by Sienna Blake
The three of them come to stand before me in a wall of rugged muscled man, all with thick brows over deep, dark eyes, strong, stubbled jaws and kissable lips. They must be brothers. For a second I think they’re triplets. But then I notice the subtle differences between them.
The tallest one has the strongest jaw under a five o’clock shadow and the deepest set eyes. He’s the one who climbed out of the truck first. The one who yelled at me with that deep accented voice.
The second one, the one standing in the middle of the trio, is about an inch shorter at around six feet one. He’s the only one who has a smile on his face, a dimple marking his left cheek. He’s the most tanned of the three and appears the friendliest.
The shortest one, still a good six feet tall, has the broadest shoulders, the widest torso. He has a faint scar that mars his top lip and disappears under his beard, the thickest of the three. It doesn’t detract from his attractiveness, quite the opposite. It makes him look mysterious. Sexy. Almost dangerous.
“Are ye feckin’ mad, woman?” the first man says. “What the hell are you tryin’ to do, jumping out in front of my truck? Ye could have been killed.”
He’s scowling at me as if I’ve wronged him personally. I frown. I gave him plenty of time to see me. It’s not like I jumped out in front of his truck. What the hell is his problem?
“Ah, don’t be such a sourpuss, Killian,” the middle one says. His voice isn’t as deep as Killian’s, but it’s more playful, more lyrical. I imagine he’d have an incredible singing voice. “The lass needs us.”
The innuendo in his tone is not lost on me, and my stomach erupts into flutters.
“I need a tow and a mechanic,” I say, trying to ignore the strange feelings coursing around my body. “But I’ll take a lift to the nearest phone instead. Mine won’t get reception out here.”
“You’re American,” the middle one says. His smile broadens into a lopsided grin. He looks on the border of laughing at any moment.
“Don’t hold that against me.”
The middle one laughs. He mumbles something under his breath. It might have been my imagination, but I swear I heard, “I’d rather hold you against me.”
I think I’d rather that, too.
“I’m Fionn,” he says out loud and holds out his hand.
“Savannah.” I take his hand, a shot of electricity going up my arm at the contact. He must have felt it, too, because his brows furrow.
I let out a shaky breath. “I’ve never heard the name Fionn before.”
“A truly Irish name. Named after a legendary Irish hero. These are my brothers, Killian and Aiden.” He thumbs over his shoulder.
So they are brothers.
“But I’m the only one you really need to know.” Fionn grins and my heart flips.
Careful, my inner voice warns me. This one is definitely a heartbreaker. I bet that grin has broken more than its fair share of hearts in this county and the next.
The third brother, Aiden, still hasn’t said anything. But he has been staring at me this whole time. I smile at him and try for a tiny wave. He doesn’t smile back.
“We can give her a lift to town, can’t we, Killian?” Fionn calls back over his shoulder, his eyes still on me.
Killian makes a grunting noise, turns on his heel and strides back to the truck. I can’t help but notice his strong thighs in those jeans or the way he just cuts up the ground with his long legs.
“That means yes in grumpy-speak,” Fionn says with a wink. “Come on.”
Savannah
Killian drives. I sit in the back with Aiden while Fionn sits in the passenger seat, twisted around to face me as we talk. He asks all the usual questions about me: where I’m from, why I’m here in Ireland, how long I’m here and am I single.
I say I’m a tourist on an extended stay, yes, I am a single and avoid all mention of the mess I left behind in New York.
Fionn tells me about the three of them. They’re brothers aged from twenty-seven to twenty-nine, Aiden being the youngest, Killian being the eldest, no surprises there. Irish twins, he jokes, before explaining that’s what they call children born only a year apart. They live and work on a cattle farm in the area. And what a coincidence, they’re all single, too.
I should be scared that I’m alone in a car with three strangers, but I’m not. I’m a New Yorker. I’ve met enough assholes and bad people to know when I’m near one. These men don’t make me feel intimidated or afraid.
In fact, the opposite. In the dry, warm truck, I feel safe. Protected. If I’m honest, very turned on at my proximity to such gorgeous, muscular men. I’m trying not to stare at the smooth lightly tanned skin of their strong forearms, biceps bulging from their shirts or their matching thick lips.
Killian keeps glaring at me through the rearview mirror. He only talks to interject an occasional comment about ignorant drivers or stupid Americans.
I’d be offended if I didn’t sense the way he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. The way this weight crushes him down, dampening his spirit, making him seem much older than his twenty-nine years. Killian has bigger problems than I can know, I imagine. Every time he makes a rude comment I just feel more and more sorry for him. The need to pull him into my arms grows.
Aiden is still just watching me. I can’t read the expression on his face. It’s almost blank. But I can see glimmers of feeling in his eyes. There’s a lot more to this young man than meets the eye. A lot more going on inside than appears on the surface. He makes me strangely curious. He makes me want to peel back his layers and see what’s going on underneath.
“You haven’t told me anything about yourself, Aiden,” I say when I can’t stand it anymore.
“And he won’t,” Fionn says. “He won’t speak.”
“He won’t speak to me? Because I’m a stranger?”
“No, he just won’t speak.”
“You mean he can’t speak?” The mysterious brother was mute?
“Fionn,” Killian says in a low warning.
“He can,” says Fionn, ignoring his brother. “He just won’t.” I don’t miss the slight bitterness in Fionn’s voice. And by the flash of sadness in Aiden’s eye, neither did he.
I turn to Aiden, hoping that my face shows only curiosity and concern. “Why won’t you talk?”
Aiden blinks at me, a sign that he definitely heard me. For a second he looks almost surprised. He’s surprised that I addressed him and not his brothers?
Fionn snorts. “He’s not going to answer you. The doctors say that there’s nothing wrong with his voice. He just hasn’t spoken since—”
“That’s enough,” Killian barks out, a hardness to his tone brooking no argument.
Fionn snaps his mouth shut and sinks back into his seat, facing the front for the first time this whole drive.
Something happened to Aiden. And it’s affected all three of them.
My heart squeezes.
I catch Killian’s dark eyes in the rearview mirror and see the wariness in them. The warning to stay away. Killian would do anything to protect his brothers, this much is clear.
The intensity in his eyes is enough to make me pin my mouth shut even though I’m desperate to know. I push my selfish curiosity aside.
I turn to Aiden and try sign language. “Do you sign?”
Aiden sits up in his seat, brightening up. Light shining in his eyes for the first time since I met him. It transforms his face, animates it, makes him seem all the more beautiful, and I’m almost left breathless.
His hands are large and strong, calluses and cuts marring the otherwise smooth skin, but they move with the gracefulness of a musician. For a moment I get a flash of those fingers playing across my body and my breath hitches.
“You sign?” he asks.
“Yes. I…” I pause, wondering how much of myself to give away. “I have a younger sister who was deaf.” I flinch. “Had, I mean.”
His smile falters when he hears the word had. But he doe
sn’t ask me about her.
Thank God. Because even now it hurts me to think about her. Like a knife ripping into me, the pain as sharp as the day she was first torn away.
“Do your brothers sign too?” I ask, wondering how much of our conversation is being “overheard.” I can sense Fionn watching me and I know Killian keeps glancing at me through the rearview mirror, but I ignore them both.
“They started to learn,” Aiden signs. “Well, at least, Fionn did. He’s so smart. But he doesn’t apply himself to anything.” Aiden’s lip twerks up. “Well, except maybe to chasing women.”
I let out a soft giggle. Aiden rewards me with a shy smile.
“What did he say?” Fionn demands, but I’m too busy watching Aiden’s hands to reply.
“And Killian,” he continues, “he loves me, but he’s too busy for such trivial things. He has…a lot on his plate.”
“Well, you can sign with me, then. I’ll be living around this area for a while.” If I make it alive to this farm I’m supposed to be staying at.
Aiden smiles wide and a dimple pokes out on his left cheek, making him look so boyish. “I’d like that. I don’t…have many friends.” His smile changes, falters, a deep sadness showing beneath the surface. I’m reminded of the Mona Lisa painting with the sorrow behind her smile.
What happened to you, Aiden? I ask with my eyes but don’t dare to sign.
You don’t want to know, he seems to reply with his.
Savannah
Killian pulls up in front of a grocery store in town. The town is cute and so quaint, with gorgeous little houses set among tidy gardens bursting with flowers. It looks nothing like the dirty, smelly, concrete jungle I fled from.
The four of us climb out of the truck and congregate on the wide footpath.
The drizzle has stopped entirely and there’s actual sun peeking out from behind the clouds, now fluffy and white. The weather here is as changeable as hell, I’m beginning to realize. Still, I begin to feel like everything just might turn out okay.
“Go on in, Aiden,” Killian says in a soft voice to Aiden, patting him on the shoulder and slipping him folded notes with the other hand. “We’ll wait here. You know what to get.”
The affection Killian has in his tone for his younger brother warms my heart. And I know he’s sending Aiden in there on his own as a sign of trust in him.
Hmm. Perhaps the grumpy bastard isn’t as bad as he seems.
Aiden smiles up at Killian, respect and love clear on his face before he nods and disappears into the shop. Killian catches my eye and scowls. I suspect he’s going to tell me to fuck off now.
“Fionn,” he barks. “Ye better go see Cormac and tell him where to find her car to get it towed.”
Does he think I’m fucking incompetent? “Excuse me, but I think I can organize getting my car fixed myself. You’ve done enough to help, thanks.” My voice is dripping with snark.
Killian snorts as he eyes me up and down. “No offense, girl, but if you ask him to tow and fix yer car for ye, he’ll see ye comin’ a mile away and take ye for a ride. Let Fionn do it.”
Killian is so demanding. So bossy. So damn infuriating. I want to kiss the shit out of him. Slap! I mean, slap the shit out of him.
Jesus, Savannah.
“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth as I fist my hands into my pockets so I don’t grab Killian around the neck and do just that. “Thanks for your help, Fionn.”
“Anything for you, pretty lady.” Fionn winks before he strides off to wherever he’s going, presumably to organize getting my car fixed by this Cormac fellow, who I assume is a mechanic. I think. I hope.
It’s just Killian and me now.
I glare at him as he glares back. I can’t help but think how damn good-looking he is, even with that scowl on his face. Perhaps the scowl makes him hotter. As if he knows what I’m thinking, it deepens.
Yeah, it definitely makes him hotter.
“Are ye going to stand around gawking at me all day,” he demands, “or are ye going to call whoever it is that cares?”
Asshole.
Beautiful asshole.
“I am not gawking.”
“Yeah, ye are.”
“If I’m gawking, so are you.”
He shakes his head. “Never seen someone so out of place here.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
He waves his hand at me as if he’s batting a fly. “First of all, look at what you’re wearing.”
I stare down at my outfit, a cream cashmere sweater tucked into a high-waisted mandarin, black and cream plaid wool skirt, teamed with diamante opaque tights and latte-colored knee-high boots. Sure it’s crinkled from a six-and-a-half hour flight and over two hours in the car, but I still think I look fabulous.
I look back up to the asshole brother. “You have something against Burberry?”
He frowns. “Burber-what now?”
I roll my eyes. Uncultured ass. “Bur-ber-ry,” I pronounce as if he was dumb. “The brand name.”
“Brand names,” he mutters. “See, there’s your first mistake. Your second… Jaysus, I don’t even know where to start.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re in the west coast of Ireland, girl. There’s no room here for your fancy skirts and fancy shoes and fancy ass car and your…your damn blueberry brand.”
“Burberry.”
“Whatever.”
“Asshole,” I mutter.
He snorts. “Call someone who cares.”
“I will,” I practically yell, startling a passerby walking into the store.
I rummage through my bag—a blue limited-edition Chloe bag, fuck you very much—and find my new phone. Thank God, it has reception. Barely. I can see that tiny single bar there. But one bar is all I need. Just hang on for me, little bar.
I find the number I need and ring it.
Coincidentally, a phone starts blaring in Killian’s pocket. He yanks out his phone from his pocket and answers. “Yeah?”
I hear the echo of Killian’s rich, deep voice in my ear, sliding down my spine. I imagine him standing close enough to talk in my ear this way for real, making me shiver.
Until I realize what the hell this means.
“Killian, why are you answering this call?”
Kilian flinches, then stares at me. “Why the feck are you calling my number?”
Oh. No.
“What did you say your last name is?” I ask, a panic rising in me.
“O’Callaghan.”
O’Callaghan…
Oh. Shit.
It couldn’t be.
“The O’Callaghans that live on Nore Valley Farm?”
“Yeah…” Killian says slowly, “how the hell do ye know that?”
I try to swallow but fail. I can’t decide whether the knot in my throat is from dread or excitement. Or both.
The O’Callaghans were the ones who just accepted my volunteer application.
I am supposed to be staying with the three of them at their farm.
The O’Callaghan brothers are my new bosses.
Out now
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Books by Sienna Blake
Irish Kiss Standalone Series
Irish Kiss
Professor’s Kiss
Fighter’s Kiss ~ coming soon
The Irish Lottery
Quick & Dirty Standalone Series
Three Irish Brothers
My Irish Kings
Royally Screwed
Dark Romeo Trilogy
Love Sprung From Hate (#1)
The Scent of Roses (#2)
Hanging in the Stars (#3)
Bound Duet
Bound by Lies (#1)
Bound Forever (#2)
A Good Wife Standalone Series
Beautiful Revenge
Mr. Blackwell’s Bride
Paper Dolls
About Sienna
Sienna Blake is a dirty girl, a wordspinner of sme
xy love stories and an Amazon Top 20 & USA Today Bestselling Author.
She’s an Australian living in Dublin, Ireland, where she enjoys reading, exploring this gorgeous country and adding to her personal harem of Irish hotties ;)