'll be enough for me.'
She shook her head before Brenna could speak, crossed back. 'I have to try.'
'Of course you do.' Hadn't she? Brenna thought. Didn't everyone who knew what love was and longing?
'But at the moment, I need to vent out this foul mood. Shawn'll be coming along shortly. I'll just go down and torment him until I feel better.'
'If that's the case, I'll get back on the job and out of harm's way.'
CHAPTER Eighteen
A storm hovered over the village, marching down from the northeast to camp on the border as an army digs in for a siege. The rising winds and splattering rain that were its leading edge chased people from the beaches, and brought a nasty chill. The sky, thick and bruised and ominous, had even the locals glancing upward with apprehension.
Had you ever seen that green tint to the clouds' edges before? Had you ever tasted air that had such a flavor of mean in it?
She would hit, they said, and hit hard.
Those who'd been through such things before checked their stock of candles and lamp oil and batteries. Supplies were laid in, and children ordered to stay close to home. Boats were secured in their docks as Ardmore prepared for the coming battle.
But when the door of the pub burst open, Jude's face was bright as sunbeams. 'It came.'
Excitement had her barely able to speak above a whisper that didn't carry over the voices to where Aidan was busy at the taps. It was Darcy who saw her, standing there with her bound-back hair damp with raindrops, her cheeks flushed pink. And the book clutched to her breast like a beloved child.
Darcy dumped her tray immediately, and unceremoniously, on a table where four baffled French students stared at the toasted sandwiches, piles of slaw and chips they hadn't ordered, and began consulting their phrase books.
