CHAPTER TWO

      YOU KNOW HIM?

      That’s what Amanda’s wide-eyed look said. And then she said it out loud for good measure.

      “Ha!” Saoirse barked. “No.”

      Saoirse’s eyes darted between her friend and Mr. Mysterioso. This was awkward. Why wasn’t the earth being kindly for once and swallowing her up in a freak sinkhole incident? Now would be a pretty good time for Mother Nature to intervene if she was ever going to show her largesse. She hadn’t bothered when her fiancé had left her standing at the altar like a complete and utter ninny in a ridiculous meringue of a dress... Well...it had rained a lot so it had masked the tears, but Hop to it Mummy Nature—now’s your chance to make things right!

      “Santiago.”

      He stretched his hand forward toward Saoirse, who ignored it, and then to Amanda, who—after exclaiming how fun it was that he was a lefty—took it, gave it a stroke with her other hand to check for a ring and shook it in slow motion, all the while mouthing to Saoirse “You know him?”

      “Santi, if Santiago’s too much of a mouthful.”

      The comment was aimed directly at her. And elicited some images that would’ve sent a nun straight to the burning flames place.

      Saoirse drained her glass. It wasn’t ladylike and rocketed a brain freeze straight to the neurotransmitters that would’ve helped her with witty rebuttals, but...tough. Mr. Created-for-Calendars here had made an impact and she’d been working long and hard on the impenetrable fortress built around her heart, not to mention her—ahem—golden triangle. Or whatever it was called these days. For crying out loud! It was feeling a bit too much like there was some sort of fireworks display going off in her heavily ignored girlie parts.

      “And you are...?”

      She could hear Santiago speaking again. Santi-ahhhh-go... Of course he’d have a gorgeous name to go with his gorgeous everything else.

      Why couldn’t she speak?

      “I’m Amanda and Miss Mutey-Pants here is Sear-shuh.” Amanda valiantly stepped into the fray with a perfect mimic of Saoirse trying for the billionth time to get people to pronounce her Gaelic name properly. It wasn’t that hard. And right now she wished she could tell her friend it was actually pronounced Sear-shut up, Amanda!

      Santiago turned the full beam of his smile onto Saoirse, clearly enjoying her very obvious discomfort. And that wasn’t just the fact she had to tip her chin way up to meet his amused grin. It had been a right old comedy of errors when the pair of them had boarded up Diego and tried to get him up the embankment to the ambulance.

      “You all right after this afternoon’s workout?”

      Oh! It appears someone does a little bit of mind reading on the side.

      “I think it’ll be safe to say Joe is more than happy to be throwing in the towel today.”

      “You held your own.”

      Flatterer.

      “What? Coming up on the rear, with you pulling him up one-handed like? I don’t think so.” She might not want to like him, but the man deserved all the credit on that one. Diego would be wearing a toe tag in the morgue right now if Santiago hadn’t swooped in to the rescue. There weren’t many folk who would leap off their motorcycles—and, yes, she’d ogled the mint condition road bike, envied it and just for a teensy-tiny second imagined Santiago straddling it—all to come to the aid of a man who most of the world had forgotten about. There was definitely a heart somewhere underneath that big expanse of a chest that was working the plain black T-shirt he was wearing. She tipped her chin to the side as if it would help her see him in a white shirt. Yup! That would look nice, too. Caramel skin rocked all colors of the just-the-right-amount-of-tight T-shirt world.

      “We got there in the end.” Santiago’s eyes didn’t leave her, one of his teeth dragging across his full lower lip in slow motion...just as it had earlier in the day when she’d been very obviously staring at his...er...attributes.

      Stop staring at his lips. You are no longer in the kissing business.

      Saoirse feigned a “whatever” eye roll just to pull her eyes away from his mouth and ended up stopping in midroll when his dark-lashed eyes caught her own with a teasing wink. He knew her game. She could feel it straight down to her tightly laced mental bodice.

      “Saoirse’s name means liberty,” Amanda quipped, clearly feeling left out of the staring contest.

      “And justice to all?” Santiago asked, his eyes taking a quick side trip to Amanda then straight back to Saoirse’s, all the while doing their jolly best to unnerve her.

      For all the flaming rainbows in Ireland. Were those flecks of gold in his coffee-brown eyes? Nah... Had to be all the fairy lights laced around the walled patio’s palm trees. No one had gold flecks in their eyes. Except for tigers. And lions. Best leave the bears out of it because there was nothing grizzly about the man standing in front of her, waiting for a response to his clever quip.

      “I told you. It’s Murphy. Murph if you get tired halfway through.”

      She received a lightly arced eyebrow and a suggestion of a smile in response.

      Why did everything they said to each other seem to have a sexy, satin-sheets connotation? She briskly turned to Amanda. “I need a drink. Shall I get you anything when I’m at the bar?”

      “Same again.” Amanda wiggled her near-empty margarita glass, delighted to have a little me time with Mr. Luscious. Saoirse hesitated for a second. Happily married herself, Amanda had matchmaking down to a fine art. Especially given Saoirse’s...how to put this exactly...little bitty visa problem. The one she didn’t really want to think about ever but had to, given the high-speed tick-tock of that old life clock. Her advanced work-study degree to shift from NICU nurse to paramedic was running out and just thinking about heading back to Ireland turned her palms clammy.

      Even so...she gave Santiago a sidelong glance. Poor mite. He wouldn’t know what had hit him. Give Amanda five minutes alone with a man and she would have the rest of his life planned out, whether he saw it coming or not.

      Ping!

      Mr. Luscious blinked.

      Uh-oh.

      Had they just done that connect-eyes, mind reading thing again?

      “How ’bout I give you a hand? The crowd’s pretty wild in there.” Santiago turned to join her, much to Amanda’s delight.

      “I’m all right, thanks.” Saoirse bristled. Talk about a rock and a hard place. She might be short but she wasn’t some helpless female who needed a big strong man to help her carry a couple of drinks. On the other hand, if she left him alone with Amanda it was highly likely they’d find themselves hand in hand on the beach, their bare feet being lapped by the waves as some new age minister united them in eternal marital harmony. She shrugged. This was pretty much a no-win situation. “Do what you like.”

      “We’ll all come!” Amanda hooked her arms through each of theirs as if she were Dorothy and they were all going to gaily skip off on a grand adventure, conquering evil and learning some valuable lessons about themselves along the way.

      The only