Born in Fire by Nora Roberts

one.”
    “And I’ve no intention,” Brianna went on without pause, “of gossiping about him behind his back.”
    “Saint Brianna.” Maggie crunched down on the carrot, gestured with the stub of it. “What if I were to tell you that he’s after managing my career?”
    “Managing?” Brianna’s hands faltered before they picked on the rhythm again. Peelings fell steadily on the newspaper she’d laid on the counter. “In what way?”
    “Financially, to start. Displaying my work in his galleries and talking rich patrons into buying it for great sums of money.” She waved the remains of the carrot before finishing it off. “All the man can think about is making money.”
    “Galleries,” Brianna repeated. “He owns art galleries?”
    “In Dublin and Cork. He has interests in others in London and New York. Paris, too, I think. Probably Rome. Everybody in the art world knows Rogan Sweeney.”
    The art world was as removed from Brianna’s life as the moon. But she felt a quick, warm pride that her sister could claim it. “And he’s taken an interest in your work.”
    “Stuck his aristocrat’s nose in is what he’s done.” Maggie snorted. “Calling me on the phone, sending letters, all but demanding rights to everything I make. Now today, he pops up on my doorstep, telling me that I need him. Hah.”
    “And, of course, you don’t.”
    “I don’t need anyone.”
    “You don’t, no.” Brianna carried the vegetables to the sink to rinse. “Not you, Margaret Mary.”
    “Oh, I hate that tone, all cold and superior. You sound just like Mother.” She slid off the counter to stalk to the refrigerator. And because of it, she was swamped with guilt. “We’re getting along well enough,” she added as she pulled out a beer. “The bills are paid, there’s food on the table and a roof over all our heads.” She stared at her sister’s stiff back and let out a sound of impatience. “It can’t be what it once was, Brie.”
    “You think I don’t know that?” Brianna’s lilting voice turned edgy. “Do you think I have to have more? That I can’t be content with what is?” Suddenly unbearably sad, she stared out the window toward the fields beyond. “It’s not me, Maggie. ’Tisn’t me.”
    Maggie scowled down at her beer. It was Brianna who suffered, Maggie knew. Brianna who had always been in the middle. Now, Maggie thought, she had the chance to change that. All she had to do was sell part of her soul.
    “She’s been complaining again.”
    “No.” Brianna tucked a stray hair away in the knot at the nape of her neck. “Not really.”
    “I can tell by the look on your face she’s been in one of her moods—and taking it out on you.” Before Brianna could speak, Maggie waved a hand. “She’ll never be happy, Brianna. You can’t make her happy. The good Lord knows I can’t. She’ll never forgive him for being what he was.”
    “And what was he?” Brianna demanded as she turned around. “Just what was our father, Maggie?”
    “Human. Flawed.” She set her beer down and walked to her sister. “Wonderful. Do you remember, Brie, the time he bought the mule, and was going to make a fortune having tourists snap pictures of it in a peaked cap with our old dog sitting on its back?”
    “I remember.” Brie would have turned away, but Maggie grabbed her hands. “And I remember he lost more money feeding that cursed, bad-tempered mule than he ever did with his scheming.”
    “Oh, but it was fun. We went to the Cliffs of Mohr, and it was such a bright summer day. The tourists swarming about and the music playing. And there was Da holding that stupid mule, and that poor old dog, Joe, as terrified of that mule as he would have been of a roaring lion.”
    Brianna softened. She couldn’t help it. “Poor Joe sitting and shivering with fear on that mule’s back. Then that German came along, wanting a picture of himself with Joe and the mule.”
    “And the mule kicked.” Maggie grinned and