Page 48 of Quinn

“Well,” Danny looked up from painting the trim, “I don’t need a lot of space, but the price was right.”

“How was the noise level?” Ryan looked to Meg.

“Why?” Danny stopped painting. “Planning on stealing it out from under me?” Since the VA had dropped the ball on Danny’s therapy, after the dust storm incident, Eloise had insisted that he at least try working with Hannah. To everyone’s delight, between Hannah and the horses, and working with the bikes, Danny was almost a new man.

Ryan shook his head. He knew a good deal when he had it and living at the ranch was the closest thing to perfect. “Not me.”

“Here come Quinn and Eloise.” Looking out the window, Meg smiled.

Raising his chin to see over the café curtain, Ryan couldn’t help but smile at his brother and Eloise. The two had been walking down the street, holding hands, and grinning at each other as if there wasn’t anyone else in the world. Any moment now he expected a cat to cross their path and send them flying. Heck, the two were so busy giving each other goo-goo eyes, a cow could cross in front of them and they wouldn’t see it.

“Aren’t they cute?” Meg kept her attention on the couple turning the corner toward the stairs that led to the apartment over the café.

“Adorable.” Ryan hadn’t meant to sound so cynical, but it was frustrating being the only remaining single Farraday. Not that he begrudged his siblings’ happiness with the love of their lives, he just wished more of them still liked going hunting instead of staying home with their wives. That actually made him chuckle under his breath. If his brothers didn’t want to stay home with their loves, Ryan would worry about them. Like it or not, he was the lone bachelor hold out; at least he would be once Quinn finally found the nerve to propose.

“Oh, this is looking wonderful.” Aunt Eileen and Sally May came through the front door, their arms laden with paper bags and taste bud-tantalizing aromas.

Danny pushed to his feet and set the brush down across the can of paint. “Let me help.”

“Nonsense.” Sally May slapped at his hands. “I might be older than you, but I’m perfectly capable of holding a bag of Chinese food.”

“Chinese food?” Meg’s head whipped around. “Since when did you two learn to cook Chinese?”

Aunt Eileen shook her head. “I didn’t. Seems Finn’s new kitchen helper used to work in Chinatown in San Francisco. Yesterday, the guy brought his lunch to work, and Finn was floored at how good it tasted, so today…”

“We’re having Chinese food from an Irish pub.” Ryan laughed. “Makes perfect sense.”

“What makes perfect sense?” Still holding Quinn’s hand, Eloise came into the room, the two dressed in old clothes and ready to work.

His aunt straightened her shoulders and having placed the bags on the counter, hefted her hands onto her hips. “We’re having Chinese food for lunch.”

“Chinese?” Quinn repeated.

“Don’t you start too,” their aunt groused.

“No, ma’am,” Quinn answered promptly.

Standing behind his brother, Ryan was close enough to hear Eloise whisper in Quinn’s ear, “Smart man.” And just like that the two were batting eyes and grinning like two kids in a candy store again.

“What’s this?” Sally May lifted a sheet from the top of a pile of something, exposing a bright red lady’s bicycle. “Oh my.”

Danny’s face lit up. “That’s a special restoration.”

The way Sally May’s fingers gently brushed at the handlebars, then down to the spring cushioned saddle before stopping at the chrome fenders, Ryan got the feeling she was reliving a favorite memory.

“It’s a 1958 Schwinn Hollywood.” Danny beamed, the pride in his work showing.

Sally May nodded. “My daddy gave me a hand-me-down bicycle when I was ten. It was older than me and pretty beat up, but it had a nice new basket on the front and I loved it. Rode all over town and then some.”

“It was shipped to me in pieces from Dallas. Took me forever to source the missing parts, but the woman who sent it is restoring it for her mother. Apparently, it was her grandmother’s bicycle once upon a time.”

Aunt Eileen’s eyes widened. “They sent it to you from Dallas?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“That’s nothing.” Quinn grinned at his business partner. “In the few months since Danny started working out of Fred’s, his reputation is growing not only around here, and not just in Texas, but we’re getting inquiries for vintage bikes and restoration from all over the country.”

Eloise squeezed Quinn’s hand. Ryan didn’t have to be a mind reader or expert on relationships to see the love pouring from her gaze in Quinn’s direction, or the same from him. Those two had to be outdoing all his siblings in the cutesy department. And despite his grumbling about his bachelorhood, he couldn’t be happier for them.

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