The young woman regarded him warily, raising the tire iron a few more inches. “Let me see your badge,” she demanded, the tremor in her voice giving away her fear.
Conor impatiently reached into his pocket and withdrew the leather case, then flipped it open. He should have just walked away. She obviously didn’t want his help. “See,” he said. “Detective Conor Quinn. Boston P.D.”
She blinked in surprise. “Quinn?” Her gaze darted across the street.
“Yeah,” Conor said. “My da owns Quinn’s Pub.” He stared at her for a long moment as the light from the streetlamp caught her face. A strange sense of deja vu flashed though his mind, so brief that he wasn’t able to focus on it. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
She shook her head. “No. Never.”
But Conor had an eye for faces, a skill well honed by his career as a cop. And he knew he’d seen this woman before. Not in the smoky interior of the bar and not at the bustling squad room at the station, but on a street, in the dark, much like this. “Are you from the neighborhood?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, answering a bit too quickly for his liking.
If she lived in the neighborhood then she should have known it wasn’t the best idea for her to be changing a tire-alone-on a dark street in Southie, she hadn’t hesitated to threaten him with a tire iron. “Where?” he asked.
She pointed off to the west. “Over in that area. Do you think you could help me change my tire? I-I’m in a big hurry.”
Conor took the tire iron from her hand and turned his attention to the stubborn lug nuts. This was exactly what he wanted to be doing right now, getting his hands dirty doing his duty as an officer of the law for a citizen who was obviously lying to him. Once he had the nuts all loosened, he quickly jacked the car up and finished removing them. But his mind really wasn’t on the task at hand. Instead, he was determined to remember where he knew this woman from.
He grabbed the tire and wrestled it off the bolts, then rolled it to the rear of the car. She wasn’t really a woman, but then she wasn’t a girl either. She seemed to be caught in between. Her dark-almost black-hair was cropped short and her delicate features made her look much younger than she probably was. But it was the eyes that made Conor curious. Though she knew he was a cop, they still held a large measure of apprehension and indecision.
“You know, you could have just come into the bar,” he suggested, “and used the phone to call a friend. You shouldn’t be out on a dark street like this alone.” He grabbed the spare and rolled it toward the front of the car.
“I don’t have any friends,” she murmured. “I-I mean, not in the neighborhood. Not home. They’re all…out. So is the bar a family business?”
Conor glanced over his shoulder. “Me and my brothers all take turns working on the weekends.”
“Brothers?” she asked. “You have brothers? How many?”
Conor frowned. For a stranger who lived in the neighborhood but didn’t know exactly where she lived, and didn’t have any friends, she certainly was curious. As he replaced the lug nuts, a slow realization dawned. So that was it! She was probably one of Dylan’s girls or maybe a friend of Brendan’s. His brothers always had women hanging around, giggling and whispering over them, staring at them with cow eyes. The poor girl probably had a crush and was waiting outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of whichever Quinn she’d fallen in love with.
“I have five brothers,” he said, wondering which one she was interested in hearing about. Most girls gravitated toward Dylan, swept away by the notion of being with a real live hero. But there were others who found Brendan’s lust for danger too attractive to resist. And then there were Sean, Brian and Liam, each of them holding their own particular charms.
“Five brothers,” she said. “I-I can’t imagine having five brothers. What are their names?”
Conor stood and brushed off the knees of his jeans, then moved to release the jack. “Dylan, Brendan, Sean, Brian and Liam.” Her eyes went wide and Conor couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor girl. She had it bad for a Quinn. It really didn’t matter much which one, since his little brothers weren’t in the market for love and Conor had already been taken. “They’re all inside waiting for me. Why don’t you come in? You can wash your hands and I’ll buy you a soda.”
She shook her head as if the notion of going inside with him was completely improper. “No!” she cried. “I have to go. I’m late.” She grabbed the tire iron from his hand then scrambled to drag the jack from beneath the bumper. She tossed them both in the back seat then ran to slam the trunk shut. A few seconds later, she roared off down the street, without the flat tire and without even giving Conor a “thank you” for his efforts.
“You’re welcome!” he shouted after her car. He stood on the sidewalk, racking his brain, trying to figure out how he knew her. She looked so familiar. And then he remembered. It had been that night he’d stopped at the pub before heading out to Cape Cod. She’d been walking on the sidewalk in front of the pub and he’d nearly knocked her over. The odd thing was, he’d thought he recognized her that time, too.
Conor shook the memory from his brain, then glanced across the street at Quinn’s. The only woman he wanted to think about right now was Olivia Farrell. And his only concern right now was finding her and telling her how much he cared. Everything else could wait for later.
“KEVIN!”
Olivia stood in the middle of the showroom of the Charles Street store and stared at her former partner. He was the last person she had expected to see! He looked a bit thinner and his complexion had lost its ruddy tone, but he was still the same man. Only now, he was an admitted criminal.
“Hello, Olivia,” he murmured, a faint blush rising to his pale cheeks.
She crossed her arms over her chest, not sure if she ought to be afraid or angry. “What are you doing here?”
He shrugged, then glanced around the shop. “I’m out,” he said. “I cut a deal to testify against Keenan and against the cops that he’d bought off. But then Keenan cut a deal and I never had to take the stand. I’m a free man.”
“I suppose I should thank you,” Olivia said. “If it weren’t for you, I’d have had to testify.”
His gaze dropped to his expensive Italian loafers. “I’m sorry about that, Olivia. I should have stood up and taken responsibility for what I’d done rather than pass off my problem to you. It was my fault, but now I’ll pay the price. I’ll be the one looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, wondering if one of Keenan’s associates might be following me.”
“I suppose you expect to pick up where we left off,” she said, a defensive edge to her voice. Olivia straightened her spine. “Well, I don’t want to do that. I’ve gone through our inventory and separated our acquisitions. I’m going to take my stock and start over somewhere else. I’ll be out by the end of the month.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Kevin said. “My credibility is pretty much shot in this town. I want to turn over my client list to you and I want to give you the shop. You can take over the mortgage.” He shook his head, a sardonic smile curling his mouth. “You were always better at this business, anyway. You can take my name off the sign. I’d just ask one thing.”
“What’s that?” she asked, her mind racing at this new development.
“That you let me sell through your shop. I’m going to be moving around a lot and I need a way to make a living. I’ll send you stock from around the country and you sell it, on consignment. You’ll get a cut of everything you sell.”
Olivia thought about the proposal for a long moment. It was a perfect plan. She could keep the Charles Street shop, a location that she’d never be able to replace. And she wouldn’t have to pack up all her stock and pay for the move. And Kevin really wasn’t asking for much, just a way to make a living. Didn’t she owe him at least that much?
“Why would you do this for me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “I’m going to have my lawyer call you and make all the arrangements. And you can expect stock whenever I find something interesting.” He stepped toward her as if to kiss her on the cheek, but settled for a pat on her arm. Then Kevin turned and walked toward the door.
“What made you change your mind about testifying?” she called, just as he reached for the knob.
“A visit from a cop named Quinn.”
Olivia blinked in surprise. “Conor Quinn? He convinced you to testify?”
