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“I’m sorry I misjudged you about the money. It was gone, and I panicked. It’s my future and my chance at a new start. To find it stolen?—”
“You don’t need to explain, lass. I regret it happened, especially after I made assurances that it was safe to trust me.”
I stop outside the door to my guest bedroom and stare into those green eyes of his. “Why do you care what I think? You have so much else going on. Why do you care about me?”
He opens the door to my room and unloads the bundles he’s carrying onto the dresser before turning to accept my burden to add to the stack.
“I suppose I found a kinship between us. The sadness of loss. The determination to keep moving forward. The need to connect with family to weather the storm.”
“Is that all it is?”
He shakes his head, the back of two fingers brushing my cheek in a gentle caress. The contact of flesh against flesh has my cells firing to life in a way I don’t understand. “Och, no. That’s not all, but it’s the simplest reason to explain.”
When he steps back, the loss of his touch leaves me wanting all the things I’ve been telling myself I don’t want.
And I don’t.
And yet, I do.
I take his retreat as a good thing, get my bag, and repack the false bottom with my money. “Why do I feel like you asking Finn to escort me is as much to keep him busy and out of harm’s way as it is about me?”
“Because you’re an intelligent and perceptive woman.” He spins the upholstered desk chair and straddles it to face me. “Finn’s had a rough time of it since Da passed. I should’ve been a better brother over the past months, but I?—”
“—Was grieving and had the added weight of taking control of his legacy. Is that why you hadn’t been back here since?”
He arches a brow. “I see the two of you have become fast friends, gossiping away.”
I wave away his concern. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Quinn. When he mentioned it, he was more curious about me than interested in talking about you. He looks up to you.”
“Aye, and there’s the rub. If I can’t even sit in my father’s place at the head of the table, how do I convince our men and the rival families that I’m fit to fight for our territory?”
“Do you think that’s what this is with the McGuires?”
“Aye, I do. Da ended the battle for the streets decades ago. We each concerned ourselves in our own interests and coexisted. Now Mattie has sent one of his poison peddlers into my streets and shot up Jimmy’s pub. It’s a challenge, without doubt.”
“I don’t want to get involved, but what’s your biggest conflict in retaliation?”
“Innocents getting caught in the middle. You might not believe me about the Quinn Laws, but we don’t break the code, luv. We live by it. We die by it. If I send an army of men to the south side and declare war, people will get hurt.”
As much as I don’t want to empathize with him, I do. He wants to do the right thing and is in an impossible situation. “Can you hurt him by shutting down his income streams? If he’s provoking you into a physical battle, go after him a different way. You mentioned they aren’t the most sophisticated of businessmen. Could you outmaneuver them?”
Tag looks at me and it’s like a light comes on behind his eyes. He’s off his chair and launching toward me like an incoming storm.
Gripping both sides of my jaw, he claims my mouth. His kiss is as heated and hungry as it was last night, and my resolve to keep my distance dissolves.
A feminine whine escapes my throat as he lifts me from the floor. My legs wrap around his hips and then he’s sitting me on the dresser, his hands roaming. The kiss is all-consuming, and I’m lost in his passions.
He’s the one to slow the kiss, but thankfully, he looks as flushed and carried away as I feel. “You are brilliant, Laine O’Neill. I know just how to do it. Come, let’s get you down to Finny, so I can get to it.”
After leaving Tag in an almost giddy state, Finn takes me on a lovely, circuitous route around the south end of Dublin, and then down the eastern coast. With my window down and the late May breeze coming off the Irish Sea, I breathe in the brilliant sunshine and damp sea air and the trauma of my past few days ebbs away.
The Range Rover is equipped with a navigation system, and although I was confident I could find my way when I originally turned down both Finn and then Tag’s help in connecting with my family, I’m grateful they insisted.
Given all the winding cart paths the Irish call roads, I’m thankful to have a guide.
Not in a great hurry to get to my destination, I asked him not to take the highway, so we enjoy the countryside, study the farms and country homes, and pass through the quaint villages with colorfully painted cottages and thatched-roofs.
People smile and wave as we drive by, and that warms my heart. In Chicago, depending on the neighborhood, it would be less of a wave and more of a middle-finger salute.
