A Woman's Heart

He was too brash. Too dangerous. Too male. How in the name of all the saints was she going to put up with this arrogant man in her house for four long weeks? Reminding herself she’d already spent the generous deposit the rental agent had forwarded to repair the smoking chimney, Nora gathered up her scattered composure and managed, with effort, to hold her tongue.

Wanting to get the man out of sight and mind as quickly as possible, she glanced over at Brady, who’d collapsed in his easy chair. Since he was obviously too unsteady on his feet to escort their boarder up the steep set of stairs, it appeared Nora was stuck with him.

“I’d best be showing you to your room.” Then, since the writer appeared nearly as unsteady as Brady, she had no choice but to put her arm around his waist to help him balance. “Before you pass out and end up spending the night on the floor.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

Oh dear. She wondered what Brady had gotten them into, renting a room to a man accustomed to coming home drunk. Despite the much-needed funds he represented, Nora vowed on the spot that if he caused any problem in front of the children, she was going to send the American writer on his way.

“Not the passing-out part,” he elaborated, as if reading her mind. “Despite appearances to the contrary, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, I am not a drunk.” He spoke slowly and deliberately. Exactly, Nora thought, like a drunk.

“You’ve no idea how it pleases me to hear that, Mr. Gallagher.”

As she began leading him across the room, he glanced back over his shoulder. “Good night, Joyce. Thanks for the welcome. I enjoyed myself immensely. Ma’am, it was indeed an honor.” This last to Fionna.

“Good night to you, too, Gallagher,” Brady said.

“It was indeed interesting, Mr. Gallagher,” Fionna responded. “Pleasant dreams.”

“Nice lady,” Quinn said to Nora.

He leaned against her and slid his arm around her shoulder in a surprisingly smooth gesture for a man who’d been drinking. The stairs were narrow, forcing them to climb thigh to thigh. Nora had the impression of steel—hard and unyielding.

“Lord, you’re soft.” Quinn leaned down and nuzzled her neck. “And you smell damn good, too. Like wildflowers and rain.”

Nora would bet her prize bull that he said that to all the women. “And you smell like whiskey.”

“Unfortunately that’s probably true.” He frowned. “I don’t know what the hell got into me.”

“I suspect too much Jameson.” She opened the door to the bedroom she’d grown up in and they stepped inside. “You’ll have the devil’s own head in the morning.”

“Undoubtedly true, also. But it was worth it. Your father is one helluva storyteller.”

“Aye, he is that. The best in the county. The finest in all Ireland, some say.”

“That wouldn’t surprise me. I suspect it doesn’t hurt to have Joyce blood flowing in his veins.”

“No. I imagine not.” Nora, who’d been brought up to be proud of her literary heritage, had often thought that same thing herself. “Still, it’s easy for the hours to slip away when he begins spinning his tales.”

“So I discovered. The hard way.”

Their eyes met and in a suspended moment of shared amusement, there occurred a flash of physical awareness so strong that Nora had a sudden urge to hug herself. With her mind whirling the way it was, she couldn’t decide if the desire came from a need for self-protection or an even stronger need to feel the touch of hands on her uncomfortably warm body.

At the same time Quinn seemed to turn strangely angry. His smile vanished and his dark eyes went shuttered, like a pair of windows painted over with pitch.

“You know what I said about going to bed?” He shrugged out of his leather jacket and tossed it onto a nearby chair.

“I don’t think we should be talking about this.” Nora’s unruly heart fluttered like a wild bird as she pulled back the handmade quilt that had been a wedding gift from her sister-in-law. Then she reached up, took hold of Quinn’s broad shoulders and pushed him down onto the bed.

“Tough. Because, you see, sweetheart, there’s one thing you should know about me. I’m the kind of guy who likes to put all his cards on the table right off the bat.”

Nora was not accustomed to men she hardly knew calling her sweetheart. And she definitely wasn’t accustomed to having such an intimate conversation with a stranger. Wondering how it was that the man could still appear threatening while lying flat on his back, she nevertheless gave him a go-ahead gesture.

He was, after all, a guest. Besides, it seemed prudent just to let him have his say. Maybe then he’d drop the bloody subject.

“The point I want to make, sweetheart, is that I’ve decided I’m not going to sleep with you.”

Nora’s temper flared like a match in the night. “And I suppose you’d be thinking it’s your decision to make in the first place?”

Telling herself she didn’t care about his damn comfort, that it was only her sheets she was trying to save, she yanked his boots off. They were cowboy boots, which brought her earlier Western-movie fantasy tumbling back.

“If I wanted you, it sure as hell would be my decision.”

“Do you always get what you want?” It wasn’t exactly a challenge. Nora was genuinely curious.

“When it comes to women? Always.” His eyes cleared. Nora looked down into those fathomless midnight depths and, feeling like a bog butterfly pinned to a cork, had the impression Quinn was giving her a warning. “But you don’t have to worry, sweetheart. You’re not my type.”

Even as she told herself it was for the best, she felt a prick of feminine annoyance at being so easily dismissed.

“And isn’t that a coincidence,” she said briskly, throwing the quilt over him. “Since you’re not my type, either.”

She held her breath, almost expecting God to send a lightning bolt through the thatched roof to strike her dead for telling such an outrageous falsehood. Because unfortunately, from the way her body had grown warm in proximity to his, it appeared that Quinn Gallagher was very much her type.

Quinn arched a sardonic brow, but didn’t challenge her lie, which relieved Nora greatly. “Then we shouldn’t have any problem, should we?”

“None at all.” If only that was true. Nora had the sinking feeling this brash American was going to provide a very large problem indeed. She reached out and turned off the bedside lamp, throwing the room into darkness. “Good night, Mr. Gallagher.”

“Good night, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” His deep voice echoed the formality in hers. He’d already begun snoring by the time she reached the door.

She moved down the hall to the small room that, thanks to her father, would serve as her bedroom for the next four weeks. She washed her face and brushed her teeth as quietly as possible in the adjoining bathroom she was forced to share with her boarder.

Since it was chilly in the unheated room, she undressed quickly, changing into a long, cream flannel nightgown and a pair of gray-and-white caterpillar-striped wool socks Fionna had knit for her last Christmas. Then, as she knelt beside the bed the way she had every night since childhood, Nora, who was not normally a petty person, derived some small mean satisfaction from the idea that come morning, Quinn Gallagher would be suffering one hell of a hangover.

Chapter Five

The Devil’s in the Whiskey

Quinn awoke to the sound of birds chirping and sheep bleating. He was sprawled on his back on the bed, still in the clothes he’d worn on the plane—which reeked of cigarette and peat smoke—his head pounding like the bass drum in a marching band. Not yet wanting to risk opening his eyes, which felt sandpaper scratchy, he ran his tongue over teeth as fuzzy as moss-covered rocks.

While he might have the mother of all hangovers, the prodigious amount of alcohol he’d drunk last night had not, unfortunately, impaired his memory. He recalled everything about the night before, including the fact that he’d made an ass of himself by hitting on Nora Fitzpatrick.

In between fanciful stories of banshees, warriors and revolution, Brady Joyce had waxed eloquent about his widowed daughter, clearly a man prone to overembellishment. Quinn, upon first stumbling out of the patrol car last night, had discovered that perhaps for the first time in the man’s life, Brady had been guilty of understatement.

Nora Fitzpatrick’s face, haloed by a wavy cloud of hair as bright as the cozy peat fire burning in the parlor hearth, had brought to mind a pre-Christian Celtic goddess. Her eyes were a soft mystical green that could have washed off the velvet hills of the countryside. And her mouth! At first sight of her lush unpainted lips, he’d felt an instant desire to taste them.

Quinn had no intention of apologizing for experiencing a sexual attraction. His approach, however, had definitely lacked subtlety.

She’d looked somehow familiar, but remembering the tug of recognition he’d experienced when he’d first seen the country from the plane, Quinn had discounted the sensation.