She couldn’t hear. There was a stampede in her ears. “What do you mean?” she whispered as she tried to find her breath.
“I mean,” as he lowered his head to hers and placed it beside her head. She felt his breath on her ear as he continued. “I love you. You love me. Usually, when two people love each other, they do something about it. What I’m asking, is what are we going to do about it?”
Quinn raised his head and met her eyes. Zoe could feel the shiver travel through her body as she lost herself in the beautiful blue of his eyes. She could stay in those eyes forever and never need to look at another.
“Zoe…”
“Quinn…”
“If I may, I’d like to kiss you now?” he asked as he smiled at her.
Zoe had no chance to reply. His lips were already on a slow course to meet hers as Quinn spoke the words. She made no attempt to stop him. In fact, she was sure her heart might explode if he didn’t. She waited for that moment and then that moment was now.
It wasn’t like the rushed kiss she’d given him. This one was slow and mutual. He pressed his lips to hers and Zoe unintentionally hummed a breath as her heart took flight. Her arms rose and wound around Quinn’s neck as the kissed deepened and his hands held her tighter. Her fingers clutched his long hair as she held him to her. They were both breathless by the time they parted.
“If it’s all right, I’d like to court you now,” Quinn laughed. “What d’you say?”
Zoe laughed back. “I’d say it’s about time.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Life was different when there were no secrets between them. Quinn could feel it. It was as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders, and the breath he’d been holding as he kept that secret, was now exhaled. His lungs were clear and the world was a much better place.
In the weeks since they’d confessed their feelings towards each other, everything about their lives had changed, and for the better. Quinn found himself waking with a smile at the prospect of seeing Zoe each morning. He’d step out of his room just as she stepped out of hers. Sometimes he lingered by his door until she came out, or vice versa. Either way, she was the first person he saw each day and the last each night.
That morning, Quinn had other reasons for wanting to see Zoe. His mind was full of questions. Questions only Zoe could answer.
He waited outside his door for the one at the other end of the hall to open. It was the longest wait of his life as he stood there watching the handle for signs of her coming out. A smile was tugging on the corners of his lips despite his attempts to remain calm.
It wasn’t long before Quinn heard the tell-tale sound of her door opening. She always came out around the same time each day. A smile slowly crept up his cheeks as she stepped out in her burgundy dress and black boots, her dark red hair twisted up on top of her head. She smiled when she saw him.
“Good morning,” she greeted him as she approached.
“Good morning to you,” Quinn replied, as he sauntered in her direction.
“We really need to stop meeting like this,” Zoe mused playfully.
“Why? I rather like this,” Quinn replied. “May I?”
He extended his arm to her and Zoe took it without reservation. Everyone in the saloon knew they were a couple and half of Shaniko along with them. It wouldn’t be long, he surmised, before everyone was aware of their love. He didn’t care. His feelings for Zoe were sure, he knew it, and it wasn’t going to fade just because a bunch of people knew about it and had something to say.
“How did you sleep?” Zoe asked, as they walked down the stairs together.
“Fine, as usual,” Quinn answered. “You?”
“Good,” she answered. “I went to bed thinking about some improvements I’d like to make to the hotel. I was thinking of extending the back and adding some extra rooms.”
“Sounds good,” Quinn commented, as he considered the proposal. “Would take some time.”
“Yes, but I could do it room-by-room, make things easier. Have the outer shell done and then build in the rooms so that the inconvenience would be less. There’re so many more people passing through town these days and they need someplace to stay. I’d be a fool not to take advantage of that.”
Quinn smirked. “And you, Miss Zoe Ferguson, are no fool.”
“You’re right about that,” she answered with a smile. “Are you joining me for some breakfast this morning, or do you have something to do?”
A deep sigh left Quinn’s lips at her question. “I wanted to have breakfast with you. There are some things I wanted to talk about.”
Zoe’s brow wrinkled. “What is it?”
“I have questions about my mother. I need you to tell me about her,” he answered.
Zoe nodded slowly. “I expected as much. I was the same. I’d be happy to tell you anything you want to know. I’ll go ask Weyland to bring our meal into my office. You can wait for me there.”
Quinn smiled and turned toward the office. He was due at the Sheriff’s Office in a few hours. It was more than enough time to ask Zoe the questions that plagued him.
He paced the room while he waited for her. He didn’t know why he was so nervous. It was as if he was a boy again, waiting for punishment or a reward. When Zoe final arrived his heart was racing.
She smiled at him. “You can sit,” she teased as she looked at him. She walked over to him and kissed his cheek. “What d’you wanna know?”
Quinn swallowed his anxiety as he took a seat. Zoe scooted onto the edge of her desk as she looked at him. Her expression was calm and composed, the complete opposite of how he felt.
Where did he begin? What did he want to know first? Why she gave him away? Why she never came to look for him if she was willing to adopt Zoe after she’d given him up? There were dozens of questions and Quinn couldn’t decide which one to start with.
“Why did she give me up?” he asked finally. It made sense to start at the beginning and his story began when she gave him away.
Zoe looked at him sadly. “I can’t answer that. I don’t know. My mother told me the truth about you and me shortly before I left home. She never explained what happened. She just said she had a child before me, a son, which she gave away because she couldn’t care for him…for you.”
“So she didn’t give you any hint as to why?” he questioned.
Zoe shook her head. “No. I wasn’t really listening, either. I was upset about everything.”
“Upset?”
“I felt as if my entire life was a life. I felt as if both of my families tricked me my entire life into believing one thing, when another was the truth.” She sighed. “I was determined to show them both I could make it on my own without them.”
“That’s why you came to Shaniko? You came here to run away from the truth?” Quinn stated. It all made sense. He thought Zoe was running from something, and that it was what propelled her. He was wrong about her mother being a single woman, but he was right about that. Zoe had run away from home.
“Yes,” she admitted. “I thought I could prove to everyone that I didn’t need them or their lies.” She hung her head. “I said some terrible things then. I was hurt and upset.”
“I can imagine. I always knew I was adopted. My parents told me as soon as I was old enough to know. I suppose I would’ve been upset, too, if I learned the truth later, after I thought I knew who I was, and who my family was.”
“Thankfully, my mother and father were willing to forgive me. They understood I was lashing out. Still, it can’t ever make up for how I acted. The day I left Mother gave me the brooch, and despite everything, she let me know she loved me and would be there for me.”
I wonder if she felt the same way about me?
“Did she ever tell you my birth name?”
Zoe shook her head.
“What does she look like?” he asked quickly, as more questions began to roll around in his head.
“I have a picture, if you want to see?”
Zoe stated as she got up from the edge of her desk and walked around behind it. She pulled open a drawer and took a picture out. “This is her.”
Quinn took the photo, and there, looking back at him, was a woman who looked remarkably like him. She had black hair like his, with a straight nose, and even-set eyes. Her face was heart-shaped and her cheeks plump. She was smiling in the photo.
“She looks happy,” he commented as he handed the photo back to Zoe.
“You can keep it,” she stated. “I have more. Mother is happy. One of the happiest people I know. You can always count on her for a smile of encouragement or for something to make you laugh, though she isn’t funny in the least,” Zoe laughed.
Quinn smiled with her as he took the photo back and placed it in his top pocket.
Zoe stepped forward and knelt beside him. “I just had an idea.”
“What?” Quinn asked, as he looked down at her. She was still smiling. She looked so happy. Happier than she ever had before.
“Why don’t we go home? It’s been six years since I left. Five for you. Recently I’ve been thinking about Mother and the way I left. You have questions I can’t answer. We should go home and see our families. I think it’s time we both put the past to rest.”
Quinn stood outside the station with a look of concern on his face. Zoe left him almost half an hour before with the promise to be back soon and she had yet to return.
“Where can she be?” he asked himself, as he paced the walkway beside the coach. The sun was only a quarter way in the sky. It was always best to travel early on such long journeys, but he was growing concerned that they might just miss their coach if Zoe didn’t come back soon.
Several more minutes passed before he saw her walking briskly toward him. “Sorry I took so long. I was tying up some matter at the saloon, and then Wiley got me pulled into some issue with a supplier, and before I knew it more than an hour had passed. I’m so sorry,” she apologized.
“It’s all right. You’re here now,” Quinn said with a smile. “Get in. I think we’ll be leaving soon.”
“Now,” the driver interrupted as he walked up to Quinn. He looked back at the man and gave a nod before stepping into the coach after Zoe. The driver closed the door behind them.
“Is it only us?” Zoe asked. Her brow wrinkled slightly in curiosity. Quinn smoothed it with his thumb.
“Looks that way,” he answered.
She smirked back at him. “Alone with you for all these hours? However will I endure?” she teased.
“You? What about me? Stuck in a small space with a tenacious and beautiful woman. I just don’t know how a man is supposed to cope with such hardships,” he replied, as he tried to suppress a laugh. It didn’t work. It wasn’t long before they were both laughing. Zoe nestled her head against his shoulder and locked her arm around his.
“I’m glad we decided to go home,” she commented, as she made herself more comfortable.
“So am I,” Quinn replied.
The plan fell into place easily once the decision was made. Zoe suggested it, and not two days later, after speaking with Sheriff Watts, Quinn was given leave to go home for a while to settle personal matters. The Sheriff understood. Quinn spent five years chasing a man. He hadn’t seen his family in a long time, and as a family man himself, he was able to empathize.
The coach slowly rolled away from the station as Quinn looked out. He could still remember the day he rode into town, hot on the trail of Victor Norton. Now, he was taking a coach out with the woman he loved by his side and the future awaiting him. He never thought of the future before then, but it was already before him, staring him in the eye and challenging him to decide what it would look like.
Quinn closed his eyes and pulled the shade down. It wasn’t long before Zoe’s even breaths were lulling him to sleep. They barely slept the night before as they prepared for their trip. Zoe was anxious about leaving the saloon for so long. In six years, she’d never left it to anyone else to manage for more than a few hours. It was almost like separating a mother and her baby, and Quinn found it both endearing and amusing.
He didn’t sleep long. He was amazed he slept at all. When Quinn opened his eyes, Zoe was still asleep against his shoulder. He smiled at the peaceful expression on her face. Then his eyes drifted to her gloved hand. A thought came to him that brought a smile to his face, and a moment later he was slipping the glove from her fingers.
He’d kept his plan a secret for a week, but there was no better time than the present. It was just the two of them. They had their own private space with the beauty of Oregon sprawling around them. He couldn’t think of a better way to do it.
Quinn took Zoe’s hand as he reached into his breast pocket where the brooch, the photo of his mother, and the ring, were kept. He slipped the gold band out, the small diamonds glistening in the sunlight that filtered through the open flap on Zoe’s side of the coach. It wasn’t the most expensive ring, but it was the nicest thing they had in Shaniko and he wasn’t willing to wait longer to get something better. He didn’t want to wait anymore. He knew what he wanted and he was ready for it.
He held the ring out in front of Zoe’s finger. He hesitated for a moment, then slid it into place. It looked perfect on her hand, almost as if it was made for her.
The ring was only on her hand a few seconds when Zoe stirred. She groaned as she pushed herself up on his shoulder. Then she stilled. Quinn looked down at Zoe, whose eyes weren’t on him, but her hand.
She turned to him suddenly. “What’s this?”
“What does it look like?” he asked with a smile.
Zoe’s bottom lip trembled but no words came out.
“Zoe Ferguson, I love you. I know I’m gonna love you for the rest of my life. I know this might seem quick, but once I’ve made up my mind it’s made, and I have. I want you to be my wife. I want you in my life, for the rest of my life…and I won’t take no for an answer,” he said with a smile.
Zoe’s eyes glistened as she grinned up at him. “You mean that?”
“I wouldn’t lie to you. Not again,” Quinn assured.
She smiled brighter. “Then yes. I’ll be your wife.”
Quinn leaned toward her as Zoe raised her chin. He pressed his lips to hers tenderly, sealing their commitment with a kiss. It was the perfect confirmation of their love. He knew what the future held. It was Zoe.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Zoe’s body ached as she stepped off the carriage outside her parent’s home in Boston. She looked up at the building that she hadn’t seen in five years. She smiled. She could remember the way she left it. The determination and sadness she felt as she walked away from the house and got into a carriage to the train station. She left alone but she wasn’t returning alone.
Quinn stepped out of the carriage behind her. He wasted no time retrieving their luggage from the back. He paid the driver and then set the bags on the sidewalk beside her. “This is it?”
Zoe nodded. “This was my home.” She turned to look at him.
“You’re nervous?” he questioned. She marveled at how easily he could read her.
“A little,” she admitted. “When I left here, I was an angry young woman wanting to prove something to the world and to herself. Today, I am a successful saloon and hotel owner.” She looked at the ring on her finger. “And an engaged woman.”
“Not just that,” Quinn added. “Your fiancé is me…the son your adopted mother gave away.” He chuckled. “You’re not alone. I’m nervous, too. I don’t know how she’ll take it.”
“Neither do I,” Zoe answered. “I still think we should’ve written to let her know we were coming.”
Quinn shook his head. “No. I wanted this to be a surprise. She said the brooch would lead me home, and it has.”
“Then I think it’s time we go home,” Zoe answered with a smile. She held out her hand and Quinn took it. She squeezed it lightly as anxiety and excitement began to build inside her as they walked toward the door.
The dark frame looked freshly painted. Her father had clearly been hard at work. Their home was not the largest on the block, but it was the warmest. Her mother made it so.
The house itself was narrow, as were all the houses on the street, and stood three-stories tall. The ground floor had the living room, a small library, the dining room and kitchen. The second had the music room, the parlor, and family rooms, while the third was the servants’ quarters and the attic. There was a garden at the rear of the house, which shared a wall with the house on the other street. It was one of the nicer homes in the area and much larger than most.
Zoe smiled as she looked at the place where she’d spent her youth. Her father was always doing things around the house to improve it. It was comforting to see that things hadn’t changed in her absence. There wasn’t enough space for both of them on the stoop, so Quinn stepped back to allow Zoe to step up first. She raised her hand and knocked.
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