Kissing Maggie Silver (5 page)

Ruairi, unaware of her despondency, was studying the map
again. “I knew it. Look, there’s a park at the end of this road,” he said, pointing. “Let’s find somewhere to sit for a while you tell me all about this travel plan of yours.”

* * *

They didn’t discuss her travel plan though because when they reached the park they were greeted by shrieks of delight as three of Maggie’s nephews flung themselves at her.

Their father, Maggie’s eldest brother Peter, greeted them with surprise.
“Whatever are you two doing here?

“I asked Maggie to help me with a spot of house hunting for a friend,” explained Ruairi.
“I needed a female perspective.”

Peter’s answering laugh was edged with pointed sarcasm.
“You also needed someone with an interest in making a home, someone looking to put down roots. And I’m afraid my dear sister fails on both those counts.”

For the briefest of moments Ruairi’s eyes met Maggie’s. Then his gaze flicked back to Peter, and although she knew it was just something to do with the light, to Maggie they appeared to lose their green and gold flecks and become a dull, muddy pond color.
             

“Maggie was very helpful,” he said, putting a slight emphasis on the word very.
“And nobody can be more rootless than me, not even your sister.”

The
n he turned his back on Peter and smiled at the children. “Now I’d like an ice cream. Does anyone here know where I can buy one?”

The excited children immediately surrounded him, eager to direct him to the ice cream van parked near the entrance to the park.
Peter frowned at the unexpected put down but then he shrugged as Ruairi pulled out his wallet and bought ice creams for everyone.

* * *

Much later, after several ball games, and when the boys had been taken home for their tea, Ruairi lay back on the grass and watched Maggie. She was sitting cross-legged and searching for four-leafed clovers.

“Don’t you mind the sniping?” he asked.

She didn’t bother to pretend not to understand. “Of course I mind. But there’s not much I can do about it is there? If I lose my temper then it’s just Maggie having a tantrum. If I stay calm then it’s Maggie not caring. I can’t win either way. It’s another reason why I want to travel. I need to prove to everyone that I’m capable of making a life for myself. I want them all to recognize I’m an adult who doesn’t need their continual advice. I want them to realize I’m not little Maggie anymore.”

“They must be blind not to see that,” he said lazily, resting his head back on his hands.
“It was the first thing I noticed at the party even though you were trying to disguise yourself as a ten year old!”

“That’s not funny!” she snapped.
“Don’t make a joke of it Ruairi because I am just about fed up with everyone so it wouldn’t take much to add you to the list.”

He sat up and put his hand on her arm. “Slow down!
I wasn’t joking Maggie. Don’t you know how beautiful, clever and full of spirit you are? It shines out of your face, all of it…so why do you let them do it? Why do you let your brothers take advantage of you? Why do you let them treat you as a sort of joke?”

“I guess because they always did,” she said unsteadily, hoping he would take his hand away before the imprint burnt straight through her skin and on, down towards her heart.

He heard the tremor in her voice, saw the glint of tears on the end of her eyelashes, and felt an unexpected surge of anger. How could they treat Maggie like this? Dear sweet Maggie who had been like a little sister to him all those years ago. Without thinking he slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him, just as he would have done when she was a child. At the same time he put his free hand under her chin and tilted her face upwards. He had been going to say something soothing to her, words that would persuade her out of her sadness. It wasn’t until their eyes met that he realized his mistake. He had told her he had seen from the first that she wasn’t little Maggie anymore but it hadn’t been true, not until she was in his arms. Now, with her face inches from his own and her wide grey eyes glittering in the sunlight, he discovered she was very grown up indeed and there was only one thing he wanted to do. He wanted to kiss her.

Chapter
Four

Maggie went back to her search for four-leafed clovers. Anything was better than looking at Ruairi. For the briefest of moments, no longer than it took to draw breath, she had been so sure they were going to kiss one another that without thinking of the consequences, she had moved a little closer, her lips parting in involuntary anticipation. Instead, he had just given her a brotherly hug before taking his arm away and leaving her squirming with embarrassment.

Out of the corner of her eye she could see him stretched out on the grass, apparently asleep.
So much for his insistence that, in his eyes at least, she had grown up. If he really believed it then surely he must have seen the naked longing in her eyes, for somehow, in the pause between one heartbeat and the next, Maggie had started loving him all over again. And she knew that this time it wasn’t just the whimsical imaginings of a lonely child.

Ruairi watched her through the curve of his eyelashes.
He couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to recognize that Maggie had indeed stepped across the threshold of childhood. There was nothing of the leggy teenager left at all. He gazed hungrily at her heavy curtain of copper hair, aching to thrust his fingers into it and pull her to him, to feel the slender lines of her body up close and personal, to crush the rosy pout of her full lips under his. If only!

The old Ruairi O’Connor would have had no compunction in following up such a sudden and unexpected desire w
ith action. But this was Maggie. She wasn’t someone who could just share a part of his journey. Any involvement with Maggie would be forever, and there was no way he was close to being ready for forever with anyone.

He knew
Maggie couldn’t be a few weeks in a foreign city, or a month or two on location. She was already too much a part of him. Despite barely thinking of her for years he was surprised to discover how deeply the memories of the young Maggie were twined around his heart. Maybe, without realizing it, he had just been waiting for her to grow up. Maybe bringing his mother over from Ireland to the one party where he was sure to meet Maggie again was some sort of subconscious act.

Maybe rubbish! He was deluding himself. Just because the nomadic existence that was part and parcel of the career he had chosen had gone sour, he was looking for a solution.
And right at this moment he wanted Maggie to be that solution because she was lovely, and funny, and warm, and achingly familiar as well. If he was finally going to admit to himself that after years of crisscrossing the globe he was lonely, then he wanted Maggie to be the balm that would heal his emotional void.

Meeting up with the Silvers and being absorbed into the warmth of their extended family
had opened up a well of loneliness deep inside him that he hadn’t known existed. He gave an inward sigh as he slanted another glance at Maggie’s bent head. He was being ridiculous. It was just proximity that was making him think this way about her. He would feel differently tomorrow. He always did. In a few weeks his feet would get itchy and he would be impatient to move on. In the meantime though, he needed some down time, and surely Maggie was the ideal person to spend it with. He just needed to stick with friendship and not look for anything else because, apart from the fact that he wasn’t ready to get tied down, Maggie herself had already made it abundantly clear that she wasn’t looking for any sort of relationship with anyone at all. She had just escaped a brush with suburbia, something she appeared to consider a fate worse than death, and she intended to stay footloose and fancy free while she travelled the world, and who could blame her? Not him, that was for sure. She wasn’t much older than he had been when he’d settled for a rootless life lived through a camera lens. And if he was totally honest, until recently he hadn’t regretted it at all.

* * *

Maggie was late for the O’Connor/Silver reunion dinner the following day. It wasn’t exactly deliberate, more a case of taking too long to decide what to wear, but beneath her dithering was a streak of childish defiance; a deep down annoyance that, as usual, nobody had thought to check whether the evening’s plans fitted in with her own. Even Ruairi had just assumed she would be happy to meet up with him before her family had hijacked their dinner date.

Serves you right for not telling him no when he first asked you, a little voice in her head admonished, but Maggie didn’t feel like heeding it.
She preferred to hug the unfairness of it all to her chest, anything to counteract the feeling of embarrassment that flushed her cheeks every time she thought of Ruairi and that moment in the park.

Irritated with everyone and everything, she kept her spine straight and her head high as she stalked into the Chinese restaurant. It was a wasted effort though because nobody was watching. They were all too busy chatting and laughing as they caught up on old times.
She slipped into the one vacant chair with a scowl. It was between her two oldest nieces. Aged eight and nine, they had obviously been considered old enough to join the family party and they had saved a place for her between them. Her scowl deepened. Much as she loved them both she wasn’t in the mood to entertain them. The only thing going for it was that it meant she was sitting as far away from Ruairi as possible.

With a sigh she dutifully bent an ear to their excited chatter and despite her irritation, by the time the meal arrived the old Maggie had won through.
It always did when she was with children. She forgot her temper as she helped them to choose portions of food, and then they all got the giggles as they tried to use chopsticks.

“Maybe we should give in and use the spoons,” she suggested, watching her nieces chase grains of rice around their bowls.

“That’s the coward’s way out,” Ruairi’s voice cut across the chatter of the table, forcing her to look up and acknowledge what she had known all along, that although she wasn’t sitting anywhere near him, their chairs were on exactly opposite sides of the large circular table in the one place where they were in direct eye contact. Determined that he shouldn’t know about her earlier embarrassment, she lifted her chin at his challenge. He grinned at her and raised a morsel of food to his mouth with perfectly balanced chopsticks. Then her brothers joined in, and soon the whole table was full of exclamations and laughter as everyone ate their food Chinese style with varying degrees of competence.

Maggie’s display of over-the-top enthusiasm as she encouraged her nieces and brushed up her own skills, was for Ruairi’s benefit.
She wanted him to think she was busy and happy with her plans for the future, plans that didn’t include him or anyone else sitting around the table. It was the only way she could contain the heartbreak that was building inside her all over again as she listened to him telling stories about his travels. With each word she remembered anew how she had felt all those years ago when he had first told her he was going away.

Her ploy worked though.
Watching her slowly become the life and soul of the party on her side of the table, Ruairi silently acknowledged that Maggie didn’t appear to have a care in the world, anymore than he had had when he first went travelling. He had been right to ignore the sudden surge of attraction he’d felt when they were in the park because it was the wrong time and the wrong place for both of them. Soon they would be on opposite sides of the world again, as far apart as it was possible to be. As he forced himself to bring his attention back to the table, he wondered why the thought was so unexpectedly painful.

* * *

By the time the evening ended everyone was tired and the two little girls were almost asleep as they snuggled up against Maggie. She smiled down at them as her brother Andrew came around the table to collect them. “Come on sleepy heads, time to go home.”

They went with barely a protest. Nor did Andrew’s muttered thanks raise a response from Maggie. Suddenly she didn’t care anymore. Let her family treat her as an unpaid babysitter; let Ruairi think what he liked. Soon none of it would matter because she was going to find a job a long way away; somewhere where teachers were desperately needed; somewhere that would be such a challenge she wouldn’t have time to think about anything else. Not that she had started looking yet, but she would. She would start tomorrow.

She pushed her chair back as everyone else started to search for bags and jackets. She was going to leave now before Ruairi had a chance to speak to her. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him walking across the room towards her and she had no intention of letting him break down her defenses again. She was going to forget how he had rekindled her childhood crush and concentrate on her plans for a new life. Hurriedly she made her way to where her parents were standing and gave them both a hug.

“Enjoy the cruise,” she said.
“And don’t worry about June and the children. I’ll look after them, and Mark will let you know the minute the baby arrives.”