“That had been her plan, he decided. The devious witch. She’d planted the seed in his brain, stirred up his loins, as he was only a man, after all, and now she could torment him just by being in the same vicinity.Well, two could play this game.Rather than waiting for Darcy to pick up the orders, he carried them out himself. Just to show Brenna O’Toole that she didn’t trouble him in the least.The perverse creature didn’t even glance his way as he swung into the pub and wound his way through the crowd to the tables.”

“It was a lie, of course, and she was prepared to confess it to her priest. But she’d be damned if she’d tell him she’d been playing with his music.Her pride was worth the penance.He felt a quiver in his heart that he took for sympathy. “There, Brenna darling. Have you gone and fallen in love on me?”She jerked, whirled, gaped at him. He was watching her with such—such bloody affection, such patience and sympathy. She could have beaten him black and blue. Instead, she just shoved clear of him and snatched up her toolbox. “Shawn Gallagher, you are truly a great idiot of a man.”With her nose in the air and her tools clanking, she stalked out.He only shook his head, then went back to his cleaning up. With that little quiver around his heart again, he wondered who it was that O’Toole had set her sights on.Whoever, Shawn thought, slamming a cupboard door just a little too forcefully, the man had better be worthy of her.”

“You’re as pretty as she is.”“Don’t be saying such things loud enough for herself to hear you, or she’ll skin us both.”Touched and amused, she kissed his cheek. And Shawn came through the door.It would have been comical, she decided, and was a pity that no one noticed but herself noticed the way he stopped dead in his tracks, stared, then jolted when the door swung back and slapped him in the ass.I liked how she was trying to make him jealous with Jack.Jack sighed into his beer when Brenna strode out. “She smells like sawdust,” he said more to himself than otherwise. “It’s very pleasant.”“What are you doing sniffing at her?” Shawn demanded.Jack just blinked at him. “What?”“I’ll be back in a minute.” He shoved up the pass-through on the bar, let it fall with a bang that had Aidan cursing him, then rushed through the door after Brenna.“Wait a minute. Mary Brennan? Just a damn minute.”She paused by the door of her truck, and for one of the first times in her life felt the warm glow of pure female satisfaction stream through her. A fine feeling, she decided. A fine feeling altogether.Schooling her face to show mild interest, she turned. “Is there a problem, then?”“Yes, there’s a problem. What are you doing flirting with Jack Brennan that way?”She let her eyebrows rise up under the bill of her cap. “And what business might that be of yours, I’d like to know?”“A matter of days ago you’re asking me to make love with you, and I turn around and you’re cozying up to Jack and making plans to have dinner with some Dubliner.”She waited one beat, then two. “And?”“And?” Flustered and furious, he glared at her. “And it’s not right.”She only lifted a shoulder in dismissal, then turned to open the truck door.“It’s not right,” he repeated, grabbing her again and turning her to face him. “I’m not having it.”“So you said, in clear terms.”“I don’t mean that.”“Oh, well, if you’ve decided you’d like to have sex with me after all, I’ve changed my mind.”“I haven’t decided—” He broke off, staggered. “Changed your mind?”

“It was amazing,really,how two people could live and work in basically the same place,and one could completely avoid the other.It just took setting your mind to it.Brian set his mind to it for several days.There was plenty of work to keep him occupied and more than enough reason for him to spend time away from the farm and on the tracks.But he found avoidance scared his pride. It was too close a kin to cowardice.Added to that,he'd told Keeley he wanted to help her at the school and had done nothing abuot it.He asn't a man to break his word, no matter what it cost him.And, he reminded himself as he walked to Keeley's stables, he was also a man of some self-control. He had no intention of seducing or taking the advantage of innocence.He'd made up his mind on it.Then he stepped into the stables and saw her.He wouldn't have said his mouth watered, but it was a very close thing.She was wearing one of those fancy rigs again-jodhpurs the color of dark chocolate and a cream sort of blouse that looked somehow fluid.her hair was down, all tumbled and wild as if she'd just pulled the pins from it. And indeed,as he watched she flipped it back and looped it through a wide elastic band.He decided the best place in the universe for his hands to be were in his pockets."Lessons over?"She glanced back, her hands still up in her hair.Ah,she thought.She'd wondered how long it would take him to wander her way again. "Why? Did you want one?”

“You gonna have dinner with her and everything?"Grant lifted a brow but managed to keep his composure. Everything, he reminded himself, meant different things to different people. At the moment it conjured up rather provocative images in his brain. "Things are presently unsettled," he murmured, using one of Macintosh's stock phrases. Catching himself, he grinned. "Yeah, we're going to have dinner." And something, he added as he strolled out after Gennie."What was all that about?" she demanded."Man talk.""Oh,I beg your pardon."The way she said it-very antebellum and disdainful-made him laugh and pull her into his arms to kiss her in full view of all of Windy Point.As the embrace lingered on,Grant caught the muffled crash from inside Fairfield's. "Poor Will," he murmured. "I know just how he feels." Humor flashed into his eyes again. "I better start around in the boat if we're going to have dinner...and everything."Confused by his uncharacteristic lightheartedness, Gennie gave him a long stare. "All right," she said after a moment. "I'll meet you there.”

“You're a killer, Keeley.You'd tease a man to death."He didn't mean it as a compliment, but to her it was a revelation. "I've never tried it before. Now one's ever attracted me enough.You do,and I dont even know why."When she dropped her hand,he took her wrist. It surprised him to feel the gallop of her pulse there, when her eyes, her voice had been so cool, so steady. "Then you're a quick learner.""I'd like to think so.If I come to you, you'd be the first.""The first what?" Temper wanted to stir, especially when she laughed. THen his mind cleared and the meaning flashed through like a thunderbolt. His hand tightened on her wrist, then dropped it as though she had turned to fire."That scared you enough to shut you up," she observed. "I'm surprised anything could render you speechless.""I've..." But he couldn't think."No,don't fumble around for words. You'll spoil your image." She couldn't think just why his dazed expression struck her as so funny,or why the shock in his eyes was endearing somehow."We'll just say that,under these circumstances, we both have a lot to consider.And now,I'm way behind in my work, and have to get ready for my afternoon class."She walked away,as easily, as casually, Brian thought numbly, as she might have if they'd just finished discussing the proper treatment for windgalls. She left him reeling.he'd gone and fallen in love with the gentry,and the gentry was his boss's daughter. And his boss's daughter was innocent.He'd have to be mad to lay a hand on her after this.He began to wish Betty had just kicked him in the head and gotten it all over with.”

“The woman threw him off balance, and he didn't care for it.Giving him those hot looks and intimate little strokes in the middle of the damn morning so he went through the whole of the day itchy.Worse yet the man who was paying him to work through the day,not to be distracted by his glands,was the woman's father.It was a situation,Brian though, and he'd done a great deal to bring it on himself.Still how could he have known in the beginning that he'd become so involved with her on so many levels inside himself? Falling in love had been a hard knock, but he'd taken knocks before.You got bruised and you went on.A bit of attraction was all right, a little flirtation was harmless enough.And the truth was, he'd enjoyed the risk of it.To a point.But he was well past that point now. Now he was all wrapped up in her and at the same time had become fond of her family. Travis wasn't just a good and fair boss, but was on the way to becoming a kind of friend.And here he was finding ways to make love to his friend's daughter as often as humanly possible.”