“Diedre snatched her.” Automatically Brianna scooted over so that Maggie could draw up another chair.

“Hello, Shannon.” The greeting was polite and coolly formal before Maggie’s gaze shifted, narrowed expertly on her son. “What have you there, Liam?”

“Nothing.” He grinned over his lemon drop.

“Nothing indeed. Murphy, you’re paying for his first cavity.” Then her attention shifted again. Shannon saw the tall dark man come toward the table, two cups stacked in one hand, a pint glass in the other. “Shannon Bodine, my husband, Rogan Sweeney.”

“It’s good to meet you.” After setting down the drinks, he took her hand, smiling with a great deal of charm. Whatever curiosity there was, was well hidden. “Are you enjoying your visit?”

“Yes, thank you.” She inclined her head. “I suppose I have you to thank for it.”

“Only indirectly.” He pulled up a chair of his own, making it necessary for Shannon to slide another inch or two closer to Murphy. “Hobbs tells me you work for Ry-Tilghmanton. We’ve always used the Pryce Agency in America.”

Shannon lifted a brow. “We’re better.”

Rogan smiled. “Perhaps I’ll look into that.”

“This isn’t a business meeting,” his wife complained. “Murphy, won’t you play something lively?”

He slipped easily into a reel, pumping quick, complicated notes out of the small instrument. Conversation around them became muted, punctuated by a few laughs, some hand clapping as a man in a brimmed hat did a fast-stepping dance on his way to the bar.

“Do you dance?” Murphy’s lips were so close to her ear, Shannon felt his breath across her skin.

“Not like that.” She eased back, using her glass as a barrier. “I suppose you do. That’s part of it, right?”

He tilted his head, as amused as he was curious. “Being Irish you mean?”

“Sure. You dance . . .” She gestured with her glass. “Drink, brawl, write melancholy prose and poetry. And enjoy your image as suffering, hard-fisted rebels.”

He considered a minute, keeping time with the tap of a foot. “Well, rebels we are, and suffering we’ve done. It seems you’ve lost your connection.”

“I never had one. My father was third- or fourth-generation, and my mother had no family I knew about.”

That brought a frown to her eyes, and though he was sorry for it, Murphy wasn’t ready to let it go.

“But you think you know Ireland, and the Irish.” Someone else had gotten up to dance, so he picked up a new tune to keep them happy. “You’ve watched some Jimmy Cagney movies on the late-night telly, or listened to Pat O’Brien playing his priests.” When her frown deepened, he smiled blandly. “Oh, and there’d be the Saint Patrick’s parade down your Fifth Avenue.”

“So?”

“So, it tells you nothing, does it? You want to know the Irish, Shannon, then you listen to the music. The tune, and the words when there are words to hear. And when you hear it, truly, you might begin to know what makes us. Music’s the heart of any people, any culture, because it comes from the heart.”