She bowed her head and studied the pearl ring she wore on her left ring finger. Her mother had given it to her on the day she opened Miracourt and had told her, "The world's your oyster now. Congratulations, Livvy. I'm so proud of you."
"Yes, I do have feelings for him," Olivia said at last, twisting the ring around her finger. "There's chemistry between us, Mom, I won't deny it." She looked up and said, "But whether there is or not, I'd still go to bat for Quinn. It's the right thing to do. You know that. You're the one who's taught me not to back down from my beliefs."
"And it's a constant balancing act, cheering you on in your independence, yet hoping you won't go too far and do something stupid. You exhaust me," her mother added, and she really did sound tired.
"I know," Olivia admitted with a rueful smile. "Isn't it funny how things work out? Once you were so happy that I was determined to make it on my own," she said, waving the pearl ring in front of her mother to remind her. "And now I don't think a month goes by that you don't say to yourself, 'My poor little girl: one month closer to menopause.'"
"Olivia! How can you say that?"
"Because it's true."
Her mother sighed in tacit acknowledgment. "You're thirty-four, with no children, Livvy. Eileen's a year younger than you and her son is nine years old."
Olivia stood up and whispered in her mother's ear, "Well, hey, there's always Quinn." She stepped back to gauge her mother's reaction and was shocked to see tears spring up in her eyes.
"Please don't joke about that, Olivia. It bothers me in so many different ways."
Too far. She'd gone too far in her teasing again. "I'm sorry, Mom," she said quickly. "It's just that this whole thing with Quinn has been so weird."
Not for anything would she tell her mother about the bones on the buffet. It would simply cause her more agony—and make Olivia's request that much more likely to be refused.
With a purposely downcast face, Olivia said, "So how about it, Mom? Are you willing to set a good example for me and for everyone in Keepsake? Are you willing to let me bring a completely innocent man as my date to your party?"
"Will he wear a mask, at least?"
"Absolutely!"
Teresa Bennett tried to smile, but the effort fell flat and her words came out grim: "Make sure that he does—just in case I lose my nerve when I confront your father."
Chapter 10
A week later, Quinn walked into Tony Assorio's barbershop without an appointment but with a fair amount of confidence that Tony wouldn't turn him away.
"Take it off, Tony. It's time for it to go."
"No kidding?"
"It's all yours."
"How short you want it?"
"You be the judge."
The barber was thrilled. "You know what? I'm not gonna charge. This one's on me."
Obviously Tony believed that the decline of American civilization had just been halted in its tracks. "You're doing the right thing, kid," he said. "How does it look, a grown man in a ponytail? Daniel Boone—maybe. Or that Fabio. But come on."
He kept up a steady stream of banter as he worked with the scissors, then with the clippers. Quinn watched his sun- streaked hair go up, up, and off until he had the look of a GI at boot camp.
When the barber was done, he whipped off the smock with a flourish. "I wasn't thinking buzz cut when I started," he admitted, "but you know, the look suits you. Yeah. You have the face for it. Strong nose, good eyebrows ... So? What do you think?"
Quinn grinned and said, "I think I should've waited until August. My head's cold."
"You wear a hat. Big deal."
After some back-and-forthing over whether Quinn would be allowed to pay, Tony accepted the money and said good-naturedly, "You always were a good kid." He seemed to hesitate after that before adding, "Take some advice?"
Instantly attentive, Quinn nodded and said, "From you? Sure."
In a low mutter, the barber said, "Watch your back, kid. You go poking around too much, you're bound to piss off some people. Those kinda people you don't want to piss off. You know what I mean?''
He sounded as if he were talking about the Cosa Nostra. Quinn would have laughed off the caution if it weren't for the fact that he himself had begun to feel a real unease about continuing down the road he was on.
"I don't suppose you feel like naming names?"
The barber shook his head. "I gotta live in this town."
Quinn had no fears for himself, but he was feeling more protective than ever about Mrs. Dewsbury. After installing extra fire alarms, he'd sweet-talked her into letting him have a burglar alarm installed as well. But he continued to be concerned about her, so that morning he told her that he planned to move out of her house to a small apartment he'd found on the edge of town.
Basically he wanted Mrs. Dewsbury to have nothing to do with him; she'd be safer that way. He had expected disappointment, but not tears of disappointment. It shook him. His old teacher had argued for him to stay and had almost succeeded in making him change his mind—until this.
"I appreciate the warning, Tony," Quinn said, shaking the barber's hand.
Tony gave him a tight smile and a parting shot. "Never mind about that DNA business, kid. Let it go."
Quinn had a parting shot of his own. "Frankly? That all depends on Alison's parents."
Quinn had gone into the barbershop with two goals in mind: lose the ponytail and launch a rumor that he planned to continue pressing the district attorney. He had scored on both counts, so why was he feeling so crummy?
He wanted to blame it on the weather. After the bright sun of California, he was having trouble with New England gray. The weather was raw and mean, winter at its worst. The blanket of snow that had seemed so pure and magical on the day he first arrived was now dirty and pockmarked, casting an air of impoverishment on all it touched. Everything that could move seemed sluggish and grudging, from Quinn's shoulders and elbows to the door of his truck. As he drove through streets that seemed no longer quaint but merely old, it was easy to understand how snowbirds had come up with the clever concept of Florida.
Did he want to leave California for good and come back to this?
Yes. Quinn was a son of New England, whether he liked it or not. His character had been formed there. The self-reliance, the sense of reserve, the refusal to promise more than he could deliver—all of those traits marked him as a New Englander. They had served him well during his California exile, but he had always felt like a misfit there. Californians were communal. Friendly. Lavish with their promises to help you with anything. And why not? The weather was bound to cooperate when it came time to deliver. No; Quinn was not, and never would be, a California dreamer.
But there was another reason for his desire to come back, and it was playing havoc with his equal and opposite desire for justice: He wanted to be near Olivia. Near her, with her, on her, under her—his desire for her seemed limitless. And yet the more Quinn pressed the case for his father, the more he knew he would drive a wedge between Olivia and himself.
It was that cruel paradox, and not the cruel weather, that had Quinn feeling so damned bummed out.
****
Mrs. Dewsbury's hands were too arthritic to tie a knot in Quinn's bow tie for him, but she was able to talk him through the process with good results.
"You look as handsome as can be," she said, tweaking the bow just a bit.
"Even though I'm bald?"
"Even so. Why, you could be on your way to your high-school prom."
"Which, by the way, I never did get to go to," he remarked. As a matter of fact, he felt exactly like a high-school senior as he checked himself out in the small, weathered mirror of his room. He ran a hand over the bristled remains of his hair and decided again that he must have been mad, giving old Tony carte blanche.
Mrs. Dewsbury was brushing his tux in a final once-over, although she couldn't possibly see the lint. "Do you have the mask that Livvy dropped off?"
"In my pocket," Qui
nn said, reaching inside his jacket for it. "I just wish I'd been here when Liv stopped by; I might take some getting used to."
"She was all aglow, my dear, trust me. I don't think a haircut is going to change that."
Looking no more substantial in her yellow cardigan than a goldfinch in April, Mrs. Dewsbury perched her tiny frame on the edge of the chenille spread that covered Quinn's bed. She had dragged the coverlet out of the attic, and she had bought—and hung!—new white curtains in his room as well. The needlepoint rug he was standing on was new, and so was the frilly shade on the lamp. She had gone all out for him. Maybe that's what had prompted the tears when he told her that, for her own good, he was going to have to move out.
Quinn fitted the mask over his eyes. It was a plain black affair, but he felt silly wearing it. Thank God Olivia hadn't dropped off something stuck on a stick. He would have felt like an idiot, brandishing it around as he made small talk.
He felt like an idiot anyway.
"I'm not supposed to wear this thing driving, surely. When do I put it on?" he muttered as he yanked it back off. "What the hell was I thinking, telling her yes? What am I supposed to say to all those people? We have nothing in common."
"Stop it right now!" said Mrs. Dewsbury, as if he'd been caught clowning around during study hall. "You have as much right to be there as anyone else. If you have any doubt, think of that box of trophies downstairs. Every one of them is for merit. You didn't buy them, you earned them. You're brilliant, you idiot! When will you get that through your thick skull?"
He laughed out loud at her carrot-and-stick approach to getting him out the door. "Boy, I wish you'd married my father," he said, grinning. "We both could have used you to whip us into shape."
"Now that's silly," she said, blushing. "Anyway, if you'd ever attended one of these things, you'd know how completely insipid most of the conversation is."
"Why didn't you say so?" said Quinn, flashing her a rakish grin. "I can do insipid."
"It's the one thing you can't do," she said dryly. "But never mind. You are going to have a wonderful time with your Miss Bennett, and then tomorrow morning you are going to give me a complete account of who was there and, more importantly, who was not." With a doleful sigh, she added, "Lord knows, you won't be around much longer for our little tête-à-têtes."
"Now don't start," he warned, still smiling, as he slid the mask back in his jacket pocket. "You know I'm moving out for your sake, not mine. Do you think I want someone terrorizing you with the fat end of a Doberman's femur?"
"Well, pooh, what do I care? As long as it's not still in the Doberman," she said, hauling herself up from the bed.
She whacked him gently across his knuckles and said, "Do you honestly think that someone's going to break in here and burn my house down just to encourage you to leave town? You have too high an opinion of yourself, Quinn Leary," she said, shaking a finger at him. "You always did."
"I like that! A minute ago, you said I had no confidence."
"Well—never mind. You're a contradiction, that's all," she said, marching past him with a sniff.
Pleased to see that her knees seemed to be working much better nowadays, he said to her retreating figure, "Maybe I should be taking you to the ball, Mrs. D. That's a pretty sexy spring you have in your step."
She turned around and gave him an utterly baleful look. "I remember now. You could be quite fresh. Will you be back very late?"
"I ... don't know," he said honestly.
"Will you be back at all?"
"I ... don't know."
"I suppose I'll have to set that silly alarm, in that case. Well, get moving. It's terrible form to be late on a first date."
Chapter 11
No bra, sheer stockings, a silver lame slip dress—it couldn't get more basic than that. It had taken Olivia less than sixty seconds to get dressed, which left her with way too much time to pace the Aubusson rug in her living room as she waited for Quinn to join her in the suicide mission she had planned for them that night.
Her father had no idea that Quinn was going to be one of his guests. At the last minute Olivia's mother had lost her nerve and ditched the assignment. After much agonizing, Olivia had decided simply to wing it. So her father didn't know. So what? He wouldn't make a scene, not with a house full of guests. And if he blew his top after the party, well, it wouldn't be the first time that Olivia had got him to do it.
Currently the plan was for her mother to act surprised when Olivia showed up on the arm of Quinn Leary in the receiving line. It was the only way to spare Teresa Bennett from her husband's inevitable outrage. Olivia and her mother were being completely deceitful, of course, but they were in it too deep to be anything else. Olivia's only concern was that her guileless mother might not be able to pull off the deception.
So much for the honesty-is-the-best-policy route.
Working through her jitters, Olivia fluffed the pillows on her slipcovered sofa and stacked the coffee-table magazines that she had previously fanned, then stacked, then fanned again. She wanted Quinn to be impressed, but she didn't have a clue what impressed a man like him.
If I were Quinn, what would I notice first?
The view, of course. Too bad it was dark.
Her two-bedroom townhouse, one of a dozen on a knoll overlooking the Connecticut River, was pricey for its size. But the mortgage had bought her not only a beautiful view, but such amenities as French doors, granite counters, a designer hood, and an east-facing kitchen. It was lovely to watch the sun rise over the river as she ate her cereal, and worth every extra nickel. Quinn would think so, too, if ... if ...
If.
The chime at the front door sounded as shrill as the steam whistle at the textile mill. Olivia ran to answer it, catching one of her high heels in the fringe of the hall rug and very nearly sending herself sailing through the sidelight. In a fierce effort to compose herself, she took a deep breath and blew it out like a bottlenose dolphin, then put on a smile and swung the door wide.
"Wow."
"Wow."
They stood there, assessing one another in unabashed admiration, until Quinn remembered that he was hiding something behind his back. He whipped out a dozen roses in crinkly cellophane and said, "I sure hope you weren't expecting a wrist corsage."
"Hmm."
"I know; they're not in a box. They're not even fragrant. I'm sorry. It was a last-minute thing."
"No, I mean ... your hair."
"Oh, that. Yeah." He gave her a quirky smile and said, "Aren't you cold, standing there like that?"
Was she? "Oh, I'm sorry. Please. Come in," she said, accepting the roses as if they were gold and frankincense and myrrh.
Looking as grand as her brother ever had in topcoat and tux, Quinn brushed close by her as he passed on his way inside. Olivia's first and only thought was to bolt the door behind them and never let him out again. Ever.
"It's a great haircut," she said, unable not to stare. "You just look so... great."
He nodded in embarrassed acknowledgment. His hands were jammed in the pockets of his topcoat, giving him an air so artless that she found it sophisticated.
He said softly,"I can't begin to tell you how beautiful you are."
Her lashes fluttered down. "Thank you. It's the dress."
"That, too." He glanced around, but seemed puzzled why they were still there. "Ready to go?" he asked, gesturing an after-you through his topcoat pockets.
Shy. That's what he seemed. It was their first real date, after all. Olivia found his manner irresistibly intriguing. "We have time," she said, preferring for obvious reasons to arrive with the crush. "Would you like a drink before we leave?"
"Thanks, no," he said with a hapless smile. "I'd better hold on to what's left of my wits."
"Nervous?"
"Uh-huh."
"Me, too." For oh so many different reasons.
She looked around them as if she also were seeing everything for the first time. Suddenly, what she saw didn'
t impress her very much: a small, fireplaced living room that fed into an open foyer that fed into a dining area. Two good pieces of cherry furniture from France. A fairly valuable slant-top desk of yew wood. Top-of-the-line fabric, naturally, on all the upholstered surfaces. And the Aubusson. But that was it, the sum total of her nesting instinct so far. It was nothing compared to the loving care that her mother and her sister-in-law had lavished on their respective homes. Olivia hadn't even got around to doing something about the bare walls and windows yet. Except in the bedroom, of course.
"I don't spend much time at home," she said, feeling obliged to confess to that sin. "I've never even used the fancy exhaust hood in the kitchen. I mostly eat cereal."
"You're not domestic. Okay," he said, giving her a puzzled look. "Duly noted."
How mortifying; she sounded as if she were auditioning for the part of his wife. "I don't know why I'm—we're—so nervous," she said. "We were a lot more relaxed around one another when we were growing up."
He smiled. "You weren't as pretty then."
"And you weren't as debonair. I need a drink," she said, hoping that wine would calm her heart. "Why don't you take off your coat?"
She went into the kitchen and took a bottle of merlot from a cupboard, then handed it to Quinn to open while she slid out a stemmed glass for herself—and then one for him—from a wooden rack above the counter.
Should she warn Quinn that there might be a ruckus in the receiving line? She didn't see how she could. Anyway, presumably he had a clue. She held out both glasses; dutifully, he filled them.
So there they stood in their fancy duds, searching for something to toast. He touched his glass to hers. "Here's to the modern woman," he said with a look that Olivia somehow took as mocking.
"Because I don't cook? I can cook," she said, bristling. "Anyone can cook. All you have to do is follow a recipe."
Please, please, don't open the fridge. There was nothing there except a carton of skim milk, some yogurt, and some cigar-looking things that used to be bananas. She had put them in the fridge after the fruit flies showed up, thinking—ha-ha—that she'd use them to make some kind of tea bread for her mother for Christmas.
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