The Mighty Quinns: Dylan. Kate Hoffmann

      The offer was made facetiously for Olivia knew full well that the Quinns didn’t talk about their problems. But maybe she’d be able to explain why he was attracted to the maddening and mercurial Meggie Flanagan, a woman who stumbled all over herself to stay away from him, a woman who hurled insults at him like fastballs in Fenway Park.

      Had he suddenly developed a streak of masochism that only Meggie Flanagan could feed? Or was the notion of a woman playing hard to get so foreign to him that he found it irresistible? All he knew was that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, recalling how soft her skin felt and how perfect her mouth was and how tempting her body looked.

      “Well?” Olivia asked, interrupting his thoughts.

      “Today?” Dylan asked. “Just the usual. Rescued a few kittens from trees, put out a few raging infernos, saved a few dozen lives. No big deal.”

      “And whose life have you saved lately?” Brendan slipped into the spot on the other side of Dylan and sent Olivia a warm smile.

      “Mary Margaret Flanagan,” Dylan said. Just the sound of her name on his lips brought back a flood of images. The sight of her face, covered in soot and marked with the tracks of her tears, then the fresh and natural beauty he discovered just an hour ago. Why couldn’t he put her out of his head? There was just something so fascinating about her—the contrast between the girl she’d been and the woman she’d become.

      Conor frowned. “Mary Margaret who?”

      Sean leaned over the bar and chuckled. “Meggie Flanagan? Meggie Flanagan with the horn-rimmed glasses and the mouth full of metal?” He glanced over his shoulder toward the far end of the bar. “Hey, Brian, come here. Guess who Dylan saved.”

      “I didn’t save her,” Dylan insisted. “It was just a little fire. She’s opening a coffee shop over on Boylston, not too far from the station. It looks like it’ll be a real nice place. Anyway, yesterday afternoon her coffee machine shorted out and started a small fire. I had to carry her out when she refused to leave.”

      “You carried her out of her shop?” Conor asked.

      Dylan took another long sip of his Guinness, then licked the foam from his upper lip and nodded. “Yeah, like a sack of potatoes. Although she wasn’t nearly as lumpy.”

      “Oh-oh,” Olivia warned. “That’s how it starts.”

      Dylan’s eyebrow rose. “What?”

      Conor chuckled softly. “That’s how Olivia and I met. I picked her up, tossed her over my shoulder and hauled her back inside the safehouse. Then she kicked me in the shin and called me a Neanderthal. After that, it was true love. That must be how it starts for us Quinns. We carry a woman away and that’s the beginning of the end.” He shrugged. “I guess I should have warned you.”

      “I’m not going to fall in love with Meggie Flanagan,” Dylan insisted. “Carrying her out was part of the job, I had no choice. Besides, she hates me. She was downright hostile. She called me a Hun.”

      “Why?” Brendan asked. “You barely know her.”

      “But she knows you,” Brian said. “At least by reputation. You cut a wide swath through the girls at South Boston High School. Was she one of the girls you left weeping in your wake?”

      Why was that the quality that seemed to define Dylan Quinn? He wasn’t remembered as a great athlete, which he was. He wasn’t remembered as a loyal friend or a nice guy. It always came back to the women. “She was the kid sister of my best friend,” Dylan muttered. “Even I have scruples. In fact, I was the one who got her a date to that sophomore dance. Didn’t Sean take her?”

      Brian shook his head. “No, that was me. And that was my very first date and probably the most traumatic experience with the opposite sex I’ve ever had.”

      “Oh, do tell,” Olivia said, bracing her arms on the bar and leaning forward.

      There was nothing a Quinn brother could refuse Olivia. Each one of them would jump into Boston Harbor in the dead of winter if that’s what she asked. Recounting an embarrassing memory, complete with mythical Quinn embellishments, was nothing as long as it pleased her. “I was a foot shorter than Meggie and I had a pimple the size of Mount Vesuvius on my nose that night. I was so nervous I almost puked on her shoes. After that night, I didn’t ask a girl out for two years.”

      “Do you think she’s still mad about the pimple?” Dylan asked. “Or did you do something stupid? Did you try to feel her—” He stopped, then gave Olivia an apologetic smile. “Did you try to get to first base with her?”

      “Second base,” Sean said. He pointed to his chest. “That’s second base.”

      “I didn’t touch her,” Brian insisted.

      “Why don’t you just ask her why she doesn’t like you?” Olivia suggested.

      All the brothers looked at each other, then shook their heads. “That would involve a discussion of feelings,” Brendan said. “It’s part of Quinn family genetics that we avoid discussions like that. Haven’t you read the manual?” He turned to Conor. “You have to give her the manual.”

      “Hell, it doesn’t make a difference,” Dylan said. “I’m not going to see her again, anyway.”

      But even as he said it, Dylan knew it was a lie. He had to see her again, had to figure out this strange and undeniable attraction he had to her. Maybe if he figured that out, he’d be able to unravel the rest of his feelings.

      “I guess you’re just going to have to wonder, then,” Olivia said, giving his arm a squeeze. “But she must have a good reason. After all, how could any woman resist the charms of a Mighty Quinn?”

      “YOU LOOK LIKE A girl who just found out her dress was caught in the back of her panty hose during the Grand March,” Lana commented as she looked over Meggie’s shoulder.

      Meggie stared down at the photo from the Sophomore Frolic. She was dressed in a pouffy formal that looked like it was already out of style when she’d chosen it. But it was pink and shiny and at the time, it was the most beautiful gown she’d ever seen. She and her date stood beneath a flower-draped arbor. “At that moment, I would have rather walked the length of the gym with my dress up over my head,” she murmured to Lana. “It was tragic. Humiliating. I thought I’d never be able to love another boy in my entire life.”

      “Your evening couldn’t have been that bad. He’s cute. A little short, but cute.” She squinted at the photo, then reached over and scratched her nail on the surface. “What’s that on his nose?”

      “He wasn’t Dylan,” Meggie continued. “When they played our song that night, I thought I’d cry. ‘Endless Love.”’

      “See there,” Lana said. “You two had a song. It couldn’t have been that bad.”

      “It was our song—Dylan’s and mine.”

      A frown wrinkled Lana’s brow. “How could you and Dylan Quinn have a song? He barely knew you existed.”

      Meggie shoved the photo back into her purse and tossed her purse behind the counter. Then she grabbed a handful of pour spouts and began to shove them into the bottles of flavoring syrup. “Believe me, we had a whole relationship—in my poor deluded sophomore mind.”

      Lana slid onto a stool on the opposite side of the counter, then sipped at the latte she’d just prepared. “Sounds like you had it bad. No wonder you want revenge.”

      “Not revenge,” Meggie said. “Just a little payback. Maybe then I wouldn’t always wince when I think about high school. That whole thing followed me around until I graduated. I was defined by that night. I was the girl who carried the huge torch for Dylan Quinn, then got it dropped on her head. The geek and the god.” She paused. “I’ve come a long way since then, but all it takes is one look at Dylan Quinn and I’m right back there, standing in the