An Unlikely Setup

by Margaret Watson

  Good God. “Thanks, uh…”

  “Augie. Augie Weigand.”

  “Thank you, Augie. But I’m not planning on getting into a boxing match with J.D.”

  “We’ll watch out for you. If he comes in here again, we’ll take care of him.”

  “Thank you,” Maddie said, touched. “That’s very thoughtful.”

  “We watch out for our own.”

  She was speechless as Augie walked away. “What did he mean?” she finally asked Quinn.

  “You live here. You work here. Of course you’re one of us.”

  “But…I’m not staying. I’m going back to Chicago.”

  “No one knows that,” he said.

  Pleasure whispered through her. One of them. She’d never been part of a them before. One of a community.

  It wasn’t going to last long, she reminded herself. Only until she sold the Harp to YourMarket. Then, no one in Otter Tail was going to be asking her how she was doing. No one was going to be offering to hold an ice bag on her cheek, or teach her how to box.

  Sue Schmidt came bustling in the door, frowning as she spotted Maddie. “You’re supposed to be sitting down,” she said. She turned to Quinn. “I’m taking her home. She needs to get off her feet.”

  “Thanks, Sue,” Quinn said. “I appreciate it.”

  Sue nodded. “I know.”

  Moments later, Maddie was standing in front of Sue’s new sedan. “I can’t get in your car,” she said. “My pants are soaked. I don’t want to get cola on your upholstery.”

  “Not a problem.” The woman opened the trunk and pulled out a thin blanket. “Sit on this.”

  As they drove toward David’s house, Maddie said, “I’m a stranger. I’m here to sell the Harp. How come you’re all being so nice to me?”

  “You’ll do the right thing,” Sue said. She glanced at Maddie. “I can tell.”

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but what’s right for me might not be right for the town. I have a lot of debts to pay off.”

  The other woman frowned. “Hmm. That’s a problem.”

  “It is.” Where would all the people gather, once the Harp was gone?

  “You’ll think of something.”

  Too bad Maddie wasn’t so confident. Hollis’s phone call earlier had reminded her of what was at stake.

  Now she had the town of Otter Tail, as well as Hollis, waiting for her decision.

  LATER THAT EVENING, Quinn stood on the porch of David’s house and jammed his hands in his pockets. Would Maddie even want to see him after the way he’d treated her earlier that day?

  It was after midnight, but he had to talk to her. Make sure she was okay. The sight of her head jerking back, of her dropping to the floor, was replaying in an endless loop in his brain.

  The light was on in the kitchen, so she was awake.

  He rang the doorbell before he could change his mind.

  After a few moments, she peered out the window at the side of the door, then the dead bolt clicked and the door opened. “Quinn. What are you doing here?”

  He couldn’t read her expression in the darkness. Was she glad to see him? Or did she want him to leave? “I needed to make sure you were okay.”

  “Come on in.” She wore red plaid pajama pants and a white T-shirt that read Jesus Hates The Yankees.

  “I didn’t know you were a baseball fan.”

  “Of course I am. I live in Chicago.”

  “We may have to reassess this…friendship. I’m a Brewers’ fan.”

  “That bunch of losers and their sausage races?”

  His lips twitched. She couldn’t be suffering too much if she could talk smack like that. “How’s the face?”

  She shrugged. “I’ll live.”

  He put his hand at her waist, and the heat of her skin through the thin shirt burned him. When they reached the kitchen, he held her chin and studied the ugly purple bruise on the left side of her face.

  “Damn it!”

  “It looks worse than it feels,” she said. “I’ve been icing it, and it’s pretty numb.”

  He cupped her cheek, wishing he could absorb the bruise into his hand and get rid of her pain. “Did you take any painkillers?”

  “I took ibuprofen. And—I know I shouldn’t combine the two, but I don’t care—I’m having some wine.” She eased away from him and reached for a bottle of red on the counter. “Would you like a glass?”

  So she wasn’t going to throw him out. “No, thanks. Why don’t we sit down so you can keep icing?”

  “Can I get you anything to drink first?”

  “I’m good. If I want something, I know where everything is.” He hesitated. “Or at least where it used to be.”

  She headed out to the screened porch. “Nothing’s changed,” she said, sitting on the couch there.

  Oh, yes, it had.

  When it was David’s house, Quinn had spent hours here, drinking coffee, talking about politics, books and life. Getting sober.

  He’d been as comfortable here as he’d been at his own place.

  There was nothing comfortable about this porch now.

  He sat on one of the chairs, an arm’s length away from Maddie. Her scent drifted toward him on the lake breeze, and he remembered the sweet taste of her mouth.

  Her soft curves, pressed against him.

  The tiny sounds she’d made as she kissed him.

  “I shouldn’t have come over here,” he said, starting to rise. “I’m disturbing you.”

  She gazed at him over the rim of her wineglass, and met his eyes. “No. You’re not,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, I’m disturbing myself,” he muttered.

  “Why is that, Quinn?”

  Her voice sounded low and throaty. Seductive. It made his hands itch to touch her. “I should let you get some sleep,” he said desperately.

  Finally she broke their gaze. “You spent a lot of time here with David?” She took another sip of wine, then set the glass down.

  David. That was a safer topic. “Yeah, I did. He was my friend. My best friend.” Which was why the betrayal still hurt.

  She tucked her legs beneath her. “I’m sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter now.”

  “It does. It was wrong of him to break his promise.”

  Quinn didn’t want his bitterness to come spewing out. He didn’t want her to know how petty and resentful he was. “He told me you worked for the Chicago Herald. What kind of reporting do you do?”

  “Investigative.” She picked up her glass and stared into the dark wine. “Then there were layoffs. None of the other papers were hiring—they were all in the middle of layoffs, too.”

  “Is that why you need to sell the pub?”

  “No, that’s entirely my own stupidity.” She took a deep breath. “I got a buyout when I left the Herald. I invested the money in real estate, thinking I could renovate houses and make a profit while I looked for another newspaper job.”

  “But you didn’t make a profit.”

  “No.” She sighed. “I got in way over my head. I started out doing a lot of the work myself, but it was taking longer than I’d planned. I couldn’t find another newspaper job, the housing market collapsed and I ran out of money. Now I owe a lot of people, including my best friend, who lent me money from her IRA.”

  “You didn’t know house-flipping is risky? That you can lose a lot of money, really fast?”

  She stood abruptly. “Of course I knew. I just enjoy throwing my money into a bottomless hole.” She walked into the kitchen and came back with the bottle of wine and another glass. “If I’m going to spill my secrets, I don’t want to drink alone.”

  “No, thanks. I don’t drink anymore.”

  “I’m sorry.” She nudged the glass toward the other end of the table. “I shouldn’t have offered again.”

  “How would you know?” He shrugged. “I used to drink. That’s why I wanted to open the Harp. I figured if I was going to drink, I might as well make it pay for m
e.”

  “Looks like it has,” she answered, equally lightly.

  She’d opened up to him, told him about her mistakes. The least he could do was give her an honest answer. “I was an angry drunk when I came home to Otter Tail,” he said. “David helped me quit. He told me he wouldn’t lease The Office to me if I kept drinking. I’d spent a lot of time in an Irish pub in Milwaukee. Too much, but I remembered how welcoming it was. I knew everyone in that place. Otter Tail needed somewhere for people to get together, and I wanted to transform The Office into a pub. So I quit. Even then, David was afraid it would be too hard, being around alcohol every night. But I was determined.”

  “Testing yourself?”

  “I figured if I could work around booze all night, pretty soon I wouldn’t want it anymore.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Sorry.” She snatched up the two glasses and the bottle of wine and stood to take them back to the kitchen. “I wouldn’t have had the wine if I’d known.”

  He took the glass she’d been using and set it down on the table. “Don’t apologize for drinking in front of me. People drink in front of me at the Harp all the time.”

  “That’s business.”

  “If you want the wine, Maddie, drink it. You’re not going to damage my fragile psyche. Watching you drink a glass of wine isn’t going to make me start drinking again.”

  “It feels rude,” she said. “Like smoking in front of someone who’s trying to quit. Or eating a hot fudge sundae with someone who’s on a diet.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Stubborn, aren’t you?”

  “World class.”

  “I’ll make a note of that.” He settled back in the chair. “It always pays to know your opponent.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MADDIE LEANED TOWARD HIM over the arm of the couch, and her T-shirt pulled taut against her chest. “Is that what we are? Opponents?”

  He forced his gaze to her face and away from her nipples, straining against the fabric. “What do you want to be?”

  “I’m not sure, Quinn.” She flopped back against the couch, and her voice was soft in the darkness. “Friends, maybe? At least not enemies.”

  “For a while, I thought we were more than friends.”

  “Hard for two people to be friends, let alone more, if they don’t know each other.”

  He made it a rule to keep himself isolated from other people. Even from the women he dated. It was easier that way. No risk. No pain.

  No chance of the kind of disappointment that would lead him back to the bottle.

  Weak light streamed through the kitchen windows and framed the red-gold of her hair. Moonlight bleached the floor a ghostly white, but the rest of the porch was shadowed and mysterious.

  “What do you want to know about me?” he asked.

  “Whatever you’d like to tell me.”

  He stood and paced the small porch. “I moved to Milwaukee after high school and joined the police force.” He knew the dimensions of this room exactly: ten feet by eleven. He’d memorized every crack, every uneven spot in the tile floor.

  He’d done plenty of pacing here when he was trying to stop drinking.

  “Did you like being a cop?”

  He stopped and stared out at the night, barely noticing the full moon. In the breeze, the fresh smell of lake water swirled around him.

  “At first I did. I thought I was doing something worthwhile. Something important. Helping people.”

  “But…”

  He turned to pace again. “I started to hate it. The brutality, the misery, the callousness. The ugly things people do to one another. That’s when I started taking my drinking seriously.”

  “Come sit down, Quinn.” Maddie held out a hand, and he took it, allowing her to pull him down beside her.

  She twined their fingers together and pressed her palm to his. Reassurance? Comfort? Sympathy? He had no idea. But he held her hand as if he was drowning and she could pull him to safety.

  “Why did you quit?”

  He stared into the darkness, seeing the squalid alley. Seeing Donyell’s body, crumpled and bloody next to the stinking Dumpster. “I had an informant. A kid. Sixteen. He was a gang member, but he wanted out, and I was trying to set him up with a place in a safer neighborhood. I told him to call me anytime if he needed help.”

  Maddie shifted until their bodies were touching. “What happened?”

  “It was my day off, and I was drunk. Passed out. He called my cell, but I didn’t hear it. The next thing I knew, my partner was banging on my door. They’d found Donyell in an alley. Dead. He’d been shot.”

  “And you blame yourself.”

  “It was my fault.” Quinn wanted to move away from her comfort, but he needed it too badly. “If I hadn’t been drunk, I’d have saved him. I’d have made sure he was safe.”

  “You don’t know that,” she said softly. “You have no idea whether you could have helped him or not. No idea if you could have gotten there in time.”

  “Yeah, well, I didn’t have a chance to find out.” He stood again, staring out sightlessly. “I was drunk.”

  He heard her rise, then she slipped her arms around his waist. “I’m sorry, Quinn.” Her breath was warm against his back. “That’s a horrible burden to carry.”

  “I quit the force and came back home.” He’d spent the first month drunk. He would have spent the second month drunk, as well, but David had found him one night in The Office.

  “David saved me,” he said quietly. “Maybe that’s why he didn’t let me buy the pub. Maybe he thought I’d start drinking again if he wasn’t around to rein me in.”

  “You know that’s not true,” she said. She moved around him and grabbed his shoulders. “David believed in second chances, and so do I.”

  “If he was such a believer in second chances, why didn’t he give me a second chance? Why didn’t he make sure I got the pub?”

  “I have no idea. But he always kept his promises to me. If David was your friend, he believed in you. He trusted you. That I do know.”

  Then why hadn’t David sold him the pub? It was the only thing Quinn wanted.

  At least in the long term. Short term, he had a few other ideas.

  “Enough about me,” he said, standing perfectly still. “I came to make sure you were all right, not spill my guts.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  “Why is that?”

  Her mouth was a tempting curve as she said, “Because now I know who I’m kissing.” She cupped his face in her hands and urged his mouth down to hers.

  He couldn’t move for a moment, then gathered her close. She was tender where he was harsh. He had no business getting involved with her. But her silky hair curled around his fingers, and he kissed her back.

  He tasted the corner of her mouth, trailed his tongue along the seam of her lips. He wanted to plunge inside, to taste the sweet warmth that had obsessed him since the last time he’d kissed her.

  Wrapping her arms around his neck, she swayed against him. His legs suddenly unsteady, he scooped her into his arms and stumbled back to the couch. He fell onto it and held her across his lap.

  Her breasts pressed against his chest as his mouth moved over hers. She clung to him as he urged her lips open and stroked her tongue. The tiny noise she made in the back of her throat made him groan.

  Wild to touch her, he ran his hand down her arm. Her skin was as soft as the lake water, cool and smooth. When she arched her spine, her breast grazed his hand, and he brushed it with his thumb.

  “Quinn.” She speared her fingers through his hair, and held his mouth to hers. When he moved his hand away from her breast, she caught it in hers and guided it back. “Please don’t stop.”

  She smelled like the night, dark and mysterious. More alluring than any whiskey. And beneath that, he could taste her musky desire. He fumbled with the hem of her top and felt her warm back.

  “Are you trying to driv
e me crazy with these T-shirts?” he muttered as he worked his hand beneath the pajama bottoms and cupped her hip. The flannel trapped his hand, so he couldn’t explore her curves. “I want to see you.”

  He felt her smile against his mouth. “You, too.” She tugged at his shirt, pulling it out of his pants, then burrowed beneath it. She smoothed her fingers over his muscles, exploring, then combed through the hair on his chest. She rubbed her thumb over his flat male nipple, and the sensation shot straight to his groin.

  “Stop, Maddie,” he whispered, his hands gliding over her curves until he was holding her breasts.

  “Why?” she murmured.

  He lifted her off his lap, then stood, pulling her close as he walked her backward toward the kitchen. “That couch was too small. We need to go upstairs. Find a bed.”

  She bumped into the island as he steered her through the kitchen, and her apron from the Harp fell on the floor. Coins spilled onto the tiles and rolled in circles. He felt the exact moment she regained her senses. She stiffened and edged away from him.

  “Bed?”

  “We’ve moved on to the action part of the program.” He nudged the apron away with the toe of his shoe and pulled her against him. “I want you, Maddie.”

  Her mouth opened beneath his.

  But then a shudder rippled through her, and she moved back from him as if she were tearing a part of herself away. Even in the moonlight, he could see the flush on her face.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”

  His body disagreed. Strongly. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to regain some control. Finally, when he was sure he wouldn’t beg, he released a breath. “You’re right. I don’t want your pity.”

  She put her hand over his mouth. “Pity had nothing to do with what I…wanted.” She fumbled to straighten her twisted T-shirt, but her hands were shaking. “I guess I shouldn’t have had the wine on top of the ibuprofen.”

  He pushed her hands away and tugged the shirt down over her hips, then gripped her there.