Название: A Woman's Heart
Автор: JoAnn Ross
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
isbn: 9781472000897
isbn:
“If I wanted you, it sure as hell would be my decision.”
“Do you always get what you want?” It wasn’t exactly a challenge. Nora was genuinely curious.
“When it comes to women? Always.” His eyes cleared. Nora looked down into those fathomless midnight depths and, feeling like a bog butterfly pinned to a cork, had the impression Quinn was giving her a warning. “But you don’t have to worry, sweetheart. You’re not my type.”
Even as she told herself it was for the best, she felt a prick of feminine annoyance at being so easily dismissed.
“And isn’t that a coincidence,” she said briskly, throwing the quilt over him. “Since you’re not my type, either.”
She held her breath, almost expecting God to send a lightning bolt through the thatched roof to strike her dead for telling such an outrageous falsehood. Because unfortunately, from the way her body had grown warm in proximity to his, it appeared that Quinn Gallagher was very much her type.
Quinn arched a sardonic brow, but didn’t challenge her lie, which relieved Nora greatly. “Then we shouldn’t have any problem, should we?”
“None at all.” If only that was true. Nora had the sinking feeling this brash American was going to provide a very large problem indeed. She reached out and turned off the bedside lamp, throwing the room into darkness. “Good night, Mr. Gallagher.”
“Good night, Mrs. Fitzpatrick.” His deep voice echoed the formality in hers. He’d already begun snoring by the time she reached the door.
She moved down the hall to the small room that, thanks to her father, would serve as her bedroom for the next four weeks. She washed her face and brushed her teeth as quietly as possible in the adjoining bathroom she was forced to share with her boarder.
Since it was chilly in the unheated room, she undressed quickly, changing into a long, cream flannel nightgown and a pair of gray-and-white caterpillar-striped wool socks Fionna had knit for her last Christmas. Then, as she knelt beside the bed the way she had every night since childhood, Nora, who was not normally a petty person, derived some small mean satisfaction from the idea that come morning, Quinn Gallagher would be suffering one hell of a hangover.
Chapter Five
The Devil’s in the Whiskey
Quinn awoke to the sound of birds chirping and sheep bleating. He was sprawled on his back on the bed, still in the clothes he’d worn on the plane—which reeked of cigarette and peat smoke—his head pounding like the bass drum in a marching band. Not yet wanting to risk opening his eyes, which felt sandpaper scratchy, he ran his tongue over teeth as fuzzy as moss-covered rocks.
While he might have the mother of all hangovers, the prodigious amount of alcohol he’d drunk last night had not, unfortunately, impaired his memory. He recalled everything about the night before, including the fact that he’d made an ass of himself by hitting on Nora Fitzpatrick.
In between fanciful stories of banshees, warriors and revolution, Brady Joyce had waxed eloquent about his widowed daughter, clearly a man prone to overembellishment. Quinn, upon first stumbling out of the patrol car last night, had discovered that perhaps for the first time in the man’s life, Brady had been guilty of understatement.
Nora Fitzpatrick’s face, haloed by a wavy cloud of hair as bright as the cozy peat fire burning in the parlor hearth, had brought to mind a pre-Christian Celtic goddess. Her eyes were a soft mystical green that could have washed off the velvet hills of the countryside. And her mouth! At first sight of her lush unpainted lips, he’d felt an instant desire to taste them.
Quinn had no intention of apologizing for experiencing a sexual attraction. His approach, however, had definitely lacked subtlety.
She’d looked somehow familiar, but remembering the tug of recognition he’d experienced when he’d first seen the country from the plane, Quinn had discounted the sensation.
One thing he hadn’t been able to discount was that momentary flash of shared sexual awareness, when he’d caught a glimpse of something in her eyes, something he couldn’t quite put a finger on. It couldn’t be inexperience, since she had, after all, been married. She’d even had a child, he recalled Brady telling him. A son.
Innocence, perhaps?
Whatever it was, even tanked as he’d been, every instinct Quinn possessed had told him that Nora Fitzpatrick was trouble. With a capital T.
“No point in borrowing trouble,” he muttered, quoting his mother, who’d always possessed a natural knack for doing exactly that. “The widow Fitzpatrick is off-limits.”
He’d no sooner stated the vow when he heard a whimper he first thought might have come from him. Gingerly opening one eye, he came face-to-face with a huge furry gray, white and black muzzle and a pair of limpid brown eyes.
“Either Brady has taken to parking a Buick in the bedroom, or you’re the biggest damn dog in Ireland.”
The beast whimpered again, a thin sound more suited to some toy breed a tenth its size, then self-consciously looked away.
“You can’t be shy.”
One ear cocked. But the dog still refused to meet Quinn’s gaze.
He reached out, caught hold of the muzzle and turned the fuzzy face back toward him. “Hell, don’t tell me I hurt your feelings.”
He’d never had a dog. The closest he’d ever come to having a pet was the field mouse he’d captured when he was seven and his family had been living in a trailer outside Apache Junction, Arizona. Using money earned running errands for a local bookie, he’d bought a hamster cage from Kmart, which he hid in a kitchen cupboard. Since his mother had never been one to cook, it had seemed the safest place.
He’d kept the mouse for nearly a week, feeding it limp lettuce from a nearby Safeway Dumpster. Unfortunately his father had discovered it while searching for a carton of cigarettes, cussed him out royally, then whipped him with a belt that had left welts for two weeks. Years later he still had the scars from the buckle to remind him of that day.
The mouse had fared even worse. His father had suffocated it in a plastic bag, then tossed it outside for the feral desert cats to tear apart.
“You realize, of course,” Quinn said to the dog now, “you’re too big to be such a candy-ass.”
The dog rolled brown eyes beneath furry beetled brows.
“I’m not going to hurt you, dammit.”
Another whimper. And if a dog could look dubious, this one was definitely pulling it off. Quinn shook his head in disgust, then wished he hadn’t when boulders started tumbling around inside.
“Lord, we’re a pitiful pair,” he muttered, crawling out of the double bed.
Although his legs felt as if he were walking on the deck of a rolling ship, Quinn managed to make his way into the adjoining bathroom, which smelled СКАЧАТЬ