Quinn's Deirdre (7 page)

“I know and I’m sorry I’m late,” April
said as she halted. “My babysitter wasn’t available, and it took me awhile to
find one.”

“Tell it to him, not me,” Des said.
“Deirdre, dear, won’t you hand me a stack of clean plates? I’ve orders coming
in to plate and send out to the paying customers.”

April’s expression shifted from
apologetic to astonishment. “You’re Quinn’s Deirdre?”

“I am.”

“Oh, my god, I should’ve recognized you
last night,” April said, babbling. “I should’ve known you from the picture in
the pub.” Her smile became a frown. “I thought you were dead.”

“So did everyone else,” Des barked. “Go
on now, Quinn’s waitin’.
 
Ye can gape at
Lazarus here some other time, but keep yer bloody mouth closed.
 
Don’t be tellin’ the tale to anyone.”

“Oh, right.
 
Pleased to meet you, I guess,” April said and
vanished through the swinging door.

Coming back from beyond was proving to
be more difficult than Deirdre had imagined.
 
The questions, the explanations, and the stares were almost too
much.
 
“What’s she mean, my picture in
the pub?”

Des rolled his eyes upward. “Quinn has a
picture of the two of youse framed and hanging in the first dining room.
 
Sometimes he leaves a rose below it or
did.
 
A few times, he’s pointed ye out to
someone as his lost love.
 
I don’t
suppose
he
‘twill now.”

“He left roses?” His sweet gesture
stabbed her heart and wrecked her conscience.
 
I should have told him something
before I left or called him or written a letter, not abandoned him to his
grief.

“Aye, roses,” Des said with a downturned
frown. “Why fuss about a single flower once in a while when he carted them to
yer grave by the dozens to put in the vase there?
 
Red ones, pink ones, white ones, even those
ones ye like so well, the white ones with the pink tips?”

“They’re fire and ice roses.” Her
favorites, the name described her emotions.
 
She burned with fire for Quinn, a love and passion combined, but ice
coated her heart when she realized the depths of his mourning, the intensity of
his pain.

Unshed tears burned in her eyes and she
resisted an urge to rub them with her dishwater hands.
 
Instead, she grabbed a heavy pot and scrubbed
at it with force.

“Do ye want roses,
mo ghra?”
Quinn’s voice whispered in her ear.
 
He’d entered the kitchen without her noticing
and heard the last sentence. “I’ll buy ye all ye want.”

He spoke with quiet affection, enough to
banish her tears. “Lunch will do for now,” Deidre said without turning around.
 

He wrapped his arms around her and
kissed the back of her neck.
 
Deirdre
dried her hands and turned into his arms as he asked, “What would
ye
like?”

“Irish stew with boxty,” she said
without hesitation.
 
She hadn’t had
either in a very long time.

“Uncle Des, can ye dish up both for us?”

“Aye, I can if ye’ll give me a minute.
I’ll be all the more hammered when ye take my new kitchen girl away to eat.
 
Deirdre’s said she’ll be happy to help in the
kitchen each day as needed.”

Quinn’s blue eyes met hers, warm and
bright. “Did ye?”

She nodded. “Yes, I did.”

“Good.
 
I thought ye might want to go back to doing the news, but I’d like
having you here better.”

He took a loaded tray from his uncle and
led Deirdre into the rear dining room.
 
En route, several customers called out greetings and Quinn returned
them.
 
As they settled into the same
table as the night before, Deirdre glanced around.
 
No one else shared the space.
 
It used
to be busier than this.
 
I’m sure of
it.
 
I wonder if business is down.
 
She resolved to ask him later, but they had
other things to discuss for the time being.

Without asking, he took her hands in his
and asked the blessing,
then
they ate.
 
The stew tasted delicious, the vegetables
tender, the meat lean and filled with flavor.
 
Deirdre enjoyed the boxty, the Irish version of potatoes cakes, most of
all.
 
Des brought out a pot of tea with
two cups.

“I thought ye might like some tea,” he
said, pronouncing it ‘tay’ rather than the American ‘tee’.

“Thank you,” Deirdre said. He flashed a
brief smile,
then
vanished back into the kitchens.
 
Although she and Quinn held a conversation as
they’d eaten, it’d been small talk about the food and pub.
 
Although the rear dining room had been empty
when they entered, a few tables were filled as they ate.
 
The server checked twice to see if Quinn or
Deirdre needed anything more.
 
Riley, the
bartender, appeared at the table to ask for Quinn’s signature on a liquor
delivery.
 
Deirdre now understood why
he’d suggested they go somewhere to talk because in the pub, the interruptions
were continual. He hadn’t said when, however, and she wondered if they would
today. He appeared to have recovered from the worst of his hangover, but Quinn
also seemed busy and in demand.
 
I’d like to get it over with and behind us.

“What now?” she asked after they
finished the tea.
 
Once, she wouldn’t
have had to ask—she would’ve known. “Can we get away for while to talk?”

The moment his lips twisted into a
quirky frown, Deirdre knew they couldn’t.
 
“I’ve a great deal to do today,” he said. “I’ve got two distributors
coming and a salesman, then a band who wants me to book them for Saturday
nights.
 
I won’t be done until late,
acushla.
 
Tomorrow, though, I’m planning for us to take the whole day.”

She heaved a sigh, disappointed. “All
right, we’ll go tomorrow.”

Quinn reached over and grasped her
hand.
 
“I thought ye might need a day to
adjust,” he said. “I’ve no notion where you’ve been, love, but it must be
strange coming back after so long away.
 
Ye say ye plan to stay —”

“I am staying.”

“I’m glad of it, but if there are any
loose ends to tie up from wherever ye’ve been, maybe this afternoon would be a
good time to do it.”

He thought of the things she
didn’t.
 
Deirdre’s single-minded focus
had been coming straight to Quinn, like a pigeon released to its homing.
 
She probably should contact the paper and let
them know she wasn’t coming back.
 
And
she’d have to call her WITSEC handler, or she’d think the worst.
 
She glanced up to see Quinn’s worried eyes
trained on her.
 
I think he’s glad I’m back, but he’s not sure I’m here to stay.
 
I can see it, the way he looks at me like
I’ll vanish again.

“I was in Arkansas,” she said.
 
“It was a little town, Siloam Springs. And I
suppose there are a few calls I need to make.”

His forehead wrinkled and his stare
darkened. “Arkansas? What in hell’s name were ye doing there? Ye didn’t have a
fella, did ye?”

Deirdre tightened her grip on his hand. “No,
I didn’t. There was no one who ever mattered to me but you.
 
You’re all I thought about for three years,
damn it, and when I couldn’t stand being apart from you any more, I came.”

Quinn exhaled through his nose with
force.
 
“Arkansas.”
 
He said it with some distaste and as if it
were a million miles distant.
 
Deirdre
supposed in some ways it had been.
 
And,
anything he knew about Arkansas came from movies.
 
They’d watched the most recent version of
True Grit
more than once and
Lonesome Dove
, a movie featuring a Fort
Smith sheriff.
 
Sling Blade
had both horrified and fascinated them both, she
recalled.
 
As if he’d caught the thought,
Quinn said, “Was the place like the town in
Sling
Blade?”

She thought about the film, the dollar
store, the Tastee Freeze, and the townspeople depicted.
 
Deidre nodded. “It was something like it,
yes.”

“Jesus and Mary, how’d ye stand it?”
Quinn said and shook his head. “And why did ye ever go there?”

Deidre opened her mouth to answer, but
he held up a hand. “Save it for when we’ve the time,” he said. “I can’t think
about it now or I’ll go crazy.
 
Ye can go
up to the flat if ye want.”

Earlier, he’d been in a fine mood, but
it had faded.
 
Talking about what
happened might prove to be more difficult than she’d thought.
 
“Are you angry with me?” she asked.
 
He had plenty of reason, but she didn’t want
him to be mad.

“Woman, I’m not.
 
Or maybe I am, a wee bit, but I love
ye
more.
  
I wish I
could take off now to talk with
ye
, but I can’t.”
Quinn paused and rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “My head still hurts,
though ‘tis not as bad.”

So his shift in mood wasn’t entirely her
fault.
 
Good. “Did you take something for
it?”

“I haven’t.
 
Nothing helps much but a drink.”

“Then why haven’t you had one?”

His frown lightened and he flashed a
sheepish little grin. “I didn’t want
ye
to think I’m
always a drunken sot and scare ye away.”

Somewhere inside, her sunshine returned.
“I don’t scare as easy now,” Deirdre said and stood up. “I learned my lesson
the hard way.”

“Where are ye goin’, then?”

“To get you a drink,
of course.”

Quinn smiled and she basked in the
warmth of it all the way to the bar.

Chapter Five

Upstairs, alone, Deirdre kicked off her
shoes and tucked her feet beneath her on the sofa.
 
She dug into her purse and pulled out the
cell phone, Mallory’s phone, not hers.
  
Deirdre turned it on, then off and sat with it cradled in the palm of
her hand for a few moments.
 
Today is Tuesday
, she thought, and she
had missed work yesterday.
 
Her boss, Bob
Emory and his wife, Eva, probably had called.
 
As Mallory, she’d never bothered with a landline phone.
 
I need
a story to tell them, something plausible before they get too many wild
ideas.
 
I want them to forget Mallory
ASAP.
 
Fifteen minutes later, she
turned on the phone.
 
Bob had left two
messages, Eva one.
 
Jeff, her sometimes
so-called boyfriend, a man she’d dated maybe half a dozen times had called,
too.
 
Deirdre listened to the messages
before she phoned the paper.

“Countywide News,” Eva said in her
professional tone. “How may I help you?”

“Eva, this is Mallory.” Deirdre hoped
this would be the last time she had to use the name.

“Mallory!
I’m glad
you called.
 
We were so worried when you
didn’t come in or even call.
 
Is
everything okay?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” Deirdre lied.
“I had a family emergency come up, and I had to head out to Dallas first thing
yesterday.
 
Looks like I’m going to be
here for quite awhile.”

“Oh, hon, I’m sorry to hear that.
 
Is it your mom?”

Deirdre’s mom had died when she was
three, but Mallory had a mother.
 
“Unfortunately, yes.
 
Look, I hate
to do this but I doubt I’ll be able to come back to Siloam for a long time, if
ever, so I guess I need to just resign or something.
 
It’s not fair to you to hold the job or try
to run the paper short-handed.”

Eva stretched out her Arkansas twang all
the way with sympathy and tried to talk Mallory out of it.
 
Deirdre used the saccharine tones she’d
adopted as Mallory and managed to convince Eva she wasn’t returning.
 
With a promise of a good reference and
prayers for Mallory’s poor mom, Eva hung up.
 
Deirdre checked the call off her mental list.
 
One
down
, two more
to go, she thought.
 
Jeff would be at
work, at the small discount grocery store he managed so she called his
cell.
 
She left a brief message. “I’m out
of town with a family situation, and I won’t be back any time soon.
 
I can’t make it Friday night for the all you
can eat catfish special at the café and really, it was time to end our
relationship a long time ago.
 
Take care
and good luck.”