by Dani Collins
She was a very pretty woman, but that wasn’t what made her so attractive. She was funny, big-hearted, and determined. And, he suspected, passionate. No one went at so many projects with that much verve unless they had a zest for life that went right to her core.
It made her intriguing to him in a really base way. Sex wasn’t a sport for him. He liked it, a lot, but he had to like the woman. He had to want to be with her outside of bed in order to want to share his own.
He liked Nicki.
He was deeply attracted to her. Dangerously so.
Her smile faded. She licked her lips, leaving them parted. He thought she might have drawn in a breath and now held it.
When he looked into her dark ale eyes, he saw she was looking at his mouth.
Which was tingling.
He felt the pull. Not a conscious, Should I kiss her? It was a far more primal compulsion. Kiss her.
His equilibrium tilted as he started to lean in.
The kitchen door swung with a squeak. Atlas came in with a handful of felt-tip markers. “Can I dwah?”
Quincy jerked back.
Nicki swung around to face his son, her profile pink.
“Sure, honey.” She cleared her throat. “I thought we’d color the ornaments for the Advent calendar today, but we have to make cookies, too. Do you want to help with the dough or color?”
Atlas looked up at Quincy. “Do you wanna dwah wiff me?”
“I need to oil the door first,” Quincy said, voice strangled as he tried to catch a lungful of air. “Then, yeah. Sure. I’ll be right back.”
He went into the garage and stood in the cold with his jacket open, head tilted back to look at the garage door rails, desperately trying to catch his inner hound and put him back on his leash.
What the hell had nearly happened in there?
*
Oh, that wretched car of hers. As they all sat down to dinner, she realized she would have to ask Quincy to drive her home.
She had managed to avoid being alone with Quincy for the rest of the day today—not hard when he barricaded himself behind his computer and avoided eye contact.
Had they almost kissed? He had started to lean in.
“This looks delicious,” Maury said as they started.
“Thank you.” She’d made the roast Quincy had set in the cart at the grocery store. Her skills in the kitchen weren’t master-chef level, but she had worked in many cafés and restaurants, serving, bussing, or short-order cooking. She could throw together a decent meal without much effort. Her classes on nutrition had formalized some of her skills and taught her to leave the high sodium and fructose-laden flavorings on the shelf, to use simpler spices and reduce a jus rather than stir up a rich gravy.
She should have been taking car repair workshops.
She couldn’t even ask Maury to drive her. His car was back in Philadelphia. His nephew planned to drive it out in the spring, so Maury could get around when the roads were clear, but he hadn’t yet driven in the snow and didn’t intend to.
“It will be good for sandwiches tomorrow. That’s what my mom always used to say.” She reached to cut up Atlas’s slice for him. “And my dad would say, ‘Let me enjoy tonight first.’”
Sitting back to begin filling her own plate, she was a little flummoxed, not having realized she had that memory in her. The men were looking at her. It made her self-conscious. This whole meal felt formal, even though they were sitting at the kitchen table, the potatoes still in their pot and the serviettes off the roll.
She wasn’t used to sitting this close to Quincy, his knee one careless knock away from hers.
“I, um, could probably walk home—”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
She had thought he would say something like that, but still. “After I get Atlas ready for bed then.”
“I can read his stories tonight,” Maury said. “Quincy and I will handle the washing up. You have an early night. You must have things at home you’d rather do.”
Comfortable as it was, the little flat wasn’t her home. It didn’t have a TV, either, which didn’t matter because she’d been avoiding television and movies, sticking to glancing at sports or the news if Maury happened to be watching, or sitting with Atlas through an animated special. The Tierneys said she could run a load through their washer and dryer, but other than that, she didn’t have much for chores.
“I probably have a hundred books on my phone I’ve been meaning to read, but…”
She liked being here. With them.
She kept her eyes on her plate.
“Yoh phone is ovah daya,” Atlas said, swinging his head and pointing his fork toward the counter. “Dez no books on it.”
Nicki tried not to laugh, but Maury let out a hearty chuckle. Quincy’s mouth twitched. “You can make books show up on your phone or the computer. I’ll show you how it works after we eat.”
“Your mom never let you play with her phone?” Nicki asked Atlas, realizing he never asked for hers. He was probably the only four-year-old in the country who didn’t already know how to use one.
“Phones is foh gwone ups, ’cept I can see Granny on it sometimes.”
“You haven’t talked to your Granny since you got here, have you?” She flicked a glance at Quincy.
“I emailed her the other day,” Quincy said, quickly on the same wavelength. “They’re traveling, but I asked what time might work for a call. We’ll see if we can do that tomorrow,” he told Atlas. “You can show her that her parcel arrived, and the presents are under the tree. Sound good?”
Atlas nodded and stuffed a big bite of mashed potato into his mouth.
This was what she liked being a part of, the minutia of their lives. Feeling like a family.
She had to swallow hard to make the next bite go down and felt dejected as she and Quincy went out to the garage after dinner.
“I’m really sorry,” she murmured as they left Quincy’s driveway and headed into town. “I knew that car was a piece of junk when I bought it.” She was trying to keep the dark of the Bronco from feeling too intimate.
“The tires are worth more than the rest of it.” She couldn’t tell if that was his recently recovered sense of humor or the detached killjoy who had greeted her the first day.
“I didn’t have much choice.” She turned her head as they passed a colorful light display outside a house.
“If you need an advance to pay for the repair, let me know.”
That was a decent thing to say, even if he sounded uncomfortable making the offer. Even if it was a bitter pill for her to swallow.
“Thanks.” She tried not to sound ungrateful, but she really hoped it didn’t come to that. She rubbed between her brows. “I’m going to try to limp it along until I go back to Glacier Creek. Otherwise, I won’t be able to pay my dad back for said tires.”
“Really? I wouldn’t recommend it. It’ll probably break down again before that.”
“I have to try. I told you I’ve been awful to his wife over the years, right? Not really awful, just… less than gracious, even though they’ve always sent me money every time I asked. And I’ve never put them hugely out of pocket, just asked for loans here and there and paid back what I could when I could. I swore to myself I wouldn’t ask for another penny once I got through the nursing-aide course. Then I needed the snow tires. I really, really want to pay that back when I see them again. Especially since—”
Why was she talking? This was why she didn’t want to go back to her empty apartment. She would just obsess about things she couldn’t change. Far better to distract herself with organizing a linen closet and other make-work projects at Quincy’s house.
“Since?” he prompted.
“Gloria told me I wasn’t going to make it in Hollywood anyway,” she admitted darkly. “I can’t stomach going back there not just having failed, but as a broke failure who still owes them money. I only want it to flow one way from now on, back to them until we’re square.” It should f
eel better to get that off her chest, but nope. She still felt like a massive loser.
After a surprised moment, Quincy said, “She really said you wouldn’t make it? My father has never once told me I wasn’t capable of doing whatever I wanted to try. Guitar lessons even, and I do not have an ear for music.”
“Parenting 101, right? Encourage your kid no matter what.” Nicki stared at the blur of colored Christmas lights against the dark Montana skies. “She thought she was being kind, I suppose, trying to spare me from what I’m going through now. Which of course I didn’t see and resented her for saying, but who tells an eighteen-year-old girl to get married and settle down?”
“She really told you that? At eighteen?”
“Right? And yes, she did. I was dating this guy, a local boy. He was nice. Maybe if I had stayed I would have married him, once I grew up a bit, but I wanted to act. Gloria said Hollywood was a lot tougher than I expected, that nothing would come of my going there, and that deep down I wanted to marry and raise a family anyway, so what was the point? She told me to stay in Glacier Creek because, as marriage material went, Corbin was a solid prospect. He was. For sure. He worked with Dad as a heavy-duty mechanic, but…”
“You were eighteen. I don’t know why I’m so shocked. My parents were young, but I don’t know anyone my age who has been married for ten years. I’m barely ready for a child at thirty-two. Who thinks anyone is ready for all of that at eighteen?”
“Exactly! And there’s nothing wrong with living in a trailer park and working at a convenience store if that had been what I wanted, but I wanted to act. I knew it was a long shot, but I had to try. She said I was crazy.”
“Following your dreams is crazy.” They were coming into town, turning onto Collier. “It is. But I don’t believe in getting to the end of your life and saying you wished you had tried something, but never did.”
“Thank you. I feel the same, but it still annoys me that she was right. Not just about how hard Hollywood is, but…” She trailed off.
“What? That you wanted a family?”
This conversation was getting weird again. Too personal.
She swallowed, turning her head to stare through a stranger’s front window at their Christmas tree as he turned onto her street.
She felt like she had been staring from the outside for years, wanting back into the ideal home with the tree, the hearth, and the love of family.
“Yeah.” Her voice came out husky and choked. “Everyone has that on their list, though, don’t they? Right after they become famous and earn a million dollars?”
He didn’t answer.
“Except you,” she recalled with a small thud of her heart, turning to look across at him. “Why didn’t you want kids?”
He slowed to turn into the Tierney’s driveway, putting the Bronco in park. His expression was hard to read in the muted glow of headlights off the garage door.
“I’m sorry if that’s too personal,” she murmured, sorry she’d revealed as much as she had. She reached for the door handle, but his voice stopped her.
“My childhood was less than stellar. That’s no reflection on my parents,” he quickly added. “But school was a lousy place during my early years.”
“Because you had trouble speaking?” She kept her tone neutral.
“Pops told you?” She felt his withdrawal like she’d knocked him back a step and the inner man kept on going, leaving only the hard, handsome shell he showed the world. “I wish he hadn’t.”
“He was concerned Atlas would need special help, that’s all. And it’s not something to be ashamed of.”
He was granite in the gloom. She had an urge to reach out to him, probably should have slid out of the SUV and left it at that, but she took her hand off the door and angled to face him, continuing to press her point.
“We all think we should be perfect, that life should be perfect. Movies and television make it seem like that’s possible. Everyone is beautiful there, and all the story lines wrap up. But the one thing Hollywood taught me is that perfection is a figment of the imagination. Living there was like becoming a magician’s assistant. You stop seeing the magic because you know where the trap doors and mirrors are.”
She looked at the gloves she held but hadn’t bothered to put on, blue to her soul at her own imperfections. At the loss of her ideals.
“It was kind of a bummer for me, because that’s what I was chasing—the glossy life where no one got hurt and everyone got what they wanted. But life is actually hard. People are flawed. Nothing is fair. I think the biggest reason I was so happy when I started at the seniors’ home was that they accepted the knocks that life delivered. There was no façade because they were so far beyond denying reality. Age spots and wrinkles and being overweight with hunched spines had to be accepted. People are just people. It’s really comforting to recognize that. It’s okay that you’re human and you struggled, Quincy. It’s okay if your son needs help.”
His knuckles looked sharp as the Rockies as he gripped the steering wheel. “You and I are old enough to know that, but his new school friends might not be so accepting. I worry they’ll tease him.”
“If they do, you’ll teach him that people who are mean don’t belong in his life. He’ll know that you love him and won’t care if others don’t.”
He continued to stare straight ahead.
She wondered if it was the ‘L’ word that kept his expression so hard. Did he love Atlas? She thought he did, even if he hadn’t realized it yet.
Heck, she was fathoms deep in love with that kid. He was sweet, curious, and vulnerable, yet resilient and all around adorable.
She started to reach for the door handle again.
“You baffle me, you know that?” Quincy dropped his elbow to the console between them, turning his head toward her. “Half the time, you’re flitting around like a pixie, selling Christmas magic like it’s fairy dust. Then you act all calm and wise and say that reality is okay. Accept it. Who the hell are you? What are you?”
“Just a person,” she mumbled, trying not to be intimidated by his tone. “Failure teaches you stuff. It is a fact of life. You can’t let it cripple you. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Quit saying you’re a failure. You tried.” Now he sounded impatient.
“I quit.” It was a fist around her heart, squeezing out a few drops of lifeblood every single time she thought of it. “I wasn’t good enough. And I’m a big enough dreamer that I hate accepting that about myself. So yes, I have to make everything I do from this point forward absolutely spectacular, including your Christmas, so I know I’m good at something.”
He stared at her, jaw slack, brow furrowed. “You know what I think you did?”
“What?” She braced herself.
“I think you grew up. There’s no shame in that, either.”
The way he said it sent an arrow into her chest, but it was both pleasure and pain. Kind of like forgiveness, she supposed. It hurt to revisit something that gave her so much angst, but he was telling her it was okay. She really needed to hear that from someone because the voices in her head never said that at all.
She squared herself in her seat, trying to figure out why it felt nice to have him say it. She dared a glance in his direction, recalling he might have almost tried to kiss her earlier. “I don’t know how to take you, either. Half the time you’re a grump, then you’re really quite nice. Do you have, like, a condition?”
He choked. “Am I bipolar? No. My condition is similar to yours. A life that went off the rails from where I expected it to go. I’m still trying to figure things out. You are not meeting me at my best.” His one wrist still rested on the steering wheel. The other elbow was on the console. He stared straight ahead. “Not that I’m ever the life of the party, but if we’d met six months ago, or even three…”
What?
He looked at her and she thought his gaze went all over her face, like he was taking his time with the study. Admiring?
She swallowed, realized her gaze was roaming his face. She wound up looking at his mouth, memorizing the shape of his lips framed by the darkness of his beard.
Would he have wanted to date her?
She looked back to the glitter of his eyes. He was waiting for her. Somehow, they were looking across at each other. Despite the near dark, their gazes held.
Her heart rate picked up. Raced.
The vehicle became really intimate. The only sound was the hum of the engine and her pulse in her ears. She didn’t think either of them was breathing.
Dating had been something she had skipped more often than tried. For years, she’d felt surrounded by an attitude that it didn’t matter what you knew, or even who, but who you were seen with. Even the nicest guys could become competitive about career achievements and had run her down for so much as getting a callback when they didn’t. Or cut her loose when they had modest success and moved on, while she was still waiting for her phone to ring.
So even though she would call herself open-minded and openhearted, she wasn’t very experienced with men, in bed or out. It had actually been quite a long while since she’d even kissed a guy.
The idea of kissing this man, who was potent and intimidating and maybe not at the best place in his life—
“I should go. Thanks for the lift.” She slid out of the door, said with forced cheer, “Bye!” and hurried through the gate in the fence.
December 12th
Quincy considered himself a decisive person. Focused. But that woman was driving him batty. He couldn’t stop thinking about her as he helped Atlas glue a polar bear to the underside of a lid for a jar.
He was back to sitting on a child-sized plastic orange chair while they made a homemade snow globe. The woman running the workshop came by to ask Atlas whom he was planning to give his globe to.
Quincy expected to hear that Lucy would be the lucky recipient. Atlas had asked if he would see the little girl here and had been disappointed when Quincy told him probably not.
To Quincy’s surprise, Atlas said the globe was a present for Nicki.