A Woman's Heart (15 page)

“That's what you say now. But you're fooling yourself.” His fingers tightened in a way Nora knew would leave bruises. “I won't be kind.”

Although she'd rather attempt to face down a banshee on a moonless night on the Burren, Nora forced herself to meet Quinn's challenging gaze straight on. “I don't believe that.” She was pleased when her voice revealed none of the anxiety bubbling up inside her.

His answering curse was rich and ripe. “Once won't be enough.”

Tangled nerves had her laughing at that. “Sure, and I was hoping not,” she said, her exaggerated brogue earning another rare genuine smile. Like a fledgling bird making its first attempt at flight, hope took stuttering wing in her chest.

She'd never been a woman to make the first move. With Devlin, their kisses had been a spontaneous shared exploration of youthful emotions. Conor had literally swept her
into his arms less than ten minutes after he'd walked into his sister's horse barn and found her sitting on a bale of hay, crying her eyes out over her poor dead mam.

There'd been other kisses from other men, not many, but enough for her to understand that this ache to taste was as unique as Quinn Gallagher himself.

Linking her fingers together at the back of his neck, Nora went up on her toes and touched her mouth to his.

Magic. Quinn felt it in the sizzle of heat as Nora's lips touched his, tasted it in the hot wine flavor of the kiss, heard it in the small sound—a murmur or a moan, he couldn't quite tell over the thunder of the blood pounding in his head—that vibrated beneath his mouth as he took the kiss deeper. Darker.

Passion, restrained for too long, rose like the wind, tearing from him into her. Desire, rich and ripe and hot, flowed from her lips directly into his bloodstream. She strained against him, saying his name in a way that was part plea, part prayer as his mouth roamed her uplifted face, gathering in the taste of salt mist, searing her skin, cooling it, then setting it aflame again.

She was burning. Engulfed in emotions more turbulent than she'd ever experienced before, Nora was vaguely aware of the echo of the incoming tide, the cry of the gulls, the moan of the wind. And then, all those faded into the distance as she heard the lovely music of Quinn calling her sweetheart in a far different way than all those other times he'd practically flung the word at her like a challenge.

She clung to him, as if he were an anchor, a lifeline in a sea of titanic waves. His hands were beneath her sweater, caressing her in a wicked practiced way that left her shuddering.

“I want to make you crazy.” His lips skimmed up her
throat; he touched the tip of his tongue against the fragrant hollow where her pulse hammered.

“You are.”

“It's not enough.” He nipped at her lips in painful yet pleasurable bites that had her moving restlessly beneath his hands. “I want to make you as crazy as you've made me. Being with you is almost all I've been thinking about.” He kissed her eyelids, which fluttered obediently closed. “Dreaming about.”

“I know.” Her own hands had sneaked beneath his sweater, allowing her to revel in the feel of the smooth skin and taut muscles of his back. How could such a strong hard man have flesh as smooth as an infant's bottom? Nora wanted to feel him everywhere. Heaven help her, she wanted to taste him everywhere. “I know the dreaming.”

“Thank God.” His rich laugh held none of the acid sarcasm or anger she was used to hearing. He took his hands from her hot flesh, leaving her feeling bereft as he tugged the sweater back into place.

“Another minute of that, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and I would have been dragging you down to the sand and taking you right here and now.”

“Another minute of that, Mr. Gallagher,” Nora retorted on a ragged breath, “and I would have helped you.”

Chuckling again in a very unQuinn-like way, he framed her face with his palms, bent his head and touched his lips to her ravaged ones in a kiss so sweet it nearly made her weep.

“I want to take you to dinner.”

She told herself that it was because her head was still spinning that she'd misunderstood. “After that fine meal you made us?”

“No.” Another kiss. Longer, sweeter. “Tomorrow night. I want to drive into Galway for dinner in a fine restaurant,
with candlelight and wine and a rose in a crystal vase in the center of the table, and perhaps, if we're lucky, even a romantic violinist to serenade you.”

“You want to take me out on a date?”

“For starters.” He laughed at the enthusiasm for the idea that was emblazoned all over her face. Her lovely lovely face. “Then, I figured, we could take things from there.”

Nora knew he'd chosen Galway to get her away from home, where everyone would talk about them. Of course, she considered, spending an evening, and perhaps even a night, away with the man more than one Castlelough resident was now referring to as “her American,” would be guaranteed to set tongues wagging. In Castlelough, as in most villages, gossip was the coin of the realm. And the Americans were providing a wealth of stories.

“I'd love that.” It was not in Nora's nature to play coy. “But Fionna's leaving for Derry in the morning, and even if I could talk Da into staying at home with the children…”

“Mary and John are old enough to baby-sit. And Kate's just a phone call away, on the next farm.”

“You're right of course.”

Her mind was whirling its way through her closet, wondering if she possessed anything remotely suitable for such a romantic evening, when she heard the sound of her name being carried on the wind. She turned and experienced a jolt of surprise mixed with pleasure.

“Oh! It's Devlin!”

“Devlin?” Quinn didn't like the rich warmth in her tone.

“A boy I knew from school. His mother is Mrs. Monohan, who sold you the wine and curry.”

The man walking toward them on a long beach-eating stride was built like an oak tree. Broad and firm and solid. When Nora waved at him, he began running, and when he
reached her, swept her up with a bold confidence that caused something hot and lethal to slice through Quinn.

“Jaysus, if you don't get more beautiful every time I see you, wench,” Devlin Monohan said. As Quinn was forced to watch, the Irishman kissed her full on the mouth. Nora, Quinn noticed with building fury, kissed him right back. “It's a wonder all the men in Castlelough aren't crippled from walking into stone walls whenever you go by.”

“And you're more full of blarney every time I see you,” Nora said laughingly. “Next time you'll have to give me warning. So I can dig out my Wellies to wade through your foolish compliments.” She banged a palm against his shoulder. “Now put me down so I can be properly introducing you.”

“That's always been your trouble, Nora, me love,” he said, nevertheless doing as instructed. “You've always been too proper for your own good.” His expression was open and friendly as he turned to Quinn, acknowledging him for the first time. “Good evening to you. I'm Devlin Monohan, the man this one drove to distraction once upon a time ago.”

The fact that he'd not imagined the familiarity between the two did nothing to lighten Quinn's mood. “Quinn Gallagher.” He reluctantly shook the outstretched hand. It reminded him of a bear's paw.

“Of course you are. I'd recognize you even if Fionna hadn't told me that Nora was down here with you. I enjoy your stories, Mr. Gallagher. And admire the affection you portray for animals. The tale about the ghost stallion was particularly well done.”

It was difficult for Quinn to hate someone who'd just paid his work a compliment. But the memory of this man's mouth on Nora's made it easier. “Thank you.”

“Devlin's a veterinarian,” Nora said. “He's just gotten
a position at the National Stud.” She beamed up at him. “I'm so proud of you!”

“That's very impressive,” Quinn said grudgingly. He knew that the Irish stud farm was responsible for the bloodstock of the world's greatest Thoroughbreds.

“It's an honor,” Devlin said easily enough. “And one I hope I can live up to.”

“Of course you will,” Nora said with a fervent loyalty that had Quinn grinding his teeth. “You've always had the magic touch when it comes to horses, Devlin.”

“And you've always been prejudiced, love,” he countered with a deep laugh. “I suppose Mam told you my other news?”

“That you're getting married? She did, and I think it's wonderful.”

“I'm rather fond of the idea myself,” Devlin Monohan's rapt expression revealed that “fond” was something of an understatement. “And that's why I've interrupted yours and Mr. Gallagher's sunset stroll. To invite you to a party to meet my new bride-to-be.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful! When?”

“Since I'm due at my new position the day after next, Mam was thinking tomorrow night.”

Nora's face fell. “Oh. I'm sorry, Devlin, but I'm afraid I have plans—”

“Nothing that can't be changed,” Quinn broke in. “We can go to Galway some other night. You should celebrate with your friend.”

She was, Quinn noted, clearly torn as she looked back and forth between himself and the other man.

“I don't want to be influencing you either way, Nora,” Devlin said. He looked over at Quinn, his friendly gaze now measuring. “And of course you'd be invited, as well, Mr. Gallagher.”

“I wouldn't want to intrude…”

“Oh, it wouldn't be intruding. Besides, wouldn't it give my mother boasting rights throughout the entire county for the next decade having one of the Americans in her house for a social event?”

Quinn knew that Nora would not renege on her agreement to go to Galway with him. He also knew that he didn't want to risk a possible pall over the evening from any guilt she might be feeling from missing the engagement party of an obviously very close friend.

“It sounds like fun,” he said, not quite truthfully. Although from his brief meeting with the gregarious Mrs. Monohan in the mercantile, he was sure she'd be an excellent hostess, he'd much rather be wining, dining and making mad passionate love to Nora in Galway. “Please tell your mother I appreciate the invitation.”

From the expression on Nora's face as she looked up at him, Quinn realized he'd done the right thing.

“Thank you,” she murmured after they'd said their goodbyes and were watching Devlin walk back toward the stone steps carved into the cliff. “That was a very generous thing to do.”

Quinn shrugged. “I could tell you wanted to be with him and—”

“No. I wanted to be with you. But Devlin's important to me, as well.”

“So it appears.” Quinn had to ask. “I suppose he was your first lover?” Apparently Mary had gotten the wedding-night story wrong.

“No,” Nora said mildly, ignoring his all-too-familiar gritty tone. “My husband was my first lover. Devlin was my first love.” She linked her fingers with his and smiled at him in a way that made Quinn feel like an ass. “And you've no reason to concern yourself about him. Even if he
hadn't gotten himself engaged to another woman, what Devlin and I shared was over a very long time ago.”

“But you're still friends.”

“Aye. Perhaps as you and Laura Gideon are.”

Quinn had no response for that. Taking pity on him, Nora stopped walking, went up on her toes again and gave him a kiss that, brief as it was, still packed one helluva punch.

“You don't have to worry about me having romantic feelings for Devlin, Quinn.”

That may be, Quinn told himself as they walked back up the steep breath-stealing steps. But the romantic feelings he was harboring for this woman, whose slender hand fit so perfectly in his, was definitely something to worry about.

Something to Believe In

K
ate O'Sullivan had spent a restless night. She'd tossed and turned, then suffered an anxiety attack shortly before dawn that had her heart pounding so hard she'd feared she was having a heart attack. She'd been left feeling as fragile as glass.

It wasn't just because she and Cadel had had another fight. After all, hadn't she learned to expect him to be out of sorts when he spent the entire day drinking whiskey in the pub? The pitiful truth was, that drunk or not, Cadel O'Sullivan was an ill-tempered bully. And by agreeing to marry him when she'd discovered she was carrying Andrew Sinclair's child, she'd made a deal with the devil.

Nora was, of course, right about her needing to do something about her marriage, Kate thought as she waved Jamie off on the bus to school. But fortunately, with her husband having stormed off to stay with his cousin in Dungarven, such decisions could be put off a bit longer.

“Quinn's coming today,” she told her daughter, Brigid,
as she washed the breakfast dishes. “We're going to go to the stones.”

“Stones!” the red-haired toddler shouted gleefully while banging a spoon against a pot lid. “Brigid dance with fairies!”

“Aye.” Despite her continuing unease, Kate smiled and thought how wonderful to be of an age when everything was an adventure. Just then there was a knock on the kitchen door. As she went to answer it, she said, “And won't the fairies smile when they see you've come visiting?”

“Fairies will smile. And dance!” Brigid abandoned the pot and spoon and began spinning around the kitchen, looking like a whirling flame-topped daffodil in her bright yellow dress and leggings.

Quinn had no sooner entered the kitchen when he was attacked by a whirling sunshine-bright dervish. “Dance!” the toddler shouted as she spun up to him and grabbed hold of his legs.

“Far be it from me to refuse a beautiful girl.” He scooped Brigid up in his arms, breathed in the scents of milk and baby powder, and began waltzing around the kitchen.

“I thought I might drop her off at Nora's, but we're running late,” Kate apologized.

“Didn't you hear, Mrs. O'Sullivan?” He dipped the little girl and made her giggle. “When God made time, he made plenty of it.”

Kate hung up the dish towel, then cocked her head, studying him. He'd certainly changed since that first morning she'd met him at the Joyce farm. It could be her imagination, but she'd swear the harsh lines on his face had softened. And his dark eyes had lost their flinty hardness. She couldn't imagine the man she'd met that morning waltzing around the kitchen with a two-year-old.

“Still, I know you're a busy man.”

“The day I'm too busy to dance with a beautiful redhead is the day I need to reexamine my priorities.”

“Dance with fairies!” Brigid announced loudly.

“I told her we were going to the circle of stones,” Kate explained as she took a small white Aran Islands sweater down from the hook beside the door. “It's one of her favorite places. If you don't mind her coming with us, that is.”

“I'd like that,” he said, meaning it.

He'd never been all that comfortable around babies and little children, but Brigid O'Sullivan was so outgoing it was impossible not to fall under her cheerful spell. Quinn wondered if Jamie had once been this gregarious. Then wondered how long it would take for Brigid's spirit to be darkened by her ill-tempered father, how long before she'd lose the ability to trust.

And speaking of Cadel O'Sullivan…

As Kate retrieved her daughter and managed to get the little girl to hold still long enough to tug her sweater on, Quinn couldn't miss the purplish mark on her cheek. Visions flooded into his head: his battered mother's ugly bruises, her trembling hands, the tears flowing from her sunken eyes. He could hear the rough curses, the raised voices, the screams. Could smell the sickening stench of blood.

Fury clawed at his gut with razor-sharp claws; his vision went crimson with rage. His hands curled into painfully tight fists at his sides, the instinctively violent reaction reminding Quinn that, despite all the fancy trappings of wealth, deep down inside, where it counted, he was still his father's son.

He had no doubt that if he'd known Kate when Cadel O'Sullivan had first confronted him in The Rose, things would have ended differently. Sickened by the evidence of
the man's brutish behavior on Kate's face, equally sickened by his own knee-jerk impulse for violence, Quinn jammed his fists into his pockets and tried to decide the best way to broach the subject.

Apparently oblivious to his internal battles, Kate finished buttoning the sweater and stood up. “Well, then, if you're ready?”

“I've been ready since you first mentioned the stones,” he said, deciding there'd be time to bring up her husband's abuse later. When his head was cooler and he could more carefully censor his words.

Not for the first time since arriving in Castlelough, Quinn wondered what it was about this place that made him so quick to involve himself in people's lives. How was it that everything got so personal so fast? If he didn't know better, he might think there was something in the water. Or, he mused, perhaps Kate really was a witch and had cast a spell over him.

He followed her over the hilly countryside, where cows grazed in pastures fenced by stones, to an intoxicating breezy trail overlooking the sea. In the pearly light the Atlantic glistened like a precious jewel, the string of islands looking like green humpbacked sea monsters. The sight soothed his senses, and the bracing scent of salt air cleared his mind, temporarily banishing old ghosts.

“It's not far.” Kate had been holding Brigid's hand, but picked her up when the trail came dangerously close to the edge of the savage cliff. “It's on the border between a field I share with the Joyces.”

That was something Quinn had noticed, that not all a farmer's fields were adjacent to one another.

“Oh, it's a tricky thing,” Kate explained when he asked her about it. “The land is handed down to successive generations over the years and gets all broken up. Then, a
farmer who owns a field next to mine might not want to sell because it's better land than the field next to his own house. And I might feel the same way about a field next to one of my neighbors. So we all make do, and I can't see it changing anytime soon.”

That certainly wasn't a surprise. From what Quinn had seen thus far, change came slowly to the west of Ireland. Which was, he thought, a great part of its charm.

The faint trail was full of wiggles and twists, cutting across headlands, heather-tinted moors and cliffs indented with hidden coves. When they came around one blind turn, Quinn stopped in his tracks.

“Wow.” Although he'd seen pictures of Celtic stone circles, he wasn't prepared for the actual sight. It was staggering. Suffused in the luminous misty sea light were the sixteen man-size
gallans
—standing stones—surrounding a huge recumbent stone in which lines and swirls had been chiseled. They were located in a small grove of ancient oak trees that had somehow managed to escape the ax back when Richard II plundered Irish woodlands for timbers to build the roof of London's Westminster Hall.

“The symbols are ogham,” Kate explained, running her fingers over the etchings.

“A bardic alphabet,” he said, remembering from his research.

“The letters are symbolic, with each letter standing for a variety of ideas relating to Celtic philosophy.”

“Like a secret code, of sorts, to keep the common folk from reading the writings.”

“Aye.” She sighed at that less than democratic idea. “There are legends of entire libraries written in ogham, where all the ancient stories were preserved. Although the old Greek and Roman chronicles suggest they were mostly used for casting spells.”

Since the stones were a good distance from the cliff, she put her daughter back down on the ground. Quinn smiled as he watched the toddler begin to twirl like a laughing dervish.

“She feels the magic,” he suggested. Quietly, because he was feeling it again himself.

“I've thought that, as well,” Kate said. “She was just a babe, less than six weeks when I brought her here the first time. She was plagued with colic, a poor wee unhappy thing she was, squalling her head off all the way along the cliff. Until I took her into the circle.

“Then she immediately hushed and I watched her looking around, and although I know there's many who'd suggest it was only gas, I watched her smile. And listen. And I knew she was hearing the voices of those who'd come before.”

“I probably wouldn't have believed that a month ago,” Quinn said.

“And now?”

He'd never seen a woman more in her element than Kate appeared at this moment, watching her daughter dance with fairies. “And now I guess you'd have to call me an agnostic.”

She laughed at that. “Ah, isn't the magic getting to you now, Quinn Gallagher.” Her voice sounded like wind chimes in a brisk morning sea breeze. “Another few weeks and we'll be making a true believer of you.”

Quinn smiled back, feeling none of the tension with this lovely intelligent woman that he experienced with her sister-in-law. “It almost seems as if she's hearing some type of music,” he said, watching the toddler spin from rock to rock.

“I suppose that isn't so surprising, since my grandmother on my mother's side was an Early. Which means the blood of Biddy Early flows through her young veins.”

“I think I hear a story coming.”

“We do like our stories,” Kate agreed cheerfully. “Even those of us who aren't
seanachies,
like Brady. Biddy Early was from County Clare. It's from her that Brigid gets her bright copper hair.

“Biddy was a famous healer with the gift of Sight, who outlived three husbands and invited a great deal of local gossip upon herself by marrying a fourth time—to a fine, much younger handsome man—when she was in her eighties. When she died, the parish priest, who, needless to say, did not look with favor upon her practice of white magic, took her fortune-telling bottle from her cottage and cast it into the tarn of Kilbarron, where it remains to this day.”

“So now you carry on the family tradition.”

“In a way. When people come to me with problems, it's difficult to turn them away. I was baptized into the Church and confirmed, as well, yet I can't help believing, despite what Father O'Malley preaches, that if I wasn't meant to be following the Old Way, I wouldn't have been given the gifts of the ancient ones.”

“Makes sense to me.” Quinn had never been a fan of any organized religion. “So if it's not too personal a question, may I ask if you inherited Biddy Early's gift of Sight?”

He was almost tempted to also ask if she could see what lay ahead for him and Nora. But not wanting to get into a discussion about a relationship he still hadn't been able to define, he refrained.

“Aye. A bit of it, at any rate. But I never see anything I might need to know myself unfortunately. Mostly it's just shadows.” Like the ones that had lingered uncomfortably after last night's dream, she thought, experiencing another fleeting twinge of something she could not quite explain.

Knowing there was no point in forcing a vision, Kate turned her thoughts back to Quinn's question. “There are
rare occasions when a vision comes more clearly. I saw my brother Conor's accident, for example, but I had no way of telling when it would happen or where. I tried to warn him, but he was a stubborn man, overbrimming with self-confidence, and would be hearing none of it.”

“How did Nora respond?”

“Oh, I didn't tell her. I've never believed it's my place to tell people bad news that can't be avoided. It hurt our friendship for a time, but Nora's a good-hearted person and has never been one to hold a grudge.”

When Brigid came running across the circle, Kate scooped her up, braced her against her hip and gave Quinn a serious look. “Nora's not had an easy time of it. And she's in for more pain.”

“If you're suggesting I'm going to hurt her…”

“Oh, you will, indeed. But isn't that the way with men and women?” Shadows moved across her expressive blue eyes like clouds across the sun. “But something else is going to happen to someone she loves. I haven't been able to see who. Or when.

“The worry has been deviling my sleep, and when I'm awake, it hovers on the edge of my thoughts like the lingering fragments of a dream I can't quite recall. I've even tried coming up here every day, but it hasn't helped.

“But I do know that Nora will be needing you to stand by her, Quinn. To offer her strength in a trying time.”

“I'll do my best.” It was time to bring up Kate's own troubles, he thought as they turned away from the stones and began walking back down the twisting path. “Speaking of trying times, perhaps I should have a little talk with your husband.”

“Cadel?” Her head spun toward him. “What would you be wanting to talk with Cadel about?”

“How about suggesting that if he lays a hand on you
again, as your new friend, I'll have no choice but to beat the living daylights out of him?”

Her face went as pale as glass. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You're a delightful woman, Kate Fitzpatrick O'Sullivan, but you're a lousy liar.”

Because he knew from personal experience that this could well be an issue of life and death, Quinn decided to forget about concealing his harsh childhood and go for broke.

“My father used to beat my mother. I tried to help, but all that ever happened was he'd beat me, too. Then be even harder on her.”

Kate looked away, as if unable to bear the pain she could no doubt read in his eyes. “I'm sorry.”

“So was I. He got sent to prison for killing a man in a drunken brawl. The jury convicted him of manslaughter. I wasn't old enough to understand the logistics, but I did understand that he wouldn't be coming back for a long time. And when the sheriff called to tell my mother that my father had been fatally stabbed in a prison riot, I was probably the happiest kid in the entire state of Nevada.”