Shawn merely took the empty glasses off her tray, set them in the bar sink. “You’ve customers, darling, and so have I.” And he leaned over a bit. “You’ve your business. And so have I.”

Miffed, Darcy jerked a shoulder. “It’s not your business I care a damn about. But Brenna. She’s a friend. You’re nothing but a brother, and an irritant at that.”

And knowing her irritant, she let it alone. She’d get nothing out of Shawn Gallagher, if he’d decided otherwise, with dynamite.

He had a plan. He was good at planning. That didn’t mean it always worked, but he was good at the figuring out of how it should work.

There was cooking involved, and so he was in his element. He wanted something simple, a dish he could put together, then leave to itself until it was needed. So he made a tomato sauce with a bit of bite and left it to simmer.

It required a setting of the stage. That was something he preferred and something he believed would give him an advantage. He thought a man could use every advantage when it came to Brenna O’Toole.

It required a phone call, which he made from the pub at the end of the lunch shift when he was certain Brenna would be up to her neck in whatever job she was doing.

Just as he knew that, being Brenna, she’d come by after her workday to take a look at the broken washing machine he’d reported.

So when he got home, the sauce he’d left warming added an appetizing scent to the air. He picked some of the petunias and pansies that were happy to winter over in the garden and put these in the bedroom along with the candles he’d bought at the market.

He’d already changed the sheets for fresh, which had given him the idea about the washing machine.

Next there was music. It was too much a part of his life not to include it in any venture. He selected the CDs he liked best, slipped them into the canny little player he’d bought himself months before, then left them going while he went down to the kitchen to see to the rest.

He put out the cat, who it seemed sensed something important was going on and so put himself in the way at every opportunity.

He didn’t expect to see her till near to six, which gave him enough time to put together a platter of finger food. He hunted up wineglasses, polished them out, then opened the bottle of red he’d taken from the pub, setting it on the counter to breathe.

After giving his sauce a last taste and stir, he glanced around and nodded in satisfaction. It was all fine and done. The clock showed ten minutes before six when he heard her lorry pull into his street.

“She’s a timely sort,” he murmured, and was taken by surprise when nerves set to dancing in his belly. “It’s only Brenna, for Christ’s sake,” he told himself. “You’ve known her all your life.”