by Abby Gaines
“It’s not like it’s a date, or anything,” she assured the bright-eyed baby in her arms. “I mean, there will be lots of other people there. I’ll just be one of the guests. Just this once,” she promised herself, knowing how close to leaving she was. “Just this one evening and then we’ll be on our own.”
The thought made her want to cry.
A knock on the door sent her heart skating into overdrive. Quinn was early. He wasn’t supposed to pick them up for almost half an hour. She hadn’t even changed to the slacks and sweater—her regular size, yea!—she’d picked out to wear. She stood up and crossed the salon to the door. Uneasiness replaced the pleasant zing of anticipation she’d been experiencing. It wasn’t Quinn’s familiar broad-shouldered profile outlined in the frosted glass of the window. There were two people standing there: a woman and a tall, thin man, Fiona and August Carlyle.
They’d found her at last.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I TOLD YOU I’D BE BACK,” Fiona said. She smiled but it wasn’t a very good one. Her eyes were filled with trepidation. “I’ve brought August with me, to explain, to make things right,” she added hurriedly as though she expected Daisy to slam the door in their faces. “Please, may we come in?”
Daisy’s mind whirled with contradictory thoughts and emotions. She wanted to grab Brianna and run for the other end of the motor home, escape through the back door and find her way to…Quinn. She straightened her shoulders, fighting off the almost overwhelming urge to give in to the impulse. Quinn was at the Double S Racing hauler. He and his partner were meeting with Gil Sizemore to start preliminary negotiations on extending Rev’s sponsorship of Eli Ward and the No. 502 car. He wouldn’t return for at least half an hour.
She was on her own.
She took a deep breath and stood back from the door. These people were not monsters, she reminded herself. They wouldn’t grab Brianna from her arms and flee into the night. She scolded herself for even indulging in such a foolish scenario. She was stronger now, not confined to a hospital bed. She had been on her own since she was eighteen. She could fight for herself and her daughter. She didn’t need anyone’s help, including Quinn’s.
She didn’t need his help, but oh, how she wanted it.
“Come in,” she said.
Fiona came first, glancing around the salon at the leather furniture and flat screen TV on the wall above the driver’s compartment, and then into the kitchen with its marble countertops and gleaming brushed aluminum appliances and the hallway leading to the mirror-walled bedroom. She blinked as if she hadn’t quite realized how successful Quinn must be to afford such luxury. Had she really been so out-of-touch with her son the last few years not to know how successful he’d become? How sad. Despite her intention to stay cool and aloof Daisy felt her heart soften toward Quinn’s mother.
Fiona was wearing dark slacks and a white silk blouse beneath a black pullover sweater and no jewelry. NASCAR credentials hung from a lanyard around her neck. She wouldn’t look out of place in any of the private suites at the race track, if not in the motor home lots and campgrounds surrounding the track. August, on the other hand, looked exactly like who he was: a multimillionaire out of his element. His khaki slacks were creased to a knife point and his blazer was cashmere. He wasn’t wearing a tie but the cuff links peeking beneath the sleeves of his jacket were certainly real gold and pawning his watch would keep Brianna in diapers and formula until she was ready to potty-train.
Daisy focused her attention on Brianna’s grandfather. “What do you want to say to me, Mr. Carlyle?”
“I came at my wife’s insistence to make my peace with you,” he said unexpectedly.
Daisy was caught off guard. She had been ready to refer him and his odious list of demands to her lawyer, hand him the woman’s card and order him out of the motor home. Now all she could do was stare openmouthed and ask him to repeat himself.
“I came to make peace with you for my wife’s sake, and for my granddaughter’s sake,” he said again.
“I told you I would make him understand,” Fiona said, stepping forward to wrap her hands around his right arm. He lifted his left hand and placed it over hers, looking down at her from his great height. The caress was unstudied and genuinely affectionate.
Daisy recalled what Patsy Grosso, a woman she admired very much, had said about Fiona; that she was a generous person. Patsy liked her. She had raised Quinn to be a strong successful man. She had loved Brendan as though he were her own child. Would she have stayed with a man she didn’t love and couldn’t trust all these years merely for security? Daisy suddenly didn’t think so.
“My wife has brought me to the realization that I have gone about this all the wrong way,” August said. His words weren’t smooth and polished like the man himself, they were raw with feeling that he seemed to be trying hard to repress. “My methods may have been overreaching but my intentions are good.”
Daisy shook her head. She might have been looking at this man through a flawed lens, knowing him only through hearing Brendan’s petulant complaints and perhaps, Quinn’s equally flawed perspective, but it didn’t alter the fact that he had threatened to have Brianna taken away from her. That threat couldn’t be ignored; must be dealt with. “You wanted complete control over Brianna’s future. You threatened to have her taken away from me.”
“That was wrong,” Fiona burst out, tears coming to her eyes. “August let his lawyer have too much say in the matter. It won’t happen again. Show her, Auggie,” she said, abandoning her cultured, composed facade, revealing the raw emotions she’d been keeping inside. “Show her.”
August pulled a single sheet of folded paper from the inside pocket of his blazer. “Consider that last communication null and void as of this moment. Please, read this before you say anything else.”
Daisy did as he asked. It was indeed brief and to the point—and mind-boggling in its scope. August was setting up a trust fund in Brianna’s name. Daisy gasped; the amount of money was staggering. Brianna would be well taken care of for the rest of her life. But that wasn’t all. He was making Daisy the sole administrator of the trust with a generous yearly stipend of her own. She looked up and found him watching her. “You aren’t mentioned anywhere in the document. Four days ago you were going to try to prove I was an unfit mother and take my baby away from me. Today you are settling a fortune on her and by extension on me, and you want nothing in return?”
“You are mistaken. I want a great deal in return,” he said candidly. “I want to be Brianna’s grandfather.”
“We want to be part of her life, to watch her grow up. To know her and love her,” Fiona said, watching Brianna who was attempting, not very successfully, to follow the sound of their voices. Her little face puckered up. Her arms waved in the air. She began to whimper. Automatically Daisy turned and picked her up.
“I don’t know,” Daisy said, pressing the baby against her heart, swaying to and fro in the way mothers had soothed their babies, and themselves, since time began. “How do I know I can trust you?”
“You have my word,” August said. “I may be a lot of things, including a poor excuse for a father and stepfather, but no one has ever accused me of going back on my word once I have given it.” He held out his hand. His voice roughened. “For the sake of my son’s memory and whatever place he still holds in your heart, believe me.”
“He does have a place in my heart,” Daisy whispered, and that was true even though she now wanted to look to the future and not the past. Brendan would always be the laughing, carefree boy she fell in love with. She was kind enough to think he would have matured into a good man, even if they were destined not to stay together. She held out her hand. “We have a deal.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
QUINN LIFTED HIS HAND in salute as the security guard posted outside the VIP lot waved him through the gate. He was late. Daisy would be wondering where he was. Gil Sizemore was no pushover. He drove a hard bargain, but in the end Quinn was confi
dent they would come to full agreement and Rev Energy Drinks’ contract to sponsor Eli Ward and the No. 502 car would be extended for the foreseeable future. He couldn’t wait to tell Daisy.
Hosting his regional sales reps and department heads tonight was his last obligation of the weekend. It would be a long evening factoring in the after-race celebration if—no, when—Eli Ward made the Chase. His driver was only twenty points out of contention and he’d qualified well. A top-ten finish would probably net him eleventh or twelfth. Still good enough to make the Chase, but a top-five finish would move him even higher in the standings. Eli had done what he’d asked of him back before the Bristol race. He was focused and steady and driving like a winner. Maybe his new girlfriend had something to do with that? Quinn could foresee a long, successful partnership for Rev and Eli and Double S Racing. But right now he had other, even more important partnerships on his mind.
After the race he would try to coax Daisy to return to the cabin for at least a few more days, long enough for him to convince her that was where she belonged—with him. The three of them together, a family. He didn’t kid himself it would be easy. She was determined to show his stepfather and the world in general she could make it on her own; but he was just as stubborn as she was, and he had one big plus on his side. He was in love with her.
The electric motor of the golf cart was nearly silent. He could hear the public address announcer introducing the drivers and their teams. The opening ceremonies had already begun. If he didn’t hurry they wouldn’t get Brianna settled in with Juliana Grosso and make it to the suite before the green flag dropped.
He slid the golf cart into the small parking area alongside half a dozen others and took off for his leased motor home at a trot, but pulled up short when he saw his mother and stepfather standing beneath the awning that opened along the length of the motor home. Daisy seemed to be escorting them to their golf cart. Brianna was not with her mother.
His heart began to beat heavily in his chest. His plan hadn’t worked. August had tracked them down before he was ready. Another forty-eight hours and he would have had it all nailed down. He knew once Daisy met with her attorney, Angela Merton, and realized how competent she was, she would relax and begin to think beyond the immediacy of protecting herself and Brianna from his stepfather by pulling up stakes and leaving Mooresville and the life she’d created for herself there.
Now that he had found her, she would be more determined than ever to escape August. She would cut herself off from not only her friends but from Quinn, himself, if that’s what she thought it would take to keep her daughter safe.
The last untenable realization brought him to within an arm’s length of his stepfather and his mother. “What are you doing here?” he asked, projecting the same icy calm August showed the world. He was good at it. He’d learned it from the master, himself.
“We came to speak to Miss Brookshire,” August said, looking down his patrician nose but oddly enough his expression was neither as aloof nor as studied as usual, and his mother was actually smiling. Daisy was smiling, too, although hers was more tentative as her eyes searched his face.
The smiles threw him off balance. “How did you find Daisy so quickly?” he demanded. He had never thought his scheme to hide her in plain sight was foolproof, but he had thought he knew August well enough that he had counted on the old man looking in the direction of Daisy’s family in Florida first.
“It was your mother’s idea,” August said, nodding in Fiona’s direction with a slight smile. “She said Daisy would stick with her friends, not run off to her parents and chance me turning my sights on them, too, and, as usual, she was right. Once I saw the sense in that it didn’t take me long to track her down.”
His mother’s idea? August did not take advice from his wife. Not that Quinn recalled. “You’re right,” he growled. “Daisy has friends. Good friends who’ll stand by her. Me included. And she has a lawyer, August, a good one. You’ll never get a judge to declare Daisy an unfit mother.” His hands had balled into fists. He had to stop himself from shaking one of them in the older man’s face.
August held up his hands, palms out. “Slow down, son. I’ve already figured it out for myself—with your mother’s help. I don’t intend to make our family issues a public spectacle,” he continued, glancing around the closely parked motor homes, although most of the occupants had already made their way out of the lot and into the suites and grandstand seats, “but maybe it’s time you realized that just because your mother defers to my old-fashioned, chauvinist notions of how a wife behaves in public doesn’t mean I don’t value her counsel in private. You of all people should know how smart and savvy she is.” August held out his hand. “I’ve made my peace with Daisy. I’m willing to make my peace with you for your mother’s sake, if not our own.”
Quinn had no idea what had transpired inside the motor home before he arrived but his mother’s hopeful expression and radiant smile lowered the degree of tension inside him. “Please, Quinn,” she whispered. “Let’s try being a family again.”
He couldn’t deny her this small gesture of peace and goodwill. He had a lot of things to think about, a lot of old hurts and prejudices to take out and reconsider in light of what his stepfather had just said. He accepted August’s handshake. “I’ll do my best,” he said and meant it.
“That’s all I’m asking.”
The strains of the National Anthem came over the loudspeakers. The opening ceremonies were nearing a conclusion. In another minute or two the command to “start your engines” would ring out and even here the noise would be deafening. “Your mother and I need to be going,” August said. “We have to be at the heliport in thirty minutes.”
“You’re not staying for the race?” Daisy asked. It was the first she had spoken but there was a new lightness in her tone that Quinn hadn’t heard before.
“I…um,” August seemed at a loss for words. He was out of his element and it showed, but Quinn with his new perspective on their marriage wondered how long it would be before his mother got his stepfather interested in stock car racing. He would bet money now that Fiona and August would be in attendance when next season’s racing kicked off at Daytona.
“Perhaps we’ll come to one of the Chase races,” Fiona inserted smoothly, “to cheer on the Rev Energy Drinks car.”
“Yes,” August said, “perhaps we will.” Boy, when he was wrong, he was wrong in spades, Quinn decided.
From inside the motor home Brianna let out a lusty wail.
“She’s hungry,” Daisy said. “I need to feed her.”
“We’ll go.” Fiona reached out and touched Quinn’s sleeve. “Thank you, Quinn.” She reached up and gave him a quick hug. “She let me hold the baby,” she whispered in his ear, a catch in her voice. “Take care of her. Take care of both of them.”
“WHAT DID YOUR MOTHER SAY to you?” Daisy asked as they watched the Carlyles drive away. She was shaking like a leaf with reaction but all in all she was proud of the way she’d handled herself. She only wished now that the confrontation was over that Quinn had been there. She had handled it on her own but she had missed his strong, comforting presence at her side.
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and saw he was scowling at the rear of the retreating golf cart. He shifted his gaze to her face. “She said you let her hold Brianna. That was good of you.”
She didn’t think that was all Fiona had whispered in his ear but Brianna was still fussing in the salon so she didn’t quiz him further. She turned and headed back inside, trusting that he would follow her up the steps. “It was the least I could do.” She picked up the paper with the details of the trust August had proposed and handed it to him. She watched as he read the contents.
“This is a very generous trust,” he said, choosing his words carefully.
“He really did love Brendan. I think he will grow to love Brianna, too. He cares for you, too, in his way.”
“He’s going to make you the sole
administrator.” Quinn ignored her last comment and she sighed inwardly. She hadn’t thought it would be easy did she, reconciling two such forceful personalities?
“I think I’m going to have to go back to school and study economics or financial planning or something,” she said, hoping she could coax the frown from his face.
“You’ll never have to go back to work at Cut ’N’ Chat again if you don’t want to, that’s for sure.” Quinn put the paper aside and bent to lift Brianna from her carrier, jiggling her up and down in his arms as though it was the most natural thing in the world for him to do. Her daughter quieted immediately, gazing up at Quinn with big, dark eyes.
Daisy took the paper from him and folded it carefully. “I never thought I could be a full-time mom. That’s another thing I can thank your mother for making possible.”
“Yeah, I have a hell of a lot of rethinking to do when it comes to my mom and August,” he said, shaking his head.
“You and he may even become friends.”
“I’m not sure that will ever happen, but I imagine we can be civil to each other from now on for my mom’s sake.”
“And Brianna’s?” she asked, not quite brave enough to be more direct.
“The two of you don’t need me anymore, Daisy. You have all the money you need.”
“Having enough money is good but it’s not everything.”
Quinn took a step toward her. “Dammit, Daisy. I’m tired of tap dancing around the real issue between us. Do you want me around just for moral support because that’s not going to be enough for me.”
She looked into his eyes. She couldn’t read his mind as he sometimes did hers. She didn’t know what was in his thoughts or his heart. “I can take care of myself,” she said. “I can take care of Brianna.”
She saw the words hit him like a blow and oddly his despair gave her new courage. “Okay, I guess that answers my question.”
