“The Finkle believes he can fit in a bit of that soup and some—” Darcy stopped short, gaping at the sight of her dearest friend kissing her brother. “Well, for the sake of Jesus, what’s all this?”

“It was just what it appeared to be before you interrupted. You haven’t finished,” Shawn said to Brenna, and started to pull her back from the full foot she’d jumped in retreat.

“Yes, I have. I’ve work to do.” Considering it the best line of escape, she dashed out the back door.

“Soup, you say?” Casually, Shawn pivoted to the stove.

“Shawn, you were kissing Brenna.”

“So I was, though I had hardly gotten a taste before you came barging in and scared her off.”

“What are you thinking of, kissing Brenna?”

He glanced back, his face bland. “I was sure our mother explained such matters to you, but if you’re needing a refresher course on the subject, I’ll do what I can to educate you.”

“Don’t smart your mouth off at me.” But she was too baffled to work up the kind of temper that entertained them both. “She’s the next thing to a sister to me, and I won’t have you teasing her that way.”

He ladled soup into a thick, generous bowl. “Maybe you should have a word with her before you flay into me.”

“Don’t think I won’t.” She snatched up the bowl. “I know how you are with women, Shawn Gallagher.”

He inclined his head. “Do you now?”

“That I do.” She said it in her darkest, most forbidding tone, added a toss of her head, and stalked out.

The minute she’d served Finkle his bowl and fussed over him enough to bring a rise of color to his cheeks, Darcy informed Aidan she was taking a fifteen-minute break. And was out the door before he could tell her different.

In her hurry she forgot to take off her apron or grab her jacket, so her tip money jingled cheerfully in her pocket as she raced down to her family home.

As a result, she was out of breath and pink of cheek when she dashed through the door. She headed straight upstairs to the door of the nursery, where Brenna was rolling varnish onto the freshly sanded floor.

“I want to know what’s going on.”

“Well, I’m putting on this first coat of sealer. It takes a day or two to dry good and hard. Then I’ll put on another, and that will be that.”

“With you and Shawn. Damn it, Brenna, you can’t go around letting him kiss you that way. People’ll get the wrong impression.”

Brenna kept rolling. She hadn’t worked up the nerve to look at her friend. “Actually, I imagine they’d get the right one. I should’ve told you, Darcy, I just didn’t know how.”

Darcy braced herself with a hand on the doorjamb as the blood drained out of her face. “There’s—there’s something to tell me?”

“Well, not so much, really. But not for lack of trying on my part.” Time to face the music, Brenna told herself, and she turned around. “I want to sleep with him. That’s all.”