The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

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.
    She tossed back her head, and her eyes burned once more into his. “Do you want to have sex