Trish Wylie - O'Reilly's Bride

He grimaced slightly. ‘I guess some people would see it as a downgrade.’

‘Some people would, but do you, now that you’ve been at this a while?’

He studied her for several long moments and then smiled a very small smile. ‘Some might. I don’t. You wouldn’t by any chance be trying to change the subject here, would you, Mary Margaret?’

She smiled at the full use of her given name. To everyone else she was just plain old Maggie. But when Sean used her full name it had started out as a way of teasing her. Here, in the provocative surroundings of a honeymoon suite, it was almost an endearment.

‘You wouldn’t by any chance be trying to avoid having a real conversation by flirting with me, would you, Sean O’Reilly?’

‘I might be tempted to open up if you were over here beside me.’

‘Might you?’

The question remained in her eyes long after her words faded into the air and Sean faltered for a moment, his eyes avoiding hers. He blinked as he studied the duvet cover, his hand automatically smoothing it again as he spoke in a low voice. ‘Maybe if you trusted me not to molest you in the night I might consider answering some of your questions.’

Maggie studied the dark hair on his head as she thought over the offer. So far their friendship had been limited to everyday conversations and simple truths about family and friends. They’d talked movies and books and current affairs on their many car journeys around the country but nothing deeper than that. Already she knew enough about him to have become attached to him, to care. But what she’d learned so far made her want to know even more why he had made so drastic a change to his life. She felt that knowing that would slot the rest of what she knew into place, would give her the complete picture.

It was almost too good an opportunity to miss.

But she also knew that there had been tension in the air between them lately. A very sexual tension. And the only way she knew of to ease that some and veer away from it was to make him smile. Because she couldn’t allow herself to get involved with him on a sexual level, no matter how much her body reacted to the idea. Not while a cloud hung over her.

‘OK. I’ll just have to trust you to be good.’

The required smile was instantaneous as he looked back at her and winked. ‘Honey, I’m way more than good.’

Maggie rolled her eyes. ‘I’ll take your word for that.’

‘You could find out.’

‘No, I couldn’t.’ She stood up and began to walk towards the bathroom, her chin held high. ‘Because nothing is going to happen. I’m going to trust you.’ At the door of the bathroom she looked back over her shoulder and smiled sweetly. ‘And I’m going to ask you personal questions till you’re so tired you’ll snore the rest of the night away.’

Sean watched the door close behind her and continued to smile until her words sank in. It was a big step for him. Huge, in fact. Because he hadn’t talked to anyone about his reasons for coming home. He hadn’t met anyone whom he thought could take listening to it.

Could Mary Margaret Sullivan? Could she listen to all the horrors and understand? He needed to talk about it to someone so that he could start to put it behind him. And he guessed he’d known for a while that she was a candidate for a listening ear. It had just been much easier to hide behind flirting with her.

Spending the night convincing her of how ‘good’ he could be was certainly a more inviting prospect.

But maybe it was time he allowed himself to make a genuine friend, one who really knew him. He may not tell her everything in one go, but hey, it would be a start.

She reappeared from the bathroom ten minutes later. At the sound of the door opening he turned on the bed and his breath caught. It wasn’t going to be easy baring his soul in a gigantic queen-size bed with a woman who looked like that. He could think of much better things to do. Lots of them, in fact.

It wasn’t that she’d dressed to seduce him. Oh, no, nothing that simple from Mary Margaret. In fact, he guessed she probably looked that way every night when she went to bed. All freshly scrubbed face and a simple two-piece pyjama suit in a baby pink. There was nothing vaguely sexual in the way she looked. It was the fact that she looked so sweet and fresh, so untouched by the sordid things of the world.

For the first time in his world-weary life he was immediately and ragingly turned on by pink cotton pyjamas.

‘What?’

He blinked and forced himself to look up into her large green eyes. How in heaven’s name did she manage to look better without make-up? His sisters had always told him that wasn’t humanly possible.

‘What?’

When he didn’t reply, she shook her head. ‘You are a weirdo sometimes, O’Reilly.’

Dark eyes watched as she moved around the end of the huge bed. It was a fairly long walk so he had plenty of time to look. She hesitated when she got to ‘her side’.

One dark eyebrow rose. ‘There’s plenty of room, Mary Margaret.’

Not enough though.

She lifted the cover and got in, keeping as close to the edge as she could without falling out. She tried closing her eyes, inviting sleep to take her.

‘You going to sleep?’

‘Yes.’

‘No bedtime story?’

‘Oh, I’m listening. You can start any time.’

Sean moved over, lying on his side with his head propped on his elbow so he could study her face. He smiled as her mouth pursed into a thin line, then her nose wrinkled and she sighed, ‘What’s wrong?’

‘When we got here I was wiped. Now I can’t sleep.’

He was still smiling when her eyes opened.

She smiled back, then turned to face him across the huge divide. ‘So talk to me.’

‘What do you want to know?’

The thought of actually getting to ask whatever she wanted made her even more awake than she already was from the way he’d looked at her when she came out of the bathroom. His eyes had positively burned her from the huge bed he was occupying. And the sight of his broad naked chest above the covers had woken her up pretty quick.

Trying hard to ignore the sight of that chest within an arm and a half’s reach, she tried to decide what to ask first. ‘How can you be happy doing what you’re doing now?’

‘Maybe it’s the company I keep.’

She blinked at him with large eyes.

He smiled a smaller smile and let his eyes rove up to her hair, the faint smell of her shampoo making it all the way across to him. He liked that smell. Then his eyes met hers again. ‘It’s simpler, less soul-destroying. I guess I just needed this right now.’

Maggie stared deep into his eyes, searching. Searching for evidence that he was being honest when her heart already told her he was.

‘Something to make you smile again, huh?’ Her voice was low, all the more intimate in their present surroundings. ‘You didn’t smile a whole lot when I first met you.’

‘No, I guess I didn’t.’ His voice dropped to a similarly intimate level. ‘Maybe you just brought that out in me.’

She was being sucked in by the moment. Any second she fully expected there to be violins in the background and they would move across the great divide and—

She shook her head.

He laughed. ‘What?’

‘It’s just nice to know that when you looked through that lens the sight you saw was so amusing. I’m flattered.’ She smiled a small smile to let him know she was teasing.

‘You had your moments.’

Her mind turned for a small moment, then she propped her elbow and raised her hand so she could lift her head and rest it there. ‘So is it enough for you?’

‘Looking at you through a lens every day?’ He managed to hold his smile even as he realised it was precisely enough for him. He loved looking at her. Had been doing more and more of it recently, and not just through a lens. Had she noticed that he’d stopped dating recently? Because he was only just discovering why it was he’d stopped.