stop in a parking space down the block from the pub and glanced over at her. She was struggling to keep her eyes open. He left the car and circled to open the passenger door.
“Okay, come with me,” he said, his tone firm.
“My car’s right across the street,” she said, when he steered her toward the pub.
“And if you get behind the wheel and drive as far as the corner, you’re likely to fall asleep and crash into something. I won’t have that on my conscience.”
She tilted her head and regarded him curiously. “Then what are you suggesting?”
“You’ll sleep at my place,” he said, trying to be grimly matter-of-fact about it.
“How intriguing!” A smile tugged at her lips. “Just minutes ago you vetoed that idea.”
Ryan laughed at her typically give-an-inch-take-a-mile response. “No, that is not what I vetoed. You’ll be sleeping in the bed. I’ll be on the sofa.”
A glint of amusement lit her eyes. “Now, where’s the fun in that, Ryan Devaney?”
He managed a severe expression. “Don’t you be tempting me, Maggie O’Brien. What would your fine father and brothers think of that?”
“They have nothing to do with my personal life,” she assured him airily.
“Do they know that?” he inquired with skepticism.
She sighed heavily. “Probably not.”
“Then perhaps we’d best do this my way for now,” he said as he led the way upstairs to his apartment over the pub.
When he walked through the doorway, he tried to view the room through Maggie’s eyes. The windows across the front let in a lot of light and the bare wood floors gleamed softly, but beyond a sofa, a comfortable chair and the television that he never bothered to flip on, there wasn’t much to recommend it.
To the left, the kitchen had new appliances he’d used no more than a handful of times because he took most of his meals downstairs in the pub. Even his coffeemaker was in like-new condition.
“The minimalist style, I see,” Maggie observed, still standing in the entry. “I imagine most people think they get a better sense of you from the pub downstairs.”
Her thoughtful comment made him wary. “And you don’t?”
“No, I think this gives away more. No clutter. No personal objects to give any hint about the man you are. All your secrets are protected here.” She met his gaze. “Is the bedroom any better?”
“Not if you’re looking to unravel any secrets,” he said with an edge of defensiveness.
He showed her the way, then stood back as she surveyed the king-size bed with its dark-green quilt tossed haphazardly over sheets in a paler shade of green, the oak dresser with nothing beyond a pile of loose change on top, the digital clock on the bedside stand and an antique rocker in the corner. She blinked when her gaze fell on that, then turned to him, her face alight with curiosity.
“A family heirloom?” she asked, crossing over to rub her hand over the oak wood with its soft sheen.
“Hardly.”
“You’re fond of antiques, then?”
“Not especially,” he said, the defensiveness back in his voice. He should never have brought her here. He could see that now. She liked digging beneath the surface of things to the raw truths beneath.
“Back problems?” she persisted unrelentingly.
“No, and what does that have to do with having a rocker in my room?”
“They say President Kennedy had a rocker because of chronic back problems. I’ve seen pictures of it.”
Ryan nodded. “Okay, yes, I guess I have heard something about that, but it’s got nothing to do with this. I saw it in a shop and I liked it. End of story.”
Her gaze narrowed with obvious disbelief. “Did your mother rock you when you were little?”
Ryan bit back a curse at the accurate guess. “How the hell would I remember a thing like that?” he asked derisively.
Maggie’s gaze never left his face. “She did, didn’t she? That’s why you bought this chair. It reminds you of one your family had.”
The truth was, he suspected it might have been this chair. On the one occasion he’d ventured back to his childhood neighborhood, he’d found the rocker in a shop not all that far from where they’d lived. He’d been drawn to it at once, and despite his claim that he wanted nothing at all to do with the past, he hadn’t been able to put it out of his mind. He’d gone back the next day and bought the rocker, but only after asking the shop owner what he knew about the original owner. Unfortunately, the man