Authors: Kate Hoffmann
"No," Keely said. She forced a smile. "I'll be fine, once we land."
"It'll be good to be home," he said. "I don't know about you, but I hate traveling. Not in the U.S., but this foreign travel is too much. The hotels are too small and the food is the worst. And I have to tell you..."
Keely smiled and nodded as the man prattled on and on, but she wasn't listening to a word he said. She pulled the photo out of her purse and stared down at it. Where were her brothers now? Had they all been split up after her father had died? Did they remember her or had they been too young?
A tiny smile curled the corners of her mouth. They were handsome boys. No doubt they'd be handsome men. "Conor, Dylan, Brendan," she murmured. "Brian and Sean."
"Is that your family?"
Keely dragged her gaze from the photo. "What?"
The businessman pointed to the picture. "Your family?"
"No," Keely said. She swallowed hard then forced a smile. "I mean, yes. This is my family. My brothers. And my parents."
He took the photo from her fingers and she fought the impulse to snatch it back and hide it away where it would be safe. For now, all she had was the photo. But the idea of family--her family--belonged out in the open. She wanted to know these brothers she had lost. She wanted to know what really happened to her father and why she'd been forced to grow up an only child.
A different person would be stepping off the plane in New York. She'd gone to Ireland believing she knew who and what she was. She'd been content with her life. But now she was more than just Keely McClain--she was a sister and an only daughter to a man she didn't know. She was a Quinn.
But she was also less. Everything she'd believed she was had been negated within the span of a few hours. All her memories of her childhood were now tainted with her mother's betrayal. The woman she thought she knew better than anyone in the world had become a complete enigma.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we're cleared for landing at JFK. We'll be on the ground in about fifteen minutes."
The flight attendant leaned over and grabbed the wineglass from Keely's tray table, then asked her to fasten her seat belt. Keely accepted the photo back from the man next to her, feeling her stomach flutter nervously. For a moment she thought she might get sick the way she had that day outside Maeve Quinn's cottage. She grabbed the airsickness bag from the pocket in front of her. But she couldn't face the humiliation of losing her honey-roasted peanuts in front of everyone in first class.
Keely pushed out of the seat and hurried to the bathroom. The flight attendant tried to stop her, but she waved her off and locked herself inside. Leaning over the sink, she drew a deep breath and tried to calm her nerves. This was the second time this had happened! It had been years since her nerves had gotten the best of her. But now panic and nausea seemed to descend on her without warning.
"Calm down," she murmured, staring at her reflection in the mirror. "No matter what the truth is, you'll deal with it."
She splashed some water on her face and ran her fingers though her short dark hair. She hadn't told her mother that she was coming home early. Right now, she could only think a few minutes ahead. Once they landed, she'd decide how to approach Fiona.
A knock sounded on the bathroom door. "Miss? We're on our final approach. You have to take your seat."
Keely closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll be right out." She reached for the latch, then pasted a smile on her face.
She found her seat moments before the plane descended to the runway. The next hour passed in a blur, her mind numb with fatigue and pent-up emotion. Like a robot, she walked through customs and immigration, flipping open her passport only to wonder whether she was reentering the country illegally. After all, her name wasn't really McClain but Quinn. Then she dragged her luggage down the concourse to the taxi stand.
She gave the cabbie her address, then decided at the last minute that going home would be useless. She wouldn't get any sleep until she'd talked to her mother. "No," she said. "Take me to 210 East Beltran in Prospect Heights. There's construction on Atlantic, so take Linden."
Keely settled back into the seat, knowing that the ride could be excruciatingly long or mercifully short. Luckily, it was the latter and the cab pulled up in front of her mother's place after only a half-hour ride. The bakery looked quite different from the building it had been in Keely's childhood. It now had a distinctly sophisticated look, with a fancy sign hanging over the door that proclaimed it McClain's--Fine Cakes and Pastries.
Anya had retired years ago, selling the business to Fiona. So she and Keely had carried on. After Keely graduated from high school, she had attended classes at nearby Pratt Institute, honing her artistic talents in design and sculpting. And four years ago, she'd taken over the day-to-day business from her mother. Just last year, as her popularity as a cake designer boomed, she had finally moved out, finding a loft with room enough for a small studio in a trendy location in the East Village. But the everyday baking and decorating was still done in Brooklyn.
Fiona worked at the shop every day, discussing cake designs with nervous brides and picky mothers. Keely rarely had time to get out of the kitchen, decorating cakes for lavish birthday parties and corporate receptions, movie premieres and store openings, as well as high-society weddings. She'd reached a landmark last month, selling a single wedding cake for the same amount of money that her mother had made in an entire year working for Anya. It still stunned her what a little bit of flour, sugar and butter was worth if it looked pretty enough.
Though she'd never intended to follow in her mother's footsteps, she loved her job. She loved the excitement of making a crowning centerpiece for a wedding or birthday party. But all the way back from Ireland, she could barely even think of the work she had waiting for her. How could she possibly spend hour after hour, elbow-deep in buttercream, after what had happened?
The cab pulled up on Beltran and screeched to a halt. Keely paid the cabbie, then grabbed her bags from the trunk and hauled them to the front door of her mother's flat. She fumbled for her key and unlocked the door, then left her things in the tiny foyer.
She slowly climbed the stairs. When she reached the top, Keely knocked softly, then pushed the door open. She found her mother standing near the door, her hand pressed to her chest.
"Keely! Lord, you frightened me! What are you doing here? You weren't due home for another two days."
Her mother's voice sounded strange to her ears. Keely had always thought she had an accent, but compared to Maeve, her mother spoke with barely a hint of Ireland left in her voice. Fiona stepped up and drew her into a warm hug, but Keely stiffened, then pulled back. "I went to Ballykirk," she murmured.
Fiona's breath caught and her gaze met Keely's. "What?"
"You heard me," Keely said. "I visited Ballykirk. I thought I'd go to learn a little more about my ancestry. I thought it might be interesting. Little did I realize."
Her mother's face had gone pale and she pressed trembling fingers to her lips. "You know?"
"I want you to tell me," Keely said, her voice filling with anger. "Tell me they all died in a terrible accident and you couldn't bear to talk about it. Tell me they never existed and Maeve Quinn was wrong. Tell me because those are the only two reasons that I can accept for you lying to me all these years."
"I can't tell you that," Fiona said, her eyes downcast. "It would just be another lie."
"And of course lying is a sin, isn't it, Ma? But then maybe that's why you go to confession every week, so you can wipe away a lifetime of sin." Keely drew a ragged breath. "For once, tell me the truth. I need to know who I am."
She flopped down into one of her mother's over-stuffed chairs, ready to listen to the real story of her life. And once she had the whole truth, then she'd decide what to do next.
"W
HY CAN'T
you understand? All my life, I've believed I was an only child. Do you know how that feels?" Keely snatched up a pastry bag and began to scoop icing into it. "There's no one else in this world that I can call family except you. And what happens when you're gone? Who will I have?"
"A nice thing, that," Fiona murmured, a haughty arch to her brow. "Putting me in my bloody grave so soon, are you?"
Keely sighed, then tossed the spatula back into the bowl and began to pipe the Italian meringue icing over the first layer of the wedding cake. "Why shouldn't I be angry with you? I have a father and six brothers. And you kept me from them."
"How many times have we gone over this? It's been a week since you got back from Ireland. When are you going to forgive me?"
"When you bloody well give me a good reason to," Keely shot back. "I want to know everything. Why you left him, how you could walk away from your children, why you never told me. Until you're honest about everything, then I'm going to keep bringing up the subject."
Fiona sighed softly. "I wanted to keep you from being hurt. There are reasons I left your father. Good reasons."
"I can understand that. Marriage is difficult. But how could you leave your sons? They were your children."
As she had so many times over the past week, Fiona refused to explain further. At first, Keely had been furious with her, lashing back with anger and accusations. Then after a few days, her anger had abated and was replaced by cool intolerance. But now she was frustrated by her mother's silence, curious to know more but stymied at every turn. Keely knew from the look in her mother's eyes that the memories still brought back overwhelming pain. But she didn't care! She picked up the bowl of buttercream and heaved it across the room. It bounced off the wall, then spattered all over the floor.
"Well," her mother muttered, "that's a fine way to behave."
"If you won't talk to me about this, then I have no choice. I'll have to go to Boston and find out for myself."
Her mother drew in a sharp breath. "You'll only get hurt."
"Why?"
"Because," Fiona said.
"That's not a reason!"
"They don't even know you exist."
Her words were barely a whisper, but they were like a dagger to Keely's heart. She blinked as emotion welled up inside of her. "They--they don't know about me?"
"I left Boston right after I learned I was pregnant with you. Your father didn't know. I came here to get away, just for a little while, to decide what I wanted to do with my life. And I just never went back. When I had you, I put my maiden name on your birth certificate and started using that name. Anya was the only person who ever knew the truth. So if you're determined to find them, you have to understand. They won't know you. And they might not believe you."
"I have a right to know them!" Keely cried, brushing a tear of frustration from her cheek.
"And what can I say to stop you?" Fiona asked. "If I tell you everything, you'll still go."
Keely shrugged. "So why not tell me?"
Fiona closed her eyes and tipped her head back. "It was a long, long time ago. Another life."
"And you've made no move to contact them in all these years?"
"I was protecting you," Fiona explained. "I thought my marriage was over. I knew that Seamus would never change. And when I walked out, I never intended to stay away for so long. I decided I'd go back after you were born. But by then, it was even more difficult to leave New York. I had a good job. I'd built a life for us."
"But your sons," Keely said. "How could you--"
Tears flooded Fiona's eyes. "Do you think it was easy leaving them? I thought it would force Seamus to grow up if he had to be responsible for the boys for a while, if he had to pay the bills and take care of the house. I kept in touch with a neighbor for a time, just to make sure the boys were all right." She paused. "I didn't want to leave. But I was trapped. I would have taken them with me, but didn't have a way to provide for the boys, and Seamus did. I'd never worked in my life before I took the job in the bakery."
"I used to make up all sorts of stories about my father," Keely said. "He was so heroic and brave and he died in a very tragic way. You see, I had to make up stories since you never told me anything."
"Would you have been happy with the truth? Your father was a dirt-poor Irish fisherman who spent most of his time on a swordfishing boat out in the North Atlantic. When he was home, he was usually drunk. He gambled away most of what he earned. And when he went back out to sea, I was glad for it."
Keely laughed softly. "And I imagined the reason that you never married again was that you never stopped loving him."
"I'm a Catholic and divorce wasn't an option."
Keely gasped. "You're still married?"
"I am," Fiona said. "I'm not sure about your father. He could have another wife. I suppose that would make him a bigamist."
Keely stared down at the piping on the cake, noticing that her work had become uneven and sloppy. With a soft curse, she picked up her spatula and smoothed the decoration out, preparing to start all over again. "I have to go," she murmured. "I have to know who they are."
"Even if it means you'll get your heart broken? Please, Keely, don't turn this into some romantic fantasy," Fiona warned. "It's more likely to be a disaster."
"And maybe it won't be. Maybe they'll be happy to meet me."
A long silence grew between them. "When will you go?" Fiona finally asked.
"I've asked Janelle and Kim to take care of the jobs for this weekend. You'll have to do the Wilkinson cake and the Marbury cake. They're both decorated with marzipan and I've made all of that ahead of time. You'll just need to frost the tiers and do a little simple piping. I should only be gone about a day or two."
"Then, you'll need this," Fiona said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a chain with a jewel-encrusted pendant. She held it out to Keely. "Take it," she said.
Keely twisted the chain around her fingers and examined the necklace. "What is this?"
"It was given to me on my wedding day by my mother. It's a McClain family heirloom. A claddagh. The Irish symbol of love. The heart is for fidelity, the hands for friendship and the crown for loyalty. I was saving it to give to you on your wedding day." She paused. "Seamus knows this pendant. If you show it to him, he'll know where it came from." Fiona laughed softly. "In truth, this necklace was the reason I left your father."
"It was?"
Fiona nodded. "He'd just come home after two months away. He was drunk and he'd just gambled away most of his pay down at the pub. He took the necklace to a pawn shop and sold it for gambling money. He said he needed to win back what he'd lost. Before I left Boston, I convinced the pawnbroker to let me buy it back over time. It took me three years." She stared at the pendant, dangling from Keely's fingers. "That's the kind of man your father was...the truth be told."
"Maybe he's changed," Keely said softly. "People can change, you know."
"And maybe he hasn't," Fiona countered.
Keely slipped the necklace into her apron pocket. "I guess I won't know for sure until I meet him myself."
She turned back to her cake and studied it critically. Suddenly she didn't have the patience for piping the delicate basket weave. Now that she'd decided to go to Boston and find her family, she wanted to pack her bags and leave right away. A tiny wave of nausea gave her pause, but she fought it back. She was brave enough to face whatever might happen in Boston.
And once she did, she'd be able to figure out who she really was--a McClain or a Quinn.
A
CHILLY WIND
stung Keely's face as she walked down the rain-slicked sidewalk, her hands shoved into her jacket pockets, her gaze fixed a few feet ahead of her. She was almost afraid to look up, afraid to face what she had come to see.
The weather was cold for early October and a nasty storm was bearing down on the East Coast, the prospect of rain heavy in the air. But that hadn't stopped her from driving to Boston. Since she'd returned from Ireland just over a week ago, Keely had dreamed about this day, going over it in her head, then with maps spread out on her bed. She had plotted how long it would take to drive from New York to Boston and back again.
She'd wanted to go the day after she'd returned from Ireland, the moment her mother told her that Seamus Quinn was in Boston. She'd found his address on the Internet and was ready to pick up the phone and call him. But she'd stopped herself, unwilling to act impulsively this time. For once in her life, Keely was determined to think before she acted and not rush headlong into something she knew might be dangerous.
Up until this moment, that had been the story of her life--impetuous decisions, impulsive actions, always leading to a severe reckoning. Like the time a friend had dared her to steal money from the offering basket at church. She'd tossed in a quarter and palmed a five-dollar bill, only to be caught by the old lady sitting next to her. Keely had been forced to clean the church bathrooms for six months to pay for that little lapse.
Then there was the time she'd run away with the drummer from a sleazy garage band. She'd been sixteen and had made it as far as New Jersey before the guy dumped her. Fiona hadn't let her out of the house for almost six months for that unwholesome adventure. And just last year, she'd been hauled into jail for punching a policeman who'd been trying to roust a homeless man who lived in the alley behind her apartment. That had gotten her a substantial fine and a genuine police record.
But her trip to Boston, though risky, wasn't really reckless. She had no other choice but to come. Only now that she was here, her only thought was how easy it would be to turn around and go home, to take the safe way out and resume her old life. But curiosity drove her forward, in spite of her pounding heart and her quickened breathing. Maybe her mother had been right.
The past was the past,
Fiona had said.
Leave it alone.
The past that Keely had believed was
her
past had been nothing but a lie, a fabrication devised to quell a curious child's questions. The father she thought had died in a commercial fishing accident was really alive. And the siblings she'd always longed for were living in a city just a few hundred miles from her home in New York, living lives that she could only imagine. Keely drew a shaky breath, then turned and looked across the street.
It was there, right where it was supposed to be, neon beer signs blazing in the plate-glass windows. Quinn's Pub. She'd gone to her father's house, screwed up her courage and knocked on the front door, only to have a neighbor tell her that Seamus Quinn was at the pub he owned, just a few blocks away.
"Seamus," she murmured as she stared at the pub. "Seamus, Conor, Dylan, Brendan, Brian, Sean, Liam."
Until a month ago, the names were those of strangers. But in just a few moments of shocking revelation in Maeve's cottage in Ireland, they'd become her family. Now, she repeated the names over and over again, hoping the mere sound of the syllables would conjure up images of the men who belonged to them.
"All right," she murmured. "What's the plan?"
Maybe it would be best just to get a feel for the situation first. She'd go inside and order a beer, maybe get a look at her father. She crossed the street, but as she approached the bar, a man pushed open the front door and stepped outside, then another right behind him. An Irish tune drifted into the night from the interior of the pub, then disappeared on the wind. The lights flooding the front facade provided enough illumination for Keely to see both men, but her gaze was caught by the taller of the two.
It had to be him, though she wasn't sure which him it was. His features were so unique, the dark hair, the strong jaw and the wide mouth, the very same features she looked at in the mirror every morning--only hers were softened to a feminine form--the same features she'd seen in the old photograph, now altered by age.
Keely had no choice but to continue walking. To turn and run would only draw attention to herself. As she passed the pair, she glanced up and her gaze locked with his. The recognition she felt was reflected in his own expression and, for a moment, Keely was sure he was going to stop and speak to her. A jolt of panic raced through her and she opened her mouth. But a casual greeting was too much. Instead, she just kept walking...walking until she felt a pang of regret at the missed opportunity.
"Keep walking," Keely murmured to herself. "Don't look back."
When she reached the front door of the pub, she started up the steps, but her courage had already been severely shaken. If this was how she reacted to a stranger on the street--a stranger who might not even be one of her brothers--then how would she react when she spoke to her father for the first time in her life?
Another wave of panic overwhelmed and she spun on her heel and hurried back down the steps. She kept going until she reached the shadow of a panel truck parked along the curb. Then Keely turned and watched the two men as they got into an old car parked halfway down the block. Had he recognized her the same way she'd recognized him? Had he seen the same family resemblance that she'd noticed?
The car pulled away from the curb and the two men drove past her. At the last second she stepped into the light. "Wait!" Keely called, raising her hand to wave at them.
But her voice caught in her throat and the words were barely more than a sigh. "Wait," she murmured as the taillights of the car disappeared into the rain and darkness. Keely stood on the sidewalk for a long time, letting the raindrops spatter on her face and the cold seep through her jacket.
A shiver skittered down her spine and Keely blinked, forced to admit that she had failed. With a softly muttered curse, she started back in the direction from which she had come. When she reached the safety of her car, Keely closed her eyes and tipped her head back, trying to ignore her disappointment.