LITMIR.BIZ

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table, and the unmatched wooden chairs surrounding the table had been painted school-bus yellow. The window had been left open to admit moist air that carried the fragrance of freshly mowed grass and the distant scent of the sea; white lace curtains swayed in the early-morning breeze.

      He found an old-fashioned aluminum percolator sitting on the stove. The note taped to it informed him that the family was at mass and would be home by ten o’clock at the latest.

      “I’ll be making breakfast,” the neat convent-schoolgirl script assured him. “But if you wake before I return, there’s porridge on the stove, a tin of coffee on the counter, and you’re welcome to anything you find in the icebox.” It was formally signed, Nora Fitzpatrick.

      Quinn glanced up at the round-faced wooden clock on the wall. If he had to wait another forty-five minutes for coffee, he just might die, after all.

      “Looks as if we’re on our own, sport.” The oatmeal, kept warm in a double boiler and too reminiscent of youthful farm days, held little appeal.

      When he opened the refrigerator door, the dog grinned. “How about some bacon?” Quinn took the white-wrapped bundle from the meat compartment and a blue bowl of speckled eggs from a wire shelf. “Do you prefer your eggs scrambled or fried?”

      The dog barked eagerly.

      “Yeah, me, too,” Quinn said. “Fried it is.”

      The bacon was thick and spicy, more like ham than the bacon Quinn was used to back home. Both he and the dog agreed it was delicious. The oversize eggs might have ended up a little crispy at the edges, but neither of them was in a mood to complain. Quinn ate three, enjoying the sweet taste of the butter he’d fried them in; the dog inhaled two.

      The only failure was the coffee. It was as thick as the black peat bogs Quinn had passed on the way to Castlelough.

      “Peat would probably taste a damn sight better,” he told the dog, whose morose expression seemed to be offering canine sympathy.

      Although he usually drank his coffee black, he tried cutting it with the rich cream he found in the refrigerator, then tossed in a heaping spoonful of sugar. He took another tentative sip, decided it wasn’t going to get any better, but in desperate need of caffeine, downed it in long swallows, anyway, like bitter-tasting medicine.

      The caffeine clicked in almost instantly, putting a slightly sharper edge on the fog surrounding his brain. Quinn decided some fresh air might do the rest.

      “So how about giving me a tour?” he suggested to the dog after he’d washed and dried the dishes and put them away.

      Filming didn’t begin for another two days, and since he’d left the rented Mercedes outside the pub, Quinn figured he was stuck here until the family returned and someone could drive him into Castlelough to retrieve it. Then again, he reconsidered, from what he remembered of last night’s drive, it wasn’t that far into town. He could probably walk there. Later, after he felt more human.

      When he opened the door that was split in two Dutch-style, the dog raced out ahead of him.

      The house he’d only glanced at last night was a basic two-story farmhouse with a rounded yellow thatched roof. It was in need of a fresh whitewash, but the baskets of crimson flowers hanging on either side of the blue door added cheerful splashes of color. Several red hens pecked in the gravel in front of the house, green herbs jostled for space in a small garden, the white sheets on the clothesline fluttered in the morning breeze, and a rutted dirt driveway led to a wooden gate.

      Last night’s rain had stopped, leaving the sky clear save for the wisps of blue smoke coming from the chimney and a few clouds that meandered overhead looking like shaggy lambs. The land folded out in green fields where herds of white-faced cows and flocks of sheep grazed. The heads and shoulders of the sheep had been marked for identification with various Day-Glo colors, and the blue, orange, chartreuse and scarlet gave the shaggy animals the look of punk rockers.

      Since the nearby barn brought back more memories of those harsh foster-care days he was determined to forget, Quinn went back into the house to unpack.

      * * *

      Nora stood outside the gray stone church, surprised to discover that by allowing one of the Americans into her house she’d become a celebrity of sorts herself. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to know what the famous Mr. Quinn Gallagher was like.

      “We didn’t have much opportunity to talk,” she replied evasively to Father O’Malley’s inquiry regarding her boarder. The priest was a young man with a tall, asparagus-stalk-thin body. The first time Nora had watched the father cutting peat, she’d realized the cleric was far more vigorous than his bookish ascetic appearance suggested. “He arrived late.”

      “I heard he spent the evening at The Rose. Do you think he has a drinking problem?” the priest asked with a frown.

      Since it was obvious that the men at the pub had been telling tales, Nora decided there was little point in trying to avoid the question. “I worried about that. But Mr. Gallagher assures me it was an aberration. And he was, after all, with Brady.”

      “That does explain a great deal,” the priest allowed. “However, if he gives you any trouble, Nora, I could always find room for him at the rectory.”

      “Thank you, Father. That’s very kind. But I’m sure he won’t be any problem.” With that lie stinging her tongue, she smiled and drifted away, hoping she could gather up the family and get back to the farm before the troublesome American awoke and demanded his breakfast.

      Yesterday’s storm had passed, leaving behind a brilliant blue sky that seemed like a benediction. As she drove back to the farm, Nora decided to take the glorious day as a sign that her next encounter with her boarder would go more smoothly.

      * * *

      Quinn finished putting away his clothes in the old oak chest and had returned to the kitchen to take another stab at coffee making when he heard the crunch of car tires on the gravel outside.

      Moments later the door burst open and two children—a boy and a girl who appeared to be about the same age—ran into the room, followed by a pair of teenagers, then Fionna and Brady. Bringing up the rear and backlit by a sun that turned her hair to flame, was Nora Fitzpatrick.

      She was wearing a high-necked heather-hued dress that stopped just a bit above the knee and a well-worn blazer the color of rain. If the skirt had been a few inches longer, she could have been a nun. When she shrugged out of the blazer to hang it on a wooden hook beside the door, Quinn discovered that the widow Fitzpatrick’s body, which last night had been hidden beneath a bulky sweater, was far more curvaceous than he’d first thought. And the softly clinging dress was anything but nunlike.

      A face of a convent girl and a body built for sin. It was, he was discovering, a perilous combination. The woman wasn’t merely trouble. She was pure TNT.

      And Quinn felt as if he’d just been handed a lit fuse.

      She greeted him with a hesitant smile. “So you’re up,” she said. Her scent, which made him think of making love in a meadow of wildflowers during a soft summer rain, had entered the kitchen with her.

      Deliberately, to prove to himself—and to her—that he could, Quinn aimed cool dark eyes at her exquisite face. “I woke up about an hour ago.”

      “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to fix you breakfast.”

      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

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