Kissing Maggie Silver (2 page)

Maggie laughed. “Poor Dad!
He booked the cruise ages ago as a surprise for Mum for their fortieth wedding anniversary. When he told her about it this morning and she said she had already agreed to look after Amy and Sophie when you have the baby, he really thought he was going to have to cancel it. You know what she’s like. It’s always family first. He was really upset but trying hard not to show it when Mark popped in to talk about today’s arrangements and heard all about it. I’m really glad he talked to me and we managed to sort things out before she refused to go.”

“I know.
That’s why I’m so grateful. I would have hated if they had cancelled.”

“Well worry no more, just be glad this baby is arriving during the
summer vacation when I’m free. I’ll keep my cell phone switched on all the time so you can call the instant you need me.”

She frowned as she watched her sister-in-law walk away.
June was Australian and her parents, who lived in a remote area north of Brisbane, rarely saw her. Maggie was sure it must be awful to be so far from home and family at a time like this.

Thinking about distant places brought her squarely to the one thought she had been avoiding all afternoon.
Ruairi O’Connor. She had seen him the moment he entered the room, as had every other female, young and old, she shouldn’t wonder. It had been difficult not to, of course, because he was half a head taller than anyone else. And when he had smiled at her brother Mark she was sure the combination of square white teeth, clear hazel eyes and tan skin had provoked a universal sigh.

Ruairi O’Connor was at her parent’s party and nobody had told her he was coming
. Ruairi O’Connor who had been the love of her life from when she was seven years old until he went travelling, and broke her heart, when she was thirteen. Ruairi O’Connor who she hadn’t seen for ten years because he hadn’t ever managed to make it back to any of her brothers’ weddings. Ruairi O’Connor who, after a few postcards, had forgotten about her altogether.

Already halfway through a game of hide n’ seek she’d had to abandon any thought of speaking to him as she hightailed it through the French windows into the large garden while her eldest niece counted to ten.
And now here she was, still in the garden, trying to pluck up the courage to go and say hello to him and hope he wouldn’t remember how lovesick she’d been. 

It would be so embarrassing if he remembered the countless times she had loitered around his garden gate waiting for him
to arrive home from school; or how she had fought to sit next to him whenever he came to hang out with her brothers. And she certainly hoped he wouldn’t remember her cuddling up to him if a television program they were watching was too scary, determined to stick it out if it meant she could be with him. But he’d never complained. Not once. Instead, he’d shown her abandoned birds’ nests and empty eggshells the color of the spring sky, and helped her to identify the wild flowers in the field at the back of their gardens; a field that was full of modern houses now but which, all those years ago, had been a children’s paradise of long grass, insects and tiny scuffling creatures.

Maggie had only been allowed to go to the field if her brothers would take her, and more than once Ruairi had overridden their objections and held her hand all the way there and back.

And he had always been interested in her drawings too. He’d even pretended to be grateful whenever she’d given him a lopsided sketch or a smudged painting, and had propped them against a stack of books in the tiny room his family used as a study; the room where he kept his collection of animal photos, each one meticulously labeled on the back. No wonder she had given her childish heart to him.

She gave a wry smile as she closed her eyes and lifted her face to the warmth of the late afternoon sun. That had been then, when the entire world had been exciting and nothing was impossible. Things were different now. For a start she had grown up and learned that life goes on even when dreams get trampled on, and that hearts broken in childhood mend.

* * *

“You look as if you need a drink!”

His voice was deeper than she remembered but it still had the same edge, as if he was going to smile at any moment. Her eyes snapped open.

“Hello Maggie.”

She looked up at him, shading her eyes. He was a dark silhouette against the bright sunshine that was filtering through the trees.
He was holding a glass of chilled white wine in one hand and a dish of strawberries in the other.

She hoped she sounded cool and sophisticated as she answered him. She knew she looked very different from the child who had fought to hide her tears as he set off on his travels.
Then she had been a skinny teenager with braces on her teeth and freckles on her nose. Now she turned heads when she walked into a room.

He bent down and placed the wine and strawberries on the bench beside her. “I’ve been waiting for a slot in your busy schedule. Those nephews and nieces of yours have been keeping you occupied for most of the afternoon.”

She shrugged, aiming for casual nonchalance. “The result of teaching primary I guess. It’s sort of expected of me at family gatherings like this.”

He lowered himself onto the grass at her feet, and now that she could see him clearly she noticed he was frowning. “It hasn’t given you much of a chance to talk to the other guests.”

“Not really my thing at the moment.”

“Oh?”

She hesitated and then shrugged. Even after all this time he was still someone who had once seemed to be a part of the family, so what did it matter if she told him how things were in the Silver clan at the moment.

“I’ve upset everyone because I’ve just broken up with my boyfriend. He was suitable husband material you see.
Apparently Mum and Dad were hoping we’d get engaged in time to turn today into a joint celebration, so keeping out of the way is a good idea.”

Ruairi raised his eyebrows, the hint of laughter back in his voice. “I hardly dare ask, but what is suitable husband material?”

“Oh, you know! Kind, considerate, solvent, good with children, the usual stuff.”

“So what
ever was it that made you turn such a paragon down?”

Maggie shot him a startled look.
“You know you’re the first person to ask me that. Everyone else just keeps telling me why I shouldn’t have done it. Especially Mark because he introduced us.”

Ruairi didn’t comment.
He just waited for her answer.

She frowned.
“I don’t know why I’m telling you this but if you really want to know it was because he was boring…no, that’s not fair.
He
wasn’t boring but what he wanted was boring. I’m not ready to settle for a life five miles away from where I was born before I’ve had a chance to see a bit of the world, maybe work abroad for a while. Mum and Dad were too nervous to let me go backpacking when I was a student, so I want to travel now, before I settle for suburbia. The trouble is, nobody else in the family thinks it’s a good idea. They all consider it’s time I grew up and settled down. They think I’m being frivolous and irresponsible.”

“But you’re going to pack your bags and leave anyway?” Ruairi said.

“Like you did, you mean?”

He heard the sarcasm in her voice and smiled at her.
“Oh Maggie! Don’t tell me you haven’t forgiven me yet. I was twenty-one and eager to take on the world. I couldn’t hang around for a twelve year old, even if she did have a crush on me.”

There it was. Out in the open. Not a hidden embarrassment any longer. Their eyes met and his were full of laughter, and then Maggie was laughing too as the years peeled away and Ruairi was just Ruairi, instead of a tall stranger with heart stopping looks.

“Thirteen! I was thirteen!” she said indignantly.

“So you were,” he chuckled.

“And I didn’t have a crush…well only a little one,” she conceded as his smile grew wider.

* * *

They shared the strawberries and Maggie forgot she was aiming for cool sophistication as they began to reminisce. Tears of laughter washed away her makeup and gave her a severe bout of hiccups when Ruairi reminded her of a particularly amusing incident from the past, and by the time a shout from Mark told them to come and listen to the speeches it was as if the intervening ten years had never been.

“It sounds as if we have to join the party.” Ruairi stood in one fluid movement, picked up Maggie’s glass of wine, and held out his free hand.
She took it automatically and let him pull her to her feet. As her fingers curled into his he grinned down at her.

“You haven’t grown much have you?”

Letting go of his hand she bent down and scrabbled under the bench she’d been sitting on until she found the shoes she had kicked off when she started playing with her nephews and nieces.

“I can do tall,” she told him indignantly as she slipped her feet into them. Then she spoilt it by getting one of the four-inch spiky heels stuck in the soft turf of the lawn.

Ruairi roared with laughter as he slipped his arm around her waist and half carried her across the grass. He was still chuckling when he lowered her onto the stone terrace and then bent and rubbed the soil from her shoes.

“Thank you,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster.

“You’re welcome Maggie Silver. Now let me escort you inside.” He straightened up and, with a teasing smile, offered her his arm.

Maggie took it with an answering grin but as they made their way inside she was surprised to find herself suddenly feeling as bereft as she had ten years earlier.
Worse in fact, because back then she had been sure, with the optimism of the very young, that he would come back for her. Now she knew such thoughts were mere fantasy and that Ruairi O’Connor would probably disappear from her life forever once the party was over.

Chapter Two

Forty minutes later, toasts and speeches over, Maggie looked around for Ruairi. She saw him across the room talking to her brothers.

With the easy familiarity of the past he had kept her arm linked to his while they listened to the speeches. Not until she was needed for the obligatory family photo that would mark the occasion for posterity did they break away from one another. When they did Maggie was surprised at the reluctance she felt as she walked away from him.
Even now her fingers carried the memory of the muscular strength of his arm beneath his light summer jacket, while her brain was imprinted with the warmth of his smile and those laughing hazel eyes. 

She scowled. She was just being melodramatic. Sure he was attractive, any woman with a pulse could see that, but it didn’t mean she had to relive her childish crush. She was twenty-three year’s old for goodness sake, and she had plans for the future that didn’t include getting heartsick over a man, any man, for a very long time.
If she was going to travel and work abroad then she needed to be flexible and fancy free.

Trust Ruairi O’Connor to disappear for ten years and then reappear just when he wasn’t wanted. If he was invading her thoughts like this after a couple of hours in his company, then the sooner he went away again the better as far as she was concerned.

“Maggie, over here!” Mark was beckoning to her.

She pasted a smile on her face and made her way across the room. “Isn’t it great that Ruairi’s here,” she said brightly when she reached him. “You must have so much to talk about.”

“Yeah, well that’s why I need to ask
another favor.”

“You want me to take June and the children home so you can have a drink with him,” she could hear it coming.

He looked startled. “How did you know?”

“I just guessed.”

“Well you guessed right. Mum and Dad have decided to end the evening quietly with a few friends. It’s been a long day for them, for all of us, and it’s past the children’s bedtime.
Pete and Andy are taking their families home on their way to Ruairi’s hotel but I don’t want to leave June alone after a day like this, especially as I might be late back.”

Maggie glanced across to where her sister-in-law was sitting.
She looked wan and tired and far from able to cope with the two small children tumbling about in front of her.

“Of course I’ll stay with her.
She looks all in. Just give me time to say hello to Mrs. O’Connor and then we can go.”

“Thanks sis, you’re an angel.”

“An irresponsible angel for refusing to get engaged to Graham, apparently.” She couldn’t resist the dig.

Mark looked uncomfortable.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have given you such a hard time. It’s just that he’s a friend of mine and he fits in with the family so well. He had such a lot of plans for both of you too. We thought you were good together, thought you were both set for life, so it was a real shock to all of us when you turned him down. ”

Maggie wasn’t quite ready to let him off the hook.
“I know it was and I’m sorry I upset him, but it’s his own fault because he never bothered to check out his plans with me. I kept telling him I wasn’t ready for a mortgage. I said I wanted to see the world for a bit before we settled down. I even tried to persuade him to do the same but he wouldn’t take me seriously. He just laughed and echoed what Mum and Dad and the rest of you keep telling me. He said I needed to grow up.”