California Man - The Author's Cut Edition

by EC Sheedy

  "You don't have to yell," Emily said over her shoulder as she started to put the dishes in the dishwasher. Quinn watched her a moment. She'd pulled a grim calm around her like a dark, secret cloak and disappeared into it.

  Not going to happen. He came up behind her, spun her to face him, and stared into her eyes.

  "Emmi, read my lips. I am not engaged. I am not interested—in any way—with Gina Manzoni. Right now, I'm only interested in the woman standing in front of me. Do you understand that?"

  Quinn, holding her by the shoulders, felt the tremors begin, a persistent shaking with a relentless build. Deep trembles claimed the length of her body. Her eyes weren't frightened; they were glazed with terror. A sheen of perspiration bloomed on her forehead. She looked about to faint.

  God! Something was wrong here.

  He'd never had a woman react to him this way, wasn't sure what to do, so he went by instinct and pulled her close, using his own body to steady her. "It's okay. There's nothing to be afraid of."

  She didn't answer, instead she closed her eyes and buried her face in his chest. Her fingers twined and knotted in the front of his shirt, while he held her and stroked the back of her head. When she seemed calmer, he said, "You have to deal with this... fear, you know. It doesn't have to be like this. I like you, Emmi. All I want is to get closer to you, get to know you. Is that so bad?"

  Emily worked to settle her breathing. His words and gentle touch were at once alarming and soothing. She wanted to believe him, wanted to deal with her fears, her endless timidity. She'd lived too long with the paradox within her, strength and dread, courage and cowardice. Inside she was strong; she knew that, strong and proud. She was independent, ran a successful business, was blessed with loyal friends. Managing her life wasn't a problem. So far she'd handled its unpredictable offerings wisely and well. But despite that, the second she stepped out of her comfort zone, these stupid panic attacks brought her down.

  She'd thought they were behind her, but all she'd been doing was kidding herself, by living small and playing it safe. She hadn't been tested—until Quinn came along and turned over her nice comfy rock. She shuddered into his shoulder and sniffed. She'd found out tonight, hadn't she? That ugly life-depleting fear was still in her—so deep she'd never exorcise it.

  She became aware that she was leaning into Quinn's hard, powerful body, taking from his energy and power. Her breath came easier now, but he continued to hold her. What a fool I am, she thought, and pulled away, embarrassment replacing anxiety.

  He didn't try to stop her. "Are you okay?" His hands dropped to his sides and he searched her face.

  "I'm okay." She brushed down the front of her blue skirt. "You must think I'm some kind of basket case." Which from her point of view seemed a logical conclusion.

  "No. You just have a demon or two to get rid of, that's all. We all do at one time or other."

  "I can't imagine you having a demon. You're too—" She stopped.

  Quinn gave her a half smile. "You have the damnedest habit of not finishing your sentences. Did you know that? What were you going to say?"

  "I was going to say that you're too big, too confident, to have demons," she finished.

  "I've had my share."

  Emily gaped at him, overcome with curiosity. She couldn't imagine what kind of demon this vital, confident man would have. She wanted to ask but hesitated.

  Quinn saw the interest in her face and went on. "I was one of those Johnny-come-lately kids. An only child, born when my mom was approaching fifty. My dad was sixty-three. I didn't know it then, but my birth must have been the biggest trauma in their lives. I guess they wanted me." Quinn shrugged. "But once I got here, I don't think they had a clue what to do with me. What I remember most about growing up was how incredibly quiet it was." He looked away a moment. "The house was full of silence." He stopped, seeming to pull the memory from deep storage.

  "Where are you from—originally?" Emily's question was tentative.

  "Pasadena. That's in the San Gabriel Valley, home of the Rose Bowl?" He looked for her nod of recognition. When there was none, he went on, "That's a football classic. It's even televised way up here." He grinned. "Anyway, I left there after my parents died."

  He looked at the coffeepot before continuing. "If I'm going to bore you with my dull past, I'll need another caffeine jolt. If you want to stay awake, maybe you should have one, too."

  Emily poured them both more coffee and followed Quinn back to the living room. She returned to the big chair near the fireplace while Quinn reclaimed the sofa.

  "How old were you when your parents died?" she asked.

  "My mother when I was fifteen. My dad a year later—about a year before I finished high school."

  "That must have been painful." Emily's parents lived in Victoria, and her one brother lived in Toronto. They were all happy, healthy, and busy. She couldn't bear the thought of losing any of them. "Where did you go, where did you live... after?"

  "With my one and only aunt, my mother's sister, in San Bernardino." Quinn laughed softly. "If I was a surprise to my parents, I was the shock of a lifetime for Aunt Marion. She'd never married. To have this shy six-foot bean pole arrive on her doorstep was more than she could cope with. I've got to hand it to her, though, she did right by me."

  Emily was stuck on his description of himself. "You were a bean pole, a shy bean pole?"

  "I was until Aunt Marion set about, as she said, 'whipping me into shape'. She fed me enough for ten teenagers and, God bless her, got me into sports. All I wanted to do was hide out in my room, watch television, and avoid members of the opposite sex. That at all costs." He chuckled. "Back then girls scared the sh—Sorry. Girls scared me stupid. Still do occasionally." He tossed her an easy smile before going on.

  "Anyway, the first athletic thing I ever did was in my last year of high school. The hundred-meter dash—the same race James is starting with. I felt like a fool. Most of the other guys had been into sports since they were four years old. The track team as a whole had been together three years. I, on the other hand, was a skeleton that breathed." He paused then, looking amused. "I had grown too fast, had no real body muscle, no developed coordination, not to mention no experience in school sports of any kind. Worse, I had no concept of competition. I was a walking disaster who morphed into a stereotype. That kid on the bench who never gets called. I suppose the only reason they let me get involved at all was I'd lost both my parents. It had to be a sympathy thing. It sure as hell wasn't skill."

  Emily scanned the attractive, self-assured man across from her, shook her head, and sipped some coffee. "Hard to imagine you warming a bench."

  "Believe it. My entry into sports was a full-blown nightmare, and I hated every minute of it. I was terrified to find myself in a position where I had to perform, where something was expected of me, where everybody was better than me. Up until then, I'd pretty much gone my own way. All that was ever asked of me by my parents was that I didn't make waves. The whole idea of competition, winning and losing, was foreign to me. Like I said, I hated it. Not a day went by that I didn't want to quit."

  "What stopped you?"

  "The track and field coach." His expression turned wry.

  "He supported you?"

  "He told me I couldn't do it. I couldn't win. He wanted to cut me out of a meet scheduled for the following week. Suddenly, it was critical I be in that race. Not only be in it—win it. I had to try. I was scared as hell. I had no more real belief in myself than the coach did, but I had to go for it. I knew if I didn't, I'd lose something a lot more important than the race itself." Quinn leaned back into the sofa, his smile erased by past tensions.

  "And did you? Try, I mean."

  "I did and I won, too. Not first place but a respectable second. I've done a lot of things since then, but none of them compare to the thrill of winning that silver." He leaned back into the sofa and stared at the empty coffee cup in his hand. "When I look back on those days, I see that race as a tur
ning point. You might say it was the day I joined the human race. Not that it was a cakewalk from there on, but at least I was out of the shadows. Had shaken off some of those old fears."

  Emily coughed. "This may sound strange but is—"

  "Go ahead," he urged, watching her carefully.

  "Is that shy, awkward bean pole of a boy still inside you? Do you feel him sometimes, nervous and unsure, trying to pull you back?" Her gray eyes looked at him now more directly than ever before. He knew his answer was important to her.

  "Yeah, he's still there. And every once in a while, he still tells me to quit—not to try. I just don't listen. If I did, I wouldn't be here talking to you. That boy would never have walked into your bookstore. He'd never have asked you to go on a bike ride, and he wouldn't have kissed you on your doorstep. That would have been a loss, don't you think?"

  Nodding silently, she dropped her gaze to his lips, let it linger there.

  Quinn's breath caught momentarily in his throat. He wondered if she realized how seductive that look was. If she were any other woman, he'd have reached for her. But she was Emily and he didn't. He stood up instead. "It's getting late. For a guy who invited himself to dinner, I've overstayed my welcome."

  Emily followed him to the door. There was silence between them, but it was warmer, more companionable now. She handed him his jacket.

  As he pulled it on, he asked. "Are we on for tomorrow? I don't think it's going to rain."

  "The hike?" she hesitated.

  "Our hike," he prodded. "I wouldn't want those muscles of yours to think they've been abandoned. Say noon?" Afraid she'd say no, he felt a stir of nervousness in his stomach.

  The slightest pause, then, "Noon will be fine. I'll make a lunch."

  "No. Leave that to me. I'll try to charm Blanche into it."

  She smiled slightly. "Which I have no doubt you'll do."

  As he turned toward the door, he couldn't resist the urge to touch her. He drew her to him and lightly kissed her forehead. This time the trembling wasn't so bad. Another brief embrace and he was gone.

  Brief and gentle though he was, he left her with a deep, unknown longing.

  Chapter 4

  After Quinn left, Emily put on a sweater and headed for the door, too unsettled to go to bed.

  "Want to go for a walk, Bailly?" The click of the door pin and the word "walk" were enough to rouse the sleeping dog. In an instant the happy Ridgeback was standing expectantly at her side, tail spinning on a wriggling back end. She rubbed his velvet ears and smiled. At least she knew how to make Bailly happy.

  "C'mon, then. Let's go."

  The night sky over Fulford Harbour was clear now, marked by a full moon and drifting clouds. Quinn was right; it looked as if there'd be no rain tomorrow. Emily headed for the beach in front of her house. Bailly surged ahead, as excited on this walk as he'd been on the thousand before it. She marveled at his enthusiasm. Same beach, same route, same smells, yet he never tired of it.

  Standing on the shoreline, she picked up a stone and threw it aimlessly into the water. Bailly watched attentively. When he figured out it wasn't a stick and that no game was in the offing, his interest waned, and he headed down the beach a few yards. Emily sat on her thinking log. She'd called it that since her first year in the house, often coming here when her writing stalled and her creative juices stopped flowing. But tonight her thoughts centered on a tall, dark, very sexy man.

  She replayed the evening as if it were a videotape, kept stopping it where he said, "I'm interested in you, Emily, only you."

  Unbelievable...

  "Hey," Lynn, her neighbor, said from behind her. "Can you stand a bit of company?"

  "Sure, but what are you doing out here?" Better Lynn's company than useless mooning over Mister Tall and Sexy.

  Lynn joined her on the log. "Same as you, I guess. Getting some air."

  The two women lapsed into a compatible silence, the only sound the soft tide sweeping over the stones of the beach.

  "Did you want James to look after Bailly tomorrow?" Lynn asked.

  She could take Bailly with her tomorrow, but she knew how much James enjoyed him. "Yes, I think so. Tell him to come by at eleven-thirty or so."

  "You're going to make me ask, aren't you?"

  "Ask what?"

  Lynn picked up a shard of driftwood, tossed it. It fell short of the water. "Come on, Emmi. About the man having dinner at your house. I won't pretend I'm not curious."

  "James told you, huh?"

  Lynn nodded.

  "There isn't much to tell," she said, downplaying what had turned out to be a serious upset to her always precariously balanced psyche. "His name is Quinn Ramsay. Grace and I met him in town. He came into the store and asked me to go bike riding with him. I went."

  "You went bike riding? With a man. You, Emily Welland, on a bike? That's big."

  Lynn laughed and Emily joined her. "Yes, I went biking, and I've got the sore tailbone to prove it." She paused. "And tomorrow I'm going on a hike."

  "Okay, this is getting even bigger." Lynn turned to look at her full on. "Quinn, huh? Obviously he's not a local."

  Emily threw another stone in the water, continuing to stare into the dark, widening ripple. Lynn was right this thing with Quinn was getting bigger. As in second date bigger. Which, when she thought about it, had her panic meter topping out.

  Lynn snapped two fingers in front of her eyes. "Earth to Emily, are you with me?"

  "I'm here." She turned to look at her friend, then without warning, her eyes brimmed with tears. "I'm scared, Lynn. No. Not scared. More like petrified. He kind of... blinds me, you know. He's so sure of himself, so... dynamic. So, I don't know, worldly, I guess."

  "And that's bad? Sounds to me like he's exactly what you need."

  "What I need? Maybe. But what about him? He needs a twenty-seven-year-old almost virgin like he needs a tax audit. You know what I'm like with men. I haven't got it. Whatever that elusive it is. He's way out of my league."

  "Stop it—right now! There's not a man on this planet who's 'out of your league,' as you put it." Lynn's expression was equal parts frustration and sympathy. "You're not still carrying around that stupid Bill Davis baggage, are you? That guy was a mistake. Big time. And the relationship was wrong for both of you. What happened wasn't your fault. I don't understand why you can't see that."

  "And Peter? Are you going to tell me he was a mistake, too."

  "Yes, I am. The classic ricochet romance. You didn't care about him, and he didn't care about you. You told me that yourself. What did you expect? Moonlight and roses?" Lynn's words and tone bordered on motherly-stern.

  Emily, her mind in rebellion, didn't answer. Instead she picked up a handful of sand, watched it sift through her fingers. The sands of time. Time heals all wounds. Killing time. Time waits for no one. Time flies...

  The sand dust, caught an edge of moonlight, and gave off a faint gray shine. Her stare became vacant. She didn't want to believe Lynn was right—that she was that idiotic a dreamer.

  When she didn't speak, Lynn did. "This quitting thing, you've got going on. It's not you, you know. Not who you are. And it doesn't make sense to cut yourself off from life because of a couple of bad experiences years ago." Lynn's voice lost its maternal edge and filled up with friendship and concern.

  She let the sand go, brushed off her hands. Brush off time... "Maybe, but it's tough to accept that I went with a healthy, red-blooded young man for three years, and he didn't want me. That I couldn't attract him... in a physical way." Her smile was weak. "But I'll admit you're right about Peter. He was a kind of a... sexual test. But Bill." She stopped, swallowed another piece of her old hurt. "I loved Bill, and I thought he loved me. Thought he wanted me."

  "Who says Bill was healthy and red-blooded? Maybe he wasn't. Did you ever think of that? Anyway, you were, what, seventeen, when you started going with him? You told me yourself you were always incredibly shy—that he was your first and only boyfriend. Besides,
not every guy out there is a sex machine, you know. There's no one-sex-drive fits all rule. After all this time, you must understand that."

  She gave a vague nod. She understood, all right. But understanding hadn't brought acceptance.

  The memory of that last night with Bill was still raw. Still painful. It was the night Bill told her about his plans. Plans that didn't include her.

  They were in his car, parked by the lake.

  She'd always known he was spiritual, and she'd accepted abstinence in their relationship, but when he told her he was leaving her, to become a priest, it was dagger in her heart. Young and in love, in that instant, her world fell apart.

  At first, she hadn't believed him, couldn't believe him.

  Her face still burned when she thought of what a fool she'd been. Pleading, arguing, and finally begging him to stay with her, not to go. To top it off, she'd followed the begging with a gauche attempt to seduce him.

  She remembered every button on that horrid pink blouse—exactly seven of them.

  She'd undone every one of them,

  What followed was a long, painfully strained moment, and with his eyes fixed on her young, too plump breasts, he'd said, "I don't want this, Emily." Read, I don't want you.

  She'd stumbled out of the car and thrown up.

  A month later he left for the seminary.

  Lynn said, "He never did become a priest, did he?"

  "No. He left sometime in his first year."

  "Did you ever hear from him again."

  She shook her head. "No. Bill was a story without an ending."

  For a time they were silent.

  "You were just a kid," Lynn said. "So was he. I know it's stale and trite to say it, but you have to put it behind you."

  She smiled, but the smile sat tight on her face. "And Peter? I should put Peter behind me, too, right?"

  "You bounced into Peter's arms within the month. You made love, probably in a senseless, misguided attempt to prove something, and he never called you again. Two rejections in a row. Damn hard on the self esteem, I'll admit, but I've got news for you, kiddo, it happens to people every day—men and women. The difference is you've let it fester into an unhealthy, unjustified phobia."