Irish Rose by Nora Roberts Read Free Book Online Page B

turned her hand over again and looked at her face. "You're not the kind of woman who daydreams about white knights."
    She could smile at that, though the intensity of his eyes made her uneasy. "I've always thought white knights would be painfully dull, and the last thing I want is to be a lady in distress. I'd rather be slaying my own dragons."
    "Good. I don't have much use for a woman who wants to be taken care of." He still had her hand, he still watched the wind whip furiously through her hair. "Why don't you come back to America with me, Erin?"
    She stared at him, speechless. The skies opened up. They were both soaked in a matter of seconds. She might have stood there, wide-eyed and openmouthed, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her inside a shed.
    Inside it was dim and smelled of soil and damp. Tools for the vegetable garden lined the walls. Her mother's peat pots and seeds were stacked on shelves waiting for planting. Rain beat on the tin roof, and the wind snaked through the cracks in the boards and moaned.
    Erin stood shivering just inside the door, her hair plastered to her head, her sweater dripping at the hem. But her senses had come back, full force.
    "You're a madman, Burke Logan. By the saints, you're as mad as a hatter. Do you think I'd just bundle up my skirts and cross an ocean with you?" She still shivered, but the more she spoke, the hotter her temper became. "Sure and it's a conceited ox you are to believe all you have to do is crook your finger to have me tagging after you. I don't even know you." She swiped a hand over her face to dry it, then went one better and shoved him hard in the chest. "And it's the God's truth that I have no desire to."
    She turned to the shed door and would have yanked it open if he hadn't caught her by the shoulders.
    "Take your hands off me, you snake." On impulse, she grabbed a rake and turned on him with it. "Touch me again and I'll slice you into pieces, little ones that won't be put back together easily."
    So she'd slay her dragons with a garden rake, he thought, lifting both hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace. "You don't have to defend your honor, Irish. I'm not after it—yet. This is business."
    "What business would I be having with you?" When he took a step toward her, she gestured with the rake. "Come closer and I promise you'll be missing an ear at the very least."
    "Fine." He made as if to take a step back. Then he moved quickly. Erin cursed him when he wrenched the rake out of her hands. Even as it clattered to the floor, her back was against the wall. "You'll have to learn not to drop your guard." His face was close, so close she could see his eyes, smoky and dark, and little else. She twisted, but his fingers only dug in harder. "Hold still a minute, will you? You're making a fool of yourself."
    Nothing he could have said would have struck the light to her temper faster. She all but bared her teeth and snarled. "There'll come a time and there'll come a place when you'll pay for this."
    "Everyone pays, Irish. Now take a deep breath, shut your mouth and listen. I'm offering you a job, that's all." She stopped wriggling to stare at him again. "I need someone sharp, someone clever with figures, to run my books."
    "Your books?"
    "The farm, expenses, payroll. The man I had was a little too creative. Since he's going to be a guest of the state for the next few years, I need someone else. I want someone I know, someone I can see and talk to, handling my money rather than a big shiny company that doesn't give a damn about the farm or me."
    Because her head was whirling, she took one long breath before she spoke again. "You want me to come to America and keep your books?"
    He smiled because she sounded almost disappointed. "I'm not offering you a free ride. You're a pleasure to look at, Erin, but at the moment all I intend to pay for is your brain."
    "Move back," she ordered in a voice that was suddenly firm. "I can't breathe with you pushing me through the wall."
    "No