The Mighty Quinns: Dermot. Kate Hoffmann

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       Prologue

      DERMOT QUINN buried his face in his pillow, fighting back tears. He wasn’t going to cry. Nine-year-old boys didn’t cry. And if he cried, then that was just admitting that he believed his parents were dead. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut. “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Don’t cry.”

      He heard a sound at the door and sat up, brushing an errant tear from his cheek. His twin brother, Kieran, slipped inside the room and shut the door behind him. He crossed to the bed and sat down on the edge.

      “He’s wrong, you know,” Dermot said stubbornly.

      “How do you know?”

      Dermot shrugged. “Because. They can’t be dead. I think they’re coming back. We’ll be getting ready for school and they’ll walk in the door. I know it.”

      His parents, Jamie and Suzanne, had left four months ago from Seattle, the two of them sailing a yacht that the family boat business had built for a wealthy customer in Australia. They were due to meet up with the owner in Vanuatu six weeks later.

      It was supposed to be a family trip, but they’d left early when the owner decided to change the delivery date. Dermot and Kieran, along with their eleven-year-old brother, Cameron, and seven-year-old brother, Ronan, would live with their grandfather for the last month of school.

      Dermot wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand. He crossed his legs in front of him. “What do you think happened?”

      Kieran considered his answer. “I think they’re on an island somewhere. Waiting for someone to find them. There was a storm… or—or a whale… and they got in their life raft before the boat sank.”

      Kieran had always told the truth and if he believed, then Dermot had hope.

      “The life raft washed up on shore in the middle of the night,” Dermot said. “And when the sun came up, Da got out and looked around. The island was big, with a thick jungle in the center and white sand beaches. They still had the fishing kit from the life raft. Da fishes while Mom hunts for fruit. Bananas and coconuts. They build a little hut from sticks and palm leaves. And they build a signal fire on the beach so that they’ll be ready when another boat sails past.”

      Kieran nodded. “Yeah. That’s it. They’re just waiting.” He drew a ragged breath. “Do you think they miss us?”

      “Yeah,” Dermot said. “Sure they do. But they’ll be back.”

      “Promise?”

      “Promise,” Dermot said.

      The bedroom door opened again and they both turned to see their older brother, Cameron, standing in the wash of light from the hall, Ronan peering out from behind him. “Grandda wants us to go over to our house and pick up some of our things.”

      Dermot scrambled off the bed. “We’re not going to live in our house anymore?”

      Cameron shook his head. “We’re going to live here with him. He said he’ll find someone to move our bedrooms over. And our other stuff, too.”

      “What about Ma and Da’s stuff?” Ronan asked.

      “I don’t know,” Cameron said. “I was afraid to ask him. I don’t think he wants to talk about it. You know how he is. ‘Chin up, lad. Don’t want ta have ta care for a babby.’” Cameron did a perfect imitation of their grandfather’s thick Irish accent. “We’ll be all right,” he said.

      Dermot slowly crossed the room and stood next to Cameron. Kieran joined them a few seconds later. “We’re on our own now, lads,” Cameron said, wrapping his arm around Ronan’s shoulders. “We need to be strong and brave and we need to pray every single night that this is just a bad dream and that we’ll all wake up very soon.”

       1

      DERMOT QUINN was in the middle of a very vivid dream when incessant knocking interrupted him. He slowly opened his eyes, groaning at the morning light that streamed through the bedroom windows of his houseboat. It was a sunny day in Seattle and though he was usually loath to waste good weather, Dermot turned onto his stomach and pulled the pillow over his head.

      The subtle scent of a woman’s СКАЧАТЬ