Sean raked his hand through his hair. 'Promise you won't say anything to the brothers?' They'd made the same promise hundreds of times before, a vow between twins who were closer than mere brothers could ever be. From the time Sean had broken the bedroom window and Brian had sworn to Conor that a bird had done it, to the time when Brian had snuck the keys for Dylan's car and taken it for a joyride. His secrets were safe with Brian.
'You know I won't,' Brian said.
Sean leaned against the back bar. 'I got married earlier this afternoon.'
Brian's jaw dropped. He tried to say something, but words wouldn't come. When he finally regained his voice, he shook his head. 'You got married? Just like that, without telling the family? I didn't know you were even dating someone. Hell, Sean, we've all accepted the fact that you're a little closemouthed, but this is taking it too far.'
'It wasn't a real wedding,' he explained.
'And that's just an imaginary tuxedo you're wearing?' Brian asked. He grabbed Sean's arm, dragged him down to the end of the bar, then flipped up the end section and shoved him through. 'Go find us a booth,' he muttered. 'I'll get us something stronger to drink.'
Sean found a spot near the front door of the pub, not exactly a quiet spot, but far enough away from prying ears to make conversation private. Brian joined him a few moments later with two shot glasses and a bottle of Irish whiskey. He set the bottle and glasses on the table, then slid into the seat across from Sean. Brian filled both glasses, snatched one up and downed it in one gulp. Sean did the same, then shoved the glass toward the bottle for another pour.
'Not until you tell me,' Brian said.
'I've been tracking down a drifter named Eddie 'The Cruiser' Perkins. He romances wealthy women, marries them, then takes off with their money.'
'What does he have to do with you getting married?'
'I found him and I was there when the FBI took him away. He asked me to do a favor for him. Gave me a hundred bucks to get a message to a woman named Laurel Rand. I didn't realize the address he gave me was for a church and that Laurel Rand was waiting there in her wedding dress. Waiting for Eddie. She didn't know he was Eddie the Cruiser, she thought he was Edward Garland something-or-other, her groom.'
'So you just decided to marry her then and there? Isn't that taking your professional responsibilities a little too far?'
'She offered to pay me.' Sean reached into his pants' pocket, withdrew the check and placed it on the table. 'Ten thousand dollars to walk down the aisle with her. To pretend I was her groom for the rest of the afternoon and evening.'
'But you married her,' Sean said.
'Not for real. We didn't have a marriage license. I was pretending to be someone else. It's not legal. Hell, do you think I'd really marry a woman I just met?'
Brian grabbed the bottle and poured them both another shot. 'Looking at it objectively, would you say you… rescued her?'
'Yeah,' Sean said. 'And then I married her. That's it. Don't you see? The curse is broken. I collect my money and it's over. No marriage, no curse. Clean and simple and safe.'
Though the Mighty Quinn legends went back centuries, the Quinn family curse was a more recent development. It had begun the day Conor had met Olivia, and since then, every time a Quinn brother rescued a damsel in distress, he promptly fell in love with her. But that wouldn't happen to Sean. He'd neatly maneuvered himself around the curse.
'I don't think it's that simple,' Brian said. 'So when are you going to see her again?'
Sean looked down into his glass. 'I'm not. I did what she asked, she paid me, and now I have enough money to rent an office and buy some office equipment. I won't have to operate my business out of the apartment anymore. Maybe I'll get a better class of clientele. Some corporate clients would be nice.'
'I get the sense that you don't want it to end there.'
Sean twirled the empty shot glass around in front him. 'She was beautiful. I knew I shouldn't have gone along with her plan, that it was tempting fate. But I wanted to help her. And I'm glad I did.'
'You know what I think? All those stories Da used to tell about the Mighty Quinns are just a load of crap. And so is this curse. There's a reason all of us fell in love with these women of ours. They were the right women in the right place at the right time.'
'What does that have to do with Laurel Rand?'
'Maybe she's your perfect mate,' Brian replied. 'Maybe this is the right time and you just don't know it yet. Think about it. You've always kept your distance from the opposite sex. You didn't do that with this woman. Maybe there was a reason for that.'
'That's a lot of maybes. You're in love and you're talking like a sap.'
Brian sighed. 'I'm simply saying that
'Yeah, there's something there,' Sean said as he slid out of the booth. He picked up Laurel's check and waved it at Brian. 'Ten thousand and a chance to build my business. And that's all.'
Sean waved goodbye to his father, then headed toward the door. He'd had a long day and the whiskey he'd downed was making him sleepy. But as he stepped out onto the street, Brian's words still rang in his mind.
When he reached his car, he slid inside and sat silently, his hands resting on the steering wheel. He couldn't deny he'd been thinking about his future more and more lately. He'd watched each of his brothers fall in love and find a happiness and contentment he'd never been able to imagine for himself.
It was a wonder any of them had found a normal life after their chaotic childhoods. Though he'd never been one to dwell on his choices in life, Sean had come to realize that his childhood had left more scars than he was willing to acknowledge. His feelings about romance and love, his insecurities about relationships and his mistrust of women all came from those formative days.
He deserved a happy future, but he wasn't sure it would happen for him. A niggling fear had been eating at his brain lately, an image of Sean Quinn, Private Investigator. Only he wasn't young anymore. He was old and worn out, looking like Bert Hinshaw, spending his days in a bar and his nights alone in a ratty apartment. Sean didn't want to see his future in that light, didn't want to believe life might pass him by.
How had his brothers found happiness? Had it really just fallen into their laps? Or had they gone looking for it? And once they'd found it, how had they known it was forever? These were questions Sean wanted to ask. But he'd been uneasy talking to his brothers about such subjects. It had been easier just to dismiss their relationships and to refuse to believe they'd last.
Sean knew where his own doubts came from. 'Fiona,' he murmured. His mother's desertion had created a void in his life that he still hadn't managed to fill. He reached into his back pocket and withdrew his wallet, then pulled out the photo he'd found as a child. For years he'd thought of his mother as his own personal angel watching over him from heaven. And then, one day, that had all changed. He'd gone down to the local pub to drag his father home. There, he'd found him drunk and blathering to the other patrons about his 'dead' wife.
Seamus hadn't known Sean was there and had regaled the patrons seated around him with a story of how he'd found his wife with another man, then kicked her out of his house. The car accident that had killed her a few years later had been divine punishment for her adultery.
Sean remembered running out of the pub, running and running until his lungs burned and he'd gasped for breath. He'd been betrayed and deceived by his angel, as if all the love he'd given her had been a lie. And he'd carried that feeling around with him since then-even after his mother had returned.
Fiona Quinn had come back into their lives nearly two years ago, along with Keely, the sister they'd never known. His brothers had welcomed their return, even forgiven their father for telling the story of Fiona's demise. But Sean couldn't forgive so easily-or trust the love that Fiona seemed so determined to shower on her family.
If he couldn't love his own mother, how was he supposed to love anyone else? The answers didn't come easily-and the questions never seemed to stop.
Chapter 3
