by Lily Everett
“I had a life,” Daddy protested. “The store was closed every Sunday.”
Ingrid snorted. “One day a week when we had you home—and even then, you were usually thinking about the store. I thought once you retired, you’d be happy. We both could be happy and together.”
The raw hurt in her mother’s voice shocked Quinn to her core. For the first time, she considered that maybe the rift between her parents went a lot deeper than she’d thought.
After a short, tense pause, Daddy’s quiet voice broke the silence. “I’m sorry you were unhappy with our life, Ingrid. I tried the best I could to provide a good life for our family. If I could have been around more—”
“Well, now both of you can slack off.” Quinn jumped in. “Retirement should be when you get to relax finally, and enjoy the fruits of all your years of hard work. I thought that was why you bought the camper, to travel around and see the country and have new experiences together.”
Ingrid looked away, biting her lip. Her husband looked at her still profile for a long moment before saying, “I’m afraid I’ve never been very good at relaxing. Retirement—it hasn’t come as easily to me as I was hoping for. But the best part of it has been spending more time with your mother.”
His voice rang with sincerity, with love, and Quinn’s heart lifted. Ingrid’s face brightened, too, her mouth widening into a brilliant smile—as the tinny strains of an Enya ring tone filled the air. In the next instant, she’d snatched up the cell phone lying beside her plate and stood up from the booth to answer it.
The sight of her father’s face closing off, the shutters slamming closed and all the hopeful light going out of his eyes, filled Quinn with pain. Oblivious, Ingrid hurried away from the booth, weaving through the tables to find some privacy for her conversation outside the café.
“Who’s on the phone?” Quinn asked with a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Her father mustered up a grim smile. “Oh, that’s just Ron Burkey. The man who’s trying to convince your mother to divorce me.”
Chapter 6
Marcus gauged the distance to the door of the jewelry store. If he put on a burst of speed, he could make it before anyone noticed his escape.
“This one’s real pretty, Quinn,” the shop owner was saying. “Kind of like your mom’s ring, with the center stone and the side stones like petals.”
Quinn, who had been admiring the ring sparkling on her left hand, made a face and immediately tugged off the gold band.
“Don’t you like it?” The jewelry store owner looked crestfallen.
“Oh, Carol Ann, of course I do! It’s beautiful. But it’s not really me, if you know what I mean.”
The petite blond woman brightened determinedly. “No problem at all! I’m sure I have something that will suit you. Maybe if you gave me some idea of what you’re looking for…”
She trailed off expectantly, and Quinn immediately raised her eyebrows in Marcus’s direction. “What do you say, honey? This ring-shopping expedition was your idea.”
Marcus hoped Carol Ann hadn’t noticed the sarcastic emphasis Quinn placed on the word “honey.” He’d gone to school with Carol Ann, and unless she’d had a personality transplant sometime in the last twenty years, he knew she’d love nothing more than to spread a rumor that Sanctuary Island’s new favorite couple were already fighting.
In an effort to hold back the tide of gossip, Marcus looped his arm around Quinn’s shoulders and tugged her close to his side. He hoped the move looked natural and full of ease, instead of full of the tension that beat between them like a pulse.
“I’ll like whatever you like,” he said with a flash of a smile in Carol Ann’s direction.
“That’s so sweet.” He wondered if he was the only one who could hear the gritted teeth behind Quinn’s smile. “But not all that helpful.”
Carol Ann whisked the flower-shaped ring back under the glass counter and replaced it in the display. “I tell you what. I’ve got a few things I’m working on in the back that aren’t quite ready to be put out in the storefront yet, but you could get an idea if maybe one of them…”
“Oh, that would be so wonderful! Carol Ann, we appreciate this so much.”
“Nonsense!” Color filled Carol Ann’s round cheeks. “As if I wouldn’t do whatever I can to help you find your perfect engagement ring, after all the help you gave me when I was setting this place up. I’m just flattered you might want to wear one of my creations.”
“I love your jewelry,” Quinn said, as sincerely as if this weren’t the one and only jewelry store in town. “And you don’t owe me anything. I was happy to help.”
With a parting smile, Carol Ann bustled into the back of her shop. As soon as she was gone, Quinn stepped out from under Marcus’s arm. Bending over to stare down at the glass-topped display case, she gave a convincing impression of someone entranced by the silver bangle bracelet decorated with a giant dragonfly made of shimmery green stones.
She’d been standoffish all morning, ever since Marcus knocked on the door across the hall from his to tell her he was ready to go ring shopping. Come to think of it, she’d been pretty quiet and aloof on the car ride home from the Firefly Café the previous afternoon.
He’d attributed it to Quinn’s being upset over the abrupt end to their fried-chicken lunch. Her mother’s phone call from their marriage guru had effectively thrown a bucket of ice water over the proceedings. Her father had gone silent and aloof while her mother seemed distracted by whatever she and Ron had discussed. Marcus had never been so glad to pay a check and get back to his dark, empty bar.
Friday night’s happy hour had seen a few people poke their heads into the bar. He’d sold a couple of beers to the local veterinarian and a guy who was familiar to Marcus, like he’d spent time on the island as a kid but hadn’t grown up there. The two men hadn’t stayed long, but they’d both complimented the beer selection before they left.
It wasn’t much, but it was better than the tumbleweeds that were all Marcus’d had in there before. He’d woken up feeling like this crazy plan of Quinn’s might actually work.
Until now, as he stood alone with her in front of a case of handmade silver jewelry and wondered if he could even get her to look at him.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded bluntly, unwilling to beat around the bush.
“Nothing. Everything is fine. This ring shopping was a good idea. Gotta have the right props for the act.”
He frowned, eyes flicking to the doorway behind the jewelry counter to make sure they were still alone. “You make it sound like I’m the one who convinced you to lie about our relationship.”
She straightened up as if he’d pinched her. For a moment there was a mulish set to her pretty mouth, but as Marcus watched, it melted into something softer. Softer, but not necessarily happier. “I’m sorry. You’re right, and I’m grateful. I am. But I mean—isn’t it already getting out of hand? Now you’re not just my fake boyfriend, you’re my fake fiancé! Maybe we should quit before it goes any further. I mean, how are we going to pull this off when I didn’t even know you’d been in the Secret Service?”
The pitch of her whisper got steadily higher and more distressed. Marcus winced. Shit, he knew that was going to come back to bite him.
“It’s not a big deal,” he tried. “You covered fine last night.”
“It’s not about whether or not I can convincingly cover the fact that we hardly know each other,” Quinn muttered, then bit her lip.
Marcus couldn’t afford to be soft here. “Sure it is. Because nothing else matters.”
She shook her head, the honeyed red of her hair swinging forward to hide her face. “I don’t think I can do this.”
Cursing silently, Marcus wrestled with himself for a long moment before saying, “Look, if it’s that important to you, ask me what you want to know.”
“Anything?” She perked up, slanting him a glance from underneath her lashes. “And you swear you’ll tell me?”
He gave her his how-dumb-do-I-look face. “No. I’m not making any promises. But you can ask, and I’ll tell you if I can.”
Quinn didn’t waste any more time. “Were you in the Secret Service?”
“Yes.”
“Were you assigned to the White House?”
“For a while.”
“Why did you leave?”
“Got reassigned.”
She huffed in frustration. “Were you ever on a protection detail or were you part of the advance team that goes in to secure locations, or what?”
Marcus paused. “You did some research.”
“I may have spent a little time last night Googling, yes. Come on, answer the question.”
Marcus considered reminding her he hadn’t promised he’d answer every question, but there was no real reason not to answer this one. No reason except that he was pretty sure he knew what the next one would be.
“I did some of everything in my time with the bureau.”
“Well, did you ever protect anybody famous? Like the president?”
This was the moment where Marcus would either stonewall, or tell Quinn the truth and watch her realize exactly what he’d been through. He had zero interest in rehashing the whole thing with her. God knew, it would be easier to shut this conversation down. But now that he came right down to it, that felt like the coward’s way out.
He could just imagine what Buttercup would’ve had to say about that.
With “In my day, men were men and women knew how to keep them in line,” ringing in his head, Marcus found himself suppressing a smile. “Yeah. After an attempt was made on her life, I was permanently assigned to Mrs. Colleen McCarty’s protection detail.”
Quinn’s jaw dropped. “Colleen McCarty. The ex-First Lady.”
“Once a First Lady, always a First Lady,” Marcus corrected, “in Mrs. McCarty’s own words.”
“But she—”
Quinn cut herself off and Marcus could see it, the exact moment when she remembered what happened to Colleen McCarty, beloved national icon … and the best woman Marcus had known since he lost his own mother.
He didn’t shy away from it. “She died. And I retired and came home.”
He said it with finality, to end the questions. There was nothing more to be said on the subject, or at least, nothing more Marcus intended to say. Poor Quinn was practically buzzing with curiosity, but after the weeks they’d spent together, she knew when to push and when to back off. It was something he’d always grudgingly appreciated about her.
This was definitely a time to back off.
Except … it was possible that Quinn cared less, these days, about pissing Marcus off. In the instant before she opened her mouth, he knew she wasn’t going to let it drop.
“What was she like? I mean, other than the most beloved First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt and Jackie rolled into one.”
Marcus blinked. It wasn’t the question he’d expected and dreaded, about his feelings when she was killed or whatever. Startled, his guard dropped enough that he said without thinking, “Buttercup would’ve liked that comparison.”
“Buttercup?”
Crap. Reluctantly, Marcus explained. “The Secret Service gives code names to high-level targets. JFK was Lancer; Jackie was Lace. Eisenhower was Scorecard; Mamie was Springtime. Like that, usually with families’ code names starting with the same letter. President McCarty was Boomer. His wife was Buttercup.”
Quinn melted right before his eyes. “You named your bar after her, didn’t you?”
It was obvious enough at this point that Marcus didn’t feel the need to answer. He’d already said more than he wanted to.
“Come on, don’t clam up on me now! Tell me about her. Was she as cool as she always seemed in interviews? I used to love when they’d bring her out for inaugurations and stuff, she’d look so elegant and classy, and when they asked about her clothes, she’d smack them with some off-the-cuff statement that was so smart and insightful about a real issue of the day, like child hunger or poverty, and they’d all be scrambling! She was amazing. I was so sad when she died—hey, wait! Marcus!”
Marcus glanced down. His feet were moving without his making a conscious decision, carrying him out of the store and onto the sidewalk that ringed the town square. The spring sunshine woke him up, piercing through the dark fog of grief and regret that threatened to overwhelm him. He breathed in deep, forcing air into his constricted lungs and tasting the salt tang of the ocean on the breeze.
Quinn caught up to him a moment later, freckles standing out on her pale cheeks like fresh nutmeg in a bowl of cream. She was so achingly beautiful, it closed Marcus’s throat.
“Where are you going? We haven’t got the ring yet!”
He kept moving, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking as if he had a destination in mind. Quinn hurried along at his side, practically emanating a worried distress that Marcus wasn’t ready to deal with.
“Okay, fine,” she tried. “We can go back to the shop another time, I guess. Although, gosh, poor Carol Ann isn’t going to know what’s going on—she’s going to think we just ditched her! Which we did, actually. Marcus, can’t you stop for a second and tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” he ground out, eyes forward. “I don’t have time for any more of this crap today. I have work.”
“You invited me,” Quinn pointed out reasonably, “so I assumed this was a good time for you.”
Something mean and ugly rose up in his chest to snarl at Quinn’s patient concern. “If you think anything about this screwed-up situation is a good time, you need to get out more, sweetheart.”
Quinn stopped in her tracks and forced Marcus still with a hand on his elbow. The muscles of his forearm hardened to granite under her touch. “Let’s get something straight here, Marcus. I know you’re running away because, somehow, talking about your ex-boss means I got too close. I get it. And if you don’t want to talk about your life before you came back to Sanctuary Island, that’s your prerogative. If you want to stay shut down and closed off from anyone who ever tries to get close to you, that’s your business. But regardless of what act we’re putting on for my parents, I don’t have to take that tone from you. Not ever. I’d rather call the whole thing off right now than stand here and take this.”
Her tone was firm, uncompromising, but the tremor at the corners of her lips told Marcus how hard this was for her to say. Shame washed over him in a sickening tide, but at the same time, he was proud of her for standing up for herself.
The point was, she shouldn’t have to. Not with him.
“You’re right.” He forced the words out roughly, his throat clenching down on them like a fist. “You shouldn’t put up with me. You deserve a hell of a lot better than I can give you.”
*
The words hit Quinn like a dart between the eyes.
You shouldn’t put up with me. You deserve a hell of a lot better than I can give you.
Is that why he broke up with her? The question burned in her mouth, but she swallowed it down. Even as her memories of their relationship reshuffled and rearranged themselves like a deck of cards, she knew better than to make a big deal out of this moment. Marcus was this close to bolting again. She was like a National Geographic photographer in the wild or something—she didn’t want to spook him.
“I appreciate the apology—well, the sort-of apology,” she amended with a determinedly light tone and a lift of one brow. “But I’d appreciate it even more if you’d leave it to me to decide what I deserve.”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed to slits as he stared stoically into the distance. “No promises. But I’ll work on it. Good enough?”
“Good enough,” Quinn agreed, trying not to sound too eager. Trying and failing, but come on! This was easily the most real conversation she’d ever had with Marcus Beckett, maybe since the day of his mother’s funeral. She was going to have to take her time figuring out how all this new information fit into the
picture of Marcus she carried around in her heart, but in the meantime, she felt good about the way she’d spoken up. Because there were still four weeks of this crazy farce to go, and it would never work if she kept to the same sort of meek reluctance to rock the boat that she’d stuck to when they were sleeping together.
She realized now that she’d spent those weeks just waiting for the other shoe to drop, always sure that the wrong word or question at the wrong moment would mean Marcus kicking her out of his bed and out of his life with no warning.
And she reminded herself that, as it happened, she’d been right. The difference now was that they weren’t sleeping together, and he wasn’t in her life. Not really, not for good. So she didn’t have to tiptoe around him anymore.
She’d already lost him in every way that mattered.
Now they needed each other, but it was mutual. Equal. They both had something to lose.
Speaking of what Quinn stood to lose …
“Quick, give me your hand,” she muttered, lacing their fingers together and waving with her free hand. “That’s my mom’s car.”
His palm was warm and broad, interestingly callused and rough in places, reminding her of the sweet rasp of those fingertips over her body. Quinn shoved down the heat that quivered to life in her belly and leaned down to peer into the blue hybrid hatchback that pulled over to the curb beside them.
“Hi, Mother! What are you doing out … and … about…”
Quinn’s voice withered in her chest as she took in the overly tanned older man sitting smugly in her mother’s passenger seat. Quinn didn’t even know how she knew the guy was smug just from the way he sat, but somehow, it was glaringly obvious. As glaring as the sheen of his improbably black hair and his large, perfectly square teeth.
“Oh, sweetie.” Ingrid Harper leaned her head out of her open window and beckoned them closer. “How amazing to run into the two of you right now—although, of course, it’s not a coincidence. It’s Fate! Anyway, come here, I want you to meet someone very special.”
Quinn’s feet suddenly felt as if they were made of lead and weighed about twenty pounds each. Marcus had to tug her forward, already plastering on the fake smile that had so charmed her mother the day before.
