The Mighty Quinns: Callum

Mary fetched her list and handed it to him. “Stop by the library, too, will you? Daisy called to tell me my books were in.”

“Any other requests?” he asked, looking around the table.

“The windmill up in the northwest paddock is rattling,” Skip said. “We should probably take it apart before mustering and replace the bearings.”

“I’ll order the parts,” Cal said. He grabbed his stockman’s hat from the peg near the door, then nodded to the men gathered around the table. “Comb your hair for once, will ya, boys? I’m sick to death of looking at you.”

Cal jogged down the porch steps to his ute. He tucked Mary’s list into his shirt pocket, then hopped behind the wheel. A cloud of dust billowed out behind him as he drove down the long dirt road.

Though the drive into Bilbarra took two hours, Cal had made it so many times in his life that he barely noticed the time passing. The closer he got to town, the smoother the roads became, though none of them were paved. He slipped a CD into the player and let his mind wander, thinking about his chances of finding a wife.

He’d always known his place was at Kerry Creek. From the time he was a boy, he’d carefully watched each element of the operation, taking on more and more responsibility with every year that passed. He’d never expected to be boss cocky before he turned thirty. But when his parents had decided to reconcile, his father had reluctantly handed the reins over to Cal and left for Sydney.

Cal imagined that Jack Quinn’s decision had been made easier knowing the station was in good hands. And after his parents’ last visit, he could see the choice had been right for them both. His mother taught school in Sydney and his father had started a small landscaping business. They’d bought a house near the ocean and were happy being together again.

As he turned east on the main road into Bilbarra, Cal squinted as the early-morning sun emerged at the top of a rise. He grabbed his sunglasses from the dashboard, but they fell to the floor of the ute. Bending down, he searched for them with his fingers. But when he glanced out the windshield again, Cal was startled to find himself heading directly toward a figure standing in the middle of the road.

GEMMA SAW THE TRUCK COMING toward her and frantically waved her arms above her head. She’d been stuck here, at the edge of nowhere, for nearly thirty minutes. Not a single living creature had happened by beyond a few hundred flies and a small, evil-looking lizard. But now, as the vehicle was coming closer, she realized the driver hadn’t seen her—or he didn’t intend to stop.

She shouted, jumping up and down to gain the driver’s attention. For an instant, she thought he might run her down and she scurried to safety, but then suddenly, the truck veered sharply and drove off the edge of the road. It came to a dead stop when the front wheels hit the bottom of a shallow gully. Gemma held her breath, afraid to move, adrenaline coursing through her. She’d been the cause of this accident and now she wasn’t sure what to do. Her mobile wasn’t working and she was at least fifteen kilometers from Bilbarra and help.

“Oh, please, oh, please,” she chanted as she raced over to the truck, climbing down into where it had come to rest. The driver’s-side window was open and she could see a man inside. He was conscious and staring out the windscreen. “Are you all right?” she asked, coughing from the dust that hung in the air.

He turned and looked at her, then blinked vacantly. “Yes,” he murmured. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, shaking his head. “Are you real? Or am I dead?”

His question caught her by surprise and she reached inside and grabbed his arm, then pinched it hard. “Do you feel that?”

“Ow!” He rubbed his skin, glaring at her.

“I’m very real. And you’re fine. You haven’t hit your head, have you? Are you bleeding anywhere?”

He reached up and pushed his hat off. The moment he did, Gemma got a good look at his face. She took a step back, a shiver skittering through her body. Suddenly breathless, she tried to inhale. But her lungs had ceased to function properly. She felt a bit dizzy and wondered if all that adrenaline was wearing off too quickly. Her fingers gripped the edge of the window as she tried to remain upright.

The driver pushed against the door with his shoulder and it swung open, sending her stumbling backward. “I’m so sorry,” she said. Good Lord, he was absolutely the most gorgeous thing she’d ever seen in her life. Although Australia was teeming with beautiful men, Gemma felt quite certain that she’d hit the jackpot with this bloke.

He was fine, handsome without being pretty. His features, taken individually, were quite ordinary, but together they combined to make up a man of unquestionable masculinity, rugged and powerful and perhaps a tiny bit dangerous.

Gemma took another step back as he approached and her heel caught on a rock. An instant later, she landed on her bum, the impact causing her to cry out. Gemma felt something move beneath her hand and she looked down to see a lizard squirming between her fingers.

This time, it was a shriek that erupted from her lips as she scrambled to her feet to escape. But she lost her balance again and pitched forward into his arms. He held on to her until she was back on her feet, looking down at her in utter bewilderment.

“Is it poisonous?” she asked, frantically wiping her hand on the front of his shirt. “Jaysus, I hate those things. They’re slimy little buggers. Look, did he bite me?”

Her question seemed to shake him out of his stupor. “It’s a gecko.” He smiled crookedly. “I—I reckon you are real. I don’t expect angels screech like that.” He gradually loosened his grip on her arms. “I almost hit you, miss. What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road?”

“I was trying to wave you down,” Gemma said. “I have a punctured tire. I’ve tried to change it myself, but I can’t get the bloody things off. The…screws. The bolts. Didn’t you see me?”

“Nuts,” he said. “They’re called nuts.” He took her elbow and gently led her back to the road. “The sun was in my eyes.” Drawing a deep breath, he surveyed the scene, his attention moving between his truck and her car. “Come on, I’ll help you change it.”

She looked back over her shoulder. “Shouldn’t we get your truck back on the road first?”

“No worries,” he said with a shrug. “It’s not stuck.” He walked up to the Subaru wagon she’d rented in Sydney and squatted down beside the flat.

Her attention was caught by the way his jeans hugged his backside. They fit him like a glove, not so tight that it looked like he was trying too hard to be sexy, but just tight enough to attract her notice.

Her eyes moved to his shoulders, and the muscles shifting and bunching beneath the faded work shirt. Then he stood and faced her. Gemma liked the way he moved, so easy, almost graceful.

“These roads around here are shite,” he said, wiping his hands on his jeans. “If you hit enough holes, a tire will go flat without a puncture.”

Gemma pointed to the jack, lying in the dust. “I tried to change it myself, but I have no earthly clue what I’m doing. I was starting to get worried when no one came by.”

“This road doesn’t go many places,” he said.

She stood over him as he put the jack together and hooked it beneath the front of the car. Watching him, Gemma realized she never would have figured out how to change the tire on her own. She bent down beside him. From this vantage point, she could get a better look at his face. He was deeply tanned and his eyes were an odd shade of hazel, more gold than green. “Thank you so very much for stopping.”

“I didn’t have much choice,” he said. “It was that or run you down.” He straightened and began to pump the handle. Slowly, the front end of the car rose. Then he started on the nuts that held the tire to the car.

As he worked, she studied him more closely. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist. She’d always thought the strong, silent type was just a myth, but here was a man who proved it. He was tall, over six feet. His clothes were well-worn and she suspected he worked on one of the stations in the area. She made several more attempts to engage him, but he seemed intent on his task.

Since the weather and the flies hadn’t sparked a discussion, she decided to try asking about places to eat in Bilbarra. He’d been headed in that direction and once he was through with her tire, she’d offer to buy him lunch.

Though Gemma had been anxious to get back to Kerry Creek with her things, the Quinn brothers had been scarce. According to the housekeeper, Cal had been camping in the outback for a few days and Brody had stayed overnight in Bilbarra. She’d met Teague briefly on the morning she’d first arrived at the station, but he hadn’t had time to talk. Since she wasn’t getting anywhere with the Quinns, why not spend a little time with this stranger?

Her plan had seemed so simple back in Dublin. But now that she was here in Queensland, ready to play the part of a curious genealogist, Gemma was getting nervous. What if they didn’t believe her? What if she tripped herself up and revealed her real reason for coming?

For a long time, she’d thought the Emerald of Eire had been nothing but an overblown legend, based more in fantasy than truth. Her mother had told her about it when she’d been little and it had piqued Gemma’s imagination—not because of the jewel, but because it had something to do with Gemma’s father, David Parnell.

Before the age of twelve, her father had been nothing more than a faded photo. But suddenly, Gemma realized she was part of something bigger, a family history.

According to her mother, the jewel had been stolen from Gemma’s fourth great-grandfather, Lord Stanton Parnell, more than one hundred and fifty years ago. Some of the Parnells believed that with the loss of the emerald, the fortunes of the family had been cursed.

The fortunes of Orla Moynihan had definitely fallen the moment she set eyes on David Parnell. According to her mother, they’d fallen in love instantly. David had promised to find the emerald so they might run away together and get married. Gemma suspected this was only a ploy to lure her mother into his bed. A pregnancy followed and David disappeared, behind the protective walls of the Parnell family estate. The baby was named Gemma, after an emerald and a dream.

It was no surprise that David had abandoned her mother. The Parnells were part of the old English aristocracy that had made their fortunes in the Belfast textile industry. And Parnell sons didn’t marry poor Irish girls, no matter what the circumstances.

Gemma had met her father twice, once when she’d barged into his office on her twelfth birthday and the other on the day she’d turned eighteen, when she’d demanded he pay for her university tuition at University College in Dublin. He had his own family, including a wife not ten years older than Gemma, so he had sent her away with a promise. He would pay if she’d never approach him again.

But throughout her childhood, Gemma had dreamed of someday being part of that family, of living in a posh house, of having servants to wait on her, of never having to worry about whether they could afford to pay the rent that month. And the emerald had come to represent that dream, something precious and beautiful.

Finding the Emerald of Eire was her chance to claim her birthright. Whether it fixed things with the Parnells or she just threw it in her father’s face, it would prove that she had Parnell blood running through her veins, even though it had been tainted by the Irish of the Moynihans.

So she’d gone to university, thanks to the Parnell scholarship. Gemma had focused her studies on medieval Irish history and after receiving her doctorate, she’d been offered a teaching position. One day, last year, while researching an article on medieval prisons, she’d decided to see if there was any truth to the family legend. To her astonishment, everything her mother had told her was there—the emerald, the theft, the trial of the pickpocket, Crevan Quinn.

Yes, there had been an Emerald of Eire, a 72-carat jewel that Stanton Parnell had bought in Europe to give to his young bride. He’d been carrying it in his coat pocket on the streets of Dublin in February of 1848 when a local pickpocket had stolen it. Though Crevan Quinn had been tried and later shipped off to Australia for his crime, the jewel had never been recovered.

Even now, she imagined the headlines in the papers, the proof in black and white that Gemma Moynihan, illegitimate daughter of David Parnell, was an heir to the Parnell millions. Though her mother refused to ask for a DNA test, the emerald would be Gemma’s bargaining chip. If they wanted it back, then David would have to acknowledge her as his daughter.

She’d completed her research in six months and was armed with a list of leads, all of which led her to Australia and the descendants of Crevan Quinn. One didn’t possess a jewel like that without either selling it or passing it down as an heirloom. And since an emerald that size would have caused some notice had it been sold, it was probably still in the Quinn’s possession.