But it was still an adventure. And he lived his life by them.

He’d had a flat outside of Limerick. A puncture, Gray corrected. When in Rome, speak the lingo. By the time he’d changed the tire, he’d looked and felt like a drowned rat, despite the macintosh he’d picked up in London the week before.

He’d gotten lost twice, finding himself creeping down narrow, winding roads that were hardly more than ditches. His research had told him that getting lost in Ireland was part of its charm.

He was trying hard to remember that.

He was hungry, soaked to the skin, and afraid he would run out of gas—petrol—before he found anything remotely like an inn or village.

In his mind he went over the map. Visualizing was a talent he’d been born with, and he could, with little effort, reproduce every line of the careful map his hostess had sent him.

The trouble was, it was pitch dark, the rain washed over his windshield like a roaring river, and the wind was buffeting his car on this godforsaken excuse for a road as if the Mercedes was a Tinkertoy.

He wished violently for coffee.

When the road forked, Gray took his chances and guided the car to the left. If he didn’t find the inn or something like in it another ten miles, he’d sleep in the damn car and try again in the morning.

It was a pity he couldn’t see any of the countryside. He had a feeling in the dark desolation of the storm it would be exactly what he was looking for. He wanted his book here, among the cliffs and fields of western Ireland, with the fierce Atlantic threatening, and the quiet villages huddled against it. And he might just have his tired, world-weary hero arriving in the teeth of a gale.

He squinted into the gloom. A light? He hoped to Christ it was. He caught a glimpse of a sign, swinging hard in the wind. Gray reversed, aimed the headlights, and grinned.

The sign read Blackthorn Cottage. His sense of direction hadn’t failed him after all. He hoped his hostess proved out the legend of Irish hospitality—he was two days early after all. And it was two in the morning.

Gray looked for a driveway, saw nothing but soaked hedges. With a shrug, he stopped the car in the road, pocketed the keys. He had all he’d need for the night in a knapsack on the seat beside him. Swinging it with him, he left the car where it was and stepped into the storm.

It slapped him like an angry woman, all teeth and nails. He staggered, almost plowed through the drenched hedges of fuchsia, and through more luck than design all but ran into the garden gate. Gray opened it, then fought it closed again. He wished he could see the house more clearly. There was only an impression of shape and size through the dark, with that single light shining in the window upstairs.

He used it like a beacon and began to dream of coffee.

No one answered his knock. With the wind screaming, he doubted anyone would hear a battering ram. It took him less than ten seconds to decide to open the door himself.

Again, there were only impressions. The storm at his back, the warmth within. There were scents—lemon, polish, lavender, and rosemary. He wondered if the old Irishwoman who ran the inn made her own potpourri. He wondered if she’d wake up and fix him a hot meal.

Then he heard the growl—deep, feral—and tensed. His head whipped up, his eyes narrowed. Then his mind, for one stunning moment, blanked.

Later, he would think it was a scene from a book. One of his own perhaps. The beautiful woman, the long white gown billowing, her hair spilling like fired gold down her shoulders. Her face was pale in the swaying light of the candle she held in one hand. Her other hand was clutched at the collar of a dog that looked and snarled like a wolf. A dog whose shoulders reached her waist.

She stared down at him from the top of the steps, like a vision he had conjured. She might have been carved from marble, or ice. She was so still, so utterly perfect.

Then the dog strained forward. With a movement that rippled her gown, she checked him.

“You’re letting the rain in,” she said in a voice that only added to the fantasy. Soft, musical, lilting of the Ireland he’d come to discover.

“Sorry.” He fumbled behind him for the door, shutting it so that the storm became only a backdrop.

Her heart was still thudding. The noise and Con’s response had wakened her from a dream of pursuit and terror. Now, Brianna stared down at a man in black, shapeless but for his face, which was shadowed. When he stepped closer, she kept her trembling hand tight on Con’s collar.

A long, narrow face, she saw now. A poet’s face with its dark, curious eyes and solemn mouth. A pirate’s face, hardened by those prominent bones and the long sun-streaked hair that curled damp around it.

Silly to be afraid, she scolded herself. He was just a man, after all.

“Are you lost, then?” she asked him.

“No.” He smiled, slow, easy. “I’m found. This is Blackthorn Cottage?”

“It is, yes.”

“I’m Grayson Thane. I’m a couple days early, but Miss Concannon’s expecting me.”

“Oh.” Brianna murmured something to the dog Gray didn’t catch, but it had the effect of relaxing those bunched canine muscles. “I was looking for you on Friday, Mr. Thane. But you’re welcome.” She started down the steps, the dog at her side, the candlelight wavering. “I’m Brianna Concannon.” She offered a hand.

He stared at it a moment. He’d been expecting a nice, homey woman with graying hair tucked back in a bun. “I woke you,” he said foolishly.

“We usually sleep here in the middle of the night. Come in by the fire." She walked to the parlor, switching on the lights. After setting the candle aside, blowing it out, she turned to take his wet coat. “It’s a terrible night for traveling.”

“So I discovered.”

He wasn’t shapeless under the mac. Though he wasn’t as tall as Brianna’s uneasy imagination had made him, he was lean and wiry. Like a boxer, she thought, then smiled at herself. Poet, pirate, boxer. The man was a writer, and a guest. “Warm yourself, Mr. Thane. I’ll make you some tea, shall I? Or would you rather I . . .” She’d started to offer to show him to his room, and remembered that she was sleeping in it.

“I’ve been dreaming of coffee for the last hour. If it isn’t too much trouble.”

“It’s not a problem. No problem at all. Make yourself comfortable.”

It was too pretty a scene to spend alone, he decided. “I’ll just come in the kitchen with you. I feel bad enough about dragging you out of bed at this hour.” He held out a hand for Con to sniff. “This is some dog. For a minute I took him for a wolf.”