Free Born in Fire by Nora Roberts Page A

sprang with color and beauty.
    Tender buds were just forming on the primroses. The fairy heads of columbine nodded gently among the tender shoots of larkspur and betony. She watched a magpie dart over headstones and sway toward a field. One for sorrow, she thought, and searched the sky fruitlessly for the second that would stand for joy.
    Butterflies fluttered nearby, flashing thin, silent wings. She watched them for a time, taking comfort in the color and the movement. There had been no place to bury him near the sea, but this, she thought, this place would have pleased him.
    Maggie leaned back comfortably on the side of her father’s headstone and closed her eyes.
    I wish you were still here, she thought, so I could tell you what I’m doing. Not that I’d listen to any of your advice, mind. But it would be good to hear it.
    If Rogan Sweeney’s a man of his word—and I can’t see how he’d be anything else—I’ll be a rich woman. How you’d enjoy that. There’d be enough for you to open your own pub like you always wanted. Oh, what a poor farmer you were, darling. But the best of fathers. The very best.
    She was doing her best to keep her promise to him, she thought. To take care of her mother and her sister, and to follow her dream.
    “Maggie.”
    She opened her eyes and looked up at Brianna. Tidy as a pin, she thought, studying her sister. Her lovely hair all scooped up, her clothes neatly pressed. “You look like a schoolteacher,” Maggie said, and laughed at Brianna’s expression. “A lovely one.”
    “You look like a ragpicker,” Brianna retorted, scowling at Maggie’s choice of ripped jeans and a tattered sweater. “A lovely one.”
    Brianna knelt beside her sister and folded her hands. Not to pray, just for neatness’ sake.
    They sat in silence for a moment while the wind breathed through the grass and floated through the tumbled stones.
    “A lovely day for grave sitting,” Maggie commented. He’d have been seventy-one today, she thought. “His flowers are blooming nicely.”
    “Needs some weeding.” And Brianna began to do so. “I found the money on the kitchen counter this morning, Maggie. It’s too much.”
    “It was a good sale. You’ll put some of it by.”
    “I’d rather you enjoyed it.”
    “I am, knowing you’re that much closer to having her out.”
    Brianna sighed. “She isn’t a burden to me.” Catching her sister’s expression, she shrugged. “Not as much as you think. Only when she’s feeling poorly.”
    “Which is most of the time. Brie, I love you.”
    “I know you do.”
    “The money’s the best way I know how to show it. Da wanted me to help you with her. And the good Lord knows I couldn’t live with her as you do. She’d send me to the madhouse, or I’d send myself to prison by murdering her in her sleep.”
    “This business with Rogan Sweeney, you did it for her.”
    “I did not.” Maggie bristled at the thought of it. “Because of her, perhaps, which is a different matter altogether. Once she’s settled and you have your life back, you’ll get married and give me a horde of nieces and nephews.”
    “You could have your own children.”
    “I don’t want marriage.” Comfortable, Maggie closed her eyes again. “No, indeed. I prefer coming and going as it suits me and answering to no one. I’ll spoil your children, and they’ll come running to Aunt Maggie whenever you’re too strict with them.” She opened one eye. “You could marry Murphy.”
    Brianna’s laugh carried beautifully over the high grass. “It would shock him to know it.”
    “He was always sweet on you.”
    “He was, yes—when I was thirteen. No, he’s a lovely man and I’m as fond of him as I would be of a brother. But he’s not what I’m looking for in a husband.”
    “You’ve got it all planned then?”
    “I’ve nothing planned,” Brianna said primly, “and we’re getting off the subject. I don’t want you to join hands with Mr. Sweeney because you feel