by Caro Carson
“Let’s go,” he said.
The other women in the kitchen were like statues, all staring at him. He saluted them with the bottle. “Don’t hold dinner for us.”
As he led Diana outside, he clearly heard a woman’s voice reverberate off the granite and stone.
“Do you still think he’ll be yours in six months?”
Chapter Seventeen
The beautiful thing about champagne was that a man could open it without a corkscrew. With six efficient turns of his wrist, Quinn knew the wire cage would come off, the cork could be eased out and Diana would be his.
He took the first swig straight from the bottle. It was warm, and the carbonation was sharp. He’d never had anything so delicious in his life.
“What should we drink to first?”
His voice filled the tunnel-like space of the boathouse, bouncing off the cavernous wooden structure in the dark. The late afternoon sun was blindingly bright on the water beyond the garage-style door, but inside, everything was cool and dark. Jet Skis and two-person sailboats bobbed at their moorings as he and Diana stood on the wood dock that ran the length of the space.
Diana started kicking off her gold sandals, looking over her shoulder and into the dark corners of the building. Her whisper blended with the lapping sound of the water. “Are you sure this is private?”
Quinn stepped close to her, one leg brushing the inside of her thigh, and bent to whisper low in her ear. “Very private. Let’s drink champagne and make love.”
She shivered, a delicate movement that brushed her covered breasts lightly against his bare arm, a simple sensation that sent his body from ready to shockingly hard. He wanted Diana with an intensity that gave every caress urgency. “Hold this,” he said, his voice gruff in the echoes as he pressed the champagne bottle into her hand. He pulled his T-shirt off and threw it on top of her discarded sandals. “Drink to us.”
She did, tilting her head back and swallowing as he kissed her throat. His hands weren’t steady, a tremor betraying his emotion, not the hands of a doctor at all, as he pushed his dress shirt off her shoulders and reached behind her neck to pull the ties of her orange top, skimming down her waist to pull the ties at her hip. The scraps of cloth fell to the floor, and the sight of her before him nearly felled him, too. He pressed her to his body, the sensation of skin on skin as shattering as he’d ever known it, and he staggered back to sink onto the boat cushions that had been stacked against the wooden wall, ready for summer days.
In the darkness of the boathouse, Diana was a vision of pale skin, a work of art, womanly and beautiful as she straddled him. Silently, she passed him the champagne so she could release his body, untying the surfer’s shorts that kept him from her, slipping her hand into his pocket to find a foil packet, and then he was once more insanely, intensely grateful when she took him into her.
He would always be grateful for the gift of Diana. He knew it, had known it from the first, but this time, he allowed the truth of it into his heart. He felt it with every roll of their hips, until he had to whisper it into the skin of her chest, her neck, her ear. “I want this forever, Diana. Forever.”
* * *
How could something that felt so right be so very, very wrong?
Diana rested against Quinn, relaxed, no muscle in her body remaining tense after the release of making love. Her heart beat steadily, slowing while she watched the rhythmic motion of the boats bobbing so slightly with the motion of the water in the boathouse. It was a perfect moment in time.
And yet, she felt like the terrible person she was. For weeks now, since the night she’d met Quinn MacDowell, she’d worried about herself. She’d made memories with a man whom she’d known was not for her, and she’d dreaded her own inevitable heartbreak.
Not once had she worried about Quinn.
Forever, he’d said.
She wouldn’t be the only one who got hurt.
Diana stared at the boats for one more minute, imprinting the peacefulness in her mind. Then she sat up. Bent over, retrieved her bikini from the dock. Started tying it on. She felt like a robot. That was good. She didn’t want to feel any more emotions than a robot did.
Quinn sat up and watched her dress. Without taking his eyes off her body, he lifted the bottle to his lips and took another swallow.
“That’s not the same champagne as you gave me at the gala, is it?” Diana asked quietly.
“It’s better,” he said. “Have some.”
After pulling his shirt back over her shoulders, she took the bottle and sat on the cushion next to him. She stared at the label. “Patricia was right.”
He was frowning at her. She could feel it, although she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.
“She wasn’t even close,” Quinn said. “That was her father’s stock, not hers, and I doubt they sell that vintage at the Driskill. Don’t let her start messing with you.”
“She wants to marry you.”
The boats bobbed, the water lapping at the edge of their dock. The sun was setting beyond the boathouse door.
Quinn took the bottle out of her hand, so Diana stared at the weathered wood at her bare feet.
“I don’t want to marry her. Why are we having this discussion?”
“You should marry her. You will. Her, or someone like her. She’ll glide into your life as easily as these boats come in here. You’ve got a good life, and she’ll keep it all so perfect for you.”
He made a sound like a hiss, sucking air in quickly, like he’d been punched. Startled, Diana looked at him.
“How can you make love to me and then tell me to marry someone else?”
Because I’m a terrible person.
He stood, a sudden, angry movement. He held the bottle in front of her. “Why did you give me this?”
“It was for Patricia. A hostess gift.”
He reared back, actually moved his head back as if she’d taken a swing at him. Then, in a stiff and formal way, he said, “I misinterpreted it.”
He paced a short distance. Two steps away from her. Two steps back. “I misinterpreted it, and you let me. You came here with me, and you let me make love to you. Why?” He gestured toward the cushions. “What was this for you?”
She couldn’t answer. Her heart was breaking, because she’d hurt him. This was worse, so much worse, than she’d thought it would be. Her tears weren’t blinding enough. She could see the look on Quinn’s face. The disbelief. The fury.
When she didn’t answer, he repeated his question, louder, his voice echoing off the water and the walls. “What was this for you?”
He walked two steps away from her and stayed away, this time. “Was this some kind of revenge sex? Patricia was mean to you, so you showed her. You had sex with the guy she wants. My God. You accused me of idiotic booty calls. At least shallow sex is honest. But this. What the hell was this?”
“Please, please stop.” The tears were falling hard now, and she dashed her cheek on her shoulder, on his shirt.
Quinn stopped, but it cost him physical effort. Breathing hard, like he’d run for miles, he came back to her. “Tell me. What has this whole weekend been about?”
She held up her hands helplessly. “It wasn’t about anything. It was just another date. We’ve been hanging out. We’ve been buddies. I’m good old Diana, the gal pal, the party girl.”
Quinn shoved his hand through his hair. “No, that’s wrong. We’re dating, because we like being together more than we like being apart. But we’re not really together, are we? You only see me when you’ve taken care of everyone and everything else. Until this morning, I never knew just how important your work with your dogs was. You’ve shut me out.”
She’d kept him at bay for her own protection. Why let the man invade every corner of her life, when they weren’t going to
be together long?
Quinn turned and chucked the champagne bottle into the nearest trash can, then grabbed his T-shirt off the dock and pulled it on. “I’ll tell you what this weekend was supposed to be about. It was about that ‘more’ that I thought you wanted. It was about including you in my life, my whole life, not just dinners after work. I wanted you to see that you could fit into my world.”
Diana felt tears prick her eyes again. He cared about her that much. Or he had cared. “I’m so sorry it backfired. I knew from the first night that no matter how I felt about you, we were too different. I’m not the right woman for you. Now you’re finally seeing it.”
“No, I’m not.” Quinn closed the distance between them, and then to her surprise, he buried his hands in her hair and tilted her face up to his, as if he was going to kiss her. “I see the opposite. The director of Texas Rescue is ready to hire you, if you haven’t noticed. Karen is grateful you can handle Patricia, because she can’t. You do very well in my world.”
If that was true, it was frightening. “Then here’s the problem. I don’t want to be part of this world. I want to make people happy, not put them in their place. It may sound weak to you, but I would rather leave than fight. I’m leaving.”
Quinn was silent for a long time, looking into her eyes. “Then I’m leaving with you.”
“Oh.” She placed her hands on his wrists. It was so Quinn of him, to insist on escorting a woman home. “I don’t mean for the weekend. I mean forever.”
“So do I.”
Incredibly, he kissed her. Tenderly. Brushing his lips over hers, then over her cheek, then her temple. It didn’t feel like a goodbye kiss.
“Quinn, don’t you understand what I’m saying?”
“You said you weren’t the right woman no matter how you felt about me. What feeling is that? How do you feel about me?”
“It’s... I feel...” She wanted him. She liked him, she admired him. He made her laugh, but he also made her angry, and uncomfortable, and—she couldn’t put a name to it. She spent so much time telling herself she couldn’t have him, she put so much effort into not feeling too much for him, that she couldn’t come up with an answer.
With his hands still cupping her face, she shook her head a little, helpless and silent.
“It’s okay.” He kissed her again, and let her go. “I know how you feel about me. You told me with your body, right here, while we were making love.”
She wrapped her arms around her middle, feeling cold without him. Confused. “Revenge sex? I thought that was revenge sex.”
Quinn knelt at her feet and held her glittery sandal so she could slip into it. She put her hand on his shoulder for balance, and he looked up at her. The darkness was coming rapidly, but she could tell that he was smiling.
Smiling.
“You weren’t getting revenge on Patricia. That was a bad choice of words. You were showing her, and me, and especially yourself that you own me. That I’m yours for the taking.”
When her second sandal was on, he stood and took her hand, lifting it to his lips, a formal cavalier in a T-shirt. “That feeling is right and true. It makes you, and only you, the right woman for me. We’re leaving. Together.”
* * *
When they reached the house, they found Karen on the phone and everyone else packing. The National Weather Service had issued new warnings. The hurricane was not obeying the predictions. It was stronger and faster, and it would hit the coast of Texas before the sun set again.
Everyone left, together.
Chapter Eighteen
Monday morning dawned gray and wet. The hurricane had made landfall hours before, damaging several towns along the coast. Its speed had enabled some of the outer bands of rain to reach as far inland as Austin, but the rain was all that was left of the storm system. As fast as the hurricane had come, it had died once it began moving over land. The Texas Rescue and Relief temporary hospital team was already on their way to the coast. Quinn and Diana were supposed to be on their way, too, to join them sometime before darkness fell.
“I’m running late.”
Quinn prayed for patience.
He found it.
“I can wait,” he said into the phone. He was in his truck, the pickup he used for everyday driving and disaster relief alike. The plan was to follow Diana’s car to the coast. He’d much rather have Diana by his side for the three-hour drive, but policy was policy. Every member of the team was supposed to have their own transportation as well as extra gasoline.
Diana sounded upbeat. “With our separate cars, there’s no need for you to be late just because I’m running late. I’ve got two more errands.”
“Any half-ton bags of dog food involved? I’m dressed for it this time.” Although he’d be seeing patients on the coast as he did in Austin, he wore jeans and boots, ready for any heavy labor that was needed to get the temporary hospital up and running.
“No, nothing like that. The rain is going to slow down traffic as is. Don’t wait for me.”
Quinn had never claimed to read people, not the way someone like Diana could. But when it came to Diana herself, Quinn knew her better than anyone else. Her voice came across as too cheerful, too much like she’d been at his mother’s picnic.
She was sad.
He drove in the rain to her house, arriving in time to see her lime-green Bug backing out of the driveway. Feeling like the worst kind of stalker, he followed her. Her first errand was to the duplex where she’d left her banana suitcase, which she put in her trunk. Simple. Logical.
Her second was to a cemetery.
Quinn sat in his truck for a long while, watching Diana wind her way between the grave markers, her blue jeans hugging her hips and her pink sequin shirt looking undimmed by the gray weather. He couldn’t see her face under the black umbrella she used.
He felt all the inadequacy of their relationship. They’d taken it up a notch this weekend, it was true. He’d told her she owned him, which she did, and he’d convinced her not to run away despite his alleged friends doing their best to shut her out. But when she hadn’t been able to name her emotions, he’d told her it was okay. He hadn’t said how he felt about her, either.
It wasn’t okay.
I failed to do my best.
And now Diana was alone in a cemetery, unaware how much he cared.
Quinn grabbed his cowboy hat from the rack in his truck cab. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and the hat’s brim kept the worst of it from rolling down his neck as he set off to find Diana.
She was sitting on a plastic tablecloth, umbrella on her shoulder, reading from a white piece of paper. She looked almost like a little girl at a tea party, with the tablecloth underneath her like that.
Quinn stopped at what he gauged to be a respectful distance, but her words reached him as she held the paper up.
“There’s enough misery in the world without you adding yours to it. Not you personally, of course. You’re a baby. You’re allowed to cry. But I really like this philosophy, and I hope you do, too, when you’re old enough to decide on your own what to believe in.”
The punch to his gut was not going to pass. Quinn didn’t even try to wait it out. He walked through the wet grass.
She saw him coming and stopped reading. She looked at her letter, and she looked at him, and she looked so confused, Quinn knew she’d never been interrupted before. She moved to get to her feet, but he was there first. “Don’t get up. May I sit down?”
“You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I know.”
“Did you follow me?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t sit beside her, but took a knee instead, keeping his boot off the tablecloth. He removed his hat and held it over his heart, as his parents had taught him since his youngest days.
He wondered how many years Diana’s mother had had to teach her daughter all the ways of the world. He looked at the date on the tombstone. The first punch hadn’t lessened yet, or he surely would have felt a second.
“Diana.” His voice was raw, little more than a whisper. He cleared his throat. “What year were you born?”
She sighed and put the paper in her lap. Her letter, her precious letter.
“She died the day after I was born. There was some complication with the pregnancy, and they told her she’d have to stay in the hospital for the last four weeks before I was due. On the second day, she wrote my letter.”
Diana affected a slightly different voice, the one she must have imagined her mother used. “It’s so incredibly boring here. I think I’ll use the news hour to write you a letter every day. I’ll pick one topic, and try to tell you what I know. That will be so much better than an hour of doom and gloom on this hospital TV.”
Diana looked down at the letter in her hand. Not the original letter, Quinn realized, but a photocopy, much folded.
Diana talked in her usual voice. “In the first letter, she wrote about happiness. The next day, she suffered a stroke or an aneurysm or something. My grandpa just called it ‘an attack.’ She never regained consciousness. I was born by C-section two weeks later, and they took her off life support.”
“Good God.” He bowed his head.
She was quiet until he opened his eyes again. “You’re a doctor. Don’t you see things like this all the time?”
He hoped his voice wouldn’t fail him. “No. Those cases are rare. You can’t help but feel the loss.”
“Don’t start crying, okay? It will make me cry.”
“Okay.” Quinn cleared his throat again.
