Dependence, she knew, and the longing for more than what you had, led to unhappiness and discontent. She had her parents’ example before her.
Pausing there, just past the open door into the chilling rain, she breathed in the air, the damp sweetness of it tinged with spring from the blackthorn blossoms that formed a hedgerow to the east and the early roses struggling into bloom to the west. She was a small woman, shapely beneath the baggy jeans and flannel shirt. Over her shoulder-length, fiery hair she wore a slouch hat, as gray as the rain. Beneath its bill her eyes were the moody, mystical green of the sea.
The rain dampened her face, the soft curve of cheek and chin, the wide, melancholy mouth. It dewed the creamy redhead’s complexion and joined the gold freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose.
She drank the strong sweet breakfast tea from a glass mug of her own design and ignored the phone that had begun to shrill from the kitchen. Ignoring the summons was as much policy as habit, particularly when her mind was drifting toward her work. There was a sculpture forming in her head, as clear as a raindrop, she thought. Pure and smooth, with glass flowing into glass in the heart of it.
The pull of the vision beckoned. Dismissing the ringing phone, she walked through the rain toward her workshop and the soothing roar of the glass furnace.
From his offices in Dublin, Rogan Sweeney listened to the ring of the phone through the receiver and swore. He was a busy man, too busy to waste his time on a rude and temperamental artist who refused to answer the sharp knock of opportunity.
He had businesses to see to, calls to answer, files to read, figures to tally. He should, while the day was young, go down to the gallery and oversee the latest shipment. The Native American pottery was, after all, his baby, and he’d spent months selecting the best of the best.
But that, of course, was a challenge already met. That particular show would once again ensure that Worldwide was a top international gallery. Meanwhile the woman, the damn, stubborn Clarewoman, was crowding his mind. Though he’d yet to meet her face-to-face, she and her genius occupied too much of his mind.
The new shipment would, of course, receive as much of his skill, energy and time as it required. But a new artist, particularly one whose work had so completely captured his imagination, excited on a different level. The thrill of discovery was as vital to Rogan as the careful development, marketing and sale of an artist’s works.
He wanted Concannon, exclusively, for Worldwide Galleries. As with most of his desires, all of which Rogan deemed quite reasonable, he wouldn’t rest until it was accomplished.
He’d been raised to succeed—the third generation of prosperous merchants who found clever ways to turn pence into pounds. The business his grandfather had founded sixty years before flourished under his leadership—because Rogan Sweeney refused to take no for an answer. He would achieve his goals by sweat, by charm, by tenacity or any other means he deemed suitable.
Margaret Mary Concannon and her unbridled talent was his newest and most frustrating goal.
He wasn’t an unreasonable man in his own mind, and would have been shocked and insulted to discover that he was described as just that by many of his acquaintances. If he expected long hours and hard work from his employees, he expected no less of himself. Drive and dedication weren’t merely virtues to Rogan, they were necessities that had been bred in his bones.
He could have handed the reins of Worldwide over to a manager and lived quite comfortably on the proceeds. Then he could travel, not for business but for pleasure, enjoying the fruits of his inheritance without sweating over the harvesting.
He could have, but his responsibility and thirsty ambition were his birthrights.
And M. M. Concannon, glass artist, hermit and eccentric was his obsession.
He was going to make changes in Worldwide Galleries, changes that would reflect his own vision, that would celebrate his own country. M. M. Concannon was his first step, and he’d be damned if her stubbornness would make him stumble.
She was unaware—because she refused to listen, Rogan thought grimly—that he intended to make her Worldwide’s first native Irish star. In the past, with his father and grandfather at the helm, the galleries had specialized in international art. Rogan didn’t intend to narrow the scope, but he did intend to shift the focus and give the world the best of the land of his birth.
He would risk both his money and his reputation to do it.
If his first artist was a success, as he fully intended her to be, his investment would have paid off, his instincts would have been justified and his dream, a new gallery that showcased works exclusively by Irish artists, would become reality.
To begin, he wanted Margaret Mary Concannon.
Annoyed with himself, he rose from his antique oak desk to stand by the window. The city stretched out before him, its broad streets and green squares, the silver glint that was the river and the bridges that spanned it.
Below, traffic moved in a steady stream, laborers and tourists merging on the street in a colorful stream in the sunlight. They seemed very distant to him now as they strolled in packs or twosomes. He watched a young couple embrace, a casual linking of arms, meeting of lips. Both wore backpacks and expressions of giddy delight.
He turned away, stung by an odd little arrow of envy.
He was unused to feeling restless, as he was now. There was work on his desk, appointments in his book, yet he turned to neither. Since childhood he’d moved with purpose from education to profession, from success to success. As had been expected of him. As he had expected of himself.
He’d lost both of his parents seven years before when his father had suffered a heart attack behind the wheel of his car and had smashed into a utility pole. He could still remember the grim panic, and the almost dreamy disbelief, that had cloaked him during the flight from Dublin to London, where his mother and father had traveled for business and the horrible, sterile scent of hospital.
His father had died on impact. His mother had lived barely an hour longer. So they had both been gone before he’d arrived, long before he’d been able to accept it. But they’d taught him a great deal before he’d lost them—about family and pride of heritage, the love of art, the love of business and how to combine them.
At twenty-six he’d found himself the head of Worldwide and its subsidiaries, responsible for staff, for decisions, for the art placed in his hands. For seven years he’d worked not only to make the business grow, but to make it shine. It had been more than enough for him.
