Нора Робертс - The Becoming

“Don’t be silly. I like knowing he’s with you. And I like looking at you right now, knowing whatever you found there makes you happy, and gives you what you need.”

“It does. Being able to write here, it’s given me just what I needed— and more, it’s given it when I didn’t really know what I needed until I had it.”

“Derrick and I read your blog every day, and it gives me something—as your honorary mom—I need. Hearing the strong and the happy in you. It’s opened you, my sweet Breen, being there, the writing, the taking your own.”

“It’s changed me.”

“No, honey, it hasn’t changed you. It’s revealed you.” Sally waved a hand, drank some wine. “I have to stop or I’ll get sloppy and ruin my incredible eighties eyeliner.”

Love simply filled her. “How did you know you’re just what I needed tonight?”

He tapped a finger next to his shaggy bangs. “Mother’s instinct. What about Keegan, the hot yet charming Irishman? Still seeing him?”

“Oh, well, yes. I mean, not like Marco and Brian. We’re both really busy anyway.”

“No one’s too busy for love, or lust or just a little romance. What does he do, anyway? I don’t think you ever told me.”

Tricky, Breen thought. Sally could see through lies like glass. “Oh, he’s in a leadership position. The head of a large group.”

“No kidding?” Sally paused to repair his lipstick. “He didn’t strike me as the executive type. I thought there was a farm.”

“Yes, they have a family farm. Keegan, his brother, and his sister, and he bases there when he can. He has another base in the east. He travels back and forth a lot. It’s a lot of responsibility. He’s a responsible sort. People depend on him, and he takes that seriously.”

“That’s good to know. I liked him, but I have to look out for our girl, even from a distance. And I’m thinking, if you and Marco stay there into spring or summer, Derrick and I need to take a trip.”

“Really?” Twin spikes of joy and trepidation rushed through her. “You’d come to Ireland?”

“Need to see my kids, and if this thing with Brian is the real deal, I want to see for myself. And I want to meet your grandmother.”

“She’d love you. You’d love her.”

And she’d figure it out, Breen told herself. Somehow, she’d figure it all out.

“We’ll talk about it. Meanwhile, one more thing before I have to get my well-toned, leather-clad ass moving. If you do plan to stay that long, I’ve got a new girl bartending. She’s a bright one, and oddly from Ireland herself.”

“Really?”

“Not from the Galway area where you are. Dublin—and Meabh knows how to tend bar like she was born for it. You might want to think about subletting her the apartment.”

“Oh. I never thought …That makes sense.”

“I’ll send you her information. You can vet her, but I already have. We don’t hire just anyone here at Sally’s.”

“Yes, thanks, but if you trust her, I trust her. I’ll talk to Marco, but that sounds like something we should do. I mean it’s just sitting there empty.”

“You can sublet it furnished, or we can pack up and store what you don’t want in it.”

“No, it’s fine, furnished is fine. We have everything we want. I’ll talk to Marco tomorrow. Thanks, Sally. Give Derrick a big kiss from me.”

“You can count on that. We love you. Talk soon.”

“We love you. Rock their socks off.”

Sally winked. “Count on that, too.”

When Breen ended the call, she started to go back to her blog. The light rap of knuckles on wood had her looking over. She hadn’t shut her door when she’d come, and now Keegan crouched in the doorway, petting Bollocks.

“Your door was open, but I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“Sally.” Breen set the tablet aside as she rose. “I didn’t hear you come in. If you need to talk to me more about all this, we can go down. I can make tea, or get you a beer.”

He stepped in, eyes on hers. Shut the door behind him. “I’ve had enough talk for the day.”

Not a walk-in-the-moonlight sort of man, she thought. Yet it was strangely romantic the way he stood, watched, waited.

Her choice.

“Funny. So have I.”

Making her choice, she went to him.

It surprised her to find him there when she woke at first light. It surprised her to wish he could stay, and she with him, to take a day without responsibilities and duties.

But that wasn’t his way, and she had responsibilities and duties of her own.

She started to get up, to begin dealing with those responsibilities and duties, and in a room full of shadows, he took her hand.

“A moment. Sometimes the day starts too soon.”

“It does.”

He flicked his free hand toward the fire, so the flames came alive. “The bed’s warm, but you won’t be when you’re out of it. I’d have you stay in it and me with you if the world would just stop for one bleeding day. But it won’t.”

He sat up, shoved back his hair. “I need to go to the Capital. Likely I should’ve stayed there last night instead of coming back. I may be back tonight, or I may not.”

She sat up beside him and rubbed a hand down his arm, rubbed it down her own. “No strings.” On his baffled look, she got up. “It’s an expression,” she began.

“Aye. I know the meaning, I think.”

Since she was naked, she decided to put on workout gear. She’d just throw a jacket over it for her morning ritual with Bollocks.

“I think I see strings on Brian and Marco.”

“Yes, very clearly. They’ll have a lot to work out at some point.”

He watched her pull on leggings, a sports bra. “I like the clothes you wear to do your exercise.”

She looked over her shoulder. “Because they’re practical for the purpose?”

“No, though I suppose they are that as well. I’d like to use your shower before I go if you don’t mind.”

She walked back, sat on the edge of the bed. “Let’s do something. Let’s say when you come here, when I sleep with you, when you’re here in the morning, you don’t have to ask to use the shower, or eat something, or make tea or have a beer. Whatever.”

“I don’t want to be careless with you.”

“You’re impatient, often abrupt, occasionally dictatorial, but you’re not careless.”

“I was careless with her, I think. With Shana. It’s not excusing any of it, but I can look back and see I was careless in assuming we both knew what we had, and what we didn’t and never would.”

“I’m not Shana.”

“You’re not, no, and nothing like her. Nothing like anyone else. I shouldn’t be with you like this, that’s the truth of it. I shouldn’t have mixed things this way, but I have. My worry for you should be only as the key to protecting my world and yours and all the others. But it’s not now, and can’t be again.”

She pushed back the urge to stroke and soothe because that wasn’t his way either.

“I see, so it’s all on you. I didn’t have anything to say about it.”

“That’s clever,” he said as he rose. “You have an agile and clever mind. I admire it.”

Naked, he wandered to the window. “I’ve spent more than half my life as taoiseach. I’ll hold the sword and staff until I die, to protect Talamh. Odran may see that’s sooner than I’d like.”

“Don’t say that. Don’t.”

He looked back at her. “I don’t fear dying for my world, for my people. I wear the braid and have as a vow to fight, to give my life if needed, as my father did, as yours did. But I fear, as I didn’t, as I shouldn’t, harm coming to you. Not just for Talamh, but for myself.”

“So you’ll knock me down, insult my sword work, and mock my archery skills.”