Nell (30 page)

“Yes,” she said, surprising him. “I've imagined what it would be like for so long that I can't wait any longer.”

Suddenly, he was nervous. She was too honest, too young, too good. “Shouldn't we talk a bit first?”

“No. Kiss me first. Then we'll talk.”

No match for such a request, Tim lowered his head and tasted what he'd never dared imagine. When her small hands slid around his neck and locked and her mouth opened beneath his, he knew that he wouldn't walk away, no matter what it was that she asked.

Later, after they'd cleared up just when it was that each of them first noticed the other, Casey brought up the subject Tim hoped she wouldn't.

“How long have you been involved in the IRA?”

He met her eyes steadily. “Not long.”

“Why did you do it?”

“You know the answer to that.”

“You're a university student, Tim. Those people are from the streets. You have other options.”

“Not all of us do.”

“My mother and your stepfather are working very hard to see that they do.”

Tim frowned. “If and when they succeed, I'll resign.” He changed the subject. “Just how do you know my father?”

Casey opened her mouth and closed it again. Did Tim know that Danny Browne was really Frankie Maguire? “Didn't he tell you?” she hedged.

“He said that you tracked me down through a clerk in the housing office.”

“That's right.” She was grateful that she could be partially truthful. “I had no idea that Danny Browne was your stepfather.”

Tim shrugged. “He didn't want it advertised.”

Casey squeezed his hand. “I'm sorry about your mother.”

Tim's jaw hardened. “She wasn't the same since the shootin'. That's the woman I'll miss, the one I remember from before.”

“I met your brother.”

Tim smiled. “Connor is a grand wee lad. I wish he had better memories of his mam.”

“Were your parents happy, Tim?” she asked casually.

“Before the shootin' they were happy enough.” Remembering his manners, he smiled. “Were yours?”

Casey chewed her lip before answering. “I thought they were, but now I'm not sure.” She wondered if he could hear her heart pounding. “Did your father tell you that he brought Connor to Kildare Hall?”

“What are y' tryin' to tell me, Casey?”

She pushed back her hair and tried to sort out the confusing jumble. “A long time ago, my mother met yours in the hospital. They were friends.”

Not by the flare of a nostril did Tim reveal his skepticism. Jillian Graham and his mother could never have shared a friendship.

“When my father died and my mother took his position, she met your father. Mum was at the hospital when your mother died. She took Connor home.” Her brain moved quickly, discarding the dangerous subjects. “When Connor was hurt, he stayed with us. Your father stayed, too.”

“So?”

Casey clasped both of her hands around Tim's large one. “Would you mind terribly if they cared for each other?”

“Who?”

“Our parents.”

Tim stared at her in disbelief. “My father and your mother?”

“Yes.”

Tim threw back his head and laughed loudly. “That's rich. Danny Browne and Jillian Graham.”

“Why is it so impossible?”

Tim searched for an answer. “Why? Because my stepfather is an ardent nationalist and your mother is an aristocrat.”

“What if they get beyond that?”

He shook his head. “I don't know your mother, Casey, but I know Danny Browne. That will weigh with him more than anything.”

“There's more.”

Suddenly, Tim didn't feel like laughing anymore. “Go on.”

Casey shook her head. “I can't.”

“Why not?”

“Because it isn't my story to tell. You'll have to trust me.”

He couldn't argue with her logic, not when there was so much he couldn't share with her. Threading his fingers through her hair, he pulled her head down to his shoulder. “I didn't drive all the way down here to talk about other people.”

She laughed up at him. “What did you drive here for?”

“This,” he said, lowering his head to cover her open mouth with his own.

Not by so much as the tightening of a jaw muscle did Frankie Maguire reveal the rage he felt at the cryptic message he held in his hand. Gary McMichael wouldn't even meet with him face-to-face, and yet he expected him to sign a settlement that would place the future of nationalist Ireland in the hands of loyalists.

He looked up. Jillian's eyes behind the enormous glasses she wore for reading were wary and speculative. They were alone in the nationalist conference room. “Did you actually believe this would be acceptable to us?”

“No.”

Surprise flickered across his features. “Why did you bother?”

She sighed and removed her glasses. He noticed that her lips were slightly chapped as if she'd run her tongue over them again and again. “I'm obligated to show you every proposal, no matter how absurd. You can accept it or discard it, as you please.”

“Is there anything else on the table?”

Jillian frowned. “Why would you ask me that?”

“I know Gary McMichael. His first offer is always outrageous. Gradually, he moves to something more palatable.”

“But not close enough to accept?”

“Not yet”

“You won't get what you want, Frankie. To throw everything away because you refuse to compromise is foolish. The people of Northern Ireland, Catholic and Protestant, are tired of war.”

“We can't accept an internal settlement. You know what happens on the elected councils. Sinn Fein isn't allowed a single representative position.”

She leaned forward. “What will you accept?”

He could smell her perfume. His stomach clenched. “An all-Ireland tribunal, dismantling the RUC, a bill of rights, housing, jobs for Catholics, all political prisoners released, and an end to British occupation in the Six Counties.”

“Will the IRA agree?”

Frankie's eyes, gray as the Irish Sea, met hers without wavering. “I don't know.”

“You must have an idea.”

“If Sinn Fein agrees, the chances are good.”

“What about the splinter groups?”

“I can't speak for the paramilitaries. Neither can McMichael.”

“In other words, the killings will continue.”

Frankie passed a hand in front of his eyes. “I imagine so, for a while, anyway. There is a small segment of our population, nationalist and loyalist, who have an interest in maintaining the status quo. When they realize they have no support, they'll go away. We'll be like every other country with an occasional crazy man for the press to go on about.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“I have to, Jillian. If I don't, the last twenty years of my life will have been for nothing.”

His intensity startled her. For the first time, she realized what it all meant to him, what he had given up to become a negotiator for a political party that had only just begun to be recognized as legitimate. Jillian wet her lips. “The deadline is very close, Frankie. I can't guarantee that my replacement will be as sympathetic as I am.”

“I didn't realize you were.”

“That's not fair.” Hurt was all over her face.

He rose and walked to the window, fists balled deep in his pockets. “I apologize.”

She followed him, stopping an arm's length from where he stood. “That's very big of you, but do you mean it?”

The muscles of his back were tight and bunched beneath his shirt. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to slide her arms around his waist and rest her head against his shoulder. But she knew better.

When he spoke, his words were filled with regret and a kind of bitter, wry humor. “I do mean it, lass. For some reason, my words don't come out properly when I'm with you, which is odd because there was a time when you were the only person they did come out with.”

Jillian hadn't forgotten the boy with the aggravated stutter and how it miraculously disappeared in her presence. Hope rose in her chest. She was inexperienced with flirtation. This was the only man she had ever wanted. She moved close enough so that if he turned around, they would share the same breath. “Do I make you nervous, Frankie?”

Even though she hadn't touched him, she knew when his body tensed. “Aye,” he said at last. “You make me very nervous.”

Behind his back, she smiled. “Why?”

“Because you make me want things that are impossible.”

“Nothing is impossible.”

He turned around, and his hands closed around her upper arms. “Stop this, Jillian. I can't carry you up the stairs of that enormous house you live in, love you whenever the mood strikes, raise the children we could make together, and still be Danny Browne of West Belfast.”

“What if you didn't have to be Danny Browne? What if you could be Francis Maguire of Kilvara? What if .you could do all the things we talked about when we were children?” She searched his face, hoping for a sign, a weakening, a flicker of interest, any evidence at all to show that she'd moved him. For long moments, there was nothing.

Finally, he spoke. “This isn't a fairy tale, Jillian. It's Ireland, and we haven't had a happy ending in centuries.”

Ridding herself of the last of her inhibitions, she did the only thing that made sense. Twining her arms around his neck, she pulled his head down and raised her lips to his. “Damn you, Frankie Maguire,” she said against his mouth. “I'll not let you tell me in the same breath that you want me and that it's impossible. And I'll no longer allow you to use Colette as an excuse. She was more a friend to me than most, and I know she wouldn't want us to put this aside.”

Her perfume and the softness of her lips were driving him mad. He fought against it. “How could you possibly know what a woman like Colette would want?”

“Don't be an idiot.”

He heard her words, soft and laced with laughter. Then he gave himself up to the demand of insistent hands, warm, willing lips, and the hot blood that rose inside him whenever his discipline slipped and his mind called up images of summer air and a stolen night that nothing could make him regret.

When his air had run out and he was half insane with the wanting of her, he lifted his head and breathed deeply, raggedly. “Jilly, lass,” he rasped, “what do y' want with me?”

“Just be with me,” she whispered.

“Are you—” he hesitated. “Are you all right, Jilly?”

She looked surprised. “Of course.”

He slid his hand around to the back of her neck, threaded his fingers through her hair, and tugged her head down to his shoulder. “Y' look tired,” he said, his lips moving against the curve of her neck. “Are y' sure there isn't something you want t' tell me?”

All at once, she understood. “No, Frankie. It's too soon.”

“You will tell me, either way?”

She nodded.

“Why didn't y' tell me about Casey?”

“I would have, but Connor was there, and we kept getting interrupted. Then it was too late.” She pulled away slightly to look up at him. “Why didn't you tell me you knew who I was?”

Framing her face with his hands, he ran his thumbs along the bones of her cheeks. “I didn't trust you.”

Hurt swallowed her. “That's honest,” she managed.

“Later,” he continued, “when I did, I was afraid you would tell me t' go away. I needed more time.”

“Why?”

She was relentless, exposing all that he felt, softening the razor-honed edges of his nerves until they were the soft mush of Irish oats. “Surely you don't need the answer to that one.”

“That's exactly what I do need.”

Jillian knew that Frankie Maguire wasn't a violent man. But his hands gripped her shoulders painfully, and he looked angry. For a moment, before he spoke, she was frightened of stirring the rage within him.

“You must know how I feel about you, lass.”

Her eyes were steady and bright on his face. “But I don't.”

His heart pounded in his throat Why was it so difficult? He felt it. He even wanted to say it. Why, then, did his throat close around the words? The answer came to him. Once he gave voice to them, there would be no going back, and it scared the bloody hell out of him. “Is there a lock on the door?” he asked hoarsely.

Jillian was confused. “I don't know.” She watched him stride across the room, bolt the door, and come back to her. He took her hand, led her to the couch, and sat down beside her so their knees touched.

Sliding his hands around her waist, he pulled her close. “It doesn't matter,” he said fiercely, his eyes on her face. “None of what I say matters, because nothing can ever come of it. But I'll say the words if they please you. Do y' understand what I'm tellin' you, Jilly?”

She nodded. Understanding was not the same as accepting.

He drew a deep restorative breath. “Well, then, Jillian Fitzgerald, it's like this. I wanted more of what we had at Kildare. I think I've always wanted it. Even when we were children, I couldn't stop myself, thinking and hopin' what we told each other could really be. What I couldn't believe was that you would feel the same. When you told me y' wanted a child, part of me was insane with jealousy. I wanted you t' want me, Frankie Maguire of Kilvara, not Danny Browne, Sinn Fein negotiator.”

It wasn't what she'd hoped, but Jillian had long since reached the point of taking whatever it was he had to offer. If loving Frankie meant nothing more than stolen nights at Kildare, she would accept it gladly and be grateful. “I've never wanted anyone else but you,” she whispered. “Somehow I knew, even when you were Danny Browne and Colette's husband.”

She felt his lips on her throat. At the same time, his hands made their way up the silky smoothness of her hose-covered legs to the heated flesh above the line where the stocking ended and the softness of her skin began.

Leaning back against the firm pillows of the couch, she closed her eyes and forgot about Ireland, forgot about David Temple and Gary McMichael waiting in the other conference room, forgot that she was to bring an agreement to the table that would change the direction of Irish history, forgot everything but the feel of sure fingers unbuttoning her blouse and pushing it aside, slipping lacy straps from her shoulders, baring her breasts, a prelude to urgent lips sliding down the generous slope, opening over the exposed peak, licking, sucking, arousing, until her back arched and she felt him naked against her, the hard, swollen heat of him demanding entrance.

Her flesh closed around him, and it began, the delicious, mindless thrusting, the muffled words, the exploring hands, the gentle slapping of breast and belly, the explosion of desire that lifted her outside and beyond the ancient, forbidding walls of Stormont Castle and then back again.

“I love you, Frankie,” she said when the drumming of her heart had slowed. “I know this is the worst possible time to tell you, but I do. I don't care if you don't love me back. Yes, I do,” she amended, “but whether you do or not doesn't change anything for me.”

He lifted his head and stared at her in wonder. “Have you heard nothin' I've said, lass?” At last, the words came freely. “I love you desperately. I'll go to the grave lovin' you.”

“But you won't marry me.”

“No. Not unless I have to. Danny Browne should not be marryin' anyone, not with a lie on my lips and in my heart. But I won't have you bear a child alone and give it Avery Graham's name.”

“Has anyone ever told you that your pride is enormous?”

“Aye.” He grinned and suddenly looked much younger.

Jillian's heart ached. She wanted to change the world for him, to bring that youthful abandon to his expression more often. Perhaps she already had. “We've increased the odds, you know,” she said softly.

“I know, and part of me hopes it's so.” He kissed her forehead, sat up, zipped his trousers, and tucked in his shirt. “This is insanity. I've lost all perspective. If someone had tried the door—”

“But they didn't.” Jillian had buttoned up her blouse. “What happens now?”

He didn't pretend to misunderstand her. “Do y' want the lads t' know you've a Catholic lover, Mrs. Graham?” The Irish lilt at the end of his words was strong and teasing.

Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes glowed with the warmth of a woman thoroughly satisfied. She smiled and took his dare. “I don't mind.”

“Shall we flaunt it now or wait until you are no longer Northern Ireland's minister?”

“Perhaps we should wait.”

He laughed. “A wise decision.”

“I don't care for myself,” she said. “I've never cared what anyone thought.”

He knew it was true. But there was more to it. There were people depending on him, people he couldn't walk away from. Jillian Graham in her fancy town house off Lisburn Road knew nothing of the life he lived, the threats, the late-night searches, the harassment, the interrogations at Castlereagh, the bomb warnings, the shrill sing-song of police sirens, the fumes of tear gas, and the frightening, inevitable explosions that left what had once been a place of business or a gathering for friends a ruin of smoking, decimated rubble.

Jillian was not born into violence. Even if he were free to use his name again, he would not test her feelings by making her his wife, exposing her to danger by bringing her into war-torn West Belfast. A man was as weak as his weakest link. Fear of losing her would make him weak. He pushed aside the voice in his head reminding him that, even now, she could be carrying his child, and then all his arguments, the posturing, the excuses, the warnings, would crumble into dust like the faded, sepia-toned photos of the life he had given up the day he escaped from Long Kesh prison.

***

Thomas Putnam, the nationalists' hope for Northern Ireland, welcomed the Sinn Fein delegation into his rooms at Downing Street. Earlier, he had seen Gary McMichael, David Temple, and the unionist attorneys. On his desk, he had a signed document bearing their signatures, a document that outlined what Putnam believed would be the final position on the Northern Ireland peace initiative. Both sides had compromised and come to an agreement on every issue except one, perhaps the most sensitive one of all, the disbanding of Ulster's police force, a move that loyalist factions unilaterally opposed. Putnam was prepared to bargain heavily in order to win nationalist support.