Seth was blank for a minute, then remembered asking the firm about Quinn. “Oh, yes. I hired a housekeeper for the ranch and wanted a quick idea about her background. How did you know?”
“I was checking your shared files to archive them, and I found the report.”
Owen was nothing if not thorough. “Okay.”
“So, is she living there, or does she come and go?”
He had no idea why Owen cared one way or the other. “It’s a live-in arrangement for now.”
“So, her name’s Quintin Lake?”
“Yes. She goes by Quinn.” He wanted to cut this short. “Why are you so interested that you’re calling me at this time of night about a housekeeper?”
“I’m interested because I know her.”
That got his attention. “What?”
“She was here on the same day you left for the ranch the last time. Do you remember me telling you about some guy I was meeting about a program that would redefine cybersecurity?”
He remembered. “Yes, I do.”
“He turned out to be a she, and if your Quinn Lake is a blond lady, that’s who I met.”
Seth just stared at the monitor.
“I got rid of her, but she left an outline of a project called Michael’s Shield that she wanted to offer for a buy-in.”
Seth felt as if someone had punched him in the stomach. He remembered that second night when Quinn questioned him about coauthoring projects and going outside his company for ideas. Her husband had done coding, was a genius at it, supposedly. He never thought anything of it. But now he knew Quinn had been on the road that day intending to find him. He didn’t understand how she could’ve even known where he was, but she’d been coming after him to sell him something called Michael’s Shield. It always boiled down to the money. At least when it came to him it did.
“I’m sending the background-check dossier to you now.” Owen looked down, then back up. “It should be there.”
Seth checked his inbox and nodded. “I have it.”
“What do you—” Owen started.
Seth cut off the call with a “Talk to you later.” He quickly pulled up the attached file and clicked it to open it. It came right up. Requested: B.G. scan for Quintin Grayson Churchill Lake.
When he’d finished the first three pages of the seven-page report, he stopped reading. He knew that Quinn had been married to Michael Lake. Truth. She’d taught third grade at Dale Brady Elementary School in Pasadena. Truth. She’d married Michael Scott Lake right after graduation, then taught for six months before she’d walked away to be caregiver for her husband as he fought leukemia. Truth.
After her husband had passed, there was little available about Quinn, except her taking a string of substitute teaching assignments until six months ago, presumably when she’d left California and started traveling. She’d finally made her way to Seattle. When he’d been in the building, targeting him to try to sell her husband’s work.
She hadn’t simply lied about the job—a lie he’d talked himself into forgiving her for by minimizing it to get past it. His stomach clenched and for a moment he thought he was going to be physically ill, then it settled into a knot in his gut. He’d wanted to believe her, and had actually come to trust her. He wasn’t sure of much of anything right then, except she was out there waiting for him.
* * *
WHEN SETH DIDN’T come back right away, Quinn crossed the great room to the sliding doors to look out at the night. Only slivers of moonlight broke through dark clouds roiling across the heavens. Seth had said a storm might be coming, and it looked as if he’d been right.
“Quinn?”
She turned as Seth stepped down onto the flagstone floor, carrying some rolled up paper in one hand. He looked serious as he came over to her, stopping with just a few feet of space separating them. “Bad news?” she asked.
He stared at her without blinking. “Yeah. Bad.” His voice sounded oddly flat.
She quickly asked, “It’s not Tripp, is it?”
“No. I was on a call from the company.”
“Oh, then I’ll leave you to do what you need to do.”
He shook his head. “No. We need to talk.”
His eyes were narrowed on her, as if he couldn’t quite look fully at her. Uneasiness prickled at the nape of her neck. “Talk about what?”
He was silent for a long tense moment, then he stunned her. “You said your husband was great at coding. You neglected to tell me about Michael’s Shield.”
For a horrifying moment, Quinn felt as if she’d faint. Quickly, she brushed past him and went over to the couch. There was no running away from what she had to do, so she sat down and tried to catch her breath, hoping she could put the right words together. Then Seth was standing over her. “I… I can explain about Michael’s Shield.”
“I’m sure you can,” he said in a voice devoid of anger or any other emotion at the moment.
There would be no explaining anything. She knew that by the way Seth was looking at her, hard, without any softness in his eyes. “How did you—”
He sat down on the ottoman and held the papers in his hand out to her. “This is the background check on you. We do it with all new hires,” he responded as he tossed the papers onto the couch beside her.
Clasping her hands to make sure they wouldn’t start shaking, she said, “Seth, you need to understand—”
“What I understand is you came to corporate headquarters to sell me something your husband had developed. Owen Karr sent you on your way, but somehow you found out about me coming here, and you followed me.” He exhaled in a rush as his expression grew taut. “I have no idea how you found out about the ranch, but I know that some grand plan didn’t have a thing to do with anything between us.”
“When you assumed I was looking for that job, I thought, just maybe, if we got to know each other—”
“Got to know each other?” he asked. “So that’s what you call what you were doing, getting to know me? Here I was thinking you…” He pushed that away. “It was all a lie.”
Quinn felt as if she was fading away, losing her grip on everything around her. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing to stop what was happening. The kind, gentle man was gone, and the child who had never trusted anyone was there full force, angry and hurt, and it was worse than she’d ever thought it would be. “No, it wasn’t. I know I should’ve told you right away, but I…didn’t know how to get anyone to listen to me. And I thought if I got to know you, I’d understand you better and…”
Words caught in her throat as she realized he was looking at her with pain now. No explanation would take that away. He’d never trust her again. She had to leave. She’d done enough damage here. She certainly didn’t want Tripp around this mess she’d made. She’d leave humiliated and broken.
“I’m sorry, so sorry,” she managed to say.
Seth leaned toward her, only inches separating them, and she didn’t know why she wasn’t crying. “When were you going to tell me, Quinn? Or were you going to play me until I got so tangled up in you that you could’ve asked me for anything, and I’d have given it to you?”
Those words hurt in a way she’d never experienced before. He wasn’t shouting. He wasn’t threatening. He was just saying something that he totally believed she was capable of doing to him. “Stop,” she whispered unsteadily. “Please.”
He spoke as if she’d said nothing. “Keep looking for someone to buy your husband’s work, because I have no interest in anything you’re offering.”
Something broke in her. “If I’d told you right at the start why I was on the road that day, you wouldn’t have listened to me. You would’ve done the right thing by my car and with the medical stuff, then walked away. All I wanted was one person to listen to me, and look at Michael’s work, and no one would. None. I tried so hard. But I did this al
l wrong. I know I did.”
He grimaced. “I guess we’ll never know what would’ve happened if you’d been truthful from the start.”
He stood and reached into his back pocket. He pulled out his wallet, took money out, then pushed it toward her. “This should cover what I owe you for services rendered.” She stared at several hundred-dollar bills. “If it’s not enough, bill me.”
She stood abruptly, ignoring the money, almost colliding with Seth, who stepped back quickly to avoid the contact. “I’ll get out of your way in the morning. Just…tell Tripp that I—”
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell him about your lies,” she heard him say.
Her heart was breaking. “Please, for his sake, tell Tripp I’ll never forget him.”
She saw him swallow hard. “I’ll protect him.”
Quinn made it to her room, closed the door, then sank down on the side of the bed in the room filled with night shadows. She heard footsteps in the hallway, followed by Seth’s office door opening then closing hard. She was shaking when she took Michael’s box out from under the pillow and held on to it for dear life. It was her only lifeline. Then she remembered the picture by the lamp base. Laying the box back by the stack of pillows, she reached for the photo.
“I’m so sorry. I ruined everything,” she whispered to Michael as she pressed the picture to her chest. “I tried my best.”
She knew right then that she couldn’t stay there until the morning. She had to get out of there before the whole world around her shattered.
She turned on the bedroom light, found all of her things and pushed them into her backpack, then put the picture in her jacket pocket to keep it closer before she shut the light off again. She sat there, waiting until she finally couldn’t hear anyone stirring, then she slung her backpack and leather bag over her shoulder and braced herself. Opening the door, she paused, then headed for the entry.
Quickly and quietly, she put on her jacket and boots, then turned, ready to leave when Seth appeared in the entrance to the east wing. He stopped, and stared silently at her, obviously not aware she’d be there.
“I’m leaving. I want you to know I never meant to hurt you or Tripp.” She barely recognized her own voice. “I’m sorry about everything.”
“So am I,” he finally said and walked down into the great room.
She headed to the front door, pulled it back, then stepped outside. She stopped in her tracks after she pulled the barrier closed behind her. It had started to snow, large flakes falling silently in the bitter cold of the night.
She never looked back as she hurried down the steps and over to the Beetle. She tossed her things across to the passenger seat, then she got in and closed the door. She started the engine and turned on the heater. Swiping at the snow clinging to her hair, she made a U-turn and headed off through the snowy night toward the gates.
When she drove out onto the county road, the wind came without warning, picking up quickly and pushing at the small car. Losing Michael had been the most painful thing she’d ever lived through. She couldn’t go anywhere in this world and find him again. But even though she’d know where Seth would probably be in the years to come, she’d never know how he was, if he was happy or how things turned out with Tripp. There was no way she could ever come back here. That was truly another horrible loss.
* * *
SETH TURNED TO the entry as the door shut behind Quinn and then he headed back toward his office. His muscles seemed jerky, and he felt disassociated from reality some way. He didn’t get very far. He nearly fell into the wall in the hallway, just trying to breathe as the images of Quinn beat down on him. He’d been angry with Allie and walking away had been a relief. But the pain he felt right then at the loss of Quinn stunned him. He couldn’t move. He had no idea how long he stood there before he realized Julia was there talking to him.
“Seth?”
He slowly managed to turn toward her voice. “Quinn left,” he said in an unsteady voice.
“She’s going to town at this time of night in the snow?”
“I don’t know where she’s going, but she won’t be back.”
Julia came closer, obviously surprised. “What are you talking about? She never said anything about leaving. The last I talked to her, she was beyond excited about Tripp coming here.” He flinched inside at her words. “I don’t understand what happened.”
He hesitated, then went into the entry and dropped down on the cowhide bench. Julia followed him to stand over him as he gave her a quick version and ended with, “It was all a lie, everything she’s said and done since she got here.”
“She lied about what?”
“Farley sending her out here on a job interview. She never mentioned she was coming here to sell me a program her husband developed. She could’ve told me the truth then but she didn’t even try.”
Julia frowned at what he’d said, then he saw understanding mixed with compassion on her face. “Let’s see, she’d been in an accident, took a hit on the head. Her car was almost destroyed, and you think she should’ve given you a presentation of her dead husband’s work right then?”
“Julia, I—”
“She lost her husband, Seth. A man she truly loved from what I can tell.” She spoke with real emotion. “She probably lost part of herself, too, then she tried to make something happen from what he left behind.”
Seth opened his eyes and stared at his hands clenched together. “What should I have done? Told her everything was just fine, that I’d invest tons of money in what could be a worthless package?”
He looked up as Julia put in a call on her cell. She shook her head as she pushed her phone into her jeans pocket. “Her phone’s going right to voice mail. She shouldn’t be out there in that poor excuse for a car in this weather. You shouldn’t have let her leave like that.”
“She didn’t ask my permission to go,” he muttered.
“For the record, I think you’ve just made the worst mistake of your life. Now, I need coffee,” she said as she turned and stepped down into the great room. Almost immediately, she was back without coffee and holding the dossier and the money he’d tried to give Quinn. “What’s all this?”
“Her background check and her pay for the work she did here. She didn’t want it.”
She motioned him to move over, then dropped down by him and put the money on the seat between them before she started to go through the report. Finally, she rolled the seven-page document up and set it down by the money. “Did you read it?”
He wouldn’t admit he’d stopped because he was afraid of throwing up. “I stopped in the middle.”
“You stopped too soon. You missed the part where they found out about Michael’s leukemia and she married him despite his illness. She was there with him through all of it.” She shook her head. “She was never looking for what she could get out of you. She was trying to leave a legacy for Michael, the way you’re trying to leave a legacy for Sarge and Maggie. Fortunately, you have the money to do it yourself. She needed help.”
She stood and left the papers with the money beside him and headed toward the east wing. “I’ll be right back.”
A legacy. His shoulders hunched as he felt the impact of what he’d done, driving Quinn away and out into the storm. She wasn’t Allie. She was kind and cared about people. She’d never asked for anything.
Julia came back. “Here,” she said. “It was half hidden under the pile of pillows on her bed.”
He looked at a small leather box she was holding out to him. “What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
He took it from her and opened the worn clasp to look inside. There were four thumb drives and a sheet of folded paper. He took the paper out, opened it and Michael’s Shield was printed in bold black lettering at the top of a list of ten of the best tech companies in the country. The first eight were crossed ou
t. His company was the ninth. He glanced at the thumb drives that were labeled simply one through four.
He refolded the paper and put it back in the box with the thumb drives, then closed the box. Quinn had left behind what looked like the very reason she’d tracked him down. Seth stared at the box and hated what he’d done. A legacy. He knew that need to do something for a person he loved, to help people remember them and what they’d done with their lives.
He felt physically sick again. That scared boy who couldn’t trust anyone was still there in him, and he knew how destructive he’d been with Quinn. “I’ll go and try to find her,” he said, but Julia stopped him. “No, that old truck isn’t good in this weather. Call the sheriff and see if he can find her.”
“I’ll go. You call Max and ask him to be on the lookout for her VW. He’s seen it before, so he’ll recognize it on sight.”
He got ready, then spoke to Julia before he left. “I’ll call if I see anything, and you call if you hear anything.”
“Be careful,” she said.
Seth went out and off in the old red truck. Julia was right that the truck wasn’t snow friendly, but if he took it easy, he knew he’d at least get to the highway.
It was just past four o’clock in the morning when Seth had pulled off the highway, barely able to see in front of him, through the still falling snow. He’d planned with Max to head toward Cody while one of Max’s deputies headed south, so they covered the full length of the highway in both directions. When he’d met up with the deputy, they agreed he’d head back toward Eclipse and the officer would go back north and check the frontage roads.
He’d made it to the off ramp for Henry’s business, turned onto the side road and stopped. A call chimed. Max. He answered it quickly. “Did you find her?”
“No,” the sheriff said. “But her car’s been found at Bobbie Denton’s gas station, just off the street in his side parking.”
Harlequin Heartwarming March 21 Box Set Page 87
