A Woman's Heart

by JoAnn Ross

  Her heart. Her goddamn warm, generous, loving heart.

  “What if I don’t want it?” He told himself that his deliberate gruffness was for her sake, not his.

  He braced himself for tears and was surprised when she laughed, instead. “It’s too late.” She touched her smiling lips to his tightly set ones. “I’ve already given it away. Even in America it must be considered bad manners to return a gift of the heart.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” he warned.

  Nora didn’t answer. There was, after all, Quinn thought grimly as they dressed, no need. Because they both knew that was a lie. The biggest he’d ever told.

  Trying to brush her tangled hair into some semblance of order, she looked into the rearview mirror. When she saw the flush in her cheeks, the edgy excitement in her eyes, and her swollen lips, Nora was certain that her entire family would know exactly what she and Quinn had been doing.

  And amazingly she didn’t care.

  “Does this mean you’ve changed your mind?” she asked as he turned the key and put the car into gear.

  “About what?”

  “About taking that lovely bit of black lingerie off me tonight.”

  That provocative question was all it took to make Quinn hard again. Wondering if perhaps Kate wasn’t the only witch in the family, Quinn shook his head.

  “You might be able to make me crazy, sweetheart, but I’m not stupid. Besides, I still have places I want to take you.”

  Because he needed to touch her again, to make contact, no matter how slight, he reached out, took her hand and squeezed. The crooked grin he slanted her as they drove away from the lake revealed all of the rich affection he was feeling for her and none of the turmoil. “Magic places.”

  A visitor can’t travel to the west of Ireland without being aware of peat. During his weeks in Castlelough, Quinn had seldom been out of sight or smell of it. He’d drive past the straight black banks cut into the green hills, the piles of neatly stacked sods leaning against stone walls. Slabs of black buttery peat were piled up beside every house, cottage and shop, drying for use as insulation and fuel for the hearths.

  “We’ve good peat in our bog,” Nora’s older brother assured Quinn as he led him across the hills toward the black field overlooking the sea. Michael was wearing an unbleached Aran sweater, a thick pair of handwoven tweed trousers and boots. Since Quinn had no idea what one wore to go bog cutting, he’d opted for jeans and a black Oakland Raiders sweatshirt. Fortunately Michael had supplied him with boots.

  Maeve loped on ahead of the two men, happily flushing out rabbits in the field. The dog had been waiting at the foot of the stairs for him this morning, wagging her tail, eagerly awaiting further developments. Since Rory would be at school all day, Quinn didn’t have the heart to leave the eager wolfhound at home.

  “A week’s worth of cutting should last the family through the coming winter,” Michael said with satisfaction. “The peat’s three to four meters deep in most places.”

  “And steep,” Quinn observed as he looked a very long way down to a narrow beach where a trio of fisherman in yellow oilskins were hauling their curraghs down to the water.

  “Aye. And that’s a strange thing. It used to be that such steep cliff land wasn’t thought to be good for all that much. Farmers value the flat fields for grazing, you see. But that was back in the days when a man could only get land by inheriting it or marrying into it.”

  “And now?”

  “And now, because of all the blow-ins—Yanks and Europeans who dream of a country life without having any idea what it’s like to live on a farm—the steep land is becoming worth more than the flat. For the view, don’t you know.”

  His dry tone suggested he considered such blow-ins, as the Irish tended to call anyone who couldn’t trace their ancestry back at least two centuries, “eejits.”

  “It is a terrific view,” Quinn held his breath as Maeve planted her huge paws on the very edge of the cliff and began barking at wheeling sea gulls.

  “That’s true enough. And at least there are some who appreciate it. Which makes them who actually move here better than our own city people, who are buying up the farmland for investment but would never set foot on it themselves. Men who couldn’t grow a single potato in a tub of manure.”

  “I suppose speculators grabbing up land has been going on forever,” Quinn suggested. “Back home everyone’s concerned about the farmers being forced off the land by big conglomerates and economics.”

  “I’ve been reading about your farmers. I’m especially interested in their modern milking methods. And Nora’s thinking about joining the cheese guild. I’ve also met a few who come to the country tracking down their family roots. Farming’s never been easy. Too much depends on luck, Mother Nature and God’s whims. But I’ve lived in the city, and now, like the wayward prodigal son, I’ve returned home. I won’t be leaving again. This is the only life I want.”

  Quinn thought about Yeats describing the country people of Ireland as passionate and simple. Passionate, Michael Joyce was. About his land and, Quinn knew, his family. He also suspected, that like the rest of his family, the man wasn’t nearly as simple as he first appeared.

  Michael took off his cap and combed his fingers through his curly black hair as he looked over the fields. “People around here think of land as something they belong to. Not the other way around.”

  “People such as Nora, you mean.” Quinn decided there was no point in beating around the bush.

  “Aye.” Her brother gave him a warning look. His blue eyes turned crystal hard. “I care for my sister, Mr. Gallagher. A great deal.”

  “Call me Quinn. And we have that in common.”

  “I also can’t see her being happy living in Hollywood.”

  “Actually I live in Monterey, which is on the California coast south of San Francisco,” Quinn corrected mildly. “But I get your point. And that’s another thing we agree on.”

  “So you’ll not be asking her to leave Castlelough with you when you go?”

  “No.” This was one of the few things—the only thing— Quinn was very sure about where Nora was concerned.

  Although Quinn wasn’t certain Michael was totally happy with that answer—since they both knew that either way she was going to be hurt—he appeared to be satisfied. Or, more likely, Quinn thought, he’d just as soon drop the personal conversation. Nora’s brother seemed less gregarious than Fionna, Brady or even John, a man more comfortable working with his hoes and cows than discussing family matters with a stranger. Quinn couldn’t blame him.

  They set to work, cutting through the black peat with wing tipped spades, which Michael informed Quinn were called slanes.

  “You have to cut the steps,” he explained, demonstrating by cutting a trio of steps in the peat. “Tradition has it that Saint Columba got tripped in a bog hole one day and was so furious he laid a curse on all those who didn’t cut three steps so he could get out.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Now, I can’t say whether I do or not,” Michael mused, rubbing his chin. “But there’s no harm in cutting them just the same.”

  Although cutting the turf proved easy, considering it had the consistency of butter, the lifting of the sods, which each weighed about twenty pounds and was rough as sandpaper, proved to be hard back-straining work. And although he’d put away a huge breakfast of scones, black pudding, bacon, fried potatoes, smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, by the time the sun was directly overhead, Quinn was starving. He was also extremely grateful for the brown bread, cheese and meat pie Nora had insisted he take along in Rory’s knapsack, despite his arguments that after that herculean breakfast, he wouldn’t be able to eat again for a week.

  They stopped for lunch and sat enjoying the view—miles of beach to one side and blue-tinged mountains to the other, the stuttering golden sun, dew on the grass, even a rainbow to add a perfect touch. Back home in California, developers would probably be willing to commit murder
for the opportunity to put a resort and glass-walled restaurant on the site.

  The ancient romance he’d found to be part of the country lingered in the wisps of fog floating past like silent ghosts. Down below, children were climbing over rocks on the shore.

  “They’re gathering seaweed,” Michael said when Quinn pointed them out. “Probably to fertilize their family plots. Those roped-off places are mussel farms. The fishermen dangle their ropes into the water, and at the end of the summer, they pull them up and the mussels will be clinging to the ropes, just waiting to be thrown into the pot.” He glanced at Quinn. “It’s a shame you won’t be here in August. Castlelough puts on quite a mussel fair.”

  “I’m sorry I’ll miss it,” Quinn answered, surprised that it was the truth.

  “It’s a fine time. There’s traditional music and storytelling, and free tastings on the street. Mussels are evil-looking things, but they taste good served up with butter and lemon. Nora uses garlic.” He grinned. “Gran complains it’s not traditional, but I’ve noticed she always manages to eat her share.”

  “Your sister’s a great cook.”

  “She is that. There aren’t very many good places for tourists used to fancier fare to eat around here, so Brady’s been after her to open a bed and breakfast after John goes off to university. But of course the farm takes up a great deal of her time, so she’s been putting him off.”

  Returning from her morning of chasing rabbits, Maeve sat down on her haunches beside Quinn, cocked an expectant ear and whined. He tossed her a piece of cheese and watched as she snapped it up in midair, swallowing it in one gulp.

  Nearby, mangy donkeys climbed over rocks and sheep hung picturesquely from the cliffs. “You’d think they’d fall off,” Quinn said.

  “Oh, that’s been known to happen,” Michael allowed. “Just last fall one of my best ewes leaned too far over the edge to reach a bit of grass and tumbled down onto the rocks and was washed away. Sheep,” he said dryly, “are not the most intelligent of animals.”

  They continued eating in companionable male silence broken only by the caw of a raven, the cry of gulls, lowing of cows and the distant bleating of sheep.

  “I know a man in Connemara—Patrick Gallagher,” Michael divulged. “His mother has a book with the names of all the family members who emigrated over the years. Perhaps, if you’d like—”

  “I don’t think so.” Quinn cut him off in the same way he had Fionna, when the elderly lady had first suggested he might have family in Donegal. “Gallagher’s a common enough name. It doesn’t necessarily follow that we’d be related.”

  “Well, you have a point.” Michael gave him a thoughtful study as he drank his tea from an insulated cup. “However, you have the look of him. The two of you could be brothers.”

  Quinn was vaguely interested in spite of himself. “I suppose he’s a farmer, too?”

  “Aye. A bit of a one. Connemara’s hardscrabble land, not as productive as this,” he said with a wave of his hand over the emerald and black fields. “So, his family has always supplemented their income by distilling poitin.”

  “Figures I’d have relatives who’re bootleggers,” Quinn muttered.

  “It’s a fine traditional occupation,” Michael corrected him. “And one of the few true examples of Irish entrepreneurial spirit.”

  “It’s also illegal.”

  “For the most part, although now hasn’t the government licensed some for selling to tourists in the duty-free shops?”

  “I’ve tasted Kentucky moonshine.” Quinn paused to throw Maeve another piece of cheese, which she wolfed down. “White Lightning, they call it.” He didn’t think he’d ever forget the burn going down.

  “That’s well named. John L. O’Sullivan called our poitin a torchlight procession down your throat,” Michael said approvingly. “The best—like that the Gallaghers are known to make—can warm up the insides of a man like a peat fire on a cold December day. The worst—” he shook his head “—could stiffen a tinker.”

  “Don’t they get raided?”

  “From time to time. But mostly the Garda turn a blind eye since they have so many relatives in the business themselves. And even when they do hold their raids for the newspapers, the word has usually already gotten out, so they don’t manage to catch many people.” He pointed to a small green speck out in the ocean. “See that island?”

  “Barely.”

  “It’s where some lads from Dublin once tried growing marijuana. It took the Garda so long to blow up their rubber raft, the growers had time to row out around to the back of the island, harvest their crop and get away.”

  Quinn laughed as he was supposed to. He decided that Michael Joyce had inherited some of his father’s storytelling talent, after all.

  After loading the turf into the cart, they took it back to the farm, where they stacked the rectangular sods into small pyramids designed to catch the wind, which would speed the drying.

  “We did a good day’s work,” Michael said. “We probably cut a ton.” He gave Quinn an appraising look that suggested he was thinking he might have misjudged the rich Yank’s capacity for hard physical work. “You’ll sleep tonight,” he predicted.

  “If I don’t die first,” Quinn said on a laugh as he rubbed his sore back.

  “Poor man.” Nora’s smile was both teasing and sympathetic at the same time. She was straddling his hips, her palms massaging his aching back. Everyone else had gone to sleep, and the house was as still as midnight. “I should have told Michael to go easy on you.”

  “And have him telling everyone in The Rose that the Yank is a wimp? No way,” Quinn muttered as her clever fingers worked on getting the kinks out of his left shoulder. “Lord, that feels good.”

  “I’m glad.” She moved downward, pressing along either side of his spine. “Cutting peat’s miserable work. I’m surprised you could stay awake through dinner.”

  So was he. Quinn decided not to admit that there’d been more than one time when he’d found his lids growing heavy and had feared falling face first into his bowl of chowder.

  “I had an incentive.”

  “Oh?” The soothing hands were at his waist. “And what would that have been?”

  Her voice had turned saucy, her hands, as they moved even lower, anything but soothing.

  “You.” He rolled over, taking her with him. “I kept thinking of you wearing this.” He ran his palms over the cobweb-thin lace that barely covered her breasts and watched with pleasure as her nipples hardened.

  Experiencing a miraculous renewal of energy, he snagged a satin ribbon strap with his teeth and lowered it off one fair shoulder.

  “Quinn.” Her soft sigh of pleasure as his lips skimmed over the fragrant white skin belied the objection he suspected she’d intended. “You’ve had a long day and you have to be at the lake tomorrow for the filming.”

  “They’ll never miss me if I’m late.”

  In the beginning the idea that he was superfluous had irked him. He’d always known that writers were not exactly at the top of the Hollywood hierarchy, and the past weeks watching his objections get overruled and the actors, even Laura, objecting to lines of dialogue had pricked his ego.

  But since his time in Ireland was running out, Quinn was more than willing to surrender the reins of control fully to Jeremy Converse in order to spend every possible moment with Nora. Take the money and run, his agent had always said. As usual she’d been right.

  “But surely you’re too tired—” Her voice was smothered by his mouth as he kissed her.

  He slipped the other shoulder ribbon down. The top of the teddy was now clinging precariously to the tips of her breasts. It would take only the slightest nudge to send it the rest of the way.

  “The day I’m too tired to make love to you, sweetheart, is the day you’d better have Castlelough’s undertaker start measuring me for a casket.”

  That said, he trailed a lazy finger down her breast and sent the lace skimming to her waist. A
nother quick flick of the wrist and he’d unfastened the snaps between her legs.

  Then, as the moon rose over the velvet meadows, Quinn slid gloriously into her.

  Ever since Sister Mary Francis had read the story of Christ curing the leper to the first-form class at Holy Child School, Rory had become obsessed with lepers. He’d sit in the chapel during Benediction at the end of the day, and while the other kids squirmed in their seats and risked being cuffed in the back of the head by one of the nuns, Rory would stare up at the stained-glass window depicting the miraculous event and think how terrible it would be to be a leper.

  The dread stayed with him during the father-and-son trek, billowing in his mind like a turf-fire spark escaping a chimney and blazing through a thatched roof. Even the relief he felt when he discovered that Jamie’s da was still in Dungarven—which meant that he wouldn’t be here getting drunk and mean and spoiling things—or the pleasure in showing off the American to his mates could not warm the chill that had wrapped its icy fingers around his heart.

  The trekkers had been equipped with the appropriate equipment courtesy of a generous donation from Father O’Malley’s wealthy brother Brendan, who owned a sports-equipment store in Waterford that sold everything from hurling bats and balls—sliothars—to fishing tackle. The pup tents he supplied were large enough for a single man, or two small boys, which is how Rory came to be sharing one with his cousin.

  “Jamie, you must look at this,” he hissed, grabbing his cousin’s arm. Rory was sitting in the tent after the supper and singing, staring at his lobster-red face in the compact mirror his mother had sent along, insisting he’d need it to brush his hair on Sunday morning.

  “Look at what?” Jamie said sulkily.

  He’d been in a sour mood the entire trek. Although it was nice to see Mam smiling again, and he understood it was because Da wasn’t around yelling and punching walls with his huge meaty fists, it was embarrassing that he ended up the only boy in the class without a father, or someone to act as a father, on the trek. Even Daniel O’Kelley’s father, who was a deacon and had never missed a morning mass for as long as anyone in Castlelough could remember, had come along for the adventure.