Reunited

The fourth book in the Mighty Quinns series, 2002


Dear Reader,

Over the past few months I've been overwhelmed by the amount of wonderful e-mails and letters I've received regarding my MIGHTY QUINNS series, published by Harlequin Temptation in September, October and November 2001. Many of you have already fallen in love with Conor, Dylan and Brendan, and are anxiously waiting to get your hands on the stories of the youngest three Quinn brothers. But for my first single-title release, I wanted to do something a little different. So I'm thrilled to introduce you to another member of this irresistible Irish family-Keely Quinn, a woman who finds not only her family, but a man she can't live without. And through it all, she finds herself.

It felt a little odd to leave the Quinn brothers behind and focus on figuring out what a female Quinn would be like. But as I wrote about Keely, I found she wasn't much different from her brothers-stubborn, impetuous, passionate. And in order to balance the scales, I had to give Keely a great hero. I think I found him in Rafe Kendrick-a guy who can stand up to any one of the Quinn brothers, and actually does just that to claim the woman he loves.

For those of you waiting to see the rest of this family happily married, I'm in the process of writing Sean's, Brian's and Liam's stories now. Look to see the last of these irresistible Irish heartbreakers take the plunge in the summer of 2003. In the meantime, be sure to check out my Web site, www.katehoffmann.com, for updates.

Enjoy,

Kate Hoffmann

For my siblings, Eileen, Lisa and Brad


PROLOGUE

A COLD WIND RATTLED the windows of the tiny apartment above the brick storefront. Keely McClain pushed aside the lace curtains and stared out at the dark street in her quiet Brooklyn neighborhood. Snow gathered on the ground and she said a quick prayer that the storm would worsen and school tomorrow would be canceled. She had a math test and had frittered away her study time today at school passing notes to her friends and drawing cartoon pictures of the nuns.

"Please snow, please snow," she murmured. She pressed her palms together and said a quick prayer, then crossed herself.

Keely turned from the window and then hopped up on her bed, standing on the mattress so she could see herself in her dresser mirror. Carefully, she rolled up the waistband of her plaid skirt until the hem rose to midthigh, just to see what it looked like. Three rolls and a tug and the hem was perfectly even, as if her mother had made it that short. The nuns at Saint Alphonse required that school uniforms reach the floor when kneeling, a notion that every other girl in the all-girl school found positively prehistoric, especially in 1988.

"Have you finished your homework?"

Her mother's voice echoed through the tiny apartment. For as long as Keely could remember, it had been just them. She'd never known her father. He'd died when she was just a baby. But Keely carried a picture of him in her mind, an image of a strong, handsome man with a charming smile and a tender heart. His name was Seamus and he'd come to the United States from Ireland with her mother, Fiona. He'd worked on a fishing boat and that's how he'd died, in a terrible storm at sea.

Keely sighed. Maybe if she'd had a father around, she and her mother might have gotten along a little better. Fiona McClain had strong ideas about how her daughter should be raised and first and foremost was that Keely McClain would grow up a good Catholic girl. To Keely that meant no makeup, no parties, no boys-no fun. Instead of meeting her friends on Saturday morning to hang out at the mall, she was forced to help her mother at Anya's Cakes and Pastries, the shop right below their apartment.

When she was younger, she'd loved watching Anya and her mother decorate the many-tiered wedding cakes. Sitting on a high stool in the bakery's kitchen had been one of her first memories. And when she'd finally been given the responsibility of a real job, Keely had been too excited to speak. Every Wednesday afternoon, she'd dust the glass shelves that held the cake toppers and wedding favors and crystal goblets. She had passed the time by making up romantic stories about each of the little ceramic couples on the cake toppers, giving the grooms dashing names like Lance and Trevor and the brides pretty names like Amelia and Louisa.

She'd been just a kid then and her idea of true love had been more of a fairy tale than anything else. It wasn't the clean-cut, heroic guys that caught her attention now. Instead, Keely had found herself interested in the kinds of boys that her mother would call "bowsies" and "dossers." Boys who smoked cigarettes and boys who cursed. Boys who were bold enough to walk right up to a Catholic schoolgirl and start a conversation. Boys who made her heart beat a little bit faster just to look at them, and boys who weren't afraid to steal a kiss now and then.

Keely took one last look at her skirt, then jumped down from the bed. She grabbed her schoolbag. She'd always worked so hard to please her mother, but slowly she'd come to realize that she was not the kind of daughter her mother really wanted. She couldn't remain a little girl forever. She was twelve years old, nearly a teenager!

And she couldn't always be the dutiful daughter, couldn't always remember her manners and the proper way to sit in a skirt or eat soup with a spoon. There were times when she didn't care to think everything through and make the right decision. She reached into her schoolbag and pulled out a lipstick tube. A wave of nausea washed over her, and for a moment she was certain she'd throw up, just as she had after she'd walked out of the drugstore.

Her mother had always told her that her nervous stomach was a sign from God. He was trying to drive the impurities out of her. Keely figured it was just punishment for allowing her impulses to control her behavior. But she had to admit that this time she'd probably gone too far.

It had been a dare and Keely had been too proud and stubborn not to accept it. Her friend, Tanya Rostkowski, had challenged her to walk into Eiler's Drugstore and steal a lipstick or else be banished from the cool girls' group. Keely had known it was a sin, but she never backed down from a dare, not even one that involved breaking the law. Besides, she wanted lipstick, and if she'd bought one with the money she made at Anya's, Mrs. Eiler would certainly have ratted on her to her mother.

"Keely Katherine McClain, I asked you a question! Have you finished your homework?"

"Yeah, Ma," Keely shouted. Yet another lie she'd have to confess to, though it paled in comparison to the lipstick.

"Then get ready for bed and don't forget to brush your teeth."

Keely groaned. "Bloody hell," she muttered, instantly regretting the curse the moment it left her lips. She already had enough on her curse list for Friday night confession. Lying and stealing would probably be worth at least five Our Fathers and ten Hail Marys. And Father Samuel was particularly harsh with foul language, although "bloody" couldn't possibly be a curse word, since her mother said it all the time-at least, when she thought Keely wasn't there to hear it.

"Bloody, bloody, bloody," Keely muttered as she undressed and hung up her school uniform precisely as her mother required. Then she slipped into a flannel nightgown and jumped into bed. When she realized that she hadn't brushed her teeth, she reached into the drawer of her bedside table and pulled out an old tube of toothpaste she'd hidden there. She put a dab on her tongue, then winced at the taste.

The trick always worked-unless her mother checked to see if her toothbrush was wet. It was just a tiny rebellion, but Keely felt that her teeth were her own and if she wanted them to turn black and fall out of her mouth when she was twenty, it was certainly her choice.

She leaned over the edge of the bed and reached beneath her mattress to pull out her journal. Sister Therese, her fifth grade teacher, had urged her students to start keeping a journal, hoping to perfect their penmanship and their grammar skills. And since that very first little clothbound book two years ago, Keely had written in her journal every night.

At first it had been a diary of sorts, but now that Keely had something truly interesting to write, she couldn't possibly write it, for fear that her mother might read it. So instead, she filled the book with drawings and stories, each one another tiny little rebellion. She drew wedding cakes, wild, crazy designs, decorated with colored pencils and markers. And designs for sleek, sexy dresses with high hemlines and daring necklines. And she wrote passionate, romantic stories and poems. And though she gave her heroines a different name, when Keely read them, they became stories of her own future.

And sometimes she wrote stories about her father. Her mother had always been tight-lipped about Seamus McClain, and Keely suspected that his death was still too much for her to bear. So Keely had been left to create a past for them both, a wonderful, romantic past. Fiona McClain became the most tragic of heroines, grieving so deeply that she couldn't keep a photo of Seamus around the apartment.

"Seamus," Keely murmured, scribbling his name on the corner of a page. It was an odd, but exotic name to her ears. In her imagination, he had dark hair, nearly black like her own. And pale eyes that were a mix of green and gold, the same eyes she saw in the mirror every morning. A vision of her father flitted through her mind. He was dressed in a fine uniform with shiny buttons and gold braid on the shoulders. And his fishing boat was really a huge sailing ship that crossed the ocean.

"One night, as Seamus's ship was nearing New York Harbor," Keely murmured as she wrote in a haphazard script, "a terrible storm blew in from the north. Being a fine sea captain, Seamus ordered his men to take down the sails to protect his ship from crashing on the cliffs near the harbor. He stood in the driving rain, his hands fixed to the wheel, his only thoughts of the important passengers sleeping below."

Keely reread what she had written and smiled. "But as lightning flashed, Seamus noticed debris floating around the bow of his ship. Another ship had crashed against the cliffs! Through the dark and rain, he could hear a soft and plaintive cry." Keely covered her mouth with her cupped hand to make the cry more realistic. "Help. Help. Save me."

Vivid images focused in her mind. "Seamus turned the wheel over to his first mate and ran to the bow. There, in the water below, was a woman, struggling to hold on to a jagged piece of the broken ship. 'Do not fear,' he called. Seamus tore off his jacket and linen shirt, his broad shoulders and strong arms gleaming in the rain." Keely pressed her hand to her chest to feel her heart beating a bit faster. "And then he dove into the icy water and swam toward the drowning girl."

This would be the best part, Keely mused, when they spoke for the first time. "'What is your name?' Seamus asked as he brushed her long, flowing hair from her eyes. 'I am Princess Fiona,' the girl said. 'And if you save me, I promise to marry you and love you for-"'

"Are you in bed, Keely McClain?"

Keely jumped, startled from her dreaming. "Yes, Ma," she called, glad that she didn't have to lie officially. That saved her at least one Hail Mary at confession.

"And then Seamus took Fiona's hand and swam for the ship," Keely continued in a whisper, scribbling as she went. "Waves crashed around them, but Seamus would not let Fiona drown. For the moment he looked into her eyes, he knew he loved her. His crew dropped a rope ladder over the side, but the ship pitched and rolled and-"

"Did you brush your teeth, Keely?" her mother called.

Keely sighed dramatically. "Mary, mother of-" She stopped herself. Taking the Lord's name in vain was one of those things that might get her an entire rosary. "I'm going to do that right now," Keely shouted.

She tossed the quilt back, scrambled out of bed and hurried down the hall to the bathroom. She brushed up and down twenty-five times on each side and thirty in the front.

After she'd spit and wiped the paste off her mouth, Keely smiled. "And as Seamus carried his new ladylove up the ladder to the safety of his ship, the rain suddenly stopped and the moon broke through the clouds. And beneath the starry sky, Seamus leaned forward and kissed Fiona, sealing their love forever and forever."

"It's nearly ten and you should be in bed."

Keely looked in the mirror and saw the reflection of her mother standing at the bathroom doorway. She held a dish towel in her hands and slowly wiped her fingers. Even though her hair was pulled back in a tidy bun and she wore a plain housedress, she still looked like the princess in Keely's mind, with her bright green eyes and her mahogany tresses.