Her husband of two years-and the reason she’d suggested this leg of their vacation-took his hand off the wheel to pat her thigh. “Relax, Lieutenant.”

“Watch the road! Don’t look at me, look at the road. Except it’s not really a road. It’s a track. What are these damn bushes, and why are they here?”

“It’s fuchsia. Lovely, aren’t they?”

They made her think of blood spatter, possibly resulting from a massacre by a battalion of farm animals.

“They ought to move them away from the stupid road.”

“I imagine they were here first.”

Ireland wound through his voice a lot more appealingly than the road wound through the countryside.

She risked a glance in his direction. He looked happy, she realized. Relaxed, happy, at ease in a thin leather jacket and T-shirt, his black hair swept back from that amazing face (another killer), his eyes so rich a blue it made the heart ache.

She remembered they’d nearly died together a few weeks before, and he’d been badly wounded. She’d thought-she could still remember that breathless instant when she’d thought she’d lost him.

And here he was, alive and whole. So maybe she’d forgive him for being amused at her expense.

Maybe.

Besides, it was her own fault. She’d suggested they take part of their vacation, their anniversary celebration, here so he could visit the family he’d only recently discovered. She’d been here before, after all.

Of course, that trip she’d taken in a jet-copter.

When he slowed as they entered what could very loosely be called a town, she breathed a little easier.

“Nearly there now,” he told her. “This is Tulla. Sinead’s farm is a few kilometers from the village.”

Okay, they’d made it this far. Ordering herself to settle down, she scooped a hand through her choppy cap of brown hair.