by Janie Crouch
Lexi raised an eyebrow and gave a half-grin. God, whenever she did that Quinn could swear she knew the other woman from somewhere.
But then Lexi would withdraw back into herself, shutting down her expressive features, and the feeling would vanish.
“Not a date,” Quinn murmured again.
“Well, everyone says Baby is a fantastic mechanic. If your car can be fixed, he’ll get it done. And honest too—doesn’t ever overcharge.”
“Yeah. I’ll make the call soon.” That was a conversation she wasn’t looking forward to. The awkwardness would be horrible, she knew, but she would keep it professional...somehow.
“You know Baby, for all his charm and panty-meltingness, isn’t really a player when it comes to women—or at least that’s what the rumor mill says.” Lexi went back behind the bar. “I’m surprised he didn’t show up for your date. Doesn’t seem his normal MO.”
“It wasn’t a date,” Quinn said again. “He and I both agreed it wasn’t a date.”
After he’d kissed her senseless. And made her orgasm in a way she hadn’t thought was possible.
Lexi held up a hand in surrender. “If you say so, I won’t argue. How’d you get into work today?”
“I walked.” Quinn took her last sip of coffee and put her cup into the dishwasher. She didn’t want to hear her boss’s opinion about walking the two and a half miles into town from her house. “I’m picking up a rental after work.”
Another expense she couldn’t afford. But missing her classes again today was absolutely not an option. She’d missed on Friday, and despite immediately sending proof of her emergency room visit to the Teton State College dean, she’d still been reprimanded.
As soon as she’d gotten home on Friday, despite not being able to see out of one eye, she’d fired up her computer to send her students instructions and work to make up for the missed class.
And found an email from Dean Edmonds herself. Evidently, she’d been warned of Quinn’s “tendency toward drama” when she’d hired Quinn as an adjunct. She wanted Quinn to know that sort of behavior would not be tolerated at TSC.
Quinn wanted to shoot back that next time she was bleeding on the side of the road she’d be sure to drag herself to class anyway but figured that wouldn’t help the situation.
She’d learned the hard way that losing her composure—even when she was right—didn’t improve an academic situation. Maybe if she’d kept her cool with Peter, she’d still have a job back at Harvard.
Instead of writing a heavily worded email like she’d wanted, Quinn had politely apologized and assured Dean Edmonds she would do her best not to miss any more classes.
She definitely didn’t plan to run her car off the side of any more roads in the near future.
She was renting a car today right after her lunch shift. The timing should be right to get her to her class this afternoon, plus still have it to go back for tomorrow’s class. A one-day rental was all she could afford.
She was going to have to let Riley know she was in town.
Another conversation she wasn’t looking forward to.
Hey, little brother! What’s up with me? Oh, nothing. Just lost my job, my credibility, had to leave Boston, am pretty much broke, crashed my car, am living here in Wyoming, and, uh, probably need to borrow money.
What’s up with you? Sorry to hear your girlfriend has MS and all.
Yeah, not going to be a good conversation.
Lexi headed back toward the kitchen. “There was some sort of big brouhaha involving the Linear Tactical guys and half the town the past few days, so I have no idea how that will affect the lunch crowd today. There was a wedding reception here on Thursday evening, but it ended quick.”
The wedding reception she’d almost been a part of. “What happened?”
“I don’t know. I hear Riley Wilde, everyone around here calls her Girl Riley since her boyfriend’s name is also Riley, was kidnapped by some guy from Dubai or something.”
Quinn nearly dropped the coffee pot she’d picked up to wash out. “What?”
“Yeah. Evidently, she’s back home, safe and sound, and swears the only kidnapping involved was by her boyfriend. Which wouldn’t actually be a surprise since her boyfriend is a kind of an extreme sports star.”
“Phoenix.”
“You’ve heard of him? I wouldn’t have thought extreme sports was your thing. But I guess everyone has heard of him.”
“Yeah I know him. They’re both okay?” She’d been so buried in her own problems all weekend while Riley was having real ones.
“Fine as far as I know. I try my best to stay out of town gossip, although that’s a near-impossible feat around here.”
That settled it. Quinn definitely needed to stop being childish and talk to her brother. She might need some help from him, but it looked like he might need some help from her too. Riley had always been so adventurous and self-sufficient. Definitely more worldly than Quinn, even though he was younger. The thought he might need her had never occurred to her.
Her phone rang in her hand, and for a moment, her heart leapt when she saw a Cambridge area code. Could they be calling because they’d realized they’d been wrong in what they accused her of?
Could this entire nightmare be over?
She had time before she needed to prep for her shift, so she walked toward the back door.
“Hello.”
“Quinn.”
“Peter?” Her stomach dropped and every hope was dashed in an instant. Her ex-husband was chair of Media Studies, a sister department to her own Comparative Literature area. He would not be the one calling if they were going to offer Quinn her position back.
“Where are you, Quinn?”
Where was she? Why was he asking that? “Why do you want to know?”
“Just answer the question.”
She was so used to responding to his demands and instructions that she answered without thinking. “I’m standing outside of a restaurant called the Eagle’s Nest.”
As soon as she said the words, she wanted to take them back. It was none of Peter’s business where she was. He wasn’t her husband anymore. Wasn’t her mentor. Wasn’t even her colleague.
“Where is that? Is that on the southside of town? I know you moved out of your apartment. Where are you living?”
She bristled. “Why do you care? It’s none of your business. And why are you calling me on this number?” It wasn’t his cell or office.
“This is Nancy’s phone. Mine was stolen.”
“Oh. Sorry, I guess.”
“Someone broke into my house yesterday, stole some electronic equipment including my phone, and trashed the place. Sound familiar?”
Of course, it did. It was exactly what had happened to her Harvard office.
Everyone thought she’d done it to herself. Part of the reason she’d been fired and blacklisted—the “tendency toward drama” Dean Edmonds had been talking about in her email.
Quinn rolled her eyes, tired of repeating the same statement she’d made weeks ago. “I didn’t break into my own office, Peter. And I definitely did not break into your house yesterday.”
There was silence at the other end for a long moment. Peter was nothing if not the master of waiting someone out. How many times had she sat across from him—in his office or at their kitchen table—with him just sitting there waiting for her to say more.
At one time she’d appreciated that about him. She’d thought he’d wanted her to find the answers for herself. Peter was eight years older than she was and had been well-established in his own academic career by the time the two of them had met.
It had been two years ago when, just shy of their tenth anniversary, Peter had sat across from her calmly and quietly—as he did all things—and told her he wanted a divorce. He’d dropped his nuclear bomb and patiently waited across the table without saying anything more.
It was then she’d realized that Peter’s silence wasn’t a teaching tool. His silence was
because he was smart enough to realize that if he kept his mouth shut, other people generally did something to put him at an advantage.
But by that point, she’d learned from the master. She didn’t sob or ask what she could’ve done differently when she’d worked so hard to be the perfect partner for him. She’d simply agreed to the divorce.
As soon as possible, they’d gone before a judge and ended their marriage the way it had begun—practically and with little fanfare.
She’d done it all with a quiet dignity she was proud of...right up to the point where she’d lost every shred of that dignity and had screamed at Peter in his office until security had come to escort her out. Her face flamed at the memory of the two security officers, each gripping an elbow as they’d escorted her from the building, the eyes of students and colleagues glued to her.
“So help me, Quinn, if this is you back to your childish antics again, I won’t stand for it. There are still plenty of witnesses who remember your outburst this summer.”
Yeah, a whole department full of colleagues had been there to witness her demise. “But none of them know the real reason behind it, do they, Peter? They don’t know what you did. How’s Nancy’s ring?”
Her insides churned at the memory. But she’d learned the hard way that letting her feelings loose did nothing but cost her. It definitely didn’t get back the money Peter had taken.
“That was a joint account.”
“That was the sabbatical money I’d been saving for my entire career,” she snarled low into the phone. If she had access to that money, she wouldn’t be in the position she was in right now.
“You were making childish and borderline illegal decisions. Me taking that money was saving you from yourself.”
There was no arguing with him. He refused to accept that she wasn’t guilty of the things he—and then the department—had accused her of and had insisted on casing himself in the role of benevolent savior.
“Goodbye, Peter.”
“Don’t force me to press charges!” Even Peter’s yell didn’t contain much passion. “I have witnesses from your breakdown a few months ago. The police want to question you first about the break-in.”
Which meant he had thrown her under the bus when they’d asked who would do something like this.
Just like he had this past summer with the other events.
“I’m in Wyoming visiting my brother. I’ve been here for two weeks. So good luck catching the real culprit.”
She disconnected the call before he could say anything further. It felt good putting him on the receiving end of silence for once.
Quinn got through the rest of her shift by not focusing on anything but getting the orders right and making tips. She didn’t need to think about anything else.
Not Peter. Not Baby. Not her mounting bills. Just surviving.
That was going to be hard enough.
The lunch crowd was dying down, but Quinn still had about an hour left in her shift before she needed to leave to pick up a rental car when Lexi called her back to the kitchen.
“Time for you to go. Mac and I have it from here.”
“Are you sure? I’m not really in too much of a hurry. All I have to do is rent a car to get to my other job.”
Lexi waved a hand at her in a shooing motion. “Yeah, about that. I think you better head out to the parking lot. Someone’s waiting for you out there.”
Shit. This had to mean Riley was back in town and had heard she was here.
She grimaced and untied her apron. Might as well face the music now. “Okay, thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
She rehearsed her speech in her head as she walked, trying to figure out the very least amount she could get away with telling her brother. He had his own problems to deal with, and she didn’t want to add to them.
But when she got out to the parking lot, it wasn’t Riley waiting for her. It was Baby, standing in front of her car.
She never thought she would say this, but he looked awful. His face was bruised like he was the one who’d been in a car accident. His eyes were sunken and shadowed like he hadn’t slept in days.
She took a step toward him. “Are you okay? What happened?”
He gave her a half smile. “Yeah. Had a little accident. My brother unexpectedly needed me to carve out a new area for a swimming pool in his yard.”
That was some sort of joke, right? Nobody in Wyoming dug a swimming pool at the beginning of November. This was some reference she didn’t understand because she was too old and too stuck in her ivory tower.
“Oh...” That seemed like the best thing to say so she didn’t sound like a complete idiot.
She glanced around. “How did you get my car? I was going to call today about having it towed. I wasn’t sure if you’d want to work on it. After...well, everything.”
“I missed our date—”
“It wasn’t a date,” she muttered.
He continued without acknowledging her statement. “Small town. I heard you had an accident and figured out where it happened when I saw the skid marks on the road from Pike’s Peak. It didn’t take much to find your car down the hill.”
He brought up a hand to rub his eyes, then winced. That many bruises on his face had to hurt.
“Anyway, I took it upon myself to have it towed to the shop and went ahead and fixed it this morning. Not the bodywork, it’s still got its dents and scratches. But I was able to get it running for you and fix the window.”
“You were? Oh my gosh. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wanted to. If I had been there Friday morning, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
“I appreciate it.” She didn’t want to seem ungrateful. “How much do I owe you?” She prayed it wouldn’t be too much as she tried to calculate the amount of money Baby had paid out of pocket to help her.
“Did you get under the hood and try to fix anything yourself recently? Have you been having problems with steering or brakes?”
She could barely figure out how to get the hood open, much less fix anything inside. “I hadn’t had any problems with it until I was coming down the hill and both decided to stop working at the same time.”
He nodded. He looked like he was going to say something but decided not to. “Okay.”
“How much for everything?”
He took a step closer then stopped. “Roughly thirty dollars for the parts. Labor and towing are free since you were up there because of me to begin with.”
She deflated as she blew out a sigh of relief. Thirty dollars was less than the rental car was going to cost her for a single day. “Thank you,” she whispered around the lump lodged in her throat.
“Quinn, I’m sorry. It really was an emergency, or I never would’ve missed our date.”
“It wasn’t a date.”
He took a step closer, and she couldn’t help it, she took a step back.
“Quinn...”
She shook her head. “I believe you. I really do. Lexi said something about some emergency, and I don’t doubt that you were off playing hero. But let’s face it, this is probably the universe stepping in to stop things before they begin. You and I are from different worlds, so let’s not pretend that our date or non-date had anywhere to go.”
He handed Quinn her keys but didn’t let go of her hand. “Staying away from you is not what I want.”
She gave him a sad smile. “You know the one thing I discovered most clearly as I’ve turned thirty-nine? You don’t always get what you want in life. And Mick Jagger also got it wrong. Most of the time you don’t even get what you need.”
Chapter Eleven
Quinn’s words about not getting what you want or need still echoed inside Baby’s head five days later as he left Teton State College, his permanent withdrawal form in his hand.
He’d already withdrawn from the specific literature class a couple weeks ago when he’d realized he wasn’t going to pass, despite the new professor.
But this form
was different. This was officially withdrawing from the college itself. Accepting that he wouldn’t try again next semester. If he hadn’t been able to pass the Composition and Literature courses individually, there was no reason to think he’d be able to successfully tackle all three simultaneously, so he wasn’t going to try.
Admitting defeat.
He had all the signatures he needed to walk away from college for good. All that was left now was to file the form and this charade of attempting to get his bachelor’s degree would be officially over.
He would’ve already turned it in if he hadn’t caught the name of that new literature professor that had replaced Mr. Lewis. Dr. Pritchard.
Dr. Quinn Pritchard.
There was no doubt in Baby’s mind that was his Quinn. That was why she’d freaked out when she’d found out his real name last week. Because it was Blake Bollinger who was listed on her roster, not someone named Baby. She hadn’t known it was him.
But seeing her name on his withdrawal form had given him pause, preventing him from turning in the final paperwork. He didn’t know why—he wasn’t ever going to have her as an instructor. He wasn’t going to have anyone as an instructor anymore.
He was going to have to find another way to keep the garage. But damned if he knew how.
He decided to stop for a bite to eat closer to campus before heading back to town where he would have to pretend that everything was okay.
Not that anyone would know he’d dropped out of college—nobody knew he’d been taking classes to begin with. He’d made sure no one knew. He didn’t want to have to answer questions if things didn’t work out.
Quinn knew. He’d have to ask her to keep that to herself. Surely, she’d do that. She had quite a few secrets of her own.
Like why she was teaching at a state college in Wyoming rather than back at Harvard.
He saw her as soon as he walked into the cafe. Too many years of living with the Linear Tactical guys had taught him to scan a room for potential threats when entering.
And Quinn was definitely a threat, although what type, he wasn’t sure.
