He’d been sitting near the low fire all along, watching her while he eased a quiet tune out of a concertina. Looking at her had fuddled his mind again, slowed his tongue, so he was glad he’d had time to gather his wits before Gray led her to his table.

“Are you entertaining us tonight, Murphy?” Brianna asked as she sat.

“Myself mostly.” He was grateful his fingers didn’t fumble like his brain when Gray nudged Shannon into a chair. All he could see for a heartbeat of time were her eyes, pale and clear and wary. “Hello, Shannon.”

“Murphy.” There’d been no gracious way to avoid taking the chair Gray had pulled out for her—the one that put her nearly elbow to elbow with Murphy. She felt foolish that it would matter. “Where’d you learn to play?”

“Oh, I picked it up here and there.”

“Murphy has a natural talent for instruments,” Brianna said proudly. “He can play anything you hand him.”

“Really?” His long fingers certainly seemed clever enough, and skilled enough, on the complicated buttons of the small box. Still, she thought he must know the tune well as he never glanced down at what he was doing. He only stared at her. “A musical farmer,” she murmured.

“Do you like music?” he asked her.

“Sure. Who doesn’t like music?”

He paused long enough to pick up his pint, sip. He supposed he’d have to get used to his throat going dry whenever she was close. “Is there a tune you’d like to hear?”

She lifted a shoulder, let it fall casually. But she was sorry he’d stopped playing. “I don’t know much about Irish music.”

Gray leaned forward. “Don’t ask for ‘Danny Boy,’ ” he warned in a whisper.

Murphy grinned at him. “Once a Yank,” he said lightly and ordered himself to relax again. “A name like Shannon Bodine, and you don’t know Irish music?”

“I’ve always been more into Percy Sledge, Aretha Franklin.”

With his eyes on hers and a grin at the corners of his mouth he started a new tune. The grin widened when she laughed.

“It’s the first time I’ve heard ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’ on a mini accordion.”

“ ’Tis a concertina.” He glanced over at a shout. “Ah, there’s my man.”

Young Liam Sweeney scrambled across the room and climbed into Murphy’s lap. He aimed a soulful look. “Candy.”

“You want your mum to scrape the skin off me again?” But Murphy looked over, noted that Maggie had stopped at the bar. He reached into his pocket and took out a wrapped lemon drop. “Pop it in quick, before she sees us.”

It was obviously an old routine. Shannon watched Liam cuddle closer to Murphy, his tongue caught between his tiny teeth as he dealt with the wrapping.

“So, it’s family night out, is it?” Maggie crossed over, laid her hands on the back of Brianna’s chair. “Where’s the baby?”

“Diedre snatched her.” Automatically Brianna scooted over so that Maggie could draw up another chair.

“Hello, Shannon.” The greeting was polite and coolly formal before Maggie’s gaze shifted, narrowed expertly on her son. “What have you there, Liam?”

“Nothing.” He grinned over his lemon drop.

“Nothing indeed. Murphy, you’re paying for his first cavity.” Then her attention shifted again. Shannon saw the tall dark man come toward the table, two cups stacked in one hand, a pint glass in the other. “Shannon Bodine, my husband, Rogan Sweeney.”

“It’s good to meet you.” After setting down the drinks, he took her hand, smiling with a great deal of charm. Whatever curiosity there was, was well hidden. “Are you enjoying your visit?”

“Yes, thank you.” She inclined her head. “I suppose I have you to thank for it.”

“Only indirectly.” He pulled up a chair of his own, making it necessary for Shannon to slide another inch or two closer to Murphy. “Hobbs tells me you work for Ry-Tilghmanton. We’ve always used the Pryce Agency in America.”

Shannon lifted a brow. “We’re better.”

Rogan smiled. “Perhaps I’ll look into that.”

“This isn’t a business meeting,” his wife complained. “Murphy, won’t you play something lively?”

He slipped easily into a reel, pumping quick, complicated notes out of the small instrument. Conversation around them became muted, punctuated by a few laughs, some hand clapping as a man in a brimmed hat did a fast-stepping dance on his way to the bar.

“Do you dance?” Murphy’s lips were so close to her ear, Shannon felt his breath across her skin.

“Not like that.” She eased back, using her glass as a barrier. “I suppose you do. That’s part of it, right?”

He tilted his head, as amused as he was curious. “Being Irish you mean?”

“Sure. You dance . . .” She gestured with her glass. “Drink, brawl, write melancholy prose and poetry. And enjoy your image as suffering, hard-fisted rebels.”

He considered a minute, keeping time with the tap of a foot. “Well, rebels we are, and suffering we’ve done. It seems you’ve lost your connection.”

“I never had one. My father was third- or fourth-generation, and my mother had no family I knew about.”

That brought a frown to her eyes, and though he was sorry for it, Murphy wasn’t ready to let it go.

“But you think you know Ireland, and the Irish.” Someone else had gotten up to dance, so he picked up a new tune to keep them happy. “You’ve watched some Jimmy Cagney movies on the late-night telly, or listened to Pat O’Brien playing his priests.” When her frown deepened, he smiled blandly. “Oh, and there’d be the Saint Patrick’s parade down your Fifth Avenue.”

“So?”

“So, it tells you nothing, does it? You want to know the Irish, Shannon, then you listen to the music. The tune, and the words when there are words to hear. And when you hear it, truly, you might begin to know what makes us. Music’s the heart of any people, any culture, because it comes from the heart.”

Intrigued despite herself, she glanced down at his busy fingers. “Then I’m to think the Irish are carefree and quick on their feet.”