“The director knows what he’s doing. I don’t butt in on his job.”
“But you’re comfortable butting into mine,” she said, smiling to take the sting out of the words.
“You’re not working. You’re walking.”
“You’re an impossible man, Jefferson King.”
“So I’ve been told.” He bent down, broke off the stem of a wild daffodil and held it out to her.
Charmed in spite of herself, Maura took it and twirled the dainty flower in her fingers. “How long are you staying in Ireland?”
“Eager to see me go?”
No. Of course she didn’t say what she was thinking. “There’s no real need for you to stay.”
“I say there is.” He stopped, turned her to face him and deliberately let his gaze slide down to her belly.
He couldn’t see the small bump because she was wearing one of her thick Irish sweaters. But she felt him watching her, and felt the possession in that steady gaze and it thrilled her. In some elemental part of her heart and soul, Maura loved the way he looked at her. At the child they’d made.
But even as she admitted that, she had to also admit that it meant nothing. He was concerned for her and their baby. But he didn’t love them.
Need without love was an empty thing she wanted no part of. Especially now that she had more than just her own feelings to think of.
“Don’t you have work to do, Jefferson? Worlds to buy, movies to make?”
He grinned again and the sudden sweep of emotion on his face was another staggering blow to a woman already distinctly off balance.
“I’ve been working.”
“In your trailer?” She started walking again and looked into the distance for King. She spotted him then, a black blur, racing across the open fields, and she smiled.
“With technology, I could work in a tent,” Jefferson told her. “All I really need is a computer, a satellite phone with Internet and a fax machine, which I’m going to be buying today in Westport. You won’t mind if I connect it in your house, will you?”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea—”
“Good, thanks.”
She muttered something under her breath about him being far more stubborn than she could ever hope to be. But a part of her relished what he was doing. Though she had no intention of being nothing more than a problem for Jefferson to solve, it salved her pride some to have him working so hard to persuade her.
“So, how’d the bull get out?”
His question brought a quick stop to her thoughts and it took her a second to realize what he was talking about. She cringed slightly, remembering. “Oh. You heard about that, did you?”
“Davy Simpson’s still telling the story,” Jefferson said, his grin spreading. “And with every telling, he runs a little faster, the bull gets bigger and meaner and the danger is more desperate.”
Maura laughed at the image. “He sounds Irish. We love nothing more than a good storyteller.”
“Uh-huh. The bull, Maura. Did you turn it loose on purpose?”
“Of course not!” She might have thought about it, but she never would have done it. In fact, she’d been terrified when the bull escaped, worried that it might actually hurt someone. “No, ’twas an accident entirely. I had Tim Daley in to help me that day. Tim’s but sixteen and his mind is forever wandering to Noreen Muldoon.”
“I know what that’s like,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Go on.”
“There’s not much more to the tale. After feeding the bull, Tim, with his mind still on Noreen, forgot to latch the gate behind him and…” She shrugged. “It was an accident, and thankfully no one was hurt. Took me more than an hour to get the bull set away again.”
“You put the bull away?” He goggled at her.
“And who else?” she asked. “’Tis my bull, after all.”
“Your bull.” He dropped his head forward, chin to chest, as he sighed.
“Aye, and his escape was a mistake, though I’ll admit that the sheep running mad through your set was not.”
He lifted his eyes to her. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
“I was angry. You were ignoring me.”
King bulleted back to them through the grass, gave a happy bark, then spun around and took off again.
“You had a right to be angry,” Jefferson said, “but now you’re being stubborn just to spite me.”
She stopped in the field, with wild daffodils blooming all around her. The sky was a soft blue, with clouds scudding its surface like sailing ships on a placid sea. The wind blew and the grass danced and in the distance, King barked, delighted with his life.
“Is that what you think?” she asked, turning her face up to his so that their eyes met and there could be no secrets between them on this. “Do you believe I’d punish you, myself, my baby all for the sake of spite?”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“You don’t know me as well as you think, Jefferson, if you believe me capable of that.” She plucked windblown hair out of her eyes and stared at him. “I’m doing what’s best. For all of us. I won’t be a pity wife.”
He gaped at her. “Pity wife? Where the hell did that come from?”
She smiled and shook her head. “We both know you’ve no interest in acquiring a wife. It’s the baby worrying you and that speaks well of you. But marrying me is nothing more than feeling sorry for what you see as my ‘difficult position.’”
“It’s not pity,” he told her. “It’s concern. For you and our child.”
“Doesn’t really matter. I won’t leave my home, Jefferson, and try to make myself into the kind of person who would belong in your world. Can’t you see it would never work?”
Instinctively, she reached out, laid one hand on his chest and felt the pounding of his heart beneath her palm. “I don’t belong in your world any more than you do in mine. We’d make each other miserable inside a year and that would be a punishment on a child who deserves only love.”
“That’s a great speech, Maura,” he said and caught her hand in his. “But it’s bull and you know it. This isn’t about you not belonging in Hollywood. You know damn well that you’d fit in anywhere if you made your mind up to it.”
She flushed and tried to pull free of his grip.