“Could you two gentlemen please stop talking about me as if I weren’t here?” Nancy asked, her voice very crisp.

Charlie blinked. “Honey, was I objectifyin’ you?”

Nancy snorted. Charlie took it as encouragement. “Had this girlfriend once. Always said I was objectifyin’ her when I pissed her off.”

“Charlie,” Liam broke in, “put the brakes on.”

“Never did figure out what the hell she was talkin’ about, but boy oh boy did she ever have a nice pair of round, jigglin’—”

“Charlie!” Liam snapped his fingers in front of Charlie’s face.

Charlie subsided. “Sorry. Uh, well. Anyhow. Guess I better be heading on home to the wife.” His eyes rested on Nancy as he took his final swallow of beer, and then his eyes cut to Liam’s half-empty pint of Guinness. “I’d switch to coffee, if I was you, kid,” he said quietly.

They went back to the music table after Charlie left. Liam took Charlie’s advice and switched to coffee. Even so the night quickly took on a dreamlike quality. He was drunk on a different intoxicant, one far more potent than beer. The music thundered, and Nancy’s slender hand, now relaxed and warm, was clasped in his, fingers entwined. They didn’t talk much, with all the noise, but it didn’t matter.

At a certain point in the evening, he noticed a disturbance in the energy of the group. The driving tempo of the music never faltered, but all of the male members of the group around the table except for Eoin were rubbernecking at something behind him. He took a look, and the mystery soon resolved itself. Two strikingly pretty women stood there: a slender waiflike girl with big gray eyes and a mop of long, fire-red hair, and a brunette with flashing dark eyes, lush curves, and full lips. Both of them were standing right by the musicians’ table, smiling. At him.

He glanced down at Nancy, perplexed. She was rolling her eyes. She gestured for him to lean down toward her mouth. “My sisters,” she called into his ear. “They wanted to check you out. And to roast me.”

Her sisters. Well, hot damn. That gave him a warm feeling, and a rush of energy that kicked up the already brisk tempo of “The Three Wishes” to a dangerous driving pace. He looked up at the sisters and gave them a big “here I am, so check me out” grin. They gave each other wide-eyed looks and giggled. They took turns whispering into Nancy’s ear and giggled some more. Nancy turned brick red. He loved it.

He was sorry when they left not long after, before he had a chance to chat, but he hoped there would be another chance soon to charm them and get them on his side. In a less noisy environment, maybe. Dinner, maybe, at his place. When Nancy was there with him. Soon.

Liam looked at his watch when the musicians started packing up, astonished to find that it was well past two in the morning. Eoin was already wangling a ride to his next seisiun, hopeless tunehead that he was.

“I should be getting home,” Nancy said.

“I’ll walk you to your car,” he offered.

“Oh, no. I found such a good parking spot for it yesterday that I couldn’t bear to move it. So I took the subway.”

He stared at her for a horrified moment. “You’re joking, right?”

She looked uncomfortable. “Uh, no,” she said. “Believe me, it was perfectly safe. The trains were crowded when I came out, and it’s not like I can get into any trouble on a crowded Uptown Six. Then the Seven train got me within two blocks of here, and it was pretty full, too. I take the subway whenever I can. It’s so much more efficient, and I—”

“You’re not taking it tonight,” he said grimly. “I’m driving you home.”

“Oh, no. Don’t worry about it. If it makes you feel any better, I had every intention of cabbing it back, given the weird—”

“Have you not been listening at all? Did you hear Charlie? I know you’re not stupid, so are you nuts? Do you have a death wish?”

She looked abashed. “No, not at all. I just try to get through my days as best I can,” she said tightly. “What about Eoin? Didn’t he come with you?”

“Eoin’s fine. Your friends are taking him to a late-night seisiun in Brooklyn. He’ll play tunes all night and wake up God knows where.”

She bit her lip. “It’s out of your way. Really, a cab would be fine.”

The woman had no grip on reality. She wasn’t used to a guy giving a damn whether she got home safely any more than she was used to being kissed.

Tough shit. She was just going to have to get used to it.

Nancy clasped her hands nervously in Liam’s truck. Alone with him in the dark, her doubts came rushing back, mixed with a dose of simmering lust. Funny. She had thought herself in love with Freedy, Ron, and Peter, but she’d never felt like this with them.

Like a live wire with the plastic casing peeled off.

She searched for something neutral to talk about. “I can’t believe what a stroke of luck it was to find Eoin. How old is he, anyway?”

“Twenty-one, if I remember correctly.”

“Just a baby. Looks like he hit it off with Matt and Eugene, too. And he’s available for the tour, thank God. Does he have a green card?”

Liam hesitated. “We’re working on it,” he said guardedly.

“We can help,” she assured him. “Uilleann pipers are rare. It’s a specialized skill. We’ll write letters to the INS about how desperately they need him for this gig or that. It may take a while—” She shot him a glance. “Why are you smirking? Do I amuse you?”

He pulled up at the Midtown tunnel toll booth, batted away her handful of dollars, and paid the toll himself. “You’re a sweet girl, Nancy.”

Nancy’s cheeks grew warm. “I’m not doing anything altruistic. Drafting Eoin into Mandrake is business. He’s saving my ass.”

“And the green card?”

“That’s in my best interests, too,” she retorted.

“Why does it embarrass you when I tell you that you’re sweet?”

She thought about it for a minute. “It makes me feel like you’re condescending to me,” she finally said.

“It makes you feel vulnerable, you mean.”

“Don’t tell me how I feel, please. And don’t psychoanalyze me,” she snapped. “I’m not in the mood.”

“She’s back,” he said. “The tough broad with the attitude. But you don’t fool me. You’re tough, yes. But sweet as honey. And I’m not condescending. Not at all. I salute you for it.”

She was speechless. The naked, exposed feeling was unbearable. The tunnel spat them up into Midtown, and she was intensely grateful for the necessity of giving directions.

“Take the FDR Drive south, to my place.” She held up her hand at his expression. “I swear, I kept my promise. I’m camped out at Nell’s, but I had to take my cat, and I didn’t have enough arms to carry all her stuff yesterday. I need food, I need toys, I need kitty litter. I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but—”

“It’s no goddamn inconvenience.”

That response squelched further attempts at conversation. She just muttered “right” and “left” at the appropriate times until she indicated her own door in Alphabet City. He drove on past without stopping, and found a parking space three blocks down.

Nancy was disconcerted. She hadn’t expected him to find parking. God knows, she never did. She’d expected that he’d drop her off at the stoop and wait as she hustled upstairs. But here he was, parked.

Liam Knightly, at her apartment, at three in the morning. It flung open doors in her mind that she just wasn’t ready to look through.

She lost patience with herself. For God’s sake, the man had just driven forty minutes out of his way to take her home in the middle of the night. The least she could do was to offer him coffee for the drive.

“Do you, uh, want to come up for coffee?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said.

The word reverberated, invested with infinite shades of meaning. Her knees went rubbery. “My apartment isn’t neutral ground.”

His eyes gleamed. “I’ll be good.”

Hah. Loaded words, if there ever were ones.