"That was years ago." But Brenna felt a little panic at the thought. Her mother wouldn't consider the years between. "Harmless girls' foolishness. What I came in on in the kitchen isn't harmless, Mary Kate, but it is foolish. I don't want to see you hurt."

"I can take care of myself." Mary Kate gave one last toss of her head. "If you want to be jealous because I know how to attract a man instead of going about trying to be one, that's your problem. Not mine."

The slice came so fast and true, Brenna stood frozen, hardly realizing that she bled until Mary Kate stormed out and slammed the door behind her. Tears stung at her eyes and made her want to slide into one of the old sugan chairs and just let them come.

She wasn't trying to be a man, she was just trying to be herself.

And she'd only wanted to protect her sister. To stop her before she did something that would hurt or embarrass her. Or worse.

It was all Shawn's fault, she decided. The little voice inside her head that whispered differently was ignored. It was Shawn's fault for luring her young and innocent sister into infatuation, and she was just going to deal with that right this minute.

She strode out, shaking her head as Aidan shifted to lay a hand on her arm and ask her what was the matter. When she stalked into the kitchen now, her eyes were bright. But not with tears. It was something closer to murder.

"Now, why did you go dragging Mary Kate out like that for, Brenna? We were just-"

He broke off because she'd marched up to him, the toes of her boots ramming hard against the toes of his, and her finger was drilling a hole in his chest. "You just keep your hands off my sister."

"What on God's green earth are you talking about?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about, you bloody lecher. She's barely twenty, hardly more than a girl."

"What?" He shoved her hand away before she could stab straight into his heart. "What?"

"If you think I'm going to stand by idle while you add her to your string of ladies, then you'd best keep thinking."

"My- Mary Kate?" Sheer shock came first. Then he remembered how the young girl-no, no, young woman, he corrected-had looked when she'd smiled and fluttered her pretty lashes. "Mary Kate," he said, more thoughtfully, and with just a hint of a smile.

A hot red haze filled Brenna's head. "You get that gleam out of your eye, Shawn Gallagher, or I swear I'll blacken both of them."

Because her fists were raised, he took a cautious step back and lifted his hands palms out. They were well beyond the stage where he could, in all conscience, wrestle with her. "Brenna, calm yourself down. I never touched her, never thought to. Never thought of her in the way you're meaning until you mentioned it yourself. For Christ's sake, I've known her since she was in nappies."

"Well, she's not in nappies now."

"No, indeed, she's not," he said with perhaps an unwise hint of approval. So he supposed the fist that landed in his gut was his own fault. "Jesus, Brenna, a man can't be faulted for appreciating."

"You do that appreciating from a distance. If you make a move in that direction, I promise you I'll break both your legs."

It was rare for him to lose his temper, so he recognized that he was coming dangerously close. To solve the matter, he simply cupped his hands under her elbows and lifted her off her feet until their eyes were level. Both shock and fury fired in hers.

"Don't you threaten me. If I had thoughts of that nature regarding Mary Kate, then I'd act on them and that would be between the two of us, and not you. Do you understand that?"

"She's my sister," Brenna began, then subsided when he gave her one hard shake.

"And that gives you the right to embarrass her and take punches at me when we've done no more than stand in my kitchen and talk? Well, I'm standing here talking to you, too, and have countless times before. Have I ripped your clothes off and had my way with you?"

He dropped her down on her feet again and stung her beyond belief by merely turning his back. "You should be ashamed where you've let your mind run," he said quietly.

"I-" The tears were going to come after all. She struggled with them, swallowed viciously, then could only stare through them as Darcy came in. "I have to go," was the best she could manage. Then she fled through the back door.

"Shawn." Darcy dumped empties in the sink and turned to glare at him. "What the devil did you do to make Brenna cry?"

Guilt, anger, and emotions he didn't care to explore waged an ugly war inside him. "Oh, just bugger it," he snapped. "I've had enough of females for one night."

She was mortified and full of misery. She'd upset, insulted, and embarrassed two people she cared about deeply. She'd butted in where it wasn't her business.

No, she didn't believe that. It was her business. Mary Kate had been flirting outrageously, and Shawn had been oblivious. Typical.

But he wouldn't have stayed oblivious. Her sister was beautiful, she was sweet, she was smart. And she was most definitely a young woman in full bloom.

Protecting her hadn't been the mistake. But the method had been clumsy, and more than a little selfish. Because-and she had to face it-she'd also been a woman defending her territory.

Of which, Shawn was also oblivious. All she could do now was mend her fences. She'd taken a long walk on the beach. To cry it out, to think it through, to settle herself. And to ensure that when she did return home, her parents would most likely be tucked into their bed so that she could talk with Mary Kate alone.

There was a light on outside, shining over the porch, and another left burning in the front window. She left them both on, as she doubted her sister Patty would be back yet from her Saturday date.

Another wedding, she thought as she took off her jacket. More fussing and planning and cranky tears over flowers and fabric swatches.

She couldn't for the life of her understand why a sensible person would want to go through all of that nonsense. Maureen had been a nervous wreck-and had set the entire family on its ear-before she'd finally walked down the aisle the previous autumn.

Not that she hadn't looked lovely, Brenna thought as she hung her cap on the closet hook. All glowing and fresh in her billowy white dress and the lace veil their own mother had worn on her wedding day. Happiness had been like sunbeams, all but shining from her fingertips, and seeing that wash of love over her sister had made Brenna stop, for a short while, feeling like ten times a fool in her own fussy blue maid of honor gown.

Now if she herself ever took the plunge-and since she wanted children, what else could she do but marry eventually-simplicity would be the order of the day.

A church wedding would be fine, as she imagined her mother's heart, and her father's as well, would be set on that for all their daughters. But she'd be damned if she would spend months looking at dresses and searching through catalogs and discussing the pros and cons of roses over tulips or some such.

She'd wear her mother's dress and veil, and maybe carry yellow daisies, as she had a fondness for them. And she'd walk down the aisle on her father's arm to the sound of pipes rather than a fusty old organ. And after, they'd have a party right here at the house. A big, noisy ceili where everyone could loosen their ties and relax.

And what, she thought, shaking her head outside the door of the room that her youngest sisters, Mary Kate and Alice Mae, shared, was she doing dreaming of such things now?

She slipped into the room, stood in the candy-coated, female scent of it while her eyes adjusted, then picked her way over to the lump on the bed nearest the back window.

"Mary Kate, are you awake?"

"She is." Alice Mae's silhouette of a head and shoulders surrounded by a mass of wild curls popped up. "And I'm to tell you that she hates you like poison, always will until the day she departs this earth, and she's not speaking to you."

"Go back to sleep."

"How can I manage that, with herself there coming in and burning my ears off with abuse of you? Did you really shove her out the kitchen at Gallagher's, then curse at her?"

"I did not."

"She did," Mary Kate corrected in a stiff and formal voice. "And you'll kindly tell her, Alice Mae, to remove her skinny ass from my bedroom."

"She says you're to remove-"

"I heard her, for Christ's sake. And I'm not going."

"Well, then, if she's not going, I am." Mary Kate started to get up, but found herself pinned.

At the sound of muffled curses and struggle, Alice Mae eagerly switched on her bedside lamp to watch the show. "Ah, you'll never best her, Katie, for you fight like a girl. Did you never listen to anything she taught us?"

"Just hold still, you goose brain. How the hell can I apologize when you're trying to bite me hand off?"

"I don't want your flaming apology."

"Well, you're getting it, if I have to ram it down your throat." Annoyed and at her wits' end, Brenna did the simple thing. She sat on her sister.

"Brenna's been crying." Alice Mae, with the softest heart in Ireland, climbed out of bed to pad over to her sister. "There now." Gently, she kissed both Brenna's cheeks. "It can't be as bad as all that, darling."

"Little mother," Brenna murmured, and nearly started crying again. Her baby sister wasn't a baby any longer, but a slim and pretty girl on the verge of womanhood. And that, Brenna thought with a sigh, was a worry for another day. "Go back to bed, sweetheart. Your feet'll get cold."

"I'll sit here." She slid onto the bed, and plopped on Mary Kate's legs. "And help you hold her down. If it was enough to make you cry, she should at least have the courtesy to listen to you."