The Mighty Quinns: Riley (9 page)

It was a good idea, something he ought to write down before he forgot it. Wasn't this a laugh, he thought to himself. He hadn't written a decent tune in months and now, a night of good sex had turned that all around. Hell, if he continued on with Nan, he might have a whole new album by the end of the week.

When he got back inside, he searched through the top drawer in a chest, pulling out a small pad of paper and a pen. He flipped on a lamp near the sofa and sat down, determined to write all his ideas out and then put the pad away and go back to bed.

But an hour later, when the clock on the mantel struck four, Riley realized that he was glad he hadn't been able to sleep. Lyrics had poured onto the page, line after line, and each with a melody to go with it. When the lyrics were complete, he went back and added harmonies, sketching out the guitar chords above the words.

He thought about putting on a pot of coffee, but decided to keep working until exhaustion set in naturally.
Instead, he got up and fetched a beer from the refrigerator, twisting the cap off as he walked back to the sofa. He spread the three songs out on the floor in front of him, studying them for a long time.

They were good. Really, really good. And they needed to go on the new CD. He had his reason to delay recording. Who knew what he'd come up with in the next week? And the band would have to have time to practice these.

“What are you doing out here?”

The sound of her voice startled him and he glanced over his shoulder to find Nan standing in the bedroom door, her naked body wrapped in the quilt from the bed. “Hey,” he said. “I'm sorry. I just couldn't sleep.”

She walked over to him and plopped down beside him on the sofa. “Are you writing?”

He nodded. “Yeah. I'm not sure where the inspiration came from but—no, that's not true. I think I know where the inspiration came from.”

“Where?”

“From what went on in that bedroom,” he said. “I just felt this need to write about it.”

“About sex?”

“No, just about men and women. Passion. Love. All of those things that singers sing about.”

She pulled her feet up on the sofa and snuggled up against him. “Sing me one of them,” she murmured, closing her eyes.

“They're not ready yet,” he said, turning to drop a kiss on the top of her head. Riley sat back, resting his
cheek on her soft hair. “But when they're ready, you'll be the first one I sing them to.”

“Mmm,” she said. “That's nice. I like your voice.”

She nestled closer and a few minutes later, her breathing slowed and she fell asleep. Riley reached for the notepad and pen, then let his mind wander again. He'd never believed in the concept of an artistic muse. But maybe that's what Nan was for him—a source of inspiration in human form.

Riley ran his hand over her silken hair and down her arm. He'd spent a lot of his life searching, looking for that one thing that would guarantee him complete happiness. And as he sat in this simple cottage, with Nan beside him, Riley couldn't think of anything else in the world he wanted.

Right now, for this single moment in time, he was completely and utterly happy. And if he could stop time in its place, he would. But Riley couldn't forget that Nan would be leaving him. When that time came, he wondered if he'd ever experience such pure contentment again.

N
AN SMELLED
the coffee before she opened her eyes. She sighed softly and buried her face in the down pillow, stretching her arms above her head. This was becoming a habit after three nights together. Riley was up at the crack of dawn, scribbling things in his notebook and strumming on his guitar, and she slept until at least nine or ten.

Yesterday, they'd taken a drive to the Burren, a vast stone plateau in County Clare. Though the landscape was stark and harsh, it was still beautiful. Mounds of colorful wildflowers punctuated the gray slabs of stone and everywhere she looked, there were birds and small animals to watch.

They'd had a pub lunch in Ennis, then stopped in every village along their route to Lough Learie. A drive around the lake was followed by a gourmet dinner in Killarney and a long ride home.

Yesterday had been the first day she'd followed her carefully planned itinerary. And though she'd seen everything on her plan, it had been marred by the sight
of the signs for Shannon Airport. She hadn't wanted to think about going home, but there was no ignoring it as they drove through Limerick.

Though she'd tried to limit the depth of her affection for Riley, the attempt had been a pitiful failure. With every minute that she spent in his presence, she grew more attached, more certain that he was the man she was meant to find.

It had all been such a whirlwind, her feelings coming so quickly. And she'd tried to tell herself that this somehow diminished the truth in what she felt. It wasn't love, but merely an infatuation. And yet, every instinct told her the opposite. She was falling in love with Riley and she could do nothing to stop herself.

There had been so many moments when the words had come to her lips, when she'd nearly blurted them out. How would he react if he knew her true feelings? Was this still a holiday romance to him, an affair that would come to an end when she got on the plane to go home? Or was he feeling something deeper? She groaned softly. Though the physical part came so easily between them, the emotional part was messy and complicated.

“I know you want this,” Riley whispered in a singsong voice.

Her eyes still closed, she reached out for the mug but found only empty air. “Are you withholding my coffee for sex? You are a desperate man, Riley Quinn.”

“I'm a happy man,” he countered, sitting down on the edge of the bed.

She pushed up, bracing her hands beneath her and
opening her eyes. He'd already showered, his dark hair falling in damp strands over his forehead. All he wore was a pair of jeans, zipped but not buttoned at the waist. “Morning,” she murmured.

“God, you are pretty in the morning. Your hair is sticking up in little spikes. And your eyes are all sleepy.”

Nan reached up and combed her hair with her fingers. She knew exactly how she looked in the morning and she certainly wouldn't describe it as cute. “Are you going to give me that coffee? Or would you like me to smother you with this pillow?”

He held out the mug. “I walked down to the pub and brought up some soda bread and a fruit salad that Katie made. And orange juice.”

“You brought me breakfast?” Nan smiled. “Come here. That deserves a kiss.”

He leaned over and collected his reward, lingering as his tongue touched hers. It was the perfect way to wake up, quietly and romantically, not jarred to consciousness by an obnoxious alarm clock. “What time is it?”

“Just after ten,” he said. “Early.”

“I could spend my entire vacation in this bedroom,” she said.

“I thought you liked running around like a mad woman.”

“I'm sorry,” she said. “I spent months mapping out everything I wanted to see. I got all the guidebooks and made lists and researched everything. And now—” She giggled. “I don't give a feck!”

“Bravo,” Riley said. “I also have some news for you.
I did a little more detective work and I found out where Carey Findley lives. You remember, Tiernan Findley's father.”

Nan sat up. She'd been so caught up with Riley that she'd pushed her search aside. A twinge of guilt twisted at her heart. Was it that easy to forget everything that brought her to Ireland?

“Carey Findley lives about thirty kilometers from here in a town called Kealkill. I put in a call but he wasn't home, so I left a message.”

“What did you say? Did you tell him about me?”

“I just asked him to contact me at the pub. That's all. Now we just have to wait for him to call.”

Nan wrapped her arms around her knees and stared down at her toes. “All right. I guess that's good. When he calls, we'll go visit him and then we can talk about the letters he wrote to my mother. How long do you think it will be before he calls back?”

“We'll give him a day or two and if he doesn't call, we can take a drive over to his place and visit.” Riley reached out and smoothed his hand over her cheek. “So, what are we doing today?”

“Your choice,” she said. “Take me somewhere interesting. Show me something wonderful. Somewhere Irish and historical. Can we go kiss the Blarney stone?”

“No,” Riley said. “Absolutely not. There are so many better things to do than hang upside down from the top of a castle and kiss a stone that thousands of people have put their lips on. From here on out, your lips belong exclusively to me.”

“Yeah, kissing the stone doesn't sound very appeal
ing.” She took another sip of her coffee. “What have you been doing with yourself since you got up?”

“I've been working on a song I want to sing tomorrow night.”

“Sing it for me now.”

He shook his head. “No. Not until I'm ready.”

“Do you just sing at the Hound?”

“No. All over Ireland. A lot in Dublin. Sometimes with my band, sometimes alone. Every now and then, we sing in London. I've written some songs for other singers and they've been successful. One was just used in an Irish film.”

“So you like what you do?”

He shrugged. “Sometimes. And sometimes I think I ought to quit singing and get on with my real life. Become an upstanding citizen with a respectable job that provides a better living.”

“Why?” she asked softly. “If you're happy, money shouldn't make a difference. I'll never become a millionaire working in a library, but I love doing what I do.”

“I was never sure I wanted all the stuff that goes with fame and fortune anyway. You have to spend so much time trying to hang on to it that you never get a chance to enjoy it.”

“I wish I had a talent,” Nan said. “My mother used to be a wonderful artist. I have some of the watercolors she did. And my father could play the piano by ear. But I can't do anything exceptional.”

“You drive me wild in the bedroom,” he said. “And everywhere else. That's exceptional.”

“I suspect you have a lot of women willing to drive you wild,” she said, reaching out and running her hand down his bare chest.

“Until you walked out of those doors at Shannon Airport, I'd been perfectly sane for many months.” He grabbed her coffee and took a sip. “I've told you about my work, what about yours? You work in a library.”

“I'm the assistant director of special collections,” she said. “I work at a university library.”

“What does that mean? What kind of collections? Comic books? Marbles?”

“I'm second in charge of rare books and maps and old letters and everything that's not a regular book and is old and valuable. And when researchers come to the library, I help them find what they need. We just had a huge collection of maps donated to the university and I'm in charge of cataloging them.”

“That sounds interesting,” he said.

“You are such a liar,” Nan teased as she took her coffee away from him. “It sounds boring. You thought I was an old lady.”

“I was gravely mistaken. And you set me straight on that.”

She wrapped her arms around her knees, holding the warm coffee between her hands. “Your job is so much more exciting. People scream and clap for you. You make people cry when you sing. I bring people musty old books and make them sneeze.”

“Well, if you could do something different, what would you do?”

Nan leaned back into the pillows and sighed. Though
she was naked from the waist up, she had no thought to cover herself. She was completely comfortable with Riley. And thrilled when he looked at her body with such obvious appreciation.

“When I was younger I wanted to be a heroine. Like Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet. Before that, it was a princess. I lived inside books so I figured working in a library was a good choice for me.” She paused, wondering how much more she could reveal without appearing completely ridiculous. But this was Riley. He seemed to accept her exactly the way she was. “I wrote a children's book last year.”

“You did? What's it about?”

“About a monster that lives in a little girl's closet. After my mother died, I used to be so afraid to go to bed, afraid that I'd wake up the next morning and my whole world would be changed.” She paused. “My mom died in the middle of the night and my dad woke me up in the morning to tell me.”

Riley slipped his hand around her nape and pulled her into a soft kiss. “I'm sorry.”

Nan smiled. “Before she got really sick, she used to sit and read to me every night before I fell asleep. And before she walked out of the room, she'd tell all the monsters to go away and come back another day.” She shrugged. “It's just a silly story. I don't have any illustrations for it. I'm not very good at art.”

“You could find someone to illustrate it. Danny went to art school.”

“Is he an illustrator?”

Riley shook his head. “He studied sculpting. But I'm sure he'd know someone to contact.”

“He must know how to draw if he went to art school.”

“I've never really seen him draw, except when he does his designs. He makes iron fences and gates and andirons. And these wild sculptures fashioned out of junk. People from all over the world commission him to work for them. He's kind of famous.”

“As famous as you?”

“With a different crowd,” Riley replied. “His fans are all really rich people with big houses. Mine are all drunkards and pub rats.”

“I'm your fan,” she murmured, reaching out to slip her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans.

“Come on, now. Get yourself up out of bed and into the shower. We have a busy day ahead.”

“I think jet lag is starting to set in.”

“You've had four nights to recover. I'm starting to believe you're just a layabout.” He grabbed her coffee and set it on the bedside table, then threw the covers back and scooped her naked body up into his arms. “Shower first, then breakfast.”

“No,” Nan cried. Being with Riley was much easier without clothes, since he always seemed to be determined to take them off.

When they reached the bathroom, he turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm, then gently pushed her inside. “That will wake you up.”

But Nan wasn't about to lose her advantage. Grabbing the front of his jeans, she unzipped them, then
shoved them down over his hips. “Don't you want to join me?”

“Nan, that shower is like a bleedin' coffin. It barely fits one, much less two.”

“It will be fun trying, though.”

He kicked out of his jeans and stepped inside, pulling the curtain shut behind him. “See, I told you. Cramped quarters.”

Their bodies were pressed so closely together beneath the water that just the slightest movement became incredibly erotic. “Can you reach the soap?” she asked.

He wrapped his arms around her and grabbed the soap, then struggled to put it in her hand. “Maybe if we swapped places,” Riley said, gripping her waist and trying to turn them both around.

But as they moved, Riley backed against the shower curtain. Off balance, Nan bumped into him and he began to fall back into the curtain, which was caught under his foot. He reached out to steady her, but Nan was in no position to help him regain his footing.

The rod popped off the top of the shower and in a tangle of arms and legs, they fell onto the bathroom floor, their slippery bodies skidding on the vinyl curtain. The scene was so utterly ridiculous that all Nan could do was laugh.

Riley growled. “Look at what we've done. I'm going to have to take this out of your deposit.”

“It wasn't my fault. You're the one who fell.”

“You're the one who insisted I join you, even after I warned you it wouldn't work.”

She lay on top of him, wriggling her hips against his
in a provocative way. “Oh, poor thing. It is such a hardship to take off your clothes and have a shower with a naked and willing woman. Whatever will you do?”

Riley grinned. “Willing? Willing to do what?”

Nan leaned close and pressed a kiss to the center of his damp chest. “I don't know. What do you have in mind?”

He was already hard and he moved beneath her, his shaft rubbing against her belly. “I'm sure if we lie here for a little while longer, something will come to us.”

 

“W
HERE ARE WE GOING
?”

“To Bantry,” Riley said as they strode along the waterfront in Ballykirk. “We don't have a lot of time, but the weather is fine, so I thought we'd go by water instead of driving.”

“Really. We're going on a boat?”

“We're going to go on this boat,” he said, pointing to a small fishing vessel tied up at the end of a weathered dock. Riley untied the stern line and tossed it onto the deck. “Hop on.”

He helped Nan on board, then stepped into the tiny wheelhouse and started the engine. Nan stood next to him, watching everything he did with curious eyes.

“Is this your boat?”

“No, it belongs to my uncle. It's an old boat he restored, one that my great-grandfather used for the family fishing business. It's too small to use for commercial fishing now, but the family uses it for fun.”