right enough.’
He smiled down at her. ‘Meow. Seriously, though, wouldn’t you rather know that, one way or another?’
Molly raised one eyebrow and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Maybe he’s changed. Maybe he’s moved to the country to get away from that reputation and meet someone genuine. Has that occurred to you inside that overprotective head of yours?’
If any thought occurred to him it was only the irritating one that recognised that Molly might genuinely have an interest in Mr Smarmy. Another thought swiftly followed. He, Ryan Callaghan, didn’t like that idea one little bit. But then, that was only because—as Molly rightly pointed out—he was her protector. It was his job. Yeah, that was it.
‘There’s one way to find out for sure.’
Green eyes narrowed. ‘Oh, yeah, and what might that be?’
‘Maura reckons he’ll be all the more interested in you if he thinks you’re involved with someone else.’ He couldn’t look her in the eye. ‘And apparently half the town already thinks you’re involved with someone else, so that could be why he approached you in the first place.’
Molly noticed that he couldn’t meet her gaze, and she knew she wasn’t going to like where the conversation was headed. ‘Who do they think I’m involved with?’
Ryan cleared his throat and found his eyes focused on her mouth for some unknown reason. ‘Me.’
She burst out laughing. ‘You’re kidding? That’s utterly ridiculous. You and me? As if!’
‘Well, that’s what comes of sharing a house with one of the town’s most eligible men.’ He raised his chin indignantly, his dark eyes sparking with barely hidden irritation. ‘Not everyone looks at me and sees some elder brother figure, all safe and reliable.’
‘Safe and reliable—oh, yeah, that’s how I see you right enough.’ She was still laughing.
Ryan’s anger rose. ‘Well, maybe if you just took the time to notice you’d see that I’m actually not that damn bad!’
Her eyes widened at the hard edge to his voice. He was, what, angry that she thought the idea of her being attracted to him was ridiculous? No, that just couldn’t be. No way. Not her Ryan. Not her ‘safe and reliable’ Ryan. She blinked at him.
He glared down at her.
Molly smiled, attempting to ease the sudden tension between them. ‘Poor baby.’
Ryan’s eyes softened the smallest amount, so small an amount that someone who didn’t know him as well as Molly did would never have noticed it. But notice it she did, and almost sighed with relief. ‘Look, Callaghan, Nick Scallon seems like a perfectly nice guy. I don’t see what you have against him.’
‘I have plenty against him if he’s chasing after you for some short-lived affair.’
Molly frowned up at him. ‘You don’t know that!’
‘How do you know he’s not?’
She shook her head. ‘You’re being really stupid about this.’
Ryan smiled sarcastically. ‘You wanna bet?’ ‘Ryan, quit it.’
‘No. C’mon Molly.’ He squeezed his arm tighter against her waist, drawing her body closer to his. ‘If you’re so convinced that he’s such a nice guy then you should stand by your convictions.’
She allowed her body to move in time with the music, matching the gentle sway of his hips. ‘And how exactly do I do that, then?’
Ryan’s smile was slow, and a challenge was lighting up in the back of his eyes. ‘By proving me wrong. Go out with me, pretend we’re an item for a few months, and we’ll see just how nice a guy Mr Nick Scallon is. If he continues chasing you then you’ll know exactly what his intentions are.’
The air was forced out of her lungs. ‘You’re off your trolley!’ She glared at Ryan in amazement as he pulled her off the dance floor towards the walkway at the loughside.
He knew the warning signs of an impending O’Brien explosion and decided the further away she was from the general population, the less the fallout would be. ‘It’s not like you to go chicken on me, O’Brien.’
‘Chicken?’
‘Yeah, chicken.’ He stopped and stared down at her. ‘If you don’t think you can handle the fact that I’m right, as usual, then say so.’
Snatching her arm away from him, she marched to the darker end of the walkway. Once there she turned to face him so quickly that he almost crashed into her. ‘You’ve had some absolute whoppers of ideas in your time, but this one definitely gets the award.’
He folded his arms across his broad chest and waited.
‘I mean, you and me—a couple? Who’s gonna believe that?’
He sighed. ‘Molly—’
‘And to suggest that we’d ever be able to fool anyone—I mean, there are days we have difficulty just getting on well enough to still like each other as friends!’ She started pacing in front of him.
He sighed again. ‘If you’d just—’
‘We’d have to be able to look at each other without sniggering every two minutes. And as for the kissing thing—’ She stopped pacing long enough to waggle a finger at him. ‘You do realise if we were actually dating we’d be expected to kiss and—well, other stuff like that….’
There was a deadly silence as they stared at each other in shock. Ryan swallowed hard. ‘I know that—’
She recommenced the pacing. ‘It’s the most ridiculous suggestion you’ve ever made, Callaghan, and you should know that, for crying out loud!’
‘O’Brien—’
She stopped again and looked up into his eyes. ‘I mean, honestly, what makes you think for one second we could fool anyone?’
Ryan frowned at her. ‘Methinks the girl protests too much.’
‘And just what does that mean?’
‘Maybe you’re too frightened to kiss me.’
Her eyes widened, fire glinting in their depths. ‘Me? Frightened, of you? What in hell is there for me to be frightened of?’
He stepped closer, his body almost touching hers. Towering over her smaller frame until any dim light was almost obscured, he leaned down towards her. ‘Maybe you might just like kissing me.’
‘You wanna bet?’
‘Well, actually, yes, I do.’ His gaze was steady. ‘I thought we’d established that fact.’
Her mouth gaped. ‘I don’t believe this. As if I’d like kissing you, of all people! Like as in enjoy? Like as in, participate—’
He
