Page 65 of Beauty and the Thief

“So am I.”

He kissed her in truth then, and she was glad he held her because her knees felt too weak to support her weight. The taste of him was intoxicating, and the way he teased her mouth open and entered her was enough to make her tremble. She grasped his coat and dug in, looking for something to hold onto while her senses reeled and her desire crashed over her common sense.

Callahan pulled back, righting her, but keeping his arm about her waist so she didn’t stumble.

“That’s enough! You want more than that, you’ll have to go down the street and pay to watch. This is a respectable establishment.”

The crowd roared with laughter, and though Bridget could hear them, their faces were a sea of color.

“Hear, hear!” said Donnelly, raising a glass. “Let’s have some music.”

A fiddler stepped on a chair and began to play, and Bridget smiled her thanks at Donnelly. She didn’t know where he had come from or if he’d been there the whole time, but he’d taken the attention off her.

“What should I do now?” she asked Callahan before he went for a bottle to fill another man’s order.

“Stay nearby, and let them see your carrots, lass.”

She narrowed her eyes. “That sounds almost indecent.”

He laughed and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. That one had not been for the crowd.

***

SHE MOVED AMONG THE men at the bar easily, far more easily than Cal would have thought without that clipboard in her hand. She smiled and joked and never forgot her accent. It wasn’t perfect. She slipped, and some words sounded far too British to his ears, but that could be accounted for if she’d spent some time in England.

He couldn’t gauge yet if Innishfree had taken note of her. She was one of only a handful of women in the pub, so she was hard not to note. They hadn’t seemed to take any notice of him. He’d gone over to their table several times to take orders and try to start idle chitchat, but they hadn’t seemed interested. He couldn’t push without risking suspicion, and if suspicion looked like the man he’d met in the cellar of the farmhouse, he wanted to avoid it at all costs. And yet he needed to get close to them, gain their trust, find out what they were planning.

At closing, Bridget helped him toss out the last remaining patrons, men too drunk to walk on their own. She’d skillfully guided them out, avoiding their grabbing hands and, in one case, vomit.

“You do that as though you were born to it,” he said, locking the door behind them.

“I was.”

He frowned at the cryptic remark, but she had her back to him, collecting glasses in her hands and carrying them to the bar. “Tell me we have servants to wash all these glasses. Mrs. Gallagher has gone home.”

He bowed. “At your service, my lady.”

She sighed. “Even I’m not cruel enough to leave all this work to you.”

“Sure and you wish you were back at The Farm now.”

She leaned on the bar and seemed to consider this. “Actually, no. Everything there was predictable and tedious. This is”—she looked about—“new.”

“I’m sure the shine will wear off soon enough.”

“Then I’ll have only the memories.” Her eyes lifted to meet his before she looked down again. She looked pretty tonight. She always looked pretty, but tonight especially in her yellow dress and with her hair rumpled from a day’s work, she looked exceptionally pretty. He set his glasses on the bar beside her.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen your hair out of place.”

She reached up to straighten it, but he grasped her hands. “I like it. You always looked too prim and proper before. Untouchable.”

“And I look touchable now?”

He nodded. “Very touchable.”

She looked at where his hand wrapped about her own. “Is that the only place you want to touch?”

“Oh, but you’re like a match to a flame. I don’t even think you know the danger.”

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