Harlequin Special Edition October 2015, Box Set 1 of 2 (13 page)

Yeah. Life was good. Didn't get any better. Though he did feel a twinge of envy as Dalton Ames, his eyes only for Clara, announced proudly,
I do
.

Quinn wanted that, what Dalton and Clara had. He'd never thought it would happen for him. And now that it
had
happened, now that he had Chloe, he wanted it settled, wanted to seal the deal.

Okay, yeah. It had happened pretty fast with them. Some would say too fast.

But he didn't see it that way. They'd known each other since kindergarten. And besides, the way he looked at it, a thing either worked or it didn't. And what he and Chloe had together worked just fine. He wanted her at his side at the end of the workday—and in his bed every night.

She'd said yes. The decision was made. Why not take that walk down the aisle?

Chloe needed time, though. And he knew he had to give her that, had to keep a rein on his growing impatience to set the date and make her his bride, to blend their lives together in the fullest way, be husband and wife for the whole world to see.

Three and a half weeks had passed since the night she kicked her mother out of her house, the night she'd said she wanted to wait to set the date until after their engagement party—but then turned right around and insisted that she still wanted to get married soon.

Well, the engagement party had been and gone. She hadn't said word one since then about when they could stand up in front of a judge.

If she didn't bring it up soon, he would do it. And he had a strange intuition that it wouldn't go well.

Beside him, Chloe shifted slightly. Her fingers brushed the back of his hand. Heat and longing shivered across his skin. He caught her hand and laced their fingers together, turning his gaze to her.

God, she was beautiful. She stared straight ahead at the altar, where Dalton Ames had just been told he could kiss his bride. A soft smile curved her mouth, a smile Quinn knew was just for him.

When she smiled like that, his worries vanished. What they had was so damn good. And it would only get better. He just had to choose the right moment to remind her that if she wanted the wedding to be soon, they needed to set the damn date.

The next day, Sunday, Chloe gave Annabelle her fairy princess costume, complete with featherweight, glittery lavender wings. Annabelle clapped her hands and jumped up and down with glee. Then she put on the costume and danced around the house, waving the matching wand in the air, tapping the chairs and tables, the sofa and the lampshades. Manny asked her, what, exactly, she was doing.

“Magic,” she said, and whirled on to the kitchen.

“I think she's sprinkling fairy dust,” Chloe explained. “You know, like Tinker Bell in
Peter Pan
?”

Manny, who was on his way out the door to spend the afternoon in Boulder with Doris, caught the fairy princess as she was dancing by and scooped her up into his arms. “Give me a hug and I'm outta here.”

Annabelle tapped him lightly on the head with her wand. “There, Manny. Magic for you. Here's some for Granny Doris, too.” She tapped him again. And then she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed good and tight.

“How 'bout some sugar?” He pointed at his grizzled cheek.

She planted a big smacker on him. “Now put me down. I'm very busy.”

He let her go and she danced off up the stairs, spreading fairy dust as she went.

After Manny left, Chloe packed a picnic for the three of them. Annabelle begged to wear her fairy costume and neither Quinn nor Chloe could see why she shouldn't. Her rubber rain boots had purple flowers on them, and Annabelle decided they were perfect for a fairy princess, so she wore them with the dress. Chloe helped her remove the wings for the ride in the car.

They drove out to the national forest and parked a mile or so from a spot Chloe knew that had picnic tables. Annabelle put her wings back on—and off they went. As they strolled beneath the tall trees, Quinn and Chloe held hands, and Annabelle danced along beside them in her rubber boots and fairy princess dress, waving her magic wand, spreading fairy dust far and wide.

It was a great day. By eight that evening, when Chloe had kissed Annabelle good-night and gone back across the street to her house, Quinn was thinking that this was the night to bring up the wedding date. Manny should be home by ten to look after Annabelle. And Chloe would be expecting Quinn at her place. He would bring up the wedding first thing, before he took off all her clothes and buried himself in her softness.

So yeah, he was maybe a little preoccupied when he tucked Annabelle into bed. She chattered away about her fairy princess dress and how she planned to wear it in her princess bedroom as soon as Chloe finished “dec'rating” down the hill at the other house.

“I will be a fairy princess in my princess room, Daddy.”

He smiled and nodded, tucking the covers in around her and her teddy bear, thinking how she was bound to get princess overload soon and also half rehearsing how best to coax Chloe into settling on a wedding date.

“Daddy?”

“What, Annie-mo-manny?”

“Daddy.” She caught his face between her little hands. “I'm not Manny. Look at me. Stop being silly.”

He opened his mouth to tease her some more—and something in those big brown eyes stopped him. “Okay.”

“I need to ask you...”

“Yeah? What?”

“Well, Daddy. Do you think my mommy would like my fairy princess dress?” She gazed up at him, so sweet and hopeful, her shining brown hair spread across her butterfly-printed pillow.

“I, uh...” His voice had a cracked sound to it and the spit seemed to have dried right up in his mouth. He swallowed hard to get the damn saliva going again and managed, “I think your mommy would love it.”

“Can she come to see me, please? I need to show her my fairy princess dress and my wings and my magic wand.”

His mind went dead blank, the way it used to do way back in elementary school when he would open a schoolbook and stare down at the incomprehensible chains of letters jittering across the page.

Yeah. Just like being a kid again, his brain refusing to function, his heart like a damn wrecking ball, swinging hard, battering the cage of his chest.

He wanted to leap up and run downstairs and across the street, to drag Chloe back over here, have her handle this. Please God, he really didn't want to blow it.

Annabelle continued to gaze up at him, trusting, serious—and waiting for his answer.

Suddenly he could almost hear Chloe's voice in his mind.
Answer her question as simply as possible
. “No, baby. Your mommy can't come.”

“Why?”

His throat locked up tight. But he didn't give up. He squeezed the words right through the tightness. “Because when you were born, she gave you to me. She trusted me to love you and take care of you.”

“And then she went away?”

“Yeah. Then she went away.”

“Why?”

He realized he hated that question. “She...had a lot of things to do.”

“What things?”

“Baby, I don't really know. I only know that she gave you to me to take care of and I am so glad that she did.”

“She won't come back, ever?”

“No, I don't think she will. And that's why you have Manny and me, because we love you so much.”

“And you like to take care of me?”

“Oh, yeah. We love to take care of you.”

Annabelle fingered her old blanket. She had her scruffy teddy bear in a headlock. “Does Chloe like to take care of me?”

He tried a smile, though it probably looked more like a grimace, he was so freaked that he might be royally screwing this up. “Yes, she does.”

“Well, then, Daddy. I think it's very good that we have Chloe now.”

It damn well was good. And having his first real talk with his daughter about her missing mother had slammed it forcefully home to him: he wasn't the only one who would suffer if this thing with Chloe went south.

Not that it would. They were solid, him and Chloe...

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, baby.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

His heart seemed to blow up like a hot air balloon, filling his chest, rising into his throat so he had to gulp hard before he could answer her. “And I love you. So much.”

She gave him her most beautiful, glowing smile—and hit him up. “So...can I have a puppy, then? Please?”

For once, he felt only relief that she was working him. Because if she was working him, that meant she was okay. It meant that the talk about her mother had gone pretty well. He leaned closer, until their noses touched. And then he whispered, “Nice try.”

Damned if she didn't bat her eyelashes at him. “Puh-leeeaasse, Daddy?”

He was seriously tempted to just tell her no. But he and Manny were still considering the puppy issue. If he told her no and changed his mind later, she'd only become more adorably impossible, more certain that the word
no
only meant
Keep pushing and the grown-ups will give in
.

She kept after him. “Please, Daddy. A puppy would be so good. Or maybe a little bitty kitten.”

He finally spoke up. “Do you want me to say no?”

“Daddy.” The big eyes reproached him now. “You know what I want. I want you to say yes, and then I can have a puppy.”

“Well, I'm not going to say yes. I'm going to say good-night. Or no. You get to choose.”

“But—”

He put his finger to her lips. “Choose.”

“Daddy,” she scolded, as though
he
was trying to put one over on
her
. And then she blew out a big sigh that smelled of Bubble Mint toothpaste. “You can say good-night.”

He kissed her forehead and gave the covers one more good tuck nice and tight around her and the old bear. “Good night, baby.”

She murmured, “Night, Daddy,” as he stepped into the hall and shut the door.

* * *

At her house, Chloe got to work updating Your Way's website and adding and scheduling posts to the Your Way Facebook page.

It was about time. She'd been seriously neglecting Your Way's online presence. Given a choice between posting decorating tips and picnicking with Quinn and fairy princess Annabelle... Well, what kind of choice was that?

Quinn and Annabelle won, hands down.

Once she had the website spruced up a bit with new content, as well as seven new posts written and scheduled to pop up on the Facebook page daily for the next week, she got to work plowing through email for both email accounts, the one for the website and the one she used for Facebook.

She did the website mail first. There were twenty emails left after purging junk and spam. She tackled them by date, oldest first. The fifth one down was no address she recognized,
[email protected]
. The subject line read
Question for you
.

Should that have alerted her?

It didn't. She assumed it was just someone wanting decorating advice or information about her services.

She so didn't pick up the meaning. She had no clue, just blithely pointed the mouse at the thing and started reading.

Did you like the flowers? I've been waiting to hear from you. We had so much, we had it all. I know you remember. Nothing's right anymore. I can't stop thinking about you.

Ted

Chapter Ten

F
or a moment, Chloe just stared at the monitor, unblinking and unbelieving. Then she shoved back her chair, ran to the downstairs bath and stood there before the mirror, staring at her too-pale stricken face, not quite sure if she might be about to throw up or not.

Finally, when she felt reasonably certain her dinner wasn't coming up, she went upstairs, poured herself a tall glass of water and drank it down. After that, still shaking, feeling hollow and powerless, vibrating with anger, she went back down to her office and tried to decide what to do next.

Twenty minutes later, she'd trashed and retrieved that damn email five times. She'd composed several replies, all along the lines of
I want nothing to do with you. Do not contact me again
.

In the end, she didn't reply. Any response would only encourage him. How many times had she told him to leave her alone? Too many. It did zero good. She considered blocking the address, but decided against that. If he sent more, she wanted to know about it, wanted to know if he was escalating.

She saved the email itself to a folder that she named TD. Then she wrote a brief description of the flowers and the note he'd sent all those weeks ago. She wrote that she'd thrown the flowers, vase and note in the trash and she marked the date that the incident had occurred. She added that information to the folder, as well.

Okay, it wasn't much. Not enough to get the police interested. But if he kept it up, so would she. From now on, she would have a record of every move he made.

By then, at least, she wasn't shaking. Tomorrow night was the third meeting of her self-defense class. She was on this case, taking responsibility to deal with whatever went down. If she had to confront Ted again, she would be better prepared than she'd been in the past.

She scanned the rest of the website emails and then the messages to Your Way's Facebook page and her own personal timeline page. As far as she could tell, he hadn't tried to contact her again. She decided to consider that reassuring.

She thought about Quinn, pictured his beloved face, the heat of him, the strength and goodness. Instantly, the tears were pressing at the back of her throat. She wanted to feel his arms around her, wanted to tell him everything, about the email, about her decision to keep a record of any and every move her ex made on her.

But then she remembered that look in his eyes the night she'd told him about the flowers. She'd barely been able to get his word then that he would stay out of it.

If she told him about the email, would she manage to get his agreement to stay out of it now?

She knew the answer. Because she knew him.

Really, it was only an email. Only one tiny step along a possible road to another ugly confrontation with the awful man she'd had the bad judgment to marry.

Eventually, if Ted kept it up, she would have to tell Quinn, have to somehow convince him again that this was
her
problem to solve in her own way. When that happened, Quinn would not be happy with her that she'd kept the truth from him now.

But Ted hadn't tried again in the past two weeks. She didn't
have
to tell Quinn now. And she wouldn't. It wasn't his problem and she could deal with this herself.

* * *

Downstairs after tucking Annabelle in, Quinn had stretched out on the couch and started
The Great Gatsby
on audio book, expecting his daughter to reappear any minute for their nightly exercise in monster removal. She never came. Bouncing around all day in rubber boots and fairy wings must have worn her out.

When Manny got home, Quinn took five minutes to run down his bedtime conversation with Annabelle, just to keep the old man in the loop on the mommy questions and the ongoing puppy issue. Then he said good-night and headed across the street to Chloe's.

They'd traded keys weeks ago, so he let himself in and dealt with the alarm. She'd left a lamp on by the sofa, as she always did. He could hear the low drone of a television, and light glowed from the short hallway that led to the master suite. Then the TV went silent. She must have heard him come in.

A second later, wearing the same big pink shirt she'd worn the first night he came to her, she appeared in the door to the short hall that led to the bedroom. “Hey.” Her sweet mouth trembled slightly. And there was something in her eyes, something that looked a lot like fear.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said too fast. “I just...heard the door, you know? Came to check...”

“Check what?”

She shivered, though the house wasn't cold. “Nothing. Really.” She tipped her head toward the bedroom. “Come on.” And then she turned and disappeared back the way she'd come.

Something here was very far from right.

He followed her to the bedroom and found her already in the bed, propped against the pillows. She patted the space beside her.

But he hesitated in the doorway as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on with her. “What's happened?”

“Nothing.” Breathless. And lying.

He left the doorway. Her eyes were anxious as she watched him come to her.

Instead of going around to what had pretty much become his side of the bed, he went straight for her. She scooted aside a little to make room. He sat on the edge of the mattress.

She stared at him. He watched her satiny throat move as she swallowed. “What?” she asked finally. “Honestly there's...” She faltered and then seemed not to have the heart to go on.

“See?” he said gently. “You don't want to lie to me, not really.” He reached out and speared his fingers in her long, shining hair. He wrapped a thick golden hank of the stuff around his hand and pulled her face right up to his. “I know you, angel,” he whispered against her satiny lips. “Know you better every day, every hour, every minute we're together. You're getting inside me, like I'm in you. It's getting so that it only takes me one look in your beautiful face, and I know if things aren't right with you. So I'll say it again. Something is wrong and I want you to tell me what it is.”

Her glance shifted away. “Would you let go of me, please?”

He did what she asked instantly, unwinding her sweet-smelling hair from around his fist, sliding his fingers free. “Done.” He stood.

She gazed up at him, her eyes like a stormy sea. “You're angry.”

He shook his head. And then he turned for the door, more afraid with every step that she was going to let him go.

But she was better than that. “Please, Quinn. Don't go.”

He stopped in the doorway and faced her again. “
Is
something wrong?”

She had her arms wrapped around herself, her shoulders curved in protectively. For a moment, she mangled her lower lip between her pretty white teeth. And then, at last, she confessed, “Yes.” Once the single word escaped her, she yanked her shoulders back and glared at him. “And if I tell you, you have to respect my wishes. You can't go taking matters into your own hands. I need your word on that, Quinn.”

Not her mother, then. The douche canoe ex. Had to be. “Just tell me.”

Her delicate jaw was set. “Not until you promise.”

He could see it so clearly and it would be beautiful. Just him, the ex and maybe a fat length of steel pipe, up close and personal—and hold on a minute. No. Scratch the pipe. Much more satisfying to deliver the message with his bare fists.

“I mean it, Quinn. You have to promise me.”

He studied her unforgettable face for several really long seconds. No doubt about it. She meant what she said. Plus, a man had to respect the wishes of his woman. He made himself release the pleasant fantasy of teaching Ted Davies a lesson in pain he would never forget. “All right. You have my word. Anything I do, you'll agree to it first.”

She watched him narrow-eyed. “Is that a trick answer?”

“Come on. You know me. If I give my word, you can count on it.”

Her slim shoulders sagged again. She shut her eyes, drew in a slow breath and when she looked at him once more, she held out her hand. “Please come back.”

He couldn't get to her fast enough. He took the hand she offered and dropped down beside her. “I'm here. I'm listening.”

She let out a small, sad little sound low in her throat.

That got to him, made an ache in him, the deep-down kind. He hated it when she was sad. He slid his other hand along her soft cheek and then wrapped it around the nape of her neck, beneath the heavy fall of her hair. He pulled her close.

She settled against him, feeling like heaven in his arms, smelling of French soap and fancy flowers he didn't even know the names of. He caught her face between his hands and tipped it up to brush a kiss across those lips he never tired of tasting. “It's okay,” he promised, stroking a hand down her hair. “It's going to be okay...” Because he would damn well make it so. He kissed her again.

She clung to him for a minute and then pulled back and settled against the pillows. “I was checking the emails for the Your Way website,” she began. And she went on to tell him about the message Davies had sent her and the file she'd started on him. When she was done, she added hopefully, “It was only one email and he sent it two weeks ago. I hadn't gotten around to checking the website in a while. Nothing since then. I really don't think it's that big a deal.”

He disagreed, though he didn't say so. It
was
a big deal. The dirtbag refused to leave her alone—after all this time, after she'd pulled up stakes and moved home to get away from him. He said, “You need to write back to him.”

She was shaking her head before he could finish the sentence. “That never works. You have no idea how many times I've told him I want nothing to do with him ever again.”

“But you're keeping a record now, remember? It's been more than a year since you left San Diego. Unless you have a restraining order on him or some formal proof somewhere that he's harassed you in the past...?”

“No,” she admitted unhappily. “God. I was such a big coward.”

He took her by the shoulders. “Look at me.”

“Oh, Quinn...”

“Listen. This is not your fault. You are not to blame here. This guy is a major scumball and
he's
the one who's causing the trouble. Guys like that, they love to make you think it's all somehow your fault. Don't you fall for that garbage. Don't you let him do that to you.”

She pressed her lips together and nodded. “You're right. I know you're right.”

“Good.” He gave her shoulders a last squeeze and let her go. “So you write a two-sentence email. ‘Never contact me again. I am blocking this email address.' And you send it to him. You forward his email and your reply to me and then you block him.”

She stiffened against the pillows. “Wait a minute. Why am I forwarding it on to you?”

“I'm going to write to Ted and introduce myself.”

“Oh, no. No, now, that is a bad idea...”

“Don't give me that look. There's nothing to get freaked out about. There'll be no dirty words and I won't be making any threats. Just a simple, straight-up little note. I'm going to tell him that I'm your fiancé and I know you've blocked him and told him you don't want to hear from him again. Ever. I'll say that I expect him to respect your wishes and if he has questions, he should write back to me, that I'll be happy to deal with anything he has to say.” Her eyes were mutinous. He could see her quick brain working, ticking off objections. He went on. “You can read it before I send it—in fact, emails aren't really my strong suit. Takes me forever to write one. So I'll bring my tablet over tomorrow night. I'll dictate the email to you and you can type it in for me, so you'll know exactly what I'm sending. Then that can go in your file, too.”

“But...what if he writes back to you?”

“Oh, angel. I hope he does.”

“Quinn. I don't like this. The whole point is that I don't want you involved.”

“How can I not be involved? We're getting married, remember?”
If I can ever get you to set the damn date
.

“It's not that. It's not about us. It's my old...
stuff
, you know? My big, ugly mess. I should be the one dealing with it.”

He reached for her then and pulled her close. She resisted at first, but then she sagged against him with a long sigh. He wrapped his arms good and tight around her and reminded her, “You
are
dealing with it. You can't get away from it. Look at you. It's tearing you up inside. I'm only backup, that's all. I only want this jerk to know that you're not alone, that you got family and we got your back.”

She cuddled in closer. “When you say it that way, I almost feel justified in dragging you into this.”

He pressed his lips into her hair. “You're not dragging me. I'm a gung-ho volunteer.”

She gave a weary little laugh and then grew serious again as she tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “Any communication you get from him, I have to read, Quinn. You don't get to protect me from anything he says. And I want to read it right away. No putting off sharing it with me while you decide on your own what to do next. You bring it to me. We decide together.”

A few bad words scrolled through his head. He'd hoped to have a little more leeway. But at least she'd agreed to the basic plan. “All right. He writes back, I bring it to you, we decide together what to do next.”

She lifted herself up and kissed him. “Agreed.” She breathed the words against his mouth. Her soft breasts pressed into his chest.

He wanted to kiss her some more, to take off that pink shirt, to see if she had anything else on under it and get rid of that, too. But they weren't finished with the subject of Ted. “There's more.”

She moaned. “Oh, God. What else?”