Enchanted by Nora Roberts Page B

her company during a storm—”
    “Which I know bloody well Da brewed.”
    “That’s beside the point,” she snapped, and skewered him with the sharp, daunting look he remembered from childhood. “If you don’t spend time with the girl, you won’t think with anything but your glands, will you? The sex won’t answer it all, you horse’s ass. It’s just like a man to think it will.”
    “Well, damn it, I
am
a man.”
    “What you are is a pinhead, and don’t you raise your voice to me, Liam Donovan.”
    He threw up his hands as well, added a short, pithy curse in Gaelic. “I’m not twelve any longer.”
    “I don’t care if you’re a hundred and twelve—you’ll show your mother proper respect.”
    He smoldered, seethed and sucked it in. “Yes, ma’am.”
    “Aye.” She nodded once. “That’ll do. Now stop tormenting yourself with what may be, and look at what is. And if your lofty principles won’t let you look deep enough, ask her about her mother’s family.”
    Arianna let out a huff of breath, smoothed down her hair. “And kiss me good-bye like a good lad. She’ll be here any second.”
    Because he was still scowling, she kissed him instead, then grinned sunnily. “There are times you look so like your Da. Now, don’t look so fierce; you’ll frighten the girl. Blessed be, Liam,” she added; then, with a shiver of the light, she spread white wings and soared into the sky.

Chapter 5
    He hadn’t sensed her, and that irritated him. His temper had been up, blocking his instincts. Now, even as he turned, he caught that scent—female, innocence with a light whiff of jasmine.
    He watched her come out of the trees, though she didn’t see him—not at first. The sun was behind him, and she looked the other way as she started up the rough path to the apex of the cliffs.
    She had her hair tied back, he noted, in a careless tail of gleaming brown the wind caught and whipped. She carried a trim leather bag with its strap crosswise over her body. Her gray slacks showed some wear and her shirt was the color of daffodils.
    Her mouth was unpainted, her nails were short, her boots—so obviously new—showed a long, fresh scar across the left toe. The sight of her, muttering to herself as she climbed, both relaxed and annoyed him.
    Then both sensations turned to pure amusement as she spotted him, jolted and scowled before she could school her expression to disinterest.
    “Good morning to you, Rowan.”
    She nodded, then clasped both hands on the strap of her bag as if she didn’t know what else to do with them. Her eyes were cool, in direct contrast to those nervous hands, and quite deliberately skimmed past him.
    “Hello. I’d have gone another way if I’d known you were here. I imagine you want to be alone.”
    “Not particularly.”
    Her gaze veered back to his, then away again. “Well, I do,” she said very definitely, and began to make her way along the rocks, away from him.
    “Hold a grudge, do you, Rowan Murray?”
    Stiffening with pride, she kept walking. “Apparently.”
    “You won’t be able to for long, you know. It’s not natural for you.”
    She jerked a shoulder, knowing the gesture was bad-tempered and childish. She’d come to sketch the sea, the little boats that bobbed on it, the birds that soared and called above. And damn it, she’d wanted to look at the eggs in the nest to see if they’d hatched.
    She hadn’t wanted to see him, to be reminded of what had happened between them, what it had stirred inside her. But neither was she going to be chased away like a mouse by a cat. Setting her teeth, she sat on a ledge of rock, opened her bag. With precise movements she pulled out her bottle of water, put it beside her, then her sketchbook, then a pencil.
    Ordering herself to focus, she looked out at the water, gave herself time to scan and absorb. She began to sketch, telling herself she would not look over at him. Oh, he was still there, she was sure of it. Why else would every