Then Brianna glanced up, smiled. “I thought you were working.”

“I heard you on the intercom.” He gestured to the small monitor. He’d insisted they put them throughout the house. He crossed to them, crouched beside the rocker. “My ladies are so beautiful.”

With a light laugh Brianna leaned forward. “Kiss me, Grayson.”

He did, lingering over it, then shifted to brush his lips over Kayla’s head. “She’s hungry.”

“Has her father’s appetite.” Which turned her thoughts to more practical matters. “I left you some cold meat, and the bread’s fresh this morning. If there’s time, I’ll fix you something before I go.”

“Don’t worry about it. And if any of the guests come back from their ramblings before you do, I’ll put out the scones and make tea.”

“You’re becoming a fine hotelier, Grayson. Still, I don’t want you to interrupt your work.”

“The work’s going fine.”

“I can tell that. You’re not scowling, and I haven’t heard you pacing the floor upstairs for days.”

“There’s a murder-suicide,” he said with a wink. “Or what appears to be. It’s cheered me up.” Idly he traced a finger over her breast, just above his daughter’s head. Since his eyes were on Brianna’s he had the satisfaction of seeing the quick jolt of pleasure reflected in her eyes. “When I make love with you again, Brianna, it’s going to be like the first time.”

She let out an unsteady breath. “I don’t think it’s fair to seduce me when I’m nursing our daughter.”

“It’s fair to seduce you anytime.” He held up his hand, letting the sunlight glint off the gold of his wedding ring. “We’re married.”

“Put your glands on hold, Grayson Thane,” Maggie called out from the next room. “We’ve less than twenty minutes before we have to leave for the airport.”

“Spoilsport,” he muttered, but grinned as he rose. “I suppose I’ll have two of your sisters hounding me now.”

But Gray was the last thing on Shannon’s mind. She could see Ireland below from the window of the plane, the green of its fields, the black of its cliffs. It was beautiful, awesomely so, and oddly familiar.

She was already wishing she hadn’t come.

No turning back, she reminded herself. Foolish to even consider it. It might have been true that she’d made the decision to come on impulse, influenced by the drag of her own guilt and grief, and the simple understanding in Brianna’s letter. But she’d followed the impulse through, taking a leave of absence from her job, closing up her apartment, and boarding a plane for a three-thousand mile journey that was minutes away from being complete.

She’d stopped asking herself what she expected to find, or what she wanted to accomplish. She didn’t have the answers. All she knew was that she’d needed to come. To see, perhaps, what her mother had once seen. The doubts plagued her—worry that she was being disloyal to the only father she’d ever known, fears that she would suddenly find herself surrounded by relatives she had no desire to acknowledge.