“You like your work there.”

“Very much. You should come ’round.” She stepped closer, trying to keep her movements both casual and seductive. “Have yourself a busman’s holiday and let me treat you to a meal there.”

“That’s a thought, isn’t it?” He gave her a wink that set her pulse skipping, then turned to open the oven and check his pie.

She moved closer. “That smells wonderful. You’ve such a hand with cooking. So many men are bumblers in the kitchen, it seems.”

“When a man, or a woman for that matter, bumbles about in the kitchen it’s usually because they know someone will come along and chase them out and deal with the matter to save the time and annoyance.”

“That’s wise.” She all but whispered it, with reverence. “But though you’re so good at it, I’ll bet you’d like to have someone fix you a meal now and then instead of always fussing with it yourself.”

“Sure and I can’t say as I’d mind it.”

When Brenna walked in the back door, the first and only thing she saw was Shawn Gallagher smiling into her sister’s dazzled eyes.

“Mary Kate.” Her voice was sharp as the tip of a whip, and at the sound of it her sister flushed and jerked back. “What are you doing?”

“I’m . . . just talking with Shawn.”

“You’ve no business being back here in the kitchen wearing your good dress and getting in Shawn’s way.”

“She’s not in the way.” Used to being scolded by his elders, Shawn gave Mary Kate a comforting pat on the cheek. And being a man, he didn’t see the dream clouds come into her eyes.

But Brenna saw them. Teeth gritted, she strode forward, took Mary Kate’s arm in an iron grip, and pulled her toward the door.

The humiliation of it whisked away the mature sophistication Mary Kate had worked so hard to display. “Let go of me, you gnat-assed bully.” Her voice spiked upward as she struggled. They very nearly plowed Darcy over when she came in while they were going out. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve no right hauling me about. I’m telling Ma.”

“Oh, fine, you go ahead.” Without breaking stride, or loosening her grip, Brenna yanked her sister into the snug at the end of the bar, then shut the door of the little private room. “You go right ahead, you lamebrain, and I’ll be sure to tell her how you were throwing yourself at Shawn Gallagher.”

“I was not.” Freed, Mary Kate sniffed, lifted her chin, and very meticulously smoothed down the sleeves of her best dress.

“You were all but biting his neck when I walked in. What’s got into you? The man’s nearly thirty, and you barely twenty. Do you know what you’re asking for when you rub your breasts up against a man that way?”

Mary Kate merely lowered her gaze to her sister’s baggy sweater. “At least I have breasts.”

It was a sore point, a very tender area, as Brenna had resented the fact that every one of her sisters, including young Alice Mae, had more bosom than she did. “That being the case, you ought to have more respect for them than to go shoving them into a man’s face.”