So Quinn kept his mouth shut.
“And you couldn’t get any more leave time for the funeral?” Ben asked.
Quinn yanked himself out of his reverie, answering a little belatedly. “No, I couldn’t. I’d used it all for that visit, and since Mac wasn’t technically a relative, I would have had to pull strings to get more—”
“If anyone would have understood not doing that, it was Mac—the marine of all marines, strictly by-the-book,” Micah assured him.
“Mac didn’t even make it back for his own father’s funeral,” Ben said to support that. “He was deployed at the time, and when he finally did show up, he took some flak for not getting here. And in true Mac fashion, he said his father was already dead when he heard, so there was nothing he could do for the old man, and his duty was not to leave his command.”
“Service, duty—they always did come first with him,” Tanner said with more admiration than Ben’s voice had held.
“That was what he was all about,” Quinn said, agreeing with his two former-marine brothers. “Mac was a stubborn, tough-as-nails, old-school marine. I still can’t believe he’s gone.”
“It’s gotta be tough on you, losing someone as important as he was to you,” Micah commiserated.
“Takes a while to sink in, a while more to grieve the loss,” Ben added. “You still have to eat, though...”
Quinn dipped a biscuit in the gravy on his plate and pondered another diversion, so his family would see only grief and miss the guilt that came with it.
“So...am I understanding that you’re here now because of Mac’s will and that memorial-library thing he’s having his daughter set up?” Ben said then.
Quinn nodded while he ate the bite of biscuit, then said, “I am. Mac wanted somewhere where everyone from Montana who served could be acknowledged. He asked that we make the first of the contributions from our family—Dad, us—to get the ball rolling. I know there’s stuff of Dad’s in the basement, Pops—if you’d dig that out and maybe go through it, see what you might want to give. And, Micah, Tanner, you guys can think about anything you have.”
Quinn paused to let his words sink in, then continued with his answer to his grandfather’s question. “When it comes to Mac and what I’m supposed to do, he wanted the recognition he earned—I’ve heard all his stories and all the stories about him, I’ve been in some of his units, been on some of his missions. I know what he was most proud of, so he wanted me to make sure it gets out there.”
Maybe not all of it, though...
“He trusted me to get him seen the way he wanted to be seen,” Quinn concluded gruffly, thinking that it was a job he would have had more heart—and stomach—for before his trip to MARSOC training camp in North Carolina, where marines became part of the elite Marine Raider Regiment.
“He wanted you in charge of that? Not his own daughter?” Tanner asked, as if it puzzled him, having no idea how touchy that issue really was.
“Yeah,” Quinn answered brusquely.
“But it’s his daughter who’s going to run the thing,” Micah contributed.
“Looks like it. Mac just figured getting his military accomplishments in the limelight was a better job for me,” Quinn explained, suffering yet another twinge of guilt. “His daughter has worked for the military as a civilian. I’m not clear on the details, but she’s done some things with counseling vets and fundraising for them and I don’t know what all. But it’s the kind of thing Mac also wanted done with this project, so he thought she could do him justice with everything else and do good for vets and their families, too. But he figured I had a better knowledge of him and his service.”
“So, again, Mac thought you knew him better than his own daughter does?”
“I think he was probably right,” Quinn acknowledged in an undertone that lacked the pride he would have felt once upon a time.
“But you would have to work with her, wouldn’t you?” This from Tanner with some cynicism.
“I’m not sure,” Quinn responded. “Mim said yes, Clairy said no way.”
Tanner nodded. “That makes sense. She really didn’t like you or how much you hung around with the General.”
Being forced to recall that fact didn’t thrill Quinn. “No, she didn’t,” he admitted.
“And you were rough on her.”
Leave it to a brother to point that out.
“I was,” Quinn agreed.
“So no surprise that she doesn’t want to partner up with you on this now. What if you have to?” Tanner asked.
Quinn shrugged. “I’ll do whatever I need to do for Mac’s sake.” But if it was Clairy he ended up working with, he didn’t think it was going to be pleasant—not after what he’d seen from her yesterday. It was obvious she still had some hard feelings toward him. In fact, he’d guess that she hated his guts.
And looking at it with the clarity of hindsight, he couldn’t really blame her.
Everything he’d done to get Mac to take him under his wing would have made Raina Camden proud. But now, between having come to recognize some of the flaws in the way his mother had raised her sons, and viewing the situation with Mac through the eyes of Clairy McKinnon, Quinn wasn’t proud of it.
He’d wronged Mac’s daughter in pursuit of Mac, belittling her not unlike the way Mac had belittled women.
“When will you know who you’ll be working with?” Tanner asked.
“Well,” Quinn answered hesitantly, “maybe this afternoon. Mim wants me at her house, which I guess is Clairy’s house when Mim moves in with Doc Harry?”
“The whole town is talking about that,” Ben said, confirming what Quinn had asked. “Two old coots getting together—some are laughing behind their backs. But I think it’s great. They’re both lonely, they hit it off—what’s age got to do with it?”
“Not a thing,” Micah assured him to smooth their grandfather’s unintentionally ruffled feathers.
“Anyway,” Quinn went on, “Mim and Clairy will both be at the McKinnon place today. Mim wants to meet up there later and go to the old library so I can see the space that’ll be devoted to Mac. But she wasn’t clear about whether it would be her or her granddaughter showing me around. As of yesterday, I left it for them to sort through, so I suppose I’ll find out this afternoon if I’ll be in Mim’s hands or Clairy’s.”
Quinn was a little shaken when the idea of being in Clairy’s hands shot something through him that almost seemed sexual.
How the hell could that be? Cold, angry, spiteful receptions were hardly something that turned him on.
And it wasn’t as if Clairy McKinnon had bowled him over with her beauty.
Okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly true...
Yes, she’d been dressed in clothes not fit to wear, but they’d still given him a glimpse of long, shapely legs and hints that there might be something luscious hidden in that sloppy sweatshirt. He had replayed that image in his mind last night before he’d fallen asleep.
And, yeah, he did have to admit that she had skin like alabaster, to go with the delicate features of her face. It was obvious she hadn’t had any makeup on, but he had to admit that thinking about her last night had jarred some late-to-the-party appreciation of her beauty.
Especially when he factored in those piercing wide eyes that were bright emerald green shot through with streaks of silver.
How had he missed those years ago?
Plus, there was some allure to the elegant curve of her neck, the strength and poise in her straight shoulders, the graceful length of her slim arms coming out of those ugly, cutoff sweatshirt sleeves.
And while he hadn’t been sure what was going on with that hair, which was the color of a shiny penny, he’d been able to tell that it was thick and wavy and lustrous.
He’d undone that messy nest in his fantasy, freeing it to fall past her shoulders, down her
back...
And to top it all off, she’d also managed to smell great—a scent that was lemons and lavender and something else...
So, no, maybe at first sight he hadn’t realized how beautiful she was. But hindsight had made things clear. “Earth to Quinn... Come in...”
Oh, jeez, he’d completely zoned out thinking about Clairy McKinnon!
“Sorry,” he said, his attention jolted into the moment again.
“You were trying to think of a way to avoid Clairy McKinnon because you know you’re in for it if you have to deal with her,” Tanner mocked.
“Yeah, kind of...” Quinn said, certainly unwilling to admit what he’d actually been thinking about her. Wished he hadn’t been thinking what he’d actually been thinking about her. And still wondering why the hell he had been!
“What were you saying?” he asked Micah.
“I said, if you don’t have to be at the McKinnons’ until later, you can follow me home and check out the brewery.”
“And load up on some cases of beer so I can taste this swill you crapped out on the marines to make,” he said, taking a brotherly jab.
“We can’t all serve forever,” Micah said, defending himself. “I gave over a decade and a half, and the plan was always that I’d eventually switch to brewing my swill. And how dumb are you to beg me to let you invest in it?” Micah retorted.
“That’s right—I did, didn’t I?” Quinn pretended not to remember that. “So I should have some cases coming as dividends—pay up,” he demanded.
“I can use another case of the citrus dividends,” Tanner said. “So I’ll tag along.”
“That’s what you get for letting family help your start-up,” Micah mock-grumbled. “I s’pose you all think I’m keeping you in beer from now on.”
There was a “hell, yes,” a “you got it” and an “I know I do” all at once.
Micah just laughed and conceded, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
That launched them into a conversation about the brewery and how it was going, and Quinn was relieved to not be the center of this brunch any longer.
And if Clairy McKinnon and the image of her kept creeping into his head even as that conversation went on?
He was sure it was just because he was dreading seeing her again.
Not because he wanted to...
* * *
“You know how I feel about him! I can’t believe you expect me to have anything to do with him!” Clairy said to her grandmother.
Mim and Harry had had such a good time in Billings the day before that they’d been too tired to drive home.
They’d finally returned to Merritt at three thirty Sunday afternoon and had needed to go home before coming to finish Mim’s move.
By then Clairy had packed the remainder of her grandmother’s things and brought the boxes onto the porch. But on the way over, Harry’s truck had blown a tire and his spare was flat. So Mim had walked the last block while Harry called the local gas station to come to his rescue. Now, as afternoon turned into early evening, Clairy and her grandmother were sitting on the padded swing on the front porch with the boxes, waiting for the former doctor.
Which was when Mim had told Clairy that Clairy would need to work with Quinn Camden while he was in town.
“I do know how you feel about him,” the older woman assured her. “I just wish you could put what happened when you were both growing up behind you.” Under her breath and more to herself than to Clairy, Mim added, “I’m not even sure how much of the blame Quinn deserves.”
Clairy didn’t know what her grandmother could possibly think redeemed Quinn and she wasn’t interested in exploring it.
Then Mim went on anyway. “I know you wanted and expected me to be the one to work with him on your dad’s memorial, but the more I thought about that, honey, the more holes I saw in it. I’d just be going through old pictures and memorabilia. I don’t have any idea what you or Quinn would see as important enough to be put on display, as things that would fit into your vision of this kind of thing. I was going to tell you that you needed to be in on the Quinn part even if I was.”
Clairy started to speak but her grandmother cut her off. “Then I heard from Quinn two days ago—out of the blue. Two days ago, Clairy. You know how it is to get leave approved in order to travel—once he got it, I couldn’t very well tell him and the marines that now just wasn’t good for me, could I? But it doesn’t work for me! Not when I’m right in the middle of the move to Harry’s. We’ve torn up Harry’s house to make room, and right now we’re having to search through one box or pile after another to find anything we need—it’s a horrible mess that we have to get on top of! So I just have to count on you, and that’s what I told Quinn—”
“I’ll go to Harry’s and do what needs to be done there so you can deal with that Camden jackass,” Clairy declared.
“Harry would be fit to be tied if it was you putting his underwear away or deciding where his denture cup should go to make room for my denture cup,” Mim balked. “Besides, not only don’t I have time for anything else right now, not only wouldn’t I know what I was doing, but your father also wanted you to do this. The library, the memorial, the foundation—the whole thing!”
“Then it also doesn’t need Quinn Camden’s input.”
“But Quinn’s input is what your father wanted. He wanted it so much it was in his will so he could make sure Quinn had a hand in it—”
“Because he thought Quinn was the only one who really knew him and could do him justice,” Clairy retorted.
“Oh, Clairy, honey... You know I can’t argue that your dad was the best dad to you—he was my son and I loved him, but I know that when it came to you, he just... He didn’t know what to do with you, and instead it was Quinn who got what you should have gotten from him,” Mim said, choosing her words carefully so as not to judge her son too harshly. “And since you’ve both grown up, it’s been Quinn who had that military connection with your dad, so it only made sense to him to have Quinn be in on the memorial.”
Clairy recognized what her grandmother was doing because Mim had begun doing it the day six-year-old, sad, lonely, dejected Clairy had been sent to her, and Mim hadn’t stopped doing it since—Mim walked a line between wanting to console and soothe Clairy while excusing her son.
“Your dad didn’t think you could have the same grasp of his work, his lifelong call to duty,” Mim went on. “I couldn’t, and I was a navy nurse! Your father knew that Quinn would understand the kind of thinking, the kind of derring-do, the kind of decisions your dad made along the way and what he did to earn his medals. He thought it took someone who’d also been in the trenches to know how to put him in the best light—”
“Then why not just hand everything over to Quinn Camden to do?” Clairy suggested.
“Because beyond that macho stuff, this is what you do. And your dad was green with jealousy over what you did with the Jenkins Foundation. You know how George Jenkins stuck in my Bobby’s craw—the two of them competed like children, their rises through the ranks were neck and neck, and your dad was sure that George never would have kept pace with him without the Jenkins money and political connections.”
Clairy was well versed in the contentions between the two men and had been surprised when the Jenkins Foundation had offered her a job. She’d been less surprised when her father had been aggravated by her acceptance of the offer, but it had been an opportunity she couldn’t refuse.
“I think that was still your father’s driving force in this,” Mim said. “He didn’t want his own career overshadowed in any way by George Jenkins, and he thought what you did with the Jenkins Foundation might make that happen. That was when he decided he wanted his own memorial and foundation, and he wanted to be sure that it rivaled George’s. Until the Jenkins Foundation hired you, they weren’t accomplishing much, but you turned it into a feather in Georg
e Jenkins’s cap, and your dad wanted to make sure you did that same thing and more in his name. Quinn couldn’t do what you’ll do—your dad knew that.”
And if someone else had been responsible for building up the Jenkins Foundation, it would have been assigned to them instead of me, Clairy thought, believing that—like with everything when it came to her father—sentiment or the fact that she was his daughter held no rank.
But she didn’t say that. She merely said a flat, definitive “I’m not going to work with Quinn Camden.”
Mim laughed. “That sounded so much like my Bobby that he could be sitting right here with us...”
“And you know that if he’d have felt as strongly about something as I feel about this, it would never have happened.”
“You’re right—it wouldn’t have. But you’re a more reasonable person than he was.”
“Not reasonable enough to have anything to do with Quinn Camden under any circumstances, for any reason.”
“Except if your grandma needs you to! And, Clairy, I need you to!” Mim insisted with enough forcefulness to override Clairy’s refusal.
“Mim—”
“Honey, I just can’t do it! So you have to!”
Clairy knew that tone, and she didn’t have any recourse. She closed her eyes and shook her head in frustration.
But for her grandmother’s sake, for the sake of her father’s library and memory, as well as for the sake of the foundation she would now be able to spearhead—something she was excited to do—she supposed she would have to suffer Quinn and his presence.
The only comfort for her was in knowing that it would only be for a little while. Just like with her father, there was only a short window of time before Quinn Camden would return to duty.
“Oh, look, everybody’s here at once,” Mim said then.
Everybody? Who is coming besides Harry?
Clairy opened her eyes to find both Dr. Harry, in his old beat-up truck, and Quinn, in a much newer white truck, pulling up to the curb in front of the house.
The Major Gets it Right Page 3