by Abby Gaines
It had taken all Quinn’s considerable willpower not to prolong the argument by insisting that he in no way considered himself a part of August Carlyle’s family, no matter how much he had loved his charming, heedless and self-indulgent stepbrother. He had thrown out the donation to the women’s shelter as a way to end the standoff and Daisy had stopped crying.
He wished he could say the same for her daughter. He could hear water running in the bathroom. He wondered how long Daisy would be in there. Should he tap on the door and tell her Brianna needed her?
Or should he go get the baby himself?
Brianna began crying harder and louder. The water was still running. The trembling, infant howls were impossible to ignore. He walked into his bedroom and stared down at the tiny being in the bassinette. Her face was red and her eyes were squeezed shut. He wondered what color they were. Blue, he supposed. Most babies had blue eyes when they were born, didn’t they? But he’d never seen her awake in the hospital so he couldn’t be certain.
She must have sensed someone was in the room with her because for a moment she stopped crying, opened her eyes—he still couldn’t tell what color they were in the dim light—and stared up at him for the space of a couple of heartbeats. She didn’t look like Brendan. She didn’t even look like Daisy that he could see. She just looked…like a baby. Then she smiled, or did something with her mouth that looked like a smile—and his heart flipped over in his chest.
She was beautiful, even red-faced and wrinkly.
She’d howled again and kicked off all her blankets. Once her legs were free they began to pump in spasmodic jerks. One of her little booties had come off and he marveled for a moment at her perfect baby-doll-size feet. Maybe she was cold? He reached out and touched her miniature toes with the tip of his finger. They were velvet soft and cool to the touch. He picked up the little pink bootie and slipped it back on, then tucked the blankets around her as best he could. She stopped crying and stared fixedly at him, or at least she seemed to be staring at him. He’d read somewhere that newborns couldn’t see objects that weren’t very close to them.
Evidently his face was close enough because she was definitely staring at him. Quinn straightened up slowly and prepared to tiptoe out of the room. Her tiny fists flailed in the air and she started crying again. He didn’t know what to do to make her stop. Chilly toes obviously weren’t her only problem. She wanted to be fed, or changed, or something else he couldn’t decipher. He needed to get Daisy out of the bathroom to tend to her; he certainly couldn’t do it. Could he?
Maybe he could. How hard could it be to pick up a baby barely heavier than a sack of sugar, and hold her until her mother could take her?
Really hard, he decided and turned on his heel, determined to stand outside the bathroom and pound on the door until Daisy answered.
He didn’t have to. Daisy was standing in the doorway, balanced on her crutches, watching him with her daughter. He wondered briefly how long she’d been there. Long enough to have seen him touch the baby?
He cleared his throat. “She’s cold, I think,” he said.
“And hungry,” Daisy added, tilting her head to give him a Madonna-like half smile. “I’ll fix her a bottle.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
She looked as if she would refuse his help, then must have decided better of it. “Thank you,” she said, the smile fading away to a slightly anxious look. “I don’t know my way around your kitchen yet. It will be quicker if you do it. Not too warm, you know, just so it feels comfortable on the inside of your wrist.”
He’d seen people do that on TV. He could handle that. He nodded.
“If you hand her to me I’ll feed her here.” She pointed to the rocker his grandmother had kept in the kitchen, the room with the biggest windows, where she could sit and rock and watch over her half dozen birdfeeders made from gourds she grew in the garden. His bedroom wasn’t as bright or cheerful as the kitchen. The single window was small and high up on the wall. The room looked gloomy and dark, and face it, downright shabby, something he hadn’t really paid much attention to before this very moment.
“Would you be more comfortable in the living room?” he asked.
Daisy’s expression brightened momentarily. “I…I don’t want to disturb your evening,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes straight on.
“You’re not disturbing me. I was just going to watch an old John Wayne movie on TV. Want to join me?”
“I love John Wayne movies.” Daisy’s smile was spontaneous and bright as sunlight. She laughed and it sounded like the tinkling glass of the old-fashioned wind chimes that still hung beside the back door.
“Great. Make yourself comfortable in the living room and I’ll get Brianna’s bottle ready.”
“Will you carry her for me?”
That stopped him cold. “Carry her?” He hadn’t had to deal with picking up the baby—until now.
“I can’t manage with the crutches,” she said, giving him a quizzical look. “You do know how to pick up a baby, don’t you?”
“Well, I uh—”
“You’ve never held a baby?” She sounded as if she couldn’t quite believe her own ears.
“I was an only child,” he explained and knew it wasn’t much of an excuse.
“Well,” she said with a mischievous sparkle in her brown eyes. “You’re going to have to learn. Ready?”
“Ready,” he said, not sure he was at all.
“Put one hand under her head and one hand under her bottom and lift.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Oh, and don’t drop her. Babies are champion wigglers.”
“Gotcha.”
“Think you can manage?”
“I was a wide receiver in high school. I’m pretty good at holding on to a football. She’s not a whole lot bigger than a football.” He hoped he sounded confident because he wasn’t. He reached down and did as Daisy had instructed. The moment he slipped his hands beneath Brianna’s head and little bottom she stopped crying. She felt light as a feather in his hands. He propped her against his shoulder being careful to keep his hand at the back of her neck so her head didn’t flop around, the way he’d seen other men do when they were holding an infant.
He turned his head to see Daisy staring at him with a strange, sad look on her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked, and then answered his own question. “You’re thinking it should be my stepbrother holding the baby.”
She blinked; her eyes bright with unshed tears. “Yes,” she said, “I was thinking of Brendan. But not for the reason you’re thinking. Not because I still love him, but only because Brianna will never know him and that is so very sad.”
“We’ll tell her about him. We’ll show her pictures,” Quinn said, jiggling the baby very gently against his shoulder, not because he’d seen someone else do it, but because it seemed the right thing to do. “We’ll watch all the videos of his birthdays and Little League games. My mom has hours and hours of them.” It was the wrong thing to say; he knew it the moment the words left his mouth.
“Sure. Someday.” Daisy’s expression turned guarded and she refused to meet his gaze once more. “Maybe I’ll just feed her in here, after all.”
“No,” Quinn said, “go on into the living room. We won’t mention my mother or my stepfather again.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, turning awkwardly on the crutches. She looked back at him over her shoulder. “It’s just—”
“My mother raised Brendan from the time he was four,” he explained, owing his mother that much loyalty at least. “She loved him like a son.”
“I can’t help the way I feel right now,” Daisy said. She looked as if she might start crying again.
“You don’t have to explain. I promised you in the hospital they wouldn’t bother you here. I gave you my word. I’ll stand by it.”
“Thank you.” She began to limp toward the living room. “But I won’t put you in the middle again. I’ll fight my own battles
with your parents when the time comes.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I CAN’T BELIEVE BRIANNA’S ten days old already,” Mellie Donovan whispered, smiling down at the baby in her carrier. Mellie was a couple of years younger than Daisy, raising a toddler, Lily, on her own. Sheila had introduced the two of them one day not long after Mellie started waiting tables at Maudie’s Down Home Diner and they had become friends. They were sitting on the porch of Quinn’s cabin in the big, old hickory rockers watching as Lily squatted in front of Brianna’s carrier, inspecting the fascinating live doll baby that Daisy had produced from her big fat belly. It was early evening, warm and muggy with a hint of thunder in the air, typical Labor Day weekend weather in North Carolina.
“I can’t believe how quickly the days have gone by,” Daisy marveled. She’d slept away most of the first few days she’d been at Quinn’s cabin, surfacing only long enough to feed Brianna and then tumbling back down onto her bed or curling up on the couch to nap with her daughter cuddled in her arms.
Quinn had been true to his word. He hadn’t allowed his mother and stepfather to even speak to her on the phone, let alone show up on his doorstep. But everyone else she knew had no problem getting past her vigilant host. She’d been visited by all her friends, and several of the Tuesday Tarts, the group of mostly NASCAR wives and mothers and team members—and even female drivers like Kelsey Kendall—who met in a back room of Maudie’s each week for food and fellowship—and good-natured gossip.
Someone had made the trip out from Mooresville every day, bearing gifts and hampers of food, “oohing” and “ahhing” over her daughter, and she suspected, checking to see if she was getting along okay with Brendan’s formidable stepbrother. The answer was she was surprisingly comfortable living with a man she barely knew, something she hadn’t expected would be the case.
Quinn would be pleased to see the thick slices of meat loaf, mashed potatoes, country gravy and homemade pecan pie from Maudie’s Sheila had unloaded into the old-fashioned round-shouldered refrigerator in the kitchen. He knew his way around a can opener and microwave but he confessed that was about the extent of his cooking expertise. Happily he hadn’t had to do much cooking. Even Juliana Grosso had made the journey from her home to their hilltop retreat bearing a savings bond to seed Brianna’s college fund, and a casserole of her world famous lasagna. They’d just finished the last of it the evening before. Daisy had begun to despair of ever losing the extra five pounds she still needed to get rid of to get back into her favorite clothes.
Sheila stuck her head out the door and sucked in her breath. “It’s too hot to eat out here. Let’s have an indoor picnic instead,” she said in her customary take-charge tone. “Come inside, everything’s ready.”
Daisy levered herself to her feet, using the arms of the rocker. She’d abandoned the crutches the day before in favor of an ankle brace and she was getting around pretty well in the house. She still let someone else carry Brianna, usually Quinn, but her elbow was healing even more quickly than her ankle, so she was no longer afraid it would give out on her and she would drop her daughter on her head.
“The mosquitoes are ferocious already and it’s barely noon,” Mellie complained. “We don’t want Brianna bitten to pieces.”
“Don’t like sqeeter bites,” Lily seconded, giving her arm a slap. Lily had curly brown hair and brown eyes, chubby cheeks and a heart-melting smile.
Inside Sheila had set out plates and napkins and dishes of made-from-scratch salads and fresh bread and fluffy key lime tartlets on the low pine table in front of the sofa. “Mmm,” Lily said, delighted that all the food was on her level. She plopped down on a throw pillow on the floor and rested her elbows on the table. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”
“I agree.” Daisy laughed. Everything looked so good she could hardly wait to begin.
“There’s a NASCAR retrospective on TV that I’d like to see,” Sheila explained. “Do you suppose Quinn will mind if I turn on that gigantic flat screen?” It was a measure of how off-balance Daisy had been when she arrived at the cabin that it had taken her several hours to notice the huge TV hidden in the shadows above the fireplace mantel.
“Of course he won’t mind. The remote’s on the table by your chair.”
Sheila studied the remote for a moment then pressed the power button. “I can’t get used to having all these famous and almost famous people hanging around Maudie’s. I need to bone-up on my racing history so I don’t make a fool of myself—”
“Around Gil Sizemore, you mean?” Mellie interrupted, giving Daisy an exaggerated wink that she knew perfectly well Sheila would intercept.
“What’s this?” Daisy asked, sitting down on the couch while Mellie deposited Brianna’s carrier at her feet. “Gil Sizemore? The owner of Double S Racing?” She’d seen pictures of the handsome team owner on some of the glossy advertising copy Quinn had scattered around the cabin.
“He’s becoming quite the regular at Maudie’s these days. He says it’s the meat loaf sandwiches. He can’t get enough of them.” Mellie dropped down cross-legged beside Lily, helping her to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crust cut off the bread that Sheila had obviously made especially for the little girl. “Personally I don’t think it’s the meat loaf that keeps him coming back, but Sheila won’t give him the time of day.”
“Gil isn’t sitting at my front counter any more often than Bart Branch,” Sheila fired back, frowning down at her young friend. “Double S Racing’s garage is barely a mile from the diner. Where else would he go to get a good home-cooked meal?”
“I’m sure that’s the only reason either of those two ever step foot inside Maudie’s,” Daisy said, feigning innocence as she reached for a slice of ham and a big scoop of potato salad. She just hoped Brianna stayed asleep for another fifteen minutes so she could enjoy her meal and the time with her friends catching up on the gossip from Maudie’s and the Tarts. She’d suspected for some time that Mellie might be harboring more-than-just-friends feelings for Bart Branch, but it was news to her that Sheila might have the same kind of interest in Gil Sizemore.
She’d never met the man. He traveled in a lot higher circles than Daisy aspired to. He didn’t frequent the all-male sanctuary of the back room at Cut ’N’ Chat like some of the drivers and team members did. His haircuts probably cost what Daisy made in a day. He was rich and powerful, a dozen or so years older than Sheila and he could trace his family history back to the Mayflower or close, anyway. A younger version of August Carlyle. The comparison sent a shiver down her spine.
“Gil’s a nice guy,” Mellie said decisively. “I approve of him.”
“Coming from you, that’s a great recommendation.” Daisy didn’t know a lot about what had happened in Mellie’s life before she came to Mooresville, but she had her suspicions it hadn’t been an easy one. Her friend didn’t trust people easily. Gil Sizemore certainly didn’t seem like the type to appeal to the down-to-earth, hardworking Sheila but there was no accounting for the laws of attraction, and if Mellie approved of him, Daisy would stop worrying about Sheila’s taste in men.
“Hey, look at the TV,” Sheila said, as much to change the subject as to call their attention to the NASCAR history unfolding on the giant screen above the fireplace. “There’s Bart and his brother, Will, back when they were both driving in the Camping World Truck Series. Get a look at those haircuts. I swear Will’s sporting a mullet!”
“No way.” Mellie giggled, swiveling her head toward the TV. “Millionaire playboys? Is that what the headline under the picture says? Is that true?”
“It’s true or used to be, anyway. Their father was enormously rich but he embezzled a lot a money from his stockholders a couple of years ago and the family lost just about everything, including Bart and Will’s car sponsorships. It was a really big deal. Especially when their dad up and disappeared like he did. Took the police, gosh, over a year to track him down,” Daisy informed the other two women.
“Who’s
that man with them?” Mellie asked. She wasn’t paying attention to Lily smearing PB&J all over her fingers, or that her own fork was poised halfway to her mouth with a cherry tomato from the pasta salad speared on the end.
Daisy glanced up at the screen, narrowing her eyes a little to bring the grainy newspaper photo being displayed over the narrative into better focus. “That’s him, their dad, Hilton Branch. He’s in prison now and probably will be for the rest of his life.” The image faded into a more recent picture of Bart and Will trading high-fives after they finished 1-2 at Pocono back in June.
“Hilton Branch?”
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Sheila said to Mellie as she reached over the table to wipe Lily’s sticky fingers with a handful of paper napkins she’d brought from the kitchen.
Sheila was exaggerating about Mellie looking as if she’d seen a ghost, but her young friend was definitely upset about something. Was it the fact that Bart’s father was a convicted felon? It would certainly be a shock for Daisy if she found that out about a guy she was interested in. “I’m sorry I just blurted it out that way, Mellie, about Bart’s dad being in prison, I mean.”
“Don’t apologize, Daisy.” Mellie’s voice sounded strained. “Bart and I are just acquaintances from the diner. Why would he tell me any of this kind of embarrassing family stuff?” Mellie stabbed another tomato from her plate. Her hands were trembling. “Let’s talk about something else, okay?”
