Quinn Security

by Dee Bridgnorth

In a sense, she felt like she had won. If this was a game of chess, then Dean had just exposed his king. He would never be able to take back what he had revealed to her by grabbing her like that. He wanted her. Badly. And it brought a grin to her face, which of course Dante Alighieri thought was meant for him.

  But why had Dean pulled back? Why hadn’t he kissed her? Did he expect that she would have lifted up on tiptoe to kiss him? Make the first move, or she supposed technically it would have been the second move? Or had something else caused him to back off?

  She soon realized that she was starting to feel nervous and excited about returning to Dean’s cabin. Would he grab her again? Would he go so far as to fully kiss her if he did? How would she respond?

  Part of her was elated to wonder about him in those terms. She might like to experience that rough strength of his again. How would his large hands feel if he caressed her bare skin? How much of his hard body weight would he press over her if he ever got the chance to bring her to bed? She felt turned on just thinking about it, but that was the real trouble, wasn’t it?

  Here she was on a date with a man who seemed born and bred just to wine and dine her and all she could fantasize about was Dean Quinn. That was the other part of her, the side that felt frustrated by the situation. She should be fantasizing about Dante, hoping that he would take her in his strong arms and kiss her. She had been hoping such a thing would happen, hadn’t she? It had been far too long since she’d gone to bed with a man and wasn’t she hoping that Dante Alighieri would do just that?

  She had threatened Dean that she might see about staying with the real estate man for the rest of her time in Devil’s Fist. Though she felt like she had to force herself to put the possibility out there, as they polished off dessert, she worked up the nerve to do just that.

  “Dante, may I ask you, where are you staying while you’re in town?”

  His dark eyes flashed with sudden interest at her veiled suggestion and he said, “Why, as of recently I’ve been staying in a handsome little cabin near the land of yours I just bought.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Indeed,” he grinned. “I’ve become quite close with the sheriff. Have you met him?”

  “No, I don’t believe I have.”

  “A kindhearted fellow named Rick Abernathy. His daughter was living in the cabin behind his house, but upon her recent engagement, she moved out and I ended up taking the place. Temporarily, of course. Now that I’ve bought the old Halsey land—”

  She giggled at everyone’s use of the term. “I apologize, go on.”

  “Yes, I shouldn’t refer to it as the old Halsey land anymore, should I?”

  “I just find it funny.”

  “Well, in any event, I plan to build a grand mansion on the land, but these things will take a great deal of time. Am I presumptuous to assume you’re miserable at the motel?”

  She laughed and said, “No, you’re entirely accurate. In fact, I moved out. I couldn’t stand that place.”

  Why had she told him that? The last thing she wanted was for Dante to know that she was staying with Dean Quinn.

  “But I don’t know where I’ll stay,” she quickly added then flashed him another sultry smile.

  “My dear, do you need accommodations?” he asked, taking her hand and threading their fingers together.

  Now that she’d put the notion out there, she felt clamped down with nerves.

  “I might, but I’ve got a place for tonight.”

  “I hope I’m not being too forward when I say, you’re more than welcome to stay with me.”

  If anyone had been forward, it was undoubtedly Elizabeth, but Dante was much too polite to allow either of them to think that.

  “I sincerely appreciate the offer,” she smiled, “and believe me, I could very well take you up on it.”

  “But not tonight?”

  She smiled coyly and shook her head.

  “Very well,” he grinned, a touch disappointed, before he waved their waitress over for the check.

  Maybe if she kissed him…

  Maybe if Dante ended this date with a sensual kiss, she would feel completely wrapped up in him and forget about Dean and all of the distracting, interruptive thoughts she’d been battling all evening.

  As Dante helped her out of her side of the red vinyl booth and walked her through the diner, the surrounding customers all staring, wide eyed and drop-jawed—they must have looked like they were on their way to a Hollywood award ceremony and not out onto the dusty old sidewalk of some rural, Wyoming town—Elizabeth hoped for exactly that. One hot, passionate kiss.

  But when they stepped out into the cool, breezy night, it seemed that Dante was too much of a gentleman to try to kiss her in such an uncouth setting.

  “Might I interest you in a nightcap? Libations is only a few blocks away,” he mentioned.

  “That would be lovely,” she allowed, and they started off along Main Street, all the while Elizabeth feeling Dean’s dark eyes on her from his pickup truck that was still parked across the street.

  ***

  Nothing felt better to Sheriff Rick Abernathy than cooking for his precious Whitney. With his white, fluffy chef’s hat on his head and a comical apron tied around his waist, he juggled chopping vegetables and stirring pasta and peeling potatoes, while his daughter and her fiancé, Shane, sat at the dinner table and lovingly bickered over all the wedding catalogues that were spread out in front of them.

  Shane was a brute force that conducted himself with a steely attitude and yet he was perfect for Whitney. Whitney was a spitfire, wild and unruly, with a heart of gold and an iron will to match. They challenged each other and made one hell of a team. It had taken Rick a very long time to see that, but now that he had, he couldn’t be happier for them both.

  If only he could just enjoy this moment.

  But it was impossible.

  Weighing heavily on his mind was Dante’s dark instructions.

  Kill Lucy Cooper.

  He challenged himself not to think about it for the duration of cooking and eating dinner with his family. After checking the burners, stirring the pasta, and tossing the salad, he joined Whitney and Shane on the dinner table.

  “Sorry, Daddy,” she said as she began gathering up the catalogues. “Shane, let’s make room for dinner.”

  “How’s about we all eat outside?” Rick suggested. “The weather’s cooling down and that way you don’t have to move all your work.”

  “Thanks!” Whitney popped up, kissed her father on the cheek, and said to her fiancé, “Let’s get the table set up on the deck, get everything ready for Daddy.”

  Shane hoisted his tremendous frame out of the chair he’d been parked in and met Whitney at the sliding glass door, as Rick remained at the dinner table where it seemed dozens of wedding catalogues covered every square inch of tabletop.

  He heard his daughter say, “The folding table is propped against the side of the cabin down there. I’ll get the plates and utensils.” When she returned, rounding through the dining room towards the kitchen, she asked, “Tablecloth’s in the broom closet?”

  “Linen closet,” he corrected her so she rerouted her padding way out into the living room.

  When she circled back with a red checkered table cloth in her arms, Rick caught her and scooped her into a big hug.

  “Awe,” she said as he held her tightly. “What’s this for?”

  “Because you mean the world to me, girl,” he told her, trying to keep his voice from cracking with sheer emotion. “And I don’t want to let you go.”

  “You don’t have to let me go,” she promised as he urged her back, his large hands clamped over her shoulders, taking a good, long look at her. “I’ll always be here for you.”

  “But things are changing,” he told her. Of course, she assumed he was referring to her upcoming wedding and how married life seldom left anything as it had once been, and those concerns were true for Rick as well. But he was also getting something m
uch bigger and darker off of his chest. He was changing, and he wasn’t sure exactly how far off the reservation he would drift until Troy actually did something about it and saved him. “Look at where y’all are living now,” he reminded her.”

  “Oh, Daddy,” she sighed. “I know you would’ve liked me to live in the cabin you build for me forever, but I’m about to be a married woman.”

  “I know that,” he assured her, sadly. “I know that all too well. When I proposed to my Sally-Mae all those years ago, I convinced her to move out of her daddy’s house and into mine. So, I understand these things. But you know how I feel about change.”

  She let out a soft, sympathetic laugh. “I do. But we’re only five miles away at Shane’s cabin. The location is better for me, too. I’m closer to the stables at Yellowstone and Shane is within walking distance of Quinn Security.”

  “I question whether or not that cabin will be big enough for a family,” he grumbled.

  “If it’s not, then Shane will build additions and extensions,” she assured him, “and you can help if you like.”

  He let out a rocky sigh and released her. “Lemme check on the pasta and potatoes,” he told her and they parted ways, Whitney passing through the sliding glass door and Rick retreating back into the kitchen where dinner would be ready any minute.

  Life was getting complicated and the complications were fast coming. Rick hadn’t been able to dissuade Dante from taking over the cabin that had once belonged to Whitney. It wasn’t just that Dante needed a comfortable place to stay while he brazenly inserted himself into the Fist like never before. Rick knew the real reason he had chosen the cabin behind Rick’s house. Dante wanted to keep tabs on him, wanted to keep the threat of his very presence in the air, keep Rick in a pressure cooker. And the dark lord was doing an excellent job.

  Rick concentrated on pouring the pasta into a large serving bowl and mixing the tomato sauce he’d whipped up over it. He plated the salad as well, stuffing serving utensils into each bowl before carrying them out onto the deck. Whitney handled the potatoes and other fixings and soon they were eating under the stars outside.

  “How’s your grandmother doing?” he asked Shane when they finished dinner and Whitney began collecting their plates and bringing everything inside.

  “She’s on cloud nine,” he smiled.

  “Gaylord is living with her and Nikita now?”

  “He is, but I’m not sure how my mother feels about it,” he allowed. “On the one hand, it has always been Sasha’s house, so my mom doesn’t exactly have a leg to stand on in terms of complaining. But on the other hand, she has lived with Grandmother for ages, so it’s as much her home as it is Sasha’s.”

  Rick still wasn’t sure what he was going to do. If he attempted to proceed with Dante’s orders, he would risk losing the trust and help of all five Quinn brothers. But if he went to Troy right away to clue him in about what Dante had asked of him, he would run an even greater risk of Dante finding out and wreaking the kind of havoc that could turn his life upside down even worse than it already was. Which was why he felt the urge to inquire, in a roundabout way, into the professor’s life with Sasha, as a means to suss out the situation and see when he might be able to pull the professor aside.

  “Has Gaylord been working with y’all at Quinn Security?”

  “He was, but right now he’s enjoying his time with Sasha,” said Shane as he rose from the table and collected their empty glasses.

  “I might like to stop in on him,” Rick mentioned. “Ask him a few things.”

  “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,” said Shane, not catching on to the real reason for Rick’s curiosity.

  Before long, Rick stood in the driveway of his cabin, waving goodbye to Shane and Whitney as they drove off into the quiet night.

  He felt sad and lost and torn about what he would do. He reasoned he ought to sleep on it. Things would be clearer in the morning…

  …or so he hoped.

  ***

  Just as Rick was climbing into bed, in the heart of the Fist Elizabeth Halsey had just finished assuring Dante Alighieri that she wouldn’t need a ride home. Her driver was already waiting for her in his idling pickup truck across the street from Libations. When Dante offered to walk her, she declined, gave him a ladylike kiss on the cheek, and started off alone across Main Street.

  She could feel him watching her but was more concerned about Dean. The glare of a street lamp against his driver’s side window was a stroke of luck, however. She couldn’t see him inside the pickup truck, which meant that neither could Dante.

  Before rounding the hood of the truck and coming to the passenger’s side door, she looked back at the dashing man who had wined and dined her—a well-mannered man who had been so polite and respectful of her that he hadn’t pushed for a kiss at the end of the date—and gave him a little wave, blew him a kiss, and then climbed into the passenger’s seat, having opened her own door.

  Dean looked like he had been stewing for hours, pissed with bottled up animosity or perhaps jealousy. He didn’t immediately throw his truck into Drive or even look at her. Instead, he sat with his jaw clenched and large hands wrapped tightly around the steering wheel in a white-knuckle grip.

  “Hello?” she prodded him.

  “I’m not doing this again,” he informed her in a dark, brooding tone.

  Every inch of his body looked tense behind the wheel. His tattooed arms were flexed, his sculpted chest stiff and heaving.

  “Why didn’t you go home with him?” he questioned without looking her way.

  “I’m a lady,” she reminded him.

  “You’re a lady who threatened to stay with him, so again, why didn’t you go home with him?”

  Dean’s confrontational and controlling nature gave her a strangely warm feeling, but she wasn’t about to admit that she’d spent her entire date with Dante trying and failing to get Dean out of her head. She wasn’t about to confess to him that the biggest thrill she’d felt all night was when she’d crossed the street to get to his pickup truck just now. If she told him that their near-brush with actually kissing in his cabin hours ago was all she’d been able to think about, then she would open herself up to the kind of vulnerability that she’d been avoiding her entire life.

  So, instead of addressing any of her true emotions, she complained, “My feet are killing me.”

  He cut his dark eyes at her and glared, but in the low light of the cab, with the glow of Libations behind him, he looked smoldering. Sexy. Kissable.

  “What?” she asked innocently.

  “I’m not taking you back to my place,” he told her.

  “You’re not?”

  “No,” he said darkly.

  Confused, she asked, “Where are you taking me?”

  “Back to the motel.”

  “Why?!”

  “Because you’re doing nothing but ignoring what I’ve been telling you. And I can’t protect someone who insists on running headlong into danger.”

  Horrified, the prospect of spending so much as one minute in that motel had her skin crawling, she whined, “That’s not fair.”

  “Isn’t it, though?”

  Folding her arms, she huffed, “No, it’s not.”

  “Fine,” he allowed. “Then I’ll be fair about it. You have two choices. You can either stay at the motel and do what you want with the man who I’ve been trying to tell you will probably kill you, or you can stop seeing Dante and stay with me.”

  “But my only reason for staying in the Fist is so that I can work with Dante,” she reminded him.

  “The motel it is, then,” he concluded as he angrily threw his truck into Drive and pulled out into the street.

  “If you want me,” she argued, “just say so.”

  “I want you safe,” he allowed.

  She shot him a skeptical glance. Of course, she wasn’t buying his logic. If he only wanted to keep her safe, he wouldn’t have grabbed her like he had in his cabin. He wouldn’t have
acted like a sailor who just come back to port, eager to feel a woman after years at sea.

  “You almost kissed me earlier,” she reminded him.

  “I almost tried to shake some serious sense into that empty head of yours,” he countered, “but I held myself back.”

  “Ha! Is that what you think you were doing?”

  “Yes,” he barked. “But I realized it would’ve been wasted on you.”

  “Because I’m so empty headed,” she snorted.

  Had Dean really gotten his way throughout life by insulting people into doing what he wanted?

  She was more than inclined to argue him further, but her heart leap up her throat when she noticed that the left hand turn he’d made onto Bison Road had been for the purposes of making another left onto Evergreen so that he could head out east towards the plains where the motel was located. It was the opposite direction of his cabin, she had enough of a sense of direction to understand that much.

  “Wait!” she exclaimed as he pulled back onto Main Street that would soon feed into the highway. “I can’t stay at the motel!”

  “Not my problem.”

  “All my things are at your cabin,” she argued. “So, at the very least we have to go back so I can get my suitcase.”

  “I’ll drop you off at the motel and I’ll come back with your stuff,” he informed her.

  Why was he being a brick wall about this?

  “What if I like Devil’s Fist?” she asked him. “What if I want to stay long term? Dante is the only person in town who works in real estate. He’s offered me a job.” It wasn’t entirely true. He hadn’t offered her a job, per se. But she didn’t see how she could give in to Dean. She wasn’t going to agree to stop seeing Dante if Dean wasn’t going to admit he was interested in her himself. “You want me to turn down an opportunity like that?”

  Dean accelerated and as they zoomed onto the highway, Elizabeth got really scared that he was stubborn enough to stick to his threat.

  “Fine!” she blurted. “Fine, I’ll stop seeing him! Please, just take me back to your cabin!”

  Yes, it was a bold-faced lie, but Dean would have no way of knowing that.

  “You’ll stop seeing him?” he questioned.