The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

so hard to display. “Let go of me, you gnat-assed bully.” Her voice spiked upward as she struggled. They very nearly plowed Darcy over when she came in while they were going out. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve no right hauling me about. I’m telling Ma.”
    “Oh, fine, you go ahead.” Without breaking stride, or loosening her grip, Brenna yanked her sister into the snug at the end of the bar, then shut the door of the little private room. “You go right ahead, you lamebrain, and I’ll be sure to tell her how you were throwing yourself at Shawn Gallagher.”
    “I was not.” Freed, Mary Kate sniffed, lifted her chin, and very meticulously smoothed down the sleeves of her best dress.
    “You were all but biting his neck when I walked in. What’s got into you? The man’s nearly thirty, and you barely twenty. Do you know what you’re asking for when you rub your breasts up against a man that way?”
    Mary Kate merely lowered her gaze to her sister’s baggy sweater. “At least I have breasts.”
    It was a sore point, a very tender area, as Brenna had resented the fact that every one of her sisters, including young Alice Mae, had more bosom than she did. “That being the case, you ought to have more respect for them than to go shoving them into a man’s face.”
    “I was not. And I’m not a child who needs to be lectured by the likes of you, Mary Brenna O’Toole.” She stiffened her spine, rolled back her shoulders. “I’m a grown woman now. I’ve been to university. I have a career.”
    “Oh, that’s fine, then. I suppose it’s past time you jump the first man who catches your fancy and take a wild ride.”
    “He’s not the first who’s caught it.” With a slow smile that made Brenna’s eyes go cold and narrow, Mary Kate tossed her hair. “But caught it he has, and there’s no reason not to let him know it. It’s my business, Brenna. And not yours.”
    “Oh, you’re my business, all right. Are you still a virgin?”
    The utter shock in Mary Kate’s eyes was enough to reassure Brenna that her sister hadn’t been throwing herself naked around the corridors of the university in Dublin. But before she could so much as sigh, Mary Kate’s temper lashed out. “Who the hell are you thinking you are? My romantic dealings are my business. You’re not my mother or my priest, so mind your own.”
    “You are my own.”
    “Just stay out of it, Brenna. I’ve a right to talk to Shawn or go out with him or anything else I choose. And if you think you’ll go running to Ma with tales on my behavior, well, we’ll just see what she thinks about how I came on you and Darcy playing poker with your holy cards.”
    “That was years ago.” But Brenna felt a little panic at the thought. Her mother wouldn’t consider the years between. “Harmless girls’ foolishness. What I came in on in the kitchen isn’t harmless, Mary Kate, but it is foolish. I don’t want to see you hurt.”
    “I can take care of myself.” Mary Kate gave one last toss of her head. “If you want to be jealous because I know how to attract a man instead of going about trying to be one, that’s your problem. Not mine.”
    The slice came so fast and true, Brenna stood frozen, hardly realizing that she bled until Mary Kate stormed out and slammed the door behind her. Tears stung at her eyes and made her want to slide into one of the old sugan chairs and just let them come.
    She wasn’t trying to be a man, she was just trying to be herself.
    And she’d only wanted to protect her sister. To stop her before she did something that would hurt or embarrass her. Or worse.
    It was all Shawn’s fault, she decided. The little voice inside her head that whispered differently was ignored. It was Shawn’s fault for luring her young and innocent sister into infatuation, and she was just going to deal with that right this minute.
    She strode out, shaking her head as Aidan shifted to lay a hand on her arm and ask her what was the matter. When she stalked into the kitchen now, her eyes were bright. But not with tears. It was something closer to murder.
    “Now, why did you go dragging Mary Kate out like that for, Brenna? We were just—”
    He broke off because she’d marched up to him, the toes of her boots ramming hard against the toes of his, and her finger was drilling a hole in his chest. “You just keep your hands off my sister.”
    “What on God’s green earth are you talking about?”
    “You know damn well what