When he finished the song, the last of the evening, he beckoned her up to him and before the gathered crowd Quinn draped his arm around her shoulders. Desmond beamed at them both as Quinn whispered endearments into her ears. Applause echoed through the room, joined with a chorus of whistles, then the pub returned to the business of drinking. As she helped Des put the kitchen to rights for the night, he turned to her with a grin. “Ye’re good for him.”
“He’s good for me, too.”
“Aye, well, he’s not made music, not here, not anywhere for three years,” Des said. “It’s grand to see him so again. Sorrow leached all the songs from his soul for too long.”
With quiet dignity, Deirdre said, “Mine, too.”
The old man paused in his tasks to meet her gaze. “Aye, I see it now, Deirdre. He’s told me he’s taking the day off tomorrow to be with ye and talk. I hope ye two can work it all through, love, I do.”
He meant it and she appreciated it. “Thanks, Des,” she said. “So do I.”
If they made it through tomorrow, she thought, and no dangers lurked, things would be as they should. Please, God, may it be so.
Chapter Six
Deirdre awakened to the sound of rain mixed with sleet against the window, but by the time she rose, the clouds had moved eastward and the sun had emerged. Quinn slept as she dressed and made tea with a tin she’d brought up from the pub kitchen, remembering his preference for it above coffee in the morning. She thought about making breakfast until she remembered his empty fridge and cabinets. Deirdre abandoned the idea. They could grab something to eat anywhere. Talking took priority today, not food.
As she had on the morning she’d left him, Deirdre watched him sleep, but this time when he awakened she wasn’t attempting to sneak away or telling lies about shopping. Instead, she sat curled up against the pillows, and when he opened his eyes, she leaned over and kissed him. Before he became fully awake, Quinn pulled her into his arms and they snuggled without speaking. She matched her breathing to his rhythms until they inhaled and exhaled in tandem. Their hearts beat together too and Deirdre gloried in it. For those moments, they were almost one. After a time, Quinn stirred. “Woman, I suppose we should get up before ‘tis noon.”
She burrowed closer to him, resting one hand on his chest. “We should. I made tea but that was awhile ago.”
He nuzzled her neck with his lips. “Ye can make fresh tea, love. Its likely gone cold.”
“Or we could stay right here.” In another few moments, she’d be ready to make love.
“Ye’re a temptation, Deirdre.” Quinn’s warm voice wafted over her skin with enough heat to send ripples down her spine. “But we must talk, darlin’.”
They sighed in unison. “You’re right.” It had to happen and they might as well get it done. After she made fresh tea, Des brought up rashers of Irish bacon and brown bread. After the simple meal, Deirdre reached for her purse.
“Ye’ll want to wear a coat if ye have one,” Quinn said as he pulled on the Navy pea coat he’d bought years earlier.
“Where are we going?”
“The loch,” he said.
Deirdre adored the way he said the word in his soft accent, ‘lock’, and she knew what lake he meant. Although Quinn loved water and the often treacherous waters of the mighty Missouri River flowing through the city, his favorite place was Blue Springs Lake. They’d spent many an afternoon along the wooded banks, sometimes fishing or picnicking, or just sitting quiet beside the water. “I’ll see if I can find a jacket,” she said, pleased.
* * * *
Her red canvas coat cut the sharp wind whipping across the parking lot as Deirdre climbed out of Quinn’s Mercury at the lake. She flipped the hood up over her head and when Quinn put an arm around her, she huddled against him. “If ye’re too cold, we can go elsewhere.”
“No, this is fine. I love this place. It won’t be so cold when we get behind the hill.”
They trekked to their favorite spot and Quinn led Deirdre to a park bench. “I don’t remember this being here,” she said.
Quinn laughed. “It wasn’t. I dragged it here myself so I’d have a place to sit when I came out to stare at the water and mourn ye. I never thought I’d bring ye here again, mo chroi.”
His simple statement packed an emotional punch. This is going to be harder than I thought. “But here we are.”
He nodded and scooted back until a foot separated them. Quinn crossed his arms, a gesture she remembered well. It demonstrated he meant to be serious now. “So, tell me why ye left the way ye did, without a word or bit of hope.”
The moment of truth she’d dreaded had arrived. Deirdre took one deep breath and plunged into her story. “I was afraid,” she said. “On the day of the trial, when you went to bring the car around, a man came up to me. He threatened me—then he threatened you.”
She repeated the terrible words the hitman had spoken, ones she’d never been able to forget, and shuddered. Quinn noticed, reached for her, then stopped. He cocked his head back and stared at her, his face a bland mask although his eyes burned with blue fire. “Why didn’t ye tell me?”
Why hadn’t she? Deirdre struggled to remember and explain. “After what I had witnessed, I believed he meant every word,” she said. “I couldn’t bear to lose you, Quinn. I kept imagining someone killing you with slow torture, and I wanted to end any chance that it might come true. So I called the WITSEC people back. I’d told them before, when they contacted me, I wasn’t interested in the witness protection program, but I changed my mind. So I ran away, Quinn, and I’m sorry. I should’ve told you, talked it over, made another choice, but at the time, I thought I was making the right decision. What I’d seen upset me so much and I was stressed out from the trial. All I could think about was making sure you’d be safe, and I never thought past that until it was too late.”
His blue eyes stared out at the still waters of the lake, placid except when the wind gusted and made ripples across the surface. She couldn’t read his expression, but his stiff posture warned her to keep her distance. Deirdre longed to touch him, to take his hand and hold it or cuddle against him, but she didn’t dare. His silence lasted a long while, and she listened to the sweep of the breeze as it rattled the few remaining leaves. The quiet surrounding them was so deep she could hear the whine of steel-belted tires riding the pavement on the highways and the sound of a truck releasing a jake brake. If she spoke now, it would be wrong so she waited, uneasy and upset.
“Did ye not think I’d worry when ye didn’t come back from the mall?” His voice had a rough, ragged edge to it, sorrow, she thought, and anger too.
“I did.” Deirdre forced the words up through her throat with difficulty.
“Aye? And did ye think how I’d feel when you went missing, then turned up burned alive or so I thought? Jaysus Christ, woman! I could spend a century in hell being tortured by demons with knives and pitchforks and never hurt so much! The day we laid ye—but it wasn’t ye after all—in the ground was the worst of my life and I wasn’t at all sure I’d survive it. My sister came from Ireland and stayed awhile, fearful I’d do myself in or drink meself to death. Those first months, I could barely get out of bed and face life. I didn’t care if I ate or slept. Drink was me one comfort and a poor one at that.”
Each word he spoke stabbed through her heart, sharper than any knife, harsher than any caustic acid. Pain grew from a small wound, one she’d carried since she left Kansas City and expanded until her soul hurt. Deirdre hurt in body, too, the physical affected by the spiritual. He painted such a vivid picture and she shared his grief. If she’d thought him dead, she’d have felt much the same. It was too easy to imagine. “Oh, Quinn,” she said and her voice broke on a sob. “I didn’t know they’d fake my death until it was too late. I was so stupid. I thought I’d leave so you’d be safe and then maybe in a few weeks, I could call you and you could come to me, wherever I might be. But when I found out they faked my death as part of the plan, I couldn�
��t. I thought I would only hurt you more if I did. And, I was afraid I’d put you into danger.”
Quinn exhaled a long, harsh sigh. “I can almost understand all that.” The word ‘almost’ slashed through her mind, sharp as a dagger. He paused and then asked, his voice as broken as shattered glass after an accident. “Were ye happy at all when ye were away?”
“Never.” Deirdre spit out the word without hesitation. “I was miserable, Quinn. I missed you and cried every night. I got so tired of pretending to be Mallory.”
He turned toward her, eyebrows raised. “Who the feck is that?”
She’d forgotten he wouldn’t know. “Mallory Marsh was the identity WITSEC gave me. Mallory wasn’t me. I acted differently, dressed in another style, and played the part. Mallory was such a milk toast, whey-faced little pious bitch that I hated her almost instantly.”
“Why’d ye wait until now to come back? Three years is a long time, acushla.”
His robotic tone upset her, but when he used one of his familiar endearments, Deirdre relaxed a little. “I don’t know, really, except I couldn’t stand being apart any more. I used to check the pub’s Facebook page every day. I would pick up the phone and want to call you so much. I wrote letter after letter, but I never sent them. Then, the other day, the wind blew so fierce and hard it made me see how false my life had become. It blasted over me, cold and sharp, and I felt like I awoke from a nightmare or a coma or something. And I decided to come home, to you.”
Quinn nodded but said nothing. His jaw tightened and she longed to stroke his cheek. Instead, she said, “Once I decided, I didn’t hesitate. I grabbed what I wanted and started driving. I worried all the way. I didn’t have any idea what I’d do if I came into the pub and you had a woman or if you didn’t want me. But I came anyway.”
He shook his head. Quinn stood up and turned away from her, his gaze fixed on the lake. Deirdre shuddered as a chill wracked her. Since they’d sat down, she hadn’t felt the cold even thought they hadn’t sat close or touched, but watching him stand lonesome turned her blood into ice. As much as she wanted to rise and join him, she couldn’t seem to make her feet obey her brain. She sat, frozen and waiting. A minute passed and then two, then five. When he spoke, his voice emerged so low-pitched she strained to hear.
“All this long time,” he said in a voice so soft and filled with emotion it didn’t sound like Quinn except for his brogue. “I thought ‘twas my fault, Deirdre. I mourned ye hard and deep, ‘tis true, but I tortured myself with a terrible guilt. I thought I’d caused your death.”
Confusion clouded her thoughts and mangled her tongue. “Huh? What? I don’t understand,” she stammered.
Quinn turned around to stare at her. His face had gone pale, an awful grayish-white. When he lifted his eyes to meet her gaze, Deirdre realized they brimmed full with tears. “Ye went to the mall and a few hours later, Gerry sent word to me that a man was asking after ye in the bar. I checked him out and I could tell he was of the same cut as yon amadans who ye testified against, a bad one. I listened to his questions and I could see he carried a gun beneath his jacket.”
Deirdre gasped and Quinn’s eyes narrowed. He asked, “Ye know about him?”
“I didn’t but when I called WITSEC to tell them I was out of the program, they told me about a man found dead in an alley near here. It’s the same man?”
“Aye, it would be,” Quinn told her. “I fetched Uncle Des and told him. He agreed with me that the fella was out after ye. So, I asked Des to get rid of him and he did.”
“He killed him.”
He nodded. “He did, indeed.”
“Did you know he would?”
His shoulders shrugged. “I didn’t. I gave it little thought except to be shed of the bastard. I thought he might rough him up a bit, but then ye know my uncle was once IRA, part of the Border Campaign back in the Fifties. He did prison time for it, too. He may be an old man now, but he’s tough. When he told me what he’d done, I helped him move the body. He told me he did so because he thought ye were in grave danger. I believed him and thought no more about it. But ye didn’t come home, not at all and I was wild, darlin’.”
It fit into place, as tight and neat as puzzle pieces in proper position. “So you thought they took me and killed me because their goon had been killed?”
Quinn’s voice was little more than a breath. “Aye, I did and so blamed myself. I thought a million times if I’d not told Des to get rid of him, ye’d be here, beside me and alive. It ate at my soul like acid. Not only had I lost ye, woman, I thought I was the cause of it.”
She watched as he walked forward to the edge of the water where he bent, picked up a stone, and skipped it across the surface. When his shoulders began shaking, Deirdre thought he wept, so she summoned up the strength to walk to him. “Quinn?” she said as she put one hand on his back.
He whirled about, laughing but without mirth. The dry noise echoed in her ears like the eerie twitch of a rattlesnake’s tail. His lips were set in grim lines. “My auld Granny used to say there’s at least two sides to every story and a dozen or more versions of every song,” he said after a long pause. “Although she said it in Irish, not English. Now we’ve two versions and maybe together, we can make them into one story.”
His still, tense manner concerned her. “Are you very angry with me, Quinn?” she asked. Deirdre’s greatest fear was that he’d walk away from her, tell her to go and stay gone. “I didn’t mean to cause all the trouble or hurt.”
In the cold air, his breath steamed from his mouth in a tiny cloud as he sighed. “Aye, I know well ye didn’t. Neither did I, Deirdre but what’s done is done.”
It sounded so final. “Do you still love me?” If he said ‘no’, her heart would crack and her spirit would break past fixing.
Quinn stretched out his hand and she took it. He wrapped his fingers around hers. “I never stopped lovin’ you, mo ghra, not when I thought ye dead and buried, not when ye came back and I thought you were a drunken hallucination, and not now. I’ll love ye as long as I draw breath and beyond. I could no more stopping lovin’ ye than I could tell my heart not to beat or blood to flow. Ye’re part of me, woman, and well ye should know it.”
He had a way with words, a poetic turn of phrase and she adored it. Her heart fluttered as she grasped his hand tight. “I do, Quinn. I love you so and I missed you very much.”
“Ah, don’t I know?” he said. “I see it in your eyes when you look at me and taste the loneliness on your lips when I kiss ye. We’ve still much to tell and share, three years worth but we’ve made it through the worst of it. Well, until I tell my sister ye’re not dead. Eileen’ll want to kill ye with her two hands.”
Somehow she didn’t find it amusing because Eileen would. Deirdre shivered, thinking of his sister’s reaction and Quinn put his arms around her. “Ye’re freezing. Let’s go. We can get a meal somewhere together. Would ye like that?”
“I’d love it.”
“Yer hands are like ice, woman,” he scolded. “Ye should have said something.”
Deirdre hadn’t. She would gladly have frozen where she stood until they finished talking. “Okay, I’m cold.”
“Come on, then,” he said as they linked hands and headed for the car together. As they reached it, Quinn halted. “There’s just one thing more I need to ask.”
“What is it?”
His forehead crinkled and his blue eyes narrowed. “Will you be in danger when the bad fellas realize you’re not dead?”
She wanted to lie but couldn’t. “I don’t know. When I called WITSEC, they didn’t know either. It depends on who holds a grudge, for how long, and what they might want to do about it.”
Quinn frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that. Maybe we should go home awhile.”
“Home?” Deirdre didn’t think he meant the pub.
“Ireland,” Quinn said as if it were obvious. “I might’ve gone long since if I hadn’t hated so very much to leave your poor bones in
the black grave. It’s just as well I didn’t or ye’d had much further to come to find me. Though, it might not have been such a bad thought—Dungannon is far enough away I doubt anyone lookin’ would find ye.”
“Probably not,” she said. “I don’t want to think about it now. If I were in danger, then you’d be, too. Let’s agree not to worry, not now and not today.”
He grinned and some of the harsh lines vanished from his face. “All right, woman, then let’s go somewhere and get a bite. What would ye like?”
Deirdre didn’t need to think. “Winstead’s,” she said. “I want a double steak burger.”
“Winstead’s will do for now,” Quinn replied. “There’s something more I want later, love.”
“What’s that?” she asked but she knew.
Quinn nuzzled his cheek against hers. “You, acushla, you.”
Her blood warmed and she shivered but it wasn’t from cold any more. “We’ll call it dessert,” Deirdre said.
Together in every way, their relationship restored beyond any damage her reckless lies had inflicted, they kissed, then climbed into the car to go.
Chapter Seven
At Winstead’s, Deidre savored each bite of the classic steak burger, but her appetites were whetted for more than food. They faced each other as they dined, but her hands strayed to touch Quinn’s often. Beneath the table, she used her foot to rub up and down his leg, teasing and provocative. They laughed often and talked without restraint. Any lingering awkwardness had vanished after their earlier conversation, and Deirdre thought they were as much in sync as they had ever been, possibly more.
Quinn’s tender expression could have melted stone, she thought as she gazed back at him, with complete happiness. “Let’s go home, woman.”
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