“But I’m here often enough to keep an eye on things, and to see that Brianna isn’t overtaxed.”

“Brianna can keep an eye on herself,” said the woman in question as she came back into the kitchen. “Gray, leave some of those tarts for Rogan.”

“See?”

Gray merely sneered at Maggie and pulled his wife down in the chair beside him. “Aren’t you hungry, Murphy?”

Because that unblinking stare was beginning to annoy her, Shannon drummed her fingers on the table. “Mr. Muldoon’s too busy staring at me to bother eating.”

“Clod,” Maggie muttered and jabbed Murphy with an elbow.

“I beg your pardon.” Murphy snatched up his teacup hastily enough to have it slop over the rim. “I was woolgathering is all. I should get back.” And maybe when he returned to his own fields he’d find his sanity waiting. “Thank you, Brie, for the tea. Welcome to Ireland, Miss Bodine.”

He grabbed his cap, stuffed it on his head, and hurried out.

“Well, never did I think to see the day that Murphy Muldoon left his plate full.” Baffled, Maggie rose to take it to the counter. “I’ll just take it for Rogan.”

“Yes, do,” Brianna said absently. “Do you think he’s coming down with something? He didn’t look himself.”

Shannon thought he’d looked healthy enough, and with a shrug forgot the odd Mr. Muldoon and finished her tea.

Later when the sky was just losing its bloom of blue and edging toward gray, Shannon took a tour through Brianna’s back gardens. Her hostess had wanted her, quite clearly, to vacate the kitchen after the family’s evening meal. No particular fan of washing dishes, Shannon had agreed to the suggestion that she take some air and enjoy the quiet of evening.

It was certainly the place to do nothing, Shannon decided, intrigued as she strolled around the outside of a greenhouse. Though it appeared Brianna rarely took advantage of comfortable laziness.

What didn’t the woman do? Shannon wondered. She cooked, ran the equivalent of a small, exclusive hotel, cared for an infant, gardened, enticed a very attractive man, and managed to look like some magazine shot of Irish Country Times while she was at it.

After circling the greenhouse, she spotted a picturesque sitting area on the edge of a bed of impatiens and violas. She settled into the wooden chair, found it as comfortable as it looked, and decided she wouldn’t think about Brianna, or Maggie, or the household she was a temporary part of. She would, for just a little while, think of nothing at all.

The air was soft and fragrant. There was a pretty chiming from a copper hanging of fairies near a window close by. She thought she heard the low of a cow in the distance—a sound as foreign to her world as the legend of leprechauns or banshees.

Murphy’s farm, she supposed. She hoped, for his sake, he was a better farmer than conversationalist.

A wave of fatigue washed over her, the jet lag her nerves had held at bay for hours. She let it come now, cocoon her and blur the edges of too many worries.