"No, of course not. Have you thought of asking her to explain, then?"

"It's not that simple."

Father Francis clearly wasn't convinced. "Why, because Maggie won't be honest?"

"Of course not," Ryan said at once. "Maggie's the most honest person I know."

"Is it because she won't be able to tell you what's in her heart?"

Ryan sighed. "No."

"What then?"

"It's because I still won't be able to give her the answers she wants."

"About?"

"My family." Ryan regarded the priest helplessly. "How can I tell her I care about seeing them again, when the truth is that I don't?"

"Ah, so that's it," Father Francis said. "Have you finally decided to search for them, then? I imagine Maggie's had a hand in helping you reach that decision. Are you not comfortable with it now that you've made it? Are you considering backing down?"

"Too late for that," Ryan said wryly. "Actually, Jack Reilly's been looking for a while now. He's found one of my brothers-Sean, the one two years younger than me, which would make him about thirty now."

The old man's face lit up. "That's brilliant news. Have you seen him?"

"I can see that your expectations are the same as Maggie's," Ryan said. "You're expecting me to be overjoyed."

"And you're not?"

"I'm just looking for answers."

"What sort of answers? You do realize that if he was younger than you, Sean may not have the answers you need. Unless he's found your parents, it's unlikely he knows what went wrong."

Ryan shook his head. "That's not it at all. I want to be sure everyone's in good health, so if Maggie and I ever decide to marry and have a family, I won't be unwittingly pa.s.sing any hereditary conditions along to our children."

Father Francis sighed heavily. "I imagine this is because of Lamar," he said. "And you told this to Maggie, that your search is all about genetics?"

"Yes," Ryan admitted.

The priest gave him a pitying look. "It's a wonder she didn't take a skillet to your head. I'm thinking of it myself," he said with disgust. "You clearly know how to rob a moment of its meaning."

"If you're trying to accuse me of not being a sentimental jerk, then you're right. I'm not. This is a practical search for answers I need to have before I decide whether it's right to take the next step with Maggie."

"No," the priest said flatly. "It's a way of protecting yourself from being hurt again. You're taking no chances that your brother-or the others when you find them-might not want to be a part of your life even now."

Ryan felt the undeniable sting of truth in his words. "What if I am? Can you blame me?"

"Of course not, but life is about risks, about being open to possibilities. Have you not been happier these last weeks with Maggie than you ever have been before?"

There seemed to be little to gain by lying when the answer was obvious. "Yes. What's your point?"

"If you'd continued to keep the door to your heart tightly shut, you'd have had none of that," Father Francis reminded him. "Life would have gone along on its nice, even keel with no ups and downs. It would have been safe. But you'd have missed all the joy Maggie has brought into your life. Wasn't that worth the risk of letting down your defenses?"

Much as Ryan wanted to protest that he'd been better off before, he knew it wasn't true. Maggie had opened up his heart, and there was no turning back.

"And you think that seeing my brothers and even my parents again could turn out as well?" he asked skeptically. "Despite the fact that I've spent all these years with bitterness and resentment churning around inside me?"

"You'll never know unless you try...and for the right reasons. And you'll need to be willing to let go of the bitterness and resentment and be ready move on. Surely your brother's not the one you've been angry with. Wouldn't that be a good place to start? I'm sure he's been grappling with many of the same resentments that you have."

"Okay, you win. I'll call Sean in the morning."

"It's not about what I want or about me winning. It's about you. And is there any reason for not calling him right now?" Father Francis pushed.

Ryan frowned, but he reached for the phone.

With the priest's steady gaze on him, he dialed his brother's number. Unfortunately, it was an answering machine that picked up. Hearing his brother's voice after all these years-his deep, grown-up voice-threw Ryan. Sean sounded so much like their dad, it was uncanny and disturbing. But before he could lose his nerve, he left a message.

"Sean, this is Ryan...um, your brother Ryan." He considered hanging up then, but after a glance at Father Francis's expectant, encouraging expression, he plunged on. "I'd like to see you. If it's okay, I'll stop by tomorrow around ten. I have the address. If I miss you then, I'll come by another time." He searched his brain for something more, but nothing came to him. "Um, I guess that's it. Bye."

To his shock, his hand was shaking as he replaced the receiver in its cradle. Father Francis covered his hand to steady it.

"You've taken a first step, lad, the first of many."

Ryan swallowed past the lump in his throat. "I just wish to h.e.l.l I knew where they were going to lead."

Maggie had been for an hour-long walk, but it hadn't done a thing to steady her nerves or calm her temper. Nor had any of the other walks she'd taken since she'd walked out of Ryan's apartment and out of his life. She'd been expecting him to call, but the phone had remained stubbornly silent. It shouldn't have surprised her. If he hadn't reached out to his family in all these years, why was she expecting him to reach out to her? Back then he'd been too young to fight for what he needed. Now he was evidently too scared.

Back at the house, half-frozen, she poured herself a cup of tea, then sat at the kitchen table, brooding over the way things were turning out. She'd been so sure that Ryan was the one, that her love could give him the strength to face his past and move on. Maybe it was impossible after what he'd been through. Maybe she'd been expecting too much once again, just as she had when she'd wanted more pa.s.sion from her last relationship. Maybe her expectations simply couldn't be met, at least never all at once.

She was still thinking that over, debating whether there was more she could have done to get through to him, when her mother walked into the kitchen.

"I thought I heard you come in," Nell O'Brien said, pouring herself a cup of tea, then putting a few freshly baked shortbread cookies onto a plate before sitting down opposite Maggie.

"Uh-oh, you've brought out the cookies," Maggie teased. "You must be antic.i.p.ating a serious talk."

"I am, indeed. I've waited patiently for you to tell me what happened between you and Ryan, but you haven't said a word. I've lost patience," her mother said. "And since Father Francis called a while ago with a rather cryptic message, I've concluded that it's time to get to the bottom of things."

Maggie sat up a little straighter. "Father Francis called? What did he want?"

"He said Ryan was going to try to see his brother at ten this morning. He seemed to think you'd be interested in that, that you might want to be there."

"No way," Maggie said fiercely. "I am not going to help him do this, not when he's doing it for all the wrong reasons."

"What reasons are those?" her mother asked.

"The stupid idiot thinks I'm worried about his genes," Maggie grumbled. "Can you imagine anything more ridiculous? I don't give two figs about that."

"Aren't you a.s.suming it's all about you?" her mother asked mildly. "And isn't that a bit presumptuous?"

"I'm not a.s.suming anything. That's what Ryan said. He said he needed to know if everyone was okay, if there were any medical skeletons in the closet, before he could contemplate a future with me."

Her mother gave her a pitying look. "And you took that at face value?"

"He said it, didn't he?" Maggie replied defensively, even as her conviction began to waver.

"Have you considered for an instant that maybe that's the only way he can let himself think?" she asked Maggie. "If he lets himself be vulnerable, if he lets himself envision being reunited with his family, what happens if he's rejected again?"

She let that image sink in before she continued. "Can you imagine what it must have been like for him to be abandoned when he was only nine? It was devastating enough to shape the rest of his life. Can't you remember how skittish he was just being in the same room with all of us, as if being around a big family scared him to death? It's only because of your persistence that he's let the walls around his heart come down at all."

As she listened to her mother's interpretation, shame flooded through Maggie. How could she not have seen that, when her mother had grasped it at once? Of course, that was it. This was a way for Ryan to cover emotions far too fragile for him to deal with.

"Go with him this morning," her mother encouraged. "Don't let him do this alone. Be there for him no matter how it turns out. He's taking a first step, Maggie. And he may say he's only doing it for you and for all sorts of practical reasons, but he's doing it for himself, as well. Whether he admits it or not, there has to have been an empty place inside him all these years. He's about to reach out and try to mend at least some of the hurt. That must be a very scary thing to a man whose heart's been broken the way his has been. Some people never truly recover from deep childhood hurts."

"You're right," Maggie said. "I'm the one who's been an idiot. What time did Father Francis say he was going over there? Can I still make it?"

"He said Ryan had left a message saying he'd be there at ten. Here's the address. You should have just enough time, if you hurry." She smiled. "He's a good man, Maggie."

"I know that. I think I was just expecting him to be a saint." She recalled what Ryan had said to her the night they'd first met, that he wasn't the man Father Francis was likely to make him out to be. If only she'd listened then, perhaps her expectations wouldn't have been so unreasonable.

Ryan had so many qualms about going through with this meeting that he'd almost turned right around and driven back home a half dozen times. It was the prospect of facing Father Francis's disappointment-and Maggie's, a.s.suming she ever started speaking to him again-that kept him going until he reached the street on which Sean's apartment was located.

It was in an older neighborhood, where brownstones had been converted into multifamily dwellings. It wasn't exactly shabby, but it wasn't an area that had been gentrified either. Even so, it was head and shoulders above the neighborhood they'd lived in as kids.

He spotted Sean's building, drove around the block, then found a parking s.p.a.ce just down the street. But once he'd cut the engine, he couldn't seem to make himself leave the car.

Suddenly he was awash in memories.

Because they'd been the oldest, barely two years apart, he and Sean had been best friends. Sean had been his shadow from the moment he learned to walk. He'd even insisted Ryan walk with him on his first day of school, rather than their mother, because he hadn't wanted to look like a baby. They'd played baseball together at the small park down the street. Ryan had taught him to ride the secondhand bike he'd managed to buy from a church thrift store with the pocket change he'd earned by helping elderly neighbors carry their groceries or wash their cars.

None of that had changed when Michael came along. Ryan and Sean had welcomed their new brother, waiting impatiently until he was old enough to go with them everywhere. They were brothers, and that's what brothers did.

But when the twins were born, everything changed. They were fussier babies, and the mere fact that there were two of them in a an increasingly crowded apartment added to the tension. Tempers flared more often. Ryan couldn't count the number of evenings he and Sean had fled from the apartment in tears because of the shouting between his parents. Michael, too little to follow, had huddled in his bed and cried just as hard as the babies.

In retrospect, he probably shouldn't have been surprised when their family collapsed under the weight of all that stress. But coming home after school to an empty apartment, standing inside the deserted rooms with Sean's hand tucked in his, had been a shock.

They'd been there only moments when the neighbor caring for Michael came in with him in tow, her face pale and tears welling up in her eyes. She'd still been trying to explain that their parents had disappeared with the twins when the social worker arrived to take over.

They'd gone to an emergency foster care home together that first night. Michael had finally cried himself out and fallen asleep, but Ryan and Sean had huddled together in bed, whispering, trying to make sense of what had happened, trying desperately not to be afraid.

They hadn't been allowed to go back to their old school, which was across town. Instead, while the social worker tried to locate their parents, they had waited, terrified to ask what would happen if their parents weren't found.

The memory of what happened next was burned forever into Ryan's brain. The social worker had lined them all up on the sofa in the foster family's living room and explained that for now they were going to be wards of the state, that they would be going to new families who would care for them until all the legal issues could be resolved.

Ryan had faced her defiantly. "We're staying together, though, right?"

"I'm sorry," she said with sympathy, "but no. We don't have a home that can take all three of you."

Sean had stood up then, his arms across his chest. "Then I'm not going," he said. "I want to be with my brothers."

"Me, too," Michael had whispered, his eyes filling with tears, his hand tucked in Ryan's.

"I wish that were possible," she replied, her gaze on Ryan. "It will be okay. We'll look for a place where you can stay together, but it may not be for a while."

Ryan had heard the finality in her tone and known it was useless to argue. Still, with Sean's gaze on him, he'd felt as if he had to try. "You don't understand. Sean and me need to look out for Michael. He's still little and he's our responsibility." It was a lesson that had been ingrained in them from the first time their brother had left the house with them to play. They were to protect him against any eventuality, but they'd never envisioned anything like this.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Sean and Michael will be coming with me now. You'll stay here tonight. I'll have a new family ready for you tomorrow." She'd turned to his brothers and spoken briskly. "Get your things, boys."

"No," Sean said, still defiant.

Ryan had looked into the woman's unrelenting gaze and known it was over. "You don't have a choice, Sean," he'd said, defeated. "We have to do what she says."

Ryan would never forget the look of betrayal in Sean's eyes as he left. Ryan had watched through the living room window as they drove away, but Sean had never looked back. All of his attention had been focused on Michael, who was sobbing his eyes out.

Ryan hadn't cried that night or the next, when he'd been transferred to his first official foster home. For weeks he'd asked about his brothers, but the replies had been evasive, and eventually he'd given up. Even at nine he'd known that he was no match for a system run by adults. He'd fought back the only way he knew how-by stirring up trouble everywhere he went.

It had been a childish form of retaliation against people who'd only wanted to help. He could see that now, but back then it had become a way of life, his only way of lashing back.

Now, staring up at Sean's apartment, he sighed. How could Sean possibly forgive him when he couldn't forgive himself for not finding his brothers years ago, for not reuniting them? It didn't matter that he'd only been nine. As the years pa.s.sed, he could have found a way.

Maybe Sean hadn't forgiven him. Maybe the reason Sean had pa.s.sed along his address was simply because he wanted an opportunity to vent years of pent-up rage. Ryan thought he might even welcome such a reaction. It couldn't possibly be worse than the anger he'd directed inward all these years.

There was only one way to find out how Sean felt, though. He had to cross the street, walk up the stairs and knock on his door. And he'd do just that...any minute now.

Maggie clutched the address of the apartment across town where Ryan was going to meet his brother. She drove there with her heart in her throat. When she found the block, even though it was after ten o'clock, she spotted Ryan sitting in his car, his shoulders slumped, his gaze locked on the building where his brother lived.

She crossed the street and tapped on his window. "Want some company?"

He rolled the window down, even as he shook his head. "Too late."

"You've already seen him?"

"Nope. I've decided this is a bad idea."

Maggie walked around to the pa.s.senger side and slid in. "You'll never forgive yourself if you get this close and don't follow through."

"I'm used to it. There are a lot of things I've never forgiven myself for."