She smiled up at him and whispered five words through clenched teeth. “I’m going to kill you.”
But she followed his mom into the house, so Sean called it a win. Whether or not he was going to end up dead later, she was all his for now.
EIGHT
Brynn’s stomach clenched into a tangle worse than the one the gum had made in Barty’s fur. She’d swallowed her misgivings and agreed to have dinner with the first man she’d ever met who pushed every single one of her buttons, and now she’d ended up at dinner at his mother’s house. If she hadn’t known about Mrs. O’Malley’s illness, she would have wondered what kind of grown man took a woman home to Mom for their first date. Since she did know, the fact that Sean had brought her here was actually kind of touching. Mrs. O’Malley led her into a spacious family room, comfortably decorated with big, sturdy-looking furniture, lots of plants, and dozens of framed photos of Sean and his brothers at varying ages from babyhood to adulthood.
“Mom, this is Brynn. Brynn, this is my mom,” Sean said, grinning at both of them.
“It’s Kathleen, and you are very welcome to my home.”
“Brynn Carroll. You have a lovely home, Kathleen.”
Kathleen O’Malley was clearly ill. Her skin had thinned to near translucence, and she was far too thin. Wisps of close-cropped white hair feathered across her head as if she’d lost most or all of it recently and it was only just starting to grow back. Her warm smile, however, gave no hint of anything but delight.
“I heard all about you,” she confided, taking Brynn’s hand in her slender fingers. “You saved my dear Bartholomeow from the shame of an unsightly tail.”
Kathleen’s smile let Brynn know she was gently poking fun at her own “emergency.”
“Sean said you were pretty,” she continued, and Brynn felt her face warm up.
“Sean’s kind of pretty himself,” Brynn said, flashing a conspiratorial smile.
A shout of masculine laughter sounded from the entry to the kitchen, and Brynn looked over to see a slightly older, slightly less-rough-edged version of Sean leaning against the archway.
“Oh, he’s pretty all right, but I’m much prettier.”
Sean scowled and put a territorial arm around Brynn’s waist, surprising her. “Back off, Oscar. Brynn’s not interested in self-proclaimed ladies’ men.”
Oscar’s eyes widened. “Well, well. So that’s how it is,” he said quietly. “Interesting.”
Brynn pulled away from Sean and crossed the room to shake Oscar’s hand.
“I’m happy to discuss who and what I’m interested in all by my little old self,” she said lightly, slanting a glance back at Sean.
Oscar held on to her hand for a little bit too long. “It’s very nice to meet you, Brynn Carroll, although you have very bad taste in men,” he said, grinning. “I hope you like steaks.”
“You leave Sean’s girl alone and go outside with your brothers to watch the grill,” Kathleen chided her son. “She’s going to help me with the pies, aren’t you?”
Brynn nodded and then watched, bemused, as Sean and his brother jostled and joked their way out the kitchen door and, presumably, into the backyard. She looked at Kathleen, who was maybe about five foot nothing, and then at the door through which the two big men had departed.
“You had five of them?”
Kathleen blinked and then started laughing, and Brynn flushed as she realized what she’d said.
“I’m so sorry. I don’t really have much in the way of social skills. I spend most days mainly in the company of cats, dogs, and dill-scented wolverines,” she explained, feeling painfully foolish.
“And you spend a third of your nights as a swan,” Kathleen said quietly, looking up at Brynn with eyes filled with compassion and understanding.
Brynn’s shoulders slumped. “He told you?”
Kathleen patted her arm. “Honey, this is Bordertown. I’d almost be worried if you were plain vanilla human. The most surprising thing about you isn’t that you turn feathery a couple of times a week, anyway.”
“It’s not?” Brynn picked up the stack of plates Kathleen indicated, but then stopped. “What is the most surprising thing about me? I’d think with a name like O’Malley you’d be used to seeing red hair.”
Kathleen smiled gently at Brynn’s lame attempt at a joke. “What surprises me the most is that my Sean finally brought someone home. He’s never introduced me to a woman in his life before.”
* * *