Dylan lifted Meggie onto the edge of the pool table

Then, stepping between her legs, he pulled her nearer, molding her body against his naked chest. She was so warm and soft, he couldn’t get enough of her.

But her sweater was becoming a hindrance. Impatient to continue, Dylan reached down and grabbed the hem, then slowly tugged it up. Meggie met his gaze and the desire burning in her eyes startled him. With a soft sigh, she brushed his hands away and, in one quick motion, pulled off her sweater, then tossed it aside.

Dylan could barely breathe. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Meggie started shivering, and Dylan could see the indecision in her eyes. But just when he was about to call an end to this intimate exploration, Meggie reached out and slipped her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans. Scooting back onto the pool table, she pulled him with her, until he was nearly lying on top of her.

“I’m not very good at this game,” she murmured.

Dylan groaned. “Honey, if you were any better, the game would already be over….”

Dear Reader,

Who can pass by a fire station without hoping to catch a glimpse of the ultimate hero—the firefighter? I’m not sure about you, but I think those fire stations have more than their share of hunks in residence. So, when I started planning THE MIGHTY QUINNS miniseries, I decided it was time to turn one of those real-life heroes into a romantic one—Dylan Quinn.

Like all hunks, Dylan has left a trail of broken hearts behind him. In fact, my heroine, Meggie Flanagan, was one of Dylan’s first casualties. So, years later, when he pulls her out of her smoky coffee shop and falls for her immediately, what’s a girl to do but take advantage of the situation?

I hope you enjoy watching the second Mighty Quinn fall. Look for Brendan’s story next month, the final book in THE MIGHTY QUINNS trilogy. And then visit my Web site at www.katehoffmann.com to learn about my first single-title release, Reunited, which features another Quinn sibling, available in June 2002.

Happy reading,

Kate Hoffmann

The Mighty Quinns: Dylan
Kate Hoffmann

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Bunny

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Prologue

THE WINTER’S SNOW had melted and a damp wind blew off the Atlantic, bringing the scent of the ocean into the South Boston neighborhood around Kilgore Street. Dylan Quinn climbed higher into the old tree, scrambling up branches that were just beginning to show their springtime buds, branches that could barely hold the weight of a squirrel much less an eleven-year-old boy. If he could just get a wee bit higher, maybe he could see the ocean from his perch. His da was due home today after almost three months away.

Winter was always a difficult time for the six Quinn boys. When the weather became too brutal in the North Atlantic, the swordfishing fleet drifted south, following the fish into warmer waters. And The Mighty Quinn, his father’s boat, followed the fish wherever they went. With the coming of winter came the familiar fear that always grew in the pit of Dylan’s stomach. Would Da remember to send them money for food? Would Conor be able to keep the family together? And would they all avoid the mistakes that might bring the social workers calling?

“Can ya see him?”

Dylan glanced down to find his younger brother Brendan standing beneath the leafless tree. He wore a tattered coat and his da’s cast-off wool cap and his breath frosted in the air around his head. Like all the Quinns, he had nearly black hair and pale eyes that were an odd mixture of green and gold, strange enough to cause comment whenever they all appeared as one.

“Get away,” Dylan yelled. Though he and Brendan were close in age, lately he’d come to resent his little brother’s constant presence. After all, Dylan was eleven and Brendan was only ten. The kid didn’t have to follow him everywhere he went, hanging on his every word.

“You’re supposed to be watchin’ Liam and the twins,” Brendan said. “If Conor comes home and finds you out here, he’ll eat the head off you!”

Their older brother, Con, had left the two of them in charge while he walked to a nearby market to buy food. They were down to their last dollars and if Da didn’t come home today, Con would be forced to pinch whatever he could from the grocery to feed them for the weekend. They got breakfast and lunch at school, so it was easy to get through the week. But weekends were the worst—especially when the money ran out.

“Ah, shut your gob, you maggot,” Dylan shouted, the ache of hunger acute in his stomach. He hated being hungry. It was the worst feeling in the world. When the pangs got too bad, he focused on his future, on a time when he’d be grown and living on his own. He’d have power over his own life then and the first thing he’d be sure of was that his cupboards would always be filled with food.

He saw the hurt in Brendan’s eyes and immediately regretted his angry words. They’d always been the best of friends, but something inside Dylan had changed. Lately, he felt the need to distance himself, to rebel against the hand he’d been dealt. Maybe it would have been different if his mother had stayed. Maybe they’d be living in a nice warm house, wearing new clothes and having food on the table every night. But any dream of that ended six years ago, when Fiona Quinn left the house on Kilgore Street never to return again.

There were still traces of her to be found, in the lace curtains that now hung limply from the kitchen window and in the pretty rag rugs that she’d brought from their home in Ireland. Dylan really didn’t remember much of Ireland. He’d only been four years old when they’d left. But Ireland was still thick in his father’s voice, and he held on to that—maybe because it was the only thing he had of Seamus Quinn that he could hold on to.

But his mother was a different matter. He’d lie in bed at night and close his eyes and try to conjure a picture of her in his head, of her dark hair and pretty face. But the image was always faded and blurry and just out of reach. He remembered her voice though, the lilting sound of Ireland in her every word. He wanted to feel safe again, but Dylan knew that the only thing in the world that could make him feel that way was her. And she was gone—for good and forever.

“If you fall out of that tree and break your leg, you’ll bring that witch from social services back down on us,” Brendan called.

Dylan cursed beneath his breath, then slowly made his way down the tree. Usually Con was the one with all the common sense and Brendan was up for a bit of trouble. About ten feet above Brendan’s head, Dylan swung from a branch and then dropped lightly to muddy ground beside him. With a playful growl, Dylan grabbed his brother in a headlock and rubbed his skull with his knuckles. “Don’t give me any of your guff, boyo!”

They both raced toward the house and once inside, kicked off their muddy boots and shrugged out of their coats. In comparison to the damp outside, the house almost seemed warm, but Dylan knew that within a few minutes, the chill would begin to seep into his bones and he’d wrap himself in his coat again.

He wandered into the front parlor where Con had set up a small space heater. The floor was littered with blankets and pillows. The six of them slept here, together, for most of the winter. Dylan walked over to the heater and kicked away the sweater that Sean had so carelessly tossed aside. “Keep your stuff away from the heater,” he shouted. “How many times do I have to tell you that? It’ll start a fire and we’ll all be burned to a crisp.”

Dylan sat down in the center of the room and grabbed the stuffed bear that was Liam’s favorite, then made it dance on the floor in front of his little brother. Brendan brought out a deck of cards and a box of stick matches and then dealt three hands of poker between him and the twins, Sean and Brian. Though it was nearly five o’clock, no one mentioned dinner. It was better not to think about it and simply pray that Da would come soon, his pockets bulging with money.

The front door creaked and they all turned, each of them hoping to see Seamus Quinn enter. But it was Con who came in, holding a single grocery bag in his arms. Though he was only thirteen, in Dylan’s eyes Conor was already a man. Tall and strong, he could best any boy his age and five years older on the neighborhood playgrounds. And no matter how bad things got, Con was always there, silent yet reassuring.

He glanced up at them then grinned against the hopeful looks sent his way. “Da will be home soon,” he said. “And I’ve got dinner.” He pulled a TV dinner from the bag. “Three for a dollar. There’s spaghetti and fish sticks. Dylan, why don’t you tell the boys a story, while I warm these.”

“A story,” Brian cried. “Tell us a Mighty Quinn story.”

“Let Brendan tell,” Dylan grumbled. “He’s better at stories than I am.”

“No,” Conor said. “It’s your turn. You’re just as good at stories.”

Grudgingly, Dylan settled himself on the floor. The twins wriggled closer and Liam crawled into his lap and looked up at him with wide eyes. Conor’s stories always featured the supernatural—elves and trolls and gnomes and fairies. Brendan had a knack for stories of faraway places and magical kingdoms. Dylan’s specialty was action, stories filled with deeds of derring-do—highwaymen who robbed from the rich and gave to the poor or brave knights who rescued fair maidens.

They had all played storyteller at one time to the younger boys, a trait inherited from their father. Seamus Quinn was always ready with a mythical tale of the Mighty Quinns, long-ago ancestors who followed only one rule—they never succumbed to the love of a woman. For Seamus Quinn believed that once a Mighty Quinn gave his heart away, his strength would leave him and he’d become weak and pitiful.

“This is the story of Odran Quinn and how he battled a giant to save the life of a beautiful princess,” Dylan began.

Brendan flopped down on his stomach and cupped his chin in his hand, ready to listen. They’d all heard the tale many times before from their father, so Dylan knew they would correct any mistakes he made in the telling of it.

“You know the story of how Finn sent his son Odran Quinn to serve the great king of Tiranog. Odran was brave and loyal and the king wanted him to live in his kingdom and rule beside him. Tiranog was a paradise beneath the waves, where the trees were heavy with fruit and there was wine and food aplenty. The king sent his most beautiful daughter, the Princess Neve, to convince Odran to come. Of course, Odran didn’t really like Neve, but he decided to go anyway, just to see what this fancy place, Tiranog, was all about.”

“That’s not the way it goes,” Conor called from the kitchen.

“He fell in love with the Princess Neve. She was beautiful and she had a dowry of gold and silver,” Brendan added.

“Well, he may have liked her a wee bit,” Dylan said. “But he was careful not to love her.”

“He said, ‘Father, she is the most beautiful woman I have ever met,”’ Brendan countered.

“All right, who’s telling this story, you or me?”

“You!” Liam said.

“It was with a heavy heart that Odran left his father’s home and rode away with the Princess Neve. They rode swiftly across the land and when they reached the sea, their white horses danced lightly over the waves. And then the sea parted and Odran Quinn found himself in a beautiful kingdom, full of sunshine and flowers and tall castles.”

“When does the part about the giant come?” Liam asked.

Dylan gave him a playful hug. “Soon. On their long ride to the king’s castle, Neve and Odran came upon a fortress. Odran asked Neve, ‘Who lives in this place?’ and Neve answered, ‘A lady lives there. She was captured by a giant and he keeps her prisoner until she agrees to marry him.”’ Dylan paused. “Odran Quinn looked up and saw the lady sitting by a window in the highest tower. A tear on her cheek glinted in the sunlight and Odran knew what he had to do. ‘I must save her,’ he said.”

This was the part that Dylan liked the best, for when he told it, he pictured his mother as the lady sitting by the window. She was wearing a beautiful gown, all shiny and new, and her dark hair was braided and twisted elaborately around her head. And at her neck she wore a pendant, sparkling with emeralds and sapphires and rubies. His mother had a necklace like that and he remembered her rubbing it between her fingers when she looked worried.

“The giant’s name was Fomor,” Sean interrupted. “You forgot that part.”

The image dissolved and Dylan turned back to his brothers. “And he was as tall as two houses with legs like huge oaks,” he continued. “He carried a sword that was as sharp as a razor.”

“Tell us about his hair,” Brian pleaded.

Dylan lowered his voice and bent closer. “It was long and black and infested with spiders and weevils and his tangled beard nearly reached the ground.” His brothers’ eyes widened in fear. “And he had a big belly for every day he ate three little boys for lunch and three more for dinner. Bones and all.” When they were properly terrified, Dylan sat back. “For days and days, they fought, the giant with his strength and mighty Odran Quinn with his cunning. And on the tenth day, when he was near death himself, Odran dealt the giant a mortal blow with his sword, and the giant came crashing down, the earth trembling all around. He was cold and dead as a stone.”

Sean clapped. “And then Odran cuts his head off!”

“And then he climbs the castle wall and rescues the woman from the fortress and frees her from her prison,” Brian added.

“That he does,” Dylan said. “That he—”

The front door crashed open and they all turned to look. A moment later, Seamus Quinn strode in with a chilly gust of wind. “Where are my boys?” he shouted, his voice slurred. With joyous cries, Brian and Sean and Liam scrambled to their feet and went running toward their father, ending the tale of Odran and Fomor. Brendan and Dylan gave each other a long look, one laced with both relief and resignation. Though they were glad to see him, it was clear that Seamus had stopped for a pint or five before he’d come home. At least he’d come home.

“In all your stories, there’s always a rescue,” Brendan commented softly.

Dylan shrugged. “There’s not,” he replied. But he knew that wasn’t true. With every story he told, he imagined himself as the Mighty Quinn, risking his life to save others, hailed as a hero by one and all. And the princess in need of rescuing always looked like his mother, or what he remembered his mother to look like. Dylan got to his feet, ready to greet his da. Someday he would be a hero. Someday, when he was all done growing and he could fend for himself, he would ride to the rescue and save those in trouble.

And maybe, against all his father’s warnings, there would be a beautiful damsel who would thank him for his good deed by loving him forever.

1

THE ALARM SOUNDED at precisely 3:17 p.m. Dylan Quinn looked up from polishing the chrome fittings on Engine 22. He couldn’t count the times he’d spit-shined the engine only to have the alarm sound. Most of the men of Ladder Company 14 and Engine Company 22 were upstairs relaxing after a long lunch but as they started to come down, Dylan tossed the polishing cloth aside and moved toward the alcove that held his boots, jacket and helmet.

A voice blared over the speaker system, the dispatcher repeating the address of the fire three times. The moment Dylan heard the address, he paused. Hell, it was just a few blocks from the station! As the others pulled on their gear, Dylan stepped out the wide garage doors and looked down Boylston Street.

He couldn’t see any smoke. Hopefully, they’d arrive to find a contained fire that wasn’t blazing out of control. The buildings in the older areas of Boston were built one right next to the other, and though firewalls prevented the spread of a blaze, the cramped spaces made it harder to get to a fire and then fight it.

The horn of the fire engine blared and Dylan slowly turned and gave Ken Carmichael, the driver, a wave. The truck pulled out of the station and as it passed, Dylan hopped on the rear running board and held on as they swung out onto the street. His heart started to beat a little quicker and his senses sharpened, as they did every time the company headed out to a fire.

As they wove through traffic on Boylston Street, he thought back to the moment he’d decided to become a firefighter. When he was a kid, he’d wanted to be a highwayman or a knight of the Round Table. But when he graduated from high school, neither one of those jobs were available. He wasn’t interested in college. His older brother, Conor, had just started at the police academy, so Dylan had decided on the fire academy, a place that felt right the moment he walked in the door.

Unlike the days of his reckless youth when school barely mattered, Dylan had worked hard to be the top recruit in his class—the fastest, the strongest, the smartest, the bravest. The Boston Fire Department had a long and respected tradition, founded over three hundred years before as the nation’s first paid municipal fire department. And now, Dylan Quinn, who had had the most rootless upbringing of all, was a part of that history. As a firefighter, he was known to be cautious yet fearless, aggressive yet compassionate, the kind of man trusted by all those who worked with him.

Only two other firefighters in the history of the department had made lieutenant faster than him and he was on track to make captain in a few more years, once he finished his degree at night school. But it wasn’t about the glory or the excitement or even the beautiful women who seemed to flock around firefighters. It had always been about the opportunity to save someone’s life, to snatch a complete stranger from the jaws of death and give them another chance. If that made him a hero, then Dylan wasn’t sure why. It was just one of the perks of the job.

The engine slowly drew to a stop in the middle of traffic and Dylan grabbed his ax and hopped off. He double-checked the address, then noticed a wisp of pale gray smoke coming from the open door of a shop. A moment later, a slender woman with a soot-smudged face hurried out the front door.

“Thank God, you’re here,” she cried. “Hurry.”

She ran back inside and Dylan took off after her. “Lady! Stop!” The last thing he needed was a civilian deliberately putting herself in harm’s way. Although at first glance the fire didn’t look dangerous, he’d learned to be wary of first impressions. The interior of the shop was filled with a hazy smoke, not much thicker than the cigarette smoke that hung over his father’s pub after a busy Saturday night, but he knew a flare or an explosion could be just a second away. The acrid smell made his eyes sting and Dylan recognized the odor of burning rubber.

He found her behind a long counter, frantically beating at a small fire with a charred dish towel. Grabbing her arm, he pulled her back against him. “Lady, you have to leave. Let us take care of this before you get hurt.”

“No!” she cried, trying to wriggle out of his arms. “We have to put it out before it does any damage.”

Dylan glanced over his shoulder to see two members of his team enter, one of them carrying a fire extinguisher. “It looks like it’s contained in this machine. Crack it open and look for the source,” he ordered. Then he pulled the woman along beside him toward the door.

“Crack it open?” The woman dug in her heels, yanking them both to a stop.

Even beneath the light coating of soot, Dylan could see she was beautiful. She had hair the color of rich mahogany and it tumbled in soft waves around her shoulders. Her profile was perfect, every feature balanced from her green eyes to her straight nose to the sensuous shape of her wide mouth. He had to shake himself out of a careful study of her lips before he remembered the job at hand.

“Lady, if you don’t leave right now, I’m going to have to carry you out,” Dylan warned. He let his gaze rake her body, from the clinging sweater to the almost-too-short leather mini to the funky boots. “And considering the length of that skirt, you don’t want me tossing you over my shoulder.”

She seemed insulted by both his take-charge attitude and his comment on her wardrobe. Dylan studied her from beneath the brim of his helmet. Her eyes were bright with indignation and her breath came in quick gasps, making her breasts rise and fall in a tantalizing rhythm.

“This is my shop,” she snapped. “And I’m not going to let you chop it apart with your axes!”

With a soft curse, Dylan did what he’d done hundreds of times before, both in practice and in reality. He bent down, grabbed her around the legs, then hoisted her over his shoulder. “I’ll be back in a second,” he called to his crew.

She kicked and screamed but Dylan barely noticed. Instead, his attention was diverted by the shapely backside nestled against his ear. He probably could have spent a little more time convincing her to leave the shop, but her stubborn attitude indicated that it would probably be a long fight. Besides, she was just a slip of a girl. He’d once carried a three-hundred-pound man down three flights. She weighed maybe one-twenty, tops.

When Dylan got her outside, he gently set her down next to one of the trucks, then tugged at the hem of her miniskirt to restore her dignity. She slapped at his hand as if he’d deliberately tried to molest her. His temper flared. “Stay here,” he ordered through clenched teeth.

“No!” she said, making a move toward the door.

She slipped past him and Dylan raced after her, catching up a few steps inside the door of the shop. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back against him, her backside nestling into his lap in a way that made him forget all about the dangers of fire and focus on the dangers of a soft, feminine body.

They both watched as Artie Winton hooked his ax behind the smoking machine and yanked it onto the floor. Then he dragged it into the middle of the shop, raised the ax and brought it down. A few moments later, Jeff Reilly covered the mess of twisted stainless steel with a coating of foam from the extinguisher.

“This is the source,” Jeff called. “It looks like that’s all the farther it got.”

“What was it?” Dylan asked.

Reilly squatted down to take a better look. “One of those frozen yogurt machines?”

“Nah,” Winton said. “It’s one of those fancy coffee-makers.”

“It’s an Espresso Master 8000 Deluxe.”

Dylan glanced down to see the woman staring at the mess of stainless steel. A tear trickled down her cheek and she gnawed on her lower lip. Dylan cursed softly. If there was one thing he hated about fighting fires, it was the tears. Though he had given bad news to victims before, he’d never really known what to do about the tears. And to his ears, his words of sympathy always sounded so hollow and forced.

He cleared his throat. “I want you two to check around,” he ordered as he patted the woman’s shoulder. “Make sure we don’t have any electrical shorts or hot spots in the walls. We don’t know what kind of wiring they’ve got in here. Look for a breaker panel and see if it’s flipped.”

He pulled off his gloves and took the woman’s hand in his, then gently pulled her toward the door. He should have been thinking about what to say, but instead he was fascinated by how delicate her fingers felt in his hand. “There’s nothing you can do in here,” he said softly. “We’ll check everything out and if it’s safe, you can go back in after the smoke clears.”

When they got outside, he led her toward the back of the truck and gently pushed her down until she sat on the wide back bumper. A paramedic came rushing up but Dylan waved him off. Her tears came more freely now and Dylan felt his heart twist. He fought the impulse to gather her in his arms. She really didn’t have much to cry about. All she’d lost was a coffeemaker.

“It’s all right,” he said. “I know you were scared, but you’re fine. And you barely lost a thing.”

She snapped her head up and leveled an angry glare at him. “That machine was worth fifteen thousand dollars! That’s the best machine on the market. It makes four shots of espresso in fifteen seconds. And you and your ax-wielding Huns chopped it to bits.”

Stunned by the intensity of her outburst, Dylan took a step back as if scorched by her words. She owed him at least a small bit of gratitude! “Listen, lady, I—”

“My name’s not lady!” she cried.

“Well, whatever your name is, you should be happy,” he said, unable to keep the anger from edging his voice. “No, you should be thrilled. Today was a good day. No one died.” Dylan sighed, then lightened his tone. “You didn’t get hurt, no one got hurt, you didn’t lose precious family mementos or your favorite pet. You lost a coffeemaker, and a defective one at that.”

Her mouth snapped shut and she looked up at him through thick, damp lashes. Dylan watched as another tear trickled down her cheek and he fought the temptation to reach out and catch it with his thumb.

“It’s not just any coffeemaker,” she reminded him.

“I know. It’s an Espresso Deluxe 5000 whatever,” he said. “A big hunk of stainless steel with a few gauges and a lot of tubing. Lady, I have to say that—”

“My name’s not lady,” she insisted. She brushed the hair from her face, then wiped off a smudge of soot from the end of her nose. “It’s Meggie Flanagan.”

Up until that very instant, the moment she’d said her name, Dylan hadn’t recognized her. She’d changed—a lot. But there were still traces of the girl he knew so long ago. “Meggie Flanagan? Mary Margaret Flanagan? Tommy Flanagan’s little sister.”

She sent him a dismissive look. “Maybe.”

Dylan chuckled, then pulled his hat off and ran his fingers through his hair. “Little Meggie Flanagan. So how’s your brother? I haven’t seen him for ages.”

She regarded him suspiciously at first, then her gaze flitted over to the name tape on his jacket right below his left shoulder. Her expression fell and a blush rose on her cheeks, so intense Dylan could see it beneath the soot. “Quinn,” she murmured. “Oh, God.” She braced her elbows on her knees, then buried her face in her hands. “I should have figured you’d show up and try to ruin my life all over again.”

“Ruin your life?” Dylan asked. “I saved your life!”

She jumped to her feet. “You did not,” Meggie countered. “I was perfectly capable of putting out that fire on my own.”

Dylan crossed his arms over his chest. “Then why did you call the fire department?” he inquired.

“I didn’t,” she muttered. “The alarm company did.”

He grabbed the dish towel from her hand and waved it in her face. “And is this how you were planning to put it out?” Dylan shook his head. “I’ll bet you don’t even have a fire extinguisher inside, do you. If you only knew how many serious fires could be stopped with a simple fire extinguisher, I—” She tipped her chin up defiantly and his words died in his throat.

Meggie Flanagan. He almost felt embarrassed by his earlier attraction. After all, she was the little sister of one of his old buddies. There were unwritten rules between guys and one of the biggest was you didn’t hit on a friend’s sister. But Meggie wasn’t that gawky kid with the braces and the goofy glasses anymore. And he hadn’t seen Tommy for years. “I could cite you for a code violation.”

“Oh, go ahead,” she challenged. With a soft curse, she neatly turned on her heel and walked back toward the shop. “Considering our history, I wouldn’t put it past you.”

History? Dylan stared after her. “Meggie Flanagan,” he repeated, this time out loud. He’d always remembered her as a shy and nervous kid, the kind of girl who stood back and watched the world from a safe distance. This woman could never be classified as shy. She used to be so skinny—and flat as a board. Even from his vantage point, he could see that she’d filled out in all the right places.

He’d spent hours after school at Tommy Flanagan’s house, listening to music or playing video games. And she’d always been there, silently watching them through those thick glasses, standing in the shadows so she wouldn’t be seen. He’d practically lived at the Flanagan house when he was a senior, but it wasn’t the video games that brought him back again and again. Tommy’s mother was a cheerful and loving woman and she could always be depended on for an invitation to dinner, which Dylan gladly accepted.

Meggie always sat across from him at the table and whenever he’d looked up, she was always staring at him, the very same stare she fixed on him whenever they met in the hallways at school. She was two years behind him, a sophomore when he was a senior, and though they’d never shared a class, he saw her at least once or twice a day near his locker or in the lunch room. He’d seen how the kids poked fun of her and Tommy had been particularly protective, so Dylan had felt the same, considering her a surrogate little sister.

He watched now as she paced back and forth in front of her shop, rubbing her arms against the early November wind. The urge to protect was still there, but it was heavily laced with an undeniable attraction, an overwhelming need to touch her again just to see if his reaction was the same. Dylan shrugged off his jacket then walked over to her. “Here,” he said. “You’re going to catch a cold.”

He didn’t wait for her assent, merely draped the heavy waterproof jacket over her shoulders, allowing his hands to linger just a moment. The tingle that shot up his arms when he touched her did not go unnoticed. She stopped pacing and gave him a reluctant “thank you.”

“What did you mean?” he asked, leaning back against the brick facade of the building to watch her pace. “When you said I’d ruined your life once before?”

She frowned. “Nothing. It doesn’t make a difference.”

Dylan shook his head and smiled in an attempt to lighten her mood. “I hardly recognize you, Meggie. Except for the name. We never really knew each other, did we?”

An odd expression crossed her face and he wasn’t sure if he read it right, through the soot and the windblown hair. Had he hurt her by his words? Was there a reason he was supposed to remember her?

To his disappointment, their conversation ended there. The radio on the truck sounded another alarm and the firefighters gathered at the scene stopped to listen. Dispatch gave an address in an industrial area, a factory fire, already a three-alarm blaze. “I have to go,” he said, reaching out and giving her hand a squeeze. “It should be safe to go back inside now. And I’m sorry about your machine.”

She opened her mouth, as if she had something more to say, then snapped it shut. “Thank you,” she murmured.

He walked backward toward the truck, strangely unable to take his eyes away from her. For a moment, she looked like the girl he’d remembered, standing all alone on the sidewalk, unsure of herself, hands clutched in front of her. “Say ‘hi’ to Tommy the next time you see him.”

“I will,” she called, her gaze still fixed to his.

The truck rumbled to life behind him and Ken Carmichael honked the horn impatiently. “Maybe I’ll see you around,” Dylan added.

“Your jacket!” she called, slipping out of it.

He waved. “We’ve got extras in the truck.”

He hopped inside the cab and took a spot behind the driver, then pulled the door shut. As they drove away from the scene, sirens wailing and lights blazing, Dylan glanced up and found Artie and Jeff grinning at him. “Gee, Quinn, what happened to your jacket?” Artie asked. “Did you lose it in the fire?”

Dylan shrugged.

“We could be fighting a fire on the moon and you’d still manage to find a woman to charm,” Jeff said. He leaned forward and shouted to the driver. “Hey, Kenny, we have to go back. Quinn left his jacket behind again.”

Carmichael chuckled, then yanked on the horn as he maneuvered through afternoon traffic. “That boy has a nasty habit of losing jackets. I’ll just have to tell the chief to take it out of his pay.”

Dylan pulled the extra jacket off the hook beside his head and slipped into it. This time he wasn’t sure he wanted it back. Meggie Flanagan wasn’t like the other women for whom the ploy had worked so well. For one thing, she didn’t gaze up at him with an adoring look. From what he could tell, she pretty much hated him. And she certainly wasn’t the kind of girl he could just seduce, then leave. She was the kid sister of a very old friend.

He drew a long breath, then let it out slowly. No, it would be a long time before he retrieved his jacket from Meggie Flanagan.

A THIN COAT OF GRIMY soot covered every surface in the shop. The grand opening of Cuppa Joe was scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving and Meggie was overwhelmed by the task in front of her. She still had to train eight new employees and finish up with the last details of the decor. A call to the insurance company assured her of a check for both a cleaning crew and a new machine. But she didn’t have time to wait for the crew to come. Tables and chairs were due to be delivered tomorrow. If they expected to open on time, she and her business partner, Lana Richards, would have to get the place in shape on their own.

The smoke hadn’t been the worst of yesterday’s fire. The destruction of her espresso maker had been a crushing blow. “Three months,” she muttered. “Three months until they can deliver another machine. I even offered to pay them extra for a rush order, but they said they couldn’t do it. Every coffee shop wants one of those machines.”

“Can you please stop with the machine?” Lana struggled to her feet and tossed a dirty rag into the bucket of warm water, then brushed her blond hair out of her eyes. “We’ll just buy two Espresso Master 4000s. Or four Espresso Master 2000s. Anything so we don’t have to talk about the espresso maker anymore.”

In truth, she’d had to force herself to think about the machine. It kept her from lapsing into daydreams about the handsome firefighter who had ordered it destroyed. How many times over the past 24 hours had she caught herself adrift in a contemplation of Dylan Quinn? And how many times had the contemplation ended in a surge of well-remembered humiliation.

“This is our business,” Meggie said softly. “We didn’t spend the last five years saving every penny we made, working at jobs we hated, begging the Bank of Boston for a loan, just to have some overenthusiastic firefighter end it all with one swing of his ax.”

Any woman might be fascinated by Dylan Quinn. After all, it wasn’t every day you met a real life hero, tall and imposing in his firefighting gear. He seemed made for his job, dauntless and determined…strong and… Meggie sighed softly. There was probably a Dylan Quinn in every woman’s life, a man who was the subject of an endless string of “what ifs.”

What if she hadn’t been such a geek in high school and he hadn’t been such a god? What if she’d gotten her braces off a year earlier? What if she’d been able to talk to him without giggling uncontrollably? A moan slipped from her lips. Though she’d come a long way since those days, the memories were still acutely embarrassing.

Over the past years, she’d thought about Dylan Quinn every now and then, wondering what had happened to her first love. On lonely nights or after disastrous dates, she’d even conjure up a fantasy of what it might be like to meet him again. After all, she was different now. The braces and thick glasses had been replaced by perfect teeth and contact lenses. Her once lackluster hair color was now enhanced by one of Boston’s best hairdressers. And most importantly of all, she’d grown curves in all the proper places.

Still, there were a few things that hadn’t changed. She still wasn’t very good with the opposite sex. Though she’d accomplished a lot in her professional life, her personal life left a lot to be desired. It probably had more to do with the men she chose to date, but Meggie just wrote her bad luck off as a lingering effect from too many years as a geek.

Dylan, on the other hand, had been one of the most popular boys in high school. With his dark and dangerous good looks and his devastating charm, he’d been every girl’s dream date. But he’d still been a boy and her memories of him had always held an image of a tall, lanky, high-school Casanova with a killer smile. That image had shattered the moment she met those strange and beautiful eyes again.

All the Quinns had those eyes, gold mixed with green, a shade too unique to be called hazel. Those eyes that held the power to turn a girl’s knees weak and make her pulse race. And to send Meggie right back to the pain and humiliation of that one night, the night of the Sophomore Frolic.

“The fire wasn’t all bad,” Lana said. “You got to see Dylan Quinn again.”

“I needed that like a sharp stick in the eye,” she said.

She and Lana had been friends since their college days at the University of Massachusetts, so there was very little that Lana didn’t know about the men—or lack of them—in Meggie’s life, both past and present. But the picture of Dylan Quinn she’d painted for her friend hadn’t been very flattering—or entirely truthful. Had Lana been asked she probably would have described him as a cross between Hannibal Lector and Bigfoot.

The bell on the front door jingled and Meggie popped up from behind the counter, hoping that her new Espresso Master 4000 Ultra had arrived from the restaurant supply house. But it wasn’t Eddie, the usual driver, who walked in the door. This man was tall and good-looking and…Meggie swallowed hard. This man was Dylan Quinn!

With a tiny groan, Meggie dropped back down behind the counter, then tugged on the leg of Lana’s jeans. He was the last person she wanted to see! “It’s him,” she said.

Lana shook her leg until Meggie let go. “Who?”

“Dylan Quinn. Tell him to leave. Tell him we’re not open. Tell him there’s another coffee shop over on Newbury.”

“Oh, my God,” Lana murmured, staring toward the front of the shop, stunned by the revelation. “That’s Dylan Quinn? But he doesn’t look—”

Her words were stopped when Meggie slammed her fist down on Lana’s big toe. Lana yelped in pain. “Get rid of him. Now!”

Her partner muttered a quiet threat, then stepped out from behind the counter. “Hello. I bet you’re here looking for a good cup of coffee. Well, as you can see, we’re not open yet. Our grand opening is in three weeks.”

“Actually,” he said. “I didn’t come for coffee.”

The warm rich sound of his voice seemed to seep into her bloodstream as Meggie cowered on the floor. She wondered what it might be like to listen to that voice for an hour or two. Would it become so addictive that she couldn’t do without it?

“But I’m sure I could make something for one of Boston’s finest,” Lana continued. “We’ll be one of the few places that serves Jamaican Blue Mountain. Would you like to try a cup? It’s like nectar of the gods. An appropriate drink for you, I’d say.”

Meggie groaned, then grabbed Lana’s leg as she moved to the coffeemaker. “Don’t serve him the Jamaican,” she whispered. “It’s the most expensive thing in the shop. Just get rid of him!”

Lana scooped some beans from a plastic container in the refrigerator, then dumped them in the grinder. “You’re Dylan Quinn, aren’t you?”

“Do I know you?” Dylan asked.

Just by the tone of his voice, Meggie could tell that he’d turned on the charm full force. And Lana, an accomplished flirt, was lapping it up like a sex kitten with a bowl of cream. He’d give her that boyish smile and those little crinkles at the corners of his eyes would make him look so appealing. And Lana would toss her perfect blond hair over her shoulder and laugh in that deep, throaty way she had. And before Meggie could stop them, they’d be rushing to the drugstore for a box of condoms.

“No,” Lana said. “But I’m sure we can remedy that fact. I’m Lana Richards, Meggie’s business partner. Meggie told me how you saved her life yesterday—and our shop. We’re very grateful. Very. I hope there’s a way I—I mean, we—can repay you.”

Meggie cursed softly. Lana was doing this on purpose, teasing and taunting her, tweaking her jealousy until she’d be forced to stand up and show herself. Grudgingly, she stood up, then brushed her hair from her eyes. Dylan, who was now leaning over the counter, stepped back in surprise. “Meggie!”

She forced a smile. “I’m sorry, I was just…there was a thing I was…I had my head in the cooler and didn’t hear you come in.” She cleared her throat. “I’m afraid we’re not open for business yet,” she said, smoothing her hands over her jeans.

“The poor man has been fighting fires all day long. We could at least offer him something,” Lana said.

Meggie crossed her arms beneath her breasts and watched Dylan warily. He’d changed out of his firefighting gear and now wore faded jeans, a T-shirt and a leather jacket, but he looked as rakish as ever. His hair, thick and dark, was still damp at the nape of his neck and she couldn’t help but wonder how long ago he’d stepped out of the shower…wet…and naked.

She swallowed hard, then grabbed a rag and began to polish the copper-clad counter. “Gee, I would have thought you’d still be out pillaging,” Meggie murmured.

Lana walked behind her and Meggie felt a sharp pain on the back of her arm as her partner pinched her. She cursed softly and rubbed her skin, then spun around and sent Lana a withering glare.

“Be nice,” Lana whispered. “I’m going to do some bookwork in the office.”

“I don’t have to be nice,” Meggie muttered. “I detest the man.”

“Then you go do the bookwork and let me be nice. He’s gorgeous. And you know what they say about firefighters.”

“What’s that,” Meggie murmured.

Lana leaned closer and whispered in her ear. “It’s not the size of the hose, but where they point it that counts.”

An unbidden giggle burst from Meggie’s throat and she gave Lana a gentle shove toward the office. When they were finally alone, Meggie sent Dylan a sideways glance, then pulled a paper cup from beneath the counter and set it in front of him. He’d be getting this cup of coffee “to go.”

He observed her intently as she waited for the coffee to dribble down into the tall carafe. A smile quirked the corners of his mouth, so easy and confident in his power over her. God, he was even more gorgeous than she remembered. All her friends in school had crushes on the New Kids On The Block, but Meggie had held out for the real thing—Dylan Quinn. Though he was two years older and a high school senior, she’d somehow deluded herself into believing that the feeling was mutual, that Dylan was in love with her. After all, every time he saw her, he’d smiled. And once or twice, he’d even called her by name.

And then it happened. Her brother, Tommy, had mentioned that Dylan was interested in taking her to her Sophomore Folic. It was the first big dance of her high school career and she’d just assumed she’d be staying home like most of the other wallflowers in her class. But then, Dylan, the most handsome boy in all of South Boston High School, had agreed to escort her to the dance.

She could barely contain herself and she had told all her friends and they told all their friends until the entire sophomore class at Southie knew that Meggie Flanagan had a date with the Dylan Quinn. She’d bought a new dress and had shoes dyed to match. And when a corsage arrived earlier in the afternoon, she’d been so excited she’d nearly burst into tears. Then Dylan arrived, dressed in jeans and dragging his little brother, Brian, behind him. Brian, who was dressed in the tux and wearing a goofy grin.

At first, she hadn’t understood, but then it became clear—Brian was her date, not Dylan. Though Brian was a Quinn, he hadn’t really reached his full Adonis-like potential yet. He was still at least six inches shorter than she was and his idea of charm was staring at her dreamily while he tugged at his bowtie. She would have been better off going with her cousin or even her brother Tommy.

“I suppose you’ve come to apologize,” she said, her back still to him.

He chuckled. “Actually, I came for my jacket. Remember?”

“Oh, right,” she murmured. Of course, he wouldn’t have come to see her. He was simply retrieving his gear. She slowly turned, then walked to the end of the counter. “I’ll go get it. It’s in the office.”

“No hurry,” he said. “You can give it back to me later. After I take you to dinner.”

Meggie’s heart stopped about the same time her feet did, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Had she heard him right? Or was her mind playing tricks on her the same way it had all those years ago, when she’d convinced herself that Dylan Quinn harbored secret passions for her. “What?”

“Dinner,” he said. “You look like you could use a break and it would give us a chance to catch up on old times.”

Meggie swallowed hard. This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be real. “I—I really can’t,” she murmured, turning away to busy herself wiping the back counter. “Not tonight.”

“Then tomorrow night? I get off at eight. We could get a bite to eat, then maybe catch a movie.”

She shook her head. She’d made a fool of herself once before, falling for him then having her heart stomped on. It wasn’t going to happen again. She wouldn’t allow it. “No,” she said firmly. “I have too much work to do.” Meggie grabbed his cup from the counter, then hurried over to fill it from the carafe.

When she’d finished, she spun around to hand it to him. But the hot coffee sloshed over the edge of the cup, scalding the top of her hand. She cried out in pain and dropped the cup, the hot liquid spattering over her shoes. In an instant, he was beside her, taking her hand gently in his and leading her to the small sink tucked beneath the counter.

Dylan flipped on the cold water, then held her hand beneath it. “Do you have ice?” he asked.

Meggie winced, then nodded at the icemaker nearby. He grabbed a towel then wrapped it around a handful of ice before returning to her side. “How does it feel,” he asked.

“It hurts,” Meggie replied. But in truth, she barely noticed the pain. It had vanished the moment he’d touched her, the flood of adrenaline simply washing it away. He touched her again, this time pulling her hand from beneath the water. He pressed her palm against his chest, then laid the ice over it. Beneath her fingers, she could feel his heart beating, strong and even.

She was thankful their roles weren’t reversed for if he felt her heart racing, he’d know exactly how his touch had affected her. “That feels good.”

He smiled down at her. “You should be more careful,” he murmured, his gaze drifting lazily over her features. He stopped at her lips and she held her breath. For a moment, she was sure that if she closed her eyes and tipped her head up, he’d kiss her.

But then he chuckled softly, and pulled the ice from her hand. “Let see here,” he said, carefully examining the skin just below her wrist. “It’s a little red but no blistering. I think you’ll be all right.” He drew her hand up to his lips and pressed a cool kiss on her flaming skin.

Stunned, Meggie yanked her hand away as if she’d been burned all over again. He was teasing her, taking advantage of her nervousness when he was near. Dylan Quinn knew exactly how he made her feel and he was using it against her. “Please, don’t do that,” she murmured. She snatched the ice from his hands and drew a ragged breath. “I’ll just go get your jacket and then you can be on your way.”

Dylan stared at her for a long moment, then shrugged indifferently. “I’ll get it another time,” he said, stepping around the end of the counter. He looked back once. “I’ll see you around, Meggie Flanagan.” With that, he strode toward the door.

She fought the urge to run after him, to order him to stay away from her coffee shop and out of her life. But instead, all she could manage to do was admire the wide shoulders hidden beneath his leather jacket and the narrow hips accented by his jeans. He stepped through the door and a soft sigh slipped from her lips.

“I am such a coward,” she murmured. She’d wanted to accept his invitation to dinner and she’d wanted his kiss to drift from her wrist, up her arm, to her mouth. She wasn’t that same clumsy girl that she’d been thirteen years ago. She was a woman, now, almost thirty years old, and only occasionally clumsy. And most men even considered her pretty. She was smart and well-read and always felt that given the right man, she could be a sparkling conversationalist.

Yet the prospect of getting to know Dylan Quinn frightened her. Whenever he was near she reverted to that insecure and anxious teenager. Meggie groaned then pressed her forehead against the cool copper counter. If she’d only been able to think straight, maybe she could have done something once and for all, to even the score between them.

She imagined a wonderfully romantic dinner with witty repartee. He’d fall madly in love with her in just one night and then she’d oh-so casually tell him that she wasn’t really interested in a relationship. Or maybe she’d allow him to kiss her and he would experience an instant passion for her before she walked away.

Another groan slipped from her lips. This whole incident only proved one point. She was not the kind of woman who could handle a man like Dylan Quinn. So she had only one choice—she needed to stay as far away from him as possible.

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