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He followed the other passengers off the plane and rushed to the standby desk to check in for his connecting flight. Maybe he just needed to get back to work to get his mind back on track.
“Sir?”
The woman behind the counter held his driver’s license out toward him a handful of minutes later. He had forgotten he’d given it to her. He felt as though he was moving on autopilot.
“You’re all set. Your flight is boarding now.” She pointed to a line of people standing off to the side.
He put his license away and walked mindlessly into line, still thinking of Shelley. He glanced out at the setting sun and wondered if she was watching the sunset from the deck of the cottage.
Was she already missing him as much as he was missing her?
His phone buzzed as he walked down the Jetway and onto the plane. Shelley’s smiling face filled the screen with the caption, I got the gristmill!
He typed in a response on his phone as he took his seat. Congratulations, sweetheart! We’ll have to celebrate.
But before sending, Quinn hesitated with his finger over the screen. Celebrate? When would they get a chance to do that? Six or eight weeks from now?
He deleted the second half of his message, wishing she’d received the call hours earlier so he could have held her in his arms and felt her enthusiasm with his whole body.
I’ll call you tonight and we’ll make plans for the renovations.
Before sending this second text, he also worked it over in his mind. She’d need time to get her licensing figured out, and plans needed to be drawn up. Drawing up plans was tricky, even if Derek agreed to help her. And the contracts with subs would need overseeing. He knew his family would help her with all of those things. His brothers would never leave her hanging, but damn it, he should be the one helping her.
“Sir, you’ll need to put your cell phone away,” the flight attendant said as she walked past.
He hesitated again, his fingers hovering over the screen as he tried to figure out what to say to Shelley that wouldn’t only highlight the distance between them.
“I’m sorry. Now, sir,” she said with a polite but firm tone.
He powered down his phone without sending a text back, then shoved it in his pocket. But even as he flung open the document on his lap, he knew his enormous workload wouldn’t do a damn thing to help mask the dull ache of loneliness gnawing at his gut.
SHELLEY CLOSED HER fingers around the broom handle and took a few quiet moments to look at the interior of the gristmill, which was soon to be hers. With Abby’s help, a little finesse, and the charm of doing business on an island, the verbal agreement to purchase the gristmill was as solid as the ground Shelley stood on and she was granted access to the property to begin cleaning even though they still had to go through the formal closing.
It was the perfect way to work off the ache of missing Quinn.
Sierra and Abby had come by her cottage shortly after he had left to give her the good news about the gristmill and to bring her a housewarming gift for her newly rented cottage. Now they were here with her, scrubbing and mopping, helping to clean up the amazing building that she couldn’t wait to make her own.
“I think it’ll take you a week just to get the dust out of this place,” Sierra said as she wrung out the mop.
“I don’t care if it takes a month. Look at how incredible it looks after just two hours! I swear this place was put here just for me.”
Abby stopped scrubbing the counter she was cleaning and wiped her hands on a towel. “I think you’re right, Shelley. And,” she said with a soft smile, “I think Quinn has been waiting his whole life to meet you, too.”
Shelley had been working hard to keep from pining over him, but at the mention of his name, loneliness crept back in. “Is it silly that I miss him already?”
“Not at all,” Abby said as she began scrubbing again. “If I know Quinn, he’s missing you just as much.”
Sierra set the mop on the floor again. “I miss him, too. It’s funny, when Quinn, Trent, and Derek are gone for months at a time, I’m pretty much okay. I miss them, but I get used to it and I get busy. But when I’ve spent a bunch of time with them, I miss them more after they leave.”
With every scratch of the broom on the aged hardwood, Shelley wished Quinn were there with her. But short of that impossibility, she couldn’t have asked for a more enjoyable evening than spending time with, and being supported by, Abby and Sierra as they helped prepare the gristmill for her café.
