Irish Rose by Nora Roberts Page A

but I'd like to accept your offer."
    She held out her hand. Burke took it just as casually, though he wondered about the wild surge of relief that coursed through him. "I expect a day's work for a day's pay. I don't doubt you'll give it to me."
    "That I will. I'm grateful for the chance."
    "I'll remind you of that after you've spent a few days sorting through the mess my last bookkeeper left me with."
    She stood very still for a moment, letting it all soak in, layer by layer. Then she spun in a quick circle and laughed. "I can't believe it. America! It's like some kind of a mad dream. I've hardly been more than fifty kilometers from Skibbereen, and now I'm going thousands in the blink of an eye."
    He liked to see her this way, her face flushed with pleasure, her eyes lit with it. And the rain still drummed on the roof. "It takes a bit longer than that to cross the Atlantic."
    "Don't be so literal." But she was too excited to take offense. "In a matter of days I'll be in a new country, a new place, a new job. New money."
    He started to reach for a cigar, then thought better of it. "The money puts a gleam in your eye."
    "Anyone who's ever been poor gleams a bit when they've got enough money."
    He acknowledged this with a nod. He'd been poor, but he doubted Erin would understand that degree of poverty. He appreciated money, though if he lost it, as he had before, he would simply shake the dust off his shoes and make more. "You'll earn it."
    "I wouldn't be having it any other way." She stopped as reality began to seep through. "But I need a passport and the green card that allows you to work. There must be a pile of papers that have to be processed."
    "I told you I'd see to it." He drew a paper out of his pocket. "Fill this out and drop it off at the inn tonight. It's an application," he explained as she studied it. "I've already arranged to have it processed tomorrow. Your passport and whatever else you need will be in Cork when we get there."
    She tapped the paper slowly against her palm. "You were damn sure of yourself, weren't you?"
    "It pays to be. You'll need a picture they can use, too. A recent one."
    "What if I'd said no?"
    He simply smiled. "Then you'd have been a fool and I'd have thrown the application away."
    "I can't figure you." She tucked the application in the pocket of her baggy pants, but shook her head at him. "You've made me a very generous offer, you're giving me the opportunity to do something I've wanted to do for as long as I can remember. But even as you're doing it, it doesn't seem to matter to you one way or the other."
    He remembered the surge of relief, but chose to ignore it. "Things matter too much to people. That's how they get hurt."
    "Are you saying that things don't matter to you? Nothing at all? What about your farm?"
    He shifted a bit, surprised that the question, when she asked it, made him uncomfortable. "It's a place. A comfortable and fairly profitable one at the moment. But that's all it is. I don't have the ties to it that you have to the land here, Erin. That's why if I leave it I will leave without a second glance. When you leave Ireland, no matter how much you want to go, you're going to hurt."
    "There's nothing wrong in that," she murmured. "It's my home. It's only right to miss your home."
    "Some people don't make homes. They just live somewhere and leave it at that."
    She saw more clearly now, though the light was still dim. She saw, though she'd told herself she didn't care, that there were places inside him no one, no woman, would ever touch. "That's a cold and sorry way to live."
    "It's a choice," he corrected. Then he pushed the subject aside. "Make sure you get me the application tonight. I'm leaving for Cork first thing in the morning."
    "But you said we weren't going for a couple of days."
    "I'll meet you there."
    "All right, then. I should be getting along. There's a lot to be done."
    "There's something else I think we should get out of the way." He rocked back on his heels