Kissing Maggie Silver (6 page)

“Maybe it will be late,” her Mother
said hopefully.

Mrs
. O’Connor heard the wistful remark and laughed. “Not a chance of that from the look of her. This is one time you’re going to have to let your family manage all by themselves, Cathy, my dear. Now off you go and forget about everything. Ruairi and I will be around for most of the time you’re away, so we can always lend a helping hand if necessary.”

* * *

While everyone else congregated on the pavement so they could wave her parents off in the taxi that had arrived to take them to the airport, Maggie slipped back inside the restaurant and asked the receptionist to order her a taxi to take her home. Then she visited the cloakroom; anything to keep her as far away from Ruairi as possible.

She had just finished washing her hands when Mrs
. O’Connor appeared. “Oh there you are Maggie. Ruairi sent me to find you because our taxi has just arrived.”

Maggie forced a smile as she gave her a hug.
“It’s been a great evening hasn’t it? Thank you so much for helping us give Mum and Dad such a wonderful send off. Tell Ruairi goodbye will you, and I’ll call you in a day or so to arrange another lunch unless you’d rather do something else. Maybe you’d like to go shopping or something.”

Mrs
. O’Connor returned her hug with a laugh. “No! No! You don’t understand my dear. The taxi is for the three of us. As we are all travelling in more or less the same direction it seemed a waste to pay for two taxis, so Ruairi cancelled yours.”

Maggie was so taken aback that she didn’t immediately reply and by the time she found her voice Mrs
. O’Connor was already disappearing through the door. Without any other choice, Maggie followed her, fury building inside her at the sheer effrontery of Ruairi’s behavior. It certainly hadn’t taken him long to start to treat her just the same as everyone else.

When they reached the pavement
, he was waiting, holding open the door of the taxi. She let him help his mother in before she turned on him.

“I can’t believe
you’ve just cancelled my taxi,” she said, keeping her voice as level as she could. “How dare you assume I’m just going home. You could at least have taken the trouble to ask me about my plans…I could be going anywhere. I might even have a date.”

“But you’re not and you haven’t,” his voice was infuriatingly calm. “You told the receptionist where you were going Maggie. I wouldn’t have done it otherwise.”

He made it sound so reasonable and, to her chagrin, Maggie did now remember giving her address to the girl behind the desk. She also knew the taxi would pass her front door on its way to the hotel. She wasn’t about to let him off the hook though.

“But how do you know I haven’t changed my mind?” she challenged, suspecting she sounded like a brat but beyond caring.

“Have you?” Ruairi asked. “Because if you have then you can take this taxi and I’ll order another one for Mum and me. On the other hand, if you haven’t, then I hope I can persuade you to come back to the hotel with us for a grown up drink. I absolutely promise there won’t be anyone under the age of twenty-three in sight.”

“You noticed,” Maggie muttered, her temper ebbing away against her will as she realized that, far from taking her for granted, he was trying to make up for the fact she’d spent the entire evening at the kindergarten end of the table.

“I noticed. Now are you coming with us, or do I need to order another taxi because I think the driver of this one is getting just a little bit impatient?”

“Coming,” she said. And she slid into the seat beside Mrs
. O’Connor without another word.

* * *

The sitting room of Ruairi’s hotel suite was huge and luxurious. With a twinge of envy she sank into one of the comfortable chairs and accepted his offer of a glass of wine. Mrs. O’Connor gave her a conspiratorial smile.

“If you don’t mind my dear, I’m going to say goodnight and go to bed.
I’m not used to all this socializing and although I hate to admit it, it’s beginning to wear me out.”

She put up a restraining hand as Maggie started to get to her feet again.
“No, don’t get up. You stay there and have a lovely long chat with Ruairi. There must be so much you want to talk about after all these years, so much catching up to do. And get him to give you some travelling tips too, Maggie. That way you can persuade your parents that you know what you’re doing when you set off on your adventure. It’ll stop them worrying quite so much while you’re away.”

So this is when I’m meant to ask Ruairi what is bothering him I suppose, Maggie watched the older woman close the door with a twinge of irritation. Really, Mrs
. O’Connor was too obvious for words.

Besides, as far as she could tell, Ruairi was absolutely fine; in fact
he was better than fine. So far she hadn’t seen any sign of the sadness his mother had mentioned. If anything his mood was annoyingly calm and upbeat. She was willing to bet
he
had never had a tantrum in his entire life.

* * *

Unsettled, she got up and walked across to the window to look at the view. Although the sun had set, there was still just enough light to see the boats on the river and the outline of the trees on the riverbank.

“
What a lovely view,” she said, and then realized she sounded more like a passing acquaintance trying to make conversation, than a friend. Recognizing that if she didn’t shape up she would look ridiculous, she squared her shoulders and turned towards him.

He was watching her.
When their eyes met he raised his glass. “Here’s to your travels. Are you going to tell me about your plans now or over a meal later in the week?”

“We’ve just been out for a meal,” she said, knowing she still sounded ungracious.

If Ruairi noticed, he didn’t comment. Instead he shook his head. “If you mean the dinner date your family hijacked, then that doesn’t count. Nor does the time we spent at the park, because Peter and his children were there too!”

Against her will, she laughed.
“Don’t assume you’ll have any better luck if we do go out for a meal. My family is all pervasive.”

He leaned forward and topped up her glass.
“In that case we need to stay one step ahead of them. Let’s make it lunch tomorrow instead of dinner. Then we can drive out into the country and find somewhere a bit off the beaten track.”

Reluctantly, Maggie shook her head.
“I can’t do that because I’m on call for when June goes into labor. I’ve promised her I won’t go anywhere too far away.”

“Well in that case….” Maggie’s cell phone interrupted Ruairi’s reply.

It was her brother Mark.

Chapter
Five

Mark opened the front door and sprinted down the path while Ruairi was still paying the taxi driver.

“Don’t let him go,” he called.
“Ask him if he can take us to the hospital. We need to leave straight away…the baby, June…it’s all happening a bit too quickly!”

Hearing the panic in his voice, Maggie ran past him, into the house.
June was kneeling at the bottom of the stairs, panting hard. She looked up when Maggie arrived though, and smiled at her.

“I’m fine.
Don’t forget I’ve done all this before. And Mark will be fine too once we get to the hospital. He just doesn’t fancy acting midwife!”

Maggie laughed, relieved her sister-in-law was in control of the situation, and impressed too.
She couldn’t imagine being so calm if it was her baby that was coming.

“Tell me what to do,” she said.
“Do you need anything? Are there any last minute instructions?”

“No. I’ve every faith in you Maggie. I….”
June paused as another contraction gripped her. Then Mark was there, helping her up and keeping a protective arm around her shoulders as they walked slowly down the path.

“Don’t forget this,” Maggie ran after them with the suitcase they had left in the hall.

Ruairi took it from her and lifted it into the trunk of the taxi. “I’ve already paid the fare,” he told Mark. “It’ll save you time when you reach the hospital.”

“Thanks…thanks…I’ll catch up with you later,” Mark was concentrating on June too much to really take in what Ruairi was saying.

Maggie wasn’t though and she gave him her first genuine smile of the evening.
He was still the old Ruairi. The one who looked out for all his friends, not just for the irritating little girl who had insisted on dogging his every move whether he liked it or not. The thought loosened the knot in her heart. If he could be this generous then so could she. She would ignore the fact that her silly childhood crush was trying to take over her life again and just be his friend. That way she could enjoy his company while he was here and worry about the fall out later.

Ruairi returned her smile and then they stood together and watched the taxi pull away.
He turned to her as it disappeared around a bend in the road.

“I guess we’re going to have to scrub
our lunch date, then!”

Maggie grinned up at him.
“I told you nothing in my life is sacrosanct to my family, although even I didn’t think they would sink so low as to use childbirth as an excuse.”

Ruairi was still chuckling when they reached the front door.
“How about we give up fighting it and meet up again tomorrow anyway, all four of us? I imagine pizza will go down well with the children.”

“You’d really do that? You’d really take
Sophie and Amy to lunch as well?”

“Of course. Besides it seems that including at least some of your family is obligatory if I want to see you.”

“In that case, we accept…and pizza would be lovely. I just hope you don’t live to regret it,” Maggie’s face was alight with mischief as she wished him goodnight and went indoors to check on her two small nieces.

* * *

As Ruairi walked back to the hotel he tried in vain to banish Maggie’s dimples from his mind. They wouldn’t go away though, and nor would the memory of her large grey eyes laughing up at him from beneath the tangle of her long copper-colored hair.

By the time he reached his hotel room he was convinced he had taken leave of his senses. Why else had he persisted in asking Maggie out when he knew there was no future in any sort of relationship with her?
For a start it had been a mistake to invite her back to the hotel for a drink. One look at her silhouetted against the window had proved that to him, so why hadn’t he used Mark’s phone call as the ideal opportunity to walk away. Instead, and against his better judgment, he had landed himself with two small children as well, although at least they would act as a wedge between Maggie and his own questionable intentions. Having them around would ensure he could face himself in the mirror in the morning in the same way it would ensure the time he spent with Maggie remained strictly platonic. He also knew it was going to take every ounce of his will power to keep it that way, so he didn’t have the first idea why he was putting himself through it.

By the time he climbed into bed he still didn’t have an answer.

* * *

Maggie’s day started at six o’clock the following morning when Amy, her three-year-old niece, found her parent’s bed empty and started to cry. Maggie, hearing her sobs, climbed out of her own bed and went to look for her.
She found her weeping on the landing, a pink cotton rabbit clutched to her chest.

“It’s all right sweetheart.
Mummy will be back soon. She’s gone to the hospital because your new baby is ready to come out of her tummy now.” Maggie smoothed back the little girl’s fluffy curls as she rocked her to and fro.

The noise woke up Sophie who was five-and-a-half going on thirty.
“Stop crying Amy,” she ordered. “Mummy told us Auntie Maggie would come if she had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night.”

Amy stopped crying and communed silently with the pink rabbit that was her defense against everything scary or strange in her three-year-old world.
Maggie waited with baited breath. Sophie sighed with elder sisterly disdain. Eventually Amy turned her head and looked at Maggie with a hopeful expression.

“Rabbit says you
’re going to read a story,” she said.

“Rabbit is quite right,” laughed Maggie as she led them back to her own bed, and for the next hour the three of them snuggled close as she worked her way through a lot of stories about princesses as well as a book of nursery rhymes and a tale about a very small owl.

It wasn’t until she started clearing away their breakfast dishes that she began to worry. Surely the baby would have arrived by now, so why hadn’t Mark phoned? She hoped nothing was wrong.

The sound of his key in the lock brought her to her senses.
Of course everything was fine. He probably just wanted to tell the children about the baby himself so, instead of phoning, had waited until June was settled and then come back home. One look at his face as he entered the kitchen told her she was wrong.