by Lily Everett
Her voice broke on a sob, and in a flurry of linen skirts, she was gone. Quinn’s heart pounded in her ears, her eyes prickling and burning with unshed tears. She stared at her father, who had slumped against one of the standing stones, letting it support his sagging weight.
“I’m losing her,” he gasped. “This can’t be happening.”
“Well, if you’d take my advice,” Ron began, but he broke off at the murderous glare Quinn’s father sent his way. “Ahem. In any case, I should check on Ingrid. Excuse me.”
Quinn stared at her father, willing him to punch Ron’s lights out or tackle him to the ground, or at the very least to insist that he be the one to see to his own wife. But instead, Paul let the marriage guru go, glowering at his retreating back before sliding down the stone pillar to sit in the dirt. He dropped his head into his hands, the picture of abject misery, and Quinn couldn’t help it. Her heart wept for him.
Skirting the fire, she went to kneel down next to him. “Daddy, you need to snap out of this. I hate to say it, but you are going to lose Mother if you don’t do something.”
“I can’t believe this is happening. I don’t understand what changed between us. I really don’t.”
He sounded as lost and hurt as a child, which filled Quinn with a painful mixture of tender protectiveness and fear. It was awful to hear her father, the man she’d always looked up to and counted on as her own sturdy rock, sound as if he were on the verge of tears.
Should she mention what she’d found out about Ron? she wondered. A week ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated. She would have assumed getting rid of Ron would drain all the poison out of her parents’ relationship.
Now? Quinn wasn’t so sure. She was very afraid their problems went deeper than an interfering marriage counselor. Whatever tensions Ron was exploiting, they’d existed long before he came on the scene. And Quinn was starting to worry that exposing Ron’s schemes wouldn’t automatically fix her parents’ marriage.
“I know, Daddy. This is all so hard and confusing, and I’m sorry you and Mother are going through it. But you need to go through it together. You can’t leave Mother hanging like this again. If you don’t know what’s changed or why, talk to her. Please.”
“She’s just so angry, and I don’t understand why.”
Quinn slapped her hands on her thighs and started to get up. “Well. There’s only one way to fix that.”
“It’s not that easy…”
“I never said it would be easy.” Quinn stared at her father. She couldn’t back down; this was too important. “It won’t be easy. It’ll be one of the hardest conversations of your life—but if it ends with you and Mother on the same page, vowing to fix whatever has gone wrong between you, won’t it be worth it?”
Her father tipped his head back to rest it against the limestone pillar. Firelight played softly across his face, highlighting the creases and marks of age. He smiled up at her faintly. “When did you get to be so wise?”
“Don’t act surprised! I’m going to school to help people learn to communicate better,” Quinn pointed out. “Among other things.”
“It sounds to me like that program is pretty good,” Paul said gruffly. “I’d like to hear more about it sometime. I don’t know how you’re paying for it, but if you need any help—”
“The barn is paying for it,” Quinn interrupted quickly. “I have no idea where they got the money, maybe a grant came through, but they offered and I took them up on it. So while I appreciate the offer, I don’t need your help this time. It means a lot to me that I’m doing it on my own, actually.”
Her father gazed at her fondly. “In case I haven’t made it clear, I’m proud of you and what you’re doing with your life, sweetheart.”
Quinn’s heart leaped like a startled deer. “Do you mean that?”
His eyes widened in surprise. “Of course I do. It may have taken you a while to find your path in life, but I think you’re on the right track now. At the barn … and with Marcus. Go easy on him about tonight, okay, kiddo? I don’t think his issue was that he didn’t take the thing seriously enough.”
“No,” Quinn agreed huskily, through a throat clogged with emotion. “Marcus cares deeply—but he doesn’t like to show it.”
“Don’t give up on him,” her father said, weary and solemn. He reached up to clasp Quinn’s hand, and with a heave, she helped him to his feet.
“I won’t,” Quinn promised, feeling a little like a standin for her mother in that moment. She wasn’t sure if they were still talking about her and Marcus … or if her father really wished he could get that promise from his wife.
A promise not to give up.
“Show Mother you’re willing to fight for her,” Quinn whispered, her voice a thread of sound, barely louder than the hiss of the fire. “And if you’re not … then let her go.”
That startled her father, badly. He dropped her hand and turned toward the house, as if he wanted to go racing off to find Ingrid immediately. But first, he looked back at Quinn. “I hear you. And thank you. It’s … well, it’s kind of wonderful to have an adult daughter to talk about these things with.”
The knot in Quinn’s throat broke, nearly choking her with a half sob, half laugh. “You know, I think that’s the first time you’ve ever referred to me as an adult.”
Her father put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. “I’m sorry. Maybe we wanted you to stay our baby forever, on some level. But I can see you’re all grown-up now. And I’m grateful for the chance to build an adult relationship with the woman my sweet little girl turned out to be.”
That was it, Quinn was crying. She shrugged one shoulder high enough to rub her damp cheek on it. “Oh, Daddy. I’ll always be your little girl. When I’m a hundred and two, I’ll still be your little girl. Don’t ever doubt it.”
Paul gathered her in close for a hug, and Quinn took a deep, shuddering breath that smelled like the most comforting parts of her childhood.
“Thanks, sweetheart,” her father said into her ear. “I needed to hear that. All of it. Now, I suggest we go find Marcus and your mother. It’s time to have some difficult conversations.”
Quinn nodded, but first—she had some research to do.
*
Marcus lay on Quinn’s childhood bed, fully clothed and staring up at the ceiling. There was a crack in the plaster, directly above his head. He focused on it and tried to let everything else go.
He was getting so good at focusing on the crack in the plaster, he nearly missed the slow creak of the bedroom door opening and Quinn padding in on bare, quiet feet.
Almost, but not quite. Marcus felt every atom in his body come to attention the moment he sensed Quinn’s nearness. He managed not to look at her, but it wasn’t easy.
“How are you feeling?” she asked tentatively, coming to hover over the bed.
“Fine.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you were sick. Or something.”
“Nope.”
She huffed. “Okay, then. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I didn’t want to be there anymore, so I left.”
“That’s fair. No one was holding you hostage. You’re free to participate or not, as you choose.”
Marcus arched a brow in her direction. “Who exactly are you trying to convince here?”
He saw Quinn throw up her hands in his peripheral vision. “I’m trying to be understanding, but you’re not making it very easy! Do I wish you’d stayed and finished your blessing, since you said you’d do it? Of course. But if it turned out to be too much for you, I get that. Considering I nearly broke down in tears when I did mine.”
Clenching his back teeth on a denial that he’d been anywhere close to tears, Marcus laced his fingers together on his stomach and settled his shoulders more firmly against the bed. “Okay. Thanks.”
Quinn sighed, but didn’t press him. Marcus was simultaneously grateful and guilty, a combination that swirled in his gut li
ke he’d taken shots of tequila, rum, whisky, and vodka one right after the other.
She went to the bathroom and he heard the sound of running water and splashing. Marcus could clock her bedtime routine with his eyes closed at this point. First she would wash her face with plain white soap, then she’d brush her teeth and floss with the stoic concentration of a child with a dentist appointment in the morning. Then she’d undo her braid or pull her hair down from its ponytail and brush it out until it was smooth and gleaming in red-gold waves over her shoulders. She’d change into the soft cotton sleep shorts and skinny-strapped tank top she wore to bed, then she’d slip under the covers next to him and nudge close until her head was on his pillow, her gentle breaths tickling his ear.
Marcus breathed in deeply, envisioning each step until he heard the tread of her bare feet across the floor. “The bathroom is all yours, if you need it,” she said neutrally as she sat on the edge of her side of the bed.
He stared at the straight line of her back and missed the brush of her warm breasts against his arm, the weight of her body snuggling closer under the covers. “I’ll get ready for bed in a minute. Come here.”
Quinn half turned to speak over her shoulder. “I’m thinking about taking the couch downstairs for the night.”
Marcus felt his body turn to granite. “Why?”
“This isn’t working,” she said, eyes down. “You and me. If we can’t even have one, simple conversation about your past, how can we expect to build a future together?”
He sat up, suddenly feeling at a disadvantage flat on his back. “So I didn’t want to spill my guts in front of your parents and Ron freaking Burkey. Sue me.”
“You don’t have to spill your guts to anyone,” Quinn said with a sigh. “You know, I thought about Googling you, to see if I could find any information on what happened to you when … that was something that belonged to the First Lady, that you threw in the fire, wasn’t it? You were going to tell us something about your work with her, but fine—you decided not to. It’s okay. I realized I don’t want to know anything you don’t want to tell me. It’s entirely your choice—but the fact that you clearly don’t want to tell me about an incident that has had a profound effect on you … it makes me feel like we’re not as close as I thought. Not as connected. I don’t want to emotionally blackmail you here, but that’s a problem for me, Marcus. I hope you can understand why.”
Marcus swung his legs off the bed to plant his feet firmly on the floor. A big part of him wanted to stand up and walk out of that room, out of that house, and away from Quinn and the terrifying weight of her expectations and needs.
But he forced himself to sit there, back-to-back with her, because he knew if he walked out the door he’d be cutting short his time with Quinn. And that, he couldn’t do. Not when he already knew that their time together would be fleeting, no matter what he did.
Besides, Quinn deserved better than his silence. She deserved the truth. As much of it as he could bear to give her.
“After I left the army,” he said abruptly, feeling the mattress shudder under him as Quinn scrambled around to face him. But he stayed where he was, staring at the opposite wall. It was easier that way, somehow. “I was recruited to the Secret Service. I worked at the White House for a while, and my experience there made me the perfect addition to Buttercup’s security team when she started receiving threats.”
“Was … I didn’t know she’d been threatened. It wasn’t in the news.” Quinn sounded tentative, as if she weren’t sure she should interrupt with questions.
“They all get threats,” Marcus told her. “Basically everyone in public office, in the public eye, has gotten as least one scary letter or threatening e-mail. We take the letters more seriously—it’s more of a commitment to put actual pen to actual paper, write out an address, stamp and mail the envelope, than it is to dash off an angry message and send it into cyberspace—but most threats turn out to be nothing. Part of my training was to distinguish between the two. I’d also had some success at convincing the objects of those real threats that they were in danger. That was what they hoped I’d be able to do with Buttercup. She liked to slip her security detail and go out on her own, visit soup kitchens and inner-city after-school programs without the media circus that followed around after the Greatest First Lady of the Century. She used to snort when anyone called her that. God, she was a stubborn old battle-axe.”
Marcus smiled, against his will, at the memory of her steel-gray curls like a helmet under her pillbox hats. She didn’t like a lot of fuss and fanfare, but she did like a classic Chanel suit.
“You loved her,” Quinn observed.
“It wasn’t my job to love her,” Marcus snapped. “It was my job to keep her safe.”
“I’m sure you did the best you could. What happened?”
“What happened?” Marcus stood up from the bed in a rush, needing to move. He prowled the perimeter of the room like a caged animal, lashing his tail at the onslaught of memory. “I let her send me away. She wanted me to visit my father, after she found out we were estranged. I let her convince me she’d be fine with the other agents assigned to her detail. And an hour after I started the drive from D.C. to Sanctuary Island, I got the call that she’d snuck out behind her detail’s backs and gotten shot on the street. Shot down like a dog, by someone who didn’t think she should be wasting her time helping poverty-stricken children in rough neighborhoods.”
“Oh, Marcus.”
“Don’t pity me.” Marcus slashed a hand through the air, striking out at his own frustration. “I don’t deserve it. I left my post, and the woman I was protecting—a woman who meant a great deal to the nation and to me, personally—was killed.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Quinn protested.
Marcus had heard that before, and intellectually, he could even admit it was true. “But if I’d been there, I could have prevented it.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you would’ve been killed instead.”
He tightened his jaw. “I would’ve gladly taken a bullet for Buttercup. Beyond the fact that it’s what I signed up for, to put my body between her and danger—she was an incredible woman. She would have done more for the world and the people in it in her few remaining years than I would manage if I had a hundred years.”
“I don’t doubt that Mrs. McCarty was an amazing person. I admired her my whole life.” Quinn stilled his tense pacing by standing directly in his path and forcing him to either stop or crash into her. “But if you had been there and sacrificed yourself to save her … my life would be immeasurably worse. That’s probably selfish. But I can’t stand the thought that I might never have seen you again, that we might never have met as adults and had the chance to be together. Marcus, please.”
He looked down into her serious, pleading eyes.
“What?” he rasped.
“Hold me.” Quinn tucked her chin to her chest and knocked the crown of her head into his sternum, searching blindly for comfort from the cold reality of the life Marcus had once known.
He couldn’t say no. He couldn’t resist. His arms came up and around her, and he felt the shiver that wrenched through her before she lifted her own arms to encircle his waist tightly. “So now you know,” Marcus said into her hair.
“I know you’re riddled with guilt for something that wasn’t your doing,” Quinn replied doggedly. “Oh, Marcus. It must have been horrible, heartbreaking, to hear the news and wonder if you could have made a difference. All while dealing with your personal loss, which sounds like it was intense. The ex-First Lady almost sounds like a … like she was a mother figure to you.”
Marcus stiffened slightly. “I had a mother. A great one.”
“A great mother who you lost too early,” Quinn agreed quietly, lifting her head to rest her chin on his collarbone. “I’m just saying. I’m sure you’re still grieving, and that’s perfectly natural. But I wish you could let go of your guilt over what happened to Buttercup. I never met her, but I bet
she wouldn’t appreciate you tying yourself in knots over this.”
The laugh that forced its way from his chest surprised him. “No. She’d call me a fool and slap me upside the head, and probably accuse me of using her death as an excuse for not living.”
Quinn’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “She sounds like someone I would have liked.”
“You would.” Marcus pressed an absentminded kiss to Quinn’s forehead. “And she would have loved you. God. I never would’ve had a moment’s peace, once she met you, until she knew we were getting married and settling down to make her lots of godbabies.”
A bright pink flush rose to Quinn’s cheeks, but her grin was pleased. “Well. Gosh. Now I really wish I could’ve met her.”
Marcus snapped back to the present from his bittersweet imaginings of Buttercup’s reaction to Quinn. Quinn, who was in his arms, gazing up at him and implying … what? That she was ready to settle down? That she might want him … permanently? His heart kicked over and roared to life, making his pulse pound in his ears.
She didn’t mean it, he told himself. But even still, just the vague implication of it turned him on like nothing ever had.
Quinn Harper. His. Forever.
Marcus slid his hands up the sides of her neck to shape her delicate jawline before he gave in to temptation and kissed her. The kiss went deep and wild immediately, teeth and tongues clashing, stroking, thrusting together in a heated simulation of sex.
She clutched at his back, her fingernails raking at him through the thin material of his shirt, and suddenly Marcus needed to be skin to skin. He broke the kiss long enough to catch a breath and strip off both their tops before diving back in. He felt like he couldn’t get enough of her, like he was drowning and needed Quinn’s mouth to breathe. Except breathing was the last thing on his mind.
