“Murphy, if it’s the same to you. We’re in the way of being neighbors.”

“No, we’re not. But Murphy’s fine with me. Now, if you’ll excuse—” Instead of rising as she’d intended, she shrank back in the chair and let out a muffled squeal. Something sleek and fast came charging out of the shadows. And it growled.

“Con.” It took no more than the single quiet syllable from Murphy to have the dog skidding to a halt and flopping his tail. “He didn’t mean to scare you.” Murphy laid a hand on the dog’s head. “He’s been for his evening run, and sometimes when he comes across me, he likes to play. He wasn’t growling so much as talking.”

“Talking.” She shut her eyes as she waited for her heart to stop thudding. “Talking dogs, that’s all the evening needed.” Then Con padded over and, laying his head in her lap, looked soulfully into her face. Even an iceberg would have melted. “So, now you’re apologizing, I suppose, for scaring me out of my skin.” She lifted her gaze to Murphy. “The two of you are quite a pair.”

“I suppose we can both be clumsy at times.” In a graceful move that belied the words, he drew a clutch of wildflowers from behind his back. “Welcome to the county of Clare, Shannon Bodine. May your stay be as sweet and colorful as the blooms, and last longer.”

Flabbergasted, and damn it, charmed, she took the cheerful blossoms from him. “I thought you were an odd man, Murphy,” she murmured. “It seems I was right.” But her lips were curved as she rose. “Thank you.”

“Now, that’s something I’ll look forward to. Your smile,” he told her when she only lifted her brows. “It’s worth waiting for. Good night, Shannon. Sleep well.”

He walked away, turned again into a shadow. When the dog began to follow, he said something soft that had Con holding back and turning to wait by Shannon’s side.

As the fragrance of the blossoms she held teased her senses, the man called Murphy melted into the night.

“So much for first impressions,” Shannon said to the dog, then shook her head. “I think it’s time to go in. I must be more tired than I’d thought.”

Chapter
Six

Storms and white horses. Brutally handsome men and a circle of standing stones.

Pursued by dreams, Shannon had not spent a peaceful night.

And she woke freezing. That was odd, she thought, as the coals in the little fireplace across the room still glowed red, and she herself was buried to the chin under a thick, downy quilt. Yet her skin was icy to the point of making her shiver to warm it.

What was odder still was that she wasn’t merely cold. Until she felt her face for herself, she would have sworn she was wet—as if she’d been standing out in the middle of a rainstorm.