Keepsake (16 page)

When the barber was done, he whipped off the smock with a flourish. "I wasn't thinking buzz cut when I started," he admitted, "but you know, the look suits you. Yeah. You have the face for it. Strong nose, good eyebrows
... So? What do you think?"

Quinn grinned and said, "I think I should've waited until August. My head's cold."

"You wear a hat. Big deal."

After some back-and-forthing over whether Quinn would be allowed to pay, Tony ac
cepted the money and said good-
naturedly, "You always were a good kid." He seemed to hesitate after that before adding, "Take some advice?"

Instantly attentive, Quinn nodded and said, "From you? Sure."

In a low mutter, the barber said, "Watch your back, kid. You go poking around too much, you're bound to piss off some people. Those kinda people you don't want to piss off. You know what I mean?''

He sounded as if he were talking about the Cosa Nostra. Quinn would have laughed off the caution if it weren't for the fact that he himself had begun to feel a real unease about continuing down the road he was on.

"I don't suppose you feel like naming names?"

The barber shook his head. "I gotta live in this town."

Quinn had no fears for himself, but he was feeling more protective than ever about Mrs. Dewsbury. After installing extra fire alarms, he'd sweet-talked her into letting him have a burglar alarm installed as well. But he continued to be concerned about her, so that morning he told her that he planned to move out of her house to a small apartment he'd found on the edge of town.

Basically he wanted Mrs. Dewsbury to have nothing to do with him; she'd be safer that way. He had expected disappointment, but not tears of disappointment. It shook him. His old teacher had argued for him to stay and had almost succeeded in making him change his mind—until this.

"I appreciate the warning, Tony," Quinn said, shaking the barber's hand.

Tony gave him a tight smile and a parting shot. "Never mind about that DNA business, kid. Let it go."

Quinn had a parting shot of his own. "Frankly? That all depends on Alison's parents."

Quinn had gone into the barbershop with two goals in mind: lose the ponytail and launch a rumor that he planned to continue pressing the district attorney. He had scored on
both counts, so why was he feeling so crummy?

He wanted to blame it on the weather. After the bright sun of
California
, he was having trouble with
New England
gray. The weather was raw and mean, winter at its worst. The blanket of snow that had seemed so pure and magical on the day he
first arrived was now dirty and
pockmarked, casting an air of impoverishment on all it touched. Everything that could move seemed sluggish and grudging, from Quinn's shoulders and elbows to the door of his truck. As he drove through streets that seemed no longer quaint but merely old, it was easy to understand how snowbirds had come up with the clever concept of
Florida
.

Did
he want to leave
California
for good and come back to this?

Yes. Quinn was a son of
New England
, whether he liked it or not. His character h
ad been formed there. The self-
reliance, the sense of reserve, the refusal to promise more than he could deliver—all of those traits marked him as a New Englander. They had served him well during his
California
exile, but he had alway
s felt like a misfit there. Cal
ifornians were communal. Friendly. Lavish with their promises to help you with anything. And why not? The weather was bound to cooperate when it came time to deliver. No; Quinn was not, and never would be, a
California
dreamer.

But there was another reason for his desire to come back, and it was playing havoc with his equal and opposite desire for justice: He wanted to be near Olivia. Near her, with her, on her, under her—his desire for her seemed limitless. And yet the more Quinn pressed the case for his father, the more he knew he would drive a wedge between Olivia and himself.

It was that cruel paradox, and not the cruel weather, that had Quinn
feeling so damned bummed out.

****

Mrs. Dewsbury's hands were too arthritic to tie a knot in Quinn's bow tie for him, but she was able to talk him through the process with good results.

"You look as handsome as can be," she said, tweaking the bow just a bit.

"Even though I'm bald?"

"Even so. Why, you could be on your way to
your high-
school prom."

"Which, by the way, I never did get to go to," he remarked. As a matter of fact, he felt
exactly
like a high-
school senior as he checked himself out in the small, weathered mirror of his room. He ran a hand over the bristled remains of his hair and decided again that he must have been mad, giving old Tony carte blanche.

Mrs. Dewsbury was brushing his tux in a final once-over, although she couldn't possibly see the lint. "Do you have the mask that Livvy dropped off?"

"In my pocket," Quinn said, reaching inside his jacket for it. "I just wish I'd been here when Liv stopped by; I might take some getting used to."

"She was all aglow, my dear, trust me. I don't think a haircut is going to change that."

Looking no more substantial in her yellow cardigan than a goldfinch in April, Mrs. Dewsbury perched her tiny frame on the edge of the chenille spread that covered Quinn's bed. She had dragged the coverlet out of the attic, and she had bought—and hung!—new white curtains in his room as well. The needlepoint rug he was standing on was new, and so was the frilly shade on the lamp. She had gone all out for him. Maybe that's what had prompted the tears when he told her that, for her own good, he was going to have to move out.

Quinn fitted the mask over his eyes. It was a plain black affair, but he felt silly wearing it. Thank God Olivia hadn't dropped off something stuck on a stick. He would have felt like an idiot, brandishing it around as he made small talk.

He felt like an idiot anyway.

"I'm not supposed to wear this thing driving, surely. When
do
I put it on?" he muttered as he yanked it back off. "What the hell was I thinking, telling her yes? What am I supposed to say to all those people? We have nothing in common."

"Stop it right now!" said Mrs. Dewsbury, as if he'd been caught clowning around during study hall. "You have as much right to be there as anyone else. If you have any doubt, think of that box of trophies downstairs. Every one of them is for merit. You didn't buy them, you
earned
them. You're brilliant, you idiot! When will you get that through your thick skull?"

He laughed out loud at her carrot-and-stick approach to getting him out the door. "Boy, I wish you'd married my father," he said, grinning. "We both could have used you to whip us into shape."

"Now that's silly," she said, blushing. "Anyway, if you'd ever attended one of these things, you'd know how completely insipid most of the conversation is."

"Why didn't you say so?" said Quinn, flashing her a rakish grin. "I can do insipid."

"It's the one thing you
can't
do," she said dryly. "But never mind. You are going to have a wonderful time with your Miss Bennett, and then tomorrow morning you are going to give me a complete account of who was there and, more importantly, who was not." With a doleful sigh, she added, "Lord knows, you won't be around much longer for our little t
ê
te-
à
-t
ê
tes."

"Now don't start," he warned, still smiling, as he slid the mask back in his jacket pocket. "You know I'm moving out for your sake, not mine. Do you think I want someone terrorizing you with the fat end of a Doberman's
femur
?"

"Well, pooh, what do I care? As long as it's not still in the Doberman," she said, hauling herself up from the bed.

She whacked him gently across his knuckles and said, "Do you honestly think that someone's going to break in here and burn my house down just to encourage you to leave town? You have too high an opinion of yourself, Quinn Leary," she said, shaking a finger at him. "You always did."

"I like that! A minute ago, you said I had no confidence."

"Well—never mind. You're a contradiction, that's all," she said, marching past him with a sniff.

Pleased to see that her knees seemed to be working much better nowadays, he said to her retreating figure, "Maybe I should be taking
you
to the ball, Mrs. D. That's a pretty sexy spring you have in your step."

She turned around and gave him an utterly baleful look. "I remember now. You could be
quite
fresh. Will you be back very late?"

"I
... don't know," he said honestly.

"Will you be back at all?"

"I
... don't know."

"I suppose I'll have to set that silly alarm, in that case. Well, get moving. It's terrible form to be late on a first date."

No bra, sheer stockings, a silver lame slip dress—it couldn't get more basic than that. It had taken Olivia less than sixty seconds to get dressed, w
hich left her with way too much
time to pace the Aubusson rug in her living room as she waited for Quinn to join her in the suicide mission she had planned for them that night.

Her father had no idea that Quinn was going to be one of his guests. At the last minute Olivia's mother had lost her nerve and ditched the assignment. After much agonizing, Olivia had decided simply to wing it. So her father didn't know. So what? He wouldn't make a scene, not with a house full of guests. And if he blew his top after the party, well, it wouldn't be the first time that Olivia had got him to do it.

Currently the plan was for her mother to act surprised when Olivia showed up on the arm of Quinn Leary in the receiving line. It was the only way to spare Teresa Bennett from her husband's inevitable outrage. Olivia and her mother were being completely deceitful, of course, but they were in it too deep to be anything else. Olivia's only concern was that her guileless mother might not be able to pull off the deception.

So much for the honesty-is-the-best-policy route.

Working through her jitters, Olivia fluffed the pillows on her slipcovered sofa and stacked the coffee-table magazines that she had previously fanned, then stacked, then fanned again. She wanted Quinn to be impressed, but she didn't have a clue what impressed a man like him.

If I were Quinn, what would I notice first?

The view, of course. Too bad it was dark.

Her two-bedroom townhouse, one of a dozen on a knoll overlooking the
Connecticut River
, was pricey for its size. But the mortgage had bought her not only a beautiful view, but such amenities as French doors
, granite counters
, a
designer
hood, and an east-facing kitchen. It was lovely to watch the sun rise over the river as she ate her cereal, and worth every extra nickel. Quinn would think so, too, if
... if
...

If.

The chime at the front door sounded as shrill as the steam whistle at the textile mill. Olivia ran to answer it, catching one of her high heels in the fringe of the hall rug and very nearly sending herself sailing through
the
sidelight. In a fierce effort to compose herself, she took a deep breath and blew it out like a bottlenose dolphin, then put on a smile and swung the door wide.

"Wow."

"Wow."

They stood there, assessing one another in unabashed admiration, until Quinn remembered that he was hiding something behind his back. He whipped out a dozen roses in crinkly cellophane and said, "I sure hope you weren't expecting a wrist corsage."

"H
mm
."

"I know; they're not in a box. They're not even fragrant. I'm sorry. It was a last-minute thing."

"No, I mean
... your
hair."

"Oh, that. Yeah." He gave her a quirky smile and said, "Aren't you cold, standing there like that?"

Was she? "Oh, I'm sorry. Please. Come in," she said, accepting the roses as if they were gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Looking as grand as her brother ever had in topcoat and tux, Quinn brushed close by her as he passed on his way inside. Olivia's first and only thought was to bolt the door behind them and never let him out again. Ever.

"It's a great haircut," she said, unable not to stare. "You just look so... great."

He nodded in embarrassed acknowledgment. His hands were jammed in the pockets of his topcoat, giving him an air so artless that she found it sophisticated.

He said softly,"I can't begin to tell you how beautiful you are."

Her lashes fluttered down. "Thank you. It's the dress."