Quinn's Deirdre
Authors: Lee Ann Sontheimer Murphy
Evernight
Publishing
Copyright© 2014 Lee Ann
Sontheimer
Murphy
ISBN: 978-1-77130-768-0
Cover Artist: Sour Cherry Designs
Editor: Melissa
Hosack
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution
of this copyrighted work is illegal.
No
part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without
written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and
places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
In Quinn’s Deirdre, I must give credit where its due,
to my Irish ancestors, to my Granny who taught me the old ways, to my
grandfather, Pat Neely, who gave me my auburn hair, to Tommy
Makem
and Mary O’Hara whose songs touch my soul, and to two
Irishmen who will always own a piece of my heart, Patrick ‘Patsy’ O’Hara, for
whom my son is named and his brother Tony, who wrote me the most beautiful
letter and forced me to learn Irish to read it.
Go
raibh
míle
maith
agaibh
.
QUINN’S DEIRDRE
Lee Ann
Sontheimer
Murphy
Copyright © 2014
Moment of Truth
The wind howled with fury and lashed the last of the
leaves from the trees.
It blew bits of
debris and litter in all directions as Mallory watched.
After three years alone, autumn had become
her least favorite season.
The pretty
colors appealed, but the shift from vibrant, alive green to the drab, bleak
winter didn’t.
She hated almost every
aspect of her new life, but when the sun shone, flowers bloomed, and it was
summer, she tolerated it.
Fall depressed
her; it brought back memories she’d rather forget and reminded her of death,
not life.
As the wind
carried the fallen leaves across the yard and dumped them into the farthest
corner, something in the powerful gusts called to her, and she ventured
outside.
As the blast hit her, cool and
powerful, it rushed through her hair and over her face. Emotions she denied
daily stirred as she realized how much the illusion of her life
gnawed
at her soul.
Every day she lived a false existence, and the lies she told took a
toll.
The untruths drained her spirit.
Renewed and refreshed by the wuthering winds, she
made a reckless decision.
I’m going home to Quinn, and I’m going to be
me, Deirdre.
Forget Mallory.
Deirdre
hadn’t liked her anyway, not much.
None
of her so-called friends knew her, not at all.
Jeff, the man she’d dated on a few occasions had no clue about her past
or the woman who lurked beneath her façade.
If he had an inkling, she figured
he’d run away, screaming.
Jeff might be
enamored of easygoing Mallory but lacked the balls to handle Deirdre.
Mallory no longer existed.
Deirdre banished her the moment she decided
she would go home, back to the only person left who mattered—Quinn
Sullivan.
She’d given him her heart,
shared her body, and allowed him entrance into her soul.
Deirdre’s pulse increased when she thought of
Quinn, as dark as she with eyes the rich shade of sapphires.
Remembering his strong arms locked around her
in an embrace, his broad shoulders sheltering her from the world, and the way
he’d look at her with such intensity she’d melt every time served to make her
miss him more.
She had thought of him each day, dreamed of him at
night, and picked up the phone to call him more times than she could
count.
Deirdre had no idea how many
scribbled letters she penned and tore up without ever mailing.
She’d scanned his business page on Facebook
daily, hungry for photographs and news from his pub, County Tyrone.
Once or twice she left a comment, or rather
Mallory did.
I’ll see him soon.
Deirdre hugged the thought and held it close,
but there remained one slight problem.
Quinn believed she was dead so she would have a lot of explanations
ahead.
I hope he can forgive me.
Chapter
One
The basic ranch style house tucked away on a quiet
street on the far edge of a small town in the Arkansas Ozarks had never seemed
like home, just a place to stay awhile.
All of the furniture had been basic and utilitarian, a brown sofa and
matching loveseat, a twenty-seven inch television, a cheap discount store
stereo, and a wobbly table with two chairs in the dining alcove.
Her bedroom furniture was just as plain and
inexpensive.
The framed photos hanging
on the wall were bought at a flea market hundreds of miles away and the
accents, the dried flower bouquet, the figurines, and the music boxes had been
her handler’s suggestion.
None reflected
her style in the least, but Mallory had been a boring bitch, no doubt about it.
Deirdre packed light, ready to reclaim her
life.
She didn’t bother with the khaki
slacks, the beige blouses, or the navy blue skirts.
They could rot in the dresser drawers or hang
in the closest until the end of time.
She donned her favorite skintight blue jeans and pulled on the one
blouse she liked.
The rich red satin
jersey radiated with power and beauty, much brighter than the mundane look
she’d sported for three years.
It
matched her hair, black as midnight in hell,
the
one
thing the witness protection program hadn’t forced her to change.
They tried, she remembered, but failed when
it proved more difficult to turn black hair blonde.
She removed the contact lenses, ones to
change her eye color and not correct vision,
then
peered at her emerald eyes with a smile.
She liked them much better than the mud brown she’d been sporting.
She dropped the fashion glasses, one more part of
her Mallory look, into the trash along with the boring cosmetics suited to her
alter ego.
The light pinks, the soft
rose, the pale blue and green eye shadows followed the glasses.
Deirdre did her make-up, using the products
she’d bought in the event she ever decided to bolt.
With crimson lipstick, bronze blush, and
vivid turquoise eye shadows to accent her smoky eye look, she restored her
appearance to original.
Liberal
application of her favorite fragrance and thrusting her feet into knee high black
boots completed her transformation.
With a nylon travel bag in one hand, she grabbed her
purse and the keys to the Chevy she’d been driving as Mallory Marsh.
The sedate sedan would take her where she
wanted to go, and if she hurried, she could be there before anyone realized she
had gone missing.
Without bothering to
call in sick at the weekly newspaper where she wrote household hints, the
occasional feature about a quilter or wood carver, and the obituaries, Deirdre
tossed her luggage into the backseat and left.
She didn’t look back, not once as she motored north.
Even if she maintained the speed limit, she
could hit the Kansas City metro area in about four hours.
When she rolled across the Missouri state line,
Deirdre whooped aloud.
She hadn’t set
foot in her home state in three years, although she’d never lived more than
forty miles away.
With vintage rock and
roll blaring from the stereo speakers, she picked up her speed as the rural
scenery flew past.
In Joplin, she paused
to refuel and buy a soda, but she didn’t linger.
Every mile she put behind her increased her
desire to go home, back to where she began.
Although she didn’t have many relatives left, a couple of aunts, some
cousins, and a senile grandfather, Quinn meant everything to her.
For a long time, he’d filled the family gap
for her.
He’d been the closest thing to
family she had.
Leaving him behind ranked as the hardest thing she’d
ever been forced to do, but she’d had no choice.
In researching a news story for her popular
Crime Busting series for a local television station, Deirdre stumbled into a
professional hit.
En route to an
interview, she’d watched the murder of two local police officers with a clear
view of the perpetrators.
She fled but
not before one of the two men recognized her from the news.
Deirdre headed for a detective she knew and
told him what happened. The men she could identify had serious ties to
organized crime.
Based on her
eyewitness account, Kansas City law enforcement tracked down and arrested the
men.
Then they set a trial date and
named Deirdre as the star witness for the prosecution.