took his time weaving through the crush of patrons and made a slow perusal of the room, searching for a pretty diversion, determined to forget Meggie Flanagan. Dylan started toward an empty stool at the middle of the bar, right next to a cute little brunette who was nursing a beer.
Sliding onto the stool, he waved at Sean and Brian who were taking their turns behind the bar. Seamus was shouting his way through a round of darts and Brendan stood nearby, chatting with one of their father’s old friends. He glanced over his shoulder to find Liam at a booth with his current girlfriend. To round out the impromptu family reunion, Dylan was surprised to see Conor and Olivia sitting at the far end of the bar, deep in conversation, their heads close.
His big brother looked completely besotted and every now and then, Conor would pull Olivia near and kiss her without regard to the crowd around him. Had someone told him that Conor would be the first Quinn to fall prey to the love of a woman, Dylan would have laughed. Brendan or Liam were the more logical choices, the more tender-hearted of the bunch. But then, when it came to love, a guy never knew when it might lay him low.
Dylan looked across the room and watched his father engaged in a rousing argument over the exact position of a dart. They’d all heard the tales, the yarns Seamus Quinn spun about the Mighty Quinns and the dangers of love. Dylan had always wondered if he’d become the man he was in an effort to please his father—a guy who had never seemed to approve of anything Dylan did.
He hadn’t been Conor, the son who kept the family together. And he hadn’t been Brendan, the son who loved to work the lines on his father’s swordfishing boat, The Mighty Quinn. And he certainly hadn’t been Brian or Sean or Liam, the sons who adored their father without questioning his flaws. He’d been Dylan, the guy who could charm any woman, then walk away without a second thought.
But deep inside lived a person he’d rarely showed anyone—Dylan, the rebel, the kid who really didn’t have a role in the family, the kid who blamed his father for the empty bellies and the endless insecurity. When his mother had been around, he’d felt safe. And after she’d left, he’d experienced the loss as deeply as if she’d ripped his heart from his chest and taken it with her. The man he’d become was all tied up in the past. He just hadn’t been ready to untangle it yet.
Sean sauntered over with a pint of Guinness and Dylan cocked his head to the left. “Baby brother, why don’t you buy this lovely lady a drink while you’re at it.” Though a free drink was always a good icebreaker, he really wasn’t interested in conversation. The woman just looked a little lonely—a little vulnerable. The least he could do was to offer her a fresh beer while she waited for whatever or whomever she was waiting for.
The woman turned suddenly, as if surprised that he’d noticed her at all. For a moment, he was taken aback. A current of recognition shot through him and he tried to place her, to recall her name. But Dylan was certain that he’d never met her. He would have remembered because though she was pretty, she was also young, with a face that could only be described as…innocent. And those eyes, such an unusual shade. He would have remembered her eyes.
“What are you drinking?” Dylan asked sending her a warm smile.
She forced a smile in return, then stumbled off her stool. “I—I have to go,” she murmured. “Thanks anyway.” She grabbed her purse and her jacket, then hurried to the door, slipping out quietly.
Dylan turned back to Sean. “That makes me two for two today. I’m actually beginning to enjoy rejection.”
“Don’t beat yourself up,” Sean said. “I’ve been trying to talk to her all night long but she’d have nothing of it. She just wanted to sit there, alone, sipping her beer and staring at me and Brian. You know, she looked familiar at first, but I’m pretty sure I don’t know her.”
“You, too? I thought I recognized her.” Dylan shrugged, then grabbed his Guinness. He pushed off his stool. “If I’m going to spend the night crying in my beer, then I might as well do it with people who’ll feel sorry for me.” He wandered over to an empty spot next to Olivia, then sat down.
“Hey, Dylan,” she said, her smile bright and affectionate. She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “What have you been up to?”
In just a few short weeks, Olivia had become part of the family. Even though she and Conor weren’t married yet, she was like a sister to him. Dylan liked having her around. After all, it was nice to get a woman’s point of view every now and then. Growing up in a household of boys had its disadvantages.
“You look like you’ve had a rough day,” Olivia said, draping her arm around his shoulders. “You want to talk?”
The offer was made facetiously for Olivia knew full well that the Quinns didn’t talk about their problems. But maybe she’d be able to explain why he was attracted to the maddening and mercurial Meggie Flanagan, a woman who stumbled all over herself to stay away from him, a woman who hurled insults at him like fastballs in Fenway Park.
Had he suddenly developed a streak of masochism that only Meggie Flanagan could feed? Or was the notion of a woman playing hard to get so foreign to him that he found it irresistible? All he knew was that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, recalling how soft her skin felt and how perfect her mouth was and how tempting her body looked.
“Well?” Olivia asked, interrupting his thoughts.
“Today?” Dylan asked. “Just the usual. Rescued a few kittens from trees, put out a few raging infernos, saved a few dozen lives. No big deal.”
“And whose life have you saved lately?” Brendan slipped into the spot on the other side of Dylan and sent Olivia a warm smile.
“Mary Margaret Flanagan,” Dylan said. Just the sound of her name on his lips brought back a flood of images. The sight of her face, covered in soot and marked with the tracks of her tears, then the fresh and natural beauty he discovered just an hour ago. Why couldn’t he put her out of his head? There was just something so fascinating about her—the contrast between the girl she’d been and the woman she’d become.
Conor frowned. “Mary Margaret who?”
Sean leaned over the bar and chuckled. “Meggie Flanagan? Meggie Flanagan with the horn-rimmed glasses and the mouth full of metal?” He glanced over his shoulder toward the far end of the bar. “Hey, Brian, come here. Guess who Dylan saved.”
“I didn’t save her,” Dylan insisted. “It was just a little fire. She’s opening a coffee shop over on Boylston, not too far from the station. It looks like it’ll be a real nice place. Anyway, yesterday afternoon her coffee machine shorted out and started a small fire. I had to carry her out when she refused to leave.”
“You carried her out of her shop?” Conor asked.
Dylan took another long sip of his Guinness, then licked the foam from his upper lip and nodded. “Yeah, like a sack of potatoes. Although she wasn’t nearly as lumpy.”
“Oh-oh,” Olivia warned. “That’s how it starts.”
Dylan’s eyebrow rose. “What?”
Conor chuckled softly. “That’s how Olivia and I met. I picked her up, tossed her over my shoulder and hauled her back inside the safehouse. Then she kicked me in the shin and called me a Neanderthal. After that, it was true love. That must be how it starts for us Quinns. We carry a woman away and that’s the beginning of the end.” He shrugged. “I guess I should have warned you.”
“I’m
