Ryan's Place Read Online Free

dial.
    She seemed startled that he’d bothered to ask. “Of course not. Whatever you like.”
    “Any preferences?”
    “Jazz,” she suggested hesitantly. “Not everyone likes it, Iknow, but I can’t get a single jazz station where I live, and I really miss it.”
    Ryan was surprised by the choice. “Now, I would have pegged you as a woman who likes oldies.”
    “I do, but there’s something about a mournful sax that tears my heart up. It’s such a melancholy sound.” She regarded him worriedly. “If you hate it, though, it’s okay. Oldies will be fine.”
    Ryan flipped on the radio, and sweet jazz immediately filled the car. He grinned at her. “Pre-set to the jazz station,” he pointed out. “It seems we have something in common, Maggie O’Brien. Wouldn’t that make Father Francis ecstatic?”
    “Something tells me we shouldn’t offer him any encouragement,” she said dryly. “The man does perform weddings, after all. He’s liable to have us marching down the aisle before we even know each other.”
    “Not likely,” Ryan murmured, then winced at his own harsh response to what had clearly been nothing more than a teasing remark. “Sorry. Nothing personal.”
    “No offense taken,” Maggie said easily.
    But Ryan noticed he’d managed to wipe the smile off her face. Once again she turned away to stare out the window, seemingly fascinated by the falling snow.
    And he felt about two inches tall.
     
    Even with the soothing sounds of her favorite jazz to distract her, Maggie couldn’t help wondering about the brooding man beside her. Time after time during her brief visit to his pub, she had seen him turn on the charm with his customers. She’d also noted the very real affection between him and the old priest and Ryan’s quick recognition of the older man’s exhaustion.
    Now, however, he’d fallen into a grim silence, apparentlycontent to let the radio fill the silence. She could as easily have been riding with an untalkative cabbie.
    When she could stand it no longer, she risked a glance at him. Ever since his offhand comment about the unlikelihood of getting trapped into marrying her by the scheming Father Francis, he’d kept his gaze locked on the road as if it presented some sort of challenge. Since the sky south of town was still clear and bright with stars and there hadn’t been a patch of ice on the highway since they’d left downtown Boston, she concluded that he was trying to avoid looking at her. Maybe he feared she shared the priest’s determination to create a match between them.
    Of course, it was probably for the best. From the moment she’d walked into Ryan’s Place and looked into the eyes of the owner, she’d felt a disconcerting twinge of awareness that went way beyond gratitude toward a man who’d offered, albeit reluctantly, to bail her out of a jam. Every time she’d ever gotten a twinge like that, it had landed her in trouble. She had a whole slew of regrets to prove it, though few were romantic in nature. Her impulses tended toward other areas. Some had cost her money. Some had gotten her mixed up in projects that were a waste of her time. Only one had been related to a scoundrel who’d stolen her heart.
    Still, she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off him. He was, after all, every girl’s fantasy of a Black Irish hunk. She noted again that his coal-black hair, worn just a bit too long, gave him a rakish, bad-boy appearance. His deep blue eyes danced with merriment, at least when he wasn’t scowling over having been outmaneuvered by Father Francis, a wily old man if ever she’d met one. There was a tiny scar at the corner of his mouth, barely visible unless one looked closely, which, ofcourse, she had. After all, the man had a mouth that any sane woman would instantly imagine locked against her own.
    Yes, indeed, Ryan Devaney was the embodiment of every woman’s fantasy, all right. A very dangerous fantasy. It would be all too easy to fall in with Father