Kate Hoffmann - Declan

“Where are your animals, in the garage?”

“I’m just saying it’s very important that I make a good first impression. So, which of these do you think I should bring? There’s a peach cobbler, a Greek pasta salad and a really good sun-dried tomato spread for crackers. What do you think your mother needs?”

“You want me to pick one?” Dec asked. “Why don’t we just bring them all?”

Rachel shook her head. “No. That would appear like I’m trying too hard.”

“Trying too hard to do what?”

“To gain their approval,” Rachel said.

“Baby, you don’t need their approval. I love you. And if I love you, they’ll love you. You come preapproved. Nothing my family could ever say would change how I feel about you.” He paused and stared down at the three dishes. “Besides, you don’t know how my family eats. I think we should bring them all.”

She hitched her hands on her hips and considered his suggestion, then shrugged. “We’ll take the hors d’oeuvres and the dessert. We can have the pasta salad for lunch tomorrow.”

“Done,” Dec said. “Now, let’s go.”

The drive down to Bonnett Harbor was one Dec had made often, but it seemed to go by so quickly with Rachel in the car to talk to. As they chatted, he couldn’t help but go over in his mind how he’d tell his brothers about her. Hell, he’d been the one to issue the celibacy challenge. And he’d been the first one to break it.

He didn’t care what they said. He had Rachel and that was all that mattered. She was worth whatever punishment they decided to mete out. He’d gotten what he wanted out of the challenge, a chance to know women better, a chance to find a woman worth knowing better.

As they got closer to Bonnett Harbor, he could see Rachel was getting more nervous. “You’ll like my family,” he said.

“So, it’s your two brothers and you and your parents, right?”

“No,” Dec said. “We have four older siblings, too. Two brothers, Rory and Eddie, and two sisters, Mary Grace and Jane. And then there’s Ian, me and Marcus.”

“Seven,” Rachel said.

“We’re Irish and Catholic. Big families are kind of our thing. The four oldest are married and they all have kids, so there’ll be a lot of people there.”

“Good,” Rachel said.

When they pulled up to the Quinn house in a quiet neighborhood of Bonnett Harbor, there were children playing on the front lawn. The moment they saw Dec, they raced over to the car and hugged him. Dec introduced his nieces and nephews to Rachel, then made the two eldest carry the food into the house.

He slipped his arm around Rachel’s waist and walked inside with her. He found his mother and father in the kitchen, both of them peering into a pan of barbeque sauce. “Da, Ma?”

They turned. “Declan,” his mother said. “Come and taste this sauce. Your father says it needs to be sweeter.”

Paddy grabbed his wife and kissed her cheek. “I said you need to be sweeter.”

Emma laughed, then turned back to Declan. “So, who is this?”

Dec made the introductions and Emma immediately crossed the kitchen and held out her hand. “Rachel, I’m so glad you decided to join us.” Emma looked over at her husband and smiled. “In fact, I think it’s just wonderful that Declan decided to bring a friend today.”

“Are Ian and Marcus here?” Dec asked.

“Oh, yes,” Paddy replied. “And they’ll be anxious to meet your pretty friend. You might as well get out there and make the introductions.”

Dec took a deep breath. The glint in his father’s eye told him that there would be hell to pay for this. Obviously he’d heard about their pact and was now taking great delight in the fact that Declan had broken it. “Well, let’s go,” he murmured to Rachel. “The sooner I admit defeat, the sooner I can brag about how wonderful you are.”

As they walked to the backyard, Dec smiled to himself. He was proud to introduce Rachel as the woman in his life. Any man would be happy to bring her home to his family, but he’d gotten lucky. He’d been the one to win her heart. He saw Marcus and Ian standing near the back fence, tossing a football back and forth between them and Dec’s two eldest nephews.

He nodded in their direction. “The guy on the right is Ian, the guy on the left is Marcus.”

Rachel pointed to a nearby picnic table. “Are those your sisters?”

Dec turned and followed her gaze, then stopped short. “No.” He frowned. “No, the blonde is Eden Ross.” He chuckled softly. “Oh, well, this is interesting. I’m willing to bet that the other woman with the dark hair is Marisol Arantes.” He groaned then raked his hand through his hair. “I should have figured this one out. God, how could I have missed this?”

“What?” Rachel asked.

He took her hand and led her out into the yard. When his brothers saw him, they stopped tossing the ball and stared. “Hey, Marky,” Ian called. “I guess we’re three for three.”

Dec pulled Rachel against him and laughed. “You bleedin’ liars. You’ve been shining me on all this time.”

“Who’s been shining who?” Marcus asked.

Dec gently rubbed Rachel’s back. “Rachel Merrill, these are my brothers, Ian and Marcus. Brothers, this is Rachel. My girlfriend.”

They both shook her hand then made the rest of the introductions. In truth, Dec wasn’t surprised at Ian and Marisol, but Marcus and Eden Ross shocked the hell out him. When he was introduced, Eden threw her arms around him and gave him an enthusiastic hug. “Thank you for not finding me,” she said.

“I’d assume you were on the boat the whole time?”

Marcus slipped his arm around her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “My own personal stowaway,” he said.

Dec had never seen Marcus quite so happy. He was grinning from ear to ear. As for Ian, he’d found his match in Marisol. Like Eden, she was stunningly beautiful, but in an exotic, mysterious way.

“You’re the lady with the painting,” he said. “I wondered why Ian was so secretive about that.”

“I guess I should thank you, too,” Marisol said. “If you hadn’t found that expert, I would have done something very stupid. And Ian might have had to put me in jail.”

The ladies wandered off to introduce Rachel to the rest of the family while Ian, Marcus and Dec watched them from a spot near the picnic table.

“She’s beautiful, Dec,” Ian murmured.

“She’s smart, too,” Dec said. “Really smart. And sexy. I don’t know how it all happened, but I’m sure as hell glad it did.”

“So, what do you think?” Ian asked. “Do we give the money to the one who lasted the longest? Or do we just call it even?”

“I have an idea,” Dec said. “Why don’t we give the money to the one who gets married first?”

The three of them looked at each other, then laughed. “Sounds good to me,” Ian said.

“I’m cool with that,” Marcus added.

To Dec, it seemed as if they’d agreed pretty quickly to the challenge. He knew he had every intention of marrying Rachel. And it was obvious that his brothers felt the same way about the women they’d met.

Marcus pulled out his key chain and held out the gold medallion. “I’ve got it ready. All we have to do is agree.”

“What is that?” Emma Quinn stepped between Ian and Marcus and took the key chain from Marcus’s hand. “Where did you get that?”

“We found it when we were kids,” Dec said. “In the old stable at Porter Hall.”

“My mother used to wear a charm just like this around her neck. She told me that she and my father exchanged them when they were young, kind of like a promise ring.” She held it up and the sunlight glinted off the gold. “It’s a love charm, you know.”

“A love charm?” Dec asked.

His mother nodded. “The script is Gaelic. My mother told me what it said. Let me see if I can remember. I think it was something like ‘Love will find a way.’” She smiled. “That’s it. Love will find a way. It’s a beautiful sentiment.”

The three brothers nodded. Marcus took the key chain from his mother, then slipped the charm off and pressed it into her hand. “Here,” he said. “It’s yours. I don’t think we need it anymore.”

Emma kissed Marcus on the cheek, then turned to her other two sons and did the same. “I think you boys have done well for yourselves,” she said, nodding to the three women they’d brought along to family dinner. “But I can’t help but wonder if the faeries have been watching out for you on this. You carry a lot of Ireland inside you and some of that is magic and some of that is luck.”

“I guess our luck came all at once then,” Dec said.

“I’m all right with that,” Ian said.

“Me, too,” said Marcus.

Dec and his brothers crossed the yard to join the rest of the family near a small wading pool that had been set up for the kids. Dec grabbed Rachel’s hand and pulled her along to the house. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go get something to drink.”

But when they were alone in the kitchen, Dec forgot all about the drinks. Instead, all he could think about was kissing Rachel. He kissed her because she was beautiful and sweet. He kissed her because he already knew his family loved her. He kissed her for the future they’d share and all the dreams they’d make come true.

Love had come as such a surprise, but now that he’d found it, he realized how lucky he was. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe the faeries had had a hand in it. However it had happened, however Dec had been chosen to be the man to love Rachel, it didn’t matter.

All that really mattered was that he planned to love her until the end of forever.

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