The Irish Trilogy by Nora Roberts

by Nora Roberts

  But it was all a lie.

  It was killing him to be with her and yet not to be with her. Still, he knew no other way to wean her away, to give her time to make a choice. She had secrets she was keeping from him. He could see them in her eyes. There were times he wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her until she told him. Then he would remember what she had gone through because of him, and he didn’t touch her at all.

  She’d been the perfect wife since they’d come back. Never demanding, never questioning, never arguing. He wanted Erin back.

  Then he stepped into the bedroom and his limbs went weak.

  “I thought you’d never come up.” She crossed to him, holding out a hand. “You’re working too hard.”

  “There’s a lot to be done.”

  When he didn’t take her hand, she curled her fingers into her palm but made herself take the final step. “There’s more to living than horses and the next race.”

  Involuntarily he reached up to touch her hair. “I thought you’d gone to bed.”

  “I’ve been waiting for you.” She brought a hand to his cheek as she rose on her toes to kiss him. “I’ve missed you. Missed being alone with you. Come to bed, Burke. Make love with me.”

  “I haven’t finished downstairs.”

  “It can wait.” Smiling, she began to unbutton his shirt. She was sure, almost sure, that she felt his response, his need. “We haven’t had an evening alone in a long time.”

  It only took the feel of her bandages rubbing against his skin. “I’m sorry. I only came up to see if you were all right. You should get some rest.”

  The rejection stung her, and she stepped back even as he did. “You don’t want me anymore, do you?”

  Not want her? He was nearly eaten up with wanting. “I want you to take care of yourself, that’s all. You’ve been through a lot of strain.”

  “Aye, and you. That’s why we need some time together.”

  He touched his fingers lightly to her cheek. “Get some sleep.”

  She stared at the closed door before turning away blindly to blow out the candles.

  ***

  Erin closed herself in the office and buried herself in columns of figures. Those, at least, she could understand. With numbers, when you added two and two, you could be assured of a logical answer. Life, she’d discovered, and Burke in particular, wasn’t quite that simple.

  When the call came from Travis that Dee was in labor, she found herself not only pleased for her cousin but for herself and the diversion. Scribbling a hasty note, she left it on her desk. If Burke bothered to look for her, he’d find it. If he didn’t . . . then it didn’t matter where she was.

  She’d learned something else about marriage. Both husband and wife should stand on their own. In the best of worlds this was offset by an interdependence—a sharing, a love of each other and a contentment in each other’s company. In the not-so-best, it simply meant survival. She was and always had been a survivor.

  Still, she watched the house retreat as she drove toward the main road. Such a special place it was, the kind she’d always dreamed of living in. The grass was green now, and the flowers were in bloom. It was hard to believe she could finally have something so beautiful and still be unhappy. But it could be so much more than a place to live, she thought, just as her marriage could be so much more than an agreement between two logical adults. In time, Burke would have to decide how much more he would permit it to be.

  ***

  He was dealing with his own devils when he came into the house. All morning and half the afternoon he’d been unable to erase from his mind how lovely Erin had looked the night before, how hard it had been to walk away from her and from his own feelings. He was no longer sure he was doing her a favor, and he knew for a fact he was killing himself.

  Maybe the time had come for them to talk. Plain words, plain thinking. He didn’t believe himself capable of much else. It hadn’t taken him long to realize he was useless without her. How that had come to be, and why, didn’t seem to matter. It simply was. But nagging at him, gnawing at him, was the question of what she would be without him. He’d never given her a chance to find out.

  So they’d face off. That was something he understood. Now was as good a time as any.

  He glanced in her office and, finding it empty, passed it by. In the atrium, Rosa was watering geraniums. He paused there, wishing he didn’t continually find himself uncomfortable when he caught her going about her household duties.

  “Rosa, is Erin upstairs?”

  Rosa glanced up but continued her watering. “The señora went out a few hours ago.”

  “Out?” The panic was absurd. So he told himself even as it choked him. “Where?”

  “She didn’t tell me.”

  “Did she take her car?”

  “I believe so.” When he swore and turned away, Rosa moved to a pot of asters. “Burke?”

  “Yes?”

  She smiled a little and set down her watering can. “You have little more patience now than you did when you were ten.”

  “I don’t want her left alone.”

  “Yet you do so continually.” She lifted her brow at his look. “It’s difficult to pretend not to see what’s under my nose. Your wife’s unhappy. So are you.”

  “Erin’s fine. And so am I.”

  “You would say the same when you came home with a black eye.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “It’s foolish to think either of us have forgotten. To have a future, it’s necessary to face the past.”

  “What’s the point in this, Rosa?”

  She did something she hadn’t done since they’d been children. Crossing to him, she touched a hand to his face. “She’s stronger than you think, my brother. And you, you aren’t nearly as tough.”

  “I’m not ten anymore, Rosa.”

  “No, but in some ways you were easier then.”

  “I was never easy.”

  “It was the life that wasn’t easy. You’ve changed that.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Your mother would be proud of you. She would,” Rosa insisted when he started to back away.

  “She never had a chance.”

  “No, but you do. And you gave one to me.”

  He made a quick gesture of dismissal. “I gave you a job.”

  “And the first decent home I’ve ever known,” Rosa added. “Before you go, answer one question. Why do you let me stay? The truth, Burke.”

  He didn’t want to answer, but she’d always had a way of looking straight and waiting for as long as it took. Maybe he owed her the truth. Maybe he owed it to himself. “Because she cared about you. And so do I.”

  She smiled, then went back to watering. “Your wife won’t wait as long for an answer. She’s impatient, like you.”

  “Rosa, why do you stay?”

  She fluffed the leaves of a fern. “Because I love you. So does your wife. If you don’t mind, I would like to pick some flowers for the sitting room.”

  “Yeah, sure.” He left Rosa there, watering plants, and went back to Erin’s office. It was the first time he’d asked himself or allowed himself to ask why he’d permitted Rosa to stay. Why he’d provided her with a job in order that she could keep her pride. She was family. It was just that simple, and just that hard to accept. She’d been right, too, when she’d said that Erin wouldn’t wait so long for an answer.

  He wanted Erin there, where they could sit down together. There where he could talk to her about his feelings. That would be a first, he admitted.

  Restless, he began to push through the papers on her desk. She was a hell of a bookkeeper, he thought ruefully. Everything in neat little piles, all the figures in tidy rows. A man could hardly complain about having a c
onscientious wife. It certainly shouldn’t make him want to gather up all the books and papers and dump them in the trash.

  It was the doctor bill that made him frown. All medical expenses from her stay in Kentucky should have been addressed to him. Yet this one was clearly marked to her. Annoyed, he picked it up with the intention of dealing with it himself. He wanted her to have no reminders. But the doctor’s address wasn’t in Kentucky; it was in Maryland. And the doctor was an obstetrician.

  Obstetrician? Burke lowered himself very carefully in her chair. The words “pregnancy test” seemed to jump out at him. Pregnant? Erin was pregnant? That couldn’t be, because he would have known. She would have told him. Yet he had the paper in his hand. The paper stated “positive” clearly enough, and the test was dated almost a month earlier.

  Erin was pregnant. And she hadn’t told him. What else hadn’t she told him? He sprang up again to push through the other papers as if he’d find the answers there. It was then he found her note, hastily scribbled. Burke, I’ve gone to the hospital. I don’t know how long it will take.

  As he stared at the note, he felt all the blood drain out of his face.

  * * *

  “Oh, I don’t see how Dee can be so calm and patient!”

  Paddy turned a page in the magazine he was pretending to read. “You can’t hurry babies into the world.”

  “It seems to be taking forever.” Erin paced the waiting room again. “My palms are sweating, and she looked like she could take a walk in the park. It’s scary.”

  “Having babies?” He chuckled a little and sneaked a peek at his watch while Erin wasn’t looking. “Dee’s an old hand at this.”

  Erin laid a hand on her stomach. “Was she this way when she had the first one? I mean, the first one would be the scariest. It’s like taking everything on faith that nothing’s going to go wrong.”

  “Dee’s a trouper.”

  “Aye.” She prayed she would be as well when her time came. “It must make a difference, having Travis with her through it all.” She’d seen the way he’d been with Dee, standing beside the bed, holding her hand, talking, making her laugh, timing her contractions. Total support, total commitment. “I wonder, Paddy, do you think most men would do that?” Would Burke?

  “I’d say when a man loves a woman the way Travis loves Dee he wouldn’t be anywhere else right now. Lass, you’re going to wear a rut in the floor.”

  “I can’t sit still,” she muttered. “I’m going to go downstairs and see if I can buy some flowers. Have them waiting for her.”

  “That’s a fine idea.”

  “I could bring you some tea.”

  “You do that. Won’t be long now.”

  He waited until she was out of sight to get up and pace himself.

  Downstairs, Burke burst into the hospital like a man possessed. In seconds he had pounced on the admissions clerk. “Where’s my wife?”

  The clerk swiveled her chair over to her computer. “Name?”

  “Logan, Erin Logan.”

  “When was she admitted?”

  “I don’t know. A couple of hours ago.”

  The clerk began to punch buttons. “For what purpose?”

  “I—” He wasn’t sure he could deal with the purpose. “She’s pregnant.”

  “Maternity?” The clerk continued to punch. “I’m sorry, Mr. Logan. We don’t have your wife.”

  “I know she’s here, damn it. Where—” Continuing to swear, he pulled the paper out of his pocket. “Dr. Morgan. I want to see Dr. Morgan.”

  “Dr. Morgan’s in delivery with another patient. You can check at the nurse’s station on the fifth floor, but—”

  She shrugged when Burke raced away. Expectant fathers, she thought. They were always crazy.

  Burke jammed a fist against the elevator button. He hated hospitals. He’d lost his mother in one. Only days before, he’d watched Erin lie in one, and now . . .

  “Burke, I didn’t expect you.”

  He turned to see Erin walking toward him with a huge arrangement of rosebuds and baby’s breath. Her hair was pulled back and her cheeks were glowing. The flowers nearly tipped to the floor when he grabbed her shoulders.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Burke, you’re crushing them.”

  “I’ll crush more than a bunch of flowers. I want you to tell me what you’re doing.”

  “I’m taking them upstairs. If they survive. I think Dee will appreciate them more if they’re not mangled.”

  “Dee?” He shook his head but didn’t manage to clear it. “What are you talking about?”

  “What are you talking about?” she countered. “It doesn’t seem so strange to me to buy flowers for someone who’s having babies.”

  “Dee? You came here because Dee’s delivering?”

  “Well, of course. Didn’t you see my note?”

  “I saw your note,” he muttered. Taking her arm, he pulled her into the elevator. “It wasn’t very clear.”

  “I was in a hurry. I wish they’d had more roses,” she murmured. “Seems when you’re having twins you should have twice as many flowers.” She buried her face in them a moment, then smiled at him. “I’m glad you came. It’ll mean a lot to Dee.”

  Struggling for calm, he stepped out when the doors opened again. “How is she?”

  “She’s perfect. Paddy and I are a wreck, but she’s perfect.”

  “You shouldn’t be on your feet.” He took the flowers because he was abruptly afraid for her to carry anything. “You shouldn’t be getting yourself worked up.”

  “Don’t be silly.” She turned into the waiting room, not to find Paddy pacing but to find him dancing.

  “One of each!” he shouted to both of them. “She’s gone and had one of each.”

  “Oh, Paddy!” Laughing, she flung herself at him and let him whirl her around. “She’s all right? And the babies? Everyone’s all right?”

  “Everyone’s fit as a fiddle, so the nurse told me. They’ll be bringing them all out in a minute so we can have a peek. A fine day to you, Burke. A fine, fine day.”

  “Paddy. Erin, why don’t you sit down?”

  “Sit?” She shook her head with another laugh and hooked her arm through Paddy’s. “I couldn’t sit if my legs fell off. Paddy and I are going dancing, aren’t we, Paddy?”

  “That we are.” He put his chin up and began to hum. Recognizing the tune, Erin joined in as their feet began to move.

  Burke stood holding a bushel of roses and watched them. He hadn’t heard her laugh like that for too long. He hadn’t seen her smile just that way. He wanted to toss the flowers aside and gather her up. Snatch her away, take her home. Hold her for hours.

  “Here she is!” Paddy did another quick jig as Dee was wheeled out. “Here’s my little girl. Look at this.” He had to pull out his handkerchief and wipe his eyes. “They’re beautiful, lass. Just like you.”

  “What am I?” Travis wanted to know. “Chopped liver?”

  “You did a fine job.” Erin moved over to kiss his cheek. “A boy and a girl.” She looked down at the two bundles beside her cousin. “And so tiny.”

  “They’ll grow quick enough.” Dee turned her head to the right, then the left, to nuzzle them. “The doctor said they have everything they should have. Lord, they came out squalling, both of them. Didn’t they, Travis?”

  “They have their mother’s disposition.”

  “It’s lucky you are I’ve my hands full. Burke, it’s good of you to come. This is the best time to have family around.”

  “Are you okay?” He felt both foolish and awkward as he passed the flowers to Travis. “Is there anything you want?”

  “A ham sandwich,” she said with a sigh. “A huge one. But I’m afraid th
ey’ll make me wait just a little while yet.”

  “I’m sorry, we’ll have to take Mrs. Grant now. Evening visiting hours start at seven.”

  “Paddy, bring the children back tonight.”

  “No children under twelve are allowed, Mrs. Grant,” the nurse said as she began to push her away. Dee merely smiled and mouthed the request again.

  “She looked wonderful, didn’t she?” Erin mused.

  “She’s a Thoroughbred, my Dee. Always has been.” Paddy stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket. “Well, I’d better get home and think up a way to smuggle that brood in here tonight.”

  “Let me know if you need any help.”

  “That I will, lass.” He kissed both her cheeks. As he walked down the hall, he jumped up and clicked his heels.

  “You’ve been on your feet long enough,” Burke said tersely. “I’ll drive you home.”

  “I’ve got my car.”

  “Leave it.” He took her arm again.

  “That’s silly. I’ll just—”

  “Leave it,” he repeated, pulling her into the elevator.

  “Fine.” She bit the word off. “Since you’re sure you can bear to be in the same car with me.” She crossed her arms and stared at the doors. Burke stuck his hands in his pockets and scowled.

  Neither of them spoke again until Erin stormed into the atrium. “If it’s all the same to you, I’m going upstairs. And you, you can take your foul mood out to the stables with the rest of the dumb animals.”

  He wondered that her neck didn’t break from holding her head that high. Burke gave himself thirty seconds to calm down. When it didn’t work, he strode up the stairs after her.

  “Sit down.” He spit out the order as he slammed the bedroom door behind him. Erin simply narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms. “I said sit down.”

  “And I say to hell with you.”

  That was all it took. Before she could evade him, he had scooped her up and plunked her down on the bed.

  “All right, now I’m sitting. Don’t tell me you actually want to have a conversation with me?” She tossed her hair back, then slowly crossed her legs. “I’m all aflutter.” She saw his hand close into a fist and angled her chin. “Go ahead, pop me one. You’ve been wanting to for days.”