Luke regarded her with astonishment. “The one thing has nothing to do with the other,” he said. “We’re talking about your grandfather and Gram. They’re at an entirely different stage of their lives. They have the leisure to do whatever they like. You have this wonderful opportunity waiting for you in Dublin. I thought you were excited to be testing your wings at that. And I have this place to launch and manage and figure out how to make a success of it. I assumed you wanted to go home and that it would be selfish of me to suggest that you change your plans.”
“Which leaves us precisely where?” she asked. “Is there some sort of timetable in that logical, orderly head of yours?”
“Not really,” he admitted.
“So, what? If I happen to cross your mind, you’ll give me a call or send an email? If you’ve a free moment, you might fly over for a visit someday? Or if I have a sudden urge, I can do the same thing? Is it all that casual to you, then?”
“Yes,” he said, then immediately saw the mistake of his quick response in the darkening of her eyes. “I mean, no, not the way you’re taking it.”
“I don’t think there are that many different interpretations,” she said. She stood up. “I need to get to Nell’s.”
“No,” he argued. “You need to stay here so we can finish this conversation.”
She gave him a sad look. “I think we just did.”
And then, before he could react, she’d grabbed her jacket and purse and was gone.
The man was an idiot, pure and simple, Moira thought as she plodded her way back toward Nell’s cottage. There wasn’t a question in her mind that she’d be safe enough walking home at this late hour, but she did shiver as a breeze blew in off the bay. There was a storm brewing. She could feel it in the air. Anyone from Ireland would have recognized the signs.
The chilly rain started to fall just as she started up the road to Nell’s. She still had at least a half-mile walk ahead of her. She heard the car before the headlights appeared as it came around a bend in the road. It pulled to a stop beside her.
“Get in,” Luke said.
“I’m almost there. I can walk,” she said, still moving forward.
“Do not make me stop this car to drag you in here,” he said, clearly beyond annoyed.
“Go home, Luke. I’ll be fine.”
“And I thought my family was stubborn,” he groused, cutting the engine and climbing out of the car.
She turned to warn him off. “I’m not getting into that car with you and if you try to drag me in, I’ll scream my head off.”
He shook his head. “I’m sure you will, so I’ll just walk along with you, and we’ll both risk pneumonia. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, but I can’t allow you to walk home at this hour alone.”
“It’s perfectly safe. Besides, I’m almost there.”
“And if you walk in looking like a drowned rat and you’re all by yourself, I’ll never hear the end of it,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets and falling into an easy stride next to her.
She could tell there was absolutely no way she was going to shake him. Still, she tried again. “Luke, no one will be up. I won’t tell a soul that I walked home by myself in the pouring rain. Your honor will be perfectly intact come morning.”
“Not taking the chance,” he said, matching her stubbornness.
She uttered a sigh of resignation. “Whatever made me think we were a good match?”
He actually had the audacity to chuckle at that. “I could show you, if you’d like to pause for a moment.”
“We’re out here in the pouring rain, and you’re thinking of sex?” she asked incredulously.
“You always make me think of sex,” he responded.
She rounded on him then, not sure whether to be appalled or pleased by the remark. “Seriously?”
“Always,” he reiterated.
“Even now, when I’m mad at you and being difficult and arbitrary and stubborn?”
“A few of your more alluring traits,” he insisted.
“Now you’re just hoping to get lucky, after all,” she said.
They walked in silence a little farther before he slanted a look in her direction. “Did it work? Am I going to get lucky?”
“Not in your grandmother’s house, that’s for sure,” she retorted.
“That wasn’t exactly a no,” he said hopefully. “Was it?”
“Alas, no,” she said, regretting how easily he managed to ease past her defenses and defuse her temper. “I suppose we should make a U-turn and head back to your car.”
She thought she glimpsed a smile on his lips just then. “Are you smiling?” she asked. “Please tell me that is not a smug smile I just saw on your face.”
“No smile,” he said at once.
She elbowed him lightly in the side. “Yes, it was. It’s absolutely pitiful how easy I am.”
“Easy?” he echoed, sounding incredulous.
She laughed. “You know what I mean. It’s impossible to stay mad at you even half as long as you deserve.”
“I’m glad,” he told her.
“Yes, you would be, wouldn’t you? It works out quite nicely for you.”
Just before he opened the car door for her, he looked into her eyes. “I’ll do my best to make sure it works out nicely for you as well.”
And she knew he would. That, perhaps, was the reason it was going to be all but impossible for her to ever walk away and make it stick.
Sunday dinner at Mick and Megan’s was yet another of those O’Brien family
