“And bacon,” she said, snatching a crispy piece from the platter. “Hey, I worked up an appetite swimming around in the cold and singing. We can ask for more if you want some. So, you’re all named after Irish poets?”
“What else? Yeats had it the worst. People always want to call him Yeets when they see it written, instead of pronouncing it Yates. Drives him nuts.”
Brynn raised an eyebrow. “And Oscar didn’t get hot-dog jokes?”
“How’d you guess? He pretty much pounded everybody who tried, but O-S-C-A-R followed him around a lot when he was a kid,” Sean said, grinning at the memory. “We’d all jump in and help, of course. Not too many wanted to take on the O’Malley boys.”
“No sisters?”
Sean’s smile faded as he remembered the time he’d come across his mother kneeling in the attic next to a large trunk, tears running down her face. She’d been folding a tiny pink lace nightgown. He’d been a kid then, afraid to intrude on his mom’s privacy. Since he’d grown, he’d wondered sometimes if she’d miscarried the daughter she’d always wanted, but he hadn’t known how to ask. Hadn’t wanted to resurrect her sorrow.
“No sister,” he said abruptly. “You? Brothers or sisters?”
“No. My mother didn’t even want to have me,” she said, frowning. “She was trying to break the curse. No daughters means no daughters have to turn feathery.”
Sean took a long sip of his coffee, wondering how to ask the obvious question. Finally, he settled on the simplest way.
“Why? How?”
Brynn’s face lost its happy glow, and he bitterly regretted mentioning it. “Forget it. None of my business. Let’s eat, and we can talk about anything but fires or swans.”
Her smile was the best reward he could have gotten. “Yes. I agree.”
She took a big bite of pancake and closed her eyes in bliss. “Mmmmm.”
She was absolutely glorious. Desire sparked in Sean like tinder to a blaze, and he suddenly wanted to lick maple syrup off her body, or at least spend the next month doing nothing but eating breakfast with her and watching her smile.
He lived his life surrounded by people, and yet he was always so alone. For the first time in forever, he felt a connection, and he had no intention of letting her get away before they could explore it.
“After we finish the pancakes and bacon, we can have waffles,” she said, grinning like a child at Christmas, and he smiled right back at her, basking in the warmth of her obvious enjoyment.
They talked and laughed and worked their way through most of the food and several cups of coffee, and a good hour and a half had gone by before it even occurred to Sean to wonder why it was so easy for him to talk to her. They had an ease between them that felt more like the connection between good friends than the awkward getting-to-know-you stage between strangers.
Brynn picked up the last piece of toast, sighed, and put it back down. “I’d better not. I already feel like I won’t want to eat again for a week.”
He suddenly remembered something and looked around. “Isn’t there usually a waitress here?”
Brynn pushed her plate back, apparently full at last, and nodded. “Ethel. She does synchronized swimming three mornings a week, so it’s serve yourself on those days.”
Sean thought about the old movies his grandmother had liked to watch, and decided Brynn must be putting him on. “Her name is Ethel, and she’s a synchronized swimmer?”
“Yes, why?”
He shook his head. “Never mind.”
The diner’s door banged open, and Zach strode in, followed by a couple of the guys from the crew. The last thing Sean wanted to do was share Brynn with them, and he knew the moment they caught sight of him they’d come barging over.
“Hey, we might want to head out,” he told her. “It’s about to get pretty noisy in here.”
She glanced back over her shoulder at the group just inside the door, and he could have sworn she flinched a little. “Yes, time for me to go. Breakfast was . . . nice.”
She put a hand in her pocket, but he shook his head. “My treat.”
“But—okay. Thank you.” With that, she was up and out of the booth almost before he could react, but he couldn’t let her go like that. “Wait. Brynn, how do I reach you? I’d like to do this again, or dinner, maybe, as soon as we can figure out a time.”
Brynn started shaking her head before he’d even finished the sentence. By the time she replied, his heart was already sinking into his gut.
“Oh, no, you don’t understand. We can never see each other again.”