Rogan took it, tossed it on his desk. "Are you saying she's gone back to Clare? The morning after her show?"
"Yes, and in a tearing hurry. I didn't have time to show her the reviews." Joseph reached up to fiddle with the tiny gold hoop in his ear. "She'd booked a flight to Shannon. Said she only had a moment to say goodbye and God bless, gave me the note for you, kissed me and ran out again." He smiled.
"It was a bit like being battered by a small tornado." He lifted his shoulders, let them fall.
"I'm sorry, Rogan, if I'd known you wanted her to stay, I'd have tried to stop her. I believe I'd have been flattened, but I'd have tried."
"It doesn't matter." He lowered carefully into his chair again. "How did she seem?"
"Impatient, rushed, distracted. Very much as usual. She wanted to be back home, was all she told me, back at work. I wasn't sure you knew, so I thought I'd come by and tell you in person. I have an appointment with General Fitzsimmons, and it was on my way."
"I appreciate it. I should be by the gallery by four. Give the general my regards."
"I'll give him the business," Joseph said with a flashing grin. "By the way, he went up another five thousand on Surrender."
"Not for sale."
Rogan picked up the note on his desk after Joseph closed the door behind him. Ignoring his work, Rogan split the envelope with his ebony-handled letter opener. The creamy stationery from his own guest room was dashed over with Maggie's hurried and beautiful scrawl.
Dear Rogan,
I imagine you'll be annoyed that I've left so abruptly, but it can't be helped. I need to be home and back at work, and I won't apologize for it. I will thank you. I'm sure you'll start firing wires my way, and I'll warn you in advance I intend to ignore them, at least for a time. Please give my best to your grandmother. And I wouldn't mind if you thought of me now and again.
Maggie
Oh, one more thing. You might be interested to know that I'm taking home a half dozen of Julien's recipes—that's your cook's name, if you don't know. He thinks I'm charming.
Rogan skimmed the letter a second time before setting it aside. It was for the best, he decided. They would both be happier and more productive with the whole of Ireland between them. Certainly, he would be. It was difficult to be productive around a woman when you were in love with her, and when she frustrated you on every possible level. And with any luck, any at all, these feelings that had grown in him would ease and fade with time and distance. So ... He folded the letter and set it aside. He was glad she'd gone back, satisfied that they'd accomplished the first stage of his plans for her career, happy that she'd inadvertently given him time to deal with his own confused emotions. The hell, he thought. He missed her already.
The sky was the color of a robin's egg and clear as a mountain stream. Maggie sat on the little stoop at her front door, elbows on knees, and just breathed. Beyond her own garden gate and the trailing, flowering fuchsia, she could see the lush green of hill and valley. And farther, since the day was so clear, so bright, she glimpsed the distant dark mountains. She watched a magpie dart across her line of vision, flashing over the hedge and up. Straight as an arrow he went, until even the shadow of him was lost in the green.
One of Murphy's cows lowed and was answered by another. There was a humming echo that would be his tractor, and the more insistent sealike roar of her furnaces, which she'd fired the moment she'd arrived. Her flowers were brilliant in the sunshine, vivid red begonias tangled with the late-blooming tulips and dainty spears of larkspur. She could smell rosemary and thyme and the strong perfume of the wild roses that swayed like dancers in the mild, sweet breeze. A wind chime she'd made out of scraps of glass sang musically above her head. Dublin, with its busy streets, seemed very far away. On the ribbon of road in the valley below, she saw a red truck, tiny and bright as a toy, rumble along, turn into a lane and climb toward a cottage. Home for tea, she thought, and let out a sigh of pure contentment. She heard the dog first, that full-throated echoing bark, then the rustle of brush that told her he'd flushed out a bird. Her sister's voice floated out on the air, amused, indulgent.
"Leave the poor thing alone, Con, you great bully."
The dog barked again and, moments later, leaped at the garden gate. His tongue lolled happily when he spotted Maggie.
"Get down from there," Brianna ordered. "Do you want her to come home and find her gate crashed in, and . . . Oh." She stopped, laying a hand on the wolfhound's massive head as she saw her sister.
"I didn't know you were home." The smile came first as she tugged open the gate.
"I've just arrived." Maggie spent the next few minutes being greeted by Concobar, wrestling and accepting his lavish licks until he responded to Brianna's command to sit. Sit he did, his front paws over Maggie's feet, as if to ensure that she would stay put.
"I had a little time," Brianna began. "So I thought I'd come down and tend to your garden."
It looks fine to me."
"You always think so. I've brought you some bread I baked this morning. I was going to put it in your freezer." Feeling awkward, Brianna held out the basket. There was something here, she realized.
Something behind the cool, calm look in her sister's eyes. "How was Dublin?"
"Crowded." Maggie set the basket beside her on the stoop. The scent beneath the neat cloth was so tempting that she lifted the cloth aside and broke off a warm hunk of brown bread. "Noisy." She tore off a bit of bread and tossed it. Concobar nipped it midair, swallowed it whole and grinned. "Greedy bastard, aren't you?" She tossed him another piece before she rose. "I have something for you."
Maggie turned into the house, leaving
Brianna standing on the path. When she came back, she handed Brianna a box and a manila envelope.
"You didn't have to get me anything—" Brianna began, but stopped. It was guilt she felt, she realized. And guilt she was meant to feel. Accepting it, she opened the box. "Oh, Maggie, it's lovely. The loveliest thing I've ever had." She held the pin up to the sun and watched it glint.
"You shouldn't have spent your money."
"It's mine to spend," Maggie said shortly. "And I hope you'll wear it on something other than an apron."
"I don't wear an apron everywhere," Brianna said evenly. She replaced the pin carefully in the box, slipped the box into her pocket. "Thank you. Maggie, I wish—"
"You haven't looked at the other." Maggie knew what her sister wished, and didn't care to hear it. Regrets that she hadn't been in Dublin for the show hardly mattered now. Brianna studied her sister's face, found no sign of softening. "All right, then." She opened the envelope, drew out a sheet. "Oh! Oh my." However bright and lovely the pin, it was nothing compared withthis. They both knew it. "Recipes. So many. Souffles and pastries, and—oh, look at this chicken. It must be wonderful."
"It is." Maggie shook her head at Brianna's reaction, nearly sighed. "I've tasted it myself. And the soup there—the herbs are the trick to it, I'm told."
"Where did you get them?" Brianna caught her bottom lip between her teeth, studied the handwritten pages as if they were the treasures of all the ages.
"From Rogan's cook. He's a Frenchman."
"Recipes from a French chef," Brianna said reverently.
"I promised him you'd send a like number of your own in trade."
"Of mine?" Brianna blinked, as if coming out of a dream. "Why, he couldn't want mine."
"He can, and he does. I praised your Irish stew and your berry pie to the moon and back. And I gave him my solemn word you'd send them."
"I will, of course, but I can't imagine—thank you, Maggie. It's a wonderful gift." Brianna stepped forward for an embrace, then back again, cut to the quick by the coolness of Maggie's response.
"Won't you tell me how it went for you? I kept trying to imagine it, but I couldn't."
"It went well enough. There were a lot of people. Rogan seems to know how to tickle their interest.
There was an orchestra and waiters in white suits serving flutes of champagne and silver platters of fancy finger food."
"It must have been beautiful. I'm so proud of you"
Maggie's eyes chilled. "Are you?" "You know I am."
"I know I needed you there. Damn it. Brie, I needed you there."
Con whined at the shout and looked uneasily from Maggie to his mistress.
"I would have been there if I could."
"There was nothing stopping you but her. One night of your life was all I asked. One. I had no one there, no family, no friends, no one who loved me. Because you chose her as you always have, over me, over Da, even over yourself."
It wasn't a matter of choosing."
"It's always a matter of choosing," Maggie said coldly.
"You've let her kill your heart, Brianna, just as she killed his."
That's cruel, Maggie."
"Aye, it is. She'd be the first to tell you that cruel is just what I am. Cruel, marked with sin and damned to the devil. Well, I'm glad to be bad. I'd chose hell in a blink over kneeling in ashes and suffering silently for heaven as you do." Maggie stepped back, curled a stiff hand around the doorknob. "Well, I had my night without you, or anyone, and it went well enough. I should think they'll be some sales out profit. I'll have money for you in a few weeks."
"I'm sorry I hurt you, Maggie." Brianna's own pride stiffened her voice. "I don't care about the money."
"I do." Maggie shut the door.
* * *
For three days she was undisturbed. The phone didn't ring, no knock came at the door. Even if there had been a summons, she would have ignored it. She spent nearly every waking minute in the glass house, refining, perfecting, forming the images in her brain and on her sketchpad into glass. Despite Rogan's claim as to their worth, she hung her drawings on clothespins or on magnets, so that a corner of the studio soon came to resemble a dark room, with prints drying.
She'd burned herself twice in her hurry, once badly enough to make her stop for some hastily applied first aid. Now she sat in her chair, carefully,