“Shut the door,” Brianna said automatically. She fought back embarrassment that he should have walked in on a family argument. She sighed once. The tiny shed was now crowded with people. “Was there something you needed, Grayson?”

“No.” He lifted a hand, brushing his thumb over the dirt on her cheek—a gesture that had Maggie’s eyes narrowing. “You have dirt on your face, Brie. What are you up to?”

“I’m trying to put in some seeds—but there’s hardly room for them now.”

“Mind your hands, boy-o,” Maggie muttered.

He only grinned and stuck them in his pockets. “I heard my name mentioned. Is there a problem?”

“There wouldn’t be if she wasn’t so stubborn.” Maggie tossed up her chin and decided to dump the blame at Gray’s feet. “She needs to go to Dublin next weekend, but she won’t leave you.”

Gray’s grin turned into a satisfied smile as his gaze shifted from Maggie to Brianna. “Won’t she?”

“You’ve paid for room and board,” Brianna began.

“Why do you need to go to Dublin?” he interrupted.

“Our uncle’s getting married,” Maggie told him. “He’ll want her there, and that’s as it should be. I say if she won’t leave you behind, she should take you along.”

“Maggie, Gray doesn’t want to be going off to a wedding, with people he doesn’t know. He’s working, and he can’t just—”

“Sure he does,” Gray cut her off. “When do we leave?”

“Good. You’ll stay at our house there. That’s settled.” Maggie brushed her hands together. “Now, who’s going to tell Mother?”

“I—”

“No, let me,” Maggie decided before Brianna could answer. She smiled. “She’ll really hate it. We’ll have the plane take her out Saturday morning so you won’t be badgered by her the whole trip. Have you a suit, Gray?”

“One or two,” he murmured.

“Then you’re set, aren’t you?” She leaned forward, kissed Brianna firmly on both cheeks. “Plan to leave Friday,” she ordered. “I’ll call you from Dublin.”

Gray ran his tongue around his teeth as Maggie slammed out. “Bossy, isn’t she?”

“Aye.” Brianna blinked, shook her head. “She doesn’t mean it. It’s just that she’s always sure she’s right. And she has a deep fondness for Uncle Niall and for Rogan’s grandmother.”

“Rogan’s grandmother.”

“That’s who he’s marrying.” She turned back to her potting, hoping to clear her mind with work.

“That sounds like a story.”

“Oh, it ’tis. Gray, it’s kind of you to be so obliging, but it’s not necessary. They won’t miss me, really, and it’s a lot of trouble for you.”

“A weekend in Dublin’s no trouble for me. And you want to go, don’t you?”

“That’s not the point. Maggie put you in a difficult position.”

He put a hand under her chin, lifted it. “Why do you have such a hard time answering questions? You want to go, don’t you? Yes or no.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, we go.”

Her lips started to curve, until he leaned toward them. “Don’t kiss me," she said, weakening.

“Now, that’s a lot of trouble for me.” But he reined himself in, leaned back. “Who hurt you, Brianna?”

Her lashes fluttered down, shielding her eyes. “It may be I don’t answer questions because you ask too many of them.”

“Did you love him?”

She turned her head, concentrated on her pots. “Yes, very much.”

It was an answer, but he found it didn’t please him. “Are you still in love with him?”

“That would be foolish.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Yes, it is. Do I breathe down your neck when you’re working?”

“No.” But he didn’t step back. “But you have such an appealing neck." To prove it, he bent down to brush his lips over the nape. It didn’t hurt his ego to feel her tremble. “I dreamed of you last night, Brianna. And wrote of it today.”

Most of her seeds scattered on the workbench instead of in the soil. She busied herself rescuing them. “Wrote of it?”

“I made some changes. In the book you’re a young widow who’s struggling to build on a broken past.”

Despite herself, she was drawn and turned to look at him. “You’re putting me in your book?”

“Pieces of you. Your eyes, those wonderful, sad eyes. Your hair.” He lifted a hand to it. “Thick, slippery hair, the color of the coolest sunset. Your voice, that soft lilt. Your body, slim, willowy, with a dancer’s unconscious grace. Your skin, your hands. I see you when I write, so I write of you.

And beyond the physical, there’s your integrity, your loyalty.” He smiled a little. “Your tea cakes. The hero’s just as fascinated with her as I am with you.”

Gray set his hands on the bench on either side of her, caging her in. “And he keeps running into that same shield you both have. I wonder how long it’ll take him to break it down.”

No one had ever said such words about her before, such words to her. A part of her yearned to wallow in them, as if they were silk. Another part stood cautiously back.

“You’re trying to seduce me.”

He lifted a brow. “How’m I doing?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“That’s a good start.” He leaned closer until his mouth was a whisper from hers. “Let me kiss you, Brianna.”

He already was in that slow, sinking way he had that turned all her muscles to mush. Mouth to mouth. It was such a simple thing, but it tilted every thing in her world. Further and further until she was afraid she would never right it again.

He had skill, and with skill a patience. Beneath both was the shimmer of repressed violence she once sensed in him. The combination seeped into her like a drug, weakening, dizzying.

She wanted, as a woman wanted. She feared, as innocence feared.

Gently he took the fingers she gripped on the edge of the bench, soothed them open. With his mouth skimming over hers, he lifted her arms.