by Mimi Riser
Chapter 2
Sharon stared out the window as the Connacht countryside rolled by. Erin has long been known as the Emerald Isle, but in the soft rain the landscape looked more gray and brown than green. Still, there was a wild and winsome beauty about the ancient low hills and fairy fields that tugged at her heart and soul, and the purplish-gray mist that was settling in over all gave the land a luminous, gloomy splendor. An enchanted land.
Now and then, as the car rounded a narrow bend or climbed over a knobby rise, a whitewashed stone cottage with a thatched roof would come into view, but except for those signs of human habitation, she and Rory might have been the only people in the world. Just the two of them…
How lovely. Not.
They’d sat thus, without speaking, for miles and miles, each deep in their own thoughts. At the start of the drive Rory had made a few tentative attempts to draw Sharon into conversation, but her short, terse answers put an end to his efforts. She was friendly by nature, and enjoyed banter of the sort she’d shared with Bartley, but she didn’t encourage jerks. And she had an “Irish temper,” her grandmother had often said. Woe to the person who set her off.
Occasionally a scraggly cow would wander across the road, and Rory would brake sharply to avoid hitting it. When that happened, or when he took a curve too fast—which was always—Sharon would hang on to her seat to keep from being thrown against him. The mere thought of physical contact with such an aggravating man filled her stomach with butterflies.
Yeah, he made her nervous. The more so because you had to concede he was handsome—which, at the moment, seemed just one more black mark against him. The fiery rage he’d first stirred in her had burned down to the slow seething coals of resentment, and she couldn’t help being a bit curious about him—couldn’t resist a few furtive glances, studying him on the sly.
He appeared to be older than she, but not by many years—twenty-five, she guessed his age—with thick dark hair and devil-dark eyes, a face and form put together with artistic perfection. His features could pass for those of a classical sculpture. Damn him.
He wasn’t as big as Bartley—who was?—but still tall and formidable looking. Even seated, he towered over her, and there was a tension in the muscles that showed beneath his closefitting jersey that gave Sharon the impression of a great reserve of strength, like that of some wildcat, and just as deadly. Her hackles rose, sensing danger—but what sort, she wasn’t sure.
Rory finally broke the silence. “If you’re going to sit there and sulk the whole way to Galway, I’m sorry I ever went to the trouble of fetching you from Shannon.”
“Believe me, you’re not half as sorry about it as I am,” Sharon muttered under her breath.
“Now there’s a fine, gracious girl for you! So appreciative, such winning manners,” he scoffed.
“Look who’s talking. If I’d known there was anyone as obnoxious as you over here, I’d have thought twice before coming to Ireland—will or no will.”
“As it is, you didn’t think about it at all, now did you?” he challenged. “Tell me, do you always ‘leap before looking,’ or was it just greed this time that made you incautious?”
Say what?
Something snapped.
Something called the Last Straw.
Sharon snapped with it.
How could even he be so cruelly insensitive as to accuse her of such a cold, callous motive?
“Listen, buster, it that were the kind of girl I am, I’d have married Oliver ‘Wealthy’ Winthrop!”
“Oliver?”
“Never mind! How dare you? You know nothing about me or my reasons. How could you… Oh! Just let me out!”
Sharon had been dealing with a lot lately. Ever since Mr. Skerrett’s astonishing letter she’d been riding a roller coaster of emotional turmoil, dizzy highs and anxious lows. This last low dip—or, rather, dipshit—was too much. And to Sharon “too much” meant run—not as in fleeing, but simply in the sense of moving fast. Somewhere. Anywhere. She needed open air and space, and most of all motion. An inbred reflex. As a child, helping her equestrian grandmother, she’d galloped off a lot of frustrations and pent-up energy on horseback.
“Joseph, Mary and St. Patrick,” Rory swore—or maybe he was merely praying for help. He needed it. Sharon was ready to kill him. To protect herself from a homicide charge she had to put some distance between them.
“Let. Me. Out.”
Rory accelerated. “What a temperamental little filly you are. You need a good checkrein to settle you down.”
An Irish temper erupted in full flaming glory. She wondered Rory didn’t smell the smoke, hear the crackle of the blaze. Perhaps he did. He certainly heard her when she screamed at the top of her lungs.
“Stop this car! Now!”
“Mother have mercy—” He slammed on the brakes.
She was out the door and running as soon as they’d skidded to a halt.
“Sharon!” Rory raced after her, the two of them dashing across a field and scaring a stray sheep. He caught up with her before she’d gone a few hundred yards, sweeping her off her feet and locking her against his chest. “Sharon, for the love of God, calm yourself—”
“I’ll ‘calm’ you! Let go!” She struggled against him, kicking and flailing in a vain attempt to break free. “Put me down, you son of a bitch!”
And he did—way down.
Obliging bastard, wasn’t he?
Abruptly she found herself face down over Rory’s knee staring at the soggy turf while he delivered several slaps to the upturned seat of her jeans—not hard slaps, not much more than taps—but it was the principle of the thing.
“Now I warned you that would happen if I heard any more foul language from you.” He hoisted her to her feet. “You’re far too dainty a colleen to be swearing like a common sailor.”
Sharon stared at the grass stained toes of her sneakers, a hot flush creeping over her. Never before in her entire life had anyone spanked her, and fury had fled in the face of the startling experience. Now, without anger to bolster her courage, she was way too aware of Rory’s male presence only inches away…too aware of her body’s reaction to his. It rattled her more than anything else that had happened in the last crazy couple of days.
“Why did you run off like that?” His rich baritone broke through the pounding in her ears. “Where did you think you were going?”
“It didn’t matter where. Running is how I blow off steam,” she admitted, not daring to meet his eyes. She’d have given almost anything to increase the airspace between them, but his hands were resting on her shoulders, and she didn’t have the nerve to step back from him for fear he might draw her even closer. “I just…wanted to get away.”
“From me, darlin’?”
The softness of his tone sliced through her like a blade, more disconcerting than either his anger or sarcasm had been. More menacing. She suddenly felt like a lamb that had been caught by a lion, prepared for a fearsome roar, but not knowing what to do upon finding the beast purring. Anger she could deal with—at least recognize—but the feeling that now flooded her was something quite new, and she wasn’t at all sure she liked it. How could you like something that surged through you like a megawatt electric charge?
“Well?” With a gentle flick of his hand he tilted up her chin so she was forced to look at him.
For a long, scary and scorching moment her gaze was held captive in the smoldering dark depths of his eyes.
But what was that twinkle she saw there?
Amusement?
Laughter!
He thought this was funny, apparently thought she was a fool. Bastard. And just when she’d begun to feel something for him besides disgust.
“You’re despicable.” She twisted out of his grasp and stomped back to the car.
She didn’t see the confused, rather pained expression that clouded Rory’s face, nor the hard look of resolve that replaced it. But she did notice a definite chill in his demeanor as he climbe
d in after her. And for some unknown reason she felt a strong urge to cry.
She got over it.
As soon as Rory opened his mouth, in fact, fresh pique chased the baffling blues away.
“We could stop for tea in the next village,” he said stiffly, “but I’d rather keep moving, or we’ll never reach the house before dark.”
And who wanted to be stuck in a dark car with him? He was difficult enough in the daylight.
“No problem, I can wait,” Sharon said almost too agreeably.
Rory slanted her a suspicious look. “Fine. Then we’ll eat at home. My housekeeper sets a grand table, she does.”
“Wait a minute… Your house?” No way José. “I’d really rather go straight to Ramhaillim, if you don’t mind.”
“And if I do?”
Too bad. She still wanted to go.
“Rory, what’s the big deal? Can’t you just drop me off there on your way home?… Why are you laughing?”
“Why do you think?” He grinned. Not pleasantly.
Oh God, she smelled it coming.
“Sharon, Ramhaillim is my home.”
Shit.
“Mr. Skerrett”—he spat out the name (this subject was obviously a real sore spot with him)—“failed to tell you the whole story. Only half of Ramhaillim is yours. The rest belongs to me.”
“Terrific.”
“Sure and you can well look glum. The news didn’t come as any great tidings of joy to me either. But then, what should it matter to you?” he muttered more to himself than to her. “You’re in a position where you can only gain—you haven’t lost a thing. Blasted will.”
Oh, so that was the problem. No wonder he’d called her greedy. Rory saw her as an intruder, some usurper who’d snuck into the picture behind his back and taken what he considered to be rightfully his.
How awfully flattering—with the emphasis on awful.
She gave him a wounded look (he was lucky she didn’t give him a black eye).
“Hey, I resent that. You can’t blame me for Aunt Deirdre’s will—I didn’t have a thing to do with it. Why, it was a bigger surprise to me than anyone else. And furthermore”—she plowed forward, scarcely taking time to draw breath let alone to think—“there’s nothing you can do about it now anyway. So you may as well be happy with your half, because you’re not getting mine. Aunt Deirdre left it to me fair and square—she must’ve had good reasons for wanting me to have it—and I intend to keep it, no matter what you say or do. As far as I’m concerned, this is just what you deserve for counting your chickens before they were hatched,” she ended the tirade on a somewhat obscure note of self-righteousness.
“What in creation is the girl raving about?” Rory inquired of the air in helpless bewilderment. “Counting my chickens…?” He looked askance at Sharon. “Listen, colleen”—he spoke in that soothing but terribly condescending tone a parent might use on an overwrought child—“no one is disputing your right to the half of Ramhaillim my step-grandmother so graciously bequeathed you. Just calm your frantic little mind. None of us knows exactly how the property is to be divided until the reading of the will. Mr. Skerrett hasn’t even let me see the blasted thing yet,” he added, clearly aggravated he had no personal control over the situation. It evidently was a position he wasn’t used to finding himself in.
Sharon, on the other hand, was familiar with her position. Unfortunately. Too late, as usual, she realized she’d jumped the gun again. And Rory’s superior attitude did nothing to ease her embarrassment. Still, it was some consolation to see that he couldn’t have things his own way all the time.
She settled back into her seat, an almost satisfied grin on her face, as the combination of jetlag, the car’s motion and the purr of its engine lulled her into a dreamless slumber. She never even noticed the car slowing briefly, some minutes later, when Rory draped his jacket over her.