In Too Deep (16 page)

Could she do it? Lily wondered. Always looking over her shoulder, always worried about her little girl, always afraid the next stranger might be the one sent to kill her. She shuddered and her arm tightened around Annmarie, who curled more closely into her.

Could she deny her daughter all the family who loved her? Lily knew losing them both would kill her parents, would devastate Rosie. What right did Lily have to take her daughter away from Rosie?

Tears seeped from under Lily's eyelids as she concluded there was only one thing to do. Protect her daughter, who would eventually recover from losing her mother…just as long as she had aunts and grandparents and cousins who would all love her and take care of her. The pain of losing a mother would scar, Lily knew that it would. Better a scar, though, than the open festering wound they'd have if Lily took her daughter into a new life where they'd always wonder if they had been found out. How could Lily take Annmarie away from everything familiar to her? Because she'd remember Rosie and Ian and her grandparents and Dahlia and Jack. And Annmarie wouldn't understand.

Lily bit back a sob, sure this was the right choice, but sure of something else, as well. No matter where the witness security program settled her, no matter her new job, her new life, she'd never again be fully alive.

“Hey, girlfriend,” came Hilda's voice from the open door.

Lily opened her eyes, and she lost sight of her best friend beneath the stream of tears.

Without a word, Hilda leaned into the cab and enveloped Lily in a hug. One more loss. They had been best friends since they were seven and had been thrilled when they learned they were cousins. That had made Hilda as much her sister as Rosie or Dahlia.

“You're safe,” Hilda was saying. “You're going to be okay. Annmarie is okay. You made it.”

Lily leaned back far enough to meet Hilda's concerned gaze. “Find Cal Springfield, okay? I need to see him.”

“All right.”

Quinn joined Hilda at the car door and Lily saw that Dwight was walking away. Lily wiped her tears and tried to smile when Quinn ducked down to look at her.

“You want me to take Lily to the clinic?” he asked Hilda.

Lily met Hilda's gaze. “We don't need to do that.”

“You've got a scrape on your cheek,” Hilda said. “Did you hit your head?”

“No.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?”

Lily shook her head. “I'm cold and I want to go home.”

“Then go home,” Hilda advised, opening the back door and helping her son out of the car. She glanced at Quinn. “Just keep an eye on her. She got pretty chilled out there today.”

“More than she's willing to admit,” Quinn said.

“I'm warmer now, honestly,” Lily said, another rack of shivers coming in the middle of her defense.
Normal.
Good God, somehow she had to figure out how to act as though nothing was wrong until the plans were made.

Old cautions from when Cal had first approached her echoed through her head.
Until the second you're in a U.S. Marshal's custody, you go about your life and make plans for tonight, tomorrow, next year.

“Like I said.” Quinn's gaze rested on her.

“Nothing to be done except getting her warm,” Hilda said. “Rosie and Ian are in San Francisco, so there's nobody else.”

“Consider it done.”

“I can't impose on him like that,” Lily said to Hilda as another thought slammed through her. Would she ever see Rosie again?

Hilda grinned. “Then talk to the man, girl, not me. Unless you really want to spend the night with my brood.”

Lily shook her head, and Hilda's smile grew wider.

“So, let him take care of you.” Hilda stepped back from the car and closed the door. Through the window, she waved at Lily.

Quinn slid behind the steering wheel. “Ready to go home?”

“I am,” Annmarie said.

“I don't have my keys,” Lily said.

“Then we'll go get them.” Quinn put the car in gear. “Second honeymoon for your sister?”

“You mean, because of the trip to San Francisco?” Lily shook her head. “They went back to finish moving out of Ian's house.”

Quinn brought the car to a stop in front of the research center. Annmarie handed the cat over to Lily and insisted on going with Quinn when they went inside to get her purse. She watched them go, a worry eating away at the edge of her mind. How could she act as if everything was okay when her nerves were scraped raw?

Quinn and Annmarie reappeared at the front door, and the two of them came down the walkway toward the car hand in hand. As usual, Annmarie seemed to be chattering up a storm, and Quinn appeared to be listening intently.

When they got back in the car, he said, “One more stop.”

“Where are we going?” Annmarie asked.

“My house. I'd like to get into some dry clothes.”

“Good idea,” the child agreed.

A couple of minutes later Quinn parked the SUV in a driveway next to a small modular house. “Want to come in?”

“Yes,” Lily said. It wasn't that much farther to home, but she needed to go to the bathroom. She and Annmarie followed Quinn to the door. He held it open as they went inside.

She wasn't at all sure what she had expected from his house, so the living room contents were both a reflection of the man and a surprise. No couch, no television. There was exercise equipment, and a kayak—smaller than the one he'd used today—rested against one wall. She peered into the kitchen and decided the man must eat while standing up because there were no chairs, much less a table.

“Be back in a minute,” he said, heading for the bedroom. The instant before he closed the door, Lily caught sight of a king-size bed, which was unmade.

“He sure does have a lot of stuff,” Annmarie said, looking
around the living room. “But there's no place to sit, is there?”

“Not that I can see.” Lily headed for the bathroom, which was cluttered but clean. The aromas she associated with him were stronger here—soap and shaving cream. The towels might have been white at one time, but were the color of gray that suggested they had been washed with blue jeans and dark socks. Utilitarian and no fuss—as she had discovered the man to be.

Exhausted as she was, the remembered sensation of him moving inside her came with the aroma of his toiletries. Remembered sensation…and remembered want. Tears threatened again. She had wanted this new relationship so badly, and as it turned out, she'd be abandoning him just the way everyone else in his life had. That thought nearly sent her to her knees.

When she came out of the bathroom, Quinn and Annmarie were waiting for her. He'd changed his clothes. Another pair of jeans, another dark flannel shirt that made his shoulders look impossibly broad. The attire made her smile.

“What's funny?” he wanted to know.

“You,” she said with a gentle wave that encompassed both him and the living room. “You're such a bachelor.”

“I suppose there's a point to this.”

“No real point,” she said, heading toward the door and trying to memorize everything about it so she'd have it all to remember later.

Quinn held open the SUV doors and waited until both Lily and Annmarie were inside before he closed them. When they were under way again, he squeezed Lily's hand. “The Ericksens wouldn't happen to have a hot tub in that fancy house of theirs?”

Lily shook her head. “No hot tub. But a nice, deep, old-fashioned soaking tub.”

“You'll feel better after a bath.”

“And dinner,” Annmarie said from the back seat. “I'm hungry, and so is Sweetie Pie. Then we can watch videos.”

“No videos tonight,” Lily said.

“Mom.” Annmarie's voice had gone from subdued to whiny.

Lily turned around and caught her daughter's glance. “Cool it. You don't want me counting to ten. Not now.”

Annmarie squirmed on the seat and her glance fell away. Lily caught Quinn winking at her daughter.

“Don't you encourage her, either,” she said.
Normal,
she reminded herself.

They fell silent until they arrived at home. Lily fished her keys out of her purse and handed them to Quinn.

When she stepped out of the car, her legs felt like rubber. She was grateful for his steadying arm. She savored his touch and had the fleeting thought that maybe this was what it was like when you knew you were dying. Each moment, each touch, each word, became memorable.

As if sensing how close to the end of her reserves she was, he whispered against her ear, “Hang on, darlin'. We're almost there.”

The next few minutes blurred together as Lily allowed herself to be steered toward the master bedroom. Annmarie chattered away, helping Quinn find bubble bath and open the faucets on the huge tub. All the while, Lily stood there, feeling more bemused by the two of them by the second.

“Mom likes candles,” Annmarie said as the tub began filling. She opened a drawer. “The matches are in there. I'm not allowed to light them, did you know that?”

He took the small box from her. “That sounds about right.” He dutifully lit the candle that sat on the tile-covered shelf above the tub. “I guess all that's left for us to do is to leave your mom alone and go find some dry clothes for you.”

Annmarie glanced down at herself. “Okay. Then I think we should make dinner.” She peered up at him. “Can you cook?”

The seriousness of her question made Lily laugh. Quinn shot her a dirty look. “Yes, I can cook.” He glanced down
at Annmarie. “I bet your cat is hungry. She's had a busy day.”

“That's my job, feeding Sweetie Pie.”

Quinn winked at her. “Then you'd better get to it.”

When Annmarie skipped away, he said, “I'm a little worried about leaving you in here alone. Once you get warm, you'll probably fall asleep.” He came a step closer. “If I stay here like I want, I'm going to have the most ungentlemanly thoughts.”

“You are, hmm?”

He lifted his hands as if to unbutton her blouse, then dropped them. “I am.” He took a step backward. “I'll send your daughter back in a minute.”

“You're running again,” she teased even though she knew having him stay wasn't a good idea. She was tired…but not
that
tired. Tired enough her judgment was seriously addled, though, as she remembered her daughter.

“With reason,” he said. Quinn turned on his heel and closed the door behind him as he left. He leaned against the door a second, too aware of Lily taking off her clothes on the other side of that door.

Though thinking about her all naked made him erect, he was mostly concerned that she was okay. Judging by the abrasion on her cheek, she had hit her head somewhere along the way. Since he was likely to be sore from the day's activities, he could only imagine what it would be like for Lily.

He found Annmarie in the kitchen. She was sitting on the floor next to the cat, who was eating and purring at the same time. Quinn looked beyond her to the windows framing the sunset view and looking across the water. The storm that had been threatening all afternoon had finally arrived. This day there would be no glorious sunset—just gray rain that would likely fall much of the night.

He turned his attention back to the kitchen and clapped his hands together. “Okay, what should we make for dinner?”

“I like pizza,” Annmarie said.

“Unless you've got a frozen one in the freezer, I think that's a little more than what we can do tonight,” he said.

“Let's see what else there is,” Annmarie said, leading him toward the freezer in the mudroom.

Quinn followed, once again swamped with memories of Lily. The night they'd first made love.

He opened the freezer and peered inside with Annmarie. An assortment of frozen meats met his gaze—nothing that looked like a thaw-and-eat kind of meal. In the pantry, though, he found the makings for chili, which, combined with the frozen hamburger, would do just fine.

He'd never had a helper before, but Annmarie stayed right with him, asking her usual dozen questions a minute and showing him where the various utensils he needed were kept.

As he had promised, he sent Annmarie in to check on her mother. She was gone a long time, long enough that Quinn got worried and finally went down the hall to the bedroom. The door was closed, but inside he could hear the two of them talking. Breathing a sigh of relief that they were both okay, he listened a moment, enjoying Annmarie's giggles and Lily's soft laughter. Ah, to be part of that—to have the right to go inside and be a part of the family they were.

Troubled by that thought, he went back to the kitchen. Annmarie arrived minutes later. Pink and scrubbed. Clearly fresh from a bath, too, she was wearing fleece pants and a top and the fuzzy slippers he remembered.

“Mom says she's hungry enough to eat a whole whale,” Annmarie said.

“Good thing we cooked,” he said.

When Lily came into the kitchen a few minutes later, Quinn figured they'd done okay. He'd managed to cook without turning the room into a disaster area and, thanks to Annmarie, they'd set the table with all the requisite stuff, including place mats. If he'd ever set a table with place mats, he didn't remember it.

Lily had left her hair down. Thanks to the bath, her skin was once again pink instead of the color of chalk. He'd fig
ured she'd be wearing the lavender bathrobe like she had the other night, but instead she wore a dark blue scoop-necked tunic and charcoal-colored leggings that looked both warm and comfortable—and as suggestive as the more intimate bathrobe.

Annmarie skipped over to her and took her by the hand, leading her toward the table. “Mr. Quinn and me, we cooked. It smells pretty good, don't you think?”

“I think so,” Lily said with a smile, sitting in a chair. She met Quinn's gaze. “Thanks.” A dimple appeared at the corner of her mouth. “Unless you made eggs again and I'm not supposed to thank you for that.”