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Country sounds, he noted. She’d have heard them every day of life here, until she didn’t really hear them at all. Is that why she’d left? Because she’d needed to hear something new? The bright sounds of the city? The voices, the music, the traffic in the streets?

Did it matter why?

He stepped out of the car. He’d faced death more times than he could count. At times he’d fought his way around it until his hands ran with blood. He’d killed—in blood both hot and cold.

And there was nothing in his life he could remember fearing as much as he feared knocking on the bright blue door of that old stone house.

He went through the pretty white gate onto the narrow path between banks of cheerful flowers. And standing on a short stoop, he knocked on the blue door.

When it opened, the woman stared back at him. His mother’s face. Older, some thirty years older than the image that was carved into his brain. But her hair was red, with just a hint of gold, her eyes green, her skin like milk tinted with rose petals.

She barely reached his shoulder, and for some reason, that nearly broke his heart.

She was neat, in her blue pants and white shirt, and white canvas shoes. Such little feet. He took it all in, down to the tiny gold hoops in her ears, and the scent of vanilla that wafted out the door.

She was lovely, with that soft and contented look some women carried. In her hand was a red-and-white dishcloth.

He said the only words he could think of. “My name is Roarke.”

“I know who you are.” Her voice held a strong west county accent. Running the cloth from one hand to the other, she studied him as he studied her. “I suppose you’d best be coming in.”

“I’m sorry to disturb you.”

“Do you plan on disturbing me?” She stepped back. “I’m in the kitchen. There’s still tea from breakfast.”

Before she closed the door, she took a look at his car, lifting her brows at the dark elegance of it. “So, the claims you’ve money coming out of your ears, among other places, are true then.”

His blood chilled, but he nodded. If they wanted money from him, he’d give them money. “I’m well set.”

“Well set’s a variable term, isn’t it? Depending on where you’re standing.”

She walked back toward the kitchen, past what he assumed was the company parlor, then the family living area. The rooms were crowded with furniture and whatnots, and fresh flowers. And all as neat as she.

The table in the big family kitchen could have fit twelve, and he imagined it had. There was a huge stove that appeared to be well-used, an enormous refrigerator, miles of butter yellow counters.

The windows over the sink looked out over garden and field and hill, and there were little pots he supposed were herbs sitting on the sill. It was a working room, and a cheerful one. He could still smell breakfast in the air.

“Have a seat then, Roarke. Will you have biscuits with your tea?”

“No, thank you. I’m fine.”

“Well, I will. Don’t get much of a reason to eat a biscuit in the middle of the day, might as well take advantage of it when I do.”

She dealt with the homey chores, and had him wondering if she was giving them both time to settle. The tea was in a plain white pot, and the biscuits she put on a pretty blue plate.

“Yours is a face I never expected to see at my door.” With the chores done, she sat, chose a biscuit. “So, why have you come?”

“I thought I . . . felt I . . . Ah, well.” He sipped the tea. Apparently, she hadn’t given him time enough to settle. “I didn’t know about you—about Siobhan—until a few days ago.”

Her eyebrow lifted. “Know what?”

“That you—she—existed. I’d been told, I believed, that my mother . . . the woman I thought was my mother, had left. Left me when I was a child.”

“Did you?”

“Ma’am—”

“I’m Sinead. Sinead Lannigan.”

“Mrs. Lannigan, until a few days ago, I’d never heard the name Siobahn Brody. I thought my mother’s name was Meg, and I don’t remember her particularly well except she had a hard hand and she walked out, leaving me with him.”

“Your mother, your true mother, wouldn’t have