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the evening’s plans fitted in with her own. Even Ruairi had just assumed she would be happy to meet up with him before her family had hijacked their dinner date.
    Serves you right for not telling him no when he first asked you, a little voice in her head admonished, but Maggie didn’t feel like heeding it. She preferred to hug the unfairness of it all to her chest, anything to counteract the feeling of embarrassment that flushed her cheeks every time she thought of Ruairi and that moment in the park.
    Irritated with everyone and everything, she kept her spine straight and her head high as she stalked into the Chinese restaurant. It was a wasted effort though because nobody was watching. They were all too busy chatting and laughing as they caught up on old times. She slipped into the one vacant chair with a scowl. It was between her two oldest nieces. Aged eight and nine, they had obviously been considered old enough to join the family party and they had saved a place for her between them. Her scowl deepened. Much as she loved them both she wasn’t in the mood to entertain them. The only thing going for it was that it meant she was sitting as far away from Ruairi as possible.
    With a sigh she dutifully bent an ear to their excited chatter and despite her irritation, by the time the meal arrived the old Maggie had won through. It always did when she was with children. She forgot her temper as she helped them to choose portions of food, and then they all got the giggles as they tried to use chopsticks.
    “Maybe we should give in and use the spoons,” she suggested, watching her nieces chase grains of rice around their bowls.
    “That’s the coward’s way out,” Ruairi’s voice cut across the chatter of the table, forcing her to look up and acknowledge what she had known all along, that although she wasn’t sitting anywhere near him, their chairs were on exactly opposite sides of the large circular table in the one place where they were in direct eye contact. Determined that he shouldn’t know about her earlier embarrassment, she lifted her chin at his challenge. He grinned at her and raised a morsel of food to his mouth with perfectly balanced chopsticks. Then her brothers joined in, and soon the whole table was full of exclamations and laughter as everyone ate their food Chinese style with varying degrees of competence.
    Maggie’s display of over-the-top enthusiasm as she encouraged her nieces and brushed up her own skills, was for Ruairi’s benefit. She wanted him to think she was busy and happy with her plans for the future, plans that didn’t include him or anyone else sitting around the table. It was the only way she could contain the heartbreak that was building inside her all over again as she listened to him telling stories about his travels. With each word she remembered anew how she had felt all those years ago when he had first told her he was going away.
    Her ploy worked though. Watching her slowly become the life and soul of the party on her side of the table, Ruairi silently acknowledged that Maggie didn’t appear to have a care in the world, anymore than he had had when he first went travelling. He had been right to ignore the sudden surge of attraction he’d felt when they were in the park because it was the wrong time and the wrong place for both of them. Soon they would be on opposite sides of the world again, as far apart as it was possible to be. As he forced himself to bring his attention back to the table, he wondered why the thought was so unexpectedly painful.
     
    * * *
     
    By the time the evening ended everyone was tired and the two little girls were almost asleep as they snuggled up against Maggie. She smiled down at them as her brother Andrew came around the table to collect them. “Come on sleepy heads, time to go home.”
    They went with barely a protest. Nor did Andrew’s muttered thanks raise a response from Maggie. Suddenly she didn’t care anymore. Let her family treat her as