The Naughty List Bundle with The Night Before Christmas & Yule Be Mine. Fern Michaels

finger, I’ll have a perm,” she said on a soft laugh, startling him from his thoughts.

      She hadn’t moved from where he’d cradled her, and she was presently tracing aimless patterns on his abdomen with her fingertips. It felt good.

      He smiled as he untangled the lock of hair from his finger. “Sorry. What’s a perm?”

      She lifted her head then, and if he’d thought her eyes were deep blue pools he could drown in before, they were downright bottomless now. Suddenly drowning didn’t seem like such a bad way to go.

      “Seriously? Don’t Irish women get their hair curled?”

      “I wouldn’t know, never really paid attention. If you mean those rollers they put in—”

      She laughed. “Close enough.”

      He massaged her scalp a little, liking the feel of her hair sliding over his hands. “I didn’t mean to tug it out.”

      “It felt good, actually, until right at the end.” She shifted a little, rolled into him so she could prop her chin and hands on his chest. “Why did you stay?”

      “Stay…you mean now?” His heart sank, and it shouldn’t have. Of course she wanted him out of there. She still had work to do, and he wouldn’t be the least surprised if she headed straight back down the stairs to do it.

      “No,” she said, smiling up at him. She slipped her hand up and tracked her fingers over his cheek, along his jaw. “I like you right where you are.”

      Hearing that shouldn’t have been the heady rush that it was. “I’m growing rather partial to the spot myself. So…what did you mean, then?”

      “Tonight. In the kitchen with me. I know you said you wanted to talk to me, explain the situation, but you could have just laid it all out there in five, ten minutes. You certainly didn’t have to put in the work you did.”

      “I believe you told me I had to work if I was to talk.”

      She grinned. “You bought that?”

      He smiled, too, and tousled her hair. “I’ll remember that for next time.”

      “So will I,” she said dryly, then looked away.

      “Hey,” he said, when a few moments passed and she didn’t look back at him. “I wanted to stay. It stopped being about talking up the project pretty much as soon as you let me in. In fact, if you want to know a secret, I’m no’ too certain I ever much cared what we discussed. I just wanted to see you again.”

      She looked up again, clearly surprised. “Why?”

      “Oh, I told myself it was the project, but once I was here, I knew it was more than that. You intrigued me, Melody. I wanted to know more.” He tipped his chin up and kissed her forehead, effectively ending the line of questioning and, he hoped, his apparent inability to keep his trap shut. “Do you need to get the rest done tonight? Do you need more help?”

      “No, that’s not it. I can make do. Would you have stayed and helped if I did?”

      If it would keep me around you awhile longer, I’d build kingdoms for you, he wanted to say. But, mercifully, he seemed to have at least some control over blurting out each and every one of his thoughts. “What, wasn’t I doing a good enough job?” he teased. “By the last couple cupcakes, I wasn’t even licking my fingers any longer.”

      She looked up more sharply at him, then knuckled him gently in the ribs. “Very funny. You Irishmen have a dry wit.”

      “And most of us a wet whistle. I’m sure there’s some connection there somewhere.”

      “So, you enjoy a good ale, then?”

      He shook his head. “Never touch the stuff.”

      “Really?” she asked.

      He chuckled a bit dryly. “We’re not all a bunch of loud, limerick-reciting sots, you know.”

      “I didn’t mean that,” she said.

      He could see by the honest surprise on her face that she was telling the truth.

      “It was simply because, growing up in a restaurant and pub, it would make sense if you had a—”

      “Acquired a taste for a few nips now and again?” He shook his head, and tried to keep his tone smooth. She was poking in places she didn’t know were tender. More than that, it annoyed him to no end to realize just how tender they still were. “Quite the opposite in my case. I don’t touch any of the stuff.”

      She gave him a steadier look, and he realized she wasn’t just talking off the top of her head. “I was going to say ‘acquired a distinguished palate’ but, either way, it’s still a surprise to hear you don’t drink at all. Not to be obvious, but is it because you saw too many folks who couldn’t stop at those few nips?”

      “Something like that.” He felt even more the fool for letting her innocent questions make him feel so defensive. It had been a long while since he’d cared what anyone thought of him, or the family situation he’d come from. He would never have volunteered the information, but it was important to him that she knew who he was, though he couldn’t have said why, since their time together would be limited. “My father, mostly.”

      She laid her hand over his heart, her expression instantly compassionate. “That’s rough. I’m sorry. I can’t pretend to know anything about it, but I’m sure I’m grossly understating when I say that couldn’t have been a good situation for a child.”

      He could have pointed out any number of scars, some small, some more noticeable, like the ones through his eyebrow and along his hairline, that were part of what hadn’t been a good situation. She wasn’t pitying him, merely feeling bad that he’d had such a difficult time. There was a distinct difference. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t. I left when I was sixteen. My father died a few years after.”

      “You didn’t go back?”

      “No.” He tipped her chin up, cupped her cheek, and smiled. It came easily, surprising him. “I didn’t do too badly from that point on.”

      “They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but I suspect a situation like yours might have gone the other way. It doesn’t seem fair, for any kid to have to deal with that.”

      “I spent my fair share of time thinking about that, but it wasn’t going to help matters.”

      “Your grandmother, the one whose restaurant you worked in, didn’t she?”—Melody lifted her hand—“No, that’s none of my business. I’ll just say I’m glad you escaped, and that your path changed afterward. I’m guessing it didn’t happen right away, though. How did you get from there to doing what you do now?”

      “One thing about the Gallagher clan is we have a lot of cousins.”

      She laughed. “On both sides of the pond, yes. So, did another branch of the family take you in?”

      “Not exactly, but they did help me find work.” He’d never told his cousins in Dublin why he’d left Cork. Nor did he ask for help until he was old enough for them not to question his being on his own. The various branches of the family were close enough that they probably weren’t all that surprised. “My Dublin cousins also had a restaurant. As did several other branches of my family. For a long time, I’d been trying to get my grandmother to see that if she could talk the other family restaurants into joining forces, they could all improve their individual places.”

      “You realized that? You were just a kid.”

      He lifted a shoulder. “I watched too much television in the pub growing up, maybe. A lot of news programs along with all the sports. Commerce intrigued me. Rebuilding, reimagining things to make them successful made sense to me. I don’t know why I think like that, but I always have.”

      “They say inventors are born,