Bridget laughed until the tears streamed down her face. “You should have seen her expression when I told her who I was,” she gasped. “You’d have thought somebody had whacked her between the eyes with a sledgehammer. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, but it was a great moment. I’d have given anything for a camera.”
“Actually, I imagine we have footage of the whole episode,” Rose said, smiling in spite of herself. “There’s that little closed-circuit camera mounted above Jimmy’s desk.”
Still laughing, Bridget clutched Rose’s arm. “You simply must get me that tape. It will carry me happily into my old age. I just wish I’d had another five minutes to pin her to the floor.”
Rose turned her head to look at her mother. “You’re really sorry we interrupted you?”
“I’ve been waiting to get into a donnybrook with that woman my whole life. When we were girls we thought we were much too dignified for physical violence.”
“Thank God you don’t have your dignity to protect anymore.”
“Rose, are you being sarcastic?”
“Who, me?”
“Well, at least we interrupted you two,” Bridget said, “which was probably more important than finishing the fight good and proper. I don’t suppose you’ll be getting involved with Maureen Keegan O’Malley’s son. She’ll threaten him with everything, including excommunication, if he continues to see you.”
Rose sighed. “I doubt if she’ll need to threaten him at all, Mom. After this display tonight, he’ll probably want to stay as far away from me as possible.”
Bridget patted her hand. “That’s for the best, Rose. Especially if you had in mind what I think you did.” She shivered. “Talk about a fate worse than death. If I thought Maureen Keegan and I would be grandmothers to the same child, I’d have to throw myself off the Empire State Building.”
“Have you forgotten you have a fear of heights?”
Bridget gave her a long look. “I’d overcome it.”
6
IT WAS A LONG cab ride to Brooklyn, but Daniel figured he’d let his mother pay for every mile. Still, furious as he was, he hoped she hadn’t done herself any physical damage wrestling with Rose’s mother. Wrestling in a public lobby. Sweet Jesus. And he’d thought she couldn’t embarrass him any more than she had in the tearoom. At this rate he’d have to reduce his hours on the force just so he could keep an eye on her.
“Are you all right?” he asked after several moments of tense silence.
“She scared the life out of me, she did!” His mother fiddled with a button on her wool coat. “Tore the armhole seam of my coat, too.”
“I don’t give a damn about the coat. I just want to know if you pulled a muscle or broke anything.”
His mother made a sound of disgust. “ ’Twould be a fine day when Bridget Hogan could overtake me in a fight. Did you see that I had the best of her, Daniel? She would have been begging for mercy in another two minutes.”
From the vehemence and spirit of his mother’s reply, Daniel decided only her dignity was damaged. And he obviously cared about that more than she did. “Bridget has a pretty good kick for somebody who’s been dead for thirty-seven years,” he said.
“‘Tis just like you to bring that little matter up to me at a time like this. ’Twas nothing but an innocent pretense.”
“Innocent? Lying to Dad and me in great detail about how she flung herself off the cliffs because she couldn’t live with the way she’d treated you in that beauty contest? What’s so innocent about that?”
“Well, she should have done it.”
Daniel turned sideways on the seat so he could confront her more directly. “Don’t tell me you still hold a grudge.”
His mother glared at him defiantly. In the dim light of the cab he could almost believe she’d transformed herself into a rebellious teenager. “She never said she was sorry, did she, now?”
Daniel closed his eyes. “Unbelievable.”
“And it’s not enough that she ruined the years when I was a tender bud ready to blossom forth in all my glory. Now she’s ruined my golden years, too!”
“And how did she do that?” Daniel was having trouble following the tortured reasoning of this woman he thought he knew.
His mother shook her head. “At times I wonder if the sisters mixed up your test scores with some other lad’s. You’re not quick on the uptake sometimes, Daniel.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to lay it out for me.”
“Well, ’tis perfectly plain. Just how are you and Rose supposed to get married, now that Rose has turned out to be the daughter of that back-stabbing conniver? Answer me that!”
He stared at her. Then finally he began to laugh. He laughed so hard he almost choked.
His mother looked alarmed. “Are you having a fit, Daniel?”
“No.” He took a long, steadying breath. “Just enjoying the irony of the situation. Maybe this will put an end to this wife-hunting you’ve been so hell-bent on. I couldn’t have planned this better if I’d tried.”
“ ’Tis fine for you to laugh, but you’re not thinking of your poor mother at all. No grandchildren to gather around me in my declining years, no young woman I can teach the ways of an Irish housewife — the knitting, the cooking, the gardening.”
“Since when did you have a garden?”
“Never mind. I know how to garden. You don’t forget those things, once you learn them. But it doesn’t matter, you see, because there’ll be no garden, no family pictures, no sweet little birthday parties, no Christmas carols around the tree, no—”
“I think you’re getting a little carried away, Mom.” He paused. “Not that it’s anything new with you these days.”
“You think you’re so smart. Just wait until you’re fifty-six, with no family to comfort you!”
Daniel decided to shift the subject a little. “So I take it you don’t want me to see Rose Kingsford after all?”
“Well, of course I don’t!” She clasped a hand to her chest and looked at him in horror. “Bridget Hogan weaseling her way into our family, pinching the dear little cheek of my grandchild? I can just see the shameless hussy, spoiling the dear thing with too many toys, too many sweets. She’d probably make up some sickening pet name for the babe, like Nana’s wee elf, and I’d have to listen to her calling my little darling that awful name. She’d—”
“I take it that’s a no?”
“I’d sooner be struck down by a bolt of lightning than have you marry Rose Kingsford!”
“Well, you can put your mind at rest, because I’m not going to marry Rose.” He leaned back against the seat and folded his arms over his chest.
“Thank heavens you’ve come to your senses.”
“We’ll just fool around.”
His mother gasped and clutched her chest again. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t be doin’ that now, would you?”
Daniel faced her again, his expression grim. “If it hadn’t been for your interference, I wouldn’t have met Rose. But I have met her, and if I decide to continue seeing her, I most definitely will. In fact, if I decided to marry her, I’d do that, too. But it’s your good luck that I’m not looking for a wife, and Rose, coincidentally, is not looking for a husband.”
“Oh, Daniel, please don’t say that you two will—”
“Don’t worry. I won’t say it. That’s not the sort of topic I want to discuss with you. I want this to be the very last time we talk about who I date and who I do or don’t marry. This has gone on long enough.”
“I just can’t bear to think of it.”
“Then don’t think of it.” Daniel leaned back and closed his eyes. “Butt out of my business, Mom.”
ROSE WAS EXTREMELY grateful to be working with her buddy Chuck the following day. The modeling assignment involved shots of a honeymooning couple, alias Rose and Chuck, enjoying the wonders of a Gold Card. Tall, blond and muscled in all the right places, Chuck looked like every woman’s dream of the perfect guy to have on a honeymoon. And h
e’d just moved in with Pete, his lover of several months.
Rose cherished that she wouldn’t be pawed during the shooting, and that she’d have an intelligent companion during breaks. Besides, she needed advice, and Chuck was well versed in the ways of the heart. It took all of the first break just to fill him in on the bizarre situation with her mother and Daniel’s mother, so they didn’t get down to the advice session until lunch.
Over a catered meal of deli sandwiches and mineral water consumed in a corner of the photography studio’s deserted conference room, Rose asked Chuck what she should do next.
“Meaning you want to see him again?” Chuck asked. “In spite of the fact it will throw these two middle-aged ladies into fits, and they in turn could make your life miserable beyond words?”
“Yes.”
“And that would be because...?”
“Well, I still have his jacket.”
“You could courier that to him. Next reason.”
“He’s very sweet, and sexy, and he has more than two brain cells to rub together.”
“That’s a rare combination. Are you sure he’s straight?”
“Chuck, believe it or not, there are a few heterosexual men out there who aren’t jerks.”
Chuck smiled. “Yeah, and a few gay guys who are. I’m happy for you, Rose.”
“You can’t be happy for me yet. He may have sworn off Rose Kingsford for life after last night. He wanted an uncomplicated relationship, and this is turning out to be anything but.”
“And what do you want, Rose?”
“The same thing.” She couldn’t admit, not even to Chuck, that she harbored a dream of finding someone to father her child. Her mother had been the only one she’d told, and that had brought on a storm of judgment.
Chuck swallowed a bite of sandwich. “There’s no such thing as an uncomplicated relationship unless you’re talking about a dog.”
“Okay, I’ll admit that.” Rose took a drink from the bottle of mineral water. “But neither of us wants a commitment. No rings, no march down the aisle. We got that settled right away.”
“So it’s just about sex, then?”
“You are so hard on me! Of course not! It’s about companionship, and mutual interests, and—”
“Such as?”
“Well, we—” She gave him a sheepish look. “So far it’s about sex.”
Chuck nodded. “Just so you’re not confused about that.”
“Actually, let me amend my statement a little bit. It’s about mutual respect, too. We’ve already weathered a few awkward situations, and he’s good under fire.”
“I sure as hell hope so. I like that in a member of the NYPD.”
“I know, but more than that. He saw me at my worst and didn’t get upset at all. I sense that he’s a kind person.”
“That’s good. So are you.”
“I don’t think he’d blame me for what happened between our mothers, but I don’t know if he wants the hassle of risking it again.”
Chuck wadded up his deli sack and tossed a perfect basket into the nearby trash can. “Want Uncle Chuck to suggest something?”
“Please.”
“Invite him up to your little place in the country for a few days. And don’t tell the mothers.”
Rose swirled the remaining mineral water and stared at the miniature whirlpool she’d created. “I don’t know. He made a point of the difference in our income, and how he didn’t want to be included in plans that were out of his financial league.”
“Well, I don’t see that a visit to your little house would fall into that category, but if you think he’ll balk, tell him a friend offered the place. His stance will probably soften some if you two have a great time together. Pete gave me the same garbage at first, and I thought we’d have to live in a rat-infested walk-up because that was all he could afford in the city. We’ve finally worked it out.”
“I guess that attitude’s better than linking up with a gold digger, huh?”
“You know it. We’d better get back, kiddo.”
“Yeah. Thanks, Chuck.”
He stood. “Ready for the honeymoon?”
She blinked. “I said neither of us is interested in marriage.”
Chuck gazed at her, a glint in his blue eyes. “I meant yours and mine, courtesy of a Gold Card. But it’s rather interesting that you misunderstood.”
“Don’t you dare make something Freudian out of it. I do not have some subliminal desire to settle down with a man and be his devoted helpmate.”
“If you say so.”
ON WEDNESDAY, Daniel took an early shift, switching with a buddy. During the day, whenever there was a lag in the action, Daniel thought of Rose. When he got home that afternoon he reached for the phone a hundred times. Each time he pulled his hand back before committing to the call. No matter what he’d said to his mother, he wasn’t sure he wanted to pursue a relationship with such a problematic woman. Their two mothers were only part of his reluctance.
The sizzle of chemistry between them had blocked out his surroundings for the most part the previous night, but enough had registered to make him decide that this woman had money. A lot of money, compared to him. He realized now that he’d dated only women who were approximately his economic equals. He’d never thought it would bother him to go out with someone financially better off than he was, but...it did. He wasn’t proud to find out he was so hidebound, but there it was. He sensed a bedrock of prejudice that might take a nuclear blast to dislodge.
He’d finally decided to head out for a movie, when the phone rang. He stepped back into the apartment and answered it to discover Rose on the other end. She might have thought she’d get the answering machine, he realized when she seemed startled to hear his voice. She was probably calling about his jacket.
“I can hang up and let the machine get the message if you’d rather make this less personal,” he said.
“Don’t tempt me,” she said. “You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was for me to pick up the phone in the first place.”
“I might.”
“Listen, you can just send the jacket—”
“Oh, the jacket. I forgot. Do you need it?”
He was glad to know that wasn’t why she’d called. “No rush.”
“Because I can courier it over.”
“It’s not important. Rose. So if you didn’t call about the jacket, why did you call?”
She took a deep breath. “Daniel, we’ve run into a bad patch right at the start.”
“Yep.”
“I probably should have told you all about our mothers from the beginning.”
“Probably.”
“Come on, Daniel, work with me, here. Don’t leave me out on this limb all by myself.”
He blew out a breath. “Okay. I’ve thought about calling you about a million times since last night.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I had a lot to think about.”
“I realize that. Discovering that I was the daughter of your mother’s dearest enemy must have come as a shock.”
He couldn’t help laughing. “Dearest enemy is right. She’s positively devoted to this thirty-seven-year-old grudge.”
“So’s my mother. And she’s determined I won’t have anything more to do with you.”
He hesitated. “That’s not why you’re calling, is it? To show her who’s boss?”
“No. I hope I’ve gotten past that kind of adolescent behavior.”
“Which is more than they have.”
“True,” Rose said. “They’re acting like a couple of naughty children, which is why I don’t want to be ruled by their lunacy. I’d...I’d like to see you again,” she finished in a rush.
He knew she needed an answer, but he wasn’t sure which one he wanted to give her.
“Your silence is eloquent,” she said. “I don’t blame you for wanting to end the relationship. Goodbye, Daniel.”
“Wait!”
“Yes?”
“You would?”
Her question lacked the bubbling confidence he’d become so fond of, and it was his fault. “Yes, I would. Forgive me for making you doubt it, or yourself. It’s my problem, not yours.”
“Your mother?”
“No, not my mother. It’s —” He swallowed and forced himself to admit it. “It’s your success. But it just occurred to me that only a fool would turn his back on someone like you because of stupid macho pride.”
“You didn’t seem too concerned about my success last night,” she said gently.
“Exactly. I don’t think our income levels will have much to do with anything when we make love.”
She greeted that statement with a quick intake of breath. “And will we make love, Daniel?”
“If I haven’t completely turned you off with my idiot attitudes, we will.”
“You, um, haven’t turned me off.” She sounded a little breathless.
Just like that, he was becoming aroused. “Are you free tonight?”
“No. I promised my mother we’d go to a ballet. I could—”
“Don’t chance it. I’ve told my mother to stay out of my business, but I’m not sure I trust her to do it.”
“I’ve given my mother the same orders, but she’s acting like a crazy woman over this. Which is why I thought perhaps, if we could go away somewhere....”
Daniel felt his defenses go up immediately. Was she planning on jetting them both to a lovers’ hideaway? Despite his resolve not to let her money bother him, he couldn’t be treated like some gigolo and retain his sense of himself. “Where?” he asked with deceptive calmness.
“A...person I know has a little cottage upstate. We’re welcome to use it. If you’ll tell me when you’re off duty, I’ll try to arrange my schedule around that. We can drive there in a couple of hours.”
“It just so happens I have Friday through Sunday off, one of those rare weekends.” He suspected there was more to this cottage business than she was telling him, but the way she’d phrased everything, he could deal with it. And there was no denying he was eager to spend time alone with her.
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