Gift of the Realm (2 page)

The
walk was a short one, thankfully. Between the countless hours spent in his
crate on the overnight flight, and the hour-long ride from the airport, Donovan
was ready to run. He yanked and jerked at the leash, stopping to water every
tree and plant between the cottage and manor. His attempt to lunge after a bird
he’d flushed from the undergrowth nearly wrenched her arm from her shoulder.

“Calm
down, you goofy beast,” Keely scolded as the sounds of celebration drifted from
beyond the manor’s side gate. She yanked the dog to a halt, ignoring his
excited whines to palm his large head in her hands. Even at a respectable
five-foot-eight, she barely had to bend to peer into his soulful, brown eyes.

“I
expect you to be on your best behavior, Donovan. Especially if we’re allowed
inside. That means no snatching food from countertops and absolutely no
slurping from toilets.” A long, pink tongue snuck out to do some slurping at
her chin, and she laughed. “That won’t work either. If you embarrass me,
there’ll be no shoes for a week.”

“You
feed him shoes?” a deep brogue asked from behind her.

Keely
turned her head, a grin on her lips. The grin died, and she straightened to her
full height when the owner of the voice came into view.

Colin
Quinn, looking as sinfully alluring as she remembered, came to a stop,
hip-cocked casual just outside the gate. A decade ago, at twenty-four, the
mantle of power and influence associated with the Quinn name had rested
precariously on his broad shoulders. Now, the cloak of authority and confidence
looked as natural on him as the casual clothes covering his lanky, six-two
frame.

Jeans,
faded to just short of disreputable, encased his long legs, and the black,
short-sleeved polo displayed a muscled chest, broad shoulders, and trim waist.
His thick, raven-black hair ruffled in the breeze. An easy grin curved his
sharply cut lips, and his cobalt-blue eyes twinkled with humor.

When
she’d been seventeen, she’d had no defense against the wealth of Black Irish
charm he’d wielded like a well-honed sword. To her chagrin, that charm
obviously hadn’t diminished with the years. It was disheartening to discover
her over-the-top reaction to him hadn’t diminished, either. As it had with each
glimpse of him that summer so long ago, her heart leaped in her chest.

Colin
Quinn was still everything a man should be, strong, confident, and...beautiful.

Crap.
So much for hoping he’d acquired a potbelly and a receding hairline.

Beside
her, a low rumble began in Donovan’s throat. The sound bolstered her flagging
confidence, and she rewarded her dog with a pat to the head. “Good boy,” she
praised out of the side of her mouth.

Dark
brows arched above Colin’s humor-filled eyes.

Clearing
her throat, she ignored the butterflies fluttering in her belly. “He doesn’t
eat
shoes,” she answered with a lofty tilt of her chin. “He mauls them.”

Colin
chuckled, leaning down to brace one wide-palmed hand on a knee. He held out the
other, palm down. Donovan bristled at her side, but he inched closer to the
man, now down on his level.

“I
can’t vouch for the safety of your fingers,” Keely cautioned.

Colin
ignored her warning.

She
thought of tightening the leash, denying Colin an introduction to her pet, but
she’d waited too long. Donovan reached the outstretched hand in two healthy
steps, and after a single sniff at Colin’s fingers, his rumbling displeasure
changed to a whimper of welcome.

To
her utter disgust, her ferocious looking dog dropped to his haunches, giving
Colin his brightest doggie smile. Long fingers scratching at the beard beneath
his dark muzzle had Donovan quivering with visible ripples of pleasure.

“Some
watch dog you are,” she admonished grumpily.

“It’s
not his fault,” Colin said without looking her way. His hand moved to scrub at
the dog’s neck in a rough caress. “I’ve a way with animals.”

As
if to prove his words, Donovan moaned low in his throat, and his tail thumped
out his enthusiastic approval of the man. “There’s a lad,” Colin crooned.
H
“What’s he called? I assume he answers to
something other than ‘goofy beast.’”

Keely
blinked at his teasing tone, as well as the warm humor on his face while he
continued to study her traitorous dog. Either Colin didn’t recognize her, or he
didn’t recall their last encounter.

Good
.
Either scenario works for me.

“He
also answers to Donovan,” she replied.

“A
fine name for a fine beast.” With a final pat, Colin straightened. A dimple
winked at the corner of his smile when he looked her way. “He’s beautiful,
Keely,” he said, proving at least that first scenario false.

And
the way he said her name, like a dark caress, made her fiercely glad
she
didn’t have a tail. All it had taken were a few softly spoken words and a
single dimpled smile to have her all but quivering with awareness. She took
refuge in scrubbing at the wiry hair between Donovan’s ears.

“Thank
you,” she muttered, disgusted with her reaction.

“How
long have you had him?”

She’d
adopted him the day she’d sold her novel. The wolfhound seemed an appropriate
celebratory gift—considering her childhood dreams and the black wolf that
shared them before she’d come to Ireland, and met Colin.

But
talk of her dreams was for later. She fully intended to have that conversation
with Colin, however, not until she was ready. Not today. Today was for
celebrating, both Kathleen’s birthday and her own homecoming.

Ignoring
his question, she tightened her grip on the leash and glanced over her
shoulder. “Is Kathleen inside? I didn’t let her know I was coming. I wanted to
surprise her.”

He
was silent for a moment, and she turned back. His eyes were watchful, his smile
sharp.

“Nearly
the whole village is inside. Kathleen is holding court in the garden.”

Keely
couldn’t help but smile. Her grandmother’s best friend was a fixture in
Dunhaven. Though Colin had inherited Quinn Manor at the death of his mother, it
was a well-known fact that Kathleen ruled the roost. From what Keely remembered
from her seventeenth summer, neither the indomitable matron nor her charming
grandnephew would have it any other way.

“How
is she?”

His
smile softened and he laughed. The rich, rumbling sound always sent her senses
on a trip toward haywire.

Nothing
changed there, either. Damn it.

Pleasure
tap-danced over her nerve endings.

“She’s
as ornery as ever. She’ll be glad to see you.”

“Well.”
She tugged at Donovan’s leash. “We’ll let you get to...” she waved her free
hand, “wherever it was you were going.” She turned on her heel to start up the
path to the gate.

“Keely,”
Colin called to her back. She stopped and squeezed her eyes shut.
Double
crap
. Just three steps away from escape.

Donovan
jerked at the leash, and she pasted what she hoped looked like a mildly curious
look on her face. She met Colin’s gaze over one shoulder.

His
smile was gone, and his eyes were intent on her. “About that night in the
gazebo.”

The
second scenario crashed and burned.

“The
gazebo?” she asked, arching her brow in feigned puzzlement even as she flushed
with embarrassment.

“I
wanted to apologize,” he said. “I overreacted and scared you. I’m sorry about
that.”

“Oh,”
she breathed as though just realizing what he meant. “That.” Her lips curled in
a smile that should have garnered her an Oscar nomination. “There’s no need to
apologize. I’d forgotten all about it.”

His
answering smile said he thought she could benefit from acting lessons.

She
ground her teeth. Damn it, she wasn’t supposed to have had to face him about
this until she was surrounded by dozens of party guests. And her ferocious dog
had been absolutely no help.

Donovan
redeemed himself when he chose that moment to bolt through the gate. She gladly
let him tow her along.

Chapter
Two

Colin
watched her go, grinning helplessly at the way the huge dog leaped ahead of
her, nearly dragging her in his exuberance. The grin slid away as he considered
her reaction when he’d mentioned that night in the gazebo. She
had
remembered despite her initial reaction and, like Keely, it was a night he
couldn’t forget.

The
details returned as he watched Keely disappear in the distance.

****

That
night, surrounded by the obsidian darkness within the stone pergola, he’d been
stunned by his reaction to the woman he’d yanked into his arms. The moment
she’d stepped within his reach the compulsion overwhelmed him.

He
remembered how he’d been working toward getting the luscious Nora Murphy into
his bed for days, but the few stolen kisses he’d managed to that point had been
merely enjoyable. Those kisses held no resemblance to the nuclear explosion
he’d experienced the moment his mouth had closed over the lips of the shapely bundle
in his arms.

Never
before had he gone from simple carnal interest to sensual meltdown so quickly.
But as generous curves had molded to his body, the top of his head nearly blew
off. The woman’s ardent response instantly lit a fire inside him, turning the
flames into a raging inferno with an urgency he’d never experienced before.

Only
the loud clearing of a throat had stopped him from dragging her to the floor
the way his body had demanded.

Looking
up and finding Nora standing just beyond the gazebo had been like taking a
sucker punch straight to the libido.

The
woman in his arms had fit up against him as though she’d been designed
specifically with him in mind. The shock of discovering she was actually little
Keely O’Brian had nearly knocked him flat. Colin Quinn, the Don Juan of
Dunhaven, had been all but KO’d by a kid.

He’d
reacted badly. Grabbing Keely’s shoulders and shaking her. He had accused her
of playing games.

The
moment he’d relaxed his hold and taken a step back, she’d fled into the darkness
as though the demons of hell were at her heels. Nora had followed right behind
her. Dazed, he’d barely noticed their leaving, and the fear in Keely’s eyes
hadn’t registered until Nora pointed it out sometime much later.

That
kind of thing tended to happen when faced with your own personal haunting.

Not
that the tall figure stretched out on the gazebo’s stone railing and invisible
to all but Colin, was a ghost. Oh, no. Colin couldn’t have been that lucky. There
was nothing so mundane about his personal apparition. No, the figure who’d
watched the happenings with amused interest claimed to be none other than Owein
the Fine, King of the Fairies.

For
as long as Colin could remember, the fairie had appeared without warning,
pestering him for the purpose of breaking a three hundred year-old curse. And
though Colin would have loved to write off Owein’s visits as some sort of
psychological disorder, he couldn’t. His life had been too full of strange and
mystical experiences to dismiss their frequent conversations as psychosomatic
illusions.

With
his booted feet crossed at the ankles, Owein had appeared as he always did.
Shiny black trousers covered his long legs, and the royal blue tunic stretched
across his wide chest and even wider shoulders seemed to glow. Strongly muscled
arms crossed beneath his head, cradling it, while wisps of his shoulder length,
gilded blond hair danced in the breeze.

He
had looked pleased with himself, whistling a tune through his teeth.

“Why
are you here?” Colin had demanded.

“As
if you don’t know. The very air in my realm quivered with purpose the moment
you touched her. And though you won’t be admitting it, you felt it too. I knew
the time had finally come since the moment she arrived in Dunhaven. Haven’t I
been telling you she is the one?”

“You
have,” Colin had agreed reluctantly. “But now she’s gone. And the way she was
running, she won’t be back.”

“Ha!
She’s your destiny, boy. She won’t be run off by a bit o’ temper.”

Colin
had ignored his grinning prediction, snarling, “And I’ve told
you,
I
don’t believe in destiny.”

“Oh,
you believe in it, young Quinn. You just don’t want to, stubborn fool that you
are. Ancient blood flows in your veins, calling you to do your duty. ’Tis your
unreasonable fear of ending up like your da that has you digging in your
heels.”

“Now
there, you’re wrong,” Colin had insisted, anger blooming in his head. “I’m
nothing like the bastard and never will be. Destiny and duty can only ruin your
life if you bow to them.
I
won’t.”

His
stubborn denial cracked the fairie king’s air of confident humor. A lightning
bolt lit the sky, zigzagging across the heavens like a crazed meteor before
striking the ground with a thunderous crack.

He’d
reared up to face Colin. “You’d let Michael Sterling’s selfish mistakes rob you
of all fate has in store for you? What difference be there, I ask, to be ruled
by your destiny or to be ruled by your effort to avoid it?”

With
a nimble twist, he had leapt from the rail. His booted feet hit the stone floor
without a sound. “Bah! You’re a fool, Colin Quinn! Destiny is never wrong.
There’s a simple joy to be found in that.”

“This
from a man—fairie,” Colin corrected, seeing the sparks of energy begin to
crackle around Owein’s clenched fists, “who married the human woman, Saraid,
only to lose her to the jealous fury of one of your own kind?”

By
his own admission, Owein’s human wife wasn’t the only thing the fairie king had
lost to Princess Fiona’s rage. With all of his attention focused on finding a
way to break Fiona’s curse, he’d turned over the raising of his and Saraid’s
twins, a son and daughter, to their human grandparents. In effect, he’d lost
them, too.