Liam

The fifth book in the Mighty Quinns series, 2003


Dear Reader,

The Quinns are back! For those of you who read my first MIGHTY QUINNS trilogy, I’m sure you probably realized that I couldn’t just leave the younger brothers-Brian, Sean and Liam-living life as carefree bachelors. After all, what fun would that be?

The Quinn family has always done its best to avoid commitment. But the three youngest brothers have more to deal with than just the old family legends-where all the men are heroes and the women are schemers. Now there’s a new Mighty Quinn “curse.” After brothers Conor, Dylan and Brendan each rode to the rescue of a beautiful woman in distress, they ended up tumbling helplessly into love. Can Brian, Sean and Liam avoid the same fate? Or will destiny give them their own chance at happily-ever-after?

I hope you enjoy Liam’s story. And watch for Brian and Sean coming in the following months. And then who knows? There are probably a few Quinn cousins out there waiting to find romance.

Happy reading,

Kate Hoffmann

P.S. I love to hear from my readers. Visit my Web site at www.katehoffmann.com for news about all my books, past, present and future.

For my great-great-great-great-grandfather Patrick Doolin,

who provided me with my only drop of Irish blood.


Prologue

THE THREE BOYS hunched down on the floor of the front parlor, peering through the tattered lace curtains at a figure on the front porch.

“What should we do?” Liam Quinn whispered. “We can’t let her in.”

“Answer the door,” his brother Brian ordered. “We have to pretend everything is okay.”

“She’ll go away,” Sean reassured them both. “Just wait.” Sean was Brian’s twin and they usually disagreed on everything.

“No,” Liam whispered. “She’s not going away. Not this time.”

A knot of fear twisted in his stomach and he held his breath. He and his five brothers had been dodging social workers long enough for Liam to know exactly what they looked like. This one wore a gray coat, nearly the same color as the dirty snow that melted on either side of the street. But it was the dour expression and overstuffed briefcase that really gave her away.

“Answer the damn door,” Brian snapped. “Just tell her you’re home sick and Da is napping in the bedroom.”

Liam turned to his older brothers, the twins both glaring at him. He was the swing vote, a position very difficult for a ten-year-old. “What if she wants to talk to him, Einstein?”

“You’ll just have to convince her that he can’t be bothered,” Brian explained. “Tell her he has a contagious flu…and that he’s barfing…and that the doctors said he has to sleep. You can do it, Li.” Brian gave him an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

The doorbell buzzed again and Liam jumped at the harsh sound. The social workers had been a fear for as long as he could remember. They were like the mythical dragons in their father’s tales of the Mighty Quinn ancestors, always lurking in the shadows and waiting to swoop down to tear their family to shreds.

Winter was the worst season for the dragons to strike. In the winter, there was no way they could produce a responsible parent. In late October, Seamus Quinn took The Mighty Quinn down to the Caribbean, following the swordfishing fleet to warmer waters where he’d earn a winter income not possible on the North Atlantic. Since he was due to return at the beginning of April, they were still on their own for a few more weeks.

Liam didn’t exactly have a perfect family, but it was as close as the six Quinn brothers would ever come. Though his older brothers remembered a time when things were better, Liam had never known any other life. Conor, Dylan, Brendan and the twins, Sean and Brian, had all been born in Ireland, a country Liam only knew as an island on a map. But to hear them speak of it, Ireland had been a land filled with magic and mystery and wonderful, happy times.

Liam had tried to imagine what it was like to have a regular family, a father who came home every night and a mother who cooked dinner and read stories. But all that was over by the time Liam joined the family. Their father, Seamus, had brought his wife and five sons to America before Liam was even born. He’d bought a partnership in Uncle Padriac’s long-liner, The Mighty Quinn, working at an occupation that took him away from South Boston for weeks and sometimes months at a time.

Liam had been the first Quinn born in America. He had always harbored a secret guilt that maybe he’d been the cause of his family’s problems. He’d pieced together enough bits of information from whispered conversations between his brothers to know that everything had gone bad about the time he was born. His father had begun drinking and gambling, his mother often shut herself in her room and wept, and when they were together, they fought all the time.

And then she was gone. Conor had been eight at the time, old enough to remember her. Dylan had been six and remembered even less, and, at five, Brendan had only vague memories. As for the three-year-old twins and infant Liam, they’d been left to only imagine the dark-haired beauty who’d sung them lullabies and tucked them into bed.

“Fiona,” Liam murmured, his lips forming her name like a charm against evil. If she were here, he wouldn’t be scared. She was a Quinn, too, and she’d be strong enough to slay the dragon waiting on the porch. “The dragon is leaving.”

The social worker turned and started down the front steps, but suddenly she returned to the door, this time pounding on the weathered wood with her fist. “I know you’re in there,” she shouted. “Mr. Quinn, if you don’t let me in, I’m going to have to involve the police. Your three youngest sons didn’t show up at school today. They’re truant again.”

Why they had to interfere, Liam didn’t understand. He and his brothers were doing just fine. Conor was seventeen now and he had a part-time job that helped pay the bills. And Dylan and Brendan watched over things at home while their father was gone, picking up odd jobs when they could to add to the family treasury. And the twins, Sean and Brian, did chores around the house.

They managed pretty well as long as they stayed out of trouble. He cursed inwardly. Maybe skipping school that day hadn’t been the smartest move, but sometimes the twins could be so persuasive. Besides, they rarely invited him along on their adventures, so he’d been flattered by the invitation.

Liam turned his attention back to the porch. He knew the real reason why they’d asked him today. He served as a good excuse. If they got caught by Conor, Sean and Brian would convince Liam to lie about how he’d had a stomachache or a headache and his twin brothers had been generous enough to stay home with him.

“She’ll call the cops,” Sean muttered. “They’ll bust down the door and take us all away.”

“All right, I’ll do it,” Liam said. “But you’ll owe me.”

“Anything,” Sean said.

“My choice of your baseball cards-and yours,” he said, turning to Brian. “Any ten I want. No dibs or saves.”

“No way!” Brian protested.

“Give him what he wants,” Sean insisted. “He’ll get rid of her. She’ll believe him. People always like Liam.”

Though it was a backhanded compliment, Liam relished it anyway. People did seem to trust him and he did have a knack for disarming most adults. Wasn’t that why the twins always took him along when they planned to pinch candy from the corner store? If they got caught, Liam could always charm the store owner into letting them off the hook.

“Six cards,” Brian said. “Three from each of us.”

“Any ten that I want,” Liam said. “And you have to help me study for all my math tests and my spelling tests for a month. And you have to do whatever I say for the rest of the day.” He knew he was pushing it, but Liam so rarely had any power in the Quinn household.

“No way,” Brian said.

“Deal,” Sean countered.

Brian gave his twin a shove. “Who made you the boss?” A moment later he was pinned on the dusty parlor rug, Sean’s knee pressed into the small of his back. “All right, all right. Deal.”

“You guys go into Da’s room,” Liam said. “Close the curtains and crawl under the covers and pretend you’re him. I might have to prove he’s here. And don’t make any snoring noises. Make it look good.”

“Just get her out of here before Conor and Dylan and Brendan get home. They’ll kill us if they know we let her in.”

“You just do your job,” Liam said, walking to the door. “And I’ll do mine.”

When the twins got to the back of the house, Liam waited a few seconds then pulled the door open a crack. He tried to appear frightened. “What to you want? I’m gonna call the cops if you don’t go away.”

The lady stared down at him with a stern expression. “I’m Mrs. Witchell from County Social Services. I’d like to see your father, Mr. Seamus Quinn.”

“He’s sleeping,” Liam said. “And he said I’m not supposed to let any strangers in.”

“What are you doing home from school?”

“I’m sick. I have a fever.”

“You can let me in,” she said, showing him her identification. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m just here to help.”

Liam shut the door, then grabbed his coat from the pile near the radiator. He slipped out the door, closing it firmly behind him. “I’m not supposed to let anyone inside. But I guess I can talk to you out here.” He sat on the top step, then patted the spot beside him. Mrs. Witchell smiled weakly at his invitation before she sat. “Why do you want to talk to my da?”

“Some of the neighbors are concerned. They say you boys are here on your own. That they haven’t seen your father since before Thanksgiving.”

“No,” Liam said. “My dad is here. He has a job where he works at night so he sleeps during the day.”

“That’s not what they tell me,” she said. “They say he’s off fishing.”

He shrugged. “Then they don’t know what they’re talking about.”

“I really need to talk to your dad.”

Liam tried to summon some tears, and when one dribbled down his cheek, he said, “He’ll be mad at me if I let you in. And if you wake him up, he’ll be madder still. Can’t he just call you on the phone? I’ll tell him to call as soon as he wakes up.”

“I’m afraid that won’t be good enough.”

Liam paused. He had to play this very carefully. He had a sense that Mrs. Witchell wasn’t easily charmed. But he could also tell that her determination was wavering. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I suppose you could wait inside until he wakes up. Then I wouldn’t be in trouble.”

“That would be all right,” she said.

Liam stood. It was a risky move, letting her in the house. But he had to make her believe that he wasn’t hiding anything. He held the door open for her and she nodded, clearly impressed with his manners. When they got inside, Liam helped her off with her coat, then showed her into the front parlor. Luckily, Conor and Dylan had cleaned the house last night. Though the furniture was tattered and stained, the room looked tidy.

“I’ll just get you coffee,” Liam said. He hurried to the back of the house and put the teakettle on, then tiptoed to his father’s room. In the darkness he could make out a huge lump beneath the bedcovers. “Stay in bed,” he whispered. “She’s in the house.”

Brian bolted upright. “You let her in? Jaysus, I knew we couldn’t trust you to do this. What’s she doing?”

“I’m making her coffee,” Liam said.

“Aw, hell.”

“Just pretend you’re Da. I’ll get her out as fast as I can.” Liam softly shut the door behind him, then turned to find Mrs. Witchell watching him from the end of the hallway. Liam cleared his throat. “He’s not awake yet. I’ll just get your coffee.”

She followed him into the kitchen and Liam watched as she carefully examined the room. Like the parlor, the kitchen was a bit shabby but still neat. “Who does the cooking?”

“Oh, my da,” Liam said, dumping a good measure of instant coffee into a clean mug. “He loves to cook. And he’s a good cook, too.”

“What about when he’s out on the boat?”

“Then Mrs. Smalley takes care of us. She’s a good cook, too.” Liam said a silent prayer that the social worker wouldn’t insist on a conversation with Mrs. Smalley. Though Seamus paid her a small salary to serve as their baby-sitter, she usually didn’t show up. And when she did, she was always drunk. Conor had told her long ago that they didn’t need her help, even though Seamus continued to pay her.

The teakettle screeched and Liam snatched it up from the stove. He’d watched Conor make coffee a hundred times, his brother’s choice of drink when he had to stay up late to study. He grabbed the sugar bowl and scooped a generous measure into the bottom of the cup before filling it with hot water. “Do you want milk?” he asked.