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Chapter4
Quinn felt all the pent-up frustration she’d battled as a teenager surface as she walked away from Luke Trainer. Her mother had controlled and manipulated so much of her childhood, and now she was trying to do it again.
The humiliation of what Luke had said still burned on her cheeks.
She’d never been the girlie girl her mom wanted. Yes, she was loved, but not understood. She’d hoped coming home this time it would be different. Turned out she was wrong. Her mother’s life goals were still to marry Quinn off and ensure she got grandchildren, stat.
A month, Quinn, and then you can leave. She walked to the shops, determined to not let her mother ruin her return to Ryker Falls. She’d always loved this street with its quaint shops.
Things had changed, including the banner across the street that read “Halloween Hunt With Your Honey.”
“You all good there?”
Quinn looked at the woman approaching. Tall, elegant, and familiar. She looked like Luke Trainer.
“I am, thank you.”
“You have your hands clenched into fists. I was just checking because I can’t see anyone directly in your path you’re about to punch.”
Quinn opened her hands.
“Don’t try to understand that.” The woman pointed at the banner hanging over the street.”
“But what does it mean?”
The woman stopped at her side, and they both stared at it,
“The abbreviated version is that Mrs. Howard, my mother-in-law, wants to marry off her two daughters, so she puts on events to throw them at the men she selects for them.”
“You’re not serious?” Quinn looked at the woman. “That doesn’t actually work, surely?”
“Nope, which is why she’s still running things like that. The thing she hasn’t worked out is that after the adult musical chairs that turned into carnage, no one will enter.”
Her mother was a friend of Mrs. Howard’s, so it was possible she’d been involved, Quinn thought. She needed to make sure she was out of here before the event took place.
“Makes a girl glad she’s married.”
The woman wore fitted jeans, black boots with a spike heel, and a bright red sweater. Her long hair was free and shiny. Quinn was happy with who she was and had never wanted to be anyone else, but she could admire someone who took more time than her over their appearance.
She shot Quinn a look. “My suggestion, if you’re still in town, is to limp if you see Mary Howard. She won’t make you do it if you’re injured.”
Quinn snorted. “There were three Howard children, right?”
“My husband was a hell-raiser with my cousin Joe. Dylan has two sisters, Charlotte and Ava.”
“Ava was my age,” Quinn said, remembering.
“I’m Piper Howard.” The woman moved in front of her and held out a hand that had bloodred nails shaped perfectly. “Once a Trainer.”
Quinn shook it. Names were coming back to her as she heard them. “Quinn Harper.”
“No way?” The woman looked her up and down. “It’s fair to say you look nothing like the girl I remember.”
“Sounds about right. Mom made me have pigtails right through school, and then in high school I had to wear dresses.” She used to go home at the end of the day and pull them out. Her head was always extremely grateful for it. Quinn wasn’t rebellious enough to do it during her school day.
“So it’s been a while since you’ve been seen in Ryker Falls, Quinn.”
She nodded, because it was true. If she came home, it was fleeting and hadn’t been for a few years now, and the why was not something she would get into with a stranger.
