Belonging to Them
Belonging to Them
A
Daly Way
Story
By Brynn Paulin
Resplendence Publishing, LLC
http://www.resplendencepublishing.com
Resplendence Publishing, LLC
2665 N Atlantic Ave #349
Daytona Beach, FL 32118
Belonging to Them
Copyright © 2010, Brynn Paulin
Edited by Christine Allen-Riley
Cover art by Les Byerley www.les3photo8.com
Electronic format ISBN: 978-1-60735-141-2
Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Electronic release: April 2010
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and occurrences are a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, places or occurrences, is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
To the Letter Q and the Number 4
“Ma’am, to tell you the truth, I really don’t know how that car got you this far.”
Rayna Halliday bit her lip and listened to the darkly handsome man on the other side of the garage’s service counter as he explained her sedan’s problems in Irish-accented car-speak. She’d stopped for gas in this little dirt farm town two hours ago, and her car had refused to stay running for more than a few minutes afterward. She’d made it three feet before a huge plume of white smoke had billowed from the tailpipe, and the car had sputtered to a teeth-rattling stop.
Fortunately, the gas station was part of the town’s only car repair place, O’Keefe’s Gas and Repair. Two of the men had immediately come outside and offered to take a look. The third, this one with the embroidered nametag proclaiming him to be “Patrick” had given her a voucher and sent her across the street to the town’s diner for coffee and pie while they determined her vehicle’s problem.
She’d known it wasn’t good. She’d been babying the thing for over a week. Stopping to get it fixed just wasn’t a luxury she had.
“The head’s shot,” Patrick said. “Ye have three belts about to bust, your radiator’s leaking, so are the brake lines, your transmission and your oil—in several places. And that’s not the worst, actually. Your fuel well is leaking, as well. Onto your muffler. To tell the truth, you’re lucky ye haven’t blown yourself up. And if ye don’t mind me sayin’, what the hell have ye been doin’? Drivin’ across land mines. Your car’s undercarriage is a wreck.”
She smiled wanly and pushed her hand through her bangs as she sighed. “Well, crap. It shakes like crazy getting to second gear, so you might as well add that.”
“Might have somethin’ to do with the leak,” he said.
Dread balled in her stomach. The bill would be huge. She had the money—it wasn’t that—but accessing it would alert
him
and she hadn’t gotten this far to send up a flag that yelled
here I am!
Unfortunately, she didn’t have much choice.
“How much?” she asked.
“I still have to add it up. Frankly, I wasn’t sure you’d want to do all the work on such an old model. Off hand, I can guess close to four.”
“Hundred?” That was doable. She had that much with her.
“Thousand.”
“Okay…” Well, fuck. She’d driven clear across the country only to tell that rat bastard in North Carolina exactly where she was.
“Since the repairs are so extensive, I’ll need to bill for the major parts before the work, then charge incidentals and labor afterward.”
“You take MasterCard?” She tapped a red-lacquered nail on the counter until she noticed it was chipped and hid her hand in her pocket. Oh how the pampered had fallen. Oh well. A few more days and she’d be back in the seat of luxury and safe from
him
.
Flipping the card from her wallet, she slid it across the counter at Patrick. Hopefully, they’d get the repairs done quickly and she could get out of here before her jerk ex came trotting after her.
Patrick made a face and twirled the credit card through his fingers as he looked at the machine in front of him. “Um, ma’am, ye have another card? This one’s declined.”
“What? That can’t… Are you sure?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She knew immediately what the problem was. The jackass had messed with her account. Snake. And since he was a bigwig at the bank, he could get away with it even though it wasn’t his account. She pulled out her cell phone. Hopefully, she could get someone on the line who was enough under the radar to sort this out.
Flipping open the phone, she glanced at the screen and swore. “God
damn
it! God damn it. God damn his slimy soul to
hell!
” Shaking with anger, she snapped shut the useless thing, cursing a blue stream under her breath at the
invalid SIM card
message she’d read. He’d gotten her phone shut off. That
jerk
had shut off her phone! Reining in the need to start crying, she bit out, “I’ll be right back,” and slammed out the front door.
Through the mirrored window behind the desk, Jamie O’Keefe watched his brother, Patrick, and the little ball of energy who owned that piece of crap car. She could possibly be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Her glossy brown hair hung in sleek waves to her waist and her brown eyes flashed as the gravity of her situation settled in. Her mouth-watering curves moved in all the right places as she stomped away and around the building to the back where trees lined the edge of the property. There was no mistaking she was incensed—genuinely shocked and infuriated.
There was also no mistaking she was the most gorgeous thing to ever hit the little berg of Daly. And he wanted her. He wanted her like he’d never wanted a woman. But his days of getting females like her were long over. He might as well give up that dream and forget she’d ever breezed through town.
The door from the waiting area to the garage was open as were the bay doors. As he walked up front, he clearly heard her outraged scream followed by, “Shit! Jackass! Shit!”
Though her distress concerned him, he couldn’t help but smile at her apparent belief that going behind the building would shield the entire town from her fit.
“What. Is.
That
?” he laughed.
His cousins, David and Sean, came to the doorway of the garage. Sean wiped his hands on a cloth while David held a Coke in his grimy fingers.
“Yes, what is that?” Sean repeated.
Patrick tapped the woman’s credit card on the counter. “I think
she’s
a woman running from trouble, and I think she might just be our fifth,” he said, dropping into his normal, slightly accented English rather the brogue he tended to use when charming customers.
“No, Trick ,” Jamie protested, dread settling in his gut. He was mostly feeling normal again. He didn’t need to be in a ménage situation with a beautiful woman, his perfect brother and his even more perfect cousins. “Perhaps, she’s your
fourth
, but I’m out.”
Patrick eyed him, taking in the scarred face and arm Jamie wished he could hide. Mercifully, his brother’s eyes didn’t fall to his prosthetic leg.
“You’re being stupid,” Patrick said.
“No. Just no. Why should I open myself up to that?” Jamie demanded as Sean and David wisely returned to the garage.
“Because,” Patrick replied. “There isn’t a woman in this town who isn’t already attached, and if you don’t want your cock to shrivel up and fall off, you need to give it some action besides lotion and your hand.”
Jamie glared at him and returned to the back office to finish updating the books.
“Jay…” Trick called, following him. He was cut off by the sound of the bell over the door. Safe in the office, Jamie looked through the mirrored window to see the dream woman re-enter the shop. His brother turned and gave him a wink.
Jamie’s fist ground into the papers on the desk. Damn him. He was going to do this, and he’d attempt to rope Jamie into it, too. Well, Jamie had news for his older brother. He could force the issue as much as he wanted, but the younger brother wasn’t gonna play.
Heat flushed Rayna’s cheeks as she walked into the reception area of the garage. She wasn’t prone to fits, but this situation had utterly shoved her over the edge.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She drew in a breath, forcing back the urge to cry. She’d do that later, in bed, once she found a place to sleep. “I’m just a little overwhelmed. Look, um, I have the money for the repairs. It’s just a matter of accessing it. Though at the moment… I don’t suppose you have a shop for my cell phone provider in town.” She gave the service name and watched in dismay as Patrick slowly shook his head. “I have some cash on me. Do you have a hotel around here?”
“Nearest is in the city, about an hour from here.”
“A bed and breakfast? Campground? A cave,” she added impatiently when he kept shaking his head. “All right…um. Is there a bank? Somewhere that I can get about forty dollars in quarters? Then a payphone.”
“No.”
“For Pete’s sake! What the hell does this place have?” She held up her hand. “Sorry. Look, um… Is there someone who can drive me and my stuff into the city? Maybe I can get a bus ticket or something there.”
“What about your car?”
“I can send you money to fix it then have one of my cousins come and get it.”
He crossed his arms on the counter and leaned forward. She swallowed as his deep green eyes studied her. A faint streak of grease colored one cheekbone. Apparently, he’d tried to wipe it off at some point but hadn’t gotten it completely. Somehow, it only emphasized his fine bone structure and his black,
black
hair.
Despite her awful situation, her mouth watered. At another time, she might have considered exploring the spark of invitation in his eyes. And man… His navy shop shirt and pants hugged a frame that made her puny, pencil-pushing jerk of an ex look sickly. A little shiver went through her at the sight of his massive, rough-looking hands spanning his elbows as he rested there.
“Why don’t you stay?” he said simply.
“But there’s nowhere—”
“At our place. We have room. That Victorian over there.”
She turned to glance where he pointed. Room? The place was massive. “You should have a bed and breakfast there,” she murmured, looking back at him.
“No one to run one. My cousins, my brother and I are here most days. There’s four of us O’Keefes.”
“And you’d let me stay with you?” She glanced at the two men who’d joined them. One had blue eyes and an embroidered tag that said “David”. The other, with a tag labeling him as “Sean”, had brown eyes. And man… What did they feed the men around here? They both had similar builds to Patrick, as well as similar looks. They were scruffier, but she guessed that was from working primarily in the garage.
Their hands looked just as rough.
“Of course you can,” Sean replied and David gave a quick nod.
“But there’s a…well, a catch,” Patrick said.
“Okay…” she ventured.
“If you say no, then I’ll arrange a ride for you into the city. But if you say yes, I promise you won’t regret it.”
“Yes, to what?”
Patrick studied her again, and she sensed he was gauging her reaction to whatever he was about to propose. “For whatever reason,” he started, “Daly is a little one-sided on gender.”