The Mighty Quinns: Riley

“And we were just going to have ourselves a game or two of darts,” Dealy said.

Riley sighed. The three pensioners spent most of their midday at the pub, sandwiched between fishing in the morning and endless games of dominoes outside the green grocer in the afternoon. The routine was repeated every day except Sunday, when they all went to church in the morning and spent their afternoons at family dinners with their grown children.

“If she comes in here, I expect you three to behave yourselves. There’s no need for you to be telling tales for your own amusement.”

“Well, what’s she doin’ here if she doesn’t care to socialize?” Markus asked.

“She’s here to see the sights. Her mother stayed in the village years ago and she’s come to visit some of the same places.”

The front door of the pub opened and they all turned to look. Riley straightened as he saw Nan step inside. She glanced around and when she spotted him, she smiled and waved.

“Now there. She’s lovely,” Dealy murmured. “Small breasts, but lovely.”

“Look at her,” Markus said. “She looks like Audrey feckin’ Hepburn.”

“Oh, the wife loves Audrey,” Johnnie commented. “Seen all her movies.” He cocked his head in Nan’s direction. “What’s her name, then?”

“Nan. Nan Galvin. Although her real name is Tiernan.”

“That’s a boy’s name,” Dealy whispered. “Why would anyone give a pretty thing like her a boy’s name? They do that in America, you know. Some eedjits once named their daughter Moon Unit. Who the hell was that, Johnnie? Remember, we read it in the magazine?”

She crossed to the bar and sat down on a stool next to the Unholy Trinity. “Am I too late for lunch?” she asked Riley.

Riley leaned over the bar, bracing his elbows on the scarred wood in front of her. “You surely aren’t,” he said.

It had only been an hour since he’d seen her, but she looked even prettier than he’d remembered. Her hair was damp and curled around her face and her color was high from the walk down the hill. His gaze dropped to her mouth, those lush lips that were so soft and warm beneath his. “What can I get you?” he asked.

“What do you have?” she countered.

Riley stifled a groan. Right now, the possibility of an embarrassing erection. How was it possible that the mere sight of her caused that kind of reaction, he wondered.

The three men watched the two them, nodding as their gazes darted back and forth between Riley and Nan. Conversation would be impossible with three overly interested eavesdroppers. Never mind that the entire village would know the details of the conversation before the end of the day, but they’d no doubt interrupt with questions of their own.

“Aren’t you three late for a game of dominoes?” he asked, giving them a pointed glare.

For a moment, they protested, then realized what Riley was getting at. They quickly jumped up and headed to the door, chatting as they left. Once the door shut behind them, the pub was empty—and quiet. Riley stepped out from behind the bar and walked to the door. After flipping the lock, he dropped the Closed sign in the window.

“Do you always encourage your customers to leave?” Nan asked. “It’s a wonder you’ve been able to stay in business.”

“Unless you want to reveal your darkest secrets to all of County Cork, you should be happy I sent them out,” Riley said, returning to his spot opposite her. He drew Nan a half pint of Guinness and set it in front of her, then circled the bar to sit down next to her. He turned her to face him, trapping her knees between his and smoothing his hands over her thighs. “So, tell me all your deepest and darkest secrets. What do you like to eat for lunch?”

She picked up her Guinness and took a sip, then wrinkled her nose. “I’m a salad girl,” she said.

“Try the Guinness again,” he said. “It’s an acquired taste.”

She took another sip. “What kind of salads do you have?”

“Katie!” A few seconds later, the pub’s cook stepped out of the kitchen. “What kind of salads do we have today?”

“We don’t have salads,” she said. “We’ve got shepherd’s pie, bangers and mash, and corned beef with cabbage and red potatoes. And I’ve a bit of seafood chowder left.”

“The chowder sounds great,” Nan said. She watched Katie return to the kitchen, then glanced around the pub. “You said your parents owned the pub. Are they here?”

“They’re off caravanning.” He caught her quizzical look. “What? Caravanning? They have a big caravan and they drive it places and camp—”

“Oh,” she said. “An R.V.? A recreational vehicle. A little home on wheels?”

“Yes. They’ll be back in September and then I get back to my regular dissolute life. As a musician, I spend my days writing impossibly bad lyrics and trite tunes and my evenings trying to sing them.”

“I thought you’d cut your own CDs. Are you really that bad?”

“Only in my own mind,” he said with a chuckle. “I make a decent living. I’ll never be a millionaire, but I pay my bills. And I love what I do.”

He’d always enjoyed the fact that his profession came with scads of female admirers, a benefit he’d taken advantage of on many occasions. But Riley suspected Nan was not the kind of girl who jumped into bed with a guy just because he played a guitar and sang a pretty song.

“And you sing here?”

“Every Saturday night throughout the summer,” he said. “You’ll have to come see me.”

“I’d expect you have a lot of girls coming to see you,” Nan said.

“Not a one as pretty as you are, Nan Galvin.” He leaned forward to steal a kiss, but before he could, Katie barged through the kitchen door. He waited while she put the crock of soup in front of Nan, along with a plate of sliced homemade bread and butter.

“Thank you,” Nan said, giving her a smile.

“Cherry tart for dessert,” she said. “Warm from the oven. Can I get you a piece?”

She grinned. “All right. I’m famished. Bring it on.”

“That’s the spirit,” Katie said, walking over to the kitchen door.

Nan dug into the chowder, then groaned. “It’s wonderful. This place is wonderful. It’s exactly how I’d imagined an Irish pub to be,” she said.

“Now, I know you have pubs in America,” he said.

“I don’t spend a lot of time in them,” she said. Nan pointed to a pair of socks hanging from a rafter. “I’m sure there’s a good story behind those.”

“There’s a hundred years of stories in this pub,” he said. “The Speckled Hound has been around since the turn of the nineteenth century. I don’t know them all. But I do know one.” He grabbed her hand and drew her along to a dark corner. “There was this pretty American girl who came to Ballykirk and she walked into the Speckled Hound and the bloke behind the bar was so besotted that he had to kiss her.”

“Besotted?” Nan asked.

“Yeah, besotted.” He bent close and captured her mouth, his hands spanning her narrow waist. He dragged her off the stool and trapped her against the bar, his hands braced on either side of her. A current of desire raced through his body as her fingers furrowed through the hair at the nape of his neck. This wasn’t just some one-sided infatuation, Riley thought to himself. She was kissing him back, her tongue tangling with his, her hands wandering over his body.

The taste of her was like a drug, so incredibly addictive that all he could think about was more. He ran his palms along her waist and then slipped them beneath her shirt, searching for warm, smooth flesh.

Riley couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the need to completely possess a woman. Most of the women he’d been with the past few years had been nothing more than physical attractions, driven by a hot body and raw need. The truth was, he hadn’t wanted anything more than that.

But this was different. He wanted to know everything about her—what she loved, how she lived, all the tiny details that made her the fascinating woman she was. Still, he wondered if the attraction was intensified because the clock was ticking. She’d leave in ten days and he’d never see her again. Was that the source of his desire?