Read Online The Mighty Quinns: Kellan by Kate Hoffmann - Free Book Online Page A

said. “That’s very nice of you. But I still think I should get a car of my own.”
    The smile she sent him was like a ray of sunshine, warm and bright and full of everything that he needed to survive. But Kellan got the uneasy feeling that his affection for Gelsey would come at a price. The more he got to know her, the more he needed her. So what would happen when she decided to leave?
    It wasn’t a question that he’d thought about in any great depth, but now, the idea of losing her outweighed any fears he had of getting too close. “I suppose we could drive into town and see if anyone is looking for help.”
    “You really think someone would hire me?”
    As Kellan turned the car around and headed back to Ballykirk, he realized that Gelsey’s job hunt might provide a bit more insight into who she really was. She’d have to give a last name and if she wasn’t an Irish citizen, she’d have to give a whole lot more than that.
     
    GELSEY HAD BEEN CURIOUS about the inhabitants of Kellan’s hometown, but she’d never expected them to be so curious about her. “Why is everyone staring at me?” she murmured as she and Kellan strolled down the main street of Ballykirk.
    “Are they?” he asked.
    “Yes! Haven’t you noticed? They don’t really think I’m a—”
    “No,” Kellan said. “I suspect they’re just curious about what’s going on between us. Everyone in this village is in everyone else’s business. You can’t sneeze in this town without a half-dozen people offering medical advice. It’s kind of the same with romance.”
    She opened her mouth, then snapped it shut. Of course. She and Kellan been shacked up together for two days now, eating take-out food from the pub and no doubt creating all sorts of speculation. Now that they’d emerged from their den of passion, people were bound to be curious.
    “I suppose I’ll have to get used to that kind of thing,” she murmured.
    “They’re just excited to have something new to gossip about. They’ll move along to a new subject soon enough.”
    Gelsey forced a smile. Or maybe not. How long would it be before someone recognized her? Without the makeup and the skimpy dresses, she barely looked like the girl in the tabloids. But was Ballykirk really that isolated from the rest of the world? “I love this village,” she said. “It’s so…picturesque.”
    “Ballykirk? When I was a lad I couldn’t wait to leave.”
    “You did leave,” she said.
    Kellan nodded. “For university. In Dublin and then a year in London.”
    “Why did you come back?” Gelsey asked.
    “I’m not technically back. I just finished the job at Castle Cnoc and I don’t have anything else lined up until after the new year. I usually live in Dublin.”
    “I ought to have finished university,” Gelsey said. In truth, she hadn’t given it much chance. She’d been too restless to sit in a class all day, so she’d decided to go to cooking school. When she’d grown bored with that, she’d tried fashion school. Paired with her lack of real work experience, she’d been left with a rather unconventional résumé.
    “They have universities where you come from?” he asked. “Oh, wait. I don’t know where you come from, do I?”
    She slipped her arm through his and gave him a playful slap. “How do you think I learned to speak French?” she asked.
    “You speak French?”
    “Mais oui,” Gelsey replied.
    “You’re hiding all sorts of secrets, aren’t you?”
    Her expression suddenly turned serious. “We all have secrets. I suspect you have a few of your own.”
    “No,” he said.
    “None?”
    “Well, when I was fourteen, I wanted to be James Bond. I mean, the bloke was a god with the women.”
    “And you weren’t?”
    “No. Far from it. I’d never kissed a girl before. And then, that summer it happened and after that it was a brand-new world.”
    “Tell me about it,” Gelsey said.
    He glanced over at her. “I suspect you know how it goes.”
    She drew in