LITMIR.BIZ

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He crossed the room and held out his hand to Ian. “Sorry, bro. Won’t happen again. You’ve got my word.”

      Marcus smiled to himself. The three Quinn brothers had formed an unshakable bond at an early age. After their mother’s illness had been diagnosed and they’d been shipped off to Ireland to live with their grandmother, they’d learned to depend upon each other. From the moment they’d arrived in Dublin, they’d been outsiders, wary Americans forced to live in a culture whose rules they didn’t understand.

      And after they’d returned from Ireland, they’d become known as “those” Quinn boys, with their odd Irish accents and their independent ways, young men who could string curse words together like seasoned sailors and beat the stuffing out of men twice their size in a fistfight.

      Ian had been eighteen when they’d returned and had immediately enrolled in college, anxious to get a start on his adult life. When he was accepted into the Providence Police Academy, he’d continued his education at night, graduating with a degree in criminal justice. Two years ago, he’d left the Providence PD and taken the job as police chief of their hometown, Bonnett Harbor, a picturesque Rhode Island village on the western shore of Narragansett Bay.

      A year younger than Ian, Declan returned in time for his senior year in high school, bringing his grades up so he could apply to MIT. Four years of college, a knack for electronics and a stint with naval intelligence had paved the way for a job in corporate security. Declan’s security consulting firm was the favorite among corporate bigwigs and multimillionaires along the East Coast.

      Marcus had made the most difficult transition. He’d spent the majority of his childhood on Irish soil, away from his parents from age five to fourteen. He’d come back to a country that was as foreign to him as Ireland had been nine years before. School had been hell, and he’d avoided it whenever possible, retreating into solitude and avoiding close friendships. His brothers had been his only friends.

      But his talent in art, especially carving and sculpture, had set him on an odd career path—first art school and then a few years working as a wood-carver with a boat-design firm in Boston. He’d been recruited as an instructor at a small school for boat restoration in Massachusetts. Now he ran his own show, doing commissioned wood carvings and building pretty wooden sloops based on vintage designs.

      “Maybe we should take a break,” Dec suggested, flopping down next to Ian on the sofa and kicking his heels up on the battered crate that served as a coffee table.

      Marcus glanced up from the cockpit combing he’d been varnishing. “I’m the only one doing any work here, unless you call drinking my beer and eating my food ‘work.’”

      Dec grabbed the can of peanuts from Ian. “I was talking about women. We should take a break from women. You know, step back and try to gain a little perspective. We can’t see the feckin’ forest for the trees.”

      “What are you saying?” Ian asked.

      “He’s saying, in order to understand women, we should give up women,” Marcus translated.

      Giving up women would be impossible for Ian. He lived on his charm, able to navigate the most difficult situations with ease. While Marcus had few friends, Ian knew everyone and they loved him. Dec, on the other hand, was more focused. He was the thinker in the family, the one guy who was driven by the need to succeed. Any challenge, whether it was in his professional or personal life, was met with unrelenting resolve.

      “We should study them,” Declan suggested. “We’re three relatively clever guys. If we put our heads together, we should be able to figure women out. But you can’t figure them out while you’re sleeping with them, I know that. I’ve been sleeping with them for years and I’m no better off than I was the night I first did it.”

      Ian nodded. “The more women I know, the less I understand them.”

      Marcus rested his arms across the top of the ladder. “Maybe they’re not the problem. Maybe we are.”

      “Speak for yourself,” Dec said. “I know what the hell I’m doing in the sack. No one’s ever complained.”

      Marcus shook his head. “I mean with … relationships. Isn’t that what you’re talking about?”

      “And what the hell would I do with a relationship?” Dec asked. “I don’t have time for that.”

      Marcus chuckled. “I rest my case.”

      “He’s right,” Ian said. “We want what everyone else wants. To get married. Start a life. Have a family. Look at our cousins, Uncle Seamus’s boys. There are six of them and they’re all married now.”

      “So we’ve got issues,” Dec said defensively.

      Ian straightened, as if offended by the comment. “What issues? If I had issues, I’d know about it.”

      “Not necessarily,” Dec continued. “I once dated this psychology grad student, and after she heard about our childhood, she said it wasn’t any surprise that I had an attachment disorder. She was right, because after I listened to a few more hours of her psychobabble, I detached her from my life.”

      “You have this disorder?” Ian said.

      Marcus climbed down the ladder as he spoke. “We all probably do. You gotta admit, after we were separated from the family, the only people we really trusted were each other.”

      “What about our cousins?” Ian asked. “They had the same start in life as we did, their da off working the Mighty Quinn and their ma disappearing on them. Did they have this disorder?”

      Marcus shrugged. “Maybe. But they obviously overcame it since they’re all married now.”

      “Where did you hear about this disorder?” Ian asked Marcus.

      Marcus set the bucket of varnish on the workbench and searched for the turpentine to clean the brush. He shrugged. “Sometimes I watch Dr. Phil while I’m eating lunch.”

      He dropped the brush into a can of paint thinner then fetched a beer for himself. After sprawling himself in a ragged easy chair across from the sofa, he took a long drink of the cold beer.

      “The way I see it, women are like peanuts,” Ian declared, breaking the silence.

      Dec laughed. “All right, ya daft wanker, I’ll bite. How are women like peanuts?”

      He held up the jar, then tipped some peanuts into his hand and popped them into his mouth. “The first handful is great,” he said as he chewed. “The best thing you ever tasted. But then you keep eating them and eating them and they don’t taste that special. After all, they are just peanuts, right? But then, you don’t have them for a week or two and they’re good again.”

      “And by not having them, you understand the nuts? You gain insight into their behavior?” Declan asked.

      “It’s not the best metaphor,” Marcus said, jumping into his role as peacemaker between his two older brothers.

      “How did we even get on the subject of women?” Ian asked.

      Dec grabbed the peanuts and poured a measure into his hand. “Women spend most of their time together talking about men. If we spent more time talking about them, even objectively observing them, we’d be better off. And in order to do that, we need to stop sleeping with them. And stop socializing with them. Everything, full stop.”

      “No women? For how long?” The scowl on Ian’s face was enough to tell that he wasn’t in favor of the plan.

      “As long as it takes,” Dec said.

      “My social life is crap anyway,” Ian finally replied. “Since I moved back to Bonnett Harbor, I can’t sneeze without half the town knitting me a bleedin’ afghan. If I started dating, there’d be all sorts of gossip.”

      Dec looked over at Marcus. “What about you?”

      “He barely dates

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