Born in Fire

by Nora Roberts

  "There's nothing wrong, darling. Nothing at all wrong."

  To his amazement she blushed like a schoolgirl. "Grandmother—"

  He was interrupted by a clatter on the stairs and a shout. "Chrissy? Where have you gone off to, girl?"

  Rogan stood slowly as a man popped into the doorway. He was burly of chest, bald as an egg and dressed in an ill-fitting suit the color of marigolds. His face was round and wrinkled. It beamed like a moon.

  'There you are, my darling girl. I thought I'd lost you."

  "I was about to ring for tea." Christine's blush deepened as the man strode into the room and kissed both her fluttering hands.

  "Rogan, this is Niall Feeney. Niall, my grandson, Rogan."

  "So, this be himself." Rogan found his hand enveloped and pumped heartily. "Well, it's delighted I am to be meeting you at long last. Chrissy's told me all about you, lad. Why, you're the very apple of her eye."

  "I'm—pleased to meet you, Mr. Feeney."

  "No, no, now, none of that formality between us. Not with all our family connections." He winked and laughed until his belly jiggled.

  "Connections?" Rogan said weakly.

  "Aye, with me growing up no farther than a toad could spit from Chrissy here. Fifty years pass, begad, and now fate has it that you're handling all that pretty glass my niece makes."

  "Your niece?" Realization struck like a fist. "You're Maggie's uncle."

  "I am indeed." Niall sat, very much at home, his substantial belly sagging over his belt. "Proud as a peacock of the girl, I'll say, though I don't understand a bloody thing about what she's doing. I have to take Chrissy's word that it's fine."

  "Chrissy," Rogan repeated in a small voice.

  "Isn't it lovely, Rogan?" Christine's nervous smile hurt her face. "It seems Brianna wrote to Niall in Galway to tell him Maggie and you were working together. Of course, she mentioned that you were my grandson. Niall wrote me back, and one thing led to another. He's come to visit awhile."

  'Visit. In Dublin?"

  "A fine city it is, to be sure." Niall smacked a hand on the delicate arm of the sofa. "With the prettiest girls in all of Ireland." He winked at Christine. "Though, in truth, I've only eyes for one."

  "Go on with you, Niall."

  Rogan stared at the pair of them, all but billing and cooing before his eyes. "I believe I'll have that drink after all," he said. "A whiskey."

  Chapter Eighteen

  IT was a very subdued Rogan who left his grandmother's parlor and swung by the gallery just past closing. He didn't want to believe he'd seen what he knew he'd seen. Just as Maggie had once said, when a couple is intimate, they throw off signals. His grandmother, for God's sake, was flirting with Maggie's moon-faced uncle from Galway. No, he decided as he let himself into the gallery, it didn't bear thinking of. Signals there might have been, but undoubtedly he'd read them incorrectly. His grandmother was, after all, over seventy, a woman of faultless taste, unblemished character, impeccable style. And Niall Feeney was . . . was simply indescrib able, Rogan decided. What he needed was a couple of hours of perfect peace and quiet in his gallery office—away from people and phones and anything remotely personal. He shook his head as he crossed the room. He was sounding entirely too much like Maggie. The raised voices stopped him before his hand met the knob. An argument was in full swing on the other side of the door. While manners might have urged him to retreat, curiosity turned the tide.

  He opened the door on Joseph and Patricia in full steam.

  "I tell you, you're not using the head God gave you," Joseph shouted. "I won't be the cause of an estrangement between you and your mother."

  "I don't give a bloody pin for what my mother thinks," Patricia shouted right back, causing Rogan's mouth to fall open. "This has nothing to do with her."

  'The fact that you could say so proves my point. You're not using your head. She's—Rogan." Joseph's furious face went still as a stone. "I didn't expect you in."

  "Obviously." Rogan looked cautiously from Joseph to Patricia. "I seem to have interrupted."

  "Perhaps you can talk your way through that pride of his." Eyes glinting with emotion, Patricia tossed back her hair. "I can't."

  "This has nothing to do with Rogan." Joseph's voice was quiet, with the steel of warning beneath.

  "Oh, no, we mustn't let anyone know." The first tear spilled over. Patricia dashed it away. "We should keep sneaking around like—like adulterers. Well, I won't do it any longer, Joseph. I'm in love with you and I don't care who knows." She whirled on Rogan. "Well? What do you have to say about it?"

  He held up a hand as if to regain his balance. "I think I should leave you alone."

  "No need." She fumbled for her purse. "He won't listen to me. It was my mistake to believe he would. That he was the only one who really would."

  "Patricia."

  "Don't Patricia me in that tone," she snapped at Joseph. "All my life I've been told what to do and how to do it. What's proper, what's acceptable, and I'm sick to death of it. I tolerated the criticism over opening my school, and the damnable unspoken belief of my friends and family that I'd fail. Well, I won't fail." She whirled on Rogan again as if he'd spoken. "Do you hear, I won't fail. I'll do exactly what I wish, and I'll do it well. What I won't tolerate is criticism of my choice of lovers. Not from you, not from my mother, and most certainly not from the lover I've chosen."

  Chin up, she looked back at Joseph with tear-drenched eyes. "If you don't want me, then be honest and say so. But don't you dare tell me what's best for me."

  Joseph stepped toward her, but she was already darting out the door. "Patty! Damn it." Better to let her go, Joseph told himself. Better for her. "I'm sorry, Rogan," he said stiffly. "I would have found a way to have avoided that scene if I'd known you were coming in."

  "Since you didn't, perhaps you might explain it." Equally stiff, Rogan rounded his desk and sat, assum ing the position of authority. "In fact, I insist."

  Joseph didn't bat an eye at Rogan's seamless switch from friend to employer. "It's obvious I've been seeing Patricia."

  "I believe the term she used was sneaking about."

  The color washed back into Joseph's face. "We—I thought it best if we were discreet."

  "Did you?" A fire kindled in Rogan's eyes. "And treating a woman like Patricia like one of your casual affairs was your idea of discretion?"

  "I was prepared for your disapproval, Rogan."

  Beneath his tailored jacket, Joseph's shoulders were rigid as steel. "I expected it."

  "And well you should have," Rogan said evenly.

  "So I did, just as I expected the reaction I got from her mother when Patricia talked me into dining with them last evening." His hands tightened into fists. "A gallery manager without a drop of blue in his blood. She might as well have said it, for it was in her eyes. Her daughter could do better. And by Christ she can. But I won't stand here and have you say that what's between us is a casual affair." His voice had risen to a shout by the time he was finished.

  'Then what is it?"

  "I'm in love with her. I've been in love with her since the first time I saw her, nearly ten years ago. But then there was Robert . . . and there was you."

  'There was never me." Baffled, Rogan rubbed his hands over his face. Was the world going mad? he wondered. His grandmother and Maggie's uncle, himself and Maggie and now Joseph and Patricia. "When did this happen?"

  'The week before you left for Paris." Joseph re membered those giddy hours, those wonderful days and nights before reality had set in. "I didn't plan it, but that hardly changes anything. I realize you may want to make other arrangements now."

  Rogan dropped his hands. "What other arrange ments?"

  "For managing the gallery."

  What he needed, Rogan thought, was to go home and find a bottle of aspirin. "Why?" he asked wearily.

  "I'm your employee."

  "You are, and I hope you'll remain so. Your private life has nothing to do with your work here. G
ood Christ, do I look like some kind of monster who would fire you for claiming to be in love with a friend of mine?" He indulged his now throbbing head a moment by pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes. "I walk in here—into my own office, I'll remind you—and find the two of you snapping like terriers. Before I can take the next breath, Patricia's clawing at me for not believing her capable of running a school." He shook his head and dropped his hands. "I never thought she was incapable of anything. She's one of the most intelligent women I know."

  "You just got caught in the backlash," Joseph murmured, and gave in to the desperate need for a cigarette.

  "So it seems. You've a right to tell me it's none of my business, but as someone who's known you for ten years, and Patricia longer than that, I do take an interest. What the devil were you fighting about?"

  Joseph huffed out smoke. "She wants to elope."

  "Elope?" If Joseph had told him Patricia wanted to dance naked in St. Stephen's Square, he'd have been no more staggered. "Patricia?"

  "She's cooked up some mad scheme about us driving up to Scotland. It seems she had a row with her mother and came storming straight over here."

  "I've never known Patricia to storm anywhere. Her mother's not in favor of the relationship, I take it."

  "Anything but." He offered a weak smile. "The truth is, she thinks Patricia should hang out for you."

  Rogan was hardly surprised at this news. "She's doomed to disappointment there," he said. "I've other plans. If it helps matters, I'll make them clear to her."

  "I don't know as it could hurt." Joseph hesitated, then sat as he was used to, on the corner of Rogan's desk. "You don't mind, then? It doesn't bother you?"

  "Why should it? And as far as Anne's concerned, Dennis will bring her around."

  "That's what Patricia said." Joseph studied the cigarette smoldering between his fingers, then pulled out his little flip-top ashtray and crushed it out. "She seemed to think if we just ran off and got married, her mother would soon fall in with the idea as if it had been hers all along."

  "I'd lay odds on it. She wasn't keen on Robbie at first either."

  "Wasn't she?" Joseph had the look of a man who was beginning to see the light.

  "Not at all sure he was good enough for her darling daughter." Speculating, Rogan rocked back in his chair. "It didn't take long for her to begin to dote on him. Of course, he didn't wear an earring."

  Joseph's grin flashed as he lifted a hand to his ear. "Patty likes it."

  "Hmm," was all Rogan could think of to say. "Anne might be a bit difficult." He ignored Joseph's rude snort. "But in the end, all she wants is her daughter's happiness. If you're the answer to that, Anne will want you as well. You know, we could manage well enough around here if you took a sudden trip to Scotland."

  "I couldn't. It wouldn't be fair to her."

  "Your business, of course. But . . ." Rogan stretched back in his chair again. "It seems to me a woman might find a wild ride over the border, a ceremony in some musty chapel and a honeymoon in the Highlands very romantic."

  "I don't want her to regret it." Joseph was begin ning to sound less certain.

  The woman who walked out of here just now looked to me to know her own mind."

  "She does, and she's come to know mine all too quickly." He pushed away from the desk. "I'd better go find her." He stopped at the door, tossed a grin over his shoulder. "Rogan, can you spare me for a week?"

  "Take two. And kiss the bride for me."

  The wire that came three days later, telling Rogan that Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Donahoe were well and happy proved to him that he wasn't a hard-hearted man. In fact, he liked to believe he'd done his part to speed the two lovers on their way.

  But there were two other lovers he'd have given much to see go their separate paths. In fact, he fantasized daily about booting Niall Feeney all the way back to Galway. At first Rogan tried to ignore the situation. When more than a week had passed and Niall was still cozily ensconced in Christine Sweeney's home, he tried patience. After all, he told himself, how long would a woman of his grand mother's taste and sensibilities be duped by a charm less, borish west-county sharpie?

  After two weeks, he decided it was time to try reason. Rogan waited in the parlor—the parlor, he re minded himself that reflected the style and breeding of a lovely, sensible and generous woman.

  "Why, Rogan." Christine glided into the room looking, her grandson thought, entirely too attractive for a woman of her age. "What a lovely surprise. I thought you were on your way to Limerick."

  "I am. I've just stopped in on the way to the airport." He kissed her, glanced over her shoulder to the doorway. "So . . . you're alone?"

  "Yes, Niall's out running some errands. Do you have time for a bite to eat before you go? Cook's baked some lovely tarts. Niall's charmed her so, that she's been baking treats daily."

  "Charmed her?" As his grandmother sat Rogan rolled his eyes.

  "Oh, yes. He's always popping into the kitchen to tell her what a way she has with soup, or the duck or some dish or other. She can't do enough for him."

  "He certainly looks like a man who eats well."

  Christine's smile was indulgent. "Oh, he loves his food, Niall does."

  "I'm sure it goes down easy, when it's free."

  The comment had Christine raising a brow. "Would you have me bill a friend for a meal, Rogan?"

  "Of course not. He's been in town some time now," he said, changing tacks. "I'm sure he must miss his home, and his business."

  "Oh, he's retired. As Niall says, a man can't work all his life."

  "If he's worked at all," Rogan said under his breath. "Grandmother, I'm sure it's been nice for you to visit with a friend from your childhood, but—"

  "It has. It's been truly wonderful. Why, I feel young again." She laughed. "Like a girl. Just last night we went dancing. I'd forgotten what a fine dancer Niall is. And when we go to Galway—"

  "We?" Rogan felt himself pale. "We go to Galway?"

  "Yes, next week we're planning to take a long drive back to the west. A bit of nostalgia for me. Of course, I'm interested in seeing Niall's home."

  "But you can't. It's absurd. You can't go traisping off to Galway with the man."

  "Why ever not?"

  "Because it's—you're my grandmother, for God's sake. I won't have you . . ."

  "Won't have me what?" she asked very quietly.

  The tone, reflecting the sort of anger she rarely directed at him, had Rogan reining in. "Grand mother, I realize you've let yourself be swept away by the man, by the memories. I'm sure there's no harm in it. But the idea of you going off with a man you haven't seen for more than fifty years is ludicrous."

  How young he was, Christine thought. And how distressingly proper. "I believe, at my age, I'd enjoy doing something ludicrous. However, I don't believe taking a trip back to my childhood home with a man I'm very fond of, a man I knew long before you were born, fits into that category. Now, perhaps," she said, holding up a hand before he could speak, "you find that the idea of my having a relationship, an adult, satisfying relationship with Niall, does fit that cat egory."

  "You're not telling me—you're not saying—you haven't actually . . ."

  "Slept with him?" Christine leaned back, tapping her well-manicured nails on the arm of the love seat. 'That's certainly my business, isn't it? And I don't require your approval."

  "Of course not." He heard himself beginning to babble. "I'm just concerned, naturally."

  "Your concern is noted." She rose, regally. "I'm sorry that you're shocked by my behavior, but it can't be helped."

  "I'm not shocked—damn, of course I'm shocked. You can't just ..." He could hardly say the words, could he? In his grandmother's parlor. "Darling, I know nothing about the man."

  "I know about him. I haven't any definite plans on how long we'll be in Galway, but we will be stopping in to see Maggie and her family on the way. Shall I give her your regards?"

  "You can't have thought t
his through."

  "I know my own mind and heart better, it seems, than you think. Have a safe trip, Rogan."

  Dismissed, he had no choice but to kiss her cheek and leave. The moment he was in the car, he yanked at the phone. "Eileen, reschedule Limerick for tomor row. . . . Yes, there's a problem," he muttered. "I have to go to Clare."

  When the first touch of fall caressed the air and gilded the trees, it seemed a sin not to enjoy it. After two solid weeks of work, Maggie decided she de served a day off. She spent the morning in the garden, weeding with a vigor that would have made Brianna proud. To reward herself, she decided to bike to the village for a late lunch at O'Malley's.

  There was a bite to the air, and the layered clouds to the west promised rain before nightfall. She pulled on her cap, pumped up her rear tire, which was going flat, then guided the bike around the house and through the gate. She set off at a leisurely pace, dreaming a bit over the harvesting in the fields. The fuchsia continued to bloom in teardrops of red despite the threat of early frost. The landscape would change as soon as winter set it, become barren and swept by a bitter wind. But it would still be beautiful. The nights would lengthen, urging people to their fires. The rains would come, sweeping across the Atlantic with the wail of the wind. She looked forward to it, and to the work she would do in the chilly months ahead. She wondered if she could convince Rogan to come west during the winter, and if she did, would he find charm in the rattling windows and smoky fires. She hoped that he would. And when he stopped punishing her, she hoped that they could go back to the way things had been before that last night in France. He'd see reason, she told herself, and leaned low over the bike against the wind. She'd make him see it. She'd even forgive him for being high-handed, overconfident and dictatorial. The moment they were together again, she would be calm and cool and sweet-tongued. They'd put this foolish disagreement behind them, and—

  She had time to squeal, barely, and to swerve into the hedgerows as a car barreled around the curve. Brakes screamed, the car veered, and Maggie ended up bottom first in the blackthorn.

  "Jesus, Mary and Joseph, what kind of a blind, ignorant fool is it who tries to run down innocent people?" She shoved the cap back that had fallen over her eyes and glared. "Oh, of course. It would be you."

  "Are you hurt?" Rogan was out of the car and beside her in an instant. "Don't try to move."

  "I can move, curse you." She batted his exploring hands away. "What do you mean driving at that horrible speed? This isn't a raceway."

  The heart that had lodged hard in his throat freed itself. "I wasn't driving that fast. You were in the middle of the road, daydreaming. If I'd come around that turn a second sooner, I'd have flattened you like a rabbit."

  "I wasn't daydreaming. Minding my own business was what I was doing, not expecting some jackeen to come speeding along in a fancy car." She brushed off the seat of her pants, then kicked her bike. "Now see what you've done. I've a puncture."

  "You're lucky it's the tire that's flat and not yourself."

  "What are you doing?" she demanded.

  "I'm putting this excuse for transportation in the car." Once he'd done so, he turned back to her. "Come on, I'll drive you back home."

  "I wasn't going home. If you had any sense of direction, you'd see 1 was going to the village, where I was going to have a meal."

  'That'll have to wait." He took her arm in the proprietary manner she forgot she'd found amusing.

  "Oh, will it? Well, you can drive me to the village or nowhere at all, because I'm hungry."

  "I'll drive you home," he said again. "I have something to discuss with you, privately. If I'd been able to get through to you this morning, I could have told you I was coming and you wouldn't have been riding that bike in the middle of the road." With this, he slammed the car door behind her and skirted the hood.

  "If you'd been able to get through this morning, and had had this nasty way about you, I'd have told you not to bother to come at all."

  "I've had a difficult morning, Maggie." He resisted the urge to rub at the headache drumming behind his temples. "Don't push me."

  She began to, then saw that he'd said no more than the truth. There was trouble in his eyes. "Is it a problem at work?"

  "No. Actually, I do have some complications with a project in Limerick. I'm on my way there."