A Woman's Heart. JoAnn Ross

she bring to the convent—into the family car.

      “I would have eventually realized that.” Nora wondered briefly if this out-of-the-blue discussion might be no coincidence. Her mother had supposedly told Kate she might be sending Nora a husband. Could she be trying to get the two childhood sweethearts back together again?

      “As it turned out, you didn’t have time to make up your own mind,” Sheila said with a regretful shake of her head. “What with your poor mam dying giving birth to Celia and you having to leave the order.”

      It had been the second-worst time of her life. “Someone had to tend to the house and children.” And Da, she thought, but did not say.

      “I’ve always said it was too much responsibility for a young girl. A child raising children was what you were. Lord knows Brady, as good a man as he is in his way, couldn’t take care of himself, let alone those babies.

      “Considering how lonely you must have been, it’s no wonder you fell head over heels for Conor Fitzpatrick when he came back from the continent with all those flashy trophies.”

      “I loved Conor,” Nora stated firmly.

      Her love for her dashing husband—who’d held the promise of becoming one of the world’s greatest steeplechase riders—had been the single constant in Nora’s life during that time. And if she hadn’t married Conor, Rory, the shining apple of her eye, wouldn’t have been born.

      And then Conor had been killed in a race, which had been the worst time of her life.

      “He’s been dead for five years, Nora. It’s not good for a woman to be alone. Especially a woman with children to raise.”

      “I manage.”

      “Of course you do, dear.” Sheila paused, giving Nora the impression she was choosing her words carefully. “Devlin had other news.”

      “Oh?”

      “He’s engaged. To a young woman he met in veterinary school.”

      The older woman’s gaze had turned so intent Nora felt as if she were standing at the wrong end of one of those telescopes all the lake-monster trackers inevitably carried.

      “I’m so happy for him,” she said. “You’ll have to give me his address so I can write him a note.”

      “You don’t mind?”

      “Of course not. It’s been over between Devlin and me for a long time. I’m pleased he’s found someone to share his life with.”

      So much for her mother’s perceived matchmaking.

      “Here’s my list.” Not wanting to discuss her love life—or lack of it—any longer, Nora handed the piece of paper to the storekeeper. “I hope you have some of those Spanish oranges. Rory loves them, and they’re so much better for his teeth than sweets or biscuits.”

      “You’re a good mother, Nora Fitzpatrick,” Sheila said. “And no one can fault the job you’re doing with the children. But it’s easier on a woman to have a man around the house. Sons, especially, need a father’s firm guiding hand.”

      As the older woman began plucking items from the wooden shelves, Nora almost laughed as she thought how much Sheila Monohan sounded like her mother. Which made sense, she decided, since the two women had been best friends.

      “Brady brought in your eggs this morning, in case you’re wondering,” Sheila offered as she began adding up Nora’s purchases on her order pad. “I gave him a credit.”

      Nora had worried her father might have forgotten to sell the eggs before heading off to the pub for a day of storytelling and gossiping. She was also grateful Sheila hadn’t paid cash for the eggs. Da could make coins disappear faster than the magician she’d seen at last year’s Puck Fair in County Kerry.

      “Thank you.”

      “No thanks necessary. They were good-size eggs, Nora. A lot bigger than Mrs. O’Donnel’s. We’ll get a good price for them.”

      Nora smiled at that. “John says it’s the Nashville music he’s started playing in the henhouse. Perhaps I ought to write a letter to Garth Brooks and ask if he’d be interested in paying me for a commercial endorsement.”

      Although Nora still refused to believe that the piped-in tunes had any effect at all on the hens, she couldn’t deny that since her seventeen-year-old brother’s latest science experiment, they’d begun laying more—and larger eggs.

      “Brady said you were thinking of joining the cheese guild,” Sheila said after laughing at Nora’s suggestion. Her sentence tilted upward at the end, turning it into a question.

      “I’m considering it. The man from the guild assures me I could increase my profits by twenty percent. He suggested Cashel blue.”

      “That’s one of our most popular cheeses,” Sheila agreed. “And a twenty-percent profit increase is certainly nothing to scoff at.”

      “I know. And it’s not as if we couldn’t use the money.”

      Which was, of course, the only reason Brady had arranged to rent out her bedroom. Her father had informed Nora—after the fact—that the American novelist, Quinn Gallagher, would be staying in their house, and Nora had no option but to agree. Besides, the man was paying an amazingly generous price for a bedroom, shared bath, and morning and evening meals.

      She’d almost resigned herself to moving the children to Galway and taking that job as a bookkeeper to a land developer, a former schoolmate who’d become wealthy refurbishing the bay waterfront for tourism. Now she could allow herself to think she might actually be able to turn down the offer.

      “Money’s always something we could all use more of,” Sheila said with a sigh.

      Yes, Nora thought, it wasn’t easy resisting the lure of the city with its high-paying jobs. And traffic congestion, and polluted air, and so many people a body couldn’t take a breath without invading the private space of her neighbor.

      Nora knew that her brother John and her sister Mary longed for the bright city lights, but she supposed that was natural when you were seventeen and sixteen. Not that she herself ever had. Conor, who’d certainly enjoyed the fast life, had accused her of having the green fields and rich black peat of the family farm in her blood. Nora had never denied it. It was, after all, true.

      Chapter Two

      Forty Shades of Green

      From the air, Ireland was a panorama of field and hedgerow, patchwork valleys set amidst abrupt mountains. Quinn Gallagher thought he’d never seen so many shades of green in his life—sage, olive, beryl, jade, emerald, malachite, moss, sea green, bottle green—the list seemed endless.

      “Christ, it looks just like a postcard,” he murmured as he looked out the window of the Aer Lingus jet.

      “It looks like a gigantic bore,” his seatmate in the first-class cabin countered. “We haven’t even touched down yet and I’m ready to go home.”

      Home. The word had never had any real meaning for Quinn. Home was a place you wanted to go back to, a place where people would take you in. Welcome you. The roach-infested apartments and ramshackle trailers where he’d spent his hardscrabble early years certainly didn’t fit that description.

      Neither did the succession of brutal foster homes until, weary of working on farms from sunup to sundown and being beaten for his efforts, he’d run away at sixteen, lied about his age and joined the navy. And while the navy had, admittedly, represented the most stability he’d experienced in his life, the ships on which he’d sailed around the world certainly hadn’t been home.

      The sun reflecting off the water below was blinding. Quinn shaded his eyes with his hand as he took in the sight of the farmhouses looking like tiny white boats floating on a deep green sea.

      “Boring’s