Her Balancing Act: Quinlan O'Connor Book 3

by Alyssa Bailey

  Her husband might have given her a two-week deadline to get things figured out, but she had probably twenty-nine days left, minus days off due to his swing’s work schedule. She hoped she could share with him some truths, such as the system was in place, the reporting was done and electronic data working. She did not have to tell him that she was still working on the discrepancies, and if he asked, she could easily say there were still some kinks, but they would work themselves out. Yes, it might have been slightly misleading, but so be it.

  The pressure was truly on. Thank goodness, it was a month into the quarter so she did not have to worry about the other accounts until later. At least something was going in her favor. Turning up the radio, she listened to some soft rock music her darling cowboy did not care for nearly as much as his country, but she was not a country and western music fan. He loved good country; she adored a good love song. They drove different rigs. It helped with those types of differences to have some independence of each other to keep their own autonomy because sometimes they were so inseparable it was painful. She smiled to herself, a good pain.

  Cheyenne began to think back on the morning’s mess. The more she thought, the more irritated she got and when Cheyenne got irritated, she would drive faster without noticing. Cresting the top of the mountain, she heard her favorite song of the week, and it began to bring her back into focus to her surroundings and out of her head. She noticed she was going too fast for the area with its mountain curves, and she tapped her breaks. There was a little slow down but not what she had expected. They were not feeling as though she had a drag when braking.

  Having a moment of confusion, she looked in her rearview mirror. Nothing. She looked around nothing. Her heart slamming into her chest, Cheyenne’s body shot straight up, both hands rushed to grip the wheel tightly, and she stomped hard on the brakes. They went to the floor. She stomped again and felt no resistance to the floor.

  Oh, shit, this can’t be good, she thought. She had just topped a hill, and the momentum would be fierce. Lord, please don’t let me die. Her hands tightened further on the wheel, and she repeatedly pumped the brake as though it would magically work. She prayed it might decide to work. It didn’t.

  Shifting her concentration to the driving, she prayed no wildlife crossed in front of her. She didn’t think she would survive that encounter. She could feel her speed pick up as she careened down the winding steep slope. She was heading towards the small flatter glen at the bottom of the descent. Her stomach was clenching hard, but she barely acknowledged it.

  She could feel her body grow cold and then hot as she tensed every muscle she had in anticipation of her expected collision with some of God’s nature in an unnatural way. As she got to a particularly sharp curve in the road, she felt her wheels skid as she took the twist hard. Sweat rolled down her temples as she maneuvered her vehicle that seemed to somewhat bounce on the turn. She mentally acknowledged when her SUV had all four wheels back on the road with relief that was short lived.

  She barreled closer to the bottom of the descending road, which served to increase her speed even more. She forced herself to be calmer, and she reviewed the land ahead. She only had an instant, but she scanned the terrain for the only opportunity she would have to stop her SUV.

  In the rapidly approaching flatland, she saw an area where she could drive off the road. There didn’t appear to be a chassis-destroying ditch on the shoulder to impede her crossing over into the pasture. With grim determination to have mind-blowing orgasmic sex with her husband tonight, she sent up a desperate prayer to her Maker.

  She stared hard and screamed, “Geronimo!”

  She drove off the road with a violent lurching then rumbling of tires. The SUV creaked and groaned as she continued to barrel across the field. She felt the torn stumps and vegetation scrap her undercarriage. After she had gone a goodly distance and she felt some slowing down, she thought of the emergency brake. She could most likely use that now with good results so she pulled the lever for that purpose. With great joy, she felt the SUV slow to a stop with both she and the car intact.

  She turned off the vehicle with a sigh of thanksgiving, and a quick thank you for the Almighty’s hand bringing the car to a safe stop. As Cheyenne sat there for a moment, calming her breathing, she tried to use her cell phone, but the mountains and lack of close cell towers made it useless. As she felt herself begin to tear up, she tried to hold it back because she told herself sternly, tears won’t do you any good. Think, you have to think of what to do now.

  After a few moments of self-talk to get her frayed emotions under control, she began to try to estimate how far she was from home. She reached over to see if her GPS direction finder was working and she was happy to discover it did. It showed her to be a crazy woman in the middle of nowhere, as well as showing home eight miles away. Well, from the ranch anyway, a couple more miles to the house. It wasn’t far at all.

  Then she looked around to see if she could figure out how to get home when a thought hit her, her emergency rescue system should work if her GPS direction finder worked. She tried by pushing the button and waited anxiously to see if it would respond. It did, and the most beautiful voice came over the car speaker and the operator asked calmly if she could help.

  Cheyenne quickly gave the numbers to contact her family having to slow down and repeat them. She was so anxious to have her family come to get her that she garbled the information. She waited as each member was called and each person’s phone was out of range or went to voice mail. Cheyenne was beginning to despair until she heard the deep, questioning voice of Liam as he answered a call from an unknown number. For Liam, that didn’t often happen, as he knew just about everyone who called him. The woman quickly identified herself and whom it was she had on the line. Liam responded by calling her name.

  “Cheyenne, mhuirnín, are you okay?”

  That was all it took for Cheyenne to lose it. Liam tried to calm her down, but she couldn’t seem to get it together enough to be understood, and the helpful woman at the switchboard told him where she was.

  “Do you happen to have that in coordinates so that I can put the numbers into my locator? We are smack in the middle of the mountain range.”

  The operator accommodated him and offered to stay on the line until they got there. He accepted her offer and told her that it would be twenty minutes tops before they would be there. The first to show up in fewer than fifteen minutes was Quinlan and Liam. Quinlan was out on a country road when he got the spotty signaled call from Liam. All he understood was Cheyenne and get to the main road. This was the standard message when they needed to drop what they were doing and get to where there was a better signal, the highway because there was a problem. There were many times the brothers or their cowboys would head to the main road and wait for a better call or use a satellite phone. That method had always served them well as it did today.

  Cheyenne could hear Quinn’s sirens and could see his lights as he approached her location and could identify a truck behind him. It was Liam. They were followed by Ciarán, Katie, and Shane who came in Ciarán’s truck. Cheyenne figured that Kelli’s deputy fiancé, Parker Jamison, was on his way from the other end of town because the service also called the Sheriff’s Department.

  Finding her was not as easy as they had thought because it was darker in the heavier wooded area, but then they saw the break in the trees. The trees gave way to a wide-open field and then tracks in the soft ground. They pulled over and jumped out quickly locating her SUV. Cheyenne saw her men coming, and she started to cry again. It was as though the woman on the other line knew it was her family because she was asking Cheyenne if they were there when Quinlan opened the door. Liam opened the passenger door and thanked the woman for helping his sister and after getting her first name said goodbye.

  “Baby, are you hurt? We brought Katie in case you were. Honey, are you crying because you’re injured?”

  Katie came up behind and began her assessment immediately after
laying her hand on Quinn’s arm to signal her interruption.

  “Cheyenne, listen to my voice. This is Katie. I need you to nod your head if you are hurt.”

  Cheyenne shook her head and tried to calm down with little success. Katie looked up as Quinn leaned into his woman’s ear and kissed her gently rubbing his hands on her arms soothingly, he murmured to her.

  “Lómhara, listen to me. Shh, you’re okay honey. I have you. I won’t let anything happen to you. I love you.” She reached up and put her arms around his neck, sniffling in his collar.

  Katie stepped back when Cheyenne had calmed down. “Cheyenne, I need to check on things you might not have noticed. Did you lose consciousness, hit your head or have any breathing problems?” Katie was very professional, and that seemed to bring Cheyenne out of herself enough to allow her to pull back from Quinn slightly. His hold on her was possessively tight but when asked, he pulled back but never lost physical contact with his sweetheart.

  Finally, after Katie spent some time palpating her belly, hips, neck, shoulders, and spine, she declared that Cheyenne could get out of the SUV. Cheyenne was helped out with great care by Quinlan. He stood next to her as she put weight on her legs and stretched out her arms.

  “A little headachy is all.”

  Katie finally declared that while she wanted Cheyenne to be checked out, she felt she did not need an ambulance.

  “Nor do I need a doctor. Thanks, Katie, I really appreciate you coming out.”

  Quinn ignored Cheyenne and asked Katie, “Hey, hon, can you do one last thing for us and put a call into Doc to see if he could check Cheyenne out before he heads home? I have a satellite phone in my truck.”

  “Sure.”

  Turning to Cheyenne, Quinlan changed his tone to squelch any complaints she may have been gearing up to cast his way. He pulled her tightly back into his arms, supporting her body in his all-encompassing hold.

  “Cheyenne, I love you more than anything in my world, and I was damn scared that you could have been seriously injured. It is grace that you don’t look like you were hurt. I know you feel like things will be fine, and I hope you’re right, but I’m not willing to take the chance of missing something because you don’t feel hurt right now. Therefore, any fight you want to engage in will have to wait until I have you officially checked out and cleared. You hear me?”

  Cheyenne struggled with her response to his impassioned plea.

  “Please?” he entreated.

  The complaints were ready to roll off her tongue, but she could see how scared her husband really had been and how could she let go of the words of denial that she wanted to say? She couldn’t, so she acquiesced.

  “Yes, sir, I love you, too. I’m really okay, though.”

  Quinn looked as though his next words, geared to respond to her push back, had to be swallowed. He didn’t seem to know how to answer immediately, but he brought his brain back online evidently, for he leaned down to softly but intensely kiss her, relieved she didn’t refuse the exam.

  “Do you want me to call Carter?”

  “Of course, I would be more comfortable, but maybe I can handle this. I sat in the hospital with you the whole time. Maybe Doc’s office won’t be terrible?” whispered Cheyenne.

  “I won’t leave you a second if you try, I promise.”

  She nodded.

  “Honey,” Quinn changed subjects, “What happened here?”

  “I don’t know, I went to hit the brake, and it was squishy and then nothing. It went straight to the floor. I was never so scared in my life.” He hugged her tightly again rubbing her arms in comfort.

  Ciarán called out to Quinlan. “Quinn, come smell this and tell me what you think it is, and here comes Parker.”

  Cheyenne looked on as the men began to visualize what happened. They could smell some type of odor but wasn’t sure what it was at first, masked as it was with the burnt emergency brake smell.

  Dropping down to identify the stench, Ciarán asked, “Cheyenne, did you have trouble with your brakes?”

  “Of course, why do you think I ended up in the field? Dangerous driving?”

  “Cheyenne,” Quinn rumbled his displeasure and warning, rubbing her rear and then squeezing her to him reassuringly.

  Ciarán stepped in and said, “Let it go, man. We are all thankful she’s all right and needs to get her bearings and so do you.”

  In response, Quinn said, “Parker,” watching him get closer, “let me have your flashlight.”

  After a few moments, Quinn called out, “Parker, get under here and look at this.”

  “Yep,” was the response, “a damaged brake line. It almost looks cleanly cut so she didn’t run over any stump or debris in the field here because that would have given it a more jagged edge cut than this.”

  Ciarán whistled, and Liam ran his hand through his hair in the O’Connor way.

  “Man this is messed up,” Ciarán stated.

  “Where was she this morning?” Liam asked.

  “She came from the Spencer place,” replied Quinlan in clipped tones as he rolled out from under the vehicle.

  “Well, I need to take the car into town with me, Quinn. I’ll get it back to you in a day or so if I can. I’ll call a tow.”

  “Yeah, I figured. Let me get what she needs out of it first. You get me that report the minute you have it done.”

  Parker asked if he could speak with Cheyenne and before Quinn could say wait, Cheyenne piped up from the backseat that she had retreated to and said, “Sure.”

  Having been part of this family dynamic long enough, Cheyenne knew Parker would honor Quinn, and it didn’t matter that legally Cheyenne could make her own decisions. Parker glanced at his soon to be brother-in-law and waited. Quinn probably appreciated the gesture, but Cheyenne did not.

  “Parker Jamison, don’t you look at him, you look at me. I said yes, and it is my call so ask your damn questions.”

  “Go ahead. The lady is ready to talk, evidently in rainbow colors, but I guarantee that will change after today, so ask all your questions now.”

  Quinn nodded in Cheyenne’s general direction and walked around to the other side of the SUV. Cheyenne could hear him discuss with Shane and the others, what damage her wild ride had caused. She also couldn’t miss the way he stood next to the window and did more listening than talking.

  “Cheyenne, tell me what you did today,” Parker began.

  Taking a deep breath, she relayed her day starting from finding the office a mess at least vandalized or worst-case scenario it was broken into then to discovering her brakes didn’t work.

  Cheyenne saw Quinn was fuming, and evidently, she wasn’t the only one. Shane, up from Sheridan for another job bid apparently noticed. She cringed at the question he asked. She listened intently, totally tuning Parker out. Since Shane didn’t live in Montana, he was not in the loop on the issues. “Hey, did you know all of that and let her go anyway?”

  The very air became still. Ciarán kicked the dirt in that characteristic way he had when there was something he knew but didn’t want to give away. Liam was standing stock still, waiting. Quinn slammed his fist on the side of the SUV. Cheyenne flinched even though she watched his fist fall.

  “Damn,” she whispered.

  “No, I didn’t know about the office, but I bet someone else did, right?” looking right at his other brothers.

  Ciarán looked up, “Only what we have already talked about, man. We didn’t know of anything like what happened today.”

  “Liam?” Quinn looked hard at his brother and for the first time ever, Cheyenne thought Liam squirmed.

  “We spoke about the oddities in the Spencer accounts several times, but that was when we advised her to tell you. So when you told us today you gave her two weeks to be done with the preliminaries, we figured you had talked and come to a compromise.”

  Shane added, “I can see how that would go, Quinn. We want to keep our noses out while still being there for each other. Sometimes it�
��s a fine line for sure.”

  Ciarán added, “Honest, Bro, I thought that she would tell you if things got worrisome. She really only said something was off. That isn’t enough to set off the protection meter more than a little. We did tell her to talk to you about it, and we all talked about things after that.”

  “She said something was off, and I told her to quit, but she said it was her business, and I promised to let her conduct her business the way she needed to so long as things didn’t escalate. For heaven’s sake, she’s a damn accountant. It’s a safe career, not like nursing in homes that Katie does or running a safe house, like Jocelyn.”

  Parker came around to hear that last bit and laughed. “Wasn’t it this family that said the spice of life is a spunky wife? Well, you certainly have a spicy life because I think Cheyenne has a few things to tell you that she might have left out of the dinner table conversation.”

  “In all seriousness, Quinn, something is going on, and I’d keep an eye on Cheyenne. Take her to Doc’s, and then we can have dinner together as planned.” Parker glanced at the others who were nodding their heads, “Afterward, I think we need to sit down together, look at the issues and what we need to do about it. I don’t mean vigilante style, but I’m sure you know what I'm saying.”

  Quinn nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. You get what you need and then go out to the Spencer place and look around. I’ll call this into the station and get some additional eyes on this. I’m through playing nice. It’s my wife, my rules.”

  Quinn pulled out his cell and made a call. “Parker, can you keep someone out here while my guy comes out? I know it’s county, but I’d feel better if we could get this done together. Hey, and don’t let any officer or deputy blow smoke up your ass about this. It is important we work together.”

  The men all mumbled their agreement and looked up when Katie walked into Ciarán’s arms saying the appointment was for whenever they could get there, but he wants to go home in a couple of hours if that would work for them.” She leaned in for her kiss, and Quinn went for Cheyenne.