As he allowed her to stand erect, she swept him from boots to head with an assessing look. “Ye’re wearing no seduction outfit.”
Seduction outfits had become a popular theme with her. Problem. Quincy normally depended on Wranglers, dusty boots, a Stetson, and a swagger to do his seducing for him. He made sure she had her balance, held up a finger, and said, “Hold that thought,” before he raced upstairs to change clothes.
He had no boxers on hand that were fringed with ostrich feathers. Instead he took the masculine approach and donned his all-black, rarely used barfly-attractant outfit—skintight black Wranglers, a black silk Western-cut shirt, his dressy black Stetson, and his flashy belt with the huge gold championship buckle, which he’d won years ago in a nationwide cutting competition. When he examined himself in the full-length wardrobe mirror, he winked, cocked his hat just so, and whispered, “Hello, darlin’, where you been all my life?” If this didn’t make her melt into her secondhand boots, he’d find himself in the men’s section of the Erotic Parrot, trying to find something sexy enough to please her.
Recalling the night when Ceara had first introduced him to Mr. Midas, Quincy attempted to make a grand entrance into the kitchen. He swaggered into the archway, struck a pose with one hip shot, the knee of his opposite leg bent, and tipped his hat to her. “Darlin’, I don’t got no feathers or sparkles. This is the best I can do on short notice.”
Ceara, who’d been rifling through the picnic supplies, turned and gave him a solemn study, the indentation in her cheek winking at him as she worried the inside of her lip. “Ye’re drop-dead gorgeous,” she informed him, “but ye’ll freeze off yer arse without a jacket.”
Quincy relaxed. Going with all black had never failed him. “I’ll wear a jacket over my seduction outfit.”
She glanced down at herself. “But I am not wearing one.”
Oh, yes, she was. Quincy liked see-through negligees trimmed with feathers. What man didn’t? But what really turned his crank was a woman in tight jeans and riding boots. Or a pair of chaps and nothing else. A matter to address later, he decided. Just the thought of Ceara in chaps got his juices flowing and brought Old Glory to full attention.
“You are perfect,” he told her. “Way more prime than this old horseman deserves.”
“Ye’re not old. In me time, a lass who is married off to a man so young and fit feels fortunate.”
Quincy figured that was another thought to be explored later. Right now, he had his mind on one thing: a romantic horseback ride into the wilderness with his wife. He’d only ever made love to her in the privacy of their bedroom. Today she would be introduced to a host of new sexual experiences.
* * *
Instead of sex under a pine tree, they got a snowstorm. Quincy, who’d grown up in central Oregon, knew that only a fool or a newcomer trusted in a weather forecast, but he was still disgruntled by what he recognized as snow clouds moving in to turn the sky gray in spots. Ceara, fascinated with the landscape, didn’t seem to notice the forthcoming change in weather, and chattered like a magpie.
“’Tis so lovely here, Quincy! Even here in the trees, I can see yer beautiful mountain peaks. What is the name of the mountain range again?” After Quincy told her it was called the Cascades, she beamed a glowing smile. “’Tis so different from me Ireland. I ne’er thought to find anyplace but home so breathtaking. I shall like living here for always, with all the green fields stretching out from your house and these gorgeous forests looming behind them. At home, we have hills all covered with green, but our trees are mostly smaller, and we do na have anything so grand as yer mountain peaks.” She laughed and added, “I also quite like yer coffee and tea. At home, Mum made tea from roots and such, but ne’er did it taste so good.”
Absentmindedly, Quincy answered her endless questions about the flora and fauna they saw in the forest. Soon Ceara could tell the difference between ponderosa and lodgepole pines by counting the needle clusters, and she was an equally fast study at learning the names of the various bushes.
Quincy was far more focused on the threat of a storm. First, the sunshine blinked out. Then the wind kicked up, cold enough to slice chilled butter. He couldn’t believe it when the first snowflakes struck his cheeks.
“We need to turn back.” He wheeled Beethoven around. Ceara, who’d been following him, rode Elvis, a nine-year-old sorrel gelding that was so gentle and well-mannered that Quincy would have trusted him with any inexperienced rider. “We’ll have to enjoy our picnic at home.”
Ceara nodded and hunched her shoulders inside the oversize, lined denim jacket. Her cheeks had already turned apple red above the folds of the gray wool muffler. “’Tis so cold! I canna believe how quickly it came on.” She squinted at the sky, which had gone steel blue and spit a haze of snow. Then she looked at Quincy. “Yer jacket, ’tis too thin. Ye’ll catch yer death riding back in this.”
Before Quincy realized what she intended, she flapped her hand and the snow stopped falling. An instant later, the sun burst forth.
“Sweetheart, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“The ecological balance, I ken.” She grinned. “As soon as we’re to home, I’ll turn the snow back on, making it even heavier. Yer ecological balance willna be harmed.”
Somehow she looked different suddenly. Quincy studied her face, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what had changed. “Okay, but only just this once, and not because I’m going to catch my death. I’m more worried about you catching yours.”
“’Tis fine I am.”
Quincy nudged Beethoven around Elvis to take the lead, then stopped the horse and shifted on the saddle to make sure Ceara could rein her mount around on the narrow trail. She managed the turn with an expertise that amazed him.
“You are incredible.”
She smiled faintly. “Ye should try sidesaddle in long skirts. This is easy.”
Quincy nudged his stallion into a fast pace, wanting to get back to the ranch as quickly as possible. As much as he detested snow after what had seemed an endlessly long winter, it bothered him when Ceara messed with the weather. He knew the ecological balance wouldn’t undergo a severe shift simply because she’d turned off the white stuff for a few minutes, but it still wasn’t nature’s plan, and over time, he hoped that she would come to understand that.
They made record time getting back to the ranch. After they drew their horses to a stop outside the arena, they both dismounted. Ceara cast a yearning glance at the bright blue sky, then swung her hand, making it turn gunmetal gray again. The snowfall resumed instantly, heavier than before, just as she’d promised. Quincy saw Pierce in one of the paddocks. The thin young man stood with his hands on his hips, his freckled face crinkled in a perplexed frown.
“What the Sam Hill?” he shouted. “I’ve seen crazy weather, but if this don’t beat all.”
Quincy waved and turned to smile at his wife. His lips froze in a half curve. Ceara’s face had gone as white as chalk, and she was leaning against Elvis’s shoulder as if her legs wouldn’t hold her up. Quincy tossed Beethoven’s reins over the pommel and circled the horse to grasp Ceara’s shoulders.
“Sweetheart, what is it?”
She swayed on her feet and pressed against him for support. “Weak. ’Tis as if all me blood has drained away. ’Twill pass.”
Quincy gathered her close. She felt so tiny in his arms—so very fragile, like a miniature figurine of blown glass. Love for her swept over him in a wave, concern following swiftly in its wake. “What caused it, messing with the weather?”
She nodded, the movement of her chin barely discernible. It seemed to Quincy that she leaned against him for at least a full minute. When she finally drew away, he saw that some color had returned to her cheeks.
“Using me powers now makes me feel weak. ’Tis me guess that restarting the snow and making it come down heavier after may have been too much for me.”
“Then stop using your gifts. What’s the point if it exh
austs you so?”
She smiled and straightened her shoulders. “’Tis better I am now.” She looked deeply into his eyes, snowflakes frosting her auburn lashes. “I know ye canna understand about me gifts, Quincy. How easily could ye stop using yer eyes to see or yer voice to speak?”
Quincy couldn’t argue the point, but that didn’t stop him from wishing she would quit using her powers.
Her smile deepened. “I have had me gifts always. Me mum says that directly after me birth, I screeched indignantly at the coldness of the air, and the wind picked up in accordance with me temper until a terrible gale and driving rain pummeled the keep. The instant I was swaddled and felt happier, the storm stopped.” She shrugged, conveying with the gesture that the story of her birth said it all. “Using me gifts is natural to me. I canna stop simply because ye ask it of me.”
Quincy told Pierce to care for their mounts and took Ceara straight to the house, hoping a hefty portion of the picnic lunch that he had prepared would restore her energy. To his dismay, she opened the kale wraps, peered dubiously at the filling, and then sat back on the chair. He quickly realized that any departure from her omnivore diet didn’t appeal to her appetite.
“How about eggs and bacon?” he asked. “Or I can grill us some burgers and make homemade fries.”
She arched an eyebrow. “Burgers and fries?”
Quincy couldn’t help but chuckle. “Ah, another culinary adventure, coming up.”
As he put ground beef into the microwave on defrost, he tried to tally the number of times over the last weeks that he’d consumed high-fat foods. So many times that he’d lost track. Farewell to healthful eating. His wife wanted no part of green smoothies, organically grown chicken, or weird vegetables.
“You’re obliterating my plan to eat right,” he said over his shoulder. “At this rate, I’ll probably croak before I hit seventy.”
Her laughter tinkled behind him like dainty wind chimes in a soft breeze. “’Tis silly to avoid good food. At home, the bounty is great, but nothing on our table compares to the delights of yer time.”
She got a croissant from the bread keeper, slathered it with butter, and took a huge bite, grinning impishly at him as she chewed. An hour later, she smeared at least two heaping tablespoons of mayonnaise on her bun. When she tasted her first French fry, dipped in the Harrigan family goop—half mayo and half ketchup—she moaned and closed her eyes.
“Ach, Quincy, ’tis better even than burned popcorn.”
He chuckled, as he enjoyed watching her wolf down fries, and promised himself he’d soon have her upstairs, moaning and closing her eyes over something a whole lot better than fat-saturated potato wedges.
Forty minutes and twenty-five seconds later, Quincy was the one moaning in delight as he kissed jam from his wife’s lips. For dessert, she’d eaten it straight from the jar with a spoon. Never had strawberries tasted quite as good.
Chapter Thirteen
Quincy couldn’t remember ever having been quite so happy. Ceara had become a favorite of the family. Frank called her his “pretty little fire hydrant,” in reference to her dark red hair. The hens included her in every get-together, sometimes to Quincy’s dismay, because they gave his wife all kinds of strange ideas, everything from shower sex to phone sex, the latter of which interrupted more than one of Quincy’s workdays. How in the hell was he supposed to train a horse when his wife talked dirty to him on her cell? Well, not dirty, really—it was Ceara, after all—but all Quincy needed to put his mind in the gutter was a whisper in his ear that she wished he were nibbling on her neck. The woman definitely knew how to jerk his leash. Once she embraced an idea, it was no-holds-barred.
His brothers ribbed him unmercifully about being henpecked. They also razzed him more than once about forgetting to drop the criminal charges against his wife, a slip of the mind that Quincy doubted he would ever live down. He gave back as good as he got, and bore in mind that it was all in good fun. So what if he had fallen madly in love with his wife? There wasn’t an adult male in the entire Harrigan clan who wasn’t totally devoted to his spouse, and Quincy thought it felt damned good to be in the same boat.
Ceara didn’t give up her burning desire to get a driver’s license. The very thought of her driving fifteen feet beyond his front gate gave Quincy heart palpitations, but he got her a book from the DMV to study anyway, and showed her how to take mock tests on her new laptop. She was smart as a tack and caught on to practically everything—except cooking with the high-tech appliances—quickly, the only problem being that when it came to a vehicle, she still hadn’t quite mastered shifting gears and slamming on the brake fast enough. He had no sooner gotten the holding shed repaired than she smacked it again. He was beginning to accept as semipermanent a bent cattle guard on the front of his truck, and he’d lost track of how many sections of expensive fencing she had mowed down. He teasingly told her she would drive him into bankruptcy, but in truth, he enjoyed the lessons, mostly because she had so darned much fun and he never knew what might happen next. Still, he made sure she never drove near any live animals.
Not knowing what could occur in the next five minutes was enough to drive a man mad, but Quincy found instead that his wife’s unpredictability had its charm. He especially enjoyed the evenings when they shared a nice meal with a fine wine.
Ceara soon started losing pieces of her clothing after she had a drink. That worried Quincy, because he knew that sooner or later, the hens would ask her to join them for a girls’ night out. He guessed he’d just have to trust in his sister and sisters-in-law to make sure she stayed dressed. There was a country song that always moved through Quincy’s mind when Ceara’s eyes grew sultry and her cheeks became flushed. Something about some gal who first lost an earring after a sip of tequila, and then a shoe, and then—well, hell, a man could worry himself into a loony farm if he considered the possibilities. The only thing that comforted Quincy was that Ceara still draped herself in layers outside the house, although now they were trendier. She wore jeans, which she still deemed indecently revealing, only when they went riding.
She persisted in trying to teach Quincy how to use what she insisted were his gifts. No matter how many times he told her he had none, she insisted that he must. The Harrigans were of druid descent. Therefore, in her mind, it followed that they had to have special powers. Fortunately, as far as he knew, she’d confined her persuasions to her husband. Quincy humored her, flapping his hand at the fire and countless candles. Nothing. And he honestly did try. Bottom line, he was a watered-down druid, and the only real gift he had was a way with animals. In the quarter-horse industry, he had frequently been called a horse whisperer, but in truth, nothing magical occurred between him and an equine. He just understood them in a way a lot of people didn’t.
With each passing day, Loni grew stronger. One afternoon, Quincy dropped by Clint’s place unannounced and found his older brother in his arena office wiping tears from his sun-weathered cheeks. Quincy’s stomach clenched. He dropped onto the caster chair at the front side of Clint’s desk, stared at his embarrassed brother for a long moment, and then pushed out, “Is Loni getting sick again?”
Elbows propped on the blotter, Clint buried his fists in his eye sockets, sighed, and shook his head. In a choked voice, he replied, “No, that’s just it. She’s well, Quincy. I mean . . . not just better, but really well. I couldn’t trust in it at first. You know what I’m saying? But this morning when I went back to the house for something, I found her in her office doing Pilates. She’s really, really well, man. She’s even working with the FBI again to help find missing people.”
Quincy felt his own eyes fill. He blinked furiously. Clint straightened, fiddled with his stapler, pushed at a stack of papers, and then started to laugh as tears streamed from his eyes. He gestured helplessly, as if he couldn’t find words. “You and Ceara saved her life. At the time, I know I acted like an ass. I’ve never told you or her how sorry I am for that.” He shrugged. “Those aren’t easy
words for me to say.”
Quincy knew that about his brother. Clint could talk a mile around an apology. He’d been that way for as long as Quincy could remember. “You were frantic. If I didn’t understand it before, Clint, I sure as hell do now. And so does Ceara. No words are necessary.”
Clint hauled in a deep, ragged breath. Then he shook his head. “No, words are necessary. That night—right after you married her—God, she was a virgin, and you were a total stranger to her. It shames me to admit it, but I honestly didn’t care if you had to hog-tie her to the bed to get the deed done. That was wrong of me, and I’m . . .” He swallowed hard. “I’m sorry.”
Quincy couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’m not. Ceara is the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, Clint.”
“Really? I mean, you’re not just making the best of a bad situation with her?”
That sent Quincy’s chuckle into a full-blown guffaw. “Bad situation? Clint, I love her, and I think she loves me.”
“You think?” Clint’s brows snapped together. “She hasn’t ever told you so?”
Quincy sank lower in the chair and propped a boot on his knee. “No, when it comes to speaking of love, she’s like you are with apologies, finding a hundred different ways to talk her way around saying the actual words.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, in a way. I’d like to hear her say it. I mean, I’d really like to hear her say it. But being your little brother, I learned a long time ago to hear what isn’t actually said, knowing you felt sorry but just couldn’t put it into words. It’s kind of like that with Ceara. She acts like she loves me, and she says sweet things. For now, I’ll settle.”