A Woman's Heart (20 page)

He figured he and Nora were probably already a major topic of conversation in Castlelough before today. And although he'd given up caring what people thought about him years ago, he still had to admit to a feeling of pride that people believed Nora was his.

“The kid's going to need a computer at college, Nora. In America, it's a traditional graduation present.”

“Perhaps in America. But not many Irish families can afford such a gift.”

“That's because not every family is generous enough to open their house to a Yank who had a helluva good time buying one.” When he realized she wasn't smiling, he tried a different tack.

“Your brother's a smart kid, Nora. He works hard, obviously keeps his nose to the grindstone more than most his age, and he's got an admirable goal.”

“It was after our mother died that he decided to become a doctor,” she revealed quietly.

“I kind of figured that might be the case.” Quinn knew better than anyone how the loss of a mother could change a kid's life. In his own case, he'd often thought he owed a great deal of his success to working his ass off trying to prove to the world—and himself—he wasn't anything like his alcoholic loser parents.

“Competition to get into medical school is tough,” he went on. “Surely you're not going to deny him every opportunity to gain an edge?”

“No. I wouldn't want to be doing that.” She sighed as the all-too-familiar Catholic guilt kicked in. “You're a very persuasive man, Quinn Gallagher. It's certainly not difficult to believe you've Irish blood.”

Although it still wasn't his favorite topic, Quinn didn't find the topic of his heritage as threatening as usual. He did, however, decide it was time to change the subject.

“I'm glad you like the earrings.” He reached out and touched one with a fingertip.

“I love them. So much so that I'm not even going to complain again about the cost.”

“Now you're getting the idea.” He almost wished he'd also bought the emerald ones that matched her eyes. But, he suspected, there was only so much this frugal farmer's daughter would accept as a gift. “By the way, there's another present in the back seat.”

She reached around and retrieved the gold-and-white shopping bag from the rear seat. “Oh, my saints!” Nora lifted the froth of black lace and silk from its bed of tissue paper. “I can't imagine wearing such a revealing thing,” she murmured as her fingers caressed the silk.

“Fine. I'll just take it back, and—”

“You'll be doing no such thing!” She hugged the teddy to her breast. “It's stunning, Quinn. Thank you.”

“You're welcome.” She was getting better at accepting gifts and compliments. Which made Quinn want to keep giving both to her. “Just don't go getting too attached to it,” he advised. “Because believe me, you won't be wearing it for very long.”

Because she had no answer to a statement that was both promise and threat, Nora said nothing.

Quinn placed his hand between them, next to hers. The contrast between his tanned flesh and her own pale skin stirred a vivid memory of how that hand had looked against her breasts. Breasts that had begun aching for his touch.

She slipped her hand beneath his.

He linked their fingers together.

And, as foolish as some might find it, Nora thought she'd swoon from the pleasure of such a simple touch.

After a while he turned onto an even narrower road, which led to a secluded glen that bordered a small lake, and cut the engine. It had begun to rain, draping the car in a slanting gray curtain.

“How did you know about this place?” she asked.

“Hey, scouting out a place to park with your girl is an old American tradition.”

He'd called her his girl. Joy sang through Nora's veins as he turned toward her. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face and waited to be swept away.

The touch of his mouth on hers was feather-light and utterly sweet. His lips brushed hers once, twice, then a third time, tasting, teasing, tantalizing.

“I've been going crazy all day,” he murmured, “remembering your taste.” He nipped the side of her neck, then soothed with the tip of his tongue where he had bitten. “Re
membering how perfect you felt in my arms. How perfectly I fit inside you.”

Her bones were turning to water. She could barely lift her hand to his cheek. “I've been remembering that, too,” she whispered, her fingertips trailing down the side of his face as if she was memorizing his features by touch.

When he caught hold of her hand and pressed his open mouth to the inside of her wrist, her blood began to heat in her veins.

He ducked his head again. This time his mouth took hers in a sumptuous heated kiss that turned everything to soft-focused slow motion. It could have lasted minutes, hours or an eternity. Time seemed suspended as Nora's entire world narrowed down to Quinn's thrilling lips.

She felt drunk. Drunk with desire, dizzy with need. He'd spent the long and wondrous night teaching her the magic a man and woman could make together, and now she was going to wield it like Merlin's sword, using its power to make him as crazy as he'd made her.

She turned in his arms, and as her avid lips and agile hands moved over him, Quinn realized that somehow, when he hadn't been looking, last night's eager student had become the master. Need rose like a wild beast inside him, snarling, snapping, clawing for freedom.

“My God, Nora…” He reached for her, but she was faster, pulling his cotton sweater over his head, somehow managing to keep just out of touch in the close confines of the car. She shrugged out of the new blazer and tossed it into the back seat.

“Not yet.” She laughed, a deep throaty sound that could have come from one of her pagan ancestors out to seduce a king. Needing to touch, to taste, he began ripping off her clothes, even as she tore at his.

“It's my turn,” she murmured as her tongue teased a dark
nipple, causing Quinn to groan. Her lips skimmed down his taut belly and he had to bite back the sharp curse. “You made love to me all night. Now I want to make love to you.”

His breath clogged in his lungs, and his heart battered against his rib cage so painfully Quinn wondered if he was about to have a heart attack. When her hungry lips moved even lower and she took him into her mouth, Quinn decided that if he did die at this moment, it'd be worth it.

“I want to be inside you.” He reached blindly for his jeans, but reading his intention, she plucked them from the floor of the car and took the foil package from the front pocket.

“Is this what you're looking for?” Her smile was seductive as hell, giving Quinn a very good idea of how Eve must have looked when she was holding that bright red apple just out of Adam's reach.

“Nora…” The warning growl reverberated from deep in his throat.

Appearing blithely unthreatened, she tore the package open, then slowly smoothed the condom over his stone-hard erection as he'd taught her last night, protecting them both.

Just when he thought for certain he was going to embarrass the hell out of himself by exploding beneath her erotic touch, Nora lowered herself onto him.

The feel of her, tight and hot and slick, was all it took for the animal in him to burst free. Quinn could practically hear the chain snap as she began riding him like a woman possessed.

Last night her flesh had gleamed like pearls. Now, bathed in the faint glow of the sunset valiantly shimmering through the gray mist, her skin appeared golden, as if she were a goddess, created by a master alchemist.

Grabbing hold of her waist, he dug his fingers into that
damp glowing skin and surged upward into her. He watched her as they moved together, counting her orgasms, reveling in the range of emotions that moved across her flushed face in waves. Quinn loved the way she could feel so much. Loved that he was the one who made her feel it.

He'd already passed last night's personal best when she stiffened, shuddered, then collapsed against him as every inch of her body began to tremble.

Only then did Quinn surrender fully to the beast. With one last mighty surge, he gave in to his own mind-blinding release.

Moving Hearts

T
he rain had stopped, revealing a line of purple dusk stealing its way across the reed-rimmed lake. A planet burned on the horizon; the first stars appeared. Although vaguely aware of the possibility of discovery by some evening fisherman, neither Nora nor Quinn were in any hurry to move.

As she slowly recovered, Nora touched her mouth to his chest in a soft tender kiss. “I love you.” It was barely a whisper, but Quinn had no trouble hearing it in the hushed stillness. The words reverberated around the car and inside his head like bullets, as if she'd just fired a very lethal gun.

“Nora…” He ran his hand down her hair. “I don't know what to say.”

She lifted her head, her eyes warm and a little sad. For a fleeting instant he thought he detected a bit of pity in those rich green depths. “You don't have to say anything. I didn't tell you so you'd feel obliged to say the words back to me, Quinn. Love isn't something you can plan. Or demand in return. It just is.”

She lifted a hand and smoothed the lines carving canyons between his dark eyes. “It's a gift,” she said soothingly. “Like the ones you bought for all of us in Derry. Since I couldn't possibly afford anything so fine, I'm giving you one of the only things I have of any value.”

Her heart. Her goddamn warm, generous, loving heart.

“What if I don't want it?” He told himself that his deliberate gruffness was for her sake, not his.

He braced himself for tears and was surprised when she laughed, instead. “It's too late.” She touched her smiling lips to his tightly set ones. “I've already given it away. Even in America it must be considered bad manners to return a gift of the heart.”

“Nothing's changed,” he warned.

Nora didn't answer. There was, after all, Quinn thought grimly as they dressed, no need. Because they both knew that was a lie. The biggest he'd ever told.

Trying to brush her tangled hair into some semblance of order, she looked into the rearview mirror. When she saw the flush in her cheeks, the edgy excitement in her eyes, and her swollen lips, Nora was certain that her entire family would know exactly what she and Quinn had been doing.

And amazingly she didn't care.

“Does this mean you've changed your mind?” she asked as he turned the key and put the car into gear.

“About what?”

“About taking that lovely bit of black lingerie off me tonight.”

That provocative question was all it took to make Quinn hard again. Wondering if perhaps Kate wasn't the only witch in the family, Quinn shook his head.

“You might be able to make me crazy, sweetheart, but I'm not stupid. Besides, I still have places I want to take you.”

Because he needed to touch her again, to make contact, no matter how slight, he reached out, took her hand and squeezed. The crooked grin he slanted her as they drove away from the lake revealed all of the rich affection he was feeling for her and none of the turmoil. “Magic places.”

 

A visitor can't travel to the west of Ireland without being aware of peat. During his weeks in Castlelough, Quinn had seldom been out of sight or smell of it. He'd drive past the straight black banks cut into the green hills, the piles of neatly stacked sods leaning against stone walls. Slabs of black buttery peat were piled up beside every house, cottage and shop, drying for use as insulation and fuel for the hearths.

“We've good peat in our bog,” Nora's older brother assured Quinn as he led him across the hills toward the black field overlooking the sea. Michael was wearing an unbleached Aran sweater, a thick pair of handwoven tweed trousers and boots. Since Quinn had no idea what one wore to go bog cutting, he'd opted for jeans and a black Oakland Raiders sweatshirt. Fortunately Michael had supplied him with boots.

Maeve loped on ahead of the two men, happily flushing out rabbits in the field. The dog had been waiting at the foot of the stairs for him this morning, wagging her tail, eagerly awaiting further developments. Since Rory would be at school all day, Quinn didn't have the heart to leave the eager wolfhound at home.

“A week's worth of cutting should last the family through the coming winter,” Michael said with satisfaction. “The peat's three to four meters deep in most places.”

“And steep,” Quinn observed as he looked a very long way down to a narrow beach where a trio of fisherman in
yellow oilskins were hauling their curraghs down to the water.

“Aye. And that's a strange thing. It used to be that such steep cliff land wasn't thought to be good for all that much. Farmers value the flat fields for grazing, you see. But that was back in the days when a man could only get land by inheriting it or marrying into it.”

“And now?”

“And now, because of all the blow-ins—Yanks and Europeans who dream of a country life without having any idea what it's like to live on a farm—the steep land is becoming worth more than the flat. For the view, don't you know.”

His dry tone suggested he considered such blow-ins, as the Irish tended to call anyone who couldn't trace their ancestry back at least two centuries, “eejits.”

“It is a terrific view,” Quinn held his breath as Maeve planted her huge paws on the very edge of the cliff and began barking at wheeling sea gulls.

“That's true enough. And at least there are some who appreciate it. Which makes them who actually move here better than our own city people, who are buying up the farmland for investment but would never set foot on it themselves. Men who couldn't grow a single potato in a tub of manure.”

“I suppose speculators grabbing up land has been going on forever,” Quinn suggested. “Back home everyone's concerned about the farmers being forced off the land by big conglomerates and economics.”

“I've been reading about your farmers. I'm especially interested in their modern milking methods. And Nora's thinking about joining the cheese guild. I've also met a few who come to the country tracking down their family roots. Farming's never been easy. Too much depends on luck, Mother Nature and God's whims. But I've lived in the city,
and now, like the wayward prodigal son, I've returned home. I won't be leaving again. This is the only life I want.”

Quinn thought about Yeats describing the country people of Ireland as passionate and simple. Passionate, Michael Joyce was. About his land and, Quinn knew, his family. He also suspected, that like the rest of his family, the man wasn't nearly as simple as he first appeared.

Michael took off his cap and combed his fingers through his curly black hair as he looked over the fields. “People around here think of land as something they belong to. Not the other way around.”

“People such as Nora, you mean.” Quinn decided there was no point in beating around the bush.

“Aye.” Her brother gave him a warning look. His blue eyes turned crystal hard. “I care for my sister, Mr. Gallagher. A great deal.”

“Call me Quinn. And we have that in common.”

“I also can't see her being happy living in Hollywood.”

“Actually I live in Monterey, which is on the California coast south of San Francisco,” Quinn corrected mildly. “But I get your point. And that's another thing we agree on.”

“So you'll not be asking her to leave Castlelough with you when you go?”

“No.” This was one of the few things—the only thing— Quinn was very sure about where Nora was concerned.

Although Quinn wasn't certain Michael was totally happy with that answer—since they both knew that either way she was going to be hurt—he appeared to be satisfied. Or, more likely, Quinn thought, he'd just as soon drop the personal conversation. Nora's brother seemed less gregarious than Fionna, Brady or even John, a man more comfortable work
ing with his hoes and cows than discussing family matters with a stranger. Quinn couldn't blame him.

They set to work, cutting through the black peat with wing tipped spades, which Michael informed Quinn were called slanes.

“You have to cut the steps,” he explained, demonstrating by cutting a trio of steps in the peat. “Tradition has it that Saint Columba got tripped in a bog hole one day and was so furious he laid a curse on all those who didn't cut three steps so he could get out.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Now, I can't say whether I do or not,” Michael mused, rubbing his chin. “But there's no harm in cutting them just the same.”

Although cutting the turf proved easy, considering it had the consistency of butter, the lifting of the sods, which each weighed about twenty pounds and was rough as sandpaper, proved to be hard back-straining work. And although he'd put away a huge breakfast of scones, black pudding, bacon, fried potatoes, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, by the time the sun was directly overhead, Quinn was starving. He was also extremely grateful for the brown bread, cheese and meat pie Nora had insisted he take along in Rory's knapsack, despite his arguments that after that herculean breakfast, he wouldn't be able to eat again for a week.

They stopped for lunch and sat enjoying the view—miles of beach to one side and blue-tinged mountains to the other, the stuttering golden sun, dew on the grass, even a rainbow to add a perfect touch. Back home in California, developers would probably be willing to commit murder for the opportunity to put a resort and glass-walled restaurant on the site.

The ancient romance he'd found to be part of the country lingered in the wisps of fog floating past like silent ghosts.
Down below, children were climbing over rocks on the shore.

“They're gathering seaweed,” Michael said when Quinn pointed them out. “Probably to fertilize their family plots. Those roped-off places are mussel farms. The fishermen dangle their ropes into the water, and at the end of the summer, they pull them up and the mussels will be clinging to the ropes, just waiting to be thrown into the pot.” He glanced at Quinn. “It's a shame you won't be here in August. Castlelough puts on quite a mussel fair.”

“I'm sorry I'll miss it,” Quinn answered, surprised that it was the truth.

“It's a fine time. There's traditional music and storytelling, and free tastings on the street. Mussels are evil-looking things, but they taste good served up with butter and lemon. Nora uses garlic.” He grinned. “Gran complains it's not traditional, but I've noticed she always manages to eat her share.”

“Your sister's a great cook.”

“She is that. There aren't very many good places for tourists used to fancier fare to eat around here, so Brady's been after her to open a bed and breakfast after John goes off to university. But of course the farm takes up a great deal of her time, so she's been putting him off.”

Returning from her morning of chasing rabbits, Maeve sat down on her haunches beside Quinn, cocked an expectant ear and whined. He tossed her a piece of cheese and watched as she snapped it up in midair, swallowing it in one gulp.

Nearby, mangy donkeys climbed over rocks and sheep hung picturesquely from the cliffs. “You'd think they'd fall off,” Quinn said.

“Oh, that's been known to happen,” Michael allowed. “Just last fall one of my best ewes leaned too far over the
edge to reach a bit of grass and tumbled down onto the rocks and was washed away. Sheep,” he said dryly, “are not the most intelligent of animals.”

They continued eating in companionable male silence broken only by the caw of a raven, the cry of gulls, lowing of cows and the distant bleating of sheep.

“I know a man in Connemara—Patrick Gallagher,” Michael divulged. “His mother has a book with the names of all the family members who emigrated over the years. Perhaps, if you'd like—”

“I don't think so.” Quinn cut him off in the same way he had Fionna, when the elderly lady had first suggested he might have family in Donegal. “Gallagher's a common enough name. It doesn't necessarily follow that we'd be related.”

“Well, you have a point.” Michael gave him a thoughtful study as he drank his tea from an insulated cup. “However, you have the look of him. The two of you could be brothers.”

Quinn was vaguely interested in spite of himself. “I suppose he's a farmer, too?”

“Aye. A bit of a one. Connemara's hardscrabble land, not as productive as this,” he said with a wave of his hand over the emerald and black fields. “So, his family has always supplemented their income by distilling
poitin.
”

“Figures I'd have relatives who're bootleggers,” Quinn muttered.

“It's a fine traditional occupation,” Michael corrected him. “And one of the few true examples of Irish entrepreneurial spirit.”

“It's also illegal.”

“For the most part, although now hasn't the government licensed some for selling to tourists in the duty-free shops?”

“I've tasted Kentucky moonshine.” Quinn paused to
throw Maeve another piece of cheese, which she wolfed down. “White Lightning, they call it.” He didn't think he'd ever forget the burn going down.

“That's well named. John L. O'Sullivan called our
poitin
a torchlight procession down your throat,” Michael said approvingly. “The best—like that the Gallaghers are known to make—can warm up the insides of a man like a peat fire on a cold December day. The worst—” he shook his head “—could stiffen a tinker.”

“Don't they get raided?”

“From time to time. But mostly the Garda turn a blind eye since they have so many relatives in the business themselves. And even when they do hold their raids for the newspapers, the word has usually already gotten out, so they don't manage to catch many people.” He pointed to a small green speck out in the ocean. “See that island?”

“Barely.”

“It's where some lads from Dublin once tried growing marijuana. It took the Garda so long to blow up their rubber raft, the growers had time to row out around to the back of the island, harvest their crop and get away.”