The Mighty Quinns: Sean. Kate Hoffmann

he wanted for each of the acorns. When she offered to trade him one of his magic acorns for a wonderful feast, Ronan quickly agreed. The moment she took the acorn, a delicious feast appeared before his eyes. Ronan tossed his dagger aside, for what would he need a dagger for if he had such food to eat? He reached for a shank of beef. But before he was allowed to touch the food, the princess offered him something more. A bow appeared, made of the finest silver, and a jeweled quiver full of arrows. Ronan gave her another acorn and quickly tossed his club away, for he could now hunt wolves with his new bow and arrows. But before he could touch the bow and quiver, the princess offered him one final trade. His last acorn for a beautiful steed with a fine leather saddle.”

      “Hey! Didn’t you hear me calling?” Conor stood at the door, dressed in his Boston Police Department T-shirt and navy trousers. His hands were braced on his waist and, for a moment, Sean was taken by how different he looked—older, like a real adult. He wasn’t just his pain-in-the-ass big brother anymore. In a few months, he’d be a cop. “Dinner is ready. Come on, it’s getting cold.”

      He disappeared and Liam turned back to Brian. “Finish the story. It’s just fishsticks and French fries.”

      Brian turned to Sean. “Do you want me to finish?”

      “You might as well,” Sean said, knowing that Liam would refuse to leave until he heard how the Mighty Quinn triumphed in the end.

      “When Ronan saw the fine steed, he thought, I will catch many wolves with such a fine horse and I will collect many bounties and make my family rich. He pulled the last acorn from his pocket. But then Ronan hesitated. The acorns must have very powerful magic to be so valuable to the princess. The druid princess demanded the third acorn, her voice turning shrill and her face turning ugly with anger. Ronan suddenly remembered the advice he was given by the quail, the boar and the deer.”

      “The woods are full of magic, everything is not as it appears and what you want and what you need are not always the same,” Liam repeated.

      “‘No!’ Ronan cried, clutching the last acorn in his fist. In the blink of an eye, the feast, the quiver and bow and the fine horse disappeared, for they were an illusion. And the princess turned into a huge, vicious wolf, snarling and lunging toward him, trying to get him to drop the acorn. Ronan had thrown aside all his weapons and had no escape.”

      Even Sean wasn’t sure how the story would end, for this was a completely different version of Ronan’s tale from the one his father often told. In his father’s tale, the wolf guarded a princess and Ronan killed the wolf and rescued the princess. Then he chastely returned her to her father and went on his way, because Mighty Quinns never fell in love.

      Brian paused and waited, dragging out the moment.

      “All right, what happened?” Sean finally asked.

      “Well, Ronan gathered his courage, held the single acorn tightly in his fist and closed his eyes, wishing that the wolf would turn into a harmless animal, like a mouse or a rabbit. When the snarling and growling finally ceased, Ronan opened his eyes and in front of him was a beautiful golden wolf pelt, worth a fine bounty from the king. He carefully lifted it up and, to his surprise, an ugly toad jumped out. When the druid princess realized a magic acorn had been used to turn her into a toad, she hopped off into the woods, and Ronan headed for home, anxious to collect his bounty. And after that, there was always food on Ronan’s table.”

      Sean couldn’t help but laugh at the tale’s ending. “That story doesn’t even make sense. If Ronan was so smart, why didn’t he just go home with the acorns and wish for something he really needed? And what did a princess need with magic acorns if she had a crown of emeralds? And if she had two acorns already, and Ronan had one, then she could have—”

      “Aw, shut yer gob,” Brian said, giving him a shove. “It’s just a story. Who’s gonna believe in magic acorns anyway?”

      “It was a good story,” Liam said, his voice full of appreciation. He scrambled off the bed. “And I know the moral. Never trust a woman, no matter how pretty she is. A Mighty Quinn can never fall in love.” He ran to the bedroom door, then turned back. “Oh, yeah, and don’t get too greedy when someone offers you really nice stuff.” He ran out, shouting to Conor that he was starving.

      Brian stood and Sean followed his lead. He did feel a little bit better. To hell with Colleen Kiley. Brian could have her, and good riddance. Besides, she really wasn’t even that pretty. She had squinty eyes and she wore too much makeup, and when she laughed, she sounded like a hyena.

      “One more thing,” Brian said as they walked out of the bedroom.

      “If you’re going to ask if I’m taking Colleen Kiley to the dance you might as well say goodbye to your pretty teeth right now,” Sean said, “’cause I’m gonna knock them through the back of your head.”

      Brian laughed. Then he held out his hand. “I thought you might be able to use these.” He dropped three acorns into Sean’s palm.

      “What are these for?” Sean asked.

      “I figured you could use them to turn Colleen Kiley into a toad. Or maybe a big old sewer rat.” Brian pulled three more out of his pocket. “And if that’s not enough, I’ve got three of my own to use.” He slipped his arm around Sean’s shoulders. “We Quinns gotta stick together, right?”

      Sean smiled and nodded. No matter how much he fought with his brothers, he always knew he could depend on them. “Yeah, I guess we do,” he murmured, shoving the acorns into his pocket.

      1

      SEAN QUINN sat slumped in the front seat of his battered Ford sedan. He’d found a parking space right down the street from the three-flat located in one of Cambridge’s trendy neighborhoods, and he’d been watching the front door for almost two hours.

      The case had come to him in a roundabout way, through a colleague he’d met while sitting in a bar one night. Bert Hinshaw was a hard-drinking, woman-chasing, sixty-year-old private investigator, a guy who had seen his share of crazy cases over the years. They had talked for hours, Sean learning from Bert’s experience and Bert grateful to have someone to listen to his tales. A friendship developed and they now met regularly to chat—Bert doing most of the talking and Sean taking mental notes.

      But health problems had slowed Bert down, and every now and then he threw a case Sean’s way. Sean had been on this referral for nearly two weeks, hired by a wealthy woman who had been romanced, married, then bilked out of a fortune by Eddie “The Cruiser” Perkins aka Edward Naughton Smyth aka Eddie the Weasel and about six or seven other aliases.

      This case had been by far the most lucrative he’d ever taken, even better than the Intertel Bank case he’d had a few months ago. He was making some real money, a guaranteed rate of nearly four hundred dollars a day.

      Eddie, a notorious con man and bigamist, had left a trail of broken hearts and empty bank accounts across the country. The FBI had been after him for years. A bail bondsman from Maryland had been on his tail since Eddie had jumped bail in Baltimore. But Sean had been the one to track him down when Eddie’s seventh wife had heard that he was in the Boston area. She had hired Sean to find him and to turn him over to the FBI, so she might exact her own retribution at a trial.

      Sean glanced at his watch. On Saturdays, Eddie usually didn’t get out of bed before three in the afternoon. And last night had been a late one. He’d spent the evening with one of his five current lady friends, a wealthy divorcée with a Bentley and a pricey house in Back Bay. Sean had decided that the time was right to move in and had called the FBI. The agent in charge had assured Sean that he’d have two men to the flat within the hour.

      “Come on, come on,” he murmured, staring out at the sideview mirror for a nondescript sedan.

      It amazed him that a guy like Eddie could convince nine intelligent women from across the country to marry him and then entrust their money to him. He had to admire a guy that smooth. Not that Sean had any problems attracting women. He was a Quinn and there was something in the genes