Ryan's Place - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,37

shining in your eyes whenever you’re in the same room.”

“If that’s the case, no wonder he panics when he sees me coming,” she said, no longer making any attempt to deny the obvious. She’d fought against putting a label on her feelings, more for Ryan’s sake than her own. Maybe it was time she admitted that fascination had turned to something deeper.

The priest patted her hand. “The panic will wear off in time. Ryan’s no more a fool than you are. He’ll see what’s staring him in the face eventually.”

“From your lips to God’s ear,” Maggie said fervently.

Father Francis regarded her serenely. “Aye, child, that’s the way of it.”

Ryan was beginning to get used to having Maggie turn up at the pub every evening just before suppertime. Sometimes she sat at the bar, blatantly flirting with him. Sometimes she huddled in a booth with Father Francis, scolding him about the church’s accounting methods and casting surreptitious glances Ryan’s way. And increasingly, whenever it was especially busy, she grabbed an apron off the hook in the kitchen and waited on tables, refusing to accept anything more than whatever tips were left by the customers. Rory and Maureen considered her part of the staff. Juan and Rosita thought she was an angel. As for him, he was still struggling with what to make of her.

“Are you independently wealthy?” Ryan inquired one night a week before Christmas, when she’d turned down his offer of money yet again.

“Hardly, but I have some savings. Besides, this isn’t a job,” she insisted once again. “I have time on my hands right now, anyway. I enjoy being here. Your customers are the friendliest people I’ve ever met. And as long as I am here, I may as well pitch in. It’s obvious you can use the help.”

“I can’t deny that,” he said.

She looked into his eyes in an expectant way that had his knees going weak and the rest of him going hard.

“If you were to steal a kiss from time to time, it would go a long way toward making it worth my while to be here,” she taunted.

The woman could tempt a saint, he thought as she held his gaze. Unable to resist, Ryan tucked an arm around her waist and dragged her close. “Now, that is something I can do,” he said, covering her mouth long enough to send a shudder rippling through them both.

It was a risky game they were playing, though. He wanted so much more. His yearning for her had deepened each day, until every minute was a struggle not to haul her up to his apartment.

He’d vowed, though, that he wouldn’t let her tempt him into making a mistake they’d both regret. No matter how she got under his skin, he was going to be the sensible one and keep his hands to himself. Still, he couldn’t help wondering what it would be like to strip away those thick, soft sweaters she wore, to peel away her skintight jeans and the lacy panties he fantasized about, and bury himself deep inside her. He hadn’t wanted to experience that kind of closeness with a woman—real intimacy that went beyond sex—in a long time, if ever.

Instead, he settled for the occasional kiss, deliberately keeping them brief enough to permit him to cling to sanity. For once in his life, he was trying to do the right thing.

Not that Maggie did anything to help. She had absolutely no reservations about using her own hands to torment him. She was always skimming a caress across his knuckles, patting his cheek and on one especially memorable occasion, linking her fingers through his and pressing an impulsive kiss on their joined hands, while gazing deeply into his eyes in a way that had him losing track of everything, including his own name. Oh, yes, Miss Maggie was a toucher, and it was driving him flat-out crazy.

Father Francis clearly found the whole situation highly amusing. Whenever he thought Ryan might not be tormented enough, he drew Ryan’s attention back to Maggie with one observation or another meant to remind him of just how desirable she was. The priest had turned into a determined matchmaker, who had absolutely no shame about the methods he used. Rory was just as bad. And even Maggie’s family seemed to have bestowed their approval on the match, turning up singly or a few at a time to sit at the bar or in a booth. They seemed to have adopted Ryan as