Reunited

Rafe froze, afraid Keely might sense his reaction. He tried to keep his voice quiet, indifferent. “So…your name isn’t Keely McClain. It’s Keely Quinn.”

“Umm. Keely Quinn,” she murmured drowsily.

Rafe closed his eyes and cursed inwardly. This couldn’t be happening to him. He’d been planning his revenge for months and everything had been set in motion just days ago. He couldn’t stop now. Seamus Quinn had murdered his father and he’d have to pay!

But Keely was a Quinn. And with the exception of his mother, she was also the first woman he’d ever cared about. Rafe carefully slipped out of bed and walked to the windows. Streetlights still twinkled around Boston Harbor as the deep blue sky gave way to blazing orange and pink. He pressed his palms against the cold glass as he tried to bring order to the chaos raging in his head.

Rafe turned and looked back at Keely, curled up in his bed, the sheets twisted around her slender body. She looked so naive, so beguiling, her hand splayed over his pillow—such a stark contrast to the woman who’d driven him mad with lust the night before. He’d come to crave that contrast, the sexy siren trapped inside the innocent’s body.

But how much longer would she want him? And how much time did he have to make her want him more than she wanted her family?

Dear Reader,

Over the past few months I’ve been overwhelmed by the amount of wonderful e-mails and letters I’ve received regarding my MIGHTY QUINNS series, published by Harlequin Temptation in September, October and November 2001. Many of you have already fallen in love with Conor, Dylan and Brendan, and are anxiously waiting to get your hands on the stories of the youngest three Quinn brothers. But for my first single-title release, I wanted to do something a little different. So I’m thrilled to introduce you to another member of this irresistible Irish family—Keely Quinn, a woman who finds not only her family, but a man she can’t live without. And through it all, she finds herself.

It felt a little odd to leave the Quinn brothers behind and focus on figuring out what a female Quinn would be like. But as I wrote about Keely, I found she wasn’t much different from her brothers—stubborn, impetuous, passionate. And in order to balance the scales, I had to give Keely a great hero. I think I found him in Rafe Kendrick—a guy who can stand up to any one of the Quinn brothers, and actually does just that to claim the woman he loves.

Enjoy,

Kate Hoffmann

For my siblings, Eileen, Lisa and Brad

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

A COLD WIND RATTLED the windows of the tiny apartment above the brick storefront. Keely McClain pushed aside the lace curtains and stared out at the dark street in her quiet Brooklyn neighborhood. Snow gathered on the ground and she said a quick prayer that the storm would worsen and school tomorrow would be canceled. She had a math test and had frittered away her study time today at school passing notes to her friends and drawing cartoon pictures of the nuns.

“Please snow, please snow,” she murmured. She pressed her palms together and said a quick prayer, then crossed herself.

Keely turned from the window and then hopped up on her bed, standing on the mattress so she could see herself in her dresser mirror. Carefully, she rolled up the waistband of her plaid skirt until the hem rose to midthigh, just to see what it looked like. Three rolls and a tug and the hem was perfectly even, as if her mother had made it that short. The nuns at Saint Alphonse required that school uniforms reach the floor when kneeling, a notion that every other girl in the all-girl school found positively prehistoric, especially in 1988.

“Have you finished your homework?”

Her mother’s voice echoed through the tiny apartment. For as long as Keely could remember, it had been just them. She’d never known her father. He’d died when she was just a baby. But Keely carried a picture of him in her mind, an image of a strong, handsome man with a charming smile and a tender heart. His name was Seamus and he’d come to the United States from Ireland with her mother, Fiona. He’d worked on a fishing boat and that’s how he’d died, in a terrible storm at sea.

Keely sighed. Maybe if she’d had a father around, she and her mother might have gotten along a little better. Fiona McClain had strong ideas about how her daughter should be raised and first and foremost was that Keely McClain would grow up a good Catholic girl. To Keely that meant no makeup, no parties, no boys—no fun. Instead of meeting her friends on Saturday morning to hang out at the mall, she was forced to help her mother at Anya’s Cakes and Pastries, the shop right below their apartment.

When she was younger, she’d loved watching Anya and her mother decorate the many-tiered wedding cakes. Sitting on a high stool in the bakery’s kitchen had been one of her first memories. And when she’d finally been given the responsibility of a real job, Keely had been too excited to speak. Every Wednesday afternoon, she’d dust the glass shelves that held the cake toppers and wedding favors and crystal goblets. She had passed the time by making up romantic stories about each of the little ceramic couples on the cake toppers, giving the grooms dashing names like Lance and Trevor and the brides pretty names like Amelia and Louisa.