"He treats me like I'm special."

"Why shouldn't he?" Darcy demanded.

"No one ever has. And, well, since we're on the subject, and it's not exactly a secret what's going on, I don't have anything- well, pretty, s.e.xy. Lingerie and that kind of thing. I thought maybe you could help me pick some out."

"I know just the place for it." Darcy all but rubbed her hands together.

"I spent two thousand pounds on underwear."

Dazed, Jude walked down bustling Grafton Street. There were people everywhere, swarming. Shoppers, tourists, packs of teenagers, and every few feet, it seemed, musicians playing for coins. It was dazzling, the noise and colors and shapes. But nothing was more dazzling than what she'd just done.

"Two thousand. On underwear."

"And worth every penny," Darcy said briskly. "He'll be a slave to you."

They were loaded with shopping bags, and though Jude had gone into the foray determined to buy recklessly, her idea of reckless was Darcy's notion of conservative. Somehow, within two hours she acc.u.mulated what seemed like an entire wardrobe, with accessories, all at Darcy's ruthless instigation.

"I can't carry anything else."

"Here." Stopping, Darcy s.n.a.t.c.hed some of the bags from Jude and shoved them at Brenna.

"I didn't buy anything."

"So you have free hands, then, don't you? Oh! Look at those shoes." Darcy barreled through the crowd gathered around a trio of fiddlers, homing in on target. "They're darling."

"I want my tea," Brenna muttered, then scowled at the strappy black shoes with four-inch heels that Darcy was drooling over. "You'd have blisters and calf cramps before you'd walked a kilometer in those things."

"They're not for walking, you idiot. I'm having them." Darcy breezed through the door of the shop.

"I'll never get my tea," Brenna complained. "I'll die of starvation and dehydration and the pair of you won't even notice as I'll be buried under a mountain of shopping sacks, in which, I'll add, is not a single thing of my own."

"We'll have tea as soon as I try on the shoes. Here, Jude, these are for you."

"I don't need any more shoes." But she was weak and collapsed in a chair and found herself studying the pretty bronze-toned pumps. "They're lovely, but then I'd need a bag to go with them."

"A bag. Jesus." Brenna rolled her eyes back in her head and slid out of the chair in a heap.

She bought the shoes and a bag, then a wonderful jacket from the shop just down the street. Then there was a silly straw hat that she simply had to have for gardening. Because they were so overloaded, they took a vote and with Brenna the only nay hauled their purchases back to the car to lock them in the trunk before hunting up a place for a meal.

"Thank Mary and all the saints." Brenna sprawled in a booth in a tiny Italian restaurant that smelled gloriously of garlic. "I'm faint with hunger. I'll have a pint of Harp," she ordered the second the waiter shuffled over, "and a pizza with everything on it but your kitchen sink."

"No, you won't." Darcy flipped out her napkin and shot the waiter a smile that had him tumbling directly into love. "We'll get a pizza and we each pick two of the toppings. I'll have a Harps as well, but just a gla.s.s."

"Well, then, I want mushrooms and sausage for my picks."

"Fine." Darcy nodded across the booth at Brenna. "And I'll have black olives and green peppers. Jude?"

"Ah, mineral water and-" She caught Brenna's eye, kept her face sober as her friend desperately mouthed pepperoni and capers. "Pepperoni and capers," she ordered dutifully.

She sighed, sat back and took inventory. Her feet hurt miserably, she couldn't remember half of what she'd just bought, she had a vague headache from lack of food and presence of constant conversation, and she was joyously happy about all of it.

"It's the first day I've spent in Dublin," Jude began. "I haven't been to one museum or gallery, or taken a single picture. I didn't walk St. Stephen's Green or go to Trinity College to see the library or the Book of Kells. It's shameful."

"Why? Dublin's not going anywhere." Darcy pulled herself away from her flirtation with the waiter. "You can come back and do all that whenever you like."

"I suppose I can. It's just that normally, that's what I would have done. And I'd have planned it all out, pored over the guidebooks and made up an itinerary and a schedule, and while I would have figured in some shopping time for mementoes, that would have been at the bottom of the list."

"So you just turned the list around, didn't you?" Darcy offered the waiter another beaming smile when he served their drinks.

"Everything's turned around. Wait." She gripped Brenna's wrist before she could lift her pint.

"Jude, my throat's dry as an eighty-year-old virgin. Have pity."

"I just want to say that I've never had friends like you."

"Sure and there aren't any the likes of us." Brenna winked, then rolled her eyes as Jude held her wrist down.

"No, I mean- I've never had any really close women friends that I could have ridiculous conversations about s.e.x with, or share pizza with, or who help me pick out black lace underwear."

"Oh, G.o.d, don't go misty now, there's a good girl, Jude." A little desperate, Brenna turned her hand over to pat Jude's. "I have sympathetic tear ducts, and no control over them."

"Sorry." But it was too late. Her eyes were already filled and shimmering. "I'm just so happy."

"There now." Sniffling herself, Darcy pa.s.sed out paper napkins. "We're happy, too. To friendship, then."

"Yes, to friendship." Jude let out an unsteady sigh as gla.s.ses clinked. "Slainte."

She saw some of Dublin after all as they walked off the pizza. Jude finally dug out her camera and delighted herself with shots of the graceful arch of bridges over the grand River Liffey, and the charm of the shady greens, the lush baskets of flowers decking the pubs.

She watched a street artist paint a sunrise over the sea, then on impulse bought it for Aidan.

She had Brenna and Darcy pose a dozen times and bribed them with clairs from a sweet shop to explore just a bit longer.

Even when they trudged back to the car park, her energy level was high. She thought she could go on endlessly. When they drove away from Dublin the western sky was splashed with the colors of sunset that seemed to last forever in the long spring evening.

And the moon rose as they approached Ardmore, to sprinkle the fields with light and to spread white swords over the sea.

Even after she'd dropped her friends at home and helped Darcy cart in her packages, she wasn't tired. She almost danced into her cottage and, hauling her own bags upstairs, called out cheerfully.

"I'm back, and I had a wonderful time."

She wasn't planning on having it end. Her toughest decision, she thought, would be to choose just what to wear under her new silk blouse.

She was going to extend the evening with a visit to Gallagher's before closing. To flirt openly and outrageously with Aidan.

CHAPTER Fourteen