Irish Thoroughbred

by Nora Roberts

  "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 they'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."

  "Don't tempt me."

  "It was quite clear last night I couldn't even do that." She pulled her shoes off and tossed them aside. "If you're so fired up to talk to me, then talk."

  "Yeah, I want to talk to you, and I want some straight answers." But instead of asking, he shoved his hands back into his pockets and circled the room. Where to start? he wondered. His fingers brushed over the ring he'd carried for days. Perhaps that was the best place. Burke pulled it out and held it in the palm of his hand.

  "You found it." Erin's first burst of pleasure was almost blanked out by the look in his eyes. "You didn't tell me."

  "You didn't ask."

  "No, I didn't, because I was sick about it. Dropping it in the stables was stupid."

  "Why did you?"

  "Because I couldn't think of anything else. I knew I couldn't get away from them. They were already tying my hands." She was looking at her ring and didn't see him wince. "I guess I thought someone would find it and take it to you, and you'd know. Though I don't kn
ow what I expected you could do about it. Why haven't you given it back to me?"

  "Because I wanted to give you time to decide if you wanted it or not." He took her hand and dropped the ring in it. "It's your choice."

  "Always was," she said slowly, but she didn't put the ring on. "You're still angry with me because of what happened?"

  "I was never angry with you because of what happened."

  "You've been giving a champion imitation of it, then."

  "It was my fault." He turned to her then, and for the first time began to let go of the rage. "Twenty hours. You lay in the dark for twenty hours because of me."

  The words could still bring on a cold flash, but she was more intrigued by Burke's reaction. "I thought it was because of Durnam. You've never seemed willing to talk it through, to let me explain to you exactly what happened. If you'd-"

  "You could have died." There was really nothing else but that. No explanations, no calm recounting, could change that one fact. "I sat in that damn hotel room, waiting for the phone to ring, terrified that it would and there was nothing, nothing I could do.

  When I found you, saw what they'd done to you- your wrists."

  "They're healing." She stood to reach out to him, but he withdrew immediately. "Why do you do this? Why do you keep pulling away from me? Even at the hospital you weren't there. You couldn't even stay with me."

  "I went to kill Durnam."

  "Oh, Burke, no."

  "I was too late for that." The bitterness was still there, simmering with a foul taste he'd almost grown used to. "They had him by then, where I couldn't get to him. All I could do was stand in that hospital room and watch you. And think of how close I'd come to losing you. The longer I stood there, the more I thought about the way I'd dragged you in with me right from the beginning, never giving you a choice, never letting you know what kind of man you were tied to."

  "That's enough. Do you really believe I'm some weak-minded female who can't say yes or no? I had a choice and I chose you. And not for your bloody money."

  It was her turn to rage around the room. "I'm sick to death of having to find ways to prove that I love you. I'll not be denying that I wanted more out of life than a few acres of dirt and someone else's dishes to wash. And I'm not ashamed of it. But hear this, Burke Logan, I'd have found a way to get it for myself."

  "I never doubted it."

  "You think I married you for this house?" She threw up her arms as if to encompass every room. "Well, set a match to it, then, it doesn't matter to me. You think it's for all those fine stocks and bonds? Take them all, take every last scrap of paper and put it on one spin of the wheel. Whether you win or lose makes no difference to me. And these?" She pulled open her dresser and yanked out boxes of jewelry. "These pretty shiny things? Well, take them to hell with you. I love you-God himself knows why, you thickheaded, miserable excuse for a man. Not know what kind of man I married, is it?" She tossed the jewelry aside and stormed around the room. "I know well enough who and what you are. More fool I am for not giving a damn and loving you anyway."

  "You don't know anything," he said quietly. "But if you'd sit down I'll tell you."

  "You won't tell me anything I don't know. Do you think I care you grew up poor without a father? Oh, you don't need to look that way. Rosa told me weeks ago. Do you think I care if you lied or cheated or stole. I know what it is to be poor, to need, but I had my family. Can't I feel sorry for the boy without thinking less of the man?"

  "I don't know." She rocked him, but then it seemed she never failed to do so. "Sit down, Erin, please."

  "I'm sick to death of sitting. Just like I'm sick to death of walking on eggs with you. I did nearly die. I thought I was going to die, and all I could think was how much time we'd wasted being at odds. I swore if we were back together there'd be no more fighting. Now for days I've held my temper, I've said nothing when you turn away from me. But no more. If you've any more questions, Burke Logan, you'd best out with them, because I've plenty more to say myself."

  "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

  That stopped her cold. Her mouth fell open, and for all her talk about not sitting, she lowered herself onto the bed. "How do you know?"

  Burke drew out the paper he'd found and handed it to her. "You've known for a month."

  "Aye."

  "Didn't you intend to tell me, or were you just going to take care of it yourself?"

  "I meant to tell you, but- What do you mean, take care of it myself? I could hardly keep it a secret when-" She stopped again as the realization hit like a wall. "That's what you thought I'd gone to the hospital for today. You thought I'd gone there to see that there would be no baby." She let the paper slip to the floor as she rose again. "You are a bastard, Burke Logan, that you could think that of me."

  "What the hell was I supposed to think? You've had a month to tell me."

  "I'd have told you the day I found out. I came to tell you. I could hardly wait to get the words out, but you started in on me about the money and the letter from my father. It always came down to the money. I put my heart on a platter for you time after time, and you keep handing it back to me. No more of that, either." She was ashamed of the tears, but more ashamed to wipe them away. "I'll go back to Ireland and have the baby there. Then neither of us will be in your way."

  Before she could storm out of the room he asked, "You want the baby?"

  "Damn you for a fool, of course I want the baby. It's our baby. We made it our first night together in this bed. I loved you then, with my whole heart, with everything I had. But I don't now. I detest you. I hate you for letting me love you this way and never giving it back to me. Never once taking me in your arms and telling me you loved me."

  "Erin-"

  "No, don't you dare touch me now. Not now that I've made as big a fool of myself as any woman could." She'd thrown up both hands to ward him off. She couldn't bear to have his pity. "I was afraid you wouldn't want the baby, and me with it when you found out. That wasn't part of the bargain, was it? You wouldn't be so free and easy to come and go if there was a baby to think of."

  He remembered the day she'd come to tell him about the baby, and the look in her eyes. Just as he remembered the look in her eyes when she'd left without telling him. He chose his words carefully now, knowing he'd already made enough mistakes.

  "Six months ago you'd have been right. Maybe even six weeks ago, but not now. It's time we stopped moving in circles, Irish."

  "And do what?"

  "It's not easy for me to say what I feel. It's not easy for me to feel it." He approached her cautiously, and when she didn't back away he rested his hands on her shoulders. "I want you, and I want the baby."

  She closed her fingers tightly over the ring she still had in her hand. "Why?"

  "I didn't think I wanted a family. I swore when I was a kid that I'd never let anyone hurt me the way my mother had been hurt. I'd never let anyone mean so much that the life went out of me when they left. Then I went to Ireland and I met you. I'd still be there if you hadn't come back with me."

  "You asked me to come here to keep your books."

  "It was as good an excuse as any, for both of us. I didn't want to care about you. I didn't want to need to see you just to get through the day. But that's the way it was. I pulled you into marriage so fast because I didn't want to give you a chance to look around and find someone better."

  "Seems to me I'd had chance enough."

  "You'd never even been with a man before."

  "Do you think I married you because you had a talent in bed?"

  He had to laugh at that. "How would you know?"

  "I doubt a woman has to bounce around between lovers to know when she's found the right one. Sex is as sorry an excuse to marry someone as money. Maybe we've both been fools, me for thinking you married me for the first, and you for thinking I married you for the second. I've told you why I married you, Burke. Don't you think it's time you told me?"

  "I was afraid you
'd get away."

  She sighed and tried to make herself accept that. "All right, then, that'll do." She held her wedding ring out to him. "This belongs on my finger. You should remember which one."

  He took it, and her hand. The choice had been given, to her and to him. It wasn't every day a man was given a second chance. "I love you, Erin." He saw her eyes fill and cursed himself for holding that away from both of them for so long.

  "Say it again," she demanded. "Until you get used to it."

  The ring slipped easily onto her finger. "I love you, Erin, and I always will." When he gathered her into his arms, he felt all the gears of his life click into place. "You mean everything to me. Everything." Their lips met and clung. It was just as sweet, just as powerful as the first time. "We're going to put down roots."

  "We already have." Smiling, she took his face in her hands. "You just didn't notice."

  Cautiously he laid his palm on her stomach. "How soon?"

  "Seven months, a little less. There will be three of us for Christmas." She let out a whoop when he lifted her into his arms.

  "I won't let you down." He swore it as he buried his face in her hair.

  "I know."

  "I want you off your feet." As he started to lay her on the bed, she grabbed his shirt.

  "That's fine with me, as long as you get off yours as well."

  He nipped her lower lip. "I've always said, Irish, you're a woman after my heart."

  The End