Harlequin Heartwarming March 21 Box Set

by Claire McEwen

  All Quinn could do was nod and fight an overwhelming need to hug Tripp to her. Just six years old and he’d lost the two most important people in his world. Even after her loss, she couldn’t imagine what that would do to a small child.

  Seth cleared his throat and crouched by Tripp on his other side. “So, Tripp Allan Martin. You got out, and you ran away?”

  Quinn watched the boy turn to Seth. “Yep. Sure did.”

  “Listen to me, Tripp.” Seth had his full attention. “When I was little, my parents were gone, and I went to a foster home. I ran away, too. I thought I could find a place where people really wanted me.”

  Tripp gasped. “That’s how come you got here?”

  “No, I didn’t get to come here for a while after that. I went back to another foster home, quite a few, actually, then I was brought here.”

  Tripp seemed to shrink as he started to shake his head back and forth hard. “No, no, no, I won’t go back. Mr. E’s gonna be real mad, and I hate that place.”

  When the little boy began to tremble, Seth reached for him and pulled him to his chest. The man scrunched his eyes shut the way the boy had moments ago. “It’s going to be okay,” she heard Seth whisper roughly. “I promise it’s going to be okay.” Then Seth slowly opened his eyes and met hers. “Max is on his way. My cell is in the entry on the bench. Use redial and you’ll get him. Tell him I need to speak with him before he comes inside.”

  “Okay,” Quinn said, unnerved by the unnatural brightness in Seth’s hazel eyes.

  “Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely and kept holding onto Tripp.

  “I’m sorry,” she heard the boy say in a muffled voice. “I’m real sorry.”

  “No, it will be okay,” he murmured. “I promise you, it will.”

  A roar of an engine sounded at the front of the house followed by the blare of a horn. Quinn moved quickly, ignoring Seth’s cell phone on the entry bench to hurry outside. She saw a large white SUV with a light bar on the roof and ran down through the falling dust to get there as the sheriff opened his door to step out.

  “Seth wants to come out to talk to you before you go inside.” She hugged herself against the cold as she stood by the man’s open door.

  Max nodded without argument and sat back in the driver’s seat. “Tell him I’ll wait right here.”

  She hesitated, then said, “The boy, Tripp, he’s so little, and I think he’s been through a lot.”

  Max nodded. “Yeah, a whole lot, including his parents signing away their parental rights.”

  Her heart sank. It was worse than she’d even thought. “He thinks they’re dead.”

  “That’s probably the easiest way to tell him instead of saying they didn’t want him. He’s been up for adoption for almost two years, but he had some interest until the people knew he has learning problems and is really shy. I guess he’s had all he can take. On top of that, his foster parents don’t want him to go back to their house. Apparently, he’s too disruptive.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  QUINN STAYED INSIDE with Tripp and kept an eye on Sarge while Seth went out to talk to Max. She tried to think of some way to distract Tripp that didn’t involve more cookies. Then she had an idea. First, she checked on Sarge, then took the monitor Seth had left on the table for her and led Tripp into Seth’s office.

  She left the door open and let Tripp sit in the space captain recliner. When the chair sensed his slight weight, it automatically started adjusting for him. It shocked him at first, then he laughed and scrambled off. He got right back on to make it adjust again. Quinn loved to see him laugh. His face lit up. He was an endearing child, trying to survive any way he could.

  “This is kind of like a spaceship, huh?”

  She watched him cock his head to one side, then he said, “No, it looks like a real fancy car.”

  She couldn’t see a car, but she agreed. “I guess so, sort of a super car. Do you like cars?”

  “Yeah, I sure do. But all Mr. E has is an ugly brown van.”

  “I love cars, and I used to go to car shows.”

  “They got car shows?”

  He was all into it now. “Yes, and they bring really crazy cars there sometimes. Sometimes they’re weird. They had a truck that had such big wheels—it was so high off the ground that you had to use a ladder to get inside it. They call it a monster truck.”

  His eyes widened. “Wow. A monster truck. Did you fall out of it?”

  She laughed as she reached for one of the computer chairs and pulled it over to sit so she was at eye level with Tripp. He came closer, and he gripped the arm of her chair with one hand. “No, I didn’t, but I heard that one of the guys who drove it into the show grounds—you know, where they were letting people come to look at them—he fell out of it when he forgot how high he was off the ground.”

  Tripp suddenly looked serious. “Did he get into bad trouble?”

  “No, and he didn’t get hurt. But I bet he felt pretty embarrassed.”

  “I think he did,” the boy said solemnly. “How come you like cars, being a girl and all?”

  “I always liked cars. I got married to a man who loved computers, but I got him to love cars, too.”

  He was staring at her, enthralled, and she kept talking. “The last show we went to, there was a car that was so long it had to come on a really big flatbed truck. It was called a super limo. It was purple with glitter in the paint and gold trim around the windows and on the tire rims.”

  He was smiling now. “You’re kiddin’.”

  “No, we got to ride in it.”

  He came even closer. “You did?”

  “Yeah, and it had hydraulics that made it go up and down while we were in it.” She made the motions with her hands. “And I almost got sick.”

  He giggled at that. “It’s ’cus you’re a girl, huh?”

  “No, but this girl does have a sensitive stomach,” she said as she brushed at his hair to keep it out of his eyes.

  She was startled when she heard Seth speak from behind her. “She thinks the car she drives is a girl, Tripp. What do you think about that?”

  Tripp giggled again. “Nah, but I bet trucks are boys, huh?”

  Seth reached for the other computer chair, pulled it up beside Quinn and sat down. “Some are, but some could be girls.”

  “Yeah, they could be, huh?”

  “Now, we need to talk, you and me, and…” Seth glanced at her. “Quinn, too, if she’d like to stay?”

  Before Quinn could agree, Tripp reached for her hand. He squeezed it tightly. “Stay, please,” he said, just shy of begging, and any traces of laughter were gone.

  She didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t want to leave the boy or the man right then. “I’ll stay.”

  “Okay, we have to talk about what you did,” he said to Tripp.

  Suddenly, Tripp pulled away from Quinn and stood facing Seth, his small hands clenched at his sides. “Please, please, don’t send me back, please.”

  “You’re not going back to Mr. E’s house,” Seth said.

  “For real?”

  “I will not let them send you back there.” Seth reached to take both of Tripp’s small fists in his hands and leaned closer to him. “I’m friend’s with Max, the sheriff. He’s a very good man, and he’s coming in to talk to you in a minute. But before he does, I have to explain what’s going to happen. You won’t go back to Mr. E’s house, but you will have to go to the head office in Cody, you know the big building where you go once a month to talk to the doctor?”

  Tripp was dead still. Then his eyes narrowed as he snatched his hands free from Seth and said one word. “No.”

  “Where does he have to go?” Quinn asked.

  “Family Services,” he said without looking away from Tripp. Then he spoke to the child again. “Please, let me explain. You’ll
go back there with the sheriff, then in a week, Mr. McFarland, your caseworker, said that you can come here and stay if you want to.”

  Tripp quickly shook his head. “Naw, you’re lyin’.”

  “No, I’m not lying.”

  Quinn could tell Tripp wanted desperately to believe Seth, but the boy simply shrugged and said, “I don’t lie. You can tell Sarge that I don’t lie.” He crossed his arms in defiance and didn’t say anything else.

  “You’ll stay in the play wing for a week that’s beside the offices. Then you can come back here for a couple of months, if you want to.”

  His eyes slowly got bigger. “For real?”

  “Yes, but only if you want to.”

  Tripp was very still. Then he started jumping up and down and clapping his hands. “Yes, yes, yes! I can come back! I want to! I want to! Please!” The boy became still, his short-lived joy gone. He seemed to deflate. “Then I go away again, don’t I? I always go away again.”

  Quinn couldn’t stand the touch of fear in the boy’s expression now. She took his hand again and moved her chair to get closer to him.

  Tripp kept silent as he looked back at Seth, but his hand tightened like a vise on hers.

  “Mr. McFarland will ask you if you want to come here for a couple months, and it’s up to you. You can choose.”

  Tripp looked wary. “I can?”

  “Yes, you can. It’s your decision. I mean, you hardly know me, and you might need time to see if that’s what you want to do. But it’s up to you.”

  The boy was starting to shake again, and Quinn thought he might go into shock. Instinctively, she drew him slowly closer, and her heart melted when he leaned into her. She put her arm around him. “He’s telling the truth, ain’t he?” Tripp asked Quinn in a low shaky whisper.

  “It’s true,” she said, her eyes never leaving Seth, who held her gaze with his. “He really means it.”

  “It’s just one week,” Seth said. “That’s seven days.”

  Tripp hesitated, then finally said, “Do I gotta go there now?”

  Seth nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. It’s the rules, but I’ll be there to pick you up when they say you can come back.”

  “I have to sleep at the bunkhouse room there, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Tripp stood straighter. “I kind of don’t like the bunkhouse, ’cus kids cry and all, but I guess it’s okay.” He took a breath and moved away from Quinn to stand in front of Seth again. “Just…don’t forget me, please?”

  “I’d never forget you,” Seth said, his voice slightly unsteady. “I promise.”

  Quinn swiped at her eyes and smiled at the boy. “No one could ever forget you, Tripp Allan Martin.”

  * * *

  AFTER MAX DROVE off with a stoically resigned Tripp, Quinn stood by Seth at the bottom of the porch steps. Both were without their jackets, yet neither one looked away until the white SUV disappeared from sight over the rise. “What just happened?” Seth asked in a low voice.

  “You just offered one little boy something I suspect he never had before in his whole life—hope.”

  Seth stood very still as her words sank in. Hope. If he could give Tripp that gift, he’d do whatever he could to make sure the boy never lost it. He turned to Quinn, who was hugging herself and shaking from the cold. “Come on inside.” He didn’t hesitate to put his arm around her shoulders and hurry with her up and into the house. He let go as they both sat on the cowhide bench and finally took off their boots.

  “I hate that he had to leave, even for a week,” Seth murmured. “I can tell he’s been lied to so often, or at least he thinks he has been. I have to make sure I keep my word to him.” He glanced at Quinn. “Max knows his caseworker, Lou McFarland, and got an agreement up front because of Tripp’s circumstances. They’ll let him come back here after a quick check on us, then he can stay while they do a full vetting to release him for two months of foster care here. Max made that happen. I owe him. I wish I could’ve promised more, but I’m not here permanently, and I’m not set up for long-term care for him.”

  Quinn shifted to face Seth a bit more. “So, you really did run away when you were a kid?”

  “Yeah. I told you my parents were gone, and I had no family, and I was in my second foster home, and I hated it. I can tell you that Tripp saw living with Mr. E not as a moment in time that would pass. He saw it as a forever situation. All I saw growing up were people who pretended to be my family and weren’t, so I went looking for a place where I could belong. Like Tripp was trying to do.”

  “They sent you back to the foster home?”

  He stared down at his hands on his knees. “No, they took me to another one, then another and another. By the time I ended up here, with Sarge and Maggie, I was pretty angry and resigned.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said on a soft sigh. “I can’t even imagine…”

  “Be thankful you can’t,” he murmured. “I’ve worked for years to try to forget all of that, and I was getting there. Then I was looking at Tripp shaking and scared, and I knew what he was doing, what he was thinking, how scared he was and how lost he felt.” Just saying that out loud reinforced his need to protect that small boy from all of that, a child he’d known only for a few hours.

  Quinn was silent for a long moment, then he could feel her staring at him. “You know I mentioned some plan behind our lives before.”

  He didn’t want to hear some esoteric statement, not even from Quinn. He kept his eyes on his hands pressing against his knees. “Let me guess. This is all some cosmic plan? You’re here to find Tripp, and I’m here with all that misery in my past. Is that close to what you’re about to say to me? Or maybe you think Tripp wished for all of this, and there it was for him.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice.

  He hadn’t meant to be sarcastic, not after what Quinn had done. “No, no, I’m sorry. Go ahead, say what you want to. I’ll listen.”

  “I was thinking, seeing you with Tripp, that maybe those memories you want to forget are what makes you able to see so clearly what he’s going through. I don’t know too many people who could understand what his life has been like. Good or bad, your life made you who are at this moment. Our lives do that to us, and it can be pretty awful. But in the end, there’s always some good that comes out of it.”

  She’d spoken softly, and he wanted to look at her, but he couldn’t. “Sarge said that even burning your hand can be good if it stops you from touching the stove again.” He swallowed to ease the tightening in his throat. “I guess you’re both saying the same thing.”

  “I think so. Whether this is all some sort of plan or a child’s answered wish, or just plain coincidence, you’re in Tripp’s life now. Whatever help you need with him or with Sarge while I’m here, just ask.”

  He hadn’t thought anything out, except to get Tripp in a safe place for a while. He didn’t even know what to ask for, but he had a singular thought that Michael Lake had been very fortunate to have Quinn when he was in such great need. “Thank you,” he said, then stood. “I should check on Sarge.”

  “Of course,” she said and touched his arm.

  When he looked at her, she held out the monitor.

  He took it but hesitated as he looked down at her. “I don’t know what I was thinking of, that I can help a kid I’ve only known for a couple of hours?”

  “Sometimes that’s all the time you need with a person to know you want them in your life, that they belong there.”

  That summed up what Sarge and Maggie had handed to him all those years ago. They’d given him a place to belong, and he’d been more than a challenge for them.

  “Max mentioned that Tripp has some learning disabilities,” Quinn said.

  “MacFarland explained that he acts out and can’t focus, then he gets angry that he can’t.”

  “He’s bee
n in kindergarten and first grade, and believe me, even kids that have so-called normal lives in that age group can be a handful. But I’ve always thought, if a child feels loved and wanted and is the center of the world for just one person, that could change everything.”

  He never had one person like that in his life until he had two of them who made him feel special and wanted. “I’m going to do that for Tripp if I can.” He turned to head to the west wing but stopped at the entrance to the hallway and glanced back at Quinn. “Quinn, I do think you were supposed to be there to find Tripp.” He surprised himself admitting he believed that.

  * * *

  QUINN CROSSED TO the staircase and sank down on the second step up so she could see out the front window and watch the driveway as night fell. When Seth had said she was supposed to be there, she had the strangest thought. Maybe she wasn’t here to get Michael’s work acknowledged. Maybe the plan had always been for her to find the little boy and make sure he met the man who could change his life. She knew that Tripp being brought into Seth’s life trumped what she wanted when she came to the ranch. It was all about a child.

  “Is that Julia?” Seth asked as he stepped into the entry and drew her attention to the window.

  Headlights flashed and the big white truck was there. Julia got out, hurried up and onto the porch, then the front door opened. She stepped inside and was beaming as she swung the door shut behind her. “Hello, everyone,” she said as she slipped her jacket off. “How’s Sarge?”

  “Everything’s good.” Seth studied Julia. “From your smile, it looks like everything’s good with you, too.”

  She laughed at that. “Better than good.”

  “I was just going to start a pot of coffee,” Quinn said. “Do you two want some?”

  “If Sarge is sleeping, I’d like to sit down with a good cup of coffee and unwind,” Julia said.

  After Julia checked on Sarge, the three of them sat at the dining table with coffee and what was left of the cookies. While Seth told her about Tripp, Julia listened intently, then sighed. “Quinn, bless you for taking that walk.”