The Mighty Quinns: Malcolm Read Free Page A

was powerful and focused, even in casual conversation. Here was a man who lived life to the fullest, a man who wasn’t afraid of danger. A man she wanted.
    She shifted uneasily, surprised by the depth of her attraction to him. It wasn’t just his looks. It was something deeper, more perplexing. Maybe she admired his courage because she had never had much of her own. She’d spent her entire life accepting what was tossed her way and had never really stood up for herself.
    Until now, she hoped. She was here to change the course of her life. And she wasn’t about to let opportunity slip by, even if it meant approaching an impossibly sexy man and convincing him to do something he wouldn’t want to do.
    A phone rang and Billy moved to the end of the bar to answer it. Amy continued to observe Mal Quinn from her spot at her table, wondering how she ought to introduce herself. Should she take the initiative now, or wait until tomorrow? What if she didn’t get another chance?
    She’d worked as a copy editor for High Adventure magazine for the past six years, hoping for her big break into feature writing. But most of the feature writers were adventurers themselves, out in the world, doing daring deeds and living to tell their tales. She was just an ordinary girl who could write a really good story. An ordinary girl who just happened to be the publisher’s daughter.
    Amy had never wanted to write for an adventure magazine. In truth, she would have been happy working at any one of the numerous women’s publications that her father owned. But with her father’s twisted sense of purpose, he’d put an impossible goal in front of her and challenged her to meet it, all the while assuming she’d fail. That was the way it had always been with Richard Engalls. He wanted his children to prove they were worthy of his valuable attention. Her brother had been a model student and was an adventurer himself. But Amy didn’t seem to possess the Engalls backbone. She was her mother’s daughter, still scarred by her parents’ divorce when she was thirteen, still hoping that her father might notice her and approve.
    Which was why she was here. Amy knew a good story when she read one. And just because she’d never been on a big adventure didn’t mean she couldn’t write an adventure story, did it? For the first time in her life, she’d show her father that she had what it took to succeed in publishing. She’d cashed in her savings and wagered it on one bet—that she could land a feature with the Quinn brothers. She’d follow their journey, documenting the story of the three Quinn brothers in regular articles. It had everything her editor looked for in a feature—conflict, emotion, a high-profile location and adventurers with personality.
    Her editor had scoffed at the notion that Amy could get an exclusive and convince her father to fund the expedition. But beneath his bluster, she could tell the editor had found her idea intriguing, and she didn’t doubt that he’d go to her father at the first available opportunity and ask for the story himself. But Amy was one step ahead of both of them. She took her two weeks of vacation and, after checking Mal Quinn’s online itinerary, bought a plane ticket from New York to Auckland.
    Gathering her courage, she pushed her chair back and walked to the bar. She’d order something to eat and maybe strike up a conversation with Mal. She’d almost reached a spot beside him when his mobile rang. He fished it out of his pocket and then slid off the stool and walked to the front door, stepping out into the afternoon sunshine.
    Amy groaned inwardly. She was no good at this. Give her a manuscript and she could make it pulse with excitement. She was better with words than people, and she’d never been comfortable talking to strangers. And now, because of her dithering, she’d lost her chance. Mal Quinn had walked out the door. What if he didn’t come back? Even worse, what if he did?
    Talking to a