by Fredrick, MJ
Lily squealed and grabbed the magazine from Paula. “Oh, my God! This is incredible! All that hard work! Have you shown Leo and Trinity? This has to be Leo’s doing.” She flipped it to look at the cover, then back to the page again, scanning the other sites mentioned. “Right there with the Grand Canyon and the Redwood Forest. Oh, my God. Quinn!” She turned to shove the magazine in his face, as if he couldn’t see it already.
“That’s terrific,” he said quietly.
“It’s the best Christmas present ever! Wow, we worked so hard for this.” Her face glowed as she studied the article.
“I thought you’d want to have it,” Paula said, backing toward the door. “I’ll let you get back to your celebration.”
“Oh, I can’t keep your magazine. I’ll buy my own this week.”
“No, I want you to have it. You deserve it. Thank you, Lily. I think this summer will be the best ever.”
Lily continued staring at the article after Paula left, then darted to the phone and called Trinity. It turned out that while Leo had made a point of inviting journalists to come up to Bluestone, he didn’t know the one who’d written this article.
“It’s all you, Lil,” Trinity said. “See you after church.”
“Church!” Lily looked down at her jeans and sweater. “I guess I’d better get dressed.”
The families went their separate ways for the church celebrations, but Lily sent Quinn with a little gift for Kaden. She’d already exchanged gifts with Trinity. Quinn sat behind his friend and watched Kaden over Trinity’s shoulder during the service. He noticed the kids who came into church, their eyes huge as they took in the Christmas tree and the manger. He didn’t know when he’d started noticing kids, when he started thinking of having some of his own. But he wished Lily was here with him, holding his hand and delighting in the joy of the children, like he knew she would.
After church they gathered at the bar and watched parades and football while preparing the big dinner. They’d invited Beth, Maddox, Linda and Jonah, and Trinity and Leo and Kaden, and Trinity’s parents and brother. All were pitching in while the kids played with their new toys and women took turns watching the babies. Trinity and Tammy forged a fast friendship over new motherhood, with Linda joining in now and again. Dinner was loud and raucous and Lily was in her element. They toasted the inclusion of Bluestone in a national magazine, they toasted Lily, they toasted Bluestone.
He watched the kids, watched Liam with them, and tension wrapped around his spine. The girls kept their distance from their father, just as he had from his own father, and Liam didn’t make a lot of effort to engage them. Was that the kind of father he would be, distant, like his own? A man his children were afraid of? Hell, he didn’t know anything about kids. Was it something he could even fix, or was he doomed to treat his children the way his father had treated him?
Panic welled. Time to take a step back, a huge step back from where his thoughts had been heading earlier today. His gaze drifted to Lily, so happy, so—different from him. Maybe he’d been fooling himself all this time.
“Best. Christmas. Ever,” she murmured that night as she nestled under Quinn’s chin in bed.
She hadn’t even noticed he hadn’t given her his present.
***
The next morning when Lily woke up, Quinn was gone. She ran her hand across the flannel sheet, but couldn’t tell if he’d been gone long. She got up and padded into the living room, to find her mother in her kitchen.
“Have you seen Quinn?” she asked.
Vivian shook her head.
“Have you been here long?”
“Only a half hour or so. I figured if the door was unlocked, it was safe to come in. I wouldn’t be interrupting anything.”
Lily barely registered her mother’s words. “I’m going to go see if he went home.”
But he wasn’t at his place, or at the bar. Only one other place he could be. She took her Snow Cat out on the ice and went to his fishing hut. Sure enough, once she shut the engine off, she heard the heater running inside, and knocked on the door.
He opened it in a blast of heat, looking bleary-eyed and not surprised to see her.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked, stepping inside at his silent invitation.
“Too many people at your place. I needed some space.”
She looked at the fishing hole, which had iced over. “Not fishing, though.”
“Just alone with my thoughts. Anything wrong with that?”
She’d forgotten how snarly he could be when cornered. “Sorry, big bear. I was just worried about you.”
“You don’t have to worry about me. I’m a big boy.”
“You could’ve left a note. Then I wouldn’t have come looking for you.”
He bared his teeth. “I’m not used to being accountable to people, all right? I want to be alone. I like being alone. And you keep pushing me to be part of something I don’t need to be a part of, not like you.”
She recoiled at his words. “I don’t mean to push.”
“Just because you love being in the middle of everyone doesn’t mean other people want it, too, you know. I’m perfectly happy staying by myself in my house on Christmas. I don’t need the whole world to stay with me. I don’t need everyone telling me they love me.”
“Not everyone,” she shot back, stung.
He held her gaze. “Right. Not everyone.”
Silence hung between them for a long moment, and Lily’s thoughts tumbled from one thing to another. What had she done to invite this pain? Coming to find him? Or had she done something before?
“I’m going to go,” he said.
“What, now?”
He shook his head. “I’m going to stay out here awhile now, but when my mom and brother leave, I’m going to go away for a while.”
She could hardly catch her breath past the pain. “Why?”
“I need to work things out in my head. I’ll be back, but not soon.”
Leave it to him not to be specific. “Quinn. You don’t have to go. I’ll back off. I know how to do that.”
“I know you do, but it’s—I need to figure some things out. It’s best if I do it away from here. So tonight, I’ll be staying on my own, and once Mom and Liam leave tomorrow, I’m leaving, too.”
“The bar?”
“I’ll see if Leo and Beth can run it. It’ll be slow between now and the carnival, but I don’t want Beth to be out that money, so I’ll see what she can do.”
“Where will you go?”
He shook his head. “Don’t know.”
“If you did, would you tell me?”
“Don’t know,” he said again. “I’m sorry, Lily.”
As she mounted the Snow Cat, she wondered how this had turned from the best Christmas ever to the worst.
Chapter Thirteen
Lily tucked the walkie talkie back in her pocket and headed down to the lakeside to where the fireworks would go off tonight at eight, wrapping up the two-day winter festival. Over her head fluttered a banner reading, “Bluestone Lake, A Family-Friendly Place.” The banner had arrived in the mail a few weeks ago, and no one would claim to have bought it.
Everything was going smoothly today—the sleigh rides, the ski hill, the ice golf. This afternoon there was an ice sculpture contest, and things had kicked off yesterday with a pancake breakfast, followed by a parade of the ice houses, and her personal favorite event, a competition between the local volunteer fire departments, with chopping, carrying and climbing races.
She’d kept so busy she didn’t even think of Quinn more than a hundred times a day.
He’d sent postcards, one from the Black Hills, a couple from Yellowstone, a surprising one from Boulder where he’d gone to visit Gerry’s family, an even more surprising one from Kansas that read only, “All’s well.” Then one from the Grand Canyon, then Santa Fe. Farther and farther away. And of course he didn’t say much. Thinking of her, the place was beautiful, all these places he was visiting
to get away from her. She shrugged off the melancholy she hadn’t let herself feel and marched down to the edge of the lake.
She dealt with the questions from the men who would set off the fireworks, and was heading back to the bar—she didn’t let herself think of it as Quinn’s—to warm up when another squawk from the walkie took her in another direction.
She paused mid-step when she recognized a tall, lean figure standing next to one of the ice sculptors. No, it couldn’t be. The last postcard had arrived Thursday, was dated the weekend before. He couldn’t have made it back from Santa Fe that quickly. She was just—hoping.
She turned to answer the call and never did make it to the bar before the ice sculpture contest started.
Two men stood in the parking lot with chunks of ice nearly as tall as they were, on platforms, and a fire burned in a pit on the gravel behind them, sending flickers of light dancing through the ice. The roar of chainsaws echoed over the lake, and Lily jumped when someone touched her arm.
“Trinity sent me looking for you,” Leo said. ‘They’ll be at this awhile. Why don’t you come warm up?”
She was pretty chilled. A nice cup of cocoa would be perfect right now. She followed Leo into the bar, where a lot of people crowded, drinking coffee and hot cocoa and eating more substantial meals than were offered at the booths below. She took her usual spot at the bar and Beth passed her a cup of cocoa.
Leo, Beth and Linda had done an admirable job keeping the place going in Quinn’s absence. She wondered how long they would have to continue. Lily looked about for the lean man she’d seen talking to the sculptor, but didn’t see him. She just had Quinn too much on her mind.
Trinity sat beside her, plopping Kaden and his carrier on top of the bar. “Another success.”
“Some definite dos and don’ts I need to remember for next year,” Lily replied. “I think I’m going to sleep a week when this is done.”
“You definitely deserve a vacation. Maybe someplace warm. And there’s nothing really for you to do right now.”
“There are the ice houses.”
Trinity waved her hand. “Leo or I could take care of that.”
“Seriously, where would I go?” Santa Fe. The idea popped into her head before she could stop it. Ridiculous. No telling if he was still there, or where he was in the town if he was still there. “I’ll just stick around and sleep. Only a few more hours. Oh, and I’ll probably have clean-up tomorrow.”
“I thought you had a committee for that.”
“I do, but—”
“But you like to oversee. Which means do most of the work.”
“My idea, so…besides, what else do I have to do?” Lily turned her attention to Kaden and wiggled his socked foot. “I don’t have anything else to keep me busy.” She reached for her gloves. “I should get back out there. The longer I sit here, the stiffer I’ll get.”
“Have you eaten?” Beth asked.
Lily frowned at the other woman. Since when did Beth care if she’d eaten or not. “No, but there’s corn dogs down there.”
“You should really eat,” Trinity said.
“I wanted to see the sculptors.”
“They’ll be at it awhile. The last time I saw one, it was like an hour. You have time.”
“I’ll get some stew,” Beth said, turning away.
“I don’t need another mother, much less two,” Lily protested.
“Can’t have you working yourself sick,” Trinity said. “I may need a babysitter in a few days.”
“Any time you want,” Lily said, scooping Kaden out of his seat and cradling him against her. She admired him until Beth brought the bowl of stew, then Trinity took her son.
She was so happy to see her friend happy. After all Trinity’s worries, she had bonded with her son, and the past was in the past. It helped that Leo was an awesome dad and madly in love with her. Even her parents had come around, falling in love with Kaden and barely leaving Trinity alone with their eagerness to be a part of his life. Lily ignored the twinge in her own heart and turned to her stew. Beth brought over bread, too.
Once the bowl was empty, practically clean enough to reuse, Lily stood and grabbed her gloves again. “Okay, now I’m going back out there. Thanks, Beth.”
“I’m anxious to see what they’re doing, too,” Trinity said. “Let me just get Kaden covered up and I’ll come with you.”
Lily shifted from one foot to another as she waited for her friend. Children certainly slowed one down, considering they were usually moving at high speed. Leo was by the door, which was unusual, and suddenly Beth was behind them, bundled up as well, as they walked out onto the deck overlooking the sculpting.
The deck was crowded with others who wanted a bird’s-eye view, but somehow they managed to part for Lily to get to the rail. Odd. When she looked down, she saw both sculptors had created what looked like loons, their necks craned toward each other. Suddenly, the chainsaws went silent, and the tall, lean man from earlier stepped forward, between the birds. He pulled back his hood and looked up at her.
Quinn.
Her heart tripped and she gripped the rail.
“I missed you, Lily,” he said, so that everyone could hear. “The farther I got away, the more I realized what I’d left behind, and when I just couldn’t stand it anymore, I couldn’t get back here fast enough. But it gave me plenty of time to think about what I want and how to let you know what I want. And to see if you want it, too.” He stepped back and put a hand on one of the loon’s heads. “Bluestone is your heart, and you’re its heart. I know no other place will be home for you, and without you, no other place will be home for me.” He placed his other hand on the other loon’s head. “They mate for life. You know that, everyone here probably knows it. And I didn’t ever give you your Christmas present.” He pulled a battered envelope out of his back pocket. “I was going to wait to tell you here.” He held up two plane tickets. “Florida. I was going to propose to you in the sand. But I don’t want to wait that long, Lily. I love you and I want to be a part of your life, here in Bluestone. You can boss me around all you want, if you’ll marry me.”
Lily couldn’t breathe. A hand rested on her back and she glanced over to see Trinity watching her. The anticipation on her friend’s face made her wonder if she’d known about this. Of course she had.
She wrested her gaze from her friend to look down at Quinn. “You had to leave to figure this all out?”
“To be sure.”
“Are you sure now?”
He turned away from her and only then did she see that Leo and Dale were behind him, holding the for-sale sign that had been leaning against the side of the bar for so long the lettering was weathered and the wood was rough around the edges. Her stomach dropped to her toes. Quinn took the sign from them, shifting his stance a bit to accommodate its weight, and turned back to her.
“I thought we could maybe use this as kindling in that fire over there.”
A cheer went up from the crowd and a grin split her face. Suddenly everything in her was light as a feather and threatening to float off.
When the noise leveled off, he took a step closer. “I’m sure that every minute of every day I missed you. I’m sure that I love you, and that I’ll never stop. I’m sure I’ll make mistakes again, like not knowing what I want and waiting too long, but it won’t take me as long to make things right. I love you, Lily. I’ve never told another woman that. Do you love me?”
Even from up here she could see he held his breath in anticipation of her answer. She looked from him, to the loons, to the sign, to the people gathered around, who also seemed to hold their breath.
“I didn’t have to go anywhere to figure that out,” she said. “Of course I love you.”
“Enough to marry me?” His eyes crinkled and teeth flashed in a smile as he waved his hand at the bar behind her. “All this could be yours.”
She grinned back. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”
The crowd parted as sh
e turned to hurry down the stairs, and he met her part way up to take her into his arms, to cover her mouth with his, in a deep, hungry kiss. She curled her fingers in his hair and melted into him, then he lifted his head and smiled down at her.
“Do you like your banner?”
Her heart skipped. “That was you?”
“I thought you needed something to commemorate the occasion.”
“So is this my proposal? I was kinda wanting one on the beach.”
“Oh, once we get to the beach, I have a lot of proposals,” he said, lifting her and spinning her to the applause of those around them.
Epilogue
Quinn rose on his elbows as he watched Lily emerge from the waves, slicking her hair back from her face, water gliding down her pale figure in the bright pink bathing suit. God, she was his every fantasy come to life. She dropped onto the towel beside him, and droplets of water splashed his bare skin.
“Swimming in February—what a concept. Aren’t you going in?”
He curved his body around hers, lowering her to the towel. “I thought I’d cool off this way.” Her skin against his bare chest was chilled.
“This has never cooled us off,” she laughed before he kissed her.
After a few moments, he lifted himself off of her and sat back on his heels. “I promised you something the other night.”
Her cheeks flushed when he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. He set it on the towel beside him and helped her to her knees, too.
“Not sure this is really the way to do it. Maybe you should be sitting in a chair or something.”
“I’m fine,” she said, her voice a little choked.
“All right.” He cleared his own throat as he felt the emotion climb. He rubbed his thumbs over the backs of her hands. “I may be the slowest man in Minnesota, for it to take me this long to realize you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, Lily. But now that I’ve figured it out, I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I promise never to take so long to figure something out again. Will you marry me?”
