a man in a flowered shirt. Like a blind man feeling his way, he walked toward her. "I'm not sure I caught that."
"Then I'll speak plainly." She swallowed a foolish bubble of pride. "I want you to take me home with you, Joseph. And I want you to kiss me again. And unless I've very much mistaken what we're both feeling, I want you to make love with me." She took the last step toward him. "Did you understand that, and is it agreeable to you?"
"Agreeable?" He took her face in his hands, stared hard into her eyes. "You've lost your mind. Thank God." He laughed and swooped her against him. "Oh, it's more than agreeable, Patty darling. Much more."
Chapter Fourteen
MAGGIE dozed off at her kitchen table, her head on her folded arms. Moving day had been sheer hell. Her mother had complained constantly, relent lessly, about everything from the steady fall of rain to the curtains Brianna had hung at the wide front window of the new house. But it was worth the misery of the day to see Maeve at last settled in her own place. Maggie had kept her word, and Brianna was free. Still, Maggie hadn't expected the wave of guilt that swamped her when Maeve had wept—her back bent, her face buried in her hands and the hot fast tears leaking through her fingers. No, she hadn't expected to feel guilty, or to feel so miserably sorry for the woman who'd barely finished cursing her before she collapsed into sobs. In the end it was Lottie, with her brisk, unflap pable cheerfulness who had taken control. She scooted both Brianna and Maggie out of the house, telling them not to worry, no, not to worry a bit, as the tears were as natural as the rain. And what a lovely place it was, she'd gone on to say, all the while nudging and pushing them along. Like a dollhouse and just as tidy. They'd be fine. They'd be cozy as cats. She'd all but shoved them into Maggie's lorry. So it was done, and it was right. But there would be no opening of champagne bottles that night.
Maggie had downed one bracing whiskey and simply folded into a heap of exhausted emotions at the table while the rain drummed on the roof and dusk deepened the gloom. The phone didn't awaken her. It rang demandingly while she dozed. But Rogan's voice stabbed through the fatigue and had her jolting up, shaking off sleep.
"I'll expect to hear from you by morning, as I've neither the time nor the patience to come fetch you myself."
"What?" Groggy, she blinked like an owl and stared around the darkened room. Why, she'd have sworn he'd been right there, badgering her.
Annoyed that her nap had been interrupted, and that the interruption reminded her she was hungry and there was no more to eat in the house than would satisfy a bird, she pushed away from the table. She'd go down to Erie's, she decided. Raid her kitchen. Perhaps they could cheer each other up. She was reaching for a cap when she saw the impatient red blip on the answering machine.
"Bloody nuisance," she muttered, but stabbed the buttons until the tape rewound, then played.
"Maggie." Again, Rogan's voice filled the room. It made her smile as she realized he had been the one to wake her after all. "Why the devil don't you ever answer this thing? It's noon. I want you to call the moment you come in from your studio. I mean it. There's something I need to discuss with you. So—I miss you. Damn you, Maggie, I miss you." The message clicked off, and before she could feel too smug about it, another began.
"Do you think I've nothing better to do than spend my time talking to this blasted machine?"
"I don't," she answered back, "but you're the one who put it here."
"It's half four now, and I need to go by the gallery. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I need to speak with you, today. I'll be at the gallery until six, then you can reach me at home. I don't give a damn how wrapped up you are in your work. Damn you for being so far away."
The man spends more time damning me than anything else," she muttered.
"And you're just as far away from me as I am from you, Sweeney."
As if in answer, his voice came again. "You irresponsible, idiotic, insensitive brat. Am I supposed to worry now that you've blown yourself up with your chemicals and set your hair on fire? Thanks to your sister, who does answer her phone, I know perfectly well you're there. It's nearly eight, and I have a dinner meeting. Now you listen to me, Margaret Mary. Get yourself to Dublin, and bring your pass port. I won't waste my time explaining why, just do as you're told. If you can't arrange a flight, I'll send the plane for you. I expect to hear from you by morning, as I've neither the time nor the patience to fetch you myself."
"Fetch me? As if you could." She stood for a moment, scowling at the machine. So she was supposed to get herself to Dublin, was she? Just because he demanded it. Never a please or a will you, just do what you're told. Ice would flow in hell before she'd give him the satisfaction.
Forgetting her hunger, she stormed from the room and up the stairs. Get herself to Dublin, she fumed. The nerve of the man, ordering her about. She yanked the suitcase out of her closet and heaved it onto the bed. Did he think she was so eager to see him that she'd drop everything and scramble off to do his bidding? He was going to find out differently. Oh, yes, she decided as she tossed clothes into the case. She was going to tell him differently, in person. Face-to-face. She doubted he'd thank her for it.
"Eileen, I'll need Limerick to fax me those adjusted figures before the end of the day." Behind his desk, Rogan checked off a line of his list, rubbed at the tension at the base of his neck. "And I'll want to see the report on the construction there the moment it comes in."
"It was promised by noon." Eileen, a trim brunette who managed the office as skillfully as she did her husband and three children, jotted a note. "You've a two o'clock meeting with Mr. Greenwald. That's re the changes in the London catalog."
"Yes, I've got that. He'll want martinis."
"Vodka," Eileen said. 'Two olives. Should I see about a cheese tray to keep him from staggering out?"
"You'd better." Rogan drummed his fingers on the desk. "Has there been no call from Clare?"
"None this morning." She shot a quick, interested look from under her lashes. "I'll be sure to let you know the moment Miss Concannon calls."
He made a sound, the vocal equivalent of a shrug. "Go ahead and put that call through to Rome if you will."
"Right away. Oh, and I have that draft of the letter to Inverness on my desk if you want to approve it."
"Fine. And we'd best send a wire to Boston. What's the time there?"
He started to check his watch when a blur of color in the doorway stopped him. "Maggie."
"Aye. Maggie." She tossed her suitcase down with a thud and fisted her hands on her hips. "I've a few choice words for you, Mr. Sweeney." She bit down on her temper long enough to nod at the woman rising from the chair in front of Rogan's desk. "You'd be Eileen?"
"Yes. It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Miss Concannon."
"It's nice of you to say so. I must say you look remarkably well for a woman who works for a tyrant." Her voice rose on the last word.
Eileen's lips twitched. She cleared her throat, closed her steno pad.
"It's nice of you to say so. Is there anything else, Mr. Sweeney?"
"No. Hold my calls please."
"Yes, sir." Eileen walked out, closing the door discreetly behind her.
"So." Rogan leaned back in his chair, tapped his pen against his palm. "You got my message."
"I got it."
She walked across the room. No, Rogan thought, she swaggered across it, hands still fisted on hips, eyes flashing. He wasn't ashamed to admit that his mouth watered at the sight of her.
"Who in this wide world do you think you are?" She slapped her palms on his desk, rattling pens.
"I signed my work to you, Rogan Sweeney, and aye, I slept with you—to my undying regret. But none of it gives you the right to order me about or swear at me every five minutes."
"I haven't spoken to you in days," he reminded her. "So how can I have sworn at you?"
"Over your hideous machine—which I tossed into the garbage this very morning."
Very calmly, he
made a note on a pad.
"Don't start that."
"I'm merely noting down that you need a replacement for your answering machine. You had no trouble getting a flight in, I see."
"No trouble? You've been nothing but trouble to me since the moment you walked into my glass house. Nothing but. You think you can just take over everything, not just my work—which is bad enough—but me as well. I'm here to tell you that you can't. I won't—where in the hell are you going? I haven't finished."
"I never thought you had." He continued to the door, locked it, turned back.
"Unlock that door."
"No."
The fact that he was smiling as he came back toward her didn't help her nerves.
"Don't you put your hands on me."
"I'm about to. In fact, I'm about to do something I haven't done in the twelve years I've worked in this office."
Her heart began a fast hard tattoo in her throat. "You are not."
So, he thought, he'd finally shocked her. He watched her gaze slide to the door, then made his grab.
"You can rage at me once I've finished with you."
"Finished with me?" Even as she took a swing at him he was crushing his mouth to hers.
"Get off me, you ham-handed brute."
"You like my hands." And he used them to tug her sweater up. "You told me so."
"That's a lie. I won't have this, Rogan." But the denial ended in a moan as his lips skimmed hot over her throat. Then, "I'll shout down the roof," once she got her breath back.
"Go ahead." He bit her, none too gently. "I like it when you shout."
"Curse you," she muttered, and went willingly when he lowered her to the floor.
It was fast and hot, a frantic coupling that was over almost as soon as it had begun. But the speed didn't diminish the power. They lay tangled together a moment longer, limbs vibrating. Rogan turned his head to press a kiss to her jaw.
"Nice of you to drop by, Maggie."
She summoned up the strength to bounce her fist off his shoulder. "Get off of me, you brute." She would have shoved him, but he was already shifting, drawing her with him until she was straddled across his lap.
"Better?"
Than what?" She grinned, then remembered she was furious with him. Pushing away, she sat on the rug and tidied her clothes. "You've a nerve, you do, Rogan Sweeney."
"Because I dragged you to the floor?"
"No." She snapped her jeans. "It'd be foolish to say that when it's obvious I enjoyed it."
"Very obvious."
She sent him a steely look as he rose and offered her a hand.