Irish Rose

by Nora Roberts

  "You don't believe in legends, Erin?" He stepped closer so that he could see the moonlight reflected in her eyes like light in a lake.

  "No." She didn't step back. It wasn't her nature to retreat, even when she felt the warning shiver race up her spine. Whether you won or went down in defeat, it was best to do it with feet firmly planted. "I believe in what I can see and touch. The rest is for dreamers."

  "Pity," he murmured, though he had always felt the same. "Life's a bit softer the other way."

  "I've never wanted softness."

  "Then what?" He touched a finger to the hair that curled at her cheekbones.

  "I have to go back." It wasn't a retreat, she told herself. She felt cold all at once, cold to the bone.

  But even as she started to turn, he closed a hand over her arm. She looked at him, eyes clear, not so much angry as assessing. "You'll excuse me, Mr. Logan. The wind's up."

  "I noticed. You didn't answer my question."

  "No, because it's no concern of yours. Don't," she said when his fingers closed lightly over her chin, but she didn't jerk away.

  "I'm interested. When a man meets someone he recognizes, he's interested."

  "We don't know each other." But she understood him. When he'd brought his arms around her in the waltz, she'd known him. There was something, something in both of them that mirrored back. Whatever it was had her heart beating hard now and her skin chilling. "And if it's rude I have to be, then I'll say it plain. I don't care to know you."

  "Do you usually have such a strong reaction to a stranger?"

  She tossed her head, but his fingers stayed in place. "The only reaction I'm having at the moment is annoyance." Which was one of the biggest lies she could remember telling. She'd already looked at his mouth and wondered what it would be like to be kissed by him. "I'm sure you think I should be flattered that you're willing to spend time with me. But I'm not a silly farm girl who kisses a man because there's a moon and music."

  He lifted a brow. "Erin, if I'd intended to kiss you,

  I'd have done so already. I never waste time—with a woman."

  She felt abruptly as foolish as she'd claimed not to be. Damn it, she would have kissed him, and she knew he was well aware of it. "Well, you're wasting mine now. I'll say good-night."

  Why hadn't he kissed her? Burke asked himself as he watched her rush back to the inn. He'd wanted to badly. He'd imagined it clearly. For a moment, when the moonlight had fallen over her face and her face had lifted to his, he'd all but tasted her.

  But he hadn't kissed her. Something had warned him that it would take only that to change the order of things for both of them. He wasn't ready for it. He wasn't sure he could avoid it.

  Taking a last puff, he sent the cigar in an arch into the night. He'd come to Ireland for horses. He'd be better off being content with that. But he was a man on whom contentment rarely sat easily.

  She'd come late on purpose. Erin rolled her bike to the kitchen entrance of the inn and parked it. She knew it was prideful, but she simply didn't want Dee to know she worked there. It wasn't the paperwork and bookkeeping that bothered her. That made her feel accomplished. It was her kitchen duties she preferred to keep to herself.

  Mrs. Malloy had promised not to mention it. But she tut-tutted about it. Erin shrugged that off as she entered the kitchen. Let her tut-tut, as long as that was all she let out of her mouth.

  Dee and her family were visiting in town through the morning. That had given Erin time to clear up her chores at home, then ride leisurely from the farm to handle the breakfast dishes and the daily cleaning. Since the books were in order, she'd be able to take a few hours that afternoon to drive out to the farm where her cousin had grown up.

  It wasn't being deceitful, she told herself as she filled the big sink with water. And if it was, it couldn't be helped. She wouldn't have Dee feeling sorry for her. She was working for the money; it was as simple as that. Once enough was made, she could move on to that office position in Cork or Dublin. By the saints, the only dishes she'd have to clean then would be her own.

  She started to hum as she scrubbed the inn's serviceable plates. She'd learned young when there was work to be done to make the best of it, because as sure as the sun rose it would be there again tomorrow.

  She looked out the window as she worked, across the field where she'd walked with Burke the night before. Where she'd danced with him. In the moonlight, she thought, then caught herself. Foolishness. He was just a man dallying with what was available. She might not be traveled or have seen big cities, but she wasn't naive.

  If she'd felt anything in those few minutes alone with him, it had been the novelty. He was different, but that didn't make him special. And it certainly didn't warrant her thinking of him in broad daylight with her arms up to the elbows in soapy water.

  She heard the door open behind her and began to scrub faster. "I know I'm late, Mrs. Malloy, but I'll have it cleared up before lunch."

  "She's at the market, fussing over vegetables."

  At Burke's voice, Erin simply closed her eyes. When he crossed over and put a hand on her shoulder, she began to scrub with a vengeance.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'd think you'd have eyes to see that." She set one plate to drain and attacked another. "If you'll excuse me, I'm behind."

  Saying nothing, he walked over to the stove and poured the coffee that was always kept warm there. She was wearing overalls, baggy ones that might have belonged to one of her brothers. Her hair was down, and longer than he'd imagined it. She'd pulled it back with a band to keep it out of her face, but it was thick and curly beyond her shoulders. He sipped, watching her. He didn't quite know what his own feelings were at finding her at the sink, but he was well aware of hers. Embarrassment.

  "You didn't mention you worked here."

  "No, I didn't." Erin slammed another plate onto the drainboard. "And I'd be obliged if you didn't, either."

  "Why? It's honest work, isn't it?"

  "I'd prefer it if Dee didn't know I was washing up after her."

  Pride was another emotion he understood well. "All right."

  She sent him a cautious look over her shoulder. "You won't tell her?"

  "I said I wouldn't." He could smell the detergent in the hot water. Despite the years that had passed, it was still a scent that annoyed Mm.

  Erin's shoulders relaxed a bit. "Thank you."

  "Want some coffee?"

  She hadn't expected him to make it easy for her. Still cautious, but less reserved, she smiled. "No, I haven't the time." She turned away again because he was much easier to look at than she wanted him to be. "I, ah, thought you'd be out by now."

  "I'm back," he said simply. He'd intended to grab a quick cup and leave, take a leisurely walk around town or duck into the local pub for conversation. He studied her, her back straight at the sink, her arms plunged deep into the soapy water. "Want a hand?"

  She stared at him this time, caught between astonishment and horror. "No, no, drink your coffee. I'm sure there're muffins in the pantry if you like, or you might want to go out and walk. It's a fine day."

  "Trying to get rid of me again?" He strolled over and picked up a dishcloth.

  "Please, Mrs. Malloy—"

  "Is at the market." He picked up a dish and began to polish it dry.

  He was standing close now, nearly hip-to-hip with her. Erin resisted the urge to shift away, or was it to shift closer? She plunged her hands into the water again. "I don't need any help."

  He set down the first dish and picked up another. "I've got nothing else to do."

  Frowning, she lifted out a plate. "I don't like it when you're nice."

  "Don't worry, I'm not often. So what else do you do except wash dishes and dance?"

  It was a matter of pride, she knew, but she turned to him with her eyes blazing. "I keep books, if you want to know. I keep them for the inn and for the dry goods and for the farm."

  "Sounds like you're busy," he
murmured, and began to consider. "Are you any good?"

  "I've heard no complaints. I'm going to get a job in Dublin next year. In an office."

  "I can't see it."

  She had a cast-iron skillet in her hand now and was tempted. "I didn't ask you to."

  "Too many walls in an office," he explained, and lowered the pan into the water himself. "You'd go crazy."

  "That's for me to worry about." She gripped the scouring pad like a weapon. "I was wrong when I said I didn't like you when you were nice. I don't like you at all."

  "You know, you've only to ask and Dee would take you to America."

  She tossed the pad into the water, and suds lapped up over the rim of the sink. "And what? Live off her charity? Is that what you think I want? To take what someone is kind enough to give me?"

  "No." He stacked the next plate. "I just wanted to see you flare up again."

  "You're a bastard, Mr. Logan."

  "True enough. And now that we're on intimate terms, you ought to call me Burke."

  "There's plenty I'd like to be calling you. Why don't you be on your way and let me finish here? I've got no time for the likes of you."

  "Then you'll have to make some."

  He caught her off guard, though she told herself later she should have been expecting it. With her arms still elbow deep in water, he curled a hand around her neck and kissed her. It was quick, but a great deal more of a threat than a promise. His lips were hard and firm and surprisingly warm as he pressed them against hers. For a second, for two. She didn't have time to react, and certainly no time to think before he'd released her again and picked up another dish.

  She swallowed, and beneath the soapy water her hands were fists. "You've a nerve, you do."

  "A man doesn't get very far without any—or a woman."

  "Just remember this. If I want you touching me, I'll let you know."

  "Your eyes say plenty, Irish. It's a pleasure to watch them."

  She wouldn't argue. She wouldn't demean herself by making an issue of it. Instead, she pulled the plug on the sink. "I've the floor to do. You'll have to get your feet off it."

  "Then I guess I'd better take that walk." He laid the cloth down, spread open so it would dry. Without another word or another glance, he strolled out the back door. Erin waited a full ten seconds, then gave herself the satisfaction of heaving a wet rag after him.

  Two hours later, after a quick change into a skirt and sweater, Erin met the Grants in the public room of the inn. Joe's overalls were bundled into a sack tied on the back of her bike, and she'd used some of Mrs. Malloy's precious cream to offset the daily damage she did to her hands. Burke was there. Of course he was, she thought, and deliberately ignored him as he bounced young Brady on his knee.

  "Ma sent this." Erin handed Dee a plate wrapped tightly in a cloth. "It's her raisin cake. She didn't want you to think Mrs. Malloy could outcook her."

  "I remember your mother's raisin cake." Dee lifted the corner of the cloth to sniff. "Now and then she'd bake an extra and have one of you bring it by the farm." The scent brought back memories—some sweet, some painful. She covered the cake again. "I'm glad you could come with us today."

  "You remember it's only on the condition that you come by and visit. Ma's counting on it."

  "Then we'd best be rounding up the brood. Burke, if you give the lad chocolate you deserve to have him smear it on you. Brendon, Keeley, into the van now. We're going for a ride."

  They didn't have to be told twice.

  First they went to the cemetery, where the grass was high and green and the stones weathered and gray. Flowers grew wild, adding the promise of life. Some of Erin's family were buried there; most she barely remembered. She'd never lost anyone close or grieved deeply. But she loved deeply when it came to her family, and thought she could understand how wrenching it would be to lose them.

  Yet it had been so long ago, Erin thought as she watched her cousin stand between the graves of her parents. Didn't a loss like that begin to fade with time? Adelia had been only a child when they'd died, nine or ten. Wouldn't her memory of them have dimmed? Still, though she could imagine a world away from her family, she couldn't imagine one where they didn't exist.

  "It still hurts," Dee murmured as she looked down at the stones that bore her parents' names.

  "I know." Travis ran a hand down her hair.

  "I remember Father Finnegan telling me after it happened that it was God's will, and thinking to myself that it didn't seem right. It still doesn't." She sighed and looked up at him. "I'll never be able to figure it out, will I?"

  "No." He took her hand in his. There was a part of him that wanted to gather her up and take her away from the grief. And a part of him that understood she'd been strong enough to deal with it years before they'd even met. "I wish I'd known them."

  "They'd have loved you." She let the tears come, but smiled with them. "And the children. They'd have fussed over the children, spoiled them. More than Hannah does. It comforts me that they're together. I believe that, you know. But it's painful that they missed knowing you and the babies."

  "Don't cry, Momma." Keeley slipped a hand into Adelia's. "Look, I made a flower. Burke showed me. He said they'd like it even though they're in heaven."

  Dee looked at the little wreath fashioned of twigs and wild grass. "It's lovely. Let's put it right in the middle, like this." Bending, she placed it between the graves. "Aye, I'm sure they'll like this."

  What a strange man he was, Erin thought as she sat beside Burke in the van and listened to Brendon's chattering. She'd seen him sit in the grass and twine twigs together for Keeley. Though she'd kept herself distant enough that she hadn't heard what he'd said, she'd been aware that the girl had listened attentively and had looked at him with absolute trust.

  He didn't seem to be a man to inspire trust.

  She knew the road that led to the farm that had been the Cunnanes'. She remembered Dee's parents only as the vaguest of shadows, but she did remember Lettie Cunnane well, the aunt Dee had lived with when she'd been orphaned. She'd been a tough, stern-faced woman, and because of her Erin had kept her visits to the farm few and far between. That was behind them now, she reminded herself as she gestured toward the window for Brendon. "You see, just over this hill is where your mother grew up."

  "On a farm," he said knowledgeably. The patches of green pasture and yellow gorse meant little to him. "We have a farm. The best one in Maryland." He grinned at Burke as if it was an old joke.

  "It'll still be the second best when I'm finished," Burke answered, willing to rise to the bait.

  "Royal Meadows has been around for gener…gener…"

  "Generations," Burke supplied.

  "Yeah. And you're still wet behind the ears 'cause Uncle Paddy said so."

  "Brendon Patrick Grant." It was all the warning Hannah had to give. She turned her stern eye on Burke. "And you should know better than to encourage him."

  Burke merely grinned and tousled the boy's hair. "Doesn't take much."

  "Burke won his farm in a poker game," Brendon supplied as the van shuddered to a halt. "He's teaching me to play."

  "That's so when Royal Meadows belongs to you, I can win that, too." He pushed open the sliding door, then grabbed the giggling boy around the waist.

  "Did he really?" Erin asked in an undertone as Hannah took Keeley's hand. "Win his horse farm gambling?"

  "So I'm told." Hannah stepped a bit wearily out of the van. "Rumor is he's lost and won more than that." She glanced over as Burke settled Brendon on his shoulders. "It's hard to hold it against him."

  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

  There 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