CHAPTER EIGHT
Niall was listeningfor the doorbell on Monday morning with a randy adolescent’s mix of trepidation and raging hormones. The saner part of him worried that loneliness had streaked past good sense, and both of them needed to take a step back. The baser part of him was primed for a quick hello, a few of Lucy’s enthusiastic kisses, and then for nature to take things from there.
The optimist in him wallowed in the vindication in her words don’t sell yourself short. Unlike Sinead, Lucy genuinely liked his work. The realist in him was recalling the instant he’d thrown a drop cloth over the mirror he’d been finishing Friday night.
Avoiding a conversation about my work?
Avoiding a conversation about what I’m doing with the pieces I’m making?
He hadn’t wanted to place her in a difficult position when they were bumbling their way from suspicion to friendship. Friendship demanded a bit more honesty than he’d given her so far. She had an analytical mind and would take about two seconds to work out Niall was committed to more work than would fit into a standard day.
And another two seconds to ask why he wasn’t selling his own work to pay down debt. If Niall told her about the exhibition, she might tell him to stop his work for her, and she needed the funds to feel safe.
He wanted her to feel safe. End of argument.
“We arrived together,” Lucy explained, standing back. Her smile was tentative, while Kate barrelled through the door.
In the split-second Niall had before his sister-in-law walked into his arms, he tried to read Lucy’s expression. Was she embarrassed Kate had found her in paint-spattered overalls with a plait half undone down her back, or was she embarrassed at nearly coming apart in his arms a few nights ago? She’d called a halt, and although every cell in his body had screamed a protest, he’d let her go. His promise she was in control was part of that. Her smile widened, the haunted look absent. She gave a provocative wiggle as she sidled past, and the movement went straight to his groin. He stifled a groan.
Memo to self: this relationship is too important to stuff up with a quick tumble.
“Your niece wants a hug.” Kate slid an arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. Catching his wrist with her free hand, she flattened his palm against her belly. The baby kicked. “She’s frisky this morning.”
“That’s because she’s a he.” He grinned down at her and kissed her forehead. “This is a nice surprise.”
“Ambush,” Kate muttered, stepping back. “Necessary because you’ve stopped visiting.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make dinner last night.” Niall should have anticipated a visit and taken evasive action.
“Or last Sunday, and”—Kate looked around, an inquisitive bird—“I’m prepared to bet real money you’ll be caught up next Sunday too.”
“Do you need something?” He’d find the time to help, although time was a scarce commodity, getting scarcer. He was trying to reclaim a fraction of the time spent on Lucy’s work by missing Sunday nights at Liam’s.
“Your brother’s pining for your company.”
He met his sister-in-law’s gaze, signalling “some other time” for all he was worth.
“Okay.” Kate rested her hand on her belly. “If Mohamed won’t come to the mountain ...”
“If Liam called you a mountain, I can see why you sought refuge.” Niall pretended outrage. He loved Kate for herself and the besotted expression on his brother’s face when Liam looked at his wife. “I’ll save you.”
Her mouth softened. “I’ve brought samples.”
“Cake?” He gestured to Lucy. “Lucy loved your Christmas cake.”
“You’re that Lucy?” Kate said, as if she’d just made the connection.
He rolled his eyes. “My sister-in-law is not a good liar.”
“I worked that out.” Lucy smiled. “Niall already told you he shared your Christmas cake with me. I introduced myself as Lucy, and you put two and two together and came up with landlord.”
“I remembered because it’s rare for the caveman to share.” Kate stared hard at him.
“Don’t ask.” Niall held a hand up to Lucy, signalling he wouldn’t be explaining the “caveman” tag. “My door’s always open for cake. Thank you. Is that the only reason you came, Kate?”
“I came to see the Huon table.” Kate beamed at him. “Photos aren’t enough. But this looks interesting.” Her attention had been caught by the reassembled mahogany sideboard.
“That’s Lucy’s sideboard. It’s coming along,” Niall said, and to forestall further questions, he pointed to one of the library bookcases. “That’s next.”
“You’ve started.” Lucy smiled at him, which was reward enough for the extra hours he’d spent on her work over the weekend. A substitute for fantasising about getting her between the sheets. “I’ve got a buyer for the sideboard and a nibble on the bookcases. They want to see the finished product.” She held up a hand. “No pressure though.”
“Bills have to be paid,” he murmured.
Kate frowned.
“This way.” He pre-empted the questions he could see forming in Kate’s eyes and led them to the steel door. Once through, he unlocked his storeroom. With a flick of a switch, he flooded the space with light. More than three times the size of Cam’s storeroom, one side housed a sophisticated wheeled storage system for his timber. Against the opposite wall were the pieces he was collecting for the exhibition. Lucy, who hadn’t been in his space before, gasped. Kate hurried forward.
“It’s beautiful.” Kate waddled around the table, studying it from different angles. She let her hand rest on the surface. “It would take something special to displace this as the centrepiece.”
He shook his head, a warning to Kate that this was another no-go area. Lucy was on the other side of the room, studying a large mirror with a frame resembling a treble clef. Her fingers drifted over its surface. The visceral punch rattled his composure. Niall wanted Lucy’s hands drifting over him with the same mixture of curiosity and admiration. Mentally, he zapped Kate to Timbuktu. Kate opened her mouth, glanced at Lucy, then shut it again.
Four weeks since he’d started work on Lucy’s furniture. The empty spaces in this room testified to his neglect. He had the designs, he had the wood, he had the dreams in his head, and time was slipping away. He should have scheduled the photoshoot for the catalogue. Kate’s twin, Anna, had designed a new page for his website and social media pages. Anna pressed him daily to give the go signal, the emojis in her texts assuming ever more alarming features.
“Your niece and I thank you for the advance showing,” said Kate.
“Nephew.” He tried his usual distraction.
“Unless you’ve become an Irish mystic, I’m sticking with my prediction.” Kate put her hands on her hips and turned to Lucy. The glint in her eye matched her twin’s when Anna was on a mission. “Have you met my husband?” Kate had to repeat the question because Lucy had sunk to her heels to examine the carving on his rocking chair.
“Mm. Sorry?” Lucy turned her head.
“Come for dinner with Niall next Sunday?”
“I couldn’t.” Lucy rose to her feet slowly, her hand reaching for the pearls she wasn’t wearing.
Niall’s annoyance with Kate for meddling shifted to a need to understand the expressions chasing across Lucy’s face. Not wanting to impose? Not wanting to back him into a polite corner?
Eagerness?
Feck! From what she’d let slip, she went to work, went home, visited him. Not much of a life. Stress is exhausting—he knew that—worrying about money and missing her granda was exhausting. If she got through the essentials every day, she was doing well. Lucy’s friends—Clementine and, what was her name, Kelly—were missing in action—factor in an ex-boyfriend and hell!
“Niall?” Kate was asking for his interpretation, his intercession, his what?
Briefly, he closed his eyes. Niall missed Liam, missed having him as a sounding board, and he sure as hell needed a sounding board for the mess he’d got himself into. “Great idea.” He rearranged schedules in his head. “We’ll be there at six-thirty.” And somehow, he’d keep to himself that he was cancelling his regular family dinners to give Lucy’s work more time.
Fifteen minutes later, Lucy stood beside him as Kate waved from the corner. “I’ll call Kate and cancel.” She wrapped her disappointment in cheery unconcern. “I’ll wait until later today, then call and say I mistook the date, and I have another commitment.”
“Kate will be disappointed.”
“What about you?”
“Haven’t you worked out I’m a grumbling hermit?” Rather, he was a man who’d made too many promises. There weren’t enough hours in the day to keep them all. More sleep was a necessity because her rose and vanilla scent bewitched him enough to contemplate abandoning the workshop in favour of a large bed. For a week at least. “Nobody twisted Kate’s arm. She invited you because she likes you. You’ll like my brother.”
“She’s curious.”
“Curiosity is often the first step in relationships. Hard to make a friend if you don’t have any interest in the other person.” He’d moved from curious to fascinated by all the contradictions in Lucy. Closing the door on the outside world, he turned to her. “Don’t cancel. How long has it been since Cam’s funeral?”
“Five weeks, five days and three hours.” She could probably give him the timing to the second.
“You‘ve worked every single day since. Come to dinner with me and meet my family.” He draped his arm over her shoulder, pulling her into an encouraging hug.
She turned her face up, her lips parted. “Kiss me.”
Niall took the kiss he’d been imagining since she’d walked in. His free hand cupped her cheek. Warm, silky skin, as warm and inviting as her mouth. He let himself drown in her lushness. Her tongue touched his, raising the stakes. She tasted of sin tied up with a big pink bow of goodness.
“I stayed away because I want to kiss you all the time.” Her hands fisted in his shirt, her confession straining the leash he’d put on himself.
“Maybe we make some sort of pact about no kissing around power tools.” Praise the saints, he’d lost the capacity to think straight. “Too dangerous.”
She slid her hand over his crotch and gave it a gentle pat. “Power tools are dangerous.” Grinning, she stepped back, whipping her hands behind her back. “Hands off in the workshop.”
“I’ve got your pearls.” A piss-poor way of saying “down boy,” but it was the only lifeline handy. She’d forgotten her gran’s necklace on Friday, and he’d returned to the sofa after she’d left to stroke the damn thing. Lucy and he weren’t looking long-term, so his sentimentality bewildered him. He gestured to the table under the window. “I wrapped them up for safekeeping.”
A few weeks earlier, the rectangular scarf spilling over the back of an armchair in a display window had caught his eye. Ribbons of interwoven green, where he could identify shamrock, teal, mint, moss with a thread of laurel. Smooth and soft to the touch, warm where he rubbed it between his fingers, the scarf flowed with the naturalness of running water. He’d bought it with Lucy in mind. A spontaneous purchase tucked in a drawer until she’d left her pearls behind.
She unwrapped the bundle as if her fingers would discover a story in the folds of the fabric. “What a beautiful scarf.”
“Keep it.” He’d known green was her colour. She was like a moth emerging from its chrysalis, unaware of her beauty. When she turned her questioning gaze toward him, he shrugged. “You won’t want to wear your pearls in here.”
“Thank you.” She let the scarf slide through her fingers, before rewrapping her pearls. “Gran had an old pouch she kept them in. This is a better home.”
Tension eased from Niall’s shoulders. In his experience, a debt and a gift were kissing cousins. She was wary of gifts, in the same way she baulked at words of sympathy from strangers but was comfortable with a sandwich or a fruit bowl or a protective covering for her gran’s pearls.
Debt was a demon they shared. Debt and self-respect had been part of growing up in the Quinn household. In recent years, they’d become inextricably linked to the point where an unmet obligation tore at his self-respect. He wasn’t sure of the exact source of Lucy’s fear but would bet his da’s chisel set it had something to do with her childhood.
Which brought him full circle in his thoughts. An honest man would share his secrets before he climbed under her doona. “Maybe we should take a break until Sunday night.”
“A break?” Lucy was watching him, like he guessed she’d watched every adult male until she’d moved in with Cam. Ready to run. She was beginning to trust him, but having caution as your first playmate, the habit tended to stick.
“A cooling-off period.” Niall shoved his hands in his pockets and blundered ahead. “Just to check it’s not loneliness juicing our ...” He stumbled to a halt.
“I am lonely.” She lifted her chin, fearless in the face of his incoherence. “I’m guessing you’re lonely too. I’m not ashamed of considering consensual sex with you because I’m lonely.” She tucked the pearls in her bag and pulled it over her shoulder. “But ... I think you’ve forgotten. I’m the one who called a halt, Quinn.”
––––––––
Niall let his ute glideto a halt near his brother’s home. Lucy had been waiting outside McTavish’s when he’d arrived. Sunday was a busy day for the antiques shop, and he’d listened to her descriptions of customers and the sales she’d made while the quiet floral notes in her perfume soothed. He didn’t have a spare slot in his timetable to miss her. He’d missed her anyway. And fretted about his half-arsed attempt to make sense of what the hell was happening to him.
“Ready?” He swivelled to face her.
“It’s not an execution, is it?” She lifted one hand toward her throat, then let it drop. An expression of confidence or because her coat was buttoned so high, she couldn’t reach her pearls?
“I’m probably projecting. Kate’s pissed off at me for skipping a party a few weeks ago.” He’d finished the Huon table that night. In hindsight, his last financially sane decision.
“I could give you a few shifts at the shop, hone your interpersonal skills.” She made him sound like an unpolished schoolboy. Based on Monday morning, she’d be right.
“Pass.” He banged a fist on the steering wheel, punctuating his idiocy. “I thought you might cancel tonight.”
“Why?” No reason she should make this easy for him.
“Because I was an eejit on Monday talking about a cooling-off period. I hurt you.” He’d hated the idea he’d joined a long list of inconsiderate boofheads who’d either abandoned or hassled her. “I like you, and I don’t want to mess that up.”
“I was hurt.” She flayed him with his own words. “But I like that you like me. I like you too.” She sighed, and the air in the cabin of the truck calmed. “I missed being in the workshop. Can I come back tomorrow?”
“I’d like that.” He stepped out of the ute, aware she slid to the ground on her side. Friends. He should be happy with that, but knowing she liked him gave his ego a boost that carried to the part of his body not ruled by his brain.
“Welcome.” Liam and Kate answered the door together, the brightly lit hall behind them sending its own welcome. Liam’s arm rested lightly around his wife’s waist.
“Hello, Kate; hello, Liam.” Lucy offered a bottle of merlot. “Goodness, you brothers do look alike.”
“I’m the handsome one,” Niall offered.
“That makes me the smart one.” Liam leaned forward to take Lucy’s hand and draw her into the hall. “Come in. Let me take your coat.”
Lucy shucked hers. She’d replaced the unrelenting black of her usual outfits with wide-legged, teal trousers and a grey sweater. The scarf Niall had given her replaced her gran’s pearls tonight. Knotted at the base of her throat, the loose ends lovingly curled around her breasts. An image of her sitting naked on his Huon table, her legs demurely crossed to one side to preserve her modesty, flashed into his mind. Her back was straight, her smile mischievous, and the scarf was draped so that two stripes of colour covered her nipples, emphasising the lush curves of her breasts.
“I’ve got to make some last-minute changes, so you’ll have to excuse me for a minute.” Liam backed down the hall.
“Niall, why don’t you show Lucy around before Anna arrives.” Kate made the explanation.
“I didn’t know Anna was coming.” Niall stressed his ignorance, wanting no new misunderstandings with Lucy tonight.
“A late addition. She’s got someone she ‘wants us to meet.’” Kate spoke in a whisper dripping with intrigue.
“That must be a first?” Niall grinned.
“It is. And if you tease her, I’ll kill you myself.” Kate shooed them away. “I need to add some settings to the table.”
“Come on, Lucy. I’ll show you around and fill you in. The Quinn and Turner twins together is a baptism by fire.” His mind raced. Kate would feign labour pains before she’d let Anna ambush him about the exhibition tonight.
“I expected it to be harder to tell identical twins apart.” Lucy studied Niall’s face.
“Liam could tell Kate and Anna apart from the moment he met them. Different clothes help, hairstyles, things like that,” he said. Lucy looked different tonight, a woman comfortable in her own skin. “You’ll see when you meet Anna.”
“Show her the nursery,” Kate’s retreating figure instructed. “In case you’ve forgotten, it’s the second door on the left.”
“Does this room open onto the garden?” Lucy bolted into the room immediately to their right and headed toward the double French doors.
Most women Niall knew would have been in the nursery in a heartbeat. Kate’s enthusiasm made talk of babies an easy topic for the dinner table. His brother changed direction mid-sentence if Niall asked about Kate’s health, how Quinn Junior was travelling, or how the nursery was coming along. Women seemed to have a second sense about these things, yet Lucy was hell-bent on getting into the winter garden.
Sensor lights lit the tiny space. Maidenhair jostled with bird’s nests, stag and elk horns. Niall had helped choose the plantings, native Australian rainforest species that thrived in this dark side passage. Moss-covered sandstone paving stones interspersed with baby’s breath lined the space, and the sound of trickling water came from a pond at the far end. Decorative tiles hung like outdoor paintings. Kate had tucked her arm in Niall’s one day to tell him the story of each one, mementoes from her honeymoon.
“This is lovely.” Lucy turned to him, a relaxed smile curving her mouth. He was starting to wait for her smiles and learn what might elicit one. “Who’s the gardener?”
“Both of them. They need green around them,” he replied. Green suited Lucy. She connected to the natural world through colour. “Cam said you took over as gardener when your gran died.”
“I discovered gardens when I moved to Gran’s.” Lucy took the bench seat facing a window into the dining room, where Kate was adding settings to the table. “You seem very close to Kate as well as your brother.”
“I am.” He linked his fingers with hers. “The scarf suits you.”
“Green’s my favourite colour. I’d almost forgotten in the last few months.”
“We can skip the nursery, if you like?” Niall wasn’t sure what he was offering. A chance for her to absorb the serenity to be had in a tiny garden, or a chance to avoid facing the prospect of new life so soon after her loss? Life followed death, but sometimes the reminders were too raw.
She stiffened, and he’d missed his chance of having her confide in him. Maybe she was regretting how much she’s told him on her gran’s birthday. Maybe she’d decided liking was enough—no deep and meaningful disclosures. If they’d taken each other to bed on Monday, he’d probably still be there. His hunger for her was more complicated than lust. Instead, he’d channelled his frustration into preparing the pieces for one of his Shanker-style sideboards.
“I’d love to see the nursery.”
Right! That’s why her face was twisted like she’d sucked an especially sour lemon.
Pushing open the nursery door, Niall flicked on lights, standing back to let her precede him. Poised in the doorway, she seemed to have some sort of mental tussle with herself, before entering the light, airy space. He sensed she was afraid, although he couldn’t pinpoint a source. Had she lost a sibling or, his heart stalled, a child of her own?
“They’re tirelessly boring on the subject of paint colours, mobiles, the rights of their daughter to grow up free to wield a hammer, while their son writes romance.”
She moved further into the room. “Sounds like they’re the kind of people who should be parents.” Then she was across the room in seconds, her hand raised above the cradle. When she stroked her index finger gently over the wood, his body hummed in response.
“This is yours, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He pushed his hands in his pockets.
“It’s stunning.” She pivoted to face him. “Why are you making frames and restoring furniture when you can do this?” She lifted her hands and let them drop. “When you can create the magic hidden in your storage vault? It’s a waste of your skills.”
The passion in her accusation skittled him. She stood with a hand on his cradle, a tactile connection making it impossible to ignore her challenge. His mind shuffled through a slideshow of images. She didn’t touch any of the pieces he was restoring with the same reverence. On the few times she picked up a frame to move it out of the way, she’d handled it with care, but not the veneration she reserved for his pieces.
Niall could trot out the glib answer he gave acquaintances, but prevaricating would be an insult to her intelligence, and whatever kind of relationship they might forge beyond friendship. “My da died just after I moved to Ireland to start my mentorship.”
“That sounds sudden.” She’d lived the disorientation of sudden death.
“A massive heart attack. I came back for about a week. Then Liam and Mum bundled me onto the plane to Ireland and my mentorship before I knew if I was on my arse or my ear.” He’d been punch-drunk, unable to find his balance. “Said Da would have been devastated if I’d chucked it in.”
“Were they right?” she asked, and in his guilt, Niall had never considered the question.
“Da was a carpenter, taught me how to hold my first hammer.” He grimaced. Having organised the funeral, Liam was ahead of him in processing what was happening, whereas Niall hadn’t known what day it was. Niall had let Liam make the decisions for him. “But he was an eco-warrior as well, which is why Liam gravitated to environmental law.”
“Were they right?”
“Yeah.” The admission released something in him. “And, at the time, while Liam and I knew we could never fill the gap he’d left behind, we thought he’d died with enough assets to keep Mum safe. That we’d continue with the careers we’d chosen.” Niall had let himself be feted as the new kid on the block in Ireland, filling his days with work and his nights with parties to deaden the creeping emptiness in his gut.
“What happened?” She took the seat beside the cradle, her hand still resting on the wood, still daring him to confront his past.
“Within weeks Liam discovered Da was bankrupt and Mum might lose the house. But he kept it to himself.”
“Why?” she persisted, as if his family’s determination was something he needed to confront along with other truths.
He recoiled at the slap. “What the feck does ‘why’ matter?” Although he and Liam had different answers.
“Because the ‘why’ is the reason you haven’t made peace with yourself.” She nudged the cradle, and her touch reverberated in his bones.
“For complicated reasons, his job went pear-shaped. He walked away from environmental law. When I finally prised it out of the eejit, he said his dream was dead, mine was the only one left, and he and Mum needed to dream.”
“Why can’t you believe him?” Her beautiful green-brown eyes held sympathy.
“Because it caused a rift between us.” He stopped mid-pace and glared at her. “He got a corporate law job that turned him into a soulless robot, had him working all hours of the day and night. He wouldn’t talk to me in case he let something slip and I decided to leave Ireland early.”
“So, your dream became a burden.”
“No.” She voiced a blasphemy Niall had never admitted. “In part. I knew something wasn’t right. And I only made a half-arsed effort to find out what was wrong, because I didn’t want to come home.”
“And you can’t forgive yourself for that.” She rose to her feet and walked toward him. Having her close enough to hold was a blessing he didn’t deserve.
“I stayed a year beyond the mentorship.” He pushed his hands through his hair, surprised she wasn’t telling him what a selfish bastard he was. “Wanted to hone my skills, I said. Wouldn’t get another chance like that in my lifetime.”
“Was that true?” She was as stubborn as he was.
“I ignored what he wasn’t saying because the craft has always seduced me.” He spun on his heel and walked to the window. “I can’t turn my back on the wood. Not even to earn a bloody income.” Ask any girlfriend I’ve ever had; ask the woman I planned to marry.
“But you have. That’s what the frames are about?” Her insight rocked him, leaving no space for shame. “You need to do this. And you need to do it now? Why?” She pushed harder than his conscience.
“Because I left it too long to come home. Because Quinns pay their way.” Niall stared at her, and the truth dawned. Paying his share was core to his identity as a man and a son, and it wasn’t only about money. Maybe not even primarily about money.
“You’re talking about a partner in one of the most respected law firms in the country. Partner and head of their new division on environmental law. His wife, from the little I’ve learned, is a writer and researcher. And I don’t mean to be mercenary here, Niall, but the furnishings in this house aren’t cheap.” Impatience gave her words an edge. “He doesn’t need your money, and I bet he told you that.”
“He’s about to have a babe.” He retraced his steps to face her, giving her the justification he’d given his brother. “He needs a nest egg, to have options.”
“This is your cash flow problem. Grandpa knew this.” She didn’t pause when he nodded. “How much did you charge them for the cradle?”
“Don’t be daft,” Niall reeled.
“What’s in your pockets?” She dropped her gaze to his lower body, frying his few functioning brain cells. “Empty them.”
Digging into his jacket pockets, he pulled out carved alphabet figures, upper and lower case from H to P. He set them on the narrow ledge running at knee height around two sides of the room. They joined the letters A to G, large enough not to be swallowed, small enough to teach some manual dexterity by fitting them together.
“Another gift.”
“I love them.” And the way to show them wasn’t the money, but in the practical way he knew best. “The cradle’s got nothing to do with Da’s debts. These”—he gestured to the carved letters—“are just baubles.”
“The fruit bowl for me.” She took his face between her hands. “You aren’t going to get rich and famous anytime soon if you keep giving some of your finest pieces away. You need to forgive yourself, Niall. Everyone else has.” She pressed her lips to his.
He pulled her into his body, releasing some of the doubts Sinead had gifted him. The warm weight of her in his arms triggered a soul-deep need. He nibbled at her bottom lip, teasing her mouth open and letting his tongue trace hers. She tasted of honey, of the sweetness of a spring day where new beginnings were everywhere. Her hands linked behind his neck. He widened his stance, letting her feel his arousal even as he slowed his kisses.
The doorbell rang. He rested his forehead on hers. “Anna will be in here in seconds.” He ran Lucy’s hand over the bulge in his pants. “I don’t want her to know I’m quite this pleased to see you.” He gave a rueful laugh and set her away from him.
“I’m pleased to see you too.” She patted his cheek. “At the risk of scaring you away a second time, I just clocked desire one hundred and ten percent, gratitude non-existent.”