Reunited

Whatever it was, Rafe was determined to make it happen. Once he rid himself of the demons in his past, maybe he could finally get on with his future.

THE LIGHTS OF New York glittered against a carpet of black night. Keely stared out the window of the 747, her cheek pressed against the cool surface. She’d left Ireland five hours ago and somewhere over the Atlantic she’d come to the realization that her life had changed forever.

Her visit to the parish priest had been even more illuminating than her tea with Maeve Quinn. Though he couldn’t tell her if her father was still alive, Keely left believing that somewhere in the world, she at least had five brothers, and probably six. The baby that her mother was carrying when she left Ireland was more than a year older than Keely. She didn’t want to believe that the baby had been a girl and her mother had kept a sister from her for all these years.

Her thoughts wandered back to all the romantic stories she made up about her parents, their enduring love, his tragic accident, her mother’s grief. So what had really happened? If her father was still alive, he would have made some attempt to see her, wouldn’t he have?

“So, he’s not alive. That part of the story is the truth,” she told herself. “He would have made an attempt to see me if he could.” Seamus Quinn had died and her mother was left with five, or maybe six children. She couldn’t take care of them and she…put them into foster care? That would explain her mother’s melancholy moods. But why keep that all from Keely? And why, once she made a decent living at the cake shop, didn’t she find her sons?

Keely moaned softly, then rubbed her temples, working at the knots of tension that kept her head in a vice.

“Are you all right?”

She turned and looked at the businessman who sat next to her in first class. She hadn’t even noticed him, so preoccupied was she with her thoughts for the past five hours. “No,” she murmured.

“Can I get the flight attendant for you?”

“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.

CHAPTER TWO

“WHY 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.”