A Woman's Heart. JoAnn Ross

woman Quinn had ever met. Unrelentingly optimistic, softhearted, ridiculously virtuous and brave as hell. And even knowing her to be a product of his imagination, Quinn had been fascinated by her.

      Usually, by the time he finished writing one book, his mind was already well on to the next, and so he was more than glad to get rid of the characters he’d begun to grow bored with. But the widowed single mother had been strangely different. He’d found her difficult to let go.

      “And speaking of Shannon,” he said, turning toward Laura, who’d finally decided to make an appearance, accompanied by Jeremy Converse, the film’s producer/director who’d taken the same transatlantic flight from New York, “of course you all recognize the lovely Laura Gideon. She’ll be playing Shannon McGuire in the film.”

      Quinn practically pushed her forward. “It’s show time, sweetheart,” he murmured. As the reporters all began shouting out questions to the sexy blond actress, he made his escape.

      Since he wouldn’t be staying in town with the crew, Quinn had arranged to rent his own car. He found his way to the Hertz booth where he rented a four-door sedan from a tartan-clad beauty who was a dead ringer for Maureen O’Hara. Quinn decided he must be suffering from jet lag when he found her directions difficult to follow, but she willingly took the time to draw the route to Castlelough on his map. How difficult could it be? he asked himself as he headed out of the airport.

      How difficult, indeed. At first Quinn was entranced by the scenery—the stone fences, the meadows splashed with purple, white and yellow wildflowers, and the mountains—the rare times the sun broke through the rain—streaked with molten gold. Here and there stood whitewashed cottages with thatched roofs. Little grottoes featuring statues of the Virgin Mary—many adorned with seashells—seemed to have been built at nearly every crossroad, and every so often he’d pass a small statue of the Madonna standing in the center of a white-painted tire, perky plastic flowers surrounding her bare feet.

      The road seemed to go in endless circles. And the myriad signs, many written only in Irish, hindered more than helped.

      Ninety minutes later, when he realized that the cemetery with the high stone Celtic crosses he was driving by was the same one he’d passed about an hour after leaving the airport, Quinn was forced to admit he was hopelessly lost.

      “I’ll make you a deal, Lord,” he muttered, conveniently forgetting he’d given up believing in God a long time ago. “If you just give me a sign, I promise to stop at the first church I see and stuff the poor box with hundred-dollar bills.”

      He cast a look up at a sky the color of tarnished silver, not surprised when the clouds didn’t part to reveal Charlton Heston holding a stone tablet helpfully etched with a proper map to Castlelough. So much for miracles.

      Then again… When he suddenly saw an elderly woman wearing a green-and-black-plaid scarf and blue Wellingtons weeding the grave nearest the gates, Quinn told himself she must have been there all along.

      He pulled over to the side of the road and parked, then climbed out of the car and walked over to her. The rain had become a soft mist.

      “Good afternoon.”

      She stopped raking and looked up at him. “Good afternoon to you. You’d be lost of course.”

      “Is it that obvious?”

      “You passed by earlier. Now here you are again. Isn’t that certainly a sign you’ve lost your way?”

      “I’m trying to get to Castlelough.”

      “Well, you’ll not be getting there driving circles around the Holy Name Cemetery, will you now?”

      The merry laughter in her dark eyes allowed Quinn to keep a curb on his temper. Although he wasn’t accustomed to being laughed at, especially by a woman, he couldn’t deny that it was probably one of those situations he’d look back on and laugh at himself. A very long time from now.

      “I thought I had the directions clear—” he held out the wrinkled map with the fluorescent green marker outlining what the rental clerk had assured him were the proper roads “—but they turned out to be more confusing than expected.”

      “Americans always get lost,” she said. “But then again, haven’t I known native Irishmen to have the same problem from time to time? Especially out here in the west.” She shot a look at the car—the only Mercedes in the Hertz inventory when he’d arrived—and then another, longer look up at him. “You’d be one of those movie folk,” she guessed.

      Quinn decided there was no point in denying it. “Yes.” He prepared himself for the usual barrage of questions about the so-called fast life in Hollywood.

      “I thought so.” That settled, and seeming less than impressed by his exalted status, she took the map from his hand, making a clucking sound with her tongue as she studied it.

      “Ah, here’s your problem. You should have taken the second left at the roundabout right before you got to Mullaghmore.”

      Quinn had suspected all along that one of the many roundabouts—the Irish answer to eliminating four-way stops—had been his downfall. “Could you tell me how to get back there?”

      “That’s not difficult at all. The first thing you need to do is turn around and go back in the direction you just came from. Then keep driving until you see a sign pointing off to the right that says Ballybrennan.”

      “Ballybrennan?” The name sounded like several he’d already passed by.

      “Aye, Ballybrennan,” she repeated with a nod of her scarf-covered head. “Now, mind you don’t take that road—”

      “I don’t?”

      “Oh, no. You’ll be wanting to take the one that comes a wee bit after it. To Mary’s Well. You’ll not miss it. There’s a lovely statue of the Virgin standing right beside the sign. Follow that road straight through and you’ll be finding yourself in Castlelough in no time.”

      Considering how many virgins he’d spotted, Quinn wasn’t certain the landmark was going to be a very big help, but didn’t quibble. “Thanks. You’ve been a great help.”

      “’Twas no trouble at all,” she assured him with a nearly toothless grin. He was almost to the car again when she called out, “Of course, the sign might not say Mary’s Well, mind you.”

      Biting back a flash of irritation, he slowly turned back toward her. Having always been a direct-speaking kind of guy, Quinn was beginning to realize that the land of his ancestors may prove more of a culture shock that he’d suspected.

      “What might it say?” he asked mildly.

      “It might be in Irish—Dabhac a Mhaire.”

      He was having enough trouble untangling the woman’s thick west-country brogue. There was no way he was going to attempt to translate this incomprehensible language.

      Quinn had known that Castlelough was located in a Gaeltact area of the county, where, despite the penal laws enforced by the British government, the Irish language had never been allowed to die out. At the time, he’d thought it might add quaint color to his story. He’d never, until now, worried he might be unable to communicate with the natives.

      Thanking her again, he climbed back in the car and headed off in the direction he’d come. Quinn considered it another near miracle when he found the turnoff. Although the rest of the directions weren’t quite as simple as the woman had promised—the road split into different directions a couple of times and he had to choose—he felt of flush of victory when he finally viewed the sign welcoming him to Castlelough.

      Chapter Three

      Weather the Storm

      By the time Nora finished her weekly errands, forced at every step to listen to more talk about the movie people, the gathering gloom had darkened the sky over Castlelough, making her wish she’d insisted her