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“Are you sure, sir?”
“I am. There will be plenty of work for you tomorrow. For tonight, enjoy yourselves.”
Thankfully, he doesn’t argue. With a tip of his cap, he bids us a good night and strides off toward the house.
“Well, he’s adorable.”
I send a quick text off to Bryan to ask that he pick up a new chainsaw for Connor tonight while he’s in town. “Aye, salt of the earth, both of them. We’ve been very lucky to have them.”
Laine gets down from her seat and we watch him go for a moment before we turn to the stables. “Let me just put this away and then we’ll continue our tour.”
She follows me as we head inside, to hang the axe on the tool wall in the utility room. “So, a stable with no horses is just outbuilding storage?”
I glance around. “Aye, I suppose that’s about right. After Mam passed, Da let the horses go and focused our trainings on more conventional skills.”
I shut off the lights, pull the barn door along the metal rails, and latch things up for the night.
“Where to now?” Laine asks, walking back toward the UTV with me.
I point, gesturing into the growing darkness beyond the stables. “Well, there’s the gazebo on the edge of the pond—that’s where Mam used to sit to watch us while we played in the water—and then the orchard. Other than that, you’ve seen it all.”
She steps in front of me and climbs in behind the wheel. “Well, it’s almost dark and since Connor is going to work on the trees tomorrow, I say you let me drive back and we save the orchard and the gazebo for the light of day.”
“Have you ever driven a beast like this before?”
She shakes her head. “Not yet, but I’m all about new experiences. With a little guidance, I’ll get us there just fine.”
Her words are dripping with double entendre, and I’m not about to put a dampener on that. “Eager to get back to the house, are you?”
“I am. And since your brothers are out tonight, I say we eat our dinner and turn in early. Your bedroom or mine?”
“Why not both?” I joke.
I climb into the passenger seat and her question—while made in jest—sits wrong in my gut. I have no intention of letting her go back to the guest room or us sleeping in my childhood bedroom down the hall.
No, it’s time I claim everything the universe has given me. Tonight, I’ll move Laine and I into the master suite and show her how life at my side is meant to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Laine
“What do you mean, you’re staying with him? Did being in a shoot-out not show you how dangerous it is to be around a man like Tag Quinn?”
Lying in the crumpled sheets of the Quinn master suite, I stare up at the ornate, tin ceiling above, as the shower turns on.
I hear Patrick’s objections and I understand them. I just don’t care.
Back in Chicago, I stayed on the right side of things and chose the sensible man and still ended up with armed assassins coming in to kill me in the dead of night.
It might sound crazy to someone on the outside looking in, but I don’t care. Despite knowing him for only a week, I feel safe with Tag.
I feel cherished and seen with Tag.
And the man he is seen to be by the people of Dublin is very different than the man he is with me, his brothers, and his staff.
Is he dangerous?
Without a doubt.
