you think Ryan might prefer her?” Colleen asked. “Come on, Mags. He never even gave her a second glance yesterday.”
Maggie regarded her sister with surprise. “He didn’t?”
“Sweetie, he never took his eyes off you. Didn’t you know that?”
Maggie shook her head. “I had no idea. I thought maybe I was fighting an uphill battle.”
“You may be,” Colleen warned. “He doesn’t strike me as someone who wants to fall in love. He may not even believe in it.”
“That’s what Father Francis said, as a matter of fact,” Maggie admitted.
“Well then, at least you know what you’re up against. But a powerful attraction has a way of making a man take risks he never intended. It’s all a matter of patience and persistence.”
“I was blessed with one—” she thought of her total lack of patience “—but definitely not the other.”
“Then Ryan promises to be good for you in more ways than one, doesn’t he? Just keep reminding yourself—if he’s the one, then he’s worth waiting for.”
“You might have to do the reminding,” Maggie said.
Her sister chuckled. “Oh, sweetie, that will be my pleasure.”
* * *
Throughout what seemed like the longest weekend on record, Ryan’s gaze kept drifting toward the door each time it opened. He kept expecting—hoping—to see Maggie coming in with each blast of icy air. He was so obvious that there was little chance that Father Francis or Rory hadn’t taken note of him doing it, but they’d remained oddly silent.
Monday the pub was closed. That was the day Ryan usually spent running errands and catching up on paperwork, but he couldn’t seem to concentrate today. He finally gave up in disgust around four-thirty and headed out to take a brisk walk to clear his head. Maybe that would push images of Maggie out of it.
Instead, when he opened the door, he bumped straight into her. He stood there staring like an awkward teenager. “Maggie, what are you doing here?”
She swallowed hard and backed up a step. “I came by for a cup of coffee or two. I’m freezing.”
“The bar’s closed today, but I’d be happy to fix you one,” Ryan said, stepping aside to let her in.
“Closed?” she asked blankly.
He grinned. “As in not open for business,” he explained patiently. He pointed toward the carved wooden sign posted by the door, where it plainly stated that the pub was closed on Mondays.
“Oh,” she said, her cheeks flaming. “I never even looked at the sign. I just assumed, I guess, that you were open every day, but of course you’d need time off. I’ll come back another time.” She whirled around.
“Maggie?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were freezing.”
She faced him with a defiant lift of her chin. “It’s nothing. I’ll just turn up the car heater.”
He should let her go. He certainly shouldn’t be inviting her in when there was no one around to serve as a buffer, no other customers needing his attention. Still, he found himself saying, “I wouldn’t mind having some coffee myself. I was going for a walk to clear the cobwebs out of my head, but coffee will accomplish the same thing.” Never mind that he’d already drunk gallons of it and Maggie was the only thought cluttering his brain.
She beamed at him. “Well, if you’re sure.”
Ryan wasn’t sure of anything, not when she looked at him like that. “Come on in,” he said, “before it’s as cold inside as out.”
When she was in, he closed the door and flipped the lock, then retreated behind the bar. He figured it would give him the illusion of safety, maybe keep him from reaching for her and kissing her until her cheeks flamed pink from something other than the chilly air.
When he’d fixed a fresh pot of coffee and poured two cups, he handed one to her, then took a sip of his own.
“Do you need to stay behind the bar?” she asked. “Can’t you come out here and sit next to me? Or maybe we could go to one of the booths?”
“I’m fine here,” he said. “This is where I’m used to being.”
“And we definitely wouldn’t want to drag you out of your comfort zone,” she said, her eyes sparkling with undisguised amusement.
He scowled at that. “There are reasons why people have comfort zones,” he said. “Why mess with them?”
“It’s called living,” she pointed out. She patted the bar stool next to her. “Come on, Ryan. Take a risk. We’ll save the cozy booth for another day.”
He sighed and gave in to the inevitable. He walked around the bar, but when he sat, he carefully left one stool between them. She bit back a grin.
“Oh, well, that’s progress anyway,” she teased. “No need to rush things.”
“Maggie, why are you here? It’s not as if this is the only place in town where you can get a coffee.”
“But it’s the only place where I know the owner,” she said. “By the way, since you are the owner and it’s your day off, what are you doing here?”
“Catching up on this and that,” he said evasively.
“Doesn’t sound like much of a day off to me. Have you ever heard of taking a real break?”
“To do what?” he asked, genuinely baffled.
She regarded him with blatant pity. “Whatever you want.”
“I want to catch up on all the things I don’t get to do when this place is busy,” he said defensively. “Paperwork, bookkeeping, checking supplies.”
Maggie shook her head. “Don’t you have a hobby?”
“No.”
“Something you enjoy doing to relax?” she persisted.
Uncomplicated sex relaxed him, but Ryan seriously doubted she wanted to hear about that. And today sex had been the last thing on his mind. Okay, not exactly true, he mentally corrected. Sex with Maggie had been very much on his mind, which he’d concluded was a really, really bad idea.
Even so, he couldn’t quite keep himself from giving her a blatant once-over that had her blushing.
“Not that,” she said, evidently grasping his meaning with no trouble at all.
“Too bad,” he teased. “I do find that relaxes me quite a bit.”
Her gaze locked with his. “Perhaps another time,” she said in a deliberately prim little voice.
