Irish Thoroughbred

by Nora Roberts

  would drone on and on. Does he still, Erin?"

  Erin slipped the keys of the van in the pocket of her purse. "He died, Dee, better than a year ago." Because the light went out of her cousin's eyes, Erin lifted a hand to her cheek. "He was more than eighty, if you remember, and died quietly in his sleep."

  Life went on, she knew, and people passed out of it whether you wanted them to or not. Dee glanced back at the church. It would never seem exactly the same again. "He buried Mother and Da. I can't forget how kind he was to me."

  "We've a young priest now," Erin began briskly. "Sent from Cork. A hell-raiser he is, and not a soul sleeps through one of his sermons. Put the fear of God into Michael Ryan, so the man comes sober to mass every Sunday morning." She turned to help with the luggage and slammed solidly into Burke. He put a hand on her shoulder as if to steady her, but it lingered too long.

  "I beg your pardon."

  She couldn't stop her chin from tilting forward or her eyes from spitting at him. He only smiled. "My fault." Grabbing two hefty cases, he swung them out of the van. "Why don't you take Dee and the kids in, Travis? I'll deal with this."

  Normally Travis wouldn't have left another with the bulk of the work, but he knew his wife's strength was flagging. He also knew she was stubborn, and the only way to get her into bed for a nap was to put her there himself.

  "Thanks. I'll take care of checking in. Erin, we'll see you and your family tonight?"

  "They'll be here." On impulse, she kissed Dee's cheek. "You'll rest now. Otherwise Mother will fuss and drive you mad. That I can promise."

  "Do you have to go now? Couldn't you come in?"

  "I've some things to see to. Go on now, or your children will be asleep in the street. I'll see you soon."

  Over Brandon's protest, Hannah bundled them inside. Erin turned to grip another pair of cases by the handles and began unloading. It passed through her mind that expensive clothes must weigh more when she found herself facing Burke again.

  "There's just a few more," she muttered, and deliberately breezed by him.

  Inside, the inn was dim but far from quiet. The excitement of having visitors from America had kept the small staff on their toes all week. Wood had been polished, floors had been scrubbed. Even now old Mrs. Malloy was leading Dee up the stairs and keeping up a solid stream of reminiscence. The children were cooed over, and hot tea and soda bread were offered. Deciding she'd left her charges in good hands, Erin walked outside again.

  The day was cool and clear. The early clouds had long since been blown away by the westerly wind so that the light, as it often was in Ireland, was luminescent and pearly. Erin took a moment to study the village that had so fascinated her cousin. It was ordinary, slow, quiet, filled with workingmen and women and often smelling of fish. From almost any point in town you could see the small harbor where the boats came in with their daily catch. The storefronts were kept neat. That was a matter of pride. The doors were left unlocked. That was a matter of custom.

  There was no one there who didn't know her, no one she didn't know. Whatever secrets there were were never secrets for long, but were passed out like small treasures to be savored and sighed over.

  God, she wanted to see something else before her life was done. She wanted to see big cities where life whirled by, fast and hot and anonymous. She wanted to walk down a street where no one knew who she was and no one cared. Just once, just once in her life, she wanted to do something wild and impulsive that wouldn't echo back to her on the tongues of family and neighbors. Just once.

  The van door slammed and jolted her back to reality. Again she found herself looking at Burke Logan. "They're all settled, then?" she asked, struggling to be polite.

  "Looks like." He leaned back against the van. With his ankles crossed, he pulled out a lighter and lit his cigar. He never smoked around Adelia out of respect for her condition. His eyes never left Erin's. "Not much family resemblance between you and Mrs. Grant, is there?"

  It was the first time he'd spoken more than two words at a time. Erin noted that his accent wasn't like Travis's. His words came more slowly, as if he saw no reason to hurry them. "There's the hair," he continued when Erin didn't speak. "But hers is more like Travis's prize chestnut colt, and yours-" he took another puff as he deliberated "-yours is something like the mahogany stand in my bedroom." He grinned, the cigar still clamped between his teeth. "I thought it was mighty pretty when I bought it."

  "That's a lovely thought, Mr. Logan, but I'm not a horse or a table." Reaching into her pocket, she held out the keys. "I'll be leaving these with you, then."

  Instead of taking them, he simply closed his hand over hers, cradling the keys between them. His palm was hard and rough as the rocks in the cliffs that dropped toward the sea. He enjoyed the way she held her ground, the way she lifted her brow, more in disdain than offense.

  "Is there something else you're wanting, Mr. Logan?"

  "I'll give you a lift," he said simply.

  "It's not necessary." She clenched her teeth and nodded as two of the town's busiest gossips passed behind her. The evening news would have Erin McKinnon holding hands with a stranger in the street, sure as faith. "I've only to ask for a ride home to get one."

  "You've got one already." With his hand still on hers, he pushed away from the van. "I told Travis I'd see to it." After releasing her hand, he gestured toward the door. "Don't worry, I've nearly got the hang on driving on the wrong side of the road."

  "It's you who drive on the wrong side." After only a brief hesitation, Erin climbed in. The day was passing her by, and she'd have to make every minute count just to catch up.

  Burke settled behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. "You're losing your pins," he said mildly.

  Erin reached behind her and shoved them into place as he drove out of the village. "You'll take the left fork when you come to it. After that it's only four or five kilometers." Erin folded her hands, deciding she'd granted him enough conversation.

  "Pretty country," Burke commented, glancing out at the green, windswept hills. There were blackthorns, bent a bit from the continual stream of the westerly breeze. Heather grew in a soft purple cloud, while in the distance the mountains rose dark and eerie in the light. "You're close to the sea."

  "Close enough."

  "Don't you like Americans?"

  With her hands still folded primly, she turned to look at him. "I don't like men who stare at me."

  Burke tapped his cigar ash out the window. "That would narrow the field considerably."

  "The men I know have manners, Mr. Logan."

  He liked the way she said his name, with just a hint of spit in it. "Too bad. I was taught to take a good long look at something that interested me."

  "I'm sure you consider that a compliment."

  "Just an observation. This the fork?"

  "Aye." She drew a long breath, knowing she had no reason to set her temper loose and every reason to hold it. "Do you work for Travis?"

  "No." He grinned as the van shimmied over ruts. "You might say Travis and I are associates." He liked the smell here, the rich wet scent of Ireland and the warm earthy scent of the woman beside him. "I own the farm that borders his."

  "You race horses?" She lifted a brow again, compelled to study him.

  "At the moment."

  Erin's lips pursed as she considered. She could picture him at the track, with the noise and the smells of the horses. Try as she might, she couldn't put him behind a desk, balancing accounts and ledgers. "Travis's farm is quite successful."

  His lips curved again. "Is that your way of asking about mine?"

  Her chin angled as she looked away. "It's certainly none of my concern."

  "No, it's not. But I do well enough. I wasn't born into it like Travis, but I find it suits me-for now. They'd take you back with them if you asked."

  At first it didn't sink in. Then her lips parted in surprise as she turned to him again.

  "I recognize a restles
s soul when I see one." Burke blew out smoke so that it trailed through the window and disappeared. "You're straining at the bit to get out of this little smudge on the map. Though if you ask me, it has its charm."

  "No one asked you."

  "True enough, but it's hard not to notice when you stand on the curb and look around as though you wished the whole village to hell."

  "That's not true." The guilt rose in her because for a moment, just a moment, she'd come close to wishing it so.

  "All right, we'll alter that to you wishing yourself anywhere else. I know the feeling, Irish."

  "You don't know what I feel. You don't know me at all."

  "Better than you think," he murmured. "Feeling trapped, stifled, smothered?" She said nothing this time. "Looking at the same space you saw the day you were born and wondering if it's the last thing you'll see before you die? Wondering why you don't walk out, stick out your thumb and head whichever way the wind's blowing? How old are you, Erin McKinnon?"

  What he was saying hit too close to the bone for comfort. "I'm twenty-five, and what of it?"

  "I was five years younger when I stuck my thumb out." He turned to her, but again she saw only her own reflection. "Can't say I ever regretted it."

  "Well, it's happy I am for you, Mr. Logan. Now, if you'll slow down, the lane's there. Just pull to the side. I can walk from here."

  "Suit yourself." When he stopped the van, he put a hand on her arm before she could climb out. He wasn't sure why he'd offered to drive her or why he'd started this line of conversation. He was following a hunch, as he had for most of his life. "I know ambition when I see it because it looks back at me out of the mirror most mornings. Some consider it a sin. I've always thought of it as a blessing."

  What was it about him that made her throat dry up and her nerves stretch? "Have you a point, Mr. Logan?"

  "I like your looks, Erin. I'd hate to see them wrinkled up with discontent." He grinned again and tipped an invisible hat. "Top of the morning to you." Unsure whether she was running from him or her own demons, Erin got out of the van, slammed the door, and hurried down the lane.

  CHAPTER 2

  She had a great deal to think about. Erin sat through dinner at the inn, with her family talking on top of each other, with laughter rolling into laughter. Voices were raised to be heard over the clatter of tableware, the scrape of chair legs, the occasional shout. Scents were a mixture of good hot food and whiskey. The lights had been turned up high in celebration. The group filled Mrs. Malloy's dining room at the inn, but wasn't so very much bigger than a Sunday supper at the farm.

  Erin ate little herself, not because one of her brothers seemed to interrupt constantly to have her pass this or that, but because she couldn't stop thinking about what Burke had said to her that afternoon.

  She was dissatisfied, though she didn't like the idea that a stranger could see it as easily as her family had always overlooked it. Years before she'd convinced herself it wasn't wrong to be so. How could it be wrong to feel what was so natural? True, she'd been taught that envy was a sin, but-

  Damn it all, she wasn't a saint and wouldn't choose to be one. The envy she felt for Dee sitting cozily beside her husband felt healthy, not sinful. After all, it wasn't as if she wished her cousin didn't have; it was only that she wished she had as well. She doubted a body burned in hell for wishes. But she didn't think they grew wings for them, either.

  In truth, she was glad the Grants had come back to visit. For a few days she could listen to their stories of America and picture it. She could ask questions and imagine the big stone house Dee lived in now and almost catch glimpses of the excitement and power of the racing world. When they left again, everything would settle back to routine.

  But not forever, Erin promised herself. No, not forever. In a year, maybe two, she would have saved enough, and then it would be off to Dublin. She'd get a job in some big office and have a flat of her own. Of her very own. No one was going to stop her.

  Her lips started to curve at the thought, but then her gaze met Burke's across the table. He wasn't wearing those concealing glasses now. She almost wished he was. They'd been disturbing, but not nearly as disturbing as his eyes-dark gray, intense eyes. A wolf would have eyes like that, smoky and patient and cunning. He had no business looking at her like that, she thought, then stubbornly stared right back at him.

  The noise and confusion of the table continued around them, but she lost track of it. Was it the amusement in his eyes that drew her, or the arrogance? Perhaps it was because both added up to a peculiar kind of knowledge. She wasn't sure, but she felt something for him at that moment, something she knew she shouldn't feel and was even more certain she'd regret.

  An Irish rose, Burke thought. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen one, but was certain they would have thorns, thick ones with sharp edges. An Irish rose, a wild rose, wouldn't be fragile or require careful handling. It would be sturdy, strong and stubborn enough to grow through briers. It was a flower he thought he could respect.

  He liked her family. They would be called salt of the earth, he supposed. Simple, but not simple-minded. Apparently their farm did well enough, as long as they worked seven days a week. Mary McKinnon had a dressmaking business on the side, but seemed more interested in discussing children with Dee than fashion. The brothers were fair, except for the oldest, Cullen, who had the looks of a Black Irish warrior and the voice of a poet. Unless Burke missed his guess, Erin had her softest spot there. Throughout the meal he watched her, curious to see what other soft spots he might discover.

  By the time dinner was over, Burke was glad he'd let Travis talk him into an extra few days in Ireland. The trip had been profitable, the visit to the track at Curragh educational, and now it seemed it was time to mix business with a little pleasure.

  "You'll play for us, won't you, Cullen?" Adelia was already reaching across the table to grip Erin's oldest brother's hand. "For old time's sake."

  "He'll take little enough persuading," Mary McKinnon put in. "You'd best clear a space." She gestured to her two youngest sons. "It's only fitting that we dance off a meal like that."

  "I just happen to have my pipe." Cullen reached in his vest pocket and drew out the slim reed. He stood, a big man with broad shoulders and lean hips. The fingers of his workingman's hands slid over the holes as he lifted the instrument to his lips.

  It surprised Burke that such a big, rough-looking man could make such delicate music. He settled back in his chair, savored the kick of his Irish whiskey and watched.

  Mary McKinnon placed her hand in her youngest son's and, without seeming to move at all, set her feet in time to the music. It seemed a very restrained dance to Burke, with a complicated pattern of heels and toes and shuffles. Then the pace began to pick up-slowly, almost unnoticeably. The others were keeping time with their hands or occasional hoots. When he glanced at Erin, she was standing with a hand on her father's shoulder and smiling as he hadn't seen her smile before.

  Something shimmered a bit inside him-shimmered, then strained, then quieted, all in the space of two heartbeats.

  "She still moves like a girl," Matthew McKinnon said of his wife.

  "And she's still beautiful." Erin watched her mother whirl in her son's arms, then spin with a flare of skirt and a flash of leg.

  "Can you keep up?"

  With a laugh that was only slightly wistful, Erin shook her head. "I've never been able to."

  "Come now." Her father slid an arm around her waist. "My money's on you."

  Before she could protest, Matthew had spun her out. His grin was broad as he held her hand high and picked up the rhythm of the timeless folk dance she'd been taught as soon as she could walk. The pipe music was cheerful and challenging. Caught up in it and her family's enthusiasm, Erin began to move instinctively. She put her hands on her hips and tossed up her chin.

  "Can you manage it?"

  Adelia looked up at her eighteen-year-old cousin. "Can I manage it?" she repeated with her eyes
narrowed. "The day hasn't come when I can't manage a jig, boyo."

  Travis started to protest as she joined her cousins on the floor, but then he subsided. If there was one thing his Dee knew, it was her own strength. The depth of it continued to surprise him. "Quite a group, aren't they?" he murmured to Burke.

  "They're all of that." He drew out a cigar, but his eyes remained on Erin. "I take it you don't jig."

  With a chuckle, Travis leaned back against the wall. "Dee's tried to teach me and labeled me hopeless. I'm inclined to believe you have to be born to it." He saw Brendon go out to take his place as his mother's partner. His mother's son, Travis thought with a ripple of pride. Of all their children, Brendon was the most strong-willed and hardheaded. "She needed this more than I realized."

  Burke managed to tear his eyes from Erin long enough to study Travis's profile. "Most people get homesick now and again."

  "She's only come back twice in seven years." Travis watched her now, her cheeks pink with pleasure, her eyes laughing down at Brendon as he copied her moves. "It's not enough. You know, she'll take you to the wall in an argument-half the time an argument no sane man can understand. But she never complains, and she never asks."

  For a moment Burke said nothing. It still surprised him after four years that his friendship with Travis had become so close, so quickly. He'd never considered himself the kind of man to make friends, and in truth had never wanted the responsibility of one. He'd spent almost half his thirty-two years on his own, needing no one. Wanting no one. With the Grants, it had just happened.

  "I don't know much about women." At Travis's slow smile, Burke corrected himself. "Wives. But I'd say yours is happy, whether she's here or in the States. The fact is, Travis, if she loved you less I might have made a play for her myself."

  Travis continued to watch her as his mind played back the years. "The first time I saw her I thought she was a boy."

  Burke drew the cigar out of his mouth. "You're joking."

  "It was dark."

  "A poor excuse."

  His chuckle was warm and easy as he looked back. "She seemed to think so, too. Nearly took my head off. I think I fell for her then and there." He heard her laugh and looked over as she shook her head and stepped away from the dancers. She came to him, hands outstretched. The jeweled ring he'd put on her finger years before still glimmered.

  "I could go for hours," she claimed, a little breathlessly. "But these two have had enough." With her free hands, she covered her babies. "Are you going to try it, Burke?"

  "Not on your life."

  She laughed again and put a hand on his arm with the simple generosity he'd never quite gotten used to. "If a man doesn't make a fool of himself now and again, he's not living." She took a couple of deep, steadying breaths, but couldn't keep her foot from tapping. "Oh, it's like magic when Cullen plays and all the more magic to be here, hearing it." She brought Travis's hand to her lips, then rested her cheek on it. "Mary McKinnon can still outdance anyone in the county, but Erin's wonderful, too, isn't she?"

  Burke took a long sip of whiskey. "It's not a hardship to watch her."

  Laughing again, Adelia rested her head against her husband's arm. "I suppose as her elder cousin I should warn her about your reputation with women."

  Burke swirled the whiskey in his glass and gave her a bland look. "What reputation is that?"

  With her head still nestled against Travis, she smiled up at him. "Oh, I hear things, Mr. Logan. Fascinating things. The racing world's a tight little group, you know. I've heard murmurs that a man not only has to watch his daughters but his wife when you're about."

  "If I was interested in another man's wife, you'd be the first to know." He took her hand and brought it to his lips. Her eyes laughed at him.

  "Travis, I think Burke's flirting with me."

  "Apparently," he agreed, and kissed the top of her head.

  "A warning, Mr. Logan. It's easy enough to flirt with a woman who's five months along with twins and who knows you're a scoundrel. But mind your step. The Irish are a clever lot." She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. "If you keep staring at her like that, Matthew McKinnon's going to load his shotgun."

  He glanced back as Erin stepped away from the group. "No law against looking."

  "There should be when it comes to you." She snuggled against Travis again. "Looks like Erin's going outside for a breath of air." When Burke merely lifted a brow, she smiled. "You'd probably like to light that cigar, maybe take a little walk in the night air yourself."

  "As a matter of fact, I would." He nodded to her, then sauntered to the door.

  "Were you warning him off or egging him on?" Travis wanted to know.

  "Just enjoying the view, love." She turned her mouth up for a kiss.

  Erin drew her jacket tightly around her. Nights were coldest in February, but she didn't mind now. The air was bracing and the moon half-full. She was glad her father had pressured her to dance. It seemed too seldom now that there was time for small celebrations. There was so much work to be done, and not as many hands to do it now that Frank had married and started his own family. And within a year she expected Sean to marry the Hennessy girl. With Cullen more interested in his music than milking, that left only Joe and Brian. And herself.

  The family was growing, but at the same time spreading out. The farm had to survive. Erin knew that was indisputable. Her father would simply wither away