Kissing Maggie Silver Read Online Free PDF Page A

that you don’t really have time for lunch. She thinks you were just being polite when you agreed to meet her. I told her not to be so silly but she says she’s too old for someone as young as you to want to bother with her, so I’m…um…sort of moving things along.”
    Maggie sank onto her bed, horrified. “Surely she knows I’m looking forward to spending some time with her. She was like a second Mum to me when I was small. Why on earth would she think I’m just being polite Ruairi?”
    “Probably because she’s spent too much time alone since Dad died. She’s forgotten that there are people who love her. She hasn’t made many friends in Ireland because Dad became ill almost as soon as they got there so all her time was taken up with nursing him.”
    “In that case she definitely needs to move back here and I shall tell her so when I see her this lunchtime,” said Maggie firmly, completely forgetting her angst about Ruairi as her warm heart went out to the woman who had been so kind to her when she was a little girl.
    She heard the smile in his voice as he replied. “Shall I tell her one o’clock?”
    “No! Tell her twelve. Then we can have a drink first. Maybe that will prove to her that I really do want to see her.”
    “Thanks Maggie. And on Monday evening it’s dinner at six. I’m afraid your brothers have pre-empted my invitation by organizing an early meal for everyone at the local Chinese restaurant. Apparently it’s a send off for your parents on the night before their cruise, which is why it’s so early. Marks says they have a plane to catch later in the evening.”             
    “Fine,” said Maggie, too brightly. “I’ll be there.”
     
    * * *
     
    That’ll teach you to be careful what you wish for she told herself crossly as she ended the call. Now you can go to dinner with Ruairi O’Connor without any worries at all. With your dear devoted brothers around there is no chance he’ll ever see you as anyone but their aggravating little sister, so situation solved.
    She wished he hadn’t proved her point so thoroughly though. She had spent hours fretting about how her heart would cope on a date alone with him and now he had made it pretty clear that he had been quite happy to include everyone else all along.
     
    * * *
     
    Despite her irritation about Monday’s plans, she thoroughly enjoyed her lunch with Marie O’Connor. The older woman was interested in everything that Maggie had done since she last saw her, and she wanted to know about her plans for the future too. As Maggie had known she would, she understood completely why she wanted to travel before she settled down, although she could also see the other side of the story.
    “Your family are upset because they don’t want to lose you,” she said when Maggie told her how everyone was reacting to her plans. “They’ll worry about you all the time you’re travelling, whereas if you’d agreed to get married to Graham you would have stayed close by and been safe.”
    “But that’s ridiculous!” Maggie’s stormy grey eyes flashed with irritation. “Staying put has no guarantees at all.”
    “I know that only too well my dear,” Marie O’Connor shook her head sadly. “But believe me I also know how your family feels. When Ruairi first decided to travel it broke my heart.”
    You and me both, thought Maggie with an inward sigh.
    “I behaved like a fool. I was so sure he would have a terrible accident and I’d never see him again that I could hardly eat for weeks before he went. Then, once he’d actually gone, I spent every spare moment waiting for a postcard or a phone call, and I can tell you they were few and far between because he was a young man with the whole world to see. Of course when he finally came home for a visit and I realized he was a man, not the young boy I still held in my heart, I stopped worrying so much. Finally I understood I had to let him go.”
    “And now?” Maggie suddenly