Deirdre nodded. “Yes, please.”
He parked behind the pub in a narrow space off the alley and they entered through the rear door, holding hands and whispering. Quinn put one finger to his lips as they tiptoed past the kitchen door. Delicious aromas floated from the room along with the rattle of pans. He stopped and kissed Deirdre, a slow, tantalizing kiss. Caught short and breathless, she grasped the lapels of his pea coat with both hands and hung on tight. “Would ye like more of that?” he whispered, then rammed his tongue into her mouth and kissed her hard.
“Quinn, lad, is it you?” Desmond called from the kitchen and Quinn released her.
“Aye, uncle, but we’re goin’ upstairs.”
“Ye’d best go then and be quick about it,” Des said. His serious tone caught both Deirdre and Quinn. Quinn stuck his head into the kitchen.
“What’s amiss?”
His uncle shrugged. “Oh, naught, but there was some woman, a news reporter from the telly, askin’ round the pub if anyone had seen Deirdre King. So far, no one else has blabbered but if ye’re seen, ye’ll never make it upstairs nor will she.”
Whether it was the cold breeze blasting through the half open rear door or fear, Deidre trembled. “What do you mean no one else has told?” she asked. “Who did?”
“’Twas April,” Des replied. “I’m sorry, lass. I’d told her to keep quiet, but she didn’t listen.”
Crimson filled Quinn’s face with color and when he spoke, his voice sounded harsh. “Where in hell is she? I’d like a word with her.”
“I sent her home for now and told her ye’d likely sack her,” Desmond said. “I knew ye wouldn’t be happy about it.”
“Why did she tell? I don’t understand.”
Desmond snorted. “She’s had her eye on ye for some time. If ye hadn’t been blind and deaf to women, ye’d have known long since. But ye’d not paid much mind. With Deirdre back, April’s feelin’ scorned. That’s why.”
“I never scorned her! I never thought of her as anything but staff!” Quinn’s voice grew in volume.
“Aye, I know it well. Ye’d best be gone before you draw attention. I told the woman ye’d gone and I had no notion where, but if she comes back here, she’ll see ye with her own two eyes.”
“Thank ye, Uncle Des.”
The older man waved a slotted spoon and shook his head. “Go on, then. I never saw neither one of ye.”
Quinn grasped Deirdre’s hand and pulled her up the back stairs with haste. She matched his rapid pace, glad to escape any media attention but worried they’d lost their sexy mood. As soon as he shut the door and locked it behind them, however, Quinn stripped away his coat and opened his arms.
Deirdre shed her jacket as she walked into his embrace. “Quinn, do you think…”
He stopped her question with his mouth. His urgent lips bonded with hers as heat rippled from him into her body. Quinn kissed her with slow intensity, each fondle of his mouth against hers brimming with passion. He didn’t hurry but took his time with deliberate and apparent pleasure.
Deirdre leaned against him and he held her in place with one arm around her waist. Quinn cupped the other hand behind her head, up beneath her long hair. His grip heightened her sense of total security and his insistent mouth wiped away any other thought. She forgot about April’s big mouth and the reporter asking around as she yielded to him.
No barriers remained between them, nothing unresolved, and love flowed with the powerful tide of a spring flood. They kissed and nibbled and tongued for a long time but as need increased, their hands roamed. Bit by bit, they undressed, their clothing falling to the floor in a trail leading to the bedroom. By the time they collapsed into a tangle on the bed, Quinn’s hands caressed her from face to feet. He lingered at her hips and ran his fingers up her back, evoking a series of thrills. Deirdre touched him too, everywhere she could reach. She worked his nipples one at a time with thumb and forefinger until they hardened. Then Deirdre fastened her mouth over them and suckled until he squirmed with delight. She tickled him, tasted him, and teased her fingertips down his belly. Deirdre wrapped her hand around his cock, solid and hard within her grasp.
“Ah, god, woman,” he moaned.
She’d dreamed of doing it many times and replayed old memories. Deirdre lowered her head and her hair fanned out across Quinn’s thighs as she took him into her mouth. She sucked on his cock, then moved her lips up and down. The friction, although she kept it gentle, made him groan with wordless pleasure. Deirdre shifted position and lowered onto his dick. She rode him, her pace gentle.
As she rocked him, Quinn fondled her breasts, his hands tweaking her nipples and sliding downward to rub her clit. Sensations spread a warm, erotic contentment through her body but as her need increased, she quickened her movements. Within moments, she rode him hard and fast.
Quinn penetrated deeper within, as far as possible and they rocked to the same intense rhythm. They linked hands and held tight as they came in a rush of blinding physical pleasure. Deirdre cried out at the final moment, and Quinn reared up to quiet her with a kiss. Explosive aftershocks radiated waves of delight as she collapsed against his chest, spent, sated, and smiling.
Quinn wrapped his arms around her and she lay, content to listen to his heartbeat as his breathing slowed back to normal. He stroked her hand with a lazy hand and rubbed her back with the other. “Mo ghra,” he whispered. “I love ye and that ‘twas the most intense, beautiful lovin’ I’ve ever known.”
“I love you too,” she said and nuzzled closer. After a few more minutes, she asked, “Are you cold? Do I need to move?”
“Never,” Quinn said. “It’s a wee bit cold, though. Stay where ye are, Deirdre, and we’ll sleep awhile.” He groped for the comforter and managed to throw it over them both.
Deirdre snuggled against him and knew the moment when his breathing shifted into a lower gear for sleep. He’d said he hadn’t sleep much during her absence but she sighed with happiness that he could now. A delicious fatigue crept over her and she slept, too.
Neither woke until evening shadows filled the room with gloom. Deirdre woke when Quinn stirred beside her and sat up. “Jaysus,” he said as he scrubbed one hand over his face. “We’ve slept the rest of the day. I ought to go down to help Des. We’ll be short handed without April. Do ye want to come with me?”
“Sure.” Right now, she needed to stick close to Quinn. “I promised Uncle Des I’d help him out in the kitchen. But I don’t want any publicity on being back.”
He grinned and traced the curve of her cheek with one finger. “I’ll do my best to keep them from ye, love, and Des will have yer back. Who do ye think she was, the woman?”
“If she’s from TV, it’s probably a former co-worker or a rival,” Deirdre said. “Either one probably hates me enough to splash my return from dead across the city. I don’t want to do any interviews or talk about it with much of anyone.”
“Then ye don’t need to,” Quinn said. “Sooner or later, though, people will know ye’re back. Ye might want to tell what family ye’ve got before they hear it somewhere else.”
She considered her remaining relatives, two aunts, a few cousins, and her grandfather with little interest. Both aunts were her late dad’s sisters and neither had liked her mother. Gramps suffered from dementia and seldom recognized anyone. She’d been close to her cousin Tamara, once, and adored her cousin Kevin when he was little, but the family members she had loved most were long dead. Quinn, to whom family ranked high, had a point. “I suppose I should,” she said. “I’ll even go see Gramps if you’ll go with me.”
Quinn nodded. “Ye know I will. We can go in the morning if ye like, but at the moment I’ve a pub to run.”
Twenty minutes later, after a hasty shower and swift kiss, Quinn left her in the kitchen and headed into County Tyrone. Desmond scrutinized Deirdre as she donned an apron. “I take it yer talk went well,” he said.
Deirdre nodded. “Yes. I’m a little worried about so
meone looking for me, though.”
The old man shrugged. “Don’t be, mo mhuirnín. Between us, yer man and I will keep ye safe. Although, ‘tis almost the Thanksgiving and I can’t make any promises about Eileen.”
“Eileen’s coming?”
Desmond confirmed it in a neutral tone. “Aye, she always does for the American turkey day.”
“Since when?”
His eyes met hers. “Since ye were thought to be dead,” he said. “She’s come each year for Thanksgiving and stayed the weekend to have an early Christmas, thinking she’d be a help to Quinn. She wasn’t, not much, but she tries, our Eileen. She dotes on her brother.”
Somewhere scrubbing potatoes and baking scones, Deirdre obsessed about Eileen. A quick check of the calendar revealed Thanksgiving to be a week away. A dozen memories of Quinn’s sister, few of them positive, resurfaced as Deirdre worked. By the time Des shut down the kitchen for the night and she joined Quinn at a table near the bar, her primary concern wasn’t her return but Eileen’s imminent arrival. As they shared a plate of bangers and mash, she listened more than she talked until Quinn asked, “Are ye tired, acushla? Or worried? No one came looking for you tonight but ye’ve not said three words.”
“I’m a little tired.” It wasn’t a lie but he noticed.
Quinn narrowed his eyes. “What is it?”
“Des told me Eileen’s coming for Thanksgiving next week.”
“Aye, is it next week? I didn’t realize it was so soon, but she’ll be here early Wednesday. The pub’ll be closed this year and we’ll have dinner with Eileen and her bunch, Uncle Des, and maybe a few friends.”
Too many years had passed since Deirdre kept holidays with anyone but Quinn to have any enthusiasm for a traditional celebration. As a little girl, her family had gathered at her grandmother’s house in St. Joseph, Missouri. Memories of turkey dinners, laughter, and multiple generations gathered around a table surged. Until three years ago, Quinn had kept the pub open and never bothered to mark the American feast of Thanksgiving. “You never used to have anything for the holiday.”
“Eileen wanted to make it an occasion,” Quinn said. “I think she meant to cheer me up, but it became a pain in the arse more than anything. Now it’s a bloody fecking tradition. Do ye mind?”
Deirdre wrinkled up her nose. “I don’t but I’m afraid of what she’ll say to me. She’ll be angry.”
“Ah, it won’t last long,” Quinn said with a confidence she couldn’t share. “Once she gets past mad, she’ll be happy ye’re back, for my sake if no other.”
Maybe, Deirdre thought, and maybe not. “Will you tell her before she gets here?”
He grinned. “No, I think ‘twill more fun to surprise her. Did ye want to visit yer grandpa tomorrow?”
Glad to change the subject, she agreed. “Yes, then I’ll call my aunts, I guess. Did they come to the funeral?”
“Oh, aye, with bells on and dressed in black,” he said. “They reminded me of crows.”
She thought of her aunts, two heavy-set matrons and imagined them in stark black. The image fit, she thought with a laugh. “God, I love you, Quinn,” she said.
“I know.”
In the morning, they set out for the long-term care facility where her grandfather, Aidan King, now lived. Deirdre had called to confirm he remained on site and hadn’t passed away. Visiting Gramps always proved harder than she expected because although he hadn’t recognized her in years, seeing him triggered childhood moments. Once, Gramps had been her buddy. He’d taken her fishing a few times and she remembered riding with him when he made his errands to the hardware store or supermarket. He always bought her a Hershey’s chocolate bar, she remembered, but when his memory began to fade, her parents put a halt to the outings. Quinn held her hand as they walked into the modern, one story facility. His support made it possible for her to make the effort, although she held her nose as they walked down the long, antiseptic smelling corridor to Gramps’ room.
“He’ll be the easiest to visit,” Deirdre told Quinn in a hushed voice outside the door. “I doubt he’ll know me and even if by some miracle he does, he’ll never remember I was supposed to be dead.”
“They brought him to the funeral, yer aunts,” he said. His voice changed timbre and roughened as he spoke. She glanced up at him and he shrugged his shoulders. “Remembering that day is still hard, love, even though I know ye’re alive and with me.”
So many details and moments she knew nothing about remained. “Sometime, maybe you can tell me about it,” she said. “But if not, it’s okay. It sounds so weird to talk about my funeral.”
Quinn flashed a poignant smile. “Ye don’t know the half of it.”
A staff member exited the room, her patterned scrubs bright against the beige walls. “Oh, are you here to visit Mr. King? Wonderful! Go on in, he’s up.”
The old man who sat humped over in a wheelchair beside the room’s single window and stared at a bird feeder outside with little interest didn’t resemble the grandfather she’d once loved. Deirdre walked forward, alone and touched his shoulder. “Gramps?” she said. “It’s Deirdre.”
He raised his head and turned it toward her. His blue eyes had faded over the years, she noticed, and his blank stare held no sign of recognition. Then he tilted his head to one side and his expression flickered to life. “They said you were dead,” he said in a querulous old man’s voice. “Dead and buried. Are you?”
Deirdre dropped to one knee beside him, encouraged. “No, Gramps, I’m not. I’m alive.”
One work worn hand patted hers. “Well, I vow and swear! Everyone said you died in that car wreck, but I’m glad they were wrong, Mary.”
Mary. With one word he unraveled her hopes. Mary had been her mother’s name, the lovely woman the elders all swore handed her black Irish beauty down to her daughter, Deirdre.
“I’m Mary’s daughter, Gramps,” she said. “I’m Deirdre.”
The brief window open for connection closed as her grandfather’s expression went blank. He swiveled his gaze away from Deirdre and said nothing more. Quinn offered her a hand to rise and she did. Deirdre made two more efforts to get through to Gramps, but he didn’t respond. Funny, Deirdre would’ve sworn an hour ago that she didn’t care but unshed tears formed a knot in her throat. “I guess we can go,” she said when it became obvious her efforts had failed. “I’ll call the aunts, I guess and maybe Tamara soon.”
Quinn nodded and draped one arm around her shoulders. “Ye’re hurtin’, I know,” he said. “But though it may be little comfort, my people can be yours too. Uncle Des already is and Eileen, she may come around yet. And if she ever meets ye, Ma’ll love you like a daughter, same as she does all the rest.”
She swallowed the tears. “Maybe,” she said. “There’s no doubt about Desmond. How many kids were there in your family? Six?”
“Seven if ye count me. I have two sisters, Eileen and Elizabeth, and four brothers, Sean, Declan, Tom, and Brian,” Quinn said. “I won’t even try to name the wives or the grandchildren for sure I’ll forget someone’s name. There’s a lot of Sullivans not to mention the O’Haras, the Hanlons, Scanlons, and the Riordans.”
Deirdre laughed. “Are you sure there’s room for one more?”
He came to a halt on the walk outside. “Always,” he said. “There’s a question I want to ask ye and since we’re close to the subject…”
Deep within, her heart trembled. She could guess the question, one they’d skirted around in the past. I want him to ask me but not here. Deirdre glanced at the medical facility and shook her head. “I want to hear it,” she said. “I can’t tell you how much but not here, Quinn.”
His brows knitted together into a tight frown, then cleared. “Ye’re right,” he said and his breath made a frosty puff of air between them. “I almost lost my head. Woman, ye do that to me.”
She liked that. “You don’t mind, do you?”
His grin emerged, broad and bright as a rainbow. “I don’t,” h
e said. “Not at all and never.”
“Then ask me later,” Deirdre said. “I imagine you know what the answer will be.”
Quinn smiled. “Ah, I have no doubt but I’ll enjoy the asking.”
And she knew he would, indeed.
Chapter Eight
For the first time in the history of his County Tyrone pub, Quinn decided to close for Thanksgiving. He put a notice up on the door so customers would know the doors wouldn’t open from the Wednesday before through Friday. Business as usual would resume Saturday. Desmond shook his head when he heard.
“Ye’d best hope they’ll come back, the regular customers,” he said. “Closing on Thursday, I see but the other days? I think ye’re mad.”
Deirdre hid her smile. She’d said almost the same thing when Quinn first suggested it, but he’d convinced her it would be fine. When Quinn glanced in her direction now, she winked.
“I’m doin’ it for the family,” he said in explanation. “No one much will come on Thanksgiving anyway and the few who might, we’ll ask them in to join us. On the damn Black Friday, most will be out shopping until they drop over, though I won’t be among them. We’ll open back up on the weekend.”
“Ye’re takin’ a chance, lad, but ‘tis your business.”
“Aye,” Quinn said. “When does my sister’s flight arrive tomorrow?”
“’Tis tonight, lad, at seven o’clock,” Des said. “I told ye so. After seventeen hours on the way, two stops made, she’ll be in no mood to arrive the day before, so she’s comin’ in today.”
“Jesus, I thought ‘twas tomorrow,” Quinn said without heat. “I’ll have to make arrangements, then.”
“Where’s she going to stay?” Deirdre asked. “Not here?”
Since the pub boasted Quinn’s small flat and Des’ room, nothing more, she doubted it. “Ah, Christ, no,” he said and rolled his eyes. “They’ll stay at a hotel not far from here, a chain one not a luxury one.”
“Thank God,” Deirdre replied. “Did anyone tell her yet about me?”
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