“Sex?”

“Damn it, Brenna.” Under the filth on his face, his cheeks went pink as peonies.

“It’s there, isn’t it?” When the ruined pipe was wrenched free, she shoved it aside.

“So is the shit I’m sitting in at the moment, but I’d just as soon not dwell on it. You’ve been reared as best as your mother and I could, and the steps you take as a grown-up woman are your own. You can’t ask me for my blessing in such a thing, Brenna, but I’m not judging you, either.”

“He’s a good man, Dad.”

“When did I say he wasn’t?” Exasperated, embarrassed, and wanting an end to the topic at hand, Mick scooted, slithered so they could fit the new pipe.

“It’s just . . . what Mary Kate said last week. She was mad as spit, and we’ve come to our terms on it. But I don’t want you to think that it’s cheap between us.”

The girl, he thought, was as ever like a terrier with a bone. She wouldn’t have done until it was chewed to her satisfaction. “What Mary Kate said to you was uncalled for between sisters, and it’s pleased I am the two of you have made it up. As for the other . . . do you care for him?”

“I do, of course. Yes.”

“And respect him?” The slight hesitation had Mick looking over the pipe, meeting Brenna’s eyes. “Ah, well, now.”

“I do respect him. He has a good brain when he bothers to use it, and he has a kind heart and a good humor. That doesn’t make me blind to his faults. I know he’s lazy about things, and careless with his own talents.”

“On this I do have something to say, though you’ll go your own way no matter.” He straightened, rolled his shoulders. “You don’t fix a man the way you do a fault in a pipe or a leak in a roof. You take him as he is, Mary Brenna, or you don’t take him at all.”

She frowned. “It’s not like that, but more of a turning in the right direction.”

“Right for who?” He gave her a pat on the arm. “ Adjustments can’t be all on one side, darling, else the balance goes off and what’s being built just falls down.”

For Shawn, Brenna’s appearance at the back door in the middle of the lunch shift was a shock to all his senses. She was filthy from cap to boot and, even with the distance, let off an aroma that watered the eyes.

“Mother of God, what’ve you been doing?”

“Septic tank,” she said cheerfully. “We scraped and hosed off the worst of it.”

“You missed a few spots from where I’m standing.”

“Well, we’ve got to do what we can to put Mrs. Duffy’s yard back together, so we didn’t bother with all of it. But the fact is, we’re near to starving.”

He held up a hand. “If you’re thinking of coming in here, O’Toole, pause and reflect.”