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Getting into trouble in Thailand made more sense to me than having business in Thailand. I entertained the possibility that the universe really was this benevolent. That Jason Cain hadn’t fallen off the radar because he was plotting something, but rather because he was actually too busy to deal with the Quinn situation right now. “When do you expect him back?” I asked casually, hoping it was after Joanne’s birthday party. The idea of packing Jimmy’s full of people where it would be hard to spot who might slip into the crowd had been amping up my stress level.
“Not for a few days. He’ll probably take the red eye back on–” there was a pause while she checked. “–Saturday night. He has a party on Sunday night.”
My shoulders relaxed immensely. If Jason was in the air on Saturday night, he couldn’t get to Quinn at Jimmy’s, even if he wanted to. I was starting to wonder if maybe he was seeing the light. Quinn wasn’t some rootless artist adrift in his bizarre world. She had friends and family andmestanding between him and whatever he wanted from her. Maybe she was just too much damn trouble and he’d sign the contract and be done with it.
I was feeling downright cheerful when I asked the secretary to have Jason get in touch with me when he got back. I walked down to Marshall’s office and asked if he wanted to get a bite before I drove home. It had been a while since I socialized with anyone, and today was as good of day as any. My parents were already planning to pick up Noah, and Quinn was going to be busy planning the party anyway.
“So you haven’t heard from him at all?” Marshall asked half an hour later, after we’d placed our order and I’d updated him on the situation. He was drinking a margarita with an uncustomary frown on his face. I had water because I had to drive backtonight. More and more, Marshall was staying at his apartment in the city. I guess it got lonely in that big beautiful mansion without the family he’d bought it for. I made a mental note to make sure he saw Noah more.
“Not a word. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”
Marshall’s expression told me which he thought it was. “I’m going to put another man on your house.”
I was mid sip of water, and it took some effort to swallow rather than spitting it out. “Anotherman, Marshall?”
“You think I just trusted our local patrol to keep my grandson safe?” he snorted, like I should have known better. Maybe I should have.
“I think that’s overkill.”
“I don’t,” he said frankly. “I like to keep my enemies close so I know where the fuck they are. I don’t like that Jason has gone off the grid.”
“He’s not off the grid. He’s in Thailand.”
“It’s for Noah,” Marshall said, effectively slamming a lid on the conversation. I wouldn’t stop him from doing everything in his power to protect his grandson, even if I didn’t think we needed an armed guard at the end of our driveway. He’d have to keep being discreet though, or the HOA would have something to say about it.
“Okay,” I allowed. “I get it.”
Sometimes I thought we were the only two people in our life who got it. He was the only person who had never told me I was being overprotective of my son. He’d never made a single snideremark about the vehicle I’d bought after Emma died, the one that looked like a minivan and was as impenetrable as a tank. We were in a terrible fraternity of two, and we had unspoken rules instead of a secret handshake.
We never talked about the accident.
We silently acknowledged her birthday by taking the day off.
And we never questioned what the other thought was necessary to protect what we had left of her.
After that, the conversation moved to lighter subjects. I invited him to Joanne’s birthday party, and he declined, as I knew he would. Marshall was Waterford Village, through and through. He supported the development plan when it was proposed thirty years ago, and he bought the first lot. For a time, only his mansion was built, and he lived alone on the hundred plus acres while the community grew up around him.
I’d aspired to be just like him, and I’d more or less succeeded. If Emma had lived, I might have followed in his footsteps for the rest of my life. Quinn changed the game though. There was no way she’d become what Renee contemptuously referred to as a Waterford Wife. Though she’d been staying there for almost three weeks, she still didn’t quite fit in. Like an Art Deco lamp in a minimalist space. She was too vibrant, tooenergetic. A wild, eclectic rose that couldn’t quite take root in the sleepy, beige and gray atmosphere of Waterford.
Marshall could tell something besides Jason was on my mind now, and he pried it out of me like the expert cross examiner he’d been before he moved into entertainment law. I gave him my thoughts reluctantly. Even though I had his blessing, even though Emma had been gone five years now, it was strangeto tell my former father-in-law that I had fallen in love with someone who wasn’t his daughter.
“Aren’t you getting ahead of yourself, son?” he asked, as I knew he would.
“Fuck yes I’m getting ahead of myself.” I leaned back in my chair as the waitress approached with our dinners. I waited while she dropped them off and Marshall requested more hot sauce. Then, when she was gone again, I continued. “It’s only been three weeks.”
Three weeks and the twenty-five years I’d known her, but who was counting? The problem still wasn’t the amount of time it had taken me to fall in love with Quinn. It was everything else. Her life in LA. Her career that took her all over the world. My career that kept me in LA. My life that rooted me to Waterford.
Marshall had a look on his face that he didn’t have to put into words, because I was already thinking them.
With such two seemingly incompatible lives, what the hell was I doing, imagining her in mine forever?
CHAPTER 23
QUINN
Jason was inThailand. The news made me giddy with relief and happiness. My shoulders eased, and I hadn’t even realized that tension had been lurking in the muscles. I took a deep breath and felt my chest expand more than it had in weeks. I laughed out loud. One of the talents had run into some trouble? That didn’t surprise me a bit. The only thing that would shock me is if Jason managed to get him out of the country without adding to it.
I spun around on the marble tiles of Callum’s airy bathroom and tipped my face up to catch the sun streaming through the skylight. The particles of sunshine infiltrated my pores, and I felt like I could practically inhale it. Hy heart filled with helium, and my voice plucked a song out of the universe. It came to me, nearly fully formed, the lines unfolding as I sang. It wasn’t atypical for songs to come to me like this, but what was unusual was what kind of song had come through the ether. It was as light and joyous as I was. It would never fit in with my current catalog. It wouldn’t even work on that theoretical third album,with the sappy happy love songs. There was something about it that was unique. Vintage. I thought people would like it.
