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“It belongs to Brett Hunter,” Janey said, spooning up soup, “and he’s really rich, so he probably doesn’t care. Also, Dad put it into a new ranch slider on the back door. He had to cut the glass for that, but when we leave, he’ll just put the old slider back.”
“He’s pretty capable,” Quinn said. “Like my dad.”
“Was your dad really a cowboy?”
“Well, not exactly. He grew up on a farm, so that’s not too exciting, but then he was in the Air Force and jumped out of planes, andthenhe rode bulls for a while. No cows involved.”
“He jumped out ofplanes?”
“Yes. With a parachute, obviously. He started a guide business for hunting and fishing—that was during the bull-riding time—and eventually, he and my mom took the money they’d saved from that and my mom’s work and started an outdoors store to outfit the kinds of people he’d been guiding for, and the locals, too. That was all before I was born. I guess that once I was coming along, he had a come-to-Jesus moment, and … there you are. The store. That’s one way I know how much he loves my mom and me, because he changed his whole life for us.”
“What’s a come-to-Jesus moment?” Janey asked. “Jesus is a God thing. We don’t have God that much in Aussie.”
This was why Quinn liked kids. They always had such an interesting take on things. “It means you get hit with reality and have to figure out how to deal with it, maybe grow up fast or change fast in a way you didn’t expect to.” She waited a second, then added, “The way I imagine it was for you and your dad when your mom died.”
“She wasn’t a mom,” Janey said. “Everybody says mom, but it’s wrong. She was amum.”
“Sorry. Your mum. She was pretty special, huh?”
Janey shrugged and looked down at her soup bowl. “Yeah. She died all of a sudden. I’m pretty sure the police thought my dad killed her.”
What?Quinn kept the shock off her face. This was the definition of “none of her business,” but here was this poor kid, carrying this around. She decided on, “Why do you think so?”
Janey shrugged again, put her spoon in the soup, and stared at the movement of the noodles. “They asked him heaps of weird questions. And a policewoman came back the next day and asked Troy and me if Dad was at home with us all night, and what we did. I told her, how do I know if he was home? I was asleep. Later, I sussed out why she asked me that. Because Mum died in a really weird way.”
OK,Quinn told herself,this isreallynot your business.“How?” And, yes, she was asking.
“She drove down a footpath and into the river and drowned in her car. Which is weird. Why would she drive off the road? It was raining really hard, and Dad said she probably couldn’t see, but the cops thought maybe she did it on purpose. I know that because they asked if she ever cried or said anything about being sad. If she was depressed, obviously, but they thought I wouldn’t know that word, so they asked if she ever cried and if she lay in bed all day. I said, of course she didn’t lie in bed, not unless she was ill. She was amum,and Troy was just little, so she needed to take care of him. But then they asked about my dad being home, so maybe they thought it was, like, a murder mystery, like he went out and met her someplace and drove the car into the river himself or something. Except thatcouldn’thave happened.My dad loved my mum. He said things like, ‘Back to the love of my life,’ when he got home from work, and then he’d pick her up and kiss her really embarrassingly. And when I learned about divorce and asked if they’d ever get divorced, Mum said, ‘No. On the day we got married, he promised to love me forever, and your dad’s a man of his word. And you have to know I’m never leaving him, either. Not possible.’ That’s how I know he didn’t kill her.”
Wow.Quinn said, “If you’re done with that soup, do you want some of this ice cream? It’s chocolate.”
“OK,” Janey said. “That’s why I don’t think my dad really wants to kiss anybody else. He thought he did, but that’s probably just sex.”
Quinn had been digging at the ice cream. Now, her hand stilled. “What?”
“That’s what Alexis says. That my dad’s hot, and hot guys want sex. That’s gross, but she says her mum told her aunt that he was so hot and he had a great body, and that he had such a sexy accent, so it must be true. But having sex with somebody doesn’t mean you love them. Alexis’s mum told her that sometimes a person’s lonely, or they just want to have fun, and there’s nothing wrong with that. She goes out on dates and has sex with men, but that isn’t the same as love.”
Bacon let out a fusillade of excited, happy barks and scampered to the door, and Troy came running in with Beckett behind him.
Oh, boy.
16
CASUAL
The first thing that happened was that Troy ran into the house ahead of Beckett, dropping his backpack and jacket on the floor in the entryway as if there weren’t a minute to lose and calling out, “Hi! We came home early, because you’re crook! Hi, Bacon! Hi, Quinn!”
Which gave Beckett about ten seconds to get his face set to “neutral,” so he could walk into the kitchen and greet her with … with whatever you gave the woman who’d told you last night that she didn’t want you, but who was in your kitchen anyway. He was pretty sure he could find somebody whowouldwant him, though, so why should he care?
Because he liked her better, that was why. He liked strong. He liked confident. And bloody hell, but he liked passionate.
He didn’t have to fix his face straight away, because at the moment, Troy was throwing his arms around Quinn, and she was bending down to hug him back. She stood up laughing, her hand still on his head, and Troy told her, “I couldn’t show the trampoline, but I did Show and Tell anyway! I told about the tricks you can do, and the climbing net, and the treehouse, and …”
Janey said, “Hi, Dad.” She was working her way through a bowl of chocolate ice cream. He went over to give her a cuddle of her own and feel her forehead, and she leaned against him for a minute, then pulled away and said, “I feel heaps better. I took a nap after lunch and now I’m fine. I can go to school tomorrow.”
He’d say hi to Quinn in a minute. He said, “Tomorrow may be early. You still had a fever at noon.”
“I have to go tomorrow, though! It’s volleyball practice on Tuesdays, and I have to talk to the coach and ask her! The first game is nextweek.Please, Dad. If I wait, she might—”
