Swordfights & Lullabies by Debora Geary

June 17.  Celtic Diva.

    She was so beautiful.
    And even as he yearned for the beyond-tour days that would come very soon, Marcus’s heart ached for the woman playing on the stage.  She would miss this.  No matter how much her heart desired a life in a tiny Nova Scotia fishing village—and to his eternal astonishment, it really did—leaving this was going to tear at her.
    Cassidy Farrell had been born for this.
    A familiar presence slid into the box seat beside him.  “She’s doin’ good.”  Tommy surveyed the concert hall with professional eyes.
    If he was looking for empty seats, there were none to be found.  “She’s magnificent.  She always is.”  That didn’t begin to describe the defiant, vibrant genius of Cassidy Farrell.  Words were puny in the face of the magic she and Rosie made together.
    “She’s ready to go,” said Tommy quietly.
    Marcus had been prepared to hate Cass’s manager, and his first impressions hadn’t changed that intent any.  Tommy was big city, brash, immune to scowls, and bossier than a herd of witches.  Unfortunately for Marcus, two pesky facts had interfered with his plans.
    Tommy had taken one look at Morgan and fallen into instant, gooey love.
    And he considered Cassidy Farrell family—in the deep, abiding sense that Italians and the Irish had in common.
    Marcus had been helpless to resist either.  And somewhere over a game of pool about halfway through the tour, he’d even come so far as to consider the man a friend.  “It’s still going to be hard.  She loves this.”
    “Yeah.”  And for all his tough-guy exterior, the man from New Jersey knew his fiddler.  “She’ll be okay.  And there will still be some gigs—the  Kennedy Center in November, and I got a line on a thing in Berkeley for August.”
    Four big shows a year, by decree of the Irish witch on the stage.  Just enough to keep her and Tommy from sinking into decrepit retirement.
    All of which was cover for the real reason.
    Marcus had quietly, immovably insisted that she play them.  For the sake of the man who had become his friend and the woman who lit his days, and for something bigger than all of them—he didn’t want the world to forget her.
    Tommy glanced at his phone.  “Gail says Morgan’s asleep.”  His wife had laid claim to the tour’s lavender-eyed mascot for the evening and held off all upstart contenders.
    There had been quite a few.  The tour mascot was ridiculously popular.
    Marcus smiled wryly.  Learning to share his child hadn’t been a choice the last three months.  “She should be—she ran wild today.”  Morgan had spent most of the afternoon bouncing around the concert hall in shrieking glee, hanging on to the hair of whichever of Cass’s road crew had hoisted her onto their shoulders. 
    His girl was going to miss all this too. 
    The only heart that would be purely glad to be going home was his.  He ignored the twinges of friendship and fledgling traveler that said otherwise.
    It was time for three pebbles to be headed back to their beach.
    Rosie’s notes were pulling on him again, calling him out of his reverie and back into the present.  An audience of thousands—and it always felt like she spoke directly to his heart.  Over the last three months, when she tugged, he’d learned to come.
    Gladly.
    Soul lifting, he tuned out Tommy and the crowd and the bright lights and technical wizardry spotlighting the performance on stage.  Pushed aside melancholy and the ever-present yearning for home.
    And saw only his Cass.
    -o0o-
    Her last big gig.
    The final performances of every tour were always tinged with melancholy—and in recent years, a quiet exhale.  Cassidy Farrell, feeling her mortality.
    Cass grinned and leaned into Rosie’s notes a little more.  Celtic music wasn’t light on melancholy or mortality or anything else.  Just one of the many reasons she loved it so.
    The stage lights were extra bright tonight—she could barely make out the