Amber pulls away, leans down to kiss his cheek, and then leaves the room. A woman at the nurses’ station informs her about paperwork that needs signing. She talks with her for a minute and then turns. “I’m ready to go home now.”
On our way out of the facility, Amber sees Piper sitting on a bench. Piper stands. “Quinn called me last night. Amber, I’m so sorry about your dad.”
The two women walk toward each other. For a moment, I think they might embrace, but Amber hesitates and disappointment spreads across Piper’s face.
Piper follows us back to Amber’s house. Well, it’s her dad’s house, but ever since he got diagnosed, she’s lived here. It’s a modest home. Not one you’d expect a heart surgeon to own. Then again, Amber told me he wasn’t the typical surgeon. It makes me wonder how he left her financially. I imagine the memory care place was super expensive. Will she have to sell the house to pay the bill?
Hours later, Amber picks at the dinner Piper prepared. She glances around the dining room. “I’ve lived here for a while without him, so why does it only seem empty now?”
“It’ll take time,” Piper says. She plucks a picture frame off a bookshelf. “And he’ll never truly be gone. You have these pictures. Your memories.”
The doorbell rings. Tag answers. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Heard about Doctor B,” the guy says. “Came to pay my respects.”
“You couldn’t have done it at the funeral?” Tag asks and reluctantly opens the door. Then he steps outside and lights up, keeping an eye on the man who walked inside.
Amber goes over. “Hawk?”
He hands her a plant. “Sorry to hear about your dad.”
“Thank you. Hawk McQuaid, this is Quinn Thompson.”
McQuaid? I glance at Tag. He’s not pleased the guy is standing in Amber’s living room. I shake Hawk’s hand. “Glad to meet you.”
“And you.” He nods to Amber. “Her dad saved my life.”
“Is that right? Wow.”
“Anyway, I just felt I had to come by.”
Tag stands by the open door. “Okay then. I guess you’ll be on your way.”
“Tag, stop,” Amber says. “I appreciate you coming, Hawk.”
“No problem. I have to take off anyway.” He thumbs outside. “Besides, you have more company.”
We walk out onto the front porch to see that people have gathered in Amber’s yard. Two women approach and hug her. She introduces us. “Quinn, this is Ava Criss and Reagan Lucas. Ava runs the coffee shop down the road, and Reagan owns the bookstore.”
They both hand over casserole dishes, and I take them inside. When I return, there are more than a half dozen people talking with Tag and Amber. I meet Tag’s younger brothers, Jaxon and Cooper, and their little sister, Addison. Then I’m introduced to his Uncle Jonah and his kids, Colt, Gray, and Storm, who all still appear to be in their teens.
“That’s a lot of fucking Calloways,” I say under my breath, thinking it’s why Hawk might have hightailed it out of here. As a McQuaid, he was way outnumbered.
After everyone is gone, Amber stands in the living room, staring at all the plants and flowers. “This is all so much. I’m not sure I want to stay here. At least for now.”
Piper sits her down and sidles next to her. “Maybe you should take some time, go someplace else. Somewhere you feel safe.”
Amber looks at me like she wants to say something, but she doesn’t. She excuses herself. “Right now, I just want to sleep for twelve hours.”
“Tell me how I can help,” Piper says.
“I can’t ask you to come back tomorrow. You’ve done so much already.”
Piper laughs. “I made pot roast, Amber. I’d hardly call that much. What do you need?”
Amber glances toward her dad’s room. “I’d like to pack his stuff.”
“Are you sure you’re ready to do that?”
She nods. “I want to get it over with. He’d want it all donated to charity.”
“Then I’ll come back tomorrow with boxes.”
“That’s very sweet of you.”
“I can help too,” I say.
“Could you and Tag collect his things from the memory center? Then maybe you could go fetch my car from LaGuardia.”
Tag says, “You know, since we’ll be in the city, maybe we could catch a Nighthawks game. They’re playing a double-header tomorrow. What do you say, Quinn?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Maybe we should be here. Don’t you have to make arrangements for his funeral?”
“I can help with that,” Piper says. “You two go enjoy the game.” She turns to Amber. “Why don’t you get ready for bed. I’ll make you some tea. It’ll help you relax.”
I stand. “Tag, can you drop me at a hotel?”
“You’re not staying here?” he asks.
“He’s staying,” Amber says. “The guest room is down the hall to the left. There are fresh towels in the linen closet outside the bathroom.”
I shrug. “I guess I’m staying.”
She goes off to bed. Piper leaves after making the tea. Tag and I clean the dishes, then he gets a couple of beers from the fridge. He nods to the TV. “The Hawks are playing the Marlins right now. Want to catch the last few innings?”
“Sounds good to me.”
We watch baseball and drink beer for an hour like two old friends. When the game is over, he turns off the television and stares at me. “I don’t want to see her get hurt. She’s been through enough.”
“Amber? Somehow I get the feeling she’s usually the one doing the hurting.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know her like I do. She puts on a good front, but she’s fragile.”
“And you think I’ll hurt her? Tag, she’s the one who told me we have an expiration date.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think she meant it. Or at least she doesn’t now. I see the way you look at each other. You may have started out as fuck buddies, but there’s more to it now, isn’t there?”
How many nights over the past week have I asked myself that? How many times have I looked at her and wanted something I’ve never wanted before? More. “I, uh…”
“She won’t admit it either.” He picks up our empties and heads for the kitchen. “The three of us are cut from the same cloth, man. But I knew at the airport. I knew the minute I saw her with you that this was different. I need to know if you’re okay with it. Because if you aren’t, I invite you to get up and leave right now. I’ll even call you a cab and book you a ticket.”
I glance back at Amber’s room. “I’m not leaving. And I won’t hurt her. But you get that I live in Texas, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I get it.” He grips my shoulder. “A problem for another day. I’m gonna get going. I’ll pick you up around ten.”
“I’ll be here.”
He stops before he reaches the door. “Tell me you’re a good man, Quinn.”
I think of my family—my jailbird uncle, corrupt tycoon grandfather, and pathetic mother. I’ve worked hard not to be like them. But a good man? I’m not so sure. “All I can tell you is I try to be.”
“I guess that’s all I can ask,” he says and leaves.
I get another beer and sit in the dark living room. Is what Tag said true? Could Amber possibly feel the same way about me as I do her? It’s a foreign fucking feeling wanting something so much and not being sure I can have it.
A noise comes from the hall. Amber strolls into the room, her silhouette illuminated by the soft light of the kitchen. She gets closer, and I see she’s wearing a T-shirt that barely covers her ass cheeks. She stands in front of me, pulls off the shirt, and strips off her panties. Then she straddles me.
Light awakens me. I’m hot. I try to roll over but can’t. I can’t because Amber is lying in my arms. I stare at her face, not wanting her to wake because she looks peaceful. As soon as she wakes up, she’ll remember her father died yesterday and she’ll be sad. And I realize I’d do just about anyth
ing not to see her sad.
She stirs and her eyes open. I wait for her to pull away. After all, as far as I know, this is the first time either of us has woken up in the arms of another person.
“Well, this is different,” she says.
I chuckle. “You can say that again.”
“Do you think it’s different good, or different bad?”
“Different good,” I say, running my hand down her arm. “Definitely different good.”
She smiles briefly, then it fades. She settles into the crook of my shoulder. “I have to pack his things today.”
“I know.”
“And I have to plan his funeral.” She peeks up. “Will you stay for it?”
“Yes.”
“I’m thinking I’ll have it Wednesday. Dad was a big fan of Wednesdays.”
“Hump day? I’m a fan myself.”
She giggles softly. “He always said Monday and Tuesday are the days people don’t want to be at work, and Thursday and Friday are the days people dream about the weekend. So Wednesday is the day they’re most productive. He’d always schedule his most difficult surgeries for Wednesday.”
“Wednesday sounds perfect, then.”
“Will you leave right after?”
“I do have to get back to work. The helicopter will be fixed by the end of next week. I’m looking forward to getting back up there.”
She seems sad.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“I was thinking about something Piper said last night, and I was wondering…” She closes her eyes.
“Amber, spit it out.”
“I was wondering if you think Aaron and Maddox would mind if I came back to Devil’s Horn Ranch for a while.”
This feeling I have inside me right now—it’s an excitement I’ve never known. I want to jump up and down on the bed like a little kid. But I play it cool instead. “No, they wouldn’t mind.”
“And you?” she says, perching her head on her hand as she looks at me. “Would you mind?”
I flip her beneath me and press my erection against her. “Does it feel like I mind?”
“Okay then. I’ll do it. I don’t suppose you could finagle some more first-class tickets from your connections, could you?”
“I think that can be arranged.”
“You know what else can be arranged?” she asks.
“What?”
She pulls me down to her and whispers in my ear. “Joining the mile high club.”
“Not afraid of flying anymore?”
“Oh, I am. I just thought a few good orgasms on the flight would be better than me drinking myself into another stupor.”
I hop out of bed and pick her up. “What are you doing?”
“Your shower is about the size of an airplane bathroom. We’re going to practice.”
She giggles. The sound takes up residence in my heart. I love her laugh. I love her resilience. I even love her moodiness. As we enter the bathroom, I look at myself in the mirror.
Holy shit, I’m in love with her.
Chapter Sixteen
Amber
What am I doing?
I peek at Quinn. After a very eventful flight—and I’m not talking about the actual flying—we’re in his truck driving back to DHR. The last five days with him have been the oddest of my life. He stayed in the guest room, but every morning, we’d wake up together in one of our beds. He came to Dad’s funeral. He went out with Tag and his brothers. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say we’re acting like a couple.
But I’m only here for… well, I’m not sure how long I’m staying. I just know I can’t live in Texas on a horse ranch indefinitely. It’s nice for a while, but I’d miss Tag and my other friends. I’d miss Calloway Creek and the city. I’d miss the one place I remember my father.
“I think I’m going to keep the house,” I say. “Dad would have wanted me to live there. It will be strange to move my things into the main bedroom, though. I know I could have done it before, but I guess part of me was holding out hope that someone would find a cure for Alzheimer’s and he’d come home one day.”
“Keeping the house sounds like a good idea. You’ll have a spare room when I come visit.”
My heartbeat quickens at the thought. “You want to visit?”
“If it’s okay. I thought maybe…” He pulls off the road and into a parking lot. “We probably should have had this conversation before.” He turns off the engine and looks at me. “This is unknown territory for both of us, but I’m pretty sure you feel the same way about me as I do you. I know you’re not here forever, but we could visit each other. I want to spend time with you and see where this goes.”
The wheels are spinning in my head.
“Amber, say something.”
I chew my lip in thought. “I say yes.”
“Yes to what?”
“To seeing where this goes.”
A dashing smile lights up his face. “Okay then.” He starts the engine and pulls out onto the road, leaving me wondering if he just became my boyfriend. Boyfriend. It’s strange to even think the word.
“Tell me more about the McQuaids and the Calloways,” he says. “Are we talking Hatfields and McCoys here?”
“Just about. How much do you want to know?”
“We have a few minutes in the truck. Tell me all of it.”
“It would take a lot more than a few minutes, because it goes way back to the 1800s, but here’s what I will tell you: back in school, when a McQuaid and a Calloway were in the same room, any crowd around them parted like the Red Sea. I don’t think there was a week that went by where someone wasn’t yelling, fighting, or getting suspended when Tag and his brother, Jaxon, and Hawk and his brother, Hunter were all in the same high school.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“That’s not the half of it. Technically they’re all related.” Quinn’s jaw drops slightly, and I chuckle then explain, “It’s true. Hawk McQuaid’s great-grandmother is a Calloway.”
“Oh shit. Does that make them cousins or something?”
“Third cousins to be exact, because they share the same great-great-grandfather. And to complicate things even more, Hawk’s mother divorced his father and then married Tag’s uncle, Jonah, after his wife passed away. That makes Tag’s cousins, Colt, Gray, and Storm, Hawk’s step-brothers.”
He laughs. “You can’t make that shit up.”
“It can be entertaining at times, but the whole lot of them can also be super irritating. Like get over it already. Personally, I think the fact that the McQuaids have all the wealth and the Calloways have the name should make both sides happy, but it doesn’t.”
Answering Quinn’s questions about the two families helps take my mind off my dad, and for that, I’m grateful.
When we get to the ranch, a dozen people are gathered by the stable parking lot when we pull in. “Were you expecting a welcome home party?” I ask.
“I have no idea why everyone’s here.”
We’re barely out of the truck when Maddox pulls Quinn aside. “We have to talk about Jon,” Maddox says quietly. I’m not sure he wanted me to hear.
“You can talk about him in front of Amber,” Quinn says. “She knows he’s in prison.”
“Not for long.”
Quinn turns green. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Andie just got a certified letter delivered. I guess it’s customary to inform victims when their perpetrators get released.”
“They’re letting him out? But his parole hearing isn’t for another few months. And they deny him every time.”
“Prison overcrowding,” Maddox says. “I already called our local representative and everyone else I could think of. They all said the same thing, that certain prisoners who have served a majority of their sentence under good behavior will be released.”
Quinn kicks the tire of his truck. “Goddamn it. I didn’t think we had to worry about this for years.”
“None of us did.”
“Andie, are you okay?” Quinn asks.
“No.” She protectively touches her belly, which isn’t showing yet. “Do you think he’ll try something?”
“Not if I have anything to do with it.”
“We’ve been told it won’t be hard to get a restraining order,” Maddox says. “Jon won’t be able to come anywhere on the ranch.”
“If you think a restraining order will keep him away, you don’t know my uncle very well.”
“He could go back to jail,” Owen says. “And believe me, there will be a few dozen of us watching out for Andie. If he makes one wrong move, we’ll bust him down.”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever been so happy to be living on the ranch,” Quinn says. “Means I won’t have to deal with him.”
“He’s getting out next week,” Maddox says. “It’s possible the restraining order won’t go through by then, but we’re asking for an emergency one. Just in case, though, everyone needs to be prepared.”
“Got it.” Quinn turns to me. “You might want to think about turning right around and getting on the first plane out of here.”
“Are you scared?” I ask.
“I’m just not sure what to expect. Most of the shit he got himself into was because of my grandfather. If he’s smart, he’ll keep to himself. If he’s not, I don’t want you anywhere near him.”
“I’m a big girl. I think I’ll stick around.”
Owen hands Quinn his mail. “Looks like something official,” he says.
Quinn rips it open. “It’s my new license. I lost my wallet a while ago and had to order a replacement.”
“How’d you get on a plane without it?” Owen asks.
“Used my passport.”
Owen’s brow scrunches. “You have a passport? But you’ve never even left Texas.”
Quinn snorts. “With my family, you never know when I might have to get out of Dodge.”
I catch a glimpse of the license over his shoulder. “Nice picture.”
“I was twenty-one when it was taken,” he says.
“Cute.”
“You have a thing for younger guys?”
I roll my eyes. “Apparently.”
Texas Roses (The Devil's Horn Ranch Series) Page 10
