A Woman's Heart Read Online Free Page B

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 theVirgin 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.
    â€œI’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.
    â€œGood afternoon.”
    She stopped raking and looked up at him. “Good afternoon to you. You’d be lost of course.”
    â€œIs it that obvious?”
    â€œYou passed by earlier. Now here you are again. Isn’t that certainly a sign you’ve lost your way?”
    â€œI’m trying to get to Castlelough.”
    â€œWell, 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.
    â€œI 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.”
    â€œAmericans 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.
    â€œI thought so.” That settled, and seeming less than impressed by his exalted status,