"Aidan'll close the pub for the night, so I'll be able to come along early and help with anything that needs it." Darcy let out a satisfied breath. "There we're all but done with it."

All Jude could do was lay her head on the table.

"I think that went well," Darcy said as she and Brenna climbed back in the lorry.

"I feel a bit guilty, running over her that way."

"It's for Jude herself we're doing it."

"We've left her stuttering and pale, but it went well enough." With a laugh, Brenna started the engine. "I'm glad I recalled how my father proposed to my mother at a ceili right here in this cottage. It's a fine omen."

"Friends look out for friends." Some might have called her flighty, but there was no firmer friend once made than Darcy Gallagher. "She's mad in love with him and too shy to push him where she wants him. We'll see they have the night and the music, and I'll come around early enough to hold her down and work on her until she's so lovely Aidan's eyes will fall out on his boots. If that doesn't do the trick, well, then, he's hopeless."

"As far as I've been able to judge, Gallagher men are as hopeless as they come."

CHAPTER Sixteen

"And how," Jude asked, "am I supposed to give a party when I don't know how many people are coming? When I have no menu, no time schedule? No plan?"

Since Finn was the only one within earshot, and he didn't appear to have the answer, Jude dropped into a chair in her now spotless living room and shut her eyes. She'd been cleaning for days. Aidan had laughed at her and told her not to take on so. No one was going to hunt up dust in the corners and have her deported for the shame of it.

He didn't understand. He was, after all, only a man.

How the cottage looked was the only aspect of the entire business she could control.

"It's my house," she muttered. "And a woman's house reflects the woman. I don't care what millennium we're in, it just does."

She'd entertained before, and she'd managed to hold reasonably satisfactory parties. But they'd been weeks, if not months, in the planning. She'd had lists and themes and caterers and carefully selected hors d'oeuvres and music.

And gallons of antacids.

Now she was expected to simply throw open her doors to friend and stranger alike.

At least a half a dozen people she'd never laid eyes on had stopped her in the village to mention the ceili. She hoped she'd looked pleased and said the appropriate thing, but she'd all but felt her eyes wheeling in her head.

This was her first ceili. It was the first real party she'd given in her cottage. The first time she'd entertained in Ireland.

She was on a different continent, for G.o.d's sake. How was she supposed to know what she was doing?

She needed an aspirin the size of Ardmore Bay.

Trying to calm herself again, to put things into perspective, she laid her head back and closed her eyes. It was supposed to be informal. People were bringing buckets and platters and mountains of food. She was only responsible for the setting, and the cottage was lovely.

And who was she trying to fool? The entire thing was headed straight for disaster.

The cottage was too small for a party. If it rained she could hardly expect people to stand outside under umbrellas while she pa.s.sed them plates of food out the window. There simply wasn't room to stuff everyone inside if even half the people who'd spoken to her showed up.

There wasn't enough floor s.p.a.ce or seating s.p.a.ce. There wasn't enough air in the house to provide everyone with oxygen, and there certainly wasn't enough of Jude F. Murray to go around as hostess.

Worse, she'd gotten lost in the writing of her book several times over the last few days and had neglected to keep the party preparation list she'd made up on schedule. She'd meant, really she had, to stop writing at one o'clock. She'd even set a timer after the first time she ran over. Then she turned it off, intending only to finish that one paragraph. And the next time she surfaced it was after three, and neither of her bathrooms had been scrubbed as planned.

Despite all that, in a matter of hours, people she didn't know would be swarming into her house expecting to be entertained and fed.

She wasn't to worry about a thing. She'd been told that over and over again. But of course she had to worry about everything. It was her job. She had to think about the food, didn't she? It was her house, and d.a.m.n it, she was neurotic, so what did people expect?

She'd attempted tarts that had come out hard as rock. Even Finn wouldn't touch them. The second effort was an improvement-at least the dog had nibbled on them before spitting them out. But she was forced to admit that she would never win gold stars for her pastry baking.

She had managed to put together a couple of simple ca.s.seroles following a recipe in one of Old Maude's cookbooks. They looked and smelled good enough. Now she could only hope no one came down with food poisoning.

She had a ham in the oven. She'd already called her grandmother three times to check and recheck the process of baking it. It was so big, how could she possibly be sure it was done? It would probably be raw in the center and she'd end up giving her guests food poisoning. But at least she'd serve it in a clean house.

Thank G.o.d it didn't take any talent to scrub a floor or wash windows. That, at least, she knew was well done.

It had rained during the night, and fog had slithered in from the sea. But the air had cleared that morning to bright sun and summer warmth that lured out the birds and the blossoms.

All she could do now was hope the weather held.

She had those sparkling windows open wide to keep the house airy and welcome. The scents of Old Maude's roses and sweet peas tangled together and slipped through the screens. The fragrance smoothed out Jude's stretched nerves.

Flowers! She bolted out of the chair. She hadn't cut any flowers to arrange in the house. She raced into the kitchen for the shears, and Finn raced after her. He lost purchase on the newly waxed floor, skidded, and ran headfirst into the cabinets.

Of course then he needed to be cuddled and comforted. Murmuring rea.s.surances, Jude carried him outside. "Now, there'll be no digging in the flower beds, will there?"

He gave her an adoring look, as if the thought never crossed his mind.

"And no chasing b.u.t.terflies through the cornflowers," she added and set him down with a little pat on the b.u.t.t.

She picked up a basket and began to select the best flowers for cutting.

It was a task that relaxed her, always. The shapes, the scents, the colors, finding the most interesting mix. Wandering through the banks and flows on the narrow rock path with the hills stretched to forever and the country quiet sweet as the air.

If she were to make her home here, permanently, she thought, she would extend the gardens in the back. She'd have a little rock wall built on the east side and cover it with rambling roses or maybe a hedge of lavender. And in front of that, she'd plant a whole river of dahlias. And maybe she'd put an arbor on the west side and let some sweet-smelling vine climb and climb until it arched like a tunnel.

She'd have a path through it, so that she could walk there-with chamomile and thyme and nodding columbine scattered nearby. She would wind her way through flowers, under them, around them, whenever she set out to walk the hills and fields.

There'd be a stone bench for sitting. And in the evenings, when work was done, she'd relax there and just listen to the world she'd made.

She'd be the expatriate American writer, living in the little cottage on the faerie hill with her flowers and her faithful dog. And her lover.

Of course, that was fantasy, she reminded herself. Her time was already half gone. In the fall she'd go back to Chicago. Even if she had the courage to pursue the idea of actually submitting the book to a publisher, she would have to get a job. She could hardly live off her savings forever. It was- wrong.

Wasn't it?

It would have to be teaching, she supposed. The idea of private practice was too daunting, so teaching was the only option. Even as depression threatened at the thought, she shook it off. Maybe she could look for a position in a small private school. Someplace where she could feel some connection with her students. It would give her time to continue writing. She simply couldn't give that up now that she'd found it.

She could move to the suburbs, buy a small house. There was nothing forcing her to stay in the condo in Chicago. She'd have a studio there. A little s.p.a.ce just for her writing, and she would have the courage to submit the book. She wouldn't allow herself to be a coward about something that important. Not ever again.