by Alison Kent
She sputtered coffee, almost choked. “Don’t do that. I’m not awake enough to swallow and laugh at the same time.”
“I promise. Never again” he said, grinning. “Just know that I like not having to give instructions. I like the way you’ve intuitively picked up on what makes me tick. Like I said—rare. Very rare.”
He shoved her coffee cup closer. “So drink up and get dressed and pack whatever you’ll need for the next two days. I want you to meet the real Quentin Marks.”
SHANDI STARED SILENTLY out the window as they began their descent into Austin. She remembered this sky. Oklahoma might be four hundred miles away, but the sky was the same. Big and bright and endless.
She hadn’t been back even once since leaving home fifteen months ago. Her work schedule was always nuts over the holidays. And it was easier to stay in the city and keep busy than to go back to Round-Up and face the constant haranguing over the choices she was making in her life.
But being here now with Quentin, transferring from the jet once it landed to the limo for the long ride out to his place, she didn’t feel any of the anxiety or disquiet she’d expected.
Instead she felt as if she was exactly where she belonged.
It was the same feeling she’d experienced Sunday morning when they’d made love.
And that scared her half to death.
As if sensing the drain on her emotions, he shifted in the cushy leather seat and urged her closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and dropping a kiss on her forehead. He didn’t say a word. He just held her.
She couldn’t have asked for a more perfect response. And, of course, it was a response that made her want to cry.
Instead she placed her hand on the inside of his thigh, tucking her fingers close to his knee. “Does it ever wear off? The thrill of hiring private jets and limos to get around?”
“The thrill?” He gave a small, noncommittal shrug. “I suppose it has. What hasn’t is appreciating the convenience and the privacy.”
She closed her eyes, leaned back her head. “I suppose that would make the cost worth it.”
“I don’t think about the cost. I’m traveling for business, so it’s a write-off.”
“Right. I forgot.” She hated how he could say one thing and make her feel like a rube. Her own insecurities. She knew him well enough to know he wasn’t strutting his stuff. “I’m hanging with a big-league player.”
“No, sweetheart.” He lifted a hand, stroked a finger along her jaw. “You’re hanging with a man who would pay double the price if it would get him home any faster.”
That one thing told her so much about him, reinforcing what she already knew but doing so in a way that she hadn’t been able to appreciate until now.
She was ready to see him in his element. To meet the true Quentin Marks. To learn everything she could about the man at her side in order to make the decisions she needed to make.
The biggest one being whether or not to tell him that she’d fallen in love.
“IT’S TRUE. YOU’RE THE first woman I’ve brought home since building this house.”
He’d given her the full tour of the four-bedroom, two-story, cedar-and-glass house earlier, and now Shandi sat at the marble bar of brick-red separating the dining area of the tiled great room from the kitchen where Quentin sliced onions and peppers. Out on the patio, chicken fajitas were on the grill.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you,” she said. “I just don’t get it.”
“Why not?” he asked, concentrating on the vegetables so that he didn’t get caught up in looking at Shandi in his kitchen and end up chopping off his thumb. “I’m not here enough to entertain. Or at least, I haven’t been.”
“No. I mean, I just don’t get why you haven’t dated when you’re at home.” She reached up, twisted her hair, tossed it behind her shoulders. “Or do you only indulge in all that extracurricular activity when you’re traveling? A woman in every port and all that.”
“I don’t visit ports. And I don’t have women anywhere. The only one I have is in my kitchen.” She was itching for an argument, and he didn’t know why. “And she happens to be the only one I want anywhere.”
She grinned, but he felt the distance. “You don’t have to sweet-talk me to get me into your bed, Quentin. The fajitas will do it.”
“I swear,” he grumbled, smacking the flat of the knife blade against the cutting board and glancing over. “I can’t decide if you’re the most frustrating woman I’ve ever known or just the only one whose grief is worth putting up with.”
“Grief? You think I give you grief?” At that, she laughed. “You haven’t been around many grief-givers in your life. You ought to take a hop and a skip up to Oklahoma and meet the Fosseys of Round-Up if you want to know grief.”
This was it, wasn’t it? Being in Texas. Being too close to Oklahoma and the past from which she’d run away. He laid down the knife, washed his hands and dried them, then turned to face her, his hands at his waist. “Let’s go.”
“What?” she asked, her frown tinged with panic, her voice the same.
“We’ve got time,” he said after glancing at his watch. “It’ll take most of the night to make the drive, but why not? We can stay over, and I can show you my studio plans when we get back tomorrow.”
“Uh, no thanks. I’d rather not.” She climbed down from the bar stool, never looking at him as she made her way out through the sliding glass doors to the cedar deck, where smoke from the charcoal fire swirled in the summer wind.
Quentin shook his head and sighed, staring out the kitchen window and watching as she hugged herself tightly, ignoring the covered hot tub in one corner, the umbrella table in the other, choosing to stand at the railing and lose herself in thought.
He knew it instinctively. This thing with her family was what he needed to get her to talk about. That was her hang-up. More than her career and his career and the clashing of their two outlooks on pursuing success, whatever had happened when she’d left Oklahoma was what was driving—or killing her—now.
Leaving the vegetables and the knife on the cutting board, he grabbed two Corona longnecks from the fridge and went out to join her. She didn’t even glance at him until he forced her to by handing her the beer. “Tell me about it.”
“About what?” she asked, twisting the top from the bottle.
“About Oklahoma. Not about the Thirsty Rattler or your parents or your brother and his wife. Tell me about leaving. About why you can’t go back.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She lifted the bottle, drank, set it on the railing and still didn’t meet his gaze. “And I can go back. I just haven’t. I just don’t.”
“There’s got to be a reason,” he prodded as he opened his own beer.
“I’m busy. I work. I go to school. I’m broke. Take your pick.” Finally she glanced over briefly. Her eyes had lost their sparkle. “It’s going to be a while before I’m used to private jets and limos and staying in hotels like Hush.”
“I know that,” he said, because it was benign enough for these waters he was treading carefully.
She snorted then. “Hell, the time it’s taking me to get my degree, I’ll be too old to enjoy a hotel like Hush once I can afford it. That ought to make the Fosseys of Round-Up very happy.”
He waited, uncertain how far to push or if he should just let it go. But he couldn’t. They wouldn’t get anywhere until they got past this. “Your family doesn’t believe in you, do they? They predicted that you’d fail.”
“Oh, no. It’s more clichéd than that.” She drank deeply from her bottle before rushing out with the rest. “They’re waiting for me to run home with my tail tucked between my legs. It’s been over a year, and you can bet they’re still looking out the window every time they hear a car in the driveway.”
So that was the reason she wouldn’t take his help. Making it on her own was more about proving herself to her family than anything. “They’ll be waiting forever, Shandi. You and I both
know that.”
“Then you know more than I do,” she said bitterly.
He backed up, leaned against the deck’s umbrella table, giving Shandi space. “I do know. I believe in you completely.”
When she didn’t respond, he took a deep breath, an equally deep pull on his beer and continued. “Because of that faith, here’s what I’d like to do. And please hear me out before knocking me down flat.”
She turned to face him, leaned into the corner of the railing. “What?” she asked, biting off the word.
“I know you want to finish your degree. That’s—what?—two more semesters?” She nodded. He went on. “And I know you don’t have the money or collateral you need to go into business for yourself.”
“Keep going. I’m waiting for you to tell me something I don’t know.”
“Okay then. What you don’t know is that I believe in you so much that I’m willing to finance you.” He watched her stiffen, hurried on. “I talked to my finance guy before we left the city—”
“About me? You talked to people about me?”
He nodded. “About your goals. About your drive and determination. About your talent. About backing you.”
“You want to buy me?” she asked, her voice breaking. “So that I’ll stay here with you?”
“No, Shandi. I want to help you. I have the money and the connections. I want to offer you what I have, as a loan—call it whatever—to get you started.”
“A bribe?”
He ignored the barb. He knew she was hurting. “If you want, sure. You can continue your education, but you can also be building your professional résumé.”
She waited several seconds before she replied. “So this wouldn’t be here.”
“It would be wherever you wanted it to be. Here—” he caught himself before adding with me “—or in New York or L.A. if that’s what you want.”
“Why would you do that?” she asked, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
Oh, boy, he thought, his heart pumping like a piston. Was this the simplest question she’d asked of him today. “Because I love you.”
SHANDI RETURNED TO THE deck long after she and Quentin had made sweet love in his bed. She’d pulled on the shirt he’d been wearing and left him there. She couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake him.
She would be returning to New York tomorrow, in less than eighteen hours, on the same private jet in which they’d arrived this afternoon. The brevity of her stay meant they had little time to do more than eat, sleep, tour the house and go over his studio plans.
Quick trip down, quick trip back. No time for sightseeing or seeing his friends. As much as she would have liked to have met them, she had to say she really didn’t mind.
After his offer to take her to Oklahoma, she wasn’t in a social mood. And after his declaration of love, she was lost as to what to say or do next.
Dear Lord, was she ever at a loss.
They’d eaten fajitas on the deck and watched the sun go down. A beautiful summer night, breezy and warm, just this side of hot. They’d talked of inconsequential things while enjoying the solitude and the view.
For the first time while in his company she’d found herself tongue-tied with little to say. In fact, she hadn’t been able to think. She’d barely been able to breathe.
She hadn’t tasted a thing she’d eaten and had spent the evening with her heart in her throat, hearing the echo of his declaration of love. Hearing her responding silence.
Why hadn’t she told him that she loved him, too?
The rest of the night had been passed the same way. Conversation swathed in long silences while watching the stars twinkle overhead in the amazing expanse of sky.
She was so conflicted. His love in one hand, her life in the other. It made what she’d thought a simple decision impossible to make.
She should have been able to tell him no thank you and return to the life she’d sworn to everyone around her that she loved. And she did. Truly.
Quentin’s loving her shouldn’t change anything any more than did her love for him.
Funny thing about love. It changed everything.
15
ANNOUNCEMENT
Whoever took the extra blue bulbs from
Exhibit A’s control room,
You have 24 HOURS to put them back!
ANNOUNCEMENT
“WHAT IS GOING ON WITH YOU two?” Shandi asked when April and Evan climbed up to sit at the end of the bar—Quentin’s end of the bar—on Wednesday night. Evan looking like the cat. April looking like the canary.
Shandi was highly suspicious.
She hadn’t seen either of them since they’d wrapped up the photo shoot Sunday afternoon. She didn’t even know if they realized she’d been gone from Monday noon until Tuesday night.
If they did, they obviously didn’t think much of it since they hadn’t said a word.
Instead April stared at Shandi as if she was the one who needed to be doing the questioning. So Shandi set Evan’s beer and April’s Cosmopolitan on the bar and did. “Okay. I give up. What’s going on here?”
“Aren’t you even going to ask us where we’ve been since Monday?” April asked, reaching for her drink and cuddling up into Evan’s right side. He leaned over and kissed the top of her head.
Shandi tried not to roll her eyes; the lovebirds were going to make her sick. “Actually, I didn’t know you’d been anywhere.”
April gasped, nearly spilling her drink as she set it back on the bar. “How could you not know? We haven’t been at school or at the apartment.”
Shandi hedged, reaching beneath the bar for her water and uncapping the bottle. “Uh, neither have I.”
“Where have you been?” Evan asked before sucking down a quarter of his beer.
“In Texas.”
At that he sputtered. “What the hell were you doing in Texas? Oh, wait. I know.”
He looked at April, who answered for him as if he didn’t have a brain. “She went with Quentin.”
Their voices in unison, they asked, “Well?”
Good freaking grief. Had they finally had sex or were they just attached so completely they were now sharing the same vocal and umbilical cords? “Yes. I went with Quentin.”
“And?” April moved forward, her eyes wide. “What happened?”
“Nothing really,” Shandi admitted, taking a drink of her water, then adding, “I came back. He stayed there.” What more was there to say?
Evan sat back in his seat. “So what’s next? Are you going back? Is he staying there?”
Hello? Was she talking to herself? Shandi crossed her arms and glared. “What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?”
“No. Just the Harcourt Inquisition.”
It wasn’t the way April giggled when Evan said it as much as the overall feeling that something weird was going on with them that gave Shandi the final clue.
She looked from one to the other, smiling and shaking her head. “The Harcourt Inquisition. You went to Vegas, didn’t you? You two goons got married.”
April nodded. “We decided to do it Sunday night, and flew out first thing Monday morning.”
“When did you get back?”
“Today,” Evan said. “And we’ve just come from visiting with my grandmother.”
Shandi felt her eyes widen. “Do I need to sit down?”
“Only if you tend to pass out from good news.”
“She’s letting you keep the apartment.” Shandi stated the obvious with a huge sigh of relief.
“No. She’s letting us keep the apartment,” Evan reminded her. “The only person who’s going to be moving is April. We’re headed to her place now to start packing up extras to send into storage. Then we’ll go through my stuff and do the same. It’ll be a squeeze, but we’ll get it all in.”
“Have you told your parents yet?” Shandi asked.
Shaking her head, April looked over at her new husband. “We’re going down to Connecticut tomorrow. Either the
y disown me or they don’t. It doesn’t matter. I’m with the man I love, and that’s all that matters.”
It was wonderful news. The news Shandi had been hoping for. At least, the news about the apartment. No extra shifts. No second job. So why wasn’t she feeling the love?
Because instead she was feeling like the third wheel on their cozy bicycle built for two.
“This is great. Seriously.” She glanced up in time to see Constantine Hale cross through the lobby, and then all she could think about was how much she missed Quentin already. And it had only been one day. “I’m so happy for y’all. Shocked and almost speechless but happy.”
Evan shifted forward again, huddled over the bar to get close. “You don’t seem so. Or else you don’t seem happy for yourself.”
“It’s weird.” Shandi reached for dry cocktail napkins to replace the ones now damp with condensation. And then she glanced from one friend to the other. “I know this is what we’ve all wanted. The apartment part of it anyway.”
“Yes,” Evan said. “We have.”
“I know, I know. But what I don’t know is how I’m going to handle coming home from work to a house that’s not empty. I’m too used to you sneaking back in after curfew.”
“Well, that’s just silly,” April said with a mother-hen frown. “I would think you’d feel better knowing we’re all there for each other.”
“I do, it’s just going to be strange. It won’t be the same. I won’t have two roommates. I’ll be living with a married couple.” And she wouldn’t have the one thing she most wanted—Quentin there with her sharing her own loving bed.
“I don’t think it’ll be that hard to get used to.” Blowing off her worries, Evan reached for his beer. “Hell, it’s going to be an adjustment for all of us.”
“I suppose.” But sitting in front of the window looking at the sky and hearing the sounds of squeaking bedsprings coming from the other end of the apartment? Uh-uh. That wasn’t going to work. But she’d deal with it later.
