Deadly Secrets (24 page)

That made no sense, but then her mind was messed up these days.

The phone on the other end rang. And rang again.

Chapter 17

Ian Kinncaid’s residence, September

“What about Mom and Dad’s anniversary? What are we going to do?” Brayden asked from behind his paper. He was probably looking up obits and estimating possible estate sales for his antique shop.

Ian looked over and saw Christian giving Quinlan a hard time. Quin ignored her and set his phone on the side table, plugging it in. Ian thought his brother really needed to lighten up some, but then since New Orleans, nothing about the kid was light. New Orleans? Yeah, Quinlan had been getting better before then and for about two months after that. Then after one of his trips down to see the lovely and slightly eccentric Ella, the kid had all but clammed up and hit the gym all hours of the day and night again.

He’d fallen hard for that girl.

As much as Ian wheedled and gave Quinlan hell, his brother wouldn’t break. Only dug deeper and stubbornly refused to discuss Ella. No one else knew. Though maybe Aiden did, or at least the fact he was head over heels in love with that woman. Kid was getting great at evasive answers.

Then there was Brody. Yeah, Ian would bet their cousin knew something. He and Quinlan had seen a lot of each other during the New Orleans and Ella time, and even after. Then again, those two had always been close.

Granted, he could just run a few searches and learn a bit more, but that seemed . . . dishonest toward his little brother. He’d already run a few searches back when he and the girl first met and the kid was missing for two days in fucking Vegas. Not that Ian wouldn’t do whatever he had to at some point if he felt he really needed to, but as it was now, he’d leave it be.

He rubbed his thumb over his lips. Quinlan
was
an adult, God knew, and the kid was tired as hell of them all . . . hovering.

Ian understood that feeling, and he had a feeling if everyone kept smothering Quin with worries under the guise of help, he’d leave.

Then again, maybe it was time the kid moved away from home. When he was younger, Ian always thought of Quin being some sort of artist or something. At least until that fateful winter morning when Quin and little Susy Cooley had fallen through the ice on the river. Ian still remembered how blue his little seven-year-old brother had been. Dead. He’d had no pulse and hadn’t been breathing. He and Aiden had performed CPR on that little body and by the grace of God had gotten their brother back. Little Susy had not been so lucky. It had taken a couple of hours to find her and they never got her back. That day had changed Quinlan. He’d become quiet and focused, his art set aside. He and Aiden had been in high school, the twins in middle school. Shaking off the thought, he focused back to the here and now.

Quinlan lightly shoved Christian away and stood up. “I don’t want to meet one of your friends, sis. Thank you anyway.”

“How about one of mine?” Rori asked.

Quinlan just looked at Rori, who had plopped down on the couch when Christian and Quinlan stood up.

“Some of your friends will likely kill me,” Quinlan said. Then added, “Again. No, thanks.”

“That woman was not a friend,” Rori said.

“You haven’t dated in far too long. You know,” Christian said, grinning, “they make little blue pills that—”

Quinlan threw a pillow at her. “I don’t need to know about my brother’s ED issues.”

“There are no ED issues,” Brayden said from behind his paper.

“I’m going to get something to drink.” Quin started for the door. “Anyone want anything?”

“Check on the kids,” Ian told him. “Please.”

Quinlan walked from the room and it seemed as if everyone sighed.

“I can’t bloody well believe he thinks my friends would kill him,” Rori muttered. “I’ll have to think of a way to get him back for that one.”

Quinlan’s phone rang. Then rang again, buzzing along the tabletop.

“Leave the boy alone,” Ian said from his chair. “And he’s not wrong. Most of your friends would kill him.”

“Just because they
could
doesn’t mean they
would
. And besides, my friends are your friends and most of them family and his friends, so that hardly makes a bit of sense,” she muttered.

“Yes, dear,” he said with a grin.

She narrowed her gaze at him.

Quinlan’s phone rang again, shrilling out an annoying ring tone.

“He needs a date,” Christian said. “How long has it been? He always dated, more than any of the rest of you. I used to call him hound dog. I mean, really.”

Ian grinned. “Maybe he’s become more selective.”

Of one particular light blue-haired woman. Quinlan had always gone for the sleek, suave women. Long-legged model types. The kind that graced magazine covers or did lingerie shoots. Which had made him such an easy mark for Hellinski before.

Ella Ferguson was none of those things. She was short, almost as short as Aiden’s wife. Big eyes, and artsy. She was so not Quin’s normal type that when Ian had learned what he had on the plane, he hadn’t really worried.

Now though? Ian bit down. “Maybe he has someone he doesn’t want any of us to know about,” he said. Then added, “Yet.”

Brayden just snorted behind his paper. “I have other things to worry about besides Quinlan’s love life.”

“We are worried about the lack of it, keep up,” Christian told him. “And if he has met someone, why hasn’t he introduced her to the rest of us?”

Brayden flipped the edge of the paper down and gave her a look over the corner before flipping it back up and continuing to read it.

Ian checked the time and wondered when his other two brothers would get here. Gavin might not be able to, but that was always the way it was with him. They were trying to plan something grand for Mom and Pop, so they’d all agreed to dinner here.

“Mom did ask me if I thought Quin could be gay,” Brayden said from behind the paper.

Christian rolled her eyes and snorted. “We could only be so lucky. If he’d been born a couple hundred years ago, he’d be a rake of the first order.” She frowned. “Come to think of it, you all probably would have been.”

“I think he met someone and fell for her hard,” Rori muttered, even as Ian leaned in and kissed her neck. “My friends would kill him . . .” She frowned.

“They would.”

“Bugger off,” she said to him.

“Later, darling, and only with you.”

Quinlan’s phone rang for a third time. Who in the world was calling?

“Could he have picked a more annoying ring tone?” Rori muttered.

More quips and curious statements swam around on Quinlan’s lack of dating, and on what his deal was lately. For the last three or four months or so anyway.

His phone rang again. And then again.

“Who the bloody hell? Leave a voice message,” Rori said. Then she grinned. “Then again, paybacks and all that.”

“You shouldn’t.” Ian leaned over and kissed her neck. She was wearing that perfume that just . . .

He growled.

“Hello, Quin’s phone.”

He could hear a female’s voice as he nuzzled his wife’s neck.

“Yes, this is Quin’s phone.”

“Hang up,” he told her, nibbling up her neck.

She giggled. God, he loved that he could make this hard-ass woman giggle. “Will you stop, I’m trying to talk and can’t concentrate when you . . .” He took her earlobe into his mouth. She tried to swallow a moan, shook her head and tried to push him away.

“Who is this?”

The female answered and he stilled just as Rori did at the answer, which he heard.

“Try again, luv, I don’t bloody think so.” She looked at the phone. “Yeah, right. Who is this?”

No answer.

“Well, bye to you as well,” Rori muttered, frowning.

Quinlan walked back into the room and tossed a Coke to him. Ian snatched it out of the air. He watched his brother. “Your wife called.”

Quin froze. “What?”

Brayden’s paper rattled and Ian didn’t take his eyes off his brother.

“Some chickie called,” Rori said. “Asked for you and claimed to be your wife.”

Quin’s face set, he walked to them and snatched the phone out of her hand. “Thanks so much for answering my phone.”

“Wife?” Christian asked.

“Wife?” Brayden asked.

“If I had a real wife, she’d be here with me, don’t you think?” Quinlan said, scrolling through the phone.

“What’s the number?” Ian asked, noting that Quin’s statement could be construed in several ways.

A muscle bunched in Quin’s jaw. “Out of Area.” He shook the phone as if it would suddenly give another number like the fortune-telling eight ball. “I hate when they say that.”

“Maybe she left a voice message?” Christian said. “And why would someone claim to be your wife?”

“Maybe she’s delusional,” Brayden said.

“Well, perhaps she wants money,” Rori said. At everyone’s silence, she said, “What? Just because you don’t think he dates doesn’t mean tweed boy here didn’t get it on and bang the bloody hell out of some playboy-groupy who’s trying to get something out of him.”

“Your view of me is so encouraging,” Quin said and walked from the room. “I need to get going, let me know what you guys decide.”

Ian pushed up from the couch and followed his brother out. “Where are you going?”

Quinlan stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Not now, Ian.”

Ian stepped up beside him. “Yes, now. What the hell is with you? Is this about Ella? You haven’t been yourself since that first New Orleans trip. And now this phone call?”

Quin’s head snapped up, his gaze narrowing. “What do you know of Ella?”

Ian looked at him. “I know you fell for her hard. I know she went with you to Vegas but you left her there as she wasn’t on the plane with you when you got back.” Ian started to add what else he knew, but didn’t. “I know that you flew down to New Orleans every week for almost two months and then you suddenly stopped. Kid, you were happy.” He put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “What you do with your life is none of my business, I know. I’ll help you any way I can, Quin. You only need to ask. You know that.”

The muscle jumped in Quin’s jaw. Finally he took a deep breath. “Not yet.”

“She worth it?”

Quinlan opened the front door. “Is Rori?”

Ian arched a brow.

“I thought she was,” Quin said.

Quinlan kept walking down the steps and sidestepped Aiden, who was walking up the drive.

“Hey!” Aiden said, taking all three front steps at once. “Sorry I’m late. What did I miss?”

“Quinlan’s wife,” Ian said, watching his brother climb into his silver Mercedes.

Chapter 18

Taos, early October

“And lean into the stretch, opening up the chest, breathe through it . . .” she told her class of pregnant women. There were new additions and some who had left; some had their babies and moved on. Others had simply been weekend warriors.

This evening her class consisted of the regulars—there were only five of them—and a few others.

She hadn’t eaten today, but then she hadn’t really eaten anything since the night she’d tried to call Quin, and that was about three weeks ago. Her doctor had already noticed her weight loss, but she just really wasn’t hungry.

The idea that Quinlan had moved on had been a punch in the gut, in the face, in the heart.

Her eyes stung yet again and she had to focus on moving everyone into the next move. “Remember to press against the inside of your thighs with your elbows to gently coax the muscles into the stretch.” She checked to make sure everyone was squatting correctly.

So what if he was with another woman, some perfectly pedigreed woman with a snitty British accent?

She honestly didn’t remember the rest of the session; it was an easier one and she went through the moves, or assumed she did. No one said anything else to the contrary, bless their hearts.

The others quickly filed out, though a few gave her strange looks. So maybe she threw in a new stretch or something.

“Hey, you feeling okay?” Fran asked her, coming up.

“Sure, why?” she asked, straightening too quickly. She slammed a hand out as the room spun.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Fran said, deadpan, putting a hand under Ella’s elbow. “Might have something to do with the fact you’re very pale, weren’t with us at all in class, kept tearing up, and you are dizzy. I think we should go see Dr. Merchant.”

They both preferred Dr. Merchant’s easy personality to Dr. Radcliffe’s more somber one, or one of the other part-time doctors.