of flowers and axle grease or some such thing.”
“It’s motor oil, and what’s left of the perfume Alice Mae caught me with this morning.”
“It’s quite the combination.” And very Brenna O’Toole, he thought as she strode past him. “Will you have some tea?”
“I will.” She peeled off her jacket, tossed it on a peg, then belatedly remembered her cap and removed that as well.
It always gave him a little jerk in the belly to watch all that hair spill out and down. Foolish, he thought as he moved to the pot. He knew it was up there, under that ugly cap. But each time she let it fall, it was a new surprise.
“I’ve scones.”
“No, but thanks.” She wanted to clear her throat, as it seemed coated with something thick and hot. Instead she sat at the table, casually kicked back. She’d decided as she’d walked over to ease her way into things, so to speak. “I wondered if you might want me to take a look at your car sometime this week. The last I heard it, it sounded sad.”
“I wouldn’t mind, if you’ve time.” He watched as Bub sidled over to rub against Brenna’s legs, then leap into her lap. The O’Toole was the only human person the cat had ever fancied. Shawn decided it was because they were both prickly creatures.
“Aren’t you busy at the house, doing the baby’s room for Jude?”
She stroked Bub’s head so he purred like a freight train. “I’ve time enough.”
He sat across from Brenna, and when Betty came begging, gave her half a scone. “How’s it coming, then?” And decided it was comfortable after all, sitting with her in the warm kitchen, with the animals milling about.
“Oh, it’s fine. It’s mostly just fiddling Jude wants, prettying up and the like. But in the way of women, now she’s thinking that when the one room’s fixed and polished, the others will look shabby against it. She’s thinking to spruce up the main bedroom now.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
Brenna lifted her shoulders. “Nothing I can see, but between Jude and Darcy they’ve come up with a dozen things. New paper for the walls, fresh paint for the trim, sanding the floors. Then I just mentioned how nice the view was from the front windows there, and Jude’s saying that she longs for a window seat. I said if she wanted one, it was just a matter of this and a matter of that, and before you can blink, she’s wanting me to do it.”
Absently, Brenna took the second half of the scone and nibbled on it. “I wager Dad and I will be going from room to room in that house, and top to bottom. She’s got the bit between her teeth now. Must be a nesting sort of thing.”
“Well, if it pleases her and Aidan doesn’t mind it . . .” Shawn trailed off, imagining how it would be to live in the midst of all that hammering and sawing. He’d rather be roasted over a slow fire.
“Mind it?” Brenna let out a quick snorting laugh. “He comes in during one of our discussions and just grins like a fool. The man’s besotted with her. I believe she could say, well, let’s just have Brenna turn this house around to face the other way and he’d never bat an eye.” She sighed and sipped her tea. “It’s lovely to see, really, the way they are together.”
“She was what he was waiting for.” At Brenna’s puzzled look, Shawn shook his head. “Sure he was waiting. You’d only to study on him to see it. When she walked into the pub that first night, that was it. A life change from that instant, though neither of them knew it.”
“But you did?”
“I can’t say I knew precisely, just that I knew things would change.”
Intrigued, she leaned forward. “And what are you waiting for?”
“Me?” His eyebrow quirked. “Oh, things are fine as they are for me.”
“That’s a problem with you, Shawn.” She jabbed a finger at him. “You walk the same line until it becomes a rut, and never notice, for your head’s in the clouds in any case.”
“If it’s a rut it’s mine, and I’m comfortable in it.”
“What you need to do is take charge.” She remembered her father’s words. “To move forward. If you don’t move forward you’re always in the same place.”
Eyes mild and amused, he lifted his tea. “But I like this place.”
“I’m ready for a change, for moving forward.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied him. “And I don’t mind being the one who takes charge if that’s the way it has to be.”
“And what do you have a mind to take charge of this time around?”
“You.” She sat back, ignoring his smirk as he sipped tea. “I think we should have sex.”
He choked, spilling hot tea over his hand and onto his paper as he coughed violently. She made a quick sound of annoyance and dislodged an irritated Bub to get up and thump Shawn briskly on the back. “It can’t be that horrible a thought.”
“Jesus!” was the best he could manage. “Sweet Jesus Christ!” When she plopped into her chair again, he simply goggled at her with eyes that continued to water. Finally he sucked in a breath and blew it out again. “What kind of thing is that to say?”
“It’s plain speaking.” Determined to hold back both nerves and temper, she hooked an arm over the back of her chair. “The fact is, I’ve a yen for you. I’ve had it for some time.” This time his mouth fell open, and the shock on his face teased her temper closer to the surface. “What do you think? Only men can scratch an itch when they have one?”
He didn’t, of course he didn’t. But neither did he believe that one just plopped down in someone’s kitchen and announced it. “What would your mother think, hearing you talk this way?”
Brenna inclined her head. “She’s not here, is she?”
He pushed the chair back, abruptly enough to have Betty leap to her feet. Since none of the thoughts whirling around in his head would settle, he just marched to the door. “I need air.”
For a moment Brenna sat where she was. She ordered herself to take long, slow breaths, to wait until she could be calm. To be reasonable and mature and clearheaded. Reason fought against temper for nearly ten seconds before it turned tail and deserted the field.
The nerve of the man! The bloody nerve of him. What was she, some kind of gargoyle a man couldn’t think of cozying up to? Did she have to strut around in short skirts with her face painted before Shawn Gallagher took notice? The hell with that.
She was up and out the door and striding into the wind. “You’re not interested, that’s fine. You just say so.”
She caught up with him, planted herself in front of him. He solved that problem by turning around and walking the other way.
And was a lucky man she didn’t have a weapon in her hands.
“Don’t you walk away from me, you yellow coward dog.”
He shot a look over his shoulder, his eyes a ripe, glittering blue. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” He looked away and kept walking.
He was mortified, right down to the bone. And God help him, he was . . . stirred as well. He refused to think of her that way. And always had. Well, if a time or two his thoughts had veered off in that direction, hadn’t he cut them off, sharp and fast? And that’s just what he was going to do now.
“Ashamed?” Her voice punched like a fist. “Who the hell are you to decide what should shame me?”
“I’m the man you just offered yourself to as easy as if you were offering me a pint and some crisps.”
She’d caught up with him again, but his words struck her, drained the color from her face. “Is that what you think? That it’s nothing more than that? Then it’s you who should be ashamed.”
He could see the hurt in her eyes, and it only added to the mass of confusion he found himself tangled in. “Brenna, you don’t just go around saying let’s have sex to a man. It’s just not right.”
“But it’s fine for a man to go around saying it to a woman?”
“No. I don’t think that either. It’s a . . . it should . . . Mother of God, I can’t have a conversation like this with you. You’re all but family.”
/> “Why is it the men I know can’t speak of sex as a normal human function? And I’m not family.”
It might have been cowardice, he thought, but it was also discretion. He stepped back from her. “Stay away from me.”
“If you don’t want to go to bed with me, you’ve only to say that I don’t appeal to you in that fashion.”
“I’m not thinking about you in that fashion.” He took another step back, right through the little herb bed. “You’re practically my sister.”
She bared her teeth, a sure sign of temper about to snap. “But I’m not your bloody sister, am I?”
The wind caught her hair, sent it streaming so that he wanted to take it in his hands—something he might have done a hundred other times, when it would have been a harmless gesture.
Now he was afraid nothing between them would ever be harmless again.
“No, you’re not. But I’ve thought of you—tried to think of you—that way most of my life. How do you expect me to just flip that about and . . . I can’t do it,” he said quickly when his blood began to stir again. “It’s just not right.”
“You don’t want to have sex with me, that’s your business.” She nodded coolly. “Others do.” With this she turned on her heel and started to march toward home.
“Wait a damn minute.” He could move fast when he needed to, and he had her arm before she’d taken three full strides. He whirled her around and took as firm a hold on her other arm. “If you think I’m going to let you walk off with that in your head, you’re badly mistaken. I’m not about to have you go off and throw yourself at some man because you’re mad at me.”
The flash in her eyes should have been a warning, but her voice was so calm, so cool, he missed it. “You think far too much of yourself, Shawn Gallagher. If I want to be with a man, with him I’ll be. You’ve nothing to say about it. It may come as a shock to you, but I’ve had sex before, and I like it. I’ll have it again when I please.”
She might as well have plowed the business end of a sledgehammer into his gut. “You—who . . .”
“That’s a matter of my concern,” she interrupted with a smug look in her eye. “And none of yours. Now let go of me. I’ve nothing more to say to you.”
“Well, I’ve plenty more to say to you.” But he couldn’t think of a thing, not with images of Brenna wrapped around some faceless man burning into his brain.