Free The Mighty Quinns: Rourke by Kate Hoffmann Page A

stepped into the front half of the first floor. Rourke saw canvases propped up against the walls and he walked over to examine a painting of the lighthouse. He didn’t know much about art, but he knew the painting was good.
    “You did this?”
    Annie nodded. “It’s no big deal. Sometimes I trade one of my paintings for firewood. Sam Decker’s mother sells them in her shop in town. I heard there’s one hanging in the café now. No one knows I painted it, though, so don’t say anything around town, okay?”
    “Why wouldn’t you want people to know?”
    “I’m not a painter. I don’t want everyone thinking that I am and asking me to paint something for them.”
    “It’s a good way to make money,” he said.
    “I don’t need more money,” Annie replied.
    Rourke bit back a curse. Why was she so afraid to want things in her life? Though she acted as if she was perfectly happy, he could imagine how difficult it was to eke out a living without any visible means of income. Why not sell a few more paintings and get some electricity in her place, or running water?
    “I’d buy one of your paintings,” he said.
    She drew a sheet off a tall, square-shaped cabinet. “Here it is. Help me move it.”
    The cabinet was on wheels and they rolled it to the door and into the warmth of the kitchen. Annie opened the top to reveal an old Victrola. Then she pulled the cabinet door open and grabbed a record. “Remember these?” she asked.
    “Records? Or 78s?”
    “Records,” she said. She put the record on the turntable then took a crank handle out of the cabinet and stuck it into a hole in the side of the Victrola. “You wanted music. You have to wind it up.”
    Rourke turned the crank and then flipped the lever and the record began to spin. He carefully dropped the needle on the edge of the vinyl and a few seconds later, the sound of an aria filled the tiny room.
    “And we have music,” she said, plopping down into her chair near the fire.
    Rourke had never heard anything quite so beautiful as that pure, perfect voice coming out of the old speaker. He pulled more of the recordings from the cabinet and sorted through them. When he found a few big-band recordings he turned off the opera singer and replaced her with Artie Shaw.
    “I love this one,” Annie said, smiling. “‘Begin The Beguine.’ I always wondered just what a beguine was.”
    “Don’t look at me. I don’t have a clue.” Rourke swayed over to her and pulled her to her feet. “It does kind of make you want to dance, doesn’t it?”
    They made a few passes around the room before he pulled her down into the chair, settling her on his lap. “I want to take you out,” he said.
    “Outside?”
    “No. Out. On a date. Tomorrow night. We’ll find a nice restaurant and have a meal that neither one of us has to cook. There’s a really good pizzeria in Port Hawkesbury. Not fancy, but great pizza.”
    Annie shook her head. “I don’t know.”
    “No one knows you there. We’ll just be two regular people having a pizza and a few beers. It will be fun.”
    He could see her searching for an excuse not to go. But in the end, she shrugged. “All right. I like pizza. It won’t be as good as mine, but I’ll try to keep an open mind.”
    Rourke chuckled. “Good idea.” He pulled her close and kissed her. Annie wrapped her arms around his neck and snuggled closer. For a long time, they did nothing but kiss. And though it was tempting to pick her up and take her to bed, he decided that he’d managed to take a very big step forward in getting her to agree to dinner out. He’d let her make the next move.
    “Do you think we could go out for ice cream, too?” she asked.
    “Sure.”
    “I don’t get ice cream a lot. If I carry it home on my bike, it usually melts. In the summer, I ride into town and buy a pint at the supermarket and sit in the park and eat it all before I ride home.”
    Rourke chuckled. “You really are the oddest girl I’ve ever