Luck of the Irish Read Online Free PDF Page A

for horses. Anyone who loved animals like that was okay in his book.
    He looked over at Cian, who was laughing at something Quinn had said, and he got the feeling that Cian liked him too. Davin sat back and drank his ale, quiet for once, and watched the two young men together. He was pretty sure they were flirting. He looked at his granddaughter, and she winked and nodded at him. He smiled. Yep, she thought they were too.
    When Cian had first told him he was gay, Davin hadn’t been sure what to think. He had been raised old-fashioned Catholic, taught to believe homosexuality was a sin, but he had never put much stock in it when he’d bothered to think about it.
    As he’d looked at his anxious grandson, all he saw was the same good-hearted boy who had been living with him for the past ten years. At sixteen, Cian had been all arms and legs and awkward as hell, but he had always tried his hardest to help out, doing more than he was asked. He was passionate about the horses in a way that reminded Davin of himself when he was young, and he was good to his cousin, helping look after her when her mother passed away.
    Cian’s mother had abandoned him with Davin when Cian was six, disappearing with a rich older man from South Africa who considered children a nuisance. They heard from her a few times a year, and she came to visit once in a while, but she and Cian had never been close. The woman seemed to blame Cian for his father running off a year after he was born, leaving her to raise a child on her own.
    Cian had terrible luck with parents, and Davin had terrible luck with children: one daughter dead before her time; one a useless ass, content to live off others. Both left him and his Mary with the responsibility of raising their children.
    And he was grateful for it. His grandchildren meant everything to him, and he would do everything in his power to make sure they were happy and healthy for as long as he lived.
    Which brought him back to young Mr. Donovan, who was sitting at his dining table, smiling at Cian. Davin wondered if encouraging the relationship was a good idea. Quinn was an American, after all. His family and responsibilities were far away; where could their relationship go?
    But looking at them again, he knew his answer. There were a lot of folks out there who figured he and his Mary would never last. They had said that the two of them were too different: her from a rich family, him from a poor one.
    But here they were, almost forty years later, still in love and happy as ever. He wished she were here, but she was off visiting her sister in London and wouldn’t be back for a week. He missed her comforting presence in his life and in his bed. Sleeping alone wasn’t something that happened a lot in their marriage.
    He looked over at Cian and knew he wanted that for him—someone to offer love and comfort and support. And if Davin had to let Cian go so he could find it, he would, by God.
“So, Quinn, where are you heading off to after this? I believe that you’ve convinced Cian to part with his darlings, so what’s next for you?”
    Quinn didn’t look pleased with the prospect of moving on. “Well, I’m heading for someplace called Sallybrook? It’s near Cork, I guess.” Quinn gave a small laugh. “I’m not looking forward to this part of the trip. I’m a terrible map reader, and I’m so worried about getting lost from here. The road from Dublin was pretty straightforward, but I don’t know. This is going to be harder, I think.”
    “You’re gonna have to stay overnight somewhere. It’s a long drive.” Davin was speculating, and if his grandson had been paying attention, he knew Cian would have recognized the gleam in his grandfather’s eyes. Fortunately, Cian’s eyes hadn’t left Quinn.
    “Yes, sir. I have a room booked in Limerick for tomorrow night. It might be the longer way to go, but I have a few days to get there, and I wanted to explore some more.”
Quinn didn’t seem as excited about