“I doubt it’ll come to that.” The image brought on twinges of humor and desperation. “We both need to concentrate on the business at hand. This could be the turning point in your career.”
“Yes.” It would be wise to remember that, she thought. “So we’ll use each other, professionally.”
“We’ll enhance each other, professionally,” he corrected. Christ, he needed air. “I’ll go in and call for that truck.”
“Rogan.” She waited until he reached the door and turned back to her. “I’d like to go with you.”
“To Dublin? Today?”
“Yes. I can be ready to go by the time the truck arrives. I only need to make one stop, at my sister’s.”
She was as good as her word. Even as the shipment chugged away she was tossing a suitcase into the back of Rogan’s rented car.
“If you’d just give me ten minutes,” she said as Rogan started down the narrow lane, “I’m sure Brie has some tea or coffee on.”
“Fine.” He stopped the car by Blackthorn and went with Maggie up the walk.
She didn’t knock, but stepped inside and headed straight toward the kitchen in the back. Brianna was there, a white bib apron tied at her waist and her hands coated with flour.
“Oh, Mr. Sweeney, hello. Maggie. You’ll have to excuse the mess. We have guests and I’m making pies for dinner.”
“I’m leaving for Dublin.”
“So soon?” Brianna picked up a tea towel to dust off her hands. “I thought the show was next week.”
“It is. I’m going early. Is she in her room?”
Brianna’s polite smile strained a bit at the edges. “Yes. Why don’t I go tell her you’re here?”
“I’ll tell her myself. Perhaps you could give Rogan some coffee.”
“Of course.” She cast one worried look at Maggie as her sister walked out of the kitchen into the adjoining apartment. “If you’ll make yourself comfortable in the parlor, Mr. Sweeney, I’ll bring you some coffee right away.”
“Don’t trouble.” His curiosity was up. “I’ll have a cup right here, if I won’t be in your way.” He added an easy smile. “And please, call me Rogan.”
“You have it black as I recall.”
“You have a good memory.” And you’re a bundle of nerves, he observed, watching Brianna reach for a cup and saucer.
“I try to remember the preferences of my guests. Would you have some cake? It’s a bit of chocolate I made yesterday.”
“The memory of your cooking makes it difficult to refuse.” He took a seat at the scrubbed wood table. “You do it all yourself?”
“Yes, I…” She heard the first raised voice and fumbled. “I do. I’ve a fire laid in the parlor. Are you sure you wouldn’t be more comfortable?”
The clash of voices from the next room rose, bringing a flush of embarrassment to Brianna’s cheeks. Rogan merely lifted his cup. “Who’s she shouting at this time?”
Brianna managed a smile. “Our mother. They don’t get on very well.”
“Does Maggie get along with anyone?”
“Only when it suits her. But she has a heart, a wonderful, generous heart. It’s only that she guards it so carefully.” Brianna sighed. If Rogan wasn’t embarrassed by the shouting, neither would she be. “I’ll cut you that cake.”
“You never change.” Maeve stared at her oldest child through narrowed eyes. “Just like your father.”
“If you think that’s an insult to me, you’re wrong.”
Maeve sniffed and brushed at the lace cuffs of her bed gown. The years and her own dissatisfactions had stolen the beauty of her face. It was puffy and pale, with lines dug deeply around the pursed mouth. Her hair, once as golden as sunlight, had faded to gray and was scraped back ruthlessly into a tight bun.
She was plumped onto a mountain of pillows, her Bible at one hand and a box of chocolates at the other. The television across the room murmured low.
“So, it’s Dublin, is it? Brianna told me you were going off. Frittering money away on hotels, I imagine.”
“It’s my money.”
“Oh, and you won’t let me forget it.” Bitterness reared as Maeve pushed up in bed. For her whole life, someone else had held the purse strings, her parents, her husband, and now, most demeaning of all, her own daughter. “To think of all he tossed away on you, buying you glass, sending you off to that foreign country. And for what? So you could play at being an artist and superior to the rest of us.”
“He tossed nothing away on me. He gave me the chance to learn.”
“While I stayed on the farm, working my fingers to the bone.”
“You never worked a blessed day in your life. It was Brianna who did it all while you took to your bed with one ailment after another.”
“Do you think I enjoy being delicate?”
“Oh, aye,” Maggie said with relish. “I think you revel in it.”
“It’s my cross to bear.” Maeve picked up her Bible, pressed it to her chest like a shield. She had paid for her sin, she thought. A hundred times over she had paid for it. Yet if forgiveness had come, comfort had not. “That and an ungrateful child.”
“What am I supposed to be grateful for? The fact that you complained every day of your life? That you made your dissatisfaction for my father and your disappointment in me clear with every word, every look.”
“I gave birth to you!” Maeve shouted. “I nearly died giving you life. And because I carried you in my womb, I married a man who didn’t love me, and who I didn’t love. I sacrificed everything for you.”
“Sacrificed?” Maggie said wearily. “What sacrifices have you made?”
Maeve cloaked herself in the bitter rage of her pride. “More than you know. And my reward was to have children who have no love for me.”
“Do you think because you got pregnant and married to give me a name, I should overlook everything you’ve done? Everything you haven’t done?” Like love me even a little, Maggie thought, and ruthlessly pushed the ache away. “It was you on your back, Mother. I was the result, not the cause.”
“How dare you speak to me that way?” Maeve’s face flushed hot, her fingers dug into the blankets. “You never had any respect, any kindness, any compassion.”