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she spoke not a word, he took off his wet coat and waited.
    The room was filled with heat from the furnace. It felt as though his clothes were steaming on his body. She seemed sublimely unaffected, centered on her work, reaching for a new tool now and then while one hand constantly revolved the pipe.
    The chair on which she sat was obviously homemade, with a deep seat and long arms, hooks set here and there where tools hung. There were buckets nearby filled with water or sand or hot wax.
    She took a tool, one that looked to Rogan to be a pair of sharp-pointed tongs, and placed them at the edge of the vessel she was creating. It seemed they would flow straight through, the glass so resembled water, but she drew the shape of it out, lengthening it, slimming it.
    When she rose again, he started to speak, but a sound from her, something like a snarl, had him lifting a brow and keeping his silence.
    Fine then, he thought. He could be patient. An hour, two hours, as long as it took. If she could stand this vicious heat, so, by Christ, could he.
    She didn’t even feel it, so intent was she. She dipped a punt, another gather of molten glass, onto the side of the vessel she was creating. When the hot glass had softened the wall, she pushed a pointed file, coated with wax, into the glass.
    Gently, gently.
    Flames sparked under her hand as the wax burned. She had to work quickly now to keep the tool from sticking to the glass. The pressure had to be exactly right for the effect she wanted. The inner wall made contact with the outer wall, merging, creating the inner form, the angel swing.
    Glass within glass, transparent and fluid.
    She nearly smiled.
    Carefully, she reblew the form before flattening the bottom with a paddle. She attached the vessel to a hot pontil. She plunged a file into a bucket of water, dripping it onto the neck groove of her vessel. Then, with a stroke that made Rogan jolt, she struck the file against the blowpipe. With the vessel now attached to the pontil, she thrust it into the furnace to heat the lip. Taking the vessel to the annealing oven, she rapped the pontil sharply with a file to break the seal.
    She set the time and the temperature, then walked directly to a small refrigerator.
    It was low to the floor, so she was forced to bend down. Rogan tilted his head at the view. The baggy jeans were beginning to wear quite thin in several interesting places. She straightened, turned and tossed one of the two soft-drink cans she taken out in his direction.
    Rogan caught the missile by blind instinct before it connected with his nose.
    “Still here?” She popped the top on her can and drank deeply. “You must be roasting in that suit.” Now that her work was out of her mind and her eyes clear of the visions of it, she studied him.
    Tall, lean, dark. She drank again. Well styled hair as black as a raven’s wing and eyes as blue as a Kerry lake. Not hard to look at, she mused, tapping a finger against the can as they stared at each other. He had a good mouth, nicely sculpted and generous. But she didn’t think he used it often for smiling. Not with those eyes. As blue as they were, and as appealing, they were cool, calculating and confident.
    A sharply featured face with good bones. Good bones, good breeding, her granny used to say. And this one, unless she was very mistaken, had blue blood beneath the bone.
    The suit was tailored, probably English. The tie discreet. There was a wink of gold at his cuffs. And he stood like a soldier—the sort that had earned plenty of brass and braid.
    She smiled at him, content to be friendly now that her work had gone well. “Are you lost then?”
    “No.” The smile made her look like a pixie, one capable of all sorts of magic and mischief. He preferred the scowl she’d worn while she’d worked. “I’ve come a long way to speak with you, Miss Concannon. I’m Rogan Sweeney.”
    Her smile tilted a few degrees into something closer to a sneer. Sweeney, she thought. The