A Woman's Heart (6 page)

When she didn't look away from what other women had assured him was a quelling stare, Quinn decided she might just be tougher than she looked.

“The dog and I managed.”

“The dog?” She glanced down at the beast, who was lying beneath the table, head on its forepaws, looking adoringly up at Quinn. “Isn't that amazing.” She tilted her head and studied him. “You're obviously a miracle worker.”

“Maeve's afraid of everyone but my aunt Kate, my mam and me,” the younger boy volunteered.

He had a shock of dark hair, blue-black eyes and a scattering of freckles across his face. But even with the differ
ence in coloring, Quinn had no difficulty in recognizing him to be the grandson Brady had boasted about.

“Her name is Maeve?” Quinn asked.

“After the warrior queen of Connacht from the old stories. It was Mam's idea. She thought being named after such a powerful person might help give Maeve courage.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Quinn said with a sideways glance at Nora. Her face curtained by her hair, she began taking cups down from the open shelf. “She seems like a great dog.”

Admittedly, he might have been a bit of a bastard when it came to Nora. But Quinn didn't have it in him to be cold to a child. Especially one forced to grow up without a father. Not that having a father was any real guarantee of happiness.

“I assume you're Rory.”

“I'm sorry. I should have introduced you to everyone,” Nora said before her son could answer. “Rory, this is Mr. Gallagher.” She went on to introduce the other children.

“I have all your books, Mr. Gallagher,” offered the tall gangly teenage boy with the serious eyes she'd introduced as her brother John.

“Call me Quinn.” Being called Mr. Gallagher reminded him uncomfortably of his father. “And thanks for the support. Your father said your favorite is
The Night of the Banshee.
”

“That was my favorite. But I think I like
The Lady of the Lake
best now. And I especially like that you set it right here in Castlelough.”

“Perhaps you'd like to come watch some filming.”

“Could I? Really?” It was such a small thing. And offered without thought. But it obviously meant a great deal to John Joyce.

“How about me?” This from the younger girl with the
bright nest of Orphan Annie curls. Celia, Quinn remembered. Which would make her the child Brady's wife had died giving birth to. “May I come, as well?”

Nora lit the stove, then shot a stern warning look over her shoulder as she filled a kettle from the tap. “That's enough, now,” she said. “I won't be having you all pestering Mr. Gallagher. He's here to work on his movie and is to be left alone.”

“I don't mind,” Quinn lied. Although he was not usually diplomatic, he could be when necessary.

Nora gave him a look that said she didn't believe him for a moment. “You're a paying guest. Don't you have a right not to be pestered to death?” Her voice lilted with the soft cadence of the Irish west. “Would you be wanting some tea?”

“Of course he'll be wanting tea,” Brady said, entering into the conversation. He looked hale and hearty, revealing not an iota of hangover. Yet further proof, Quinn considered grimly, that life wasn't fair.

“Nora makes the best tea in the county,” Brady assured Quinn. “Stout enough to trot a mouse across, it is.”

“Now there's a thought,” Quinn murmured, watching as his words caused the corners of her mouth to curl in a faint smile. “Tea sounds good. I tried making coffee, but I couldn't get the knack of boiling it.”

“Didn't I tell you we should have bought one of those Mr. Coffee machines, Nora, darling?” Brady said.

“Really, tea's fine,” Quinn insisted.

Everyone but Nora was watching him again, as if he were some sort of unique animal. A unicorn, perhaps. Or the creature in the lake.

“I knew a Donovan Gallagher when I was a girl,” Fionna said. “He had family in Donegal. Would you be knowing of them?”

“No.”

She tilted her head and studied him. “You have the look of the boy I knew. Perhaps while you're in Ireland, you might be wanting to take a visit to Donegal and—”

“No.” Realizing he'd snapped at her, Quinn softened his expression. And his tone. “I'm afraid I'm going to be very busy working on the film. I doubt I'll have time for sight-seeing.”

“Ah, isn't that a shame, now?” Fionna's direct gaze told him that she suspected there might be more to his refusal than a scheduling problem. “To come all this way from America and not see your family…perhaps next time,” she suggested.

“Next time,” he agreed. Wanting to move the conversation away from himself, Quinn turned back to Rory. “So, what grade are you in?”

“Oh, I'm in first form.”

Quinn remembered attending three different schools in three different states during his first-grade year. He also remembered the broken arm his father had given him when he hadn't fetched the bottle of Coors fast enough that September they'd lived in Boulder. “Do you like school?”

“Aye.” The small freckled forehead creased. “But I'm not so sure about next year.”

“Why not?”

“Because when you're in second form, everything changes. You have to learn cursive, and start learning about the lives of the saints, and you become culp…culp…”

“He's trying to say culpable,” Celia broke in with a toss of her head that suggested feminine superiority.

“Culpable?”

“You get reason,” Celia explained. “It means you become responsible. You can't say you didn't know any better because by the time you're in second form, you're supposed
to know the difference between good and evil. So all your sins go against your permanent record.”

“I can see where that might be a worry.” Quinn decided he didn't ever want to get a look at
his
permanent record. “But I can't believe you could have all that many sins,” he assured Rory.

“Everything's a bloody sin.” Mary spoke up for the first time, her dark kohl-lined eyes flashing. Seeing through the makeup the girl had spread like Spackle on her face, Quinn realized she was going to grow up to be a real beauty. “Everything pleasurable, that is.”

“And what kind of words are those from a girl who's decided to become a nun?” Fionna demanded.

“I'm not going to be a nun.”

“Yesterday you said you had a vocation,” Rory reminded her.

“That was yesterday. Can't a girl change her mind?”

“Mary wanted to become a nun because Jack asked Sharon Fitzgerald to the May Dance,” Rory informed Quinn.

“Sounds like Jack's loss.” Quinn's complimentary words caused color to flood into the teenage girl's pale face.

“That's what I told her,” Fionna said.

“Sharon sleeps around,” Celia volunteered. “Which is why Jack asked her to the dance, instead of our Mary.”

That was all it took to make the teenager burst into tears and run from the room.

“Don't be minding the girl's histrionics,” Fionna said matter-of-factly. “She's at an age, don't you know.”

“It's difficult being a teenager,” Quinn agreed. Realizing he was wading once more into murky conversational waters, he was relieved when the kitchen door opened again and an ebony-haired woman accompanied by two children entered the room.

“Good morning, all.” While the greetings the others returned were cheery enough, Quinn thought he detected a sudden tension in the kitchen. Nora, especially, seemed to be studying the newcomer carefully.

“I'm Kate O'Sullivan.” She held out a friendly hand. Her flesh was pale, her grip strong, her smile warm. “And you'd be Quinn Gallagher. And these two are my daughter and my son. I enjoy your books. Even if they are marketed all wrong.”

“Oh?” Just what he needed. Another critic.

If she heard the faint warning note in Quinn's voice, Kate ignored it. “You don't write horror of course.”

“I don't?”

“Surely you know you don't? You write social commentary. In fact, your stories remind me, in many ways, of Jonathan Swift.”

“I'm flattered.”

“Why should you be when it's the truth? It doesn't take a degree in literature to understand that
The Lady of the Lake
is an allegory about prejudice, the overreach of science and the paranoia that can so easily run rampant in small isolated villages such as our own.”

Quinn laughed, liking her immediately. “The woman's obviously a genius. So how would you like a job as my Irish publicity rep?”

“I think you'd be in trouble,” she countered. “Being that there's many in these parts who wouldn't buy a book just because I recommended it.”

“Aunt Kate's a witch,” Rory explained.

“A druid witch,” Celia tacked on.

Quinn was amused by the faint challenge that rose in Kate O'Sullivan's blue eyes at this revelation. “As it happens, I've been playing with the idea of writing a witch heroine,”
he said mildly. “Perhaps you'll make time to consult with me while I'm here.”

It was her turn to laugh. “And wouldn't that start tongues wagging?” Her smile was warm, belying the stereotype of the wicked witch of fairy tales. “Of course I'll consult with you, Mr. Gallagher, if only to make certain you get it right.”

“There you go again.” Nora smiled with affection at her sister-in-law as she placed a flowered teacup in front of Quinn. “Stirring things up again.”

“The gods gave us all unique talents, Nora. Unfortunately stirring things up seems to be what I seem to do best.” Kate gave a slight sigh, then pulled out a chair across the table from Quinn, picked up her little red-haired daughter Brigid and plunked her on her lap.

Unlike the gregarious Rory Fitzpatrick, Kate O'Sullivan's son, standing almost behind his mother's chair, reminded Quinn vaguely of Maeve.

“Hi.” Quinn held out his hand. “My name's Quinn. What's yours?”

The boy shot a quick wary look up at his mother.

“Answer the man, darling,” Kate coaxed gently.

“Jamie.” He stared down at the floor. “Jamie O'Sullivan.”

The surname, which he hadn't paid all that much attention to when Kate O'Sullivan had introduced herself, rang a bell. It was a common enough name in Ireland certainly, but Quinn knew without a single doubt that the bad tempered, foulmouthed drunk in the pub was this little boy's father. He also knew that the reason Jamie refused to shake his hand was not so much because he was shy. He was afraid.

And why not? Quinn thought grimly, knowing all too well how painful a man's big rough hands could be.

He glanced up at Nora and read the regretful answer in
her eyes. And in that suspended moment of shared concern for Kate O'Sullivan and her children, Quinn—who'd spent his entire life deftly avoiding involvement—felt as if he'd just taken a fatal misstep into quicksand.

In Fortune's Hand

I
ntending to retrieve his car, Quinn had put on his jacket and was headed for the front door when Brady called to him.

“From the looks of you, you'd be going out somewhere.”

“I thought I'd walk into town.” Quinn entered the book-filled room, which looked out over green rolling pastures and the distant sea beyond. The sun was brighter in this country renowned for rain than Quinn had expected. “I'm going to need my car to get to the shoot at the lake tomorrow.”

“Oh, you can't be doing that, my boy.” Brady put down the book of Gaelic folktales he was reading on a nearby table. “It's much too far to be walking. I'd offer to drive you myself, but I've a great deal of paperwork to do. The bills don't pay themselves, don't you know. And poor Nora, as lovely and sweet as she is, has never had a head for figures.”

He pushed himself from the overstuffed chair and began
rummaging around in an old desk, finally locating a green ledger book.

“It's no problem,” Quinn said. “The walk will do me good.” Especially after the unusually large breakfast he'd shared with Maeve.

“Truly, there's no need for you to be doing that,” Brady said quickly. “Nora will be more than happy to drive you back into the village to fetch your automobile.”

“I don't want to disturb her Sunday.”

“You won't be disturbing her at all,” Brady assured him. “Aren't you a guest? She wouldn't be having you walk all that way into Castlelough.”

Quinn decided not to mention that he ran longer distances on a daily basis back home.

“Thanks for the suggestion.”

“You're more than welcome.” Brady looked up from sharpening a yellow pencil with a penknife and beamed his approval. “Enjoy your Sunday drive, now.”

Quinn was on his way to the kitchen when he passed the parlor and saw Fionna sitting in front of the lace-covered window, knitting needles clacking.

“I expect you'll be wanting a ride into the village to fetch your automobile?” she called out to him.

He paused in the doorway. “Actually I was planning to walk. Brady suggested Nora, but—”

“And isn't that clever of my son to think of her?” Fionna's smile, which echoed Brady's, set internal alarms blaring. “Our Nora's an excellent driver. And you couldn't have a better tourist guide.”

“Surely your granddaughter has better things to do than chauffeur me around.”

“Now don't you be worrying your head about that.” The knitting needles continued to clack with the speed of dueling rapiers in an old Errol Flynn movie. “The family can take
up her chores for this one day.” With a brisk nod of her bright red-gold head, Fionna declared the subject closed.

It crossed Quinn's mind that Nora's father and grandmother seemed awful damn eager to get the two of them alone together. He wondered idly if they could actually be setting a trap for him, the rich Yank.

It wasn't as if such schemes hadn't succeeded before: get an American to marry you so you can get a green card to live legally in the States, then bring over your entire family on the next boat. Or plane, these days, he supposed.

The idea almost made him laugh. Fionna and Brady Joyce could set all the snares they chose. But in this case their prey was far too wary to be captured.

He'd planned to sneak out the kitchen door without being noticed, but found Nora where he'd left her earlier. The O'Sullivans had apparently departed and she'd changed from the dress she'd worn to church into a pair of jeans, a creamy sweater and a white apron.

She was kneading bread. The warm smell of the yeast coupled with the sight of her slender arms elbow deep in the mound of dough made Quinn's gut twist with something indefinable.

“May I help you?” She glanced up at him with a smile, but her eyes were guarded. As well they should be, Quinn thought grimly. The widow Fitzpatrick was obviously intelligent enough to realize he was way out of her league. “Would you be liking a cup of tea? Or, perhaps, some coffee?”

“Nothing, thanks. I need to go into town to get my car. Brady suggested you'd be able to drive me, but I assured him I can walk.”

“Of course I'll be taking you.” Again, her smile was pleasant, but self-protective barriers remained firmly in
place in her eyes. “If you don't mind waiting until I get this bread in the pan.”

“I don't mind at all.” He turned a chair around, straddled it and leaned his arms on the top of the seat back. “I've never seen bread being made.”

She laughed at that. “What a deprived life you've led, then, Mr. Gallagher.”

“I'm beginning to think you might be right, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” The movement of her hands pushing at the elastic white dough was both homey and sensual at the same time. “I really hate to intrude on your day.”

“You're no intrusion at all. I enjoy driving. And it's a lovely day, after all.”

“Your father said he'd take me if he wasn't so busy with his ledger book,” Quinn said conversationally.

“Ledger book?” Nora's hands stilled for a moment, and she glanced at him in surprise. “The farm account book?”

“That's what it looked like.”

“Well.” She shook her head and began pounding harder at the dough.

“Something wrong?”

“Wrong?” She was refusing to look at him, her voice had taken on a sharp edge, and she'd begun attacking the dough as if she bore it a personal grudge. “What could be wrong with a man tending to business?”

What indeed? Quinn wondered. But something definitely had her ire up. Electricity was practically radiating from every pore.

“Well, that's done for now.” She turned the dough into two oblong pans, covered them with a cotton dish towel, then brushed her palms together to dust off the flour. “It'll just take me a few minutes to wash up and—”

“I'll do that,” a voice offered from the doorway. Both Quinn and Nora turned to see Mary.

“You're volunteering to do dishes?” Nora's eyes narrowed. “Saints preserve us,” she said with an exaggerated brogue that reminded Quinn of her father's. “Ring up Father O'Malley right away, because it's sure we're witnessing a miracle.”

“I've done dishes before. Lots of times,” Mary countered with a toss of her dark head. “Gran sent me in to finish washing up so you and Mr. Gallagher could leave for the village.”

“And isn't that thoughtful of your grandmother,” Nora said dryly. She washed the remaining bits of dough off her hands beneath the tap, dried them on her apron, then took it off and hung it on a wooden hook on the wall. “If you're ready, then, Mr. Gallagher.” After plucking a set of keys from another hook, she walked out the kitchen door, leaving Quinn to follow.

“What the hell is that?” He stared at the huge garishly painted old Caddy sitting in the driveway where earlier red-feathered chickens had scratched.

Nora arched a brow. “Are you telling me you've never seen a miracle-mobile, Mr. Gallagher?”

“This is a first. Is it yours?” He assured himself that he'd survived far worse in his lifetime than being seen by any of the crew in what looked like an amateur artist's rendition of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

“Don't worry, it's Fionna's. Mine is the blue one parked behind it. We fetched it from the pub after mass this morning.”

Thank God. “Nice car,” he murmured.

Nora laughed in a way that told him she knew exactly how relieved he was feeling. “Thank you. It's a wee bit boring compared to Fionna's. But I like it.”

The car, like most he'd seen in Ireland, was a compact sedan that could probably fit into the rear of the Chevy
Suburban parked next to the Porsche in his three-car garage back in Monterey.

“I really am sorry to inconvenience you this way,” he said into the well of strained silence surrounding them as they drove through the rolling green hills. It was obvious that her brief humor over his reaction to her grandmother's colorful Cadillac had faded, leaving her still upset about something.

“It's no inconvenience,” Nora snapped. Then, as if realizing how brisk she'd sounded, she sighed and rubbed at her temple, as if trying to ward off a headache. “I'm sorry. Truly I don't mind driving you into the village, Mr. Gallagher. It's just that I'm a little put out at my family at the moment.”

“For throwing us together.”

She shot him a surprised look. “You knew that's what they were doing?”

He watched the color—like wild primroses—rise in her cheeks, tried to remember the last time he'd been with a woman capable of blushing and came up blank. Even as he reminded himself that innocence held no appeal, Quinn found the rosy hue enticing.

“It was pretty obvious.”

“I'm sorry.” She combed a not very steady hand through her riot of curls. In the midday light her hair glowed like a burning bush. Her wrists were narrow, her fingers slender, her short nails unlacquered, once again bringing to mind a nun. A sensible man would give her a wide berth. Quinn reminded himself he'd always considered himself a sensible man.

“It's not right that you should have to deal with their foolish matchmaking schemes while you're a paying guest.”

“I've survived worse.”

“But you shouldn't have to, you see.”

“Why don't you let me worry about it?” he suggested mildly.

“It's just so…embarrassing. And annoying. As if I'm some over-the-hill spinster who can't get a man on my own.”

Since she'd practically handed him a gilt-edged invitation, Quinn allowed himself the luxury of an in-depth perusal of the woman sitting so close to him. His eyes, safely hidden behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses, looked her over with slow deliberation, from the top of her fiery head to her sneaker-clad feet, where he found a surprisingly whimsical touch—white cotton socks trimmed with lace. And although he knew his mind had no business going off in such a dangerous direction, he wondered if she was wearing more white lace beneath those jeans and that sweater.

“The gold wedding band on your finger proves you're no spinster. And I've no doubt there are more than a few men in Ireland who'd want you, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.”

The color in her cheeks deepened. “I'll be taking that as a compliment, Mr. Gallagher.” Although her voice remained steady, her eyes had gotten that guarded look again. “Especially since you've already assured me I'm not your type of woman.”

He'd been wondering if she was going to bring that up. “I suppose this is where I apologize for my boorish behavior. Although being drunk's no excuse, I can't remember the last time I got so wasted. Believe me, I usually display a helluva lot more finesse when I'm seducing a woman.”

“And are you in the habit of seducing women who aren't your type?”

Quinn gave a harsh bark of laughter. “Hardly. In fact, last night was a first.”

“It was probably the drink,” she offered helpfully.

“Probably,” he agreed, not believing it for a minute. “I suppose that's what I get for trying to keep up with all the toasts.”

Quinn had quickly discovered that when anyone in the pub offered to stand for a drink, it was bad manners to refuse. Then, of course, you had to return the compliment. Next it would be someone else's turn. And on and on until he was amazed anyone was left standing at the end of the evening.

“My father doesn't usually drink so much,” Nora volunteered, as if needing to defend Brady's behavior. “It's his habit to drink a pint or two and get his enjoyment from telling his tales.”

“Alcohol's a slippery slope. Sometimes people can lose their footing.”

“True enough.” She slanted him another curious glance. “You sound as if you have some personal experience with such things.”

“My mother was a drunk.” Quinn had never told another living soul about his mother. He wondered why the hell he'd just told Nora Fitzpatrick.

“Oh.”

She fell silent. And seemingly thoughtful as she drove down the ribbon of road past hedgerows thick with lacelike flowers. The fruit trees blooming in yards along the roadway looked like pink and white bouquets against the blue sky. The windows of the car were open, allowing in air so fresh Quinn felt almost as if he could drink it.

They passed a donkey-pulled cart carrying ten-gallon milk cans, headed, Quinn supposed, to the creamery in Castlelough; amazingly a small dog stood on the donkey's back. The driver of the cart, an elderly man wearing a tweed suit, billed cap and green Wellies, seemed delighted to see them
and waved his hand enthusiastically. Nora lifted a hand to wave back.

“And your father?” she asked Quinn at length. “Did he have a liking for spirits, as well?”

“My father could have been the poster boy for AA. If he'd ever seen fit to attend a meeting, that is. Or go a day without a drink.”

She glanced over at him again, her exquisite face grave. “I'm sorry.”

“So was I.” Quinn hated the sympathy—and worse yet, pity—that seemed to soften her tone.

“And now?”

Out of longtime habit, he shut his mind to thoughts of his father, whose brutal blood tainted his own veins.

“And now I don't think about it.” He gave her a hard level look. His curt tone, thick with a tension he didn't bother to conceal, declared the subject closed.

She should just drive Quinn Gallagher into Castlelough, drop him off at The Irish Rose to retrieve his car and return home to finish her chores, Nora thought, biting her lip at his curtness. After all, the bread would need punching down soon, there was laundry to do—the last time Mary had taken on the chore, she'd tossed in one of Rory's T-shirts and turned all Brady's underwear pink—and, of course, dinner to prepare.

It shouldn't bother her that the man sitting beside her in the suddenly too-close confines of the car seemed to be mired in unpleasant memories of his past. He'd been less than charming since his arrival late last night, and the simple truth was that she'd only rented him a room. She was under no obligation to provide guided tours of the county she loved, concern herself with his brooding or care that he seemed to be filled with dark shadows.