Born in Shame, Page 32

  stunning fountain of sapphire glass rose halfway to the coffered ceiling; a delicate tangle of shapes and colors sat alone on a marble column and made Shannon think of Brianna's garden.

  Marching practically with style were the tools of the executive-fax, computer, modem, copier, all sleek and high tech.

  "Holy cow." Her grin started to spread as she moved in and skimmed her finger over the monitor of a top-grade P.C. "I would never have guessed this was here." "That's the way Maggie wanted it. And I, too." Rogan gestured to a chair. "This is home for a good part of the year, but to keep it home, I have to work."

  "I guess I thought you had an office at the gallery." "I do." To establish the tone he wanted to set, he sat behind his desk. "But we both have demanding careers, and we both have a child. When scheduling allows, I can work here three days a week, tending to Liam in the mornings while Maggie's in her glass house."

  "It can't be easy, for either of you. Juggling so much." "You make certain you only drop balls that are replaceable. Compromise is the only way I know to have all. I thought we'd talk about the other paintings you've done."

  "Oh." Her brow creased. "I've done a couple more watercolors, and another oil, but-"

  "I've seen the one of Brianna," he interrupted smoothly. "You've finished the one of the inn-the back garden view."

  "Yes. I went out to the cliffs and did a seascape. Pretty . typical, I imagine."

  "I doubt that." He smiled and made a quick note on a pad. "But we'll have a look. You'd have more in New York."

  "There are several in my apartment, and, of course, the ones I brought back from Columbus."

  "We'll arrange to have them shipped over."

  "But-"

  "My manager at the New York gallery can take care of the details-the packing and so forth, once you give me

  a list of inventory." She made another attempt to speak, and he rolled right over her. "We've only the one on display here in Clare, and I think we'll keep it that way, until we have a more polished strategy. In the meantime." He opened his top drawer and drew out a neat stack of legal-size papers. "You'll want to look over the contracts."

  "Rogan, I never agreed to contracts."

  "Of course you haven't." His smile was easy, his tone all reason. "You haven't read them. I'd be happy to go over the terms with you, or I can recommend a lawyer. I'm sure you have your own, but you'd want one locally."

  She found a copy of the contracts dumped neatly in her hands. "I already have a job."

  "It doesn't seem to stop you from painting. I'll want my secretary to contact you in the next week or so, for background. The sort of color and information we'll need for a biography and press releases."

  "Press releases?" She put a hand to her spinning head.

  "You'll see in the contract that Worldwide will take care of all publicity for you. Depending on your inventory in America, we should be ready for a showing in October, or possibly September."

  "A showing." She left her supporting hand where it was and gaped at him. "You want-a showing?" she repeated, numb. "In Worldwide Galleries?"

  "I'd considered having it in Dublin, as we'd had Maggie's first there. But I think I'd prefer the gallery here in Clare, because of your connection here." He tilted his head, still smiling politely. "What do you think?"

  "I don't think," she mumbled. "I can't think. Rogan, I've been to shows at Worldwide. I can't even conceive of having one there."

  She asked herself that question again on the walk back to the inn. Then she changed gears and asked herself why. Why was she going along with this? Why was Rogan pressuring her to go along?

  Yes, she was talented. She could see that for herself in her work and had been told by numerous art teachers over the years. But art wasn't business, and business had always come first.

  Agreeing to Rogan's deal meant inverting something she'd pursued most of her life-letting her art take the lead and allowing someone else to handle the details of business.

  It was more than a little frightening, certainly more than uncomfortable. But she had agreed, she reminded herself; at least she hadn't refused outright.

  And she could have, Shannon thought. Oh, yes, she recognized well the tactics Rogan had used, and used with bloodless skill. He would be a difficult man to outmaneuver, but she could have done so.

  The fact was, she hadn't really tried.

  It was foolish, she thought now. A crazy complication. How could she have a show in Ireland in the fall when she would be three thousand miles away at her desk by then?

  But is that really what you want?

  She heard the little voice murmuring in her ear. Resenting it, she hunched her shoulders and scowled down at the road as she walked.

  "You look mad as a hornet," Alice commented. She was resting a hand on her son's front gate and smiled as Shannon's head shot up.

  "Oh. I was just..." With an effort she relaxed her shoulders. "I was going over a conversation, and wondering why I lost the upper hand of it."

  "We always find a way to keep that upper hand in the replay." Alice tapped her finger to her temple, then opened the gate. "Won't you come in?" She pushed the gate wider when Shannon hesitated. "My family's run off here and there, and I'd like a bit of company."

  "You surprise me." Shannon stepped through and re-latched the gate herself. "I'd think you'd be desperate for a couple minutes of peace and quiet."

  "It's as my mother used to say-you have nothing but that when you're six feet under. I was having a look at Murphy's front garden. He's tending it well."

  "He tends everything well." Unsure of her moves, or her position, she followed Alice back up onto the porch and settled in the rocker beside her.

  "That he does. He does nothing unless he does it thoroughly and with care. There were times, when he was a lad, and it seemed he would plod forever through one chore or another I might give him. I would be set to snap at him, and he'd just look and smile at me, and tell me he was figuring the best way about it, that was all." "Sounds like him. Where is he?" "Oh, he and my husband are off in the back looking over some piece of machinery. My Colin loves pretending he knows something about farming and machinery, and Murphy loves letting him."

  Shannon smiled a little. "My father's name was

  Colin."

  "Was it? You lost him recently."

  "Last year. Last summer."

  "And your mother this spring." Instinctively Alice reached out to squeeze Shannon's hand. "It's a burden that nothing but living lightens."

  She began to rock again, and so did Shannon, so that the silence was broken only by the creak of the chairs and the chatter of birds.

  "You enjoyed the ceili?"

  This time the question had a flush heating Shannon's cheeks. "Yes. I've never been to a party quite like it."

  "I miss having them since we're in Cork. The city's no place for a ceili, a real one."

  "Your husband's a doctor there." "He is, yes. A fine doctor. And I'll tell you true, when I moved there with him I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. No more rising at dawn to see to cows, no worrying if the crops would grow, or the tractor run." She smiled, looking over the garden to the valley in the distance. "But parts of me miss it still. Even miss the worrying."

  "Maybe you'll move back when he retires." "No, he's a city man my Colin. You'd understand the lure of the city, living in New York."

  "Yes." But she, too, was looking out over the valley, the shimmer of green hills, the living rise of them. "I like the crowds, and the rush. The noise. It took me days to get used to the quiet here, and the space."

  "Murphy's a man for space, and for the feel of his own land under his feet."

  Shannon glanced back to see Alice studying her. "I know. I don't think I've ever met anyone as ... rooted."

  "And are you rooted, Shannon?" "I'm comfortable in New York," she said carefully. "We moved around a great deal when I was a child, so I don't have the same kind of roots you mean."

  Alice nodded. "A m
other worries about her children, no matter how tall they grow. I see Murphy's in love with you."

  "Mrs. Brennan." Shannon lifted her hands, let them fall. What could she say? "You're thinking what does this woman want me to do? How does she expect me to answer what wasn't even a question?" A hint of a smile played around Alice's mouth. "You don't know me anymore than I know you, so I can't tell by looking into your eyes what your feelings are for my son, or what you'll do about them. Feelings there are, that's plain. But I know Murphy. You're not the woman I would have chosen for him, but a man chooses for himself."

  She glanced at Shannon and laughed. "Now I've insulted you."

  "No," Shannon said stiffly, insulted. "You have a perfect right to speak your mind."

  "I do." Smiling still, Alice began to rock. "And would if I did or not. But my meaning wasn't clear. I thought for a time, a short time, it would be Maggie for him. As much as I love that girl, it worried me fierce. They'd have driven each other to murder within a year."

  Despite all common sense, Shannon felt a niggling tug of jealousy. "Murphy and Maggie?"

  "Oh, nothing more than a passing thought and a little wondering between them. Then I thought it would be Brianna. Ah, now that, I told myself, was the wife for him. She'd make him a strong home."

  "Murphy and Brie," Shannon said between her teeth. "I guess he was making the rounds."

  "Oh, I imagine he made a few, but not with Brie. He loved her, as he loved Maggie. As he loves his sisters. It was me, planning in my head and wishing for him to be happy. I worried, you see, because he was twenty-five, and still showing no partiality for another of the girls hereabouts. He was working the farm, reading his books, playing his music. It was a family he needed, I'd tell myself. A woman beside him and children at his feet." Shannon moved her shoulders, still irked by the images Alice had conjured in her head. "Twenty-five is young for a man to marry these days."

  "It is," Alice agreed. "In Ireland men often wait years and years longer. As they know once the vows are said there's no unsaying them. Divorce isn't a choice for us, not by God, and not by law. But a mother wants her son fulfilled. I took him aside this one day in his twenty-fifth year, and I sat him down and talked to him from my heart. I told him how a man shouldn't live alone, shouldn't work himself so hard and have no one to come home to of an evening. I told him how the O'Malley girl had her eye on him, and didn't he think she was a pretty thing."

  Alice's smile had faded when she looked back at Shannon again. "He agreed as she was. But when I began to press him about thinking more deeply, planning for the future, taking a wife to complete his present, he shook his head, and took my hands in his and looked at me that way he has.

  " 'Ma,' " he said, " 'Nell O'Malley isn't for me. I know who is. I've seen who is.' " Alice's eyes grew dark with an emotion Shannon couldn't understand. "I was pleased, and I asked him who she was. He told me he hadn't yet to meet her, not in the flesh. But he knew her just the same as he'd seen her in his dreams since he was a boy. He was only waiting for her to come."

  Shannon swallowed on a dry throat and managed to keep her voice level. "Murphy has a tendency toward the romantic."

  "He does. But I know when my boy is having a fancy and when he means just what he says. He was speaking no more than the truth to me. And he spoke nothing more than the truth when he called me a short time ago to tell me that she'd come."

  "It's not like that. It can't be like that."

  "It's hard to judge what can and can't be. In the heart. You're holding his, Shannon Bodine. The only thing I'll ask of you is to take care, great care with it. If you find you can't keep it, or don't want it after all, hand it back to him gently."'

  "I don't want to hurt him."

  "Oh, child, I know that. He'd never choose a woman with meanness in her. I'm sorry to have made you sad."

  Shannon only shook her head. "You needed to say it. I'm sure I needed to hear it. I'll straighten things out."

  "Darling." With something close to a chuckle, Alice leaned forward again to take Shannon's hand. "You may try, but he'll tangle them up again. You mustn't think I said all of this to put the burden on your shoulders alone. It's shared between you, equal. What happens between you, joy or sorrow, will be caused by both of you. If your mother was here, she'd be telling Murphy to take care with you."

  "She might." The tension in Shannon's fingers relaxed a little. "Yes, she might. He's lucky to have you, Mrs. Brennan."

  "And so I remind him, often. Come now, let's see if my daughters have finished cooking the lamb for dinner."

  "I should get back."

  Alice rose, drawing Shannon with her. "You'll have your Sunday meal with us, surely. Murphy'll want you. So do I."

  She opened the front door, stepped back, and welcomed Shannon inside.

  Chapter Eighteen

  As much as Murphy enjoyed seeing Shannon with his family, dangling one of his nieces on her knee, laughing over something Kate said, listening intently to his nephew explain about carburetors, he wanted her alone.

  It seemed the family he loved so well was conspiring to keep him from fulfilling that one simple and vital wish.