Irish Thoroughbred

by Nora Roberts

  She wouldn't, Erin thought as she joined the others. She was too Irish to turn her nose up at a gambler, especially a successful one. Trailing behind Dee, she looked over the rise to the farm below.

  It hadn't changed much, not in her memory. Oh, the milking parlor was new, and a fresh coat of paint had been slapped on the barn a year or so before. It was the only farm in sight. To the east, the hills rose up and blocked the view. The vegetable garden was already tilled and planted, and a smattering of the dairy cows could be seen in the strip of pasture. There was smoke spiraling out of the chimney of the little stone cottage, which was a great deal like her own. The good, rich smell of peat carried on the wind.

  "The Sweeneys are a nice family," she said at length because her cousin stared down so long without speaking. "I know they wouldn't mind if you wanted to go down and look about."

  "No." She said it too quickly, then softened the refusal with a touch of her hand. "I don't mind looking from here." The truth was she couldn't bear to go any closer to what had been and was no longer her own. "Do you remember, Erin, when Aunt Lettie was so sick and you and your mother came visiting?"

  "Yes, you gave Ma one of the roses from the bush there." The bush had been her mother's, Erin remembered, and she linked her fingers briefly with Dee's. "The roses still bloom every summer."

  She smiled at that. "Such a little place. Smaller now than even I remember. Look, Keeley, see that window there." She crouched down to show her daughter. "That was my room when I was your age."

  Adelia stood again. There was only she and Travis now as the others strolled down the side of the road. "Dee, I've told you before, you can have it back if you want. We can make the Sweeneys a good offer for it."

  She continued to look down, remembering. Then, with a little sigh, she slipped an arm around Travis's waist. "You know, when I left here all those years ago, I thought I'd lost everything." She tilted her head back and kissed him. "I was wrong. Let's walk a little ways. It's such a beautiful day."

  Erin watched them. There was a small meadow that was green now but would be choked with wildflowers in only a matter of weeks. She heard Burke behind her and spoke without thinking.

  "If I were to go, to leave here and find something else, I'd never look back."

  "If you don't look over your shoulder once in a while, things catch up with you faster than you think."

  "I don't understand you." She turned, and her hair fluttered around her face and shoulders, free of bonds. "One minute you sound like a man without any roots at all, and the next you sound as though you've just transplanted them where it's convenient."

  "But not too deep." He caught the ends of her hair in his fingers. He was becoming more and more fascinated by it. It wasn't silk; it was too wild and untamed for silk. "Maybe that's the trick, Irish, not letting them sink too deep. You can yank yours up because you'll damn well strangle if you don't, but you'll take some of this with you."

  He reached down and took up a handful of soil. "Seems like a good enough base."

  "And what's yours?"

  He looked down at the rich dirt in his hand. "Have you ever seen the sand in the desert, Irish? No, no, you haven't. It's thin. It'll slip right out of your hands, no matter how hard you hold on to it."

  "Grains of sand have a habit of clinging to the skin."

  "And are easily brushed away." He glanced around as Brady let out a squeal of laughter at a gull that had glided in from the sea.

  "Why did you kiss me before?" She hadn't wanted to ask. Rather, she hadn't wanted him to know it mattered. He smiled at her again, slowly, with the amusement only a hint in his eyes.

  "A woman should never wonder why a man kisses her."

  Annoyed with herself, she shrugged and turned away. "It wasn't a proper one, anyway."

  "You want a proper one?"

  "No." She continued to walk, but the devil on her shoulder took over. She glanced around, a half smile on her face. "I'll let you know when I do."

  CHAPTER 3

  1 here was a storm coming. Erin could feel it brewing inside her, just as she could see it brewing in the clouds that buried the sun and hung gloomily over the hills. She worked quickly, routinely, pulling the pins off the line and dropping the dry, billowing clothes in the basket at her feet.

  She didn't mind this kind of monotonous, mindless work. It left her brain free to think and remember and plan. Just now, with the wind tossing sheets away from her and the sky boiling, she liked the simple outside chore. She wanted to see the storm break, to be a part of it when the wind and rain raised hell. When it was over, things would settle back into the quiet routine she knew was slowly driving her mad.

  What was wrong with her? Erin yanked one of her brother's work shirts from the line, and out of ingrained habit folded it to ward off wrinkles. She loved her family, had friends and work to keep the wolf from the door. So why was she so restless, so edgy? She couldn't blame it all on her cousin's visit or on the unexpected appearance of one Burke Logan. She'd been feeling restless before they'd come, but for some reason their presence-his presence-intensified it.

  She couldn't talk to her mother about it. Erin stripped down one of her mother's aprons and buried her face in the cool, fresh scent of the material. Her mother simply couldn't understand discontent or yearnings for more, not when there was a sturdy roof over the head and food enough for everyone. Time and again Erin had wished herself as serene a heart as her mother's. But it wasn't meant to be.

  She couldn't go to her father, though Erin knew he would understand the storm inside her. He wasn't a calm, easy man. From the stories she'd heard he'd been a hellion in his youth, and it had taken marriage to his Mary and a couple of babies before he'd begun to take hold. But while her father would understand, Erin knew he would also be distressed. If she wanted more, needed more, he would take it to mean he hadn't given her enough.

  There was Cullen. She'd always been able to talk to Cullen. But he was so busy just now, and her feelings were so mixed, the longings so indistinct, that she wasn't sure she could articulate them in any case.

  So she would wait, let the storm come and the wind blow.

  He'd been watching her for some time. Burke never considered that it was rude to stand and observe people without their knowledge. You learned more about people when they thought they were alone.

  She moved well. Even doing something so simple there was an innate sensuality in her movements. She had more fire than showed in her hair. Inside her there was a flame smoldering. He recognized it because he'd been born with one himself. That kind of heat, of passion, could and would break free. It only took the right elements falling into place. Time, place, circumstance.

  She didn't hum as she worked now, but occasionally looked up at the sky as if daring it to open and pour its fury on her. Her hair blew back from her face, fighting against the band that held it. Just as she fought whatever held her. He'd wondered what the results would be when she finally broke free. He'd already decided he wanted to be around to see for himself.

  "I haven't seen a woman do that for a long time."

  Erin spun around, her heels digging into the soft ground, a pillowcase clutched in her hand. He looked so at home, she thought, with the collar of his jacket up against the wind, the buttons undone in contradiction. He had his thumbs hooked in his pockets and that damned devil smile on his face. She'd never known a man to look better or more suited to the raw air and the warring skies. She turned away to snatch another clothespin because she knew her reaction to him would bring her nothing but trouble.

  "Don't women take down the wash where you come from?"

  "Progress often stamps out tradition." He moved to her with the easy strides of a man used to walking toward what he wanted. He unhooked a cotton slip-her cotton slip-folded it and dropped it in the basket. Erin clamped her teeth together and told herself only a foolish chucklehead would be embarrassed.

  "There's no need for you to be putting your hands on the wash."
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  "Don't worry, they're clean enough." As if to prove it, he held them out. For the first time she noticed a thin, jagged scar across his knuckles.

  "What are you doing here?"

  "I came to see you."

  She said nothing for a moment. He didn't make it easy when he didn't invent comfortable excuses. "Why?"

  "Because I wanted to." He took down a pair of serviceable white panties, folded those, too, without a blush, then laid them on top of the slip.

  Erin felt a slow, uncomfortable curling in her stomach. "Shouldn't you be with Travis and Dee?"

  "I think they'll survive the afternoon without me. I liked your farm when we were here yesterday." He glanced around now at the neat buildings. The cottage was nearly half again as large as the one where Adelia Grant had grown up, but the roof had the same bleached yellow thatching and sturdy stone walls. There were flowers here as well. The Irish seemed happy to let them grow as they chose-gay, untamed and sturdy. A hedge of wild fuchsia was already blooming. It made him think of home and the snow covering the fields.

  The roof of the barn showed fresh patching. The paint on the silo was peeling and no longer white, but the chickens in the coop were fat and clucking. He imagined the McKinnons worked seven days a week to maintain the place. Such was the life of a farmer. "This is a fine piece of land. Apparently your father knows what to do with it."

  "It's his life," Erin said simply as she took down the last of the wash.

  "What about yours?"

  "I don't know what you mean."

  He lifted the basket before she could. "It's a good farm, a good life for some. You weren't meant for it."

  "You don't know me well enough to say what I'm meant for." She took the basket from him and walked toward the kitchen door. "But I've already told you I'm going north to an office job in a year or so. Taking a deep breath, she swung the door open. Her mother would be horrified if she didn't ask the man in and at least offer him a cup of tea. She turned to him, but before she could issue the invitation he was taking the first step.

  "Let's take a walk. I have a proposition for you."

  Erin leaned back against the door and studied him coolly. "Oh, I'll just bet you do."

  He took the basket from her again, set it inside the door and gave it a little shove. "You're getting ahead of yourself, Irish. Let's just say when I want you in bed I won't ask."

  And he wouldn't, she thought as they watched each other. He wasn't the type to court a woman with flowers and pretty words, any more than he was the type to coax a woman gently into his arms. Well, she wasn't the type who wanted to be coaxed, but neither would she be steamrollered. "Just what is it you're wanting, Burke?"

  "Let's take a walk," he repeated, but this time he closed his hand over hers.

  She could have refused, but then she wouldn't know what it was he had to say. Erin decided that if she shook free and shut the door in his face, he'd tuck his hands in his pockets and stroll off, leaving her the one who was fuming.

  There was no harm in walking with him, she told herself as she stepped down beside him. Her mother was in the house, and her father, along with a couple of her brothers, was somewhere on the farm. Added to that was the fact that she had every confidence she could take care of herself.

  "I don't have much time," she said briskly. "There's a lot more to be done today."

  "This won't take long." But he said nothing more as they walked away from the house. He didn't seem to look, but he saw everything-the care, the sweat that went into the farm, the long hours and the hope. He counted thirty cows. A man could make a living off less, he imagined. It hadn't been so many years since he'd worked backbreaking hours. He hadn't forgotten, just as he never forgot that fate could take what he had just as easily as it had given it to him.

  "If it was a tour of the farm you were wanting-" Erin began.

  "I had one yesterday, remember?" He paused a moment to look out over a field. He knew what it was to haul rocks from them, to ride sweating over them at baling time and to curse the land as much as you worshiped it. "You grow grain here for the stock?"

  "Aye. It'll be plowing time soon."

  "You work the fields?"

  "I've been known to."

  Burke turned her hand palm-up and studied it. It wasn't raw and cracked, but toughened with a ridge of callus. The nails were trimmed short and left un-painted. "You haven't pampered them."

  "What good would that do me? I'm not ashamed of the work they've done."

  "No. You're too practical for that." He turned her hand over again and looked at her face. "You're not the kind of woman who daydreams about white knights."

  She could smile at that, though the intensity of his eyes made her uneasy. "I've always thought white knights would be painfully dull, and the last thing I want is to be a lady in distress. I'd rather be slaying my own dragons."

  "Good. I don't have much use for a woman who wants to be taken care of." He still had her hand, he still watched the wind whip furiously through her hair. "Why don't you come back to America with me, Erin?"

  She stared at him, speechless. The skies opened up. They were both soaked in a matter of seconds. She might have stood there, wide-eyed and openmouthed, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her inside a shed.

  Inside it was dim and smelled of soil and damp. Tools for the vegetable garden lined the walls. Her mother's peat pots and seeds were stacked on shelves waiting for planting. Rain beat on the tin roof, and the wind snaked through the cracks in the boards and moaned.

  Erin stood shivering just inside the door, her hair plastered to her head, her sweater dripping at the hem. But her senses had come back, full force.

  "You're a madman, Burke Logan. By the saints, you're as mad as a hatter. Do you think I'd just bundle up my skirts and cross an ocean with you?" She still shivered, but the more she spoke, the hotter her temper became. "Sure and it's a conceited ox you are to believe all you have to do is crook your finger to have me tagging after you. I don't even know you." She swiped a hand over her face to dry it, then went one better and shoved him hard in the chest. "And it's the God's truth that I have no desire to."

  She turned to the shed door and would have yanked it open if he hadn't caught her by the shoulders.

  "Take your hands off me, you snake." On impulse, she grabbed a rake and turned on him with it. "Touch me again and I'll slice you into pieces, little ones that won't be put back together easily."

  So she'd slay her dragons with a garden rake, he thought, lifting both hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace. "You don't have to defend your honor, Irish. I'm not after it-yet. This is business."

  "What business would I be having with you?" When he took a step toward her, she gestured with the rake. "Come closer and I promise you'll be missing an ear at the very least."

  "Fine." He made as if to take a step back. Then he moved quickly. Erin cursed him when he wrenched the rake out of her hands. Even as it clattered to the floor, her back was against the wall. "You'll have to learn not to drop your guard." His face was close, so close she could see his eyes, smoky and dark, and little else. She twisted, but his fingers only dug in harder. "Hold still a minute, will you? You're making a fool of yourself."

  Nothing he could have said would have struck the light to her temper faster. She all but bared her teeth and snarled. "There'll come a time and there'll come a place when you'll pay for this."

  "Everyone pays, Irish. Now take a deep breath, shut your mouth and listen. I'm offering you a job, that's all." She stopped wriggling to stare at him again. "I need someone sharp, someone clever with figures, to run my books."

  "Your books?"

  "The farm, expenses, payroll. The man I had was a little too creative. Since he's going to be a guest of the state for the next few years, I need someone else. I want someone I know, someone I can see and talk to, handling my money rather than a big shiny company that doesn't give a damn about the farm or me."

  Because her head was whirling, she too
k one long breath before she spoke again. "You want me to come to America and keep your books?"

  He smiled because she sounded almost disappointed. "I'm not offering you a free ride. You're a pleasure to look at, Erin, but at the moment all I intend to pay for is your brain."

  "Move back," she ordered in a voice that was suddenly firm. "I can't breathe with you pushing me through the wall."

  "No more attacks with garden tools?"

  Her chin came up. "All right. Just move aside." When he did, she took a couple of deep breaths. She had to keep a clear head now. She didn't mind taking a new road; in fact, she'd often fretted to do just that. She only wanted to study all the curves and angles of it first. "You want to hire me?"

  "That's right."

  "Why?"

  "I've just told you."

  She shook her head, still cautious. "You told me you need a bookkeeper. I imagine there're plenty of them in America."

  "Let's just say I like your style." Bending, he picked up the rake and replaced it. He wondered briefly if she would have used it. Yes, indeed, he thought, grinning to himself. Oh, yes, indeed.

  "For all you know, I can't add two and two."

  "Mrs. Malloy and O'Donnelly at the dry goods say differently." He leaned back against a workbench. Studying her from there, he decided he'd spoken no less than the truth. Even wet and dripping, she was a pleasure to look at.

  "Mrs. Malloy. You've spoken to her? You went to Mr. O'Donnelly and asked questions about me?"

  "Just checking your references."

  "No one told you to go poking about the town asking questions about me."

  "Business, Irish. Strictly business. What I found out is that you're neat as a pin and dependable. Your figures tally and your books are clean. That's good enough for me."

  "This is crazy." Struggling against a surge of excitement, she dragged a hand through her still-dripping hair. "A body doesn't hire someone they've known only a few days."

  "Irish, people are hired after a ten-minute interview."

  "That's not what I mean. This isn't a matter of me giving you a resume, then catching a bus to take a new job across town. You're talking about me coming to America and taking on a job that's bigger than the inn, the farm and the dry goods put together."

  He only moved his shoulders. "It's just a matter of more figures, isn't it? You're talking about going north in a year. I'm giving you a chance to go to America now. Make the break."

  "It's not so simple." Along with the excitement was a growing panic. Wasn't this what she'd always wanted? Now that it was nearly as close as a hand-span, she was terrified.

  "It's a gamble." He was watching her again in that quiet, intense way. "Most things worth winning are. I'll pay for your ticket as a sign of good faith. You'll start out at a weekly salary." He considered a moment, then named a figure that had her mouth dropping open. "If it works out, there'll be a ten-percent raise in six months. For that you take care of all the details, all the figures, all the bills. I'll want a weekly report. We'll leave in two days."

  "Two days?" She was numb now, so numb she could only stare at him. "But even if I agreed, I could never be ready to leave by then."

  "All you have to do is pack and say your goodbyes. I'll handle the rest."

  "But I-"

  "You have to make up your mind, Erin. Stay or go." He stepped toward her again. "If you stay, you'll be safe, and you'll always wonder what if."

  He was right. The question was already nagging at her. "If I go, where will I live?"

  "I've got plenty of room."

  "No." On this she would have to be firm, right from the start. "I won't agree to that. I may say I'll work for you, but I won't live with you."

  "It's your choice." Again he moved his shoulders as if it didn't matter. He'd already anticipated her balking there. "I don't imagine Adelia would have any problem putting you up. In fact, I think you know she'd love to have you with her. It wouldn't be charity," he said, keeping one step ahead of her. "You'd be bringing in a wage. You could get your own place, for that matter, but I think you'd be more comfortable with your cousin at first. And our farms are close enough to make it convenient."

  "I'll talk to her." Sometime during the last two minutes her mind had been made up. She was going. Her bridges might not be burning behind her, but they were certainly smoking. "I'll have to speak to my family, as well, but I'd like to accept your offer."

  She held out her hand. Burke took it just as casually, though he wondered about the wild surge of relief that coursed through him. "I expect a day's work for a day's pay. I don't doubt you'll give it to me."

  "That I will. I'm grateful for the chance."

  "I'll remind you of that after you've spent a few days sorting through the mess my last bookkeeper left me with."

  She stood very still for a moment, letting it all soak in, layer by layer. Then she spun in a quick circle and laughed. "I can't believe it. America! It's like some kind of a mad dream. I've hardly been more than fifty kilometers from Skibbereen, and now I'm going thousands in the blink of an eye."

  He liked to see her this way, her face flushed with pleasure, her eyes lit with it. And the rain still drummed on the roof. "It takes a bit longer than that to cross the Atlantic."