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And she was. The land was up for sale, overseen by the savviest real estate lawyer she could find. An equity line had given her enough cash to give a small severance package to her last full-time employees when she closed the garage for good. The oil cleanup was slow, but nearly completed. The last thing on her plate was a plowing contract to fulfill for the town this winter, but after that…Well, after that her life would change somehow, whether she was ready or not.
As for today…she had absolutely nothing to do unless the ground suddenly froze and let snow pile up on the road. Lori stared out the window, hating the fat white flakes. Somehow it had been easy not to reach out to him when she knew she had the option. But now the idea scratched from the inside of her skull.
Lori stretched out on her fake-suede couch cover and stared hard at the ceiling. She was busy getting her life together. If she was still around next May, then maybe she’d drive over the pass and knock on Quinn’s door. Maybe she’d ask him to dinner. Maybe she’d be ready.
But what if a buxom blonde answered the door?
“Jeez Louise.” May was seven months away, and what were the chances that Quinn wouldn’t stumble into some other woman’s bed in that time, even accidentally? Just the thought made her stomach hurt.
She had to press a hand to her belly to keep it from turning, but shewouldn’tcall him. There was no point. Her life was in flux and would be for a while. And though he’d been an arrogant ass, she hadn’t exactly been Mary Sunshine. Hell, he’d probably said good riddance and moved on already.
He could be giving some girl a cyber-tour of his house at this very moment.
“Oh, God,” Lori groaned, and grabbed one of her soft yellow pillows to press it to her face.
Even if he’s dating,she told herself,he doesn’t mean it.She’d gotten flowers on her birthday two weeks before. No card, no signature. Just a huge bouquet of dozens of Gerbera daisies. They could only have come from Quinn. She’d cried, but she hadn’t called him. And she wouldn’t call him now.
She wouldn’t.
Desperate for distraction, she inched the pillow off her face and grabbed the latestTribune. The gossip headline only made her feel worse.Local Realtor confirms she’s dating former football star Juan Jimenez. “We have a lot in common,” Helen Stowe claims.Helen had finally done it. She’d risked everything for Juan. She was holding her head high and marching bravely into love.
Lori dropped the paper and pressed the pillow back to her face. The cotton muffled the world pretty effectively, but she was sure she could hear those damned snowflakes sliding down the glass of her front window, mocking her.
* * *
“HEY,IDIOT,” his sister said cheerfully over the phone.
Quinn scowled at the sketch on his desk. “What do you want?”
“I just thought I’d call to see how you’re doing. I worry about you.”
He snorted. “Since when?”
Molly didn’t answer.
“Look.” He sighed. “I’m fine. Never better.”
“Quinn, the last time I saw you, you looked like an umbrella.”
“O-kay…You’re not making any sense at all. Is Ben keeping your prescriptions filled?”
“An um-ber-el-la,” she said slowly, emphasizing more syllables than were actually in the word, as if that would give it more meaning.
Quinn grunted.
“You’re skinny as a rail but your shoulders are freak-ishly wide. An umbrella.”
“Jeez. Thanks.” He glanced over at his left shoulder. Okay, he’d had to have a few suits taken in at the waist. But surely he didn’t look freakish. He was just having more trouble than normal sleeping. “Anyway, thanks for calling.”
“Quinn!” she yelled before he could set the phone down. He raised it warily back to his ear. “She’s doing really well. Why don’t you call her?”
“No,” he answered, and hung up before she could say more. Molly had been outraged at his stupidity.You actually told her she didn’t have a life?She’d called him a clod and an idiot and worse than that.
At some point it had begun to sink in that he’d acted like a dick. He’d lived through so many failed relationships that when he felt as if he’d found the right one, it had been soclearto him. So obvious. And somehow he’d failed to see that it might not be so clear to Lori.
Pure stupidity.
The girl had been through hell and back in the past year. The loss of her father, the destruction of her business, the ultimate betrayal of a man who’d been like an uncle. Quinn had had no business pressuring her like that. He’d been an idiot and ruined everything, and there was no way he was going to crawl back and pressure her again.
