“Sounds reasonable to me,” Quinn said with a sideways glance at Nora. Her face curtained by her hair, she began taking cups down from the open shelf. “She seems like a great dog.”
Admittedly, he might have been a bit of a bastard when it came to Nora. But Quinn didn’t have it in him to be cold to a child. Especially one forced to grow up without a father. Not that having a father was any real guarantee of happiness.
“I assume you’re Rory.”
“I’m sorry. I should have introduced you to everyone,” Nora said before her son could answer. “Rory, this is Mr. Gallagher.” She went on to introduce the other children.
“I have all your books, Mr. Gallagher,” offered the tall gangly teenage boy with the serious eyes she’d introduced as her brother John.
“Call me Quinn.” Being called Mr. Gallagher reminded him uncomfortably of his father. “And thanks for the support. Your father said your favorite is The Night of the Banshee.”
“That was my favorite. But I think I like The Lady of the Lake best now. And I especially like that you set it right here in Castlelough.”
“Perhaps you’d like to come watch some filming.”
“Could I? Really?” It was such a small thing. And offered without thought. But it obviously meant a great deal to John Joyce.
“How about me?” This from the younger girl with the bright nest of Orphan Annie curls. Celia, Quinn remembered. Which would make her the child Brady’s wife had died giving birth to. “May I come, as well?”
Nora lit the stove, then shot a stern warning look over her shoulder as she filled a kettle from the tap. “That’s enough, now,” she said. “I won’t be having you all pestering Mr. Gallagher. He’s here to work on his movie and is to be left alone.”
“I don’t mind,” Quinn lied. Although he was not usually diplomatic, he could be when necessary.
Nora gave him a look that said she didn’t believe him for a moment. “You’re a paying guest. Don’t you have a right not to be pestered to death?” Her voice lilted with the soft cadence of the Irish west. “Would you be wanting some tea?”
“Of course he’ll be wanting tea,” Brady said, entering into the conversation. He looked hale and hearty, revealing not an iota of hangover. Yet further proof, Quinn considered grimly, that life wasn’t fair.
“Nora makes the best tea in the county,” Brady assured Quinn. “Stout enough to trot a mouse across, it is.”
“Now there’s a thought,” Quinn murmured, watching as his words caused the corners of her mouth to curl in a faint smile. “Tea sounds good. I tried making coffee, but I couldn’t get the knack of boiling it.”
“Didn’t I tell you we should have bought one of those Mr. Coffee machines, Nora, darling?” Brady said.
“Really, tea’s fine,” Quinn insisted.
Everyone but Nora was watching him again, as if he were some sort of unique animal. A unicorn, perhaps. Or the creature in the lake.
“I knew a Donovan Gallagher when I was a girl,” Fionna said. “He had family in Donegal. Would you be knowing of them?”
“No.”
She tilted her head and studied him. “You have the look of the boy I knew. Perhaps while you’re in Ireland, you might be wanting to take a visit to Donegal and—”
“No.” Realizing he’d snapped at her, Quinn softened his expression. And his tone. “I’m afraid I’m going to be very busy working on the film. I doubt I’ll have time for sight-seeing.”
“Ah, isn’t that a shame, now?” Fionna’s direct gaze told him that she suspected there might be more to his refusal than a scheduling problem. “To come all this way from America and not see your family…perhaps next time,” she suggested.
“Next time,” he agreed. Wanting to move the conversation away from himself, Quinn turned back to Rory. “So, what grade are you in?”
“Oh, I’m in first form.”
Quinn remembered attending three different schools in three different states during his first-grade year. He also remembered the broken arm his father had given him when he hadn’t fetched the bottle of Coors fast enough that September they’d lived in Boulder. “Do you like school?”
“Aye.” The small freckled forehead creased. “But I’m not so sure about next year.”
“Why not?”
“Because when you’re in second form, everything changes. You have to learn cursive, and start learning about the lives of the saints, and you become culp…culp…”
“He’s trying to say culpable,” Celia broke in with a toss of her head that suggested feminine superiority.
“Culpable?”
“You get reason,” Celia explained. “It means you become responsible. You can’t say you didn’t know any better because by the time you’re in second form, you’re supposed to know the difference between good and evil. So all your sins go against your permanent record.”
“I can see where that might be a worry.” Quinn decided he didn’t ever want to get a look at his permanent record. “But I can’t believe you could have all that many sins,” he assured Rory.
“Everything’s a bloody sin.” Mary spoke up for the first time, her dark kohl-lined eyes flashing. Seeing through the makeup the girl had spread like Spackle on her face, Quinn realized she was going to grow up to be a real beauty. “Everything pleasurable, that is.”
“And what kind of words are those from a girl who’s decided to become a nun?” Fionna demanded.
“I’m not going to be a nun.”
“Yesterday you said you had a vocation,” Rory reminded her.
“That was yesterday. Can’t a girl change her mind?”
“Mary wanted to become a nun because Jack asked Sharon Fitzgerald to the May Dance,” Rory informed Quinn.
“Sounds like Jack’s loss.” Quinn’s complimentary words caused color to flood into the teenage girl’s pale face.
“That’s what I told her,” Fionna said.
“Sharon sleeps around,” Celia volunteered. “Which is why Jack asked her to the dance, instead of our Mary.”
That was all it took to make the teenager burst into tears and run from the room.
“Don’t be minding the girl’s histrionics,” Fionna said matter-of-factly. “She’s at an age, don’t you know.”
“It’s difficult being a teenager,” Quinn agreed. Realizing he was wading once more into murky conversational waters, he was relieved when the kitchen door opened again and an ebony-haired woman accompanied by two children entered the room.
“Good morning, all.” While the greetings the others returned were cheery enough, Quinn thought he detected a sudden tension in the kitchen. Nora, especially, seemed to be studying the newcomer carefully.
“I’m Kate O’Sullivan.” She held out a friendly hand. Her flesh was pale, her grip strong, her smile warm. “And you’d be Quinn Gallagher. And these two are my daughter and my son. I enjoy your books. Even if they are marketed all wrong.”
“Oh?” Just what he needed. Another critic.
If she heard the faint warning note in Quinn’s voice, Kate ignored it. “You don’t write horror of course.”
“I