“What is it? Is he—?”
“Your father’s fine.” Abby’s voice shook. “I mean . . . you know.”
Jon nodded, exhaling slowly. Every day, every interaction was fraught with dread. One of these days his father would not be fine.
“What is it?” he asked.
They hadn’t been alone together since the seizure. She came early each morning to tend to Chaos and spell the night nurse. Jon looked after the house, kept food in the refrigerator, and made himself available for whatever his father wanted.
They took turns keeping Roman company. Cribbage had been big at first. Yahtzee for a while. Jigsaw puzzles. But as his fine motor skills deteriorated, the effort it took for Roman to shake dice or pick up a puzzle piece became too distressing, and Jon chose to watch TV with him or read aloud from the newspaper. Watching his father fail at such basic tasks was intolerable.
It hadn’t bothered Abby, though. She shook the dice for Roman and asked him what to save and what to re-throw. He spied puzzle pieces and she put them where he told her. Jon guessed that being a woman, and a friend, simplified the relationship. Roman’s fatherly pride wasn’t on the line as it was with his son.
Now he saw, though, what it was costing her to be present for Roman.
“Jon.” Her voice cracked and she reached for him. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. Please believe me.”
Before he even knew what he was doing, he had her crushed against his chest. The sensation of her body in his arms stopped the spinning around him, grounded him, connected him, made him feel like he could actually get through this, that with her help, he could make sense of life once again.
“He’s your dad, not mine,” she said, her face muffled by his shirt. “If I’m intruding, you’ll tell me, right?”
“Intruding? Never.” If anything, she wasn’t here enough. If he had his way, she’d never leave his side, and they’d be together forever. But that had to be her choice. Only she could slay the demons that haunted her.
“I don’t want to co-opt your loss.” Her shoulders shook and hot tears dampened his neck.
He pushed her back and looked into her face. When he could trust his voice, he said, “I’m so grateful that you’ve been part of this, Abby. I can see how much you care for him and I know he loves you. You have a right to grieve.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath and looked away.
“Abby.” He squeezed her upper arms gently until she met his eyes again. “What is it?”
Helplessly, she shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I’ve only known him a short time. How can you survive it? How can anyone survive it?”
Through his pain, a spark of hope flared to life.
“Love is worth it, Abby.”
“People keep telling me that. But is it?” She seemed to be genuinely asking. “I’ve missed you, Jon. You’ve been here but we’ve hardly talked. Even that hurts like hell. What if . . . what if it was more?”
He pulled her close and lowered his lips to hers. She clung to him as if he was a life preserver and she was drowning. She tasted of berries and fresh, clean water. Knowledge he’d long refused to admit flooded into his mind.
“It’s already more, Abby,” he murmured against her mouth. “The timing sucks, but I’m in love with you.”
She looked panicked, but she didn’t pull away. “I don’t know how to do this!”
“Listen to your heart,” he said, and kissed her again.
* * *
Abby picked her way over the stone-and-mulch path to the timber-framed two-bedroom cabin she shared with Quinn at the far end of the workers’ row. Stars peeked and twinkled overhead, brilliant in the dark of the new moon. The pause between breaths, Jamie called it. Time to rest, regenerate, prepare for the next cycle.
What would the next cycle contain for her? She hugged her elbows, partly against the chilly night air, partly from nerves. Jon, in love with her.
She wanted to believe it.
She was afraid to believe it.
He belonged in the bright lights and gridlock of Los Angeles, not out here in ranch country, where a traffic jam meant someone was moving a herd of cattle across the road. Other than sharing the same ocean, the tiny windswept community of Sunset Bay and its long lonely stretches of pristine sand had nothing in common with bustling Santa Monica or Venice Beach.
Jon liked to be where the action was, where the stories were.
Abby relished the peace here and her story was not meant for telling.
She lifted her face to the starlight again and breathed deeply. For the first time in her adult life, things were stable. They had enough money. They had a roof over their heads, food, friends, work.
But Abby wondered if she or Quinn would ever be truly free of the scars those early years of insecurity had left on them. If Abby would ever be able to accept Jon’s love and return it.
She passed the last of the cabins and turned on the path to her own. Her heart lifted at the sight, as it always did. With two windows framing the wooden door and a half-width porch on the front, it always looked to her like the cabin was waiting for her with a smile of invitation.
It was all quiet inside but a light was burning over the kitchen sink. Abby was surprised that Quinn had gone to bed early. Maybe she was taking the new moon to heart as well.
Abby tiptoed across the creaky floorboards, shedding her light jacket and hanging it on the back of a chair. With a soft mmmrrt, Tux jumped down lightly from the windowsill where he loved to sit and watch the night-flying insects and bats that came out in warmer weather.
“Hello, handsome,” she whispered, bending down to stroke the sleek black and white fur that had inspired his name. He alternated his nights between the two bedrooms on a schedule that only he understood and Abby was ridiculously pleased that he’d passed up snuggling with Quinn to wait for her.
Quinn had wept for the orphaned coyote pups as much as she’d wept for Tux’s mother, and Abby had been helpless to comfort her. There was no explaining the randomness of life. One predator is accepted, another rejected. Some babies saved, others left to starve unseen.
Despite being motherless, the kittens had all grown into excellent hunters, thereby earning their keep by controlling the mouse population in the barns.
Tyler and Duke too, had thrived with the responsibility, showing themselves to have developed nurturing skills that no one would have expected when they’d first arrived. On the cusp of adulthood, according to the state, they were no longer entitled to mandated care, though they were even less prepared than most to live independently.
Had it been Olivia’s tough love that had saved them? Would they have ended up on the streets? In prison? Dead? Or would they have finished school, sidestepped the lure of gangs and drugs, discovered dreams, made something of themselves, without Sanctuary Ranch?
Nature, nurture, instinct, education . . . who knew what was most important in helping a creature become the best it could be?
Was it a roll of the dice? A bad deal that just left some with losing hands, no matter how they played their cards?
She poured fresh kibble into Tux’s bowl and listened to him purr for a moment. His white-tipped tail curled at the end as he settled down to crunch on his meal.
“Okay, sweet-face.” When she was sure he’d finished his meal, she gathered him into her arms and carried him to her room. “Time for bed.”
After she’d finished washing her face and brushing her teeth, she nudged the door to Quinn’s room and peeked inside.
A soft woof came from the foot of the bed. Ziggy Bigelow lifted his shaggy head and blinked at her. His socialization was going well. If he continued to progress, Quinn would soon be bringing him along to the schools.
“Shh,” Abby said.
The dim glow of the hallway light, Abby could see the outline of her sister’s slender body beneath the quilt. Quinn slept with a pillow over her head, as if hearing echoes of the sounds that had once kept he
r awake and now bounced around inside her sleeping mind like pinballs in a machine.
Ziggy Bigelow padded to the head of the bed, turned a circle, and flopped down.
Right on top of Quinn.
Except Quinn wasn’t there.
* * *
As soon as the night nurse arrived, Jon got into his car. He needed to clear his head, to be away from Dad and the dog and the house and the dread that overwhelmed him.
He was falling in love, while his father was dying. It seemed so wrong.
He parked near the beach on the outskirts of town, then got out to walk. The wind held enough strength to make him hunker his shoulders against it, and enough salt to make his eyes sting. He was tired of feeling inadequate and guilty at the same time. It would almost be easier, he thought with still more guilt, if his father had died while Jon was still in L.A.
The waiting was horrible.
Even as he thought it, he realized how selfish and petty he was being. If it was hard on Jon, how much harder was it on Roman? He wasn’t even seventy, but chronic health issues made him seem older. He should have been looking at many more years of life but that’s not the hand he’d been dealt.
He stopped and stared out at the horizon, listening to the rhythmic shift and flow of the waves. The steel-gray water was touched with whitecaps that glowed pink in the setting sun and white-wing gulls flipped and soared overhead, their piercing cries a perfect accompaniment to the wordless ballad underscoring his life.
Abby was afraid; he got that. Would she learn to trust him?
He shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and continued walking. Up ahead, he spied a seafood restaurant with twinkling lights strung along the upper deck railings that were just becoming visible in the growing darkness.
Music drifted down and he could see people dancing inside.
A beer at the bar might make him feel better. He wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone but he knew he shouldn’t be alone right now.
The wide-plank wood steps were grayed from the elements and years of foot traffic, though peeling white paint still showed in the corners. He opened the door to a waft of air fragrant with bacon grease and fries and his stomach growled, reminding him that it had been hours since he’d last eaten, days since he’d eaten properly.
He found a seat at the bar and ordered dark beer, then sat back and looked over the menu. Besides the usual pub fare, they featured fresh oysters, a market-price catch-of-the-day item Aiden said sold out quickly. He’d have to come back another day with Abby.
“Here you go, love.” The waitress was a young woman named Amina who wore her black hair in an enormous ponytail made up of dozens of tiny braids. When she leaned forward to set his glass onto a cardboard coaster, the beads at the ends of her braids clicked like tap dancers. “Kitchen’s closed but I could get you a sandwich if you’re hungry.”
Jon thumbed away the caramel-colored froth that slipped down the edge of his frosted glass. “I’m good.”
He took a deep drink of his beer, relishing the smooth slide down his throat. He watched the servers moving back and forth behind the bar, pulling drinks, sending in orders, chatting with customers, deftly riding that line between friendly and flirtatious. Amina had just enough sternness in her expression to indicate that she was not to be messed with and her athletic build suggested that if someone required more assertive handling, she would happily provide it.
Physically, she couldn’t have been more different from Abby. Skin color, bone structure, hair, eyes. Amina’s edges were hard where Abby’s were soft, the planes of her muscles flat and solid, where Abby had the lean strength of a dancer. Yet Jon sensed, without being able to put his finger on exactly why, that Abby could deal with anything Amina could. That maybe, like those tai chi practitioners who could disable an opponent by turning his own power against him, Abby had discovered powers of self-defense far beyond the purely physical.
He finished his drink and was about to signal Amina for the bill, when he noticed her watching a group near the window.
Several young men and women that had been laughing together the whole time Jon had been at the bar, had been joined by a larger group. Tables were pushed together, chairs rearranged and now they’d opened up an area of the parquet floor for dancing.
The volume of their laughter and the loose limbs of the dancers indicated that they’d been drinking for some time. Women tossed their hair, adjusted their thin-strapped tank tops, men slapped each other on the back, looped arms over the backs of chairs, glanced at cleavage.
Then he saw a flash of shiny wheat-gold hair.
Quinn?
He straightened up to get a better look. Yes, Abby’s little sister was out and having a great time, by the look of it.
She was sitting on the lap of one man, laughing loudly at something he said, leaning her chest near his face. His hand rested on her thigh, just below the frayed edge of her short denim cutoffs.
Quinn, who’d barely talked to him, who’d been afraid of her own shadow.
He paid his bill but asked Amina if he could stay a while longer. Something wasn’t right about the situation with Quinn and he didn’t want to leave until he’d figured out what.
When he saw the man stand up, and half carry, half lead Quinn toward the door, Jon moved quickly to follow them. He caught up to them in the parking lot, where the guy was attempting to pour Quinn into the passenger seat of his pickup truck.
“Excuse me,” he said. “Quinn, what are you doing?”
“Back off, buddy,” said the cowboy. “She’s with me.”
“What’s her last name?” Jon asked. “What’s her first name?”
The man looked blank.
“That’s what I thought.” He reached around the man and pulled Quinn out. Her head lolled against his shoulder. “Come on, honey. I’m taking you home.”
“I bought the drinks,” the cowboy snarled. “She owes me.”
White heat flared behind Jon’s eyelids. “If you touch her again,” he said, “I will fuck you up. Do you understand?”
He grabbed the man’s keys from his hand and hurled them onto the beach. “Maybe by the time you find them, you’ll be sober enough to drive.”
Then he carried Quinn to his car.
“You’re not s’posed to know I’m here,” she complained. “Nobody’s s’posed to know. Abby’ll have a fit.”
“Yeah, for good reason. What’s the matter with you? Do you have any idea how much this will scare her?”
Quinn fell into a sullen silence.
“Don’t puke in my car, okay?” he said. “I can’t believe this. After everything she’s done for you, this is how you repay her.”
“Man,” cried Quinn. “Enough with the guilt trip. I already feel bad enough, okay? I tried to make things better for Carly and she wouldn’t let me. Now we’re stuck out here and Abby won’t have any fun because she thinks she doesn’t deserve it.”
“Wait,” Jon said, thinking quickly. “Who’s Carly? What do you mean, she wouldn’t let you? Wouldn’t let you do what?”
Quinn turned her head to the window. “They won’t listen to me until I’m twenty-one but you know what? I’m almost there. Then they have to. Then I’ll do the right thing, and Abby can’t stop me. She thinks I’m not tough enough but I am. I am.”
She sniffled the rest of the way home and refused to say anything more.
But Jon had a feeling he already knew.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Come on, Quinn, pick up.” Abby punched the redial button on her phone for the tenth time, willing her sister to answer, but with no luck. She had her car keys in her hand and was about to pull the door open when she heard the sound of tires on the gravel driveway.
She ran outside to see Jon, carrying a sleeping Quinn in his arms.
“Oh my God,” she cried. “What happened?”
“She’s fine,” he said. “She’s extremely drunk, but otherwise unharmed. I found her in town with a bunch of
tourists who thought they’d have some fun with the locals.”
Abby held the door open for him and led the way to Quinn’s room. When he entered the bedroom door, Ziggy looked up and growled.
Jon stopped. “What’s with the welcoming committee?”
“Ziggy,” Abby scolded. “Off.”
She pointed to the crate in the corner and he slunk inside, tail down.
“Quinn’s socializing one of the latest rescues.”
“He looks a little iffy to me.”
“Yeah. Well. She’s no shining example herself right now.”
She tucked Quinn in, put a couple of aspirin and a big glass of water on the night table, and turned out the light.
Her heart was still hammering in her chest. Not again. Not again.
“Has she done this before?” Jon asked.
She nodded. “A few times. But she’s doing better out here. I thought she was, anyway.”
“She mentioned something about wanting to fix something. To do the right thing. Something you didn’t want her to do. What was she talking about?”
Abby’s blood turned to ice. “I don’t know.”
Jon looked quizzically at her. “Really?”
She steeled herself not to react. “She’s drunk, like you said. Who knows what she’s saying?”
“She mentioned someone named Carly.”
Abby swallowed. “Did she?”
“Come on, Abby. Talk to me.”
* * *
Quinn’s birthday couldn’t come soon enough. Her stomach churned as she lay in bed listening to Jon and Abby. Yeah, she was drunk. But she still knew what she was doing. She’d finally convinced Carly that she wanted to come forward with her information. Between her and Carly, surely they could find someone who would listen and do something. No one wanted the report of a minor, but the second she was twenty-one, she was going to step up.
She’d been running from this for a long time. Abby didn’t understand. She hadn’t seen what Quinn had seen. She didn’t live with the guilt of watching a good friend be hurt and humiliated and staying quiet.
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