Quinn's Deirdre (20 page)

“All right.
 
First, you have to understand a little about
organized crime in KC.
 
The old school
traditional mafia lacks the power they had the in the past, but they’re still
around. They’re much more low-key or they were, three years ago,” Deirdre said.
“The newer, more dangerous threat is from the gangs like M13,
Mara Salvatrucha
.
  
There’s also what some call ‘the Mexican
Mafia’ for want of a better term and some Asian gang activity. Then there’s the
Balkans, too.”

“So what do we have here?” Desmond asked
,
his face schooled as innocent as an altar boy’s.

“The men after me are part of what
remains of the old mafia, the one built on the ruins of the old Pendergast
machine with ties to some of the Five Families in New York,” Deirdre said. “This
bunch, though, fell in with the Balkan people.
 
Some of them are really nasty, dangerous assholes. Of course, no one
wants to say so, not aloud and in public.
 
At the trial, the defense
attornies
tried to
turn what I saw, an obvious execution, into murder, but it wasn’t.
 
I was there.”

Quinn drummed his fingers on the table
with nervous agitation,
then
stopped. “Jaysus, that
makes my head hurt all the more,” he said.
 
“When they thought
ye
dead, there was no danger
but now they know ye’re alive and here so they still want to kill you, it
seems.”

Scared before, the calm, quiet way he
spoke about it awakened terror.
 
“Yeah,
pretty much.”

“And they don’t seem interested in
giving up.”

“No, they don’t.”

He sighed. “They followed us today, ye
know. If we could stop the ones coming after
ye
,
they’d likely send more, so we need to find a way to stop it altogether.”

“But how?”

“That I don’t know yet,
acushla.”

Des spoke up. “We’ll find a way.”

“I hope ye’re right, Uncle,” Quinn said.
“For if we don’t, my woman’s likely to be dead and me as
well.”

“I won’t see that happen, lad.
 
Tell me, what do ye want to eat and I’ll fix
it? There’s ham left and turkey, plus everything else on the menu.”

“Maybe just bangers and mash,” Quinn
said. “And whiskey though I can’t drink much more or I fear my head might split
in two tomorrow.”

“Deirdre, love, would
ye
like the same?”

She didn’t care what she ate or if she
did but she nodded. “That’ll be fine, Des, and thank you.”

When Desmond’s footfalls faded away, she
turned to Quinn. “I need to kiss you,” said. “I’ll try not to hurt your head
any more than it is, but I have to kiss you.”

Quinn reached up and pulled away the
gauze bandage.
 
She cringed at the hard
knot on his head, divided in two halves by a nasty gash.
 
“I thought ye’d never ask,” he said with a faint
grin. “Ye worried for me, did ye?”

“I still do,” Deirdre said as he turned
to face her.
 
She leaned forward and
touched her lips to his.
 
Her fingers
were colder than January, but his mouth radiated warmth.
 
Tenderness welled up within as she kissed him
with slow, gentle precision.
 
Although
she craved the connection to reassure her fears, Deirdre’s desire roused.
 
She did her best to ignore it, but when Quinn
pulled her onto his lap and kissed her hard, the flames roared into a full
conflagration.
 
His cock pressed against
her bottom through his jeans and hers.
 
Her arm strayed to his shoulder and rested behind his head.
 

He groaned and her fire died. “What’s
wrong?”

“Ah, it’s me bloody head,” he said.
“Every time I try to think or do a blasted thing, the pain gets worse.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.
 
I liked the kiss as much as ye did.
 
I needed it, too.
 
What happened scared the shite out of me,
Deirdre.
 
I came near
to losing
ye
again.”

All she could coax from her throat was a
whisper. “But you didn’t.”

“No, not this time and never again,
please God.” He clutched her tighter, so hard she found it hard to breathe but
she didn’t complain.
  
They remained
locked together, holding one another until Des brought the food.
 
Then they ate until Quinn griped he couldn’t
stay awake much longer. “I can’t hold my bloody eyes open.”

“Go on with
ye
,
then, upstairs. Unless ye need me, I don’t expect to see hide nor hair of
ye
until morning,” Desmond said. “I’ll take what’s left of
the bottle here and watch old movies in my room.
 
Take care, Quinn.”

“Aye, I will.
 
Ye do the same, uncle.”

Within the familiar, snug flat, Deirdre
settled onto the couch and without a word, Quinn folded his long, lean body
onto it.
 
She placed a pillow in her lap
and he
lay
his head there.
 
She managed to unfold an old blanket and toss
it over him.
 
He curled onto his right
side and sighed. “Are you comfortable?” she asked, knowing he was.

“Oh, aye, I am.
 
Ye don’t mind?”

“Of course not.
 
Do you want some ibuprofen or aspirin or
anything before you get too settled?”

“Ah, no, ‘tis grand the way I am and I’m
not likely to want to move for love or money.
 
Ye might sing to me, a bit, though.”

She almost refused.
 
With her emotions in turmoil, she would
rather weep but for Quinn, she agreed. “I can if you want.
 
Anything special you’d like to hear?”

“I don’t know.
 
Roddy Mc Corley,
maybe.”

Deirdre stroked his hair away from the
knot and began the song.
 
By the time she
finished all the verses, she thought he slept, but she sang two more songs,
both quiet and lovely.
 
Ballinderry,
though sad as sad could be,
touched something deep within in her spirit and she followed it with
The Castle of Dromore.
By then, with her
hand resting against Quinn’s back, she knew he slept.
 
His breath cycled even and deep as she let
silent tears fall.
 
She had held them for
hours and wiped them from her cheeks with her free hand.

Although she lacked his fey sense, she
didn’t need it to know trouble loomed.
 
Eileen’s bunch would be out if it once their plane took off but she,
Quinn, and Des were in mortal danger.
If
I hadn’t come back, none of us would be.
 
We would be safe.
 
For a
moment, Deirdre wondered if she’d made a wrong choice, but then she shook her
head.
 
No.
 
For good or ill, being with Quinn was right,
no matter what the cost.

Ignorance for now equaled bliss.
 
If she could know what would happen, she
would refuse the knowledge.
 
Whatever it
might be, Deirdre had the sense to grasp that it was better at the moment not
to know.

Chapter Thirteen

Ordinary
routines kept them grounded, but waiting for fate to slam into their lives with
the force of a sledgehammer sucked.
 
After the pub re-opened, three days passed without any incidents, and
Quinn’s headache receded to tolerable levels.
 
He kept Deirdre close and she didn’t complain.
 
If he tended bar, she sat nearby.
 
When he worked in his small, windowless
office, she joined him.
 
When patrons
asked about his obvious injury, he told them he’d been in a crash but nothing
more.
 
Neither of them slept much and
they either ate too much or too little.
 
With everyone except Deirdre and Desmond, Quinn lacked patience and his
temper had a short fuse.

When he
drank, Quinn limited his intake so, as he told Deirdre, he would be ready for whatever
came their way and quoted lines from a song. “I can drink and ne’er be
drunken
,” he said.

The quote
from
The Barnyards of
Delgaty
 
brought
a brief smile. “I hope you can also fight and never be slain,” she told him.

His short
burst of merriment evaporated. “Aye, I hope so, too.
 
When are yer aunties comin’?”

“Twelve-thirty,”
she said. After their Black Friday mishap, Quinn suggested she should phone her
family and let them know she lived.
 
Despite their less than perfect past relationship, her aunts had been
overjoyed to hear she wasn’t dead and insisted on coming to see her.
 
Her cousin, Kevin, would join them for a
lunch in the pub’s back dining room.
 
“Are you joining us?”

“If I can,
I will.”

Right now,
with the unknown threat hanging over their heads, she needed him there.
“Please, Quinn.”

He paused
for no more than twenty seconds,
then
nodded. “All
right, love, then I’ll be there.”

Her aunts,
Frances and Angela, arrived early while Deirdre remained in the kitchen,
helping Desmond.
 
Quinn came to the
doorway and beckoned to her, face sober.
 
She startled until she saw the two women behind him, neither
smiling.
 
After removing her apron and
wiping her hands, she joined them. “Hi,” she
said,
her
nerves suddenly tight as a ball of yarn. “I’m glad you could come.
 
Come on back.”

“You could
have knocked me over with a feather,” Aunt Frances said as they headed into the
rear dining room. “I had no idea you were alive, Deirdre, but of course I’m
glad that you are.”

“Oh, I am
too,” Angela added. “
Kevin’ll
be along in a few
minutes.
 
He couldn’t believe it when I told
him the news.”

Uncertain
what to say in response, Deirdre said nothing until they were all seated at a
round table with room for six.
 
“You
remember Quinn,” she said, since neither woman had acknowledged him.
 
She held up her left hand to display the ring.
“We’re engaged, now.”

Both women
gushed and offered congratulations.
 
They
exclaimed over the ring and made small talk until her cousin Kevin
arrived.
 
He stood in the door and
stared, his dark hair beginning to show the first signs of early gray.
 
“Deirdre,” he cried. “I couldn’t believe it
until I saw you for myself.
 
Thank God
you’re alive.
 
You have to tell us
exactly what happened!”

Her chest
tightened, but she’d known they would expect some explanation.
 
You
couldn’t come back from the dead without one
, she thought.
 
Beneath the table, Quinn squeezed her hand in
his firm grasp. “Oh, to make a long story short,” she said with a chirping
cheer she faked. “You remember the trial where I testified? Well, I had a death
threat. I went into the WITSEC program for awhile, but I missed Quinn and
wanted to come home, so I did.”

Kevin
frowned.
“WITSEC?
What in hell is that?”

“It’s the
federal witness protection program,” Deirdre said. “Are you ready for lunch?
Desmond’s made steak and mushroom pie.”

“That sounds
nice, dearie,” Aunt Angela said in a sour tone that said it didn’t. “So where
on earth were you, anyway?”

“I’d
rather not say,” Deirdre said although at this point, it hardly mattered. “It
was far from here and I was miserable.
 
How’s everyone been?”

“I have
the diabetes,” Aunt Frances said. “And high blood pressure and trouble with my
knees.
 
But otherwise, I’m fine.”

Angela
nodded and as if not to be outdone, she listed a litany of her ailments. “I
have terrible trouble with my stomach,” she said. “And I had a round of
shingles so bad I thought I’d die, except no one does from shingles.
 
I was in the hospital for a week last winter
with pneumonia, and I’ve had bronchitis more times than I can count.
 
But I manage, Deirdre, I do.”

Nothing
had changed.
 
The aunts still focused on
their own issues and engaged in constant rivalry.
 
Next they would launch into a bragging
contest about their children, she thought, but neither seemed too interested in
her sudden resurrection.
 
And the
closeness and connection she’d once had with Kevin had evaporated away,
probably long ago.
 
She had failed to
notice, before, but it was obvious now.