by Lily Everett
Wide-eyed, Ingrid stared at the bonfire where a pile of shiny suits, loudly patterned ties, and bright pocket squares were smoldering merrily. “That’s … that’s all of Ron’s clothes. You’re burning Ron’s clothes.”
“Yep.” Paul put his hands out toward the fire, enjoying the warmth. “I’d say it’s the least he deserves, after what he tried to pull.”
“He’s going to call the police.” Ingrid sounded more awed than worried. “He’s going to sue you for destruction of property or something.”
Paul scoffed. He might have gone outside his logical, rational comfort zone in an attempt to show his wife how much he cared—but he hadn’t had a complete personality transplant in the last half hour. He’d thought it through. “Ron isn’t going to call the police. If he threatens to, I’ll make it very clear that he’ll be facing charges of his own, for practicing psychology without a license, and misrepresenting himself to us.”
“Still.” Ingrid shook her head as if dazed. “I can’t believe you’d take the risk.”
“Any risk is worth it, to show you that you’re not alone. Ron fooled us both—I didn’t think he was a good marriage counselor, but I certainly never suspected him of using our troubles to gain some sort of advantage for a shady real estate deal. No one would expect something like that. It doesn’t make you a fool, Ingrid.”
She ducked her head, her long, silvery blond hair swinging forward to hide her face. Her hair was more silver than gold, these days, Paul realized with a start. Somehow, it suited her even better. “That’s very kind. I appreciate hearing it, but you could’ve just said that. You didn’t need to go to all this trouble.”
“I think I did. Somewhere along the way, you stopped hearing me or believing me when I tell you I love you.” Paul’s throat was dry with nerves, but he swallowed with difficulty and went on. “I had to do something to show you, instead. I know you think I’m an old stickin-the-mud, and you’re not wrong. You’ve always been the free spirit in this marriage. But I wanted you to know that I can change. I can be more spontaneous. At least, I can work on it. Please don’t give up on me. On us.”
When Ingrid lifted her face, her eyes were shining with unshed tears but she was beaming that beautiful sunshine smile at him, and Paul felt his nerves evaporate under that smile like morning dew off the grass.
“You really mean that?” she breathed, stepping forward to clasp his hands between her own smaller ones. “Oh, Paul. You think I don’t hear you? I’m so sorry. But sweetheart, if I stopped hearing you at some point, I feel that you stopped seeing me years ago.”
Paul wanted to deny it, to protest, but he clamped his jaw shut. They had to get everything out in the open between them, they had to listen to each other. Quinn had been right all along. Ingrid, who’d paused as if bracing for an argument, relaxed slightly and continued.
“The business consumed you for so many years. And I understood that, even if I didn’t always like it. The shop was our livelihood, our legacy for Quinn, our future. But I hoped that when you retired, it would get better. Instead … it felt even more lonely to spend every moment side by side and still be invisible.”
She blinked and the tears in her eyes overflowed to trickle down her cheeks. Paul’s heart clenched. “My darling. I never stopped looking at you, I swear it. Retirement has been … hard. I can admit that. I think I defined myself by the business for so many years, judging myself and our life by how successful the shop was, that when I didn’t have that as a guiding compass any longer, I was completely lost. I am lost. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
It was a difficult confession to make. Paul’s fingers were tense and unmoving in Ingrid’s warm grip, and the soft squeeze she gave him was a comfort. But not nearly as comforting as the surety in her voice when she said, “You are Paul Harper. You’re Quinn’s father. You’re my husband and the love of my life. Everything else, we can figure out. Together.”
Now it was Paul’s turn to feel moisture prickle at the corners of his eyes. “I don’t deserve you. I know I’ve reacted to all this uncertainty by retreating into myself, like a turtle pulling his head into his shell, and that left you on your own. That was unfair, and I’m sorry. I can’t promise I’ll never react that way again—it’s an instinctive defense, I think. But please hear me now when I say that I don’t mean to ignore you. Ever. You’re the only thing I want to see every single day, the only thing I care about. I could look at you for hours and never get tired. You’re more beautiful to me every single day, and I swear I’ll devote the rest of my life to making you believe it, if you’ll only promise not to leave me. Because I couldn’t bear to be without you.”
“Oh, Paul,” she said brokenly, stumbling forward into his arms. He caught her gladly, bending his head to steal a sweetly familiar kiss from her perfect, trembling mouth. But he had one more thing to say before they left this chapter of their story behind and began writing a new one.
Breaking off the kiss, Paul pulled a checkbook out of his back pocket. It was warm and comforting in his hand, the weight of it like a tether to a time in his life when he’d understood his place in the world and been a productive part of it. For a moment, he wondered if he needed to make this final gesture after everything he and Ingrid had just talked through—but then it occurred to him that the time he remembered so wistfully had still been unhappy for Ingrid, in many ways, and he knew this was the right thing.
“Is that … the shop account checkbook?” she asked, confused.
“It is,” Paul confirmed, thumbing at the pages one last time before he tossed it onto the fire to burn with Ron’s fancy suits. “I don’t know why I kept it, except to feel like maybe I still had some small connection to the shop. But I don’t. I sold it, and it’s time to move on. The only connection I care about is my connection with you, Ingrid. And to prove it, I want you to marry me. Again.”
With her entire heart in her eyes, Ingrid took her husband’s hand and brought it to her lips. “I would marry you a hundred times over, Paul Harper,” she whispered to his palm, never breaking eye contact.
He had to kiss her again, that very second, and she met him eagerly, kiss for kiss. Love, excitement, and relief exploded in Paul’s chest. He couldn’t believe he’d come so close to losing this, through inattention and complacence. But things would be better from here on out.
Sure, there would be times when they’d fight. Two intelligent, strong-minded individuals in a relationship guaranteed some friction, here and there. But as Paul twirled his wife around and bent her laughing form back over his arm like a tango dancer, he swore to himself that he’d never again take his marriage, or the gorgeous, incomparable life force in his arms, for granted.
Chapter 18
After an early dinner at the Firefly Café, Marcus drove them over to the bar to set up for opening that evening.
“I can drop you at home, if you want,” he offered when they pulled out of the Firefly parking lot, but Quinn shook her head.
“My parents really do need some privacy. They’ve got a lot to work out, but almost for the first time since we started this whole thing, I think they might have a real chance.”
Marcus was surprised to realize he agreed. “You never gave up on them. Even when it seemed like nothing you were doing made a difference.”
“They’re my family.” Quinn shrugged helplessly. “You don’t turn your back on family.”
Something in the region near Marcus’s heart went solid and cold, like a block of ice. “That’s what makes your family different from mine, I guess.”
Quinn bit her lip, but if he’d expected her to leave it alone, he was doomed to disappointment. “We had other things to focus on, so I didn’t push. But Marcus, you really need to go over and see what your father has been doing. It might make a difference to how you feel about things.”
He tightened his grip on the wheel and took extra care with his speed and the safety of his turns. “If my father is in trouble, tell me straight out. No more dan
cing around.”
“He’s not in trouble.” Quinn sighed, glancing out the window. “But he’s lonely. And he’s getting older. And he’s the only father you’ve got.”
The only parent you’ve got left. She didn’t say it, but Marcus knew they were both thinking it. The trouble was, whenever he thought of the fact that his mother was gone, it only intensified his desire to never see his father again.
“I know you want to help,” he finally said, with some difficulty in getting the words out. They kept wanting to be an angry growl instead of a calm, composed tone. “But it’s too late for my dad and me.”
“Is it? Or did you move back to Sanctuary Island at least partly because you wanted to reconcile with your father? I mean, Marcus, you could have gone anywhere. I know property is pretty cheap here if you can find a vacancy downtown, so maybe it was just about the money, but there are other inexpensive places to live.”
Marcus pressed his lips together. She was persistent, he’d give her that. But she was also easily distracted. “It’s not about the money. There’s plenty of that, thanks to Buttercup.”
As he’d hoped, that got Quinn’s attention in a big way. She turned her whole body in the passenger seat until she was facing him, one leg drawn up on the cushion under her. “Oh my gosh. Buttercup gave you money?”
“She made a provision for me in her will,” Marcus clarified, remembering the sharp shock and guilt of hearing that will read aloud. “She always told me I was her favorite, and I guess it was true. She left me enough to start the bar … to start a new life. I think she knew if and when she died, even if it had been of natural causes, I’d be done with the Secret Service. There are some assignments you never come back from, no matter how they end.”
Quinn reached out to lay her hand atop Marcus’s on the gear shift. “What an amazing friend she was to you. I’m so sad that I never got to meet her. But I’m so grateful to her for everything she did to push you back toward Sanctuary Island.”
Clearing his throat, Marcus blinked away any mistiness as they pulled around to the back of the Buttercup Inn and parked. “Pretty sure opening a bar isn’t what she had in mind for me to do.”
“Oh, I don’t know. She seemed like a lady who could appreciate a stiff drink,” Quinn argued as she climbed down from the truck cab. “Didn’t she have a bourbon on the rocks in her hand through that entire infamous interview?”
Marcus let out a bark of a laugh, rusty and hoarse, but real. He hadn’t been able to laugh at any of his Buttercup memories yet, but that was a good one. “It was soda. Flat. She wanted it for a prop, and to make Barbara Walters feel like she was getting the whole story. But no one ever got the whole story from Colleen. She was too smart, and too skilled at diplomacy. Everybody got exactly the snippet they needed to get, and no more.”
“And then she’d tell you all about it in the car on the way home,” Quinn guessed.
Marcus let them into the cool, dim interior of the building. “Pretty much. God, what a woman.”
“You must have loved her a lot.”
There was something odd in Quinn’s tone, a wistfulness without jealousy that made Marcus uncomfortably aware that he’d never told Quinn how he felt about her. Not in so many words. “Colleen McCarty changed my life. I’d be an entirely different person if I’d never met her. But she’s not the only one who’s done that to me.”
Quinn dropped her purse on the bar stool at the end of the row, where she usually sat, and gave him a quizzical look. “Oh?”
It took a lot of effort not to roll his eyes like a surly teenager. “Yeah,” he said slowly, looking her up and down.
“Oh … oh!” Quinn went bright pink and pleased. Propping her elbows on the bar behind her, she leaned back casually. The pose let Marcus admire the slim, straight line of her body, the lithe muscles of her thighs in those jeans, and the tip-tilted swell of her breasts under her V-neck top. All of a sudden, he was awash in memories of the times they’d made love in this very room while they were fixing the bar up and getting it ready for business. Those older memories were overlaid with vivid sense memories of the night before—the rough, longing sounds Quinn made when he nipped at that certain place on her neck and the coiled strength of her legs closing around his hips and drawing him in.
“We’re supposed to open up the bar in half an hour,” he said, already reaching for her.
“I guess we’ll have to be quick then, won’t we?” Quinn murmured. Her smile tasted like strawberries and champagne. Her skin was smooth and hot and as hungry for touch as Marcus was. He could never resist her. He didn’t even want to try.
An hour later, Marcus was pulling another pint and working at keeping a straight face when the bar stool they’d used for support was occupied by the crotchety, fussy old Dabney Leeds. The tyrannical head of Sanctuary Island’s town council sipped at a small glass of sherry and glared around the bar as if suspicious of so many people in one place having a good time. Although he brightened up a bit when Miss Patty arrived to squeeze onto the bar stool next to his. Sanctuary Island’s oldest residents put their heads together and seemed to have a pretty good time of their own, chatting and drinking.
The Buttercup Inn was packed to the rafters. Marcus was cautiously optimistic, when he had a moment to consider it between filling drink orders, washing glasses, and pouring pretzels into bowls.
Quinn whipped past the bar with a grin and a tray in one hand. She’d been pressed into service taking orders almost as soon as she’d come back downstairs after freshening herself up.
“You’re a hit,” she said gleefully, dropping off the empties from her tray and scooping up a bottle of cabernet and a trio of wine glasses for the table in the corner.
The next time Marcus had a chance to catch his breath and look up, it took him a minute to find Quinn in the crowded bar. She was at the front door with her arms around someone—it was her mother, Marcus saw with some surprise. Ingrid laughed and threw back the shot Quinn offered her, straight off her tray, with a celebratory air.
While Ingrid coughed and wiped her streaming eyes, Quinn hugged her again. Beaming brightly enough to light up the bar, Quinn linked her arms through her parents’ elbows and turned to face the room with her mother and father flanking her.
“Can we have your attention for a moment?” Ingrid called, her high, clear voice carrying over the bustle and laughter of the crowd. “We have an announcement to make.”
“This is too good a chance to miss,” Marcus heard Paul say as the bar quieted down. “It looks like everyone in town is here tonight.”
“Just about,” Quinn agreed. She was flushed with more than the exertion of running around the bar and chatting with customers. Marcus allowed himself to hope for some good news.
“Get on with it,” Dabney Leeds shouted grouchily from his bar stool. “What’s so important you need to interrupt our evening?”
But no amount of grumpiness could put a damper on Ingrid’s expression. She looked happy enough to float up and fly around the ceiling. “This Saturday, Paul and I will have been married thirty years.”
The bar erupted in applause as Paul leaned over Quinn to kiss his wife enthusiastically. When the cheers died down, he took over. “We’ve decided to renew our vows at a ceremony in our back garden—and you’re all invited!”
That got an even bigger explosion of happy cheering and clapping. Some people stamped their feet under their tables, others pounded their empty beer steins on the bar. Even Marcus joined in with the shouting. He could see Quinn’s shining eyes from across the bar. She radiated happiness. It was his favorite look on her.
Ingrid, too, appeared almost drunk with joy—or maybe it was that shot of Jack kicking in. Right in the middle of accepting congratulations and good wishes from the people at the tables closest to them, her eyes went huge and she went up onto her tiptoes, her hands fluttering like wings. “Oh! I’ve just had the most marvelous idea! Quinn, darling—why don’t we make it a double ceremony?”
The bar went hushed and quiet as heads jerked back and forth between Marcus and Quinn as if the viewers were at a tennis match. But all of Marcus’s focus was on Quinn, who’d gone salt white and stiff.
“Wow, okay. That came out of nowhere!” Quinn tried to laugh, but it came out sounding wrong.
“Not at all,” Ingrid said, apparently oblivious to her daughter’s sudden nerves. “You’re engaged, and no one could say you rushed into it—you’ve known each other all your lives! It would mean so much to me, at least tell me you’ll consider it, sweetheart.”
With effort, Marcus kept his face impassive even though he could feel the eyes of his customers searching for some hint of his reaction when Quinn said, “Mother, that’s really kind of you. Maybe we could discuss it some other time, in private.”
“Nonsense, these people are all our friends!” Still high on life, Ingrid actually did a twirl, her long skirts flying out around her. “They all want to be there to wish you well on your big day!”
Quinn darted an anxious look at Marcus, her eyes pleading for something. He wasn’t sure what. He couldn’t think clearly.
“Mother,” she said sharply. “There isn’t going to be a big day!”
Through the static buzzing in his ears, Marcus heard a few gasps. He kept his gaze locked on Quinn, who all of a sudden wouldn’t look back at him.
“What do you mean?” Paul asked, a frown line appearing between his eyes.
Her mouth turned down unhappily. “Do we have to get into this right now?”
Ingrid swayed toward her, grabbing onto her daughter’s shoulders for balance. “Sweetheart, is something wrong? Are you breaking off your engagement?”
Red splotches appeared on Quinn’s white cheeks. “Yes, okay! Yes, the engagement is off. Now can we please get back to talking about your vow renewal?”
That was it. It was over.
Marcus laid down the cloth he’d been wiping the bar with and carefully closed out the cash register. He didn’t even raise his voice. He didn’t have to. Everyone in the bar was already looking at him.
