Deirdre nodded, and Brendan—to the young woman’s wildest bewilderment—asked, “Was it bad?”

She bit her lip in surprise. “A-Aren’t you mad?”

Mad? Of course Brendan was mad. Furious, even. Furious for an entire day. He had been downright apoplectic in the evening, when he’d waited and waited for Deirdre to come home on time. Every second had burned!

So what? All that rage had melted away—how could he stay mad after witnessing the lengths this woman would go to just to conceal her injury and th