Irish Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

slowly away from the inn. It didn't surprise her when he fell into step beside her. "You're missing it."
    "You stopped." The end of his cigar grew bright and red as he took another puff. "Your brother has a gift."
    "Aye." She listened now as the music turned from jaunty to sad. "He wrote this one. Hearing it's like hearing a heart break." Music like this always made her long, and fear, and wonder what it would be like to feel so strongly about another. "Are you a music lover, Mr. Logan?"
    "When the tune's right." This one was a waltz, a slow, weepy one. On impulse he slipped his arms around her and picked up the time.
    "What are you doing?"
    "Dancing," he said simply.
    "A man's supposed to ask." But she didn't pull away, and her steps matched his easily. The motion and the music made her smile. She turned her face up to his. The grass was soft beneath her feet, the moonlight sweet. "You don't look like the kind of man who can waltz."
    "One of my few cultural accomplishments." She fit nicely into his arms, slender but not fragile, soft but not malleable. "And it seems to be a night for dancing."
    She said nothing for a moment. There was magic here, starlight, roses and sad music. The flutter in her stomach, the warmth along her skin, warned her that a woman took chances waltzing under the night sky with a stranger. But still she moved with him.
    "The tune's changed," she murmured, and drew out of his arms, relieved, regretful that he didn't keep her there. She turned once again to walk. "Why did you come here?"
    "To look at horses. I bought a pair in Kildare." He took a puff on his cigar. He'd yet to realize himself what his horses and farm had come to mean to him. "There's no match for the Thoroughbreds at the Irish National Stud. You pay for them, God knows, but I've never minded putting my money on a winner."
    "So you came to buy horses." It interested her, though she didn't want it to.
    "And to watch a few races. Ever been to Curragh?"
    "No." She glanced up at the moon again. Curragh, Kilkenny, Kildare, all of them might have been as far away as the white slash in the sky. "You won't find Thoroughbreds here in Skibbereen."
    "No?" He smiled at her in the moonlight, and the smile made her uneasy. "Then let's say I'm just along for the ride. It's my first time in Ireland."
    "And what do you think of it?" She stopped now, unwilling to pass out of the range of the music.
    "I've found it beautiful and contradictory."
    "With a name like Logan, you'd have some Irish in you."
    Unsmiling, he glanced down at his cigar. "It's possible."
    "Probable," she said lightly. "You know, you said you were a neighbor of Travis's, but you don't sound like him. Your accent."
    "Accent?" His mood changed again with a grin. "I guess if you want to call it that it comes from the West."
    "The West?" It took her a moment. "The American West? Cowboys?"
    This time he laughed, a full, rich laugh, so that she was distracted enough not to protest when his hand touched her cheek. "We don't carry six-guns as a rule these days."
    Her feathers were ruffled. "You don't have to make fun of me."
    "Was I?" Because her skin had felt so cool and so smooth, he touched it again. "And what would you say if I asked you about leprechauns and banshees?"
    She had to smile. "I'd say the last to have seen a leprechaun in these parts was Michael Ryan after a pint of Irish."
    "You don't believe in legends, Erin?" He stepped closer so that he could see the moonlight reflected in her eyes like light in a lake.
    "No." She didn't step back. It wasn't her nature to retreat, even when she felt the warning shiver race up her spine. Whether you won or went down in defeat, it was best to do it with feet firmly planted. "I believe in what I can see and touch. The rest is for dreamers."
    "Pity," he murmured, though he had always felt the same. "Life's a bit softer the other way."
    "I've never wanted softness."
    "Then what?" He touched a finger to the hair that curled at her cheekbones.
    "I