Daughters Of The Bride (7 page)

Greg came up to her. “No Heather?”

“No. She didn’t call or anything. I had to go get the drinks she was supposed to bring.” She stood up and did her best not to groan as pain shot through her back. “I’m going to always bring extra in the car from now on, just in case.”

Greg frowned. “You’re hurting. Your back?”

“I’m fine.”

He ignored that. “Where’s your car? I don’t see it in the lot.”

“I had to go shopping for the drinks,” she snapped. “When I got back, there weren’t any spots.”

He held out his hand. “Give me your car keys. I’ll get it and move it closer for you, then help you carry everything. You need to get home and on ice.”

She wasn’t sure why, but his offer annoyed her. Or maybe it was that he knew what was wrong. Or the whole situation with Heather.

“I said I’m fine.”

“You’re not. Let me help, Rachel.”

“I can do it myself. I should just leave the equipment out here. Someone will steal it, but maybe the parent responsible will learn a lesson. Only, they won’t and I’ll be the bad guy for letting it happen. I have to do everything.”

“Do you know who the parent is?”

“There’s a list. I have it at home.”

“Are you going to call them?”

“What? No. That’s not my job.”

“And you’re not going to say anything to Heather, are you?”

“What’s the point? She doesn’t take this seriously. She knows I’ll pick up the slack and she takes advantage of me. I’m not even surprised.”

Greg stared at her. “You’re not going to give me your car keys, are you?”

“I told you, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He shocked her by picking up her handbag and digging through it until he found her keys.

“Hey! You can’t do that.”

“I just did.”

He walked toward the street. She watched him for a second, then walked slowly to collect the bases.

Every step was agony. Pain shot down her right leg, and she was terrified that the muscles were about to seize up. She had muscle relaxers at home, along with the healing ice. But first there was this mess to clean up.

By the time Greg got back, she’d stacked the bases and collected the forgotten equipment. He shook his head.

“You couldn’t wait, could you? What the hell, Rachel? Why do you always have to be the martyr? It’s like you’re the only one who gets to be right and everyone else has to be—”

He stopped talking.

“I don’t think everyone is wrong,” she told him. “But sometimes they are. Like Heather is today.”

“Yet you won’t confront her. You’ll simply stew about it. You’ll be snippy with her the next time you see her and she won’t know why. She’ll think you’re a total bitch, but you get to have righteous indignation on your side. Then at some parent meeting someone will mention the team mother thing and you’ll get to be the one who always showed up.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. “You’re saying I’m wrong to be here on time, doing her job and mine?”

“No. I’m saying you’re wrong for not calling Heather and telling her to get her butt down to the game.”

“That’s not my style.”

“You’re right. It’s not.” He turned and walked a couple of steps, then faced her again. “It’s never been your style. You are the queen of passive-aggressive.”

“What?”

He put his hands on his hips. “I always knew it, but I didn’t get what it meant. I never realized how it affected everything.”

She sank onto the bench and stared at him. “You’re acting crazy.”

“I’m not. I’m right, aren’t I?” He moved closer, then sat a few feet away and faced her. “I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Us and what went wrong.”

“You cheated.”

“Yeah, but it’s more than that. You’ve been mad at me for years. Because of how I acted. Because you had to be the grown-up in the relationship. I loved you, Rach, but I wasn’t ready to be a husband or a father. But there I was—playing at both.”

“Leaving me with all the work,” she grumbled.

“You’re right. I did leave you with everything. You couldn’t depend on me to support you the way you needed. And you sure wouldn’t ask for help. That’s the part that gets me. Why didn’t you ask?”

He paused, as if waiting for an answer. Not that she had one. She’d liked the conversation much better when they’d been talking about his flaws rather than hers.

“Do you think it’s about your dad dying?”

“What?” she yelped. “Leave my father out of this.”

“I know it was hard for you when that happened. You missed him, and your mom depended on you to take care of things. There was so much responsibility for you. So much more than you were equipped to handle. But you couldn’t ask for help.”

How had he figured this out? She searched for an escape, but there was only her car and he still had her keys. It wasn’t as if she could simply limp away.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she told him.

“You had to do everything,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “There’s a part of me that thinks you really
like
doing everything. I’m not sure if it’s a control thing or being the one who’s right or something else. But like today. You could have asked a dozen people to go get the drinks, but you didn’t. You had to do it all yourself, even with your back hurting.”

Tears threatened, but she blinked them away. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. Humiliation burned, but so did determination. And the latter was going to win.

“Or with us,” he continued. “You should have reamed me a new one, but you didn’t. You simply endured my bad behavior. I played and you were the faithful, long-suffering wife. You got to be right, though, and you enjoyed that.”

“You’re wrong,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her midsection. “About everything.”

“I’m not. It’s taken me nearly two years to put together the pieces, but I think I have them now. I was wrong to cheat on you, Rachel. I knew the second I did it, I would regret it for the rest of my life. And I do. I was wrong and I’m sorry. I broke your trust and you were right to throw me out. I needed that and you deserved your pound of flesh. But you were wrong about a lot of other things.”

He leaned toward her. “Here’s where it gets fuzzy for me. The asking for help thing. Is it that you really need to do it all yourself, or do you think you’re the only one who can do it right? Because I think that’s the key. Getting the answer to that question.”

“Why are you doing this? Why are you treating me this way?”

“Not to hurt you. I hope you can believe that. The thing is, I don’t think we’re finished. I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but I haven’t moved on, and I don’t think you have, either. We’re both in limbo. I keep thinking that if I can finally understand you, I’ll know what to do.”

He stood and smiled. “Thanks for talking to me. This was really good. I understand a lot more now.”

How nice for him. He’d laid her bare, talked about how awful she was, and now he felt better? Lucky him. She felt sick to her stomach. She wanted to crawl into a hole until the entire world went away.

“I’m not going to ask if you need help,” he told her. “I know you’ll say no. I’m just going to do it. You sit here while I load the car. Then I’m going to follow you home and unload it. You just worry about yourself. I’ll take care of everything else.”

She felt as if he’d slapped her. Of all the awful, mean, cruel things to say—that was the worst. Because he wanted her to believe in him. To trust him. To hand over control and let him run things.

She’d tried that before. With him, with her mother, even with her friends. And she knew how it ended. With the other person letting her down and her all alone. It had always been that way and it always would be.

He looked at her, then shook his head. “I can see you don’t believe me. It’s okay, Rachel. Now that I know what’s wrong, I can fix it. Maybe that makes me a fool, but I’ve got to try. You’ll see. Everything is going to be fine.”

Famous last words, she thought grimly. A little bit like “I’ll love you forever.” She’d fallen for that one, too. And look where it had gotten her.

7

COURTNEY WHEELED HER
cart down the path to the final room on her list. Unless a guest requested a special time for housekeeping, she had the option of cleaning the rooms in any order she liked. At the risk of being just a little weird, she’d saved Quinn’s bungalow for last.

It was nearly one in the afternoon. She was tired, but happy. She’d stayed up until three to finish her marketing report and had sent everything to her professor. She had one more paper to write, then she was done for the summer.

The thought of not studying for nearly twelve weeks was strange. She’d been going year-round since she’d started at community college. With all her general education requirements filled, she only had classes in her major left. And the last few she had to take weren’t offered in the summer.

Not that she was going to be overwhelmed by free time. Her mother was getting married at the hotel in August. August 20, to be exact. Joyce had already made it clear she was putting Courtney in charge of the wedding. On the one hand, Courtney appreciated the fact that her boss had faith in her. Plus, handling an event that large would look good on her résumé. On the other, she suspected Joyce had an ulterior motive—to bring mother and daughter back together. Not that they were actually
apart
. They were more, um, casually involved in each other’s lives.

She supposed that had always been the case. After her father died, her mother had been frantic to hold her family together and restart her husband’s accounting business. Then the bills had piled up and they’d lost their house. Maggie had been scrambling.

Courtney got that. She respected all her mother had done. As an adult, she could look back and see how hard things had been. But as the youngest kid in the family, the one who was frequently overlooked and ignored, she couldn’t help still being resentful.

For those reasons, and maybe some others, she and her mother had never been close. She could live with that. But, according to Joyce, she should make more of an effort. Something that wasn’t going to happen in the middle of her shift.

She stopped her cart in front of the door to the bungalow and knocked. “Housekeeping,” she called loudly.

She hadn’t checked the parking lot to see if Quinn’s car was there. Not that she usually kept track of guests’ vehicles. Except in his case, it was pretty easy to tell. There was only one Bentley parked there.

She was about to knock again when the door opened. Quinn stood in front of her, all tall and sexy in jeans and a—she blinked—Taylor Swift T-shirt.

“I wouldn’t have taken you for a Swifty,” she admitted. “This changes things.”

“I like the irony of the T-shirt.”

“No one believes that.” She rubbed her temples. “Oh, God. Now I can see you dancing to ‘Shake It Off.’ My eyes! My eyes!”

Quinn chuckled. The low, rumbly sound did odd things to her stomach. She, um, shook it off and reminded herself she was here to work.

“Okay, time for me to clean your room. Move aside.”

Quinn didn’t budge from the doorway. One brow rose. “Do you talk to all your guests that way?”

“No, but you’re different.”

“I have no doubt of that.”

“I meant like family. Joyce and I go way back and you’re her grandson. So that makes you...” She wasn’t sure what.

“An uncle?” he asked drily.

“No. That seems a little creepy. We could be cousins.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Whatever our relationship, I need to clean your room.”

“I’m good.”

A voice in her head unexpectedly whispered that she was sure that was true. No doubt Quinn was very good. All that experience, not to mention rhythmic ability.

“It’s my job to clean the rooms. It’s what I do here.” She smiled brightly. “You don’t want to keep me from my work, do you?”

He studied her. “Not your destiny?”

“No way. I have a plan.”

“The college degree.”

“Exactly. But to pay for that, I must work.”

“Why a maid?” he asked.

“As opposed to a train engineer—assuming I had the appropriate skill set?”

“Something like that.”

She thought for a second. “I like working for Joyce. The work is physically tiring, but I don’t have to interact with a lot of people, so I’m free to think about stuff.” She tapped the phone in her shirt pocket. “Or listen to lectures I’ve downloaded from the internet. The money is fair, sometimes people tip and it gets me closer to my master plan. Oh.” She smiled. “It also makes my mother crazy. Not the most mature reason, but one of them nonetheless.”

“You’re honest.”

“I don’t have a great memory, so being honest helps me keep my life straight.”

His gaze settled on her face. “No great moral compass you live by?”

“Sure, but everybody says that and no one believes it.”

One corner of his mouth twitched. “You’re unexpected.”

Was that the same as being sexy? Probably not, but a girl could dream. Quinn was a really interesting man. He drove a Bentley and wore Taylor Swift T-shirts. He’d been in tabloids, but he adored Joyce’s two dogs. Not that people who appeared in tabloids
didn’t
like pets.

She drew in a breath. “Wow—you’re really good. I’m totally confused and it’s been five minutes. Are you going to let me clean your room or not?”

“Not.”

“You don’t want to think about that? You have a cleaning service back in LA. How is this different?”

“It just is.”

Because I want you desperately.
She smiled to herself. Right. Because that was exactly what Quinn was thinking.

“Inside joke?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

She heard a cart coming down the path and turned to see one of the room service guys pushing it toward the bungalow.

“Hey, Courtney.”

“Hi, Dan.” She looked at Quinn. “Lunch?”

“Uh-huh. Want to join me?”

Dan winked at her as she pulled her cleaning cart out of the way. She smiled back.

Quinn stepped outside to let him in. “On the dining room table,” he said, then turned to Courtney. “I got sweet potato fries.”

“How can I resist an offer like that?”

“You can’t.”

She positioned her cart to the left of the front door, then walked inside. The layout for all the bungalows was the same—a living room–dining room on one side, the bedroom-bathroom-closet on the other. There was a private patio with a couple of chairs and a small table. In Quinn’s case, the patio faced the pond with the paddleboats.

Dan set down the lunch on the table, then left. Courtney crossed to the half bath by the door and washed her hands. By the time she returned, Quinn had cut the burger in half and split the fries. He stood by the minibar.

“What do you want to drink?”

“I’ll take the glass of water, if that’s okay,” she told him.

“It is.”

He removed a beer from the fridge. They sat across from each other.

For a second Courtney felt strange. A guest had never invited her to lunch before—not that Quinn was actually a guest. Which probably made it okay.

“Joyce said you live on the property.”

“I do. I have a room on the fourth floor. It’s one of those badly placed spaces with too much noise and a tree blocking the view, so I don’t have to feel guilty when the hotel is full.”

“Why would you feel guilty? The room is part of your pay.”

“Oh, sure. Use logic. My mind doesn’t work that way.”

She took a bite of her burger. Quinn had ordered the California special with avocado, bacon and jalapeños. Delicious.

“I used to live here, too,” he told her.

“With Joyce,” she said when she’d chewed and swallowed. “I remember hearing about that. What happened to your parents?” She reached for her water. “Am I allowed to ask that?”

“You can ask me anything you want.”

She told herself not to read too much into that statement. “Okay, where are your parents?”

“I never knew my dad. My mom got pregnant young and he took off.” One broad shoulder rose and lowered, while his expression remained neutral. “She wasn’t into having a kid around and used to leave me here all the time. Joyce was great, but I didn’t take well to being ignored by my mother, so I acted out. When I was fourteen, I got caught shoplifting. My mother told the judge she couldn’t handle me and that I should be locked up. I spent a month in juvie. When I got out, she was gone. She’d taken off without telling anyone where she was going.”

Courtney stared at him. “That’s so awful. I’m sorry. You must have been devastated.”

The shoulder rose again. “Some, but it wasn’t a total surprise. She blamed me for pretty much everything that went wrong in her life. Joyce moved into the two-bedroom bungalow and dragged me along with her. It was tough for a while, but we made it work.”

There was no emotion in his voice—it was as if he was talking about getting his car serviced. But she knew there had to be a lot of feelings. No one could go through what he had without feeling scarred.

“Joyce loves you. You had to know that, even as a kid.”

“I did.” He smiled. “She blames herself for my mom. She says she was too busy with the hotel to be there for her daughter.”

Courtney reached for a fry. “My mom was too busy for us after my dad died. I guess a lot of parents have to wrestle with balancing work and family, especially if they’re a single parent.”

“But?”

“I didn’t say but.”

“It was there in the subtext. But she should have done a better job?”

Courtney leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “I know, I know. I should get over it. But jeez, I was held back twice in school and she barely noticed. Do you have any idea how hard that was? How the kids tormented me? And then I got very, very tall. That didn’t help.”

“I like that you’re tall.”

She felt herself smile. “Really?”

“Tall women are sexy.”

Could she extrapolate from that? Probably not while dressed as a hotel maid, but maybe there was hope.

“Joyce always said that I was her redemption,” he said. “I think of myself more as a do-over.”

“No. Go with being her redemption. That’s way cooler. Who gets to say that about themselves? Of course, there is a lot of responsibility that goes with it, but it would be worth it.”

“You’re an idealist.”

“Mostly. You’re a cynic.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I can guess.”

“Because I’m older and wiser?”

“And you’ve seen the world.”

He laughed. “While you’ve been trapped here in Los Lobos. Life happens everywhere.”

“Yes, but it’s not exciting here.”

“It’s not exciting anywhere. Don’t buy into the press reports. They’re lying.”

She felt as if there was a hidden meaning in his words, but she had no idea what it was.

“How old were you when your father died?” he asked.

Talk about an unexpected shift in conversation. “Three. I don’t remember him at all. I don’t remember much about that time. I’m sure it was horrible, but it’s all blurry to me. I know it was tough for my mom. She worked as a secretary at my dad’s office, but she wasn’t an accountant like he was. When my dad died, a lot of people in the company quit and most of the clients left. There wasn’t any life insurance and my mom lost the house.”

“What happened?”

“Joyce took us in. Funny how she took you in, and then when you left for college, she took us in.”

“I doubt the events are related.”

“Probably not. Anyway, we lived in one of the bungalows. My mom studied accounting at night, hung on to the employees and clients she could and slowly built her way back. Over time, she became a CPA, bought a house, then a bigger house, put Sienna through college.”

His gaze was steady. “You must be proud.”

“I am.” The words were automatic.

“But?”

“There’s no but. I’m very proud of my mother. She went through something really horrible and came out the other side. Her three daughters are productive members of society.”

“But?”

“I love my mom.”

“No one is saying you don’t.”

He had a nice voice, she thought absently. Low and kind of seductive. Compelling. She found herself wanting to answer the unspoken question. Not because she felt the need to share, but because he was drawing it out of her.

“I’m still angry.”

“For not noticing you got left behind?”

“That and other things. I had a learning disability. That’s why I didn’t do well in school. It wasn’t diagnosed until I was ten. Nothing that dramatic, just a slightly different wiring in my brain. With the right tools, I started doing better. Plus, it was the kind of thing I would eventually outgrow.”

She reached for another fry. “Once I could read and understand, I worked really hard to catch up with everyone else. I started doing well. I was transferred out of the remedial classes and into mainstream ones. I got As and Bs. My mom never noticed. I tried to tell her, but she never had time.”

Courtney rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. I’m still the baby.”

“Why would you say that? You went through something difficult. You feel how you feel. You’re not wrong.”

“Are you secretly a woman?”

He leaned his head back and laughed. “I work with artists. I’ve learned how to be sensitive. But thank you for affirming my masculinity.”

“Anytime.”

“How did you let your mother know you were angry?” he asked.

“What makes you think I did?”

“You wouldn’t have suffered in silence. Not your style.” He smiled. “I know because you’re not afraid of me. A lot of people are.”

“Maybe I hide my fear with humor.”

“You hide a lot of things with humor, but not fear.”

Yikes. This was not a topic she wanted to deal with. The
how did you let your mother know you were angry?
now seemed so much easier by comparison.

“I left high school when I was eighteen. Just walked out. There was nothing the state could do. She didn’t like that.”

“I remember. You had a promising career at Happy Burger and you threw it all away.”

“I had the chance to do more, so I did. Not everyone has that chance.”

“Point taken. What else?”