Page 22 of Irish Rebel
“It’s not a situation if we don’t let it be one.” She wanted to rub a hand over her heart, to hold it there. It amazed her that he couldn’t hear it hammering. “We’re both grown-ups, able to take responsibility for our own actions. That was a momentary lapse on both our parts. It won’t happen again.”
“And if it does?”
“It won’t, because each of us has priorities and a... situation would complicate matters. We’ll forget it. Good night.”
She walked to the house. She didn’t run, though part of her wanted to. And another part, a part that brought her no pride, simply wanted him to stop her.
He’d hoped the time away in Florida with work at the center of his world would help him do just what she’d said to do. Forget it.
But he hadn’t, and couldn’t, and finally decided it had been a ridiculous thing for her to expect. Since he was suffering, he saw no reason why he should let her off so damn easy.
He knew how to handle women, he reminded himself. And princess or not, Keeley was a woman under it all. She was going to discover she couldn’t swat Brian Donnelly aside like a pesky fly.
He walked up from the stables, his bag slung over his shoulder. He’d yet to go to his quarters, and had slept very little on the drive back from Hialeah. He could have flown back, but the choice to stay with the horses and make the drive had been his.
His horses had done all he’d asked of them, made him proud at heart and plumper in the pocket. Seeing that they were delivered home and settled back again was the least he could do.
But right now he wanted nothing more than a hot shower, a shave and a decent cup of tea.
Though he’d have traded all of that for one more taste of Keeley.
Knowing it irritated him and had him scowling in the direction of her paddock. The minute he was cleaned up, he promised himself, the two of them would have a little conversation. Very little, he decided, before he got his hands on her again. And when he did, he was going to—
The erotic image he conjured in his head burst like a bubble when he rounded the house and saw Keeley’s mother kneeling at the flower bed.
It was not the most comfortable thing to come across the mother when you’d been picturing the daughter naked. Then Adelia looked over at him and he saw the tears on her cheeks. And his mind went blank.
“Ah... Mrs. Grant.”
“Brian.” Sniffling, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I was doing some weeding. Just tidying up the beds here.” She tugged at the cap on her head, then lowered her hands, and dropped back on her heels. “I’m sorry.”
“Ah...” Said that already, he thought, panicked. Say something else. He was never so helpless as he was with female tears.
“I’m missing Uncle Paddy. He left yesterday.” She didn’t quite muffle a sob. “I thought if I came by here and fiddled, I’d feel some better, but it’s knowing he’s not down at the stables, or up there. I know he had to go. I know he wanted to go. But...”
“Ah...” Oh hell. Frantic, Brian dug in his back pocket for his bandanna. “Maybe you should...”
“Thanks.” She took the cloth as he crouched beside her. “You’ll know what it’s like, I think, being away from family.”
“Well, mine’s not close, so to speak.”
“Family’s family.” She dried her face, blew out a breath.
She looked so young, he thought, and not like a mother at all, with her cap crooked on her head and her eyes drenched. He did what came natural for him, and took her hand.
For a moment, she leaned her head on his shoulder, sighed. “He changed everything for me, Paddy did, when he brought me here. I was so nervous coming all this way. New place, new people. A new country. And I hadn’t seen Paddy outside pictures for years, or even been face-to-face since I was a baby, but as soon as I saw him, it was all right again. I don’t know what I’d have done without him.”
It loosened the fist around her heart to talk. Soothed her that he gave her the quiet that was an offer to listen.
“I didn’t want to blubber in front of Travis and the children because they’re missing him, too. And I was holding on pretty well until I came down here. This is where I lived when I first came to Royal Meadows. In a pretty room with green walls and white curtains. I was so young.”
“I guess you’re old and decrepit now,” Brian said and was relieved when she laughed.
“Well, perhaps not quite decrepit, but I was greener then. I’d never seen a place like this in all my life, and I was going to be living right in the middle of it thanks to Paddy. If it hadn’t been for him, I don’t think Travis would ever have taken the likes of me on as a groom.”
“A groom.” Brian’s brows lifted. “I thought that was a made-up story.”
“Indeed it’s not,” she said with some heat—and an unmistakable touch of pride. “I earned my keep around here, make no mistake. I was a damn fine groom in my time. Majesty was mine.”
