“No, she’s got a problem with falling. She almost rolled off the couch.”
“Nice catch,” Amy murmured. “For hating kids, you’re awfully good with them.”
Quint looked at the tiny human being in his arms. “I don’t hate kids,” he said. “I’m just past that. Way past it.”
“Been there, done that?”
He looked at Amy. “Years ago,” he murmured to remind himself that this scene wasn’t his, and it wasn’t something he wanted. No matter how appealing the woman was, she had a hell of a lot of baggage that came right along with her.
He started to turn to give the child to her mother so he could get out of there, but when he tried to do that simple thing, it backfired. The minute he moved, the child let out a squeal, stiffened again, and there was a flash of movement, something struck him in the chin, then cold wetness was everywhere.
That’s when he saw the bottle again, but now it was almost empty, the top was gone, and what looked like orange juice was all over him. He could feel it trickling down his cheek and onto his chest through his shirt. Amy took the child, talking quickly. “Oh, heavens, Taylor, look what you did,” she was saying as she reached with a free hand for a towel in the laundry on the coffee table. She dabbed at her daughter who had the liquid in her hair, on her face, and staining her pink sleepers.
Perversely, Taylor was smiling now, enjoying the mayhem she’d loosed on him, and she was threatening to upend the rest of the bottle onto the floor. But Amy was too fast for her. She grabbed the bottle, then set the little girl down on the floor by the couch. “No, no, no. No more mess,” she said sternly, took one last swipe at the little girl’s face with the towel, ruffled her hair, then straightened up and turned to Quint.
There was a flash of something that looked suspiciously like a smile in her eyes, then it died and she was doing for him what she’d done for the child, blotting his chest, the shirt and suit coat, then his face. She stopped short of ruffling his hair before she drew back. “I am so, so sorry,” she said. “I’ve had trouble with those bottles. The lids…” She shrugged. “She must have squeezed it too hard and…” She narrowed her eyes, as if studying him. “You’ve got orange juice in your hair, and on your shirt and your jacket and…” She reached toward his face, but stopped short of touching him before drawing back and vaguely wiped at her ear with her fingers. “And your ear, it’s got some on it, too.”
He took the towel from her, rubbing the rough terry cloth over his hair and face, then looked at her. “Gone?”
“Well, yes, but that bit on your ear?”
He dabbed at his ear. “Now?”
“Yes, it’s gone,” she said, then looked at his clothes. “Your jacket and shirt.” She grimaced. “Oh, boy, your tie’s a mess. Give them to me and I’ll sponge them off with cold water,” she said, literally reaching out and undoing the buttons on his jacket. “You can’t let it set up.”
He looked down at his one-of-a-kind suit jacket, but didn’t really see it. What he saw were her long, slender fingers, furiously tugging at the buttons and the material, slipping it off his shoulders. The next thing he knew, she had his jacket, holding it by the collar. She was staring at his shirt. “You…you take off your shirt and tie, okay? And I’ll get working on this.”
After a quick look at Taylor, who was busy taking the laundry off the table, one piece at a time, Amy hurried out of the room through a door to one side of the kitchen. She kept talking until she was a disembodied voice, just as she’d been at the center last night when she was backing out of the tree. “Just take those things off and bring them in here, the sooner the better.”
He did as he was told. He undid the tie, tugged it off, then unbuttoned his shirt and slipped it off before following her. He found her in a tiny bathroom off a short hallway, furiously sponging at his jacket with a facecloth she dampened from the faucet in a small sink. “Don’t do that,” he said, seeing the water seeping into the fine material of his suit coat. “Please.”
Amy stopped swiping at the stain and turned, ready to tell Quint that she wouldn’t stop until she had his suit jacket back to good-as-new condition. But the words caught in her throat when she saw him in the doorway, stripped to the waist, holding his shirt and tie in one hand.
All she could see was the expanse of bare chest, the slight tan to the taut skin, the light sprinkling of dark hair forming a T that disappeared into his waistband. Her mouth went dry and she jerked her eyes up, praying that he wouldn’t have a clue where her thoughts had been going. She felt sick from it, and she literally had to swallow twice before she could speak to him. “I’m taking care of it.”
“Amy, it’s ruined,” he said in that low grumble of a voice that only added to her discomfort at his closeness.
She turned away from him, gathering her thoughts, and stared at the jacket. The stain was still there, now darkened by water. “No, I can fix it.”
“Forget it. It’s finished.”
She still thought she could make it okay, but if he didn’t, she wasn’t going to fight him. “Okay, how much did it cost?”
“You don’t have to do that. It was an accident, but I have to say that you and your daughter are quite a pair, wreaking havoc on everyone and everything around you.”
She looked up, catching herself in the mirror of the medicine cabinet, Quint’s reflection right behind her, Quint and that half smile he had playing at the corners of his mouth. “How much?” she repeated. “I need to pay for it if I can’t fix it.”
He watched her for a long moment, then shrugged, “Lady, it’s off the rack and cost about two hundred dollars, but it’s old and it was time to get rid of it. You saved me a trip to the secondhand store.” He leaned one shoulder against the door frame and studied her with those hazel eyes. “You’ve got better things to do with your money than buy a jacket for me. Just do me a favor and throw it out.” He held out his shirt and tie to her. “And these, just throw them out, too.”
She took the ruined shirt and tie out of his hand, laid them over the jacket on the sink’s edge, then looked at him again. He had his arms crossed over his naked chest, showing surprising muscles, and she forced herself to look him right in the eye. “This is the deal. I’ll do what I can for all of the clothes, and if I can’t clean them, I’ll throw them out and pay you for them.” When he would have objected, she stopped him. “That’s the deal, period. No negotiating about it.”
He stood straight, hands lifted, palms out toward her. “Okay. You win. Deal.” Then he looked down at his lack of clothing before he met her gaze again. “Can I ask a favor?”
Taylor came up behind Quint right then, and Amy barely had time to get to her before she tossed the bottle at Quint again. She thought she’d put it up high enough, but obviously she hadn’t. She grabbed the bottle, hitting Quint in the shoulder in the process, but keeping his slacks safe from the remainder of the juice. Taylor plunked down on her bottom in the hall behind Quint.
“Thank goodness,” Amy breathed, straightening with the topless bottle, relieved to have averted another catastrophe, at least until she turned and found herself with no more than two inches between herself and Quint’s bare chest. When she looked up, his face seemed so close that it was slightly blurred.
“Lady, you’re good.”
She sidled to the right, into the hallway, to get distance, and scooped up Taylor, setting her on one hip. “I’ll find you something to wear,” she said quickly, carrying Taylor and the bottle back into the main room, then through to the kitchen. Tossing the bottle in the sink, she turned and saw Quint across the half wall, in the living area, watching her, his expression unreadable.
“I refuse to wear a blouse,” he said.
Damn it, was he joking as if this was all fun, when it was stressing her so much she had to remind herself to breathe? She went back into the living area, put Taylor down by the window near her open toy box and crossed to the coffee table. “There has to be something in here you can wear,” she m
uttered, sorting through clothes that she knew darn well wouldn’t fit him. But she had some oversize T-shirts, a couple of sweatshirts that might work.
“How about this?” Quint said and she looked up to see that he’d found a T-shirt that she’d had forever. But he wasn’t going to wear that shirt. It had been Rob’s. It was one she’d kept, and one she wore to sleep in sometimes.
Before she could snatch it back to safety, Quint was shaking it out. “Super Dude?” he asked, looking at the logo that had faded so much from time and use.
She wanted to reach for it, but made herself speak calmly. “Not that one.”
“Why not? It looks like it’ll fit,” he murmured.
“It’s old and you have that dinner appointment, and…” She put her hands behind her back to keep herself from diving at him to get it back. “It wouldn’t be cool to go in as Super Dude.”
His crooked grin was accompanied by him turning the T-shirt around and holding it up in front of his bare chest. “Oh, I don’t know. Super Dude sounds about right for what I have to do.” He looked down at it. “What do you think?”
She stared at him, and what she’d dreaded happening didn’t happen. Something worse happened. She didn’t look at Quint holding up the shirt and see Rob in that shirt making silly comments about “being super.” Instead, in a truly frightening moment for her, she couldn’t see Rob at all. She couldn’t remember what he’d looked like in the shirt, and that shook her. “That’s stupid,” she mumbled and clutched her hands behind her so tightly that her nails were digging into her palms. But even that didn’t help.
“Hey, lady,” he said, his smile fading. “That’s a joke.” He was coming closer and she closed her eyes tightly, willing the image of Rob to come to her. It was there, a solid man with gray eyes, sandy-blond hair and…She willed the image to be clearer, but instead it started to fade. She opened her eyes quickly, and was shocked to find Quint not more than a foot from her. His image was so clear it was literally painful for her.
His hazel eyes were narrowed on her, but that didn’t lessen the pain that was all around her. She swallowed hard, fighting the burn of tears. She sensed Taylor happily playing in the clothes while she stared at the man in front of her and was terrified that she would start to cry. She’d frighten Taylor, and she’d embarrass herself with Quint over an old T-shirt. But Taylor kept playing, and Quint didn’t say anything.
He did something far worse.
He touched her, lightly brushing the tips of his fingers along her jawline before he cupped her chin. The contact was as insubstantial as the touch of a feather, but it became the center of her existence at that moment. All she could do was stand there, staring at him, silently cursing him for being there, for being so alive and for making the past seem so remote and so faded.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. She didn’t have a clue what he had to be sorry for. Then he gave her an out. A rational explanation for something that had no explanation. “It’s rough with a sick child, and it’s rough having to deal with it.”
He thought she was upset over Taylor being sick, and she grabbed at that as an explanation for herself, too. That made sense. It explained why she felt so fragmented and why him holding an old T-shirt was making her crazy. And why she wished with all her heart that he had his clothes on and was at his damned dinner appointment and not here…so close…and so gentle, and why she was hearing…bells, jingle bells?
Then the bells were overlaid by a jarringly cheerful voice calling out, “Hello, hello, hello and a very merry Christmas to one and all!”
Quint slowly withdrew his touch from her chin, then she took a breath and turned away from him. Jenn was coming in the door, actually backing in with her arms full of presents. Amy hadn’t heard any knock on the door, or the key being used. But when she saw Jenn, she felt as if she’d been thrown a lifeline, and she knew what she had to do. Get rid of Quint. Get him out of there and get the T-shirt back.
Chapter Five
Jingle Bells? Merry Christmas?
Quint had to literally make himself draw back from Amy, to break the contact, so he could make sense out of what was going on. For a man who usually understood everything happening around him, he understood very little of what had happened in the apartment since he’d knocked on the door. And for a man who understood his limitations and knew when to cut his losses and run, he was hanging around like some moonstruck teenager, standing half-dressed in front of someone who looked deeply relieved to have an interruption in whatever was happening between them.
He curled his hand around the T-shirt and watched Amy smile as a woman entered the apartment and set a pile of brightly wrapped presents on the floor. Amy hurried over to the woman, but Taylor beat her mother there, and was scooped up into a huge hug.
The newcomer was all in red and trimmed in jingle bells, from the two tied at the top of each red boot, to those sewn on dancing reindeers embroidered on an oversize sweatshirt and those fringing a Santa hat worn over pale-blond hair. She was laughing, hugging Taylor, calling her, “My munchkin,” then leaning over to kiss Amy on the cheek, before she looked up finally and saw him there.
She had to be in her late twenties, pretty in a “cute” way, and obviously a woman with control, because she didn’t say a thing about him being half-naked. And she was a woman who didn’t mind a little girl tugging a Santa hat right off her head to throw it in the air. Instead, her eyes flicked over his bare chest, then she met his gaze. “I left a message I’d call or come by later,” she said without looking away from Quint.
“Yes, Jenn, I got it,” Amy said as Quint shook out the T-shirt, fully intending to put it on to try and make the situation less awkward. But before he could, Amy hurried back to him, saying. “And I was hoping you’d stop by. I’m very glad that you did.” Then she startled him by reaching for the T-shirt, tugging it out of his hands.
Without missing a step, she kept going, through the mess of laundry Taylor had scattered from the table to the floor, and across to the bookshelf the television sat on. She was still talking. “Just come on in, and we’ll open presents and have a good time, as soon as I take care of this.” She bent down and opened a drawer in the chest, then stood and turned with something navy in her hands. “This is better, warmer and more…” She shrugged, an action that seemed tinged with a degree of vulnerability to Quint. He barely had time to absorb that before she finished with, “Suitable.”
That’s what this whole experience wasn’t—suitable. He was older and wiser, and wasn’t looking for any of this. This definitely wasn’t going with the flow or chilling. It was stupid. Then Amy was there holding out a navy sweatshirt to him.
“Yes, that’s suitable,” he said, taking it from her.
Even as he spoke, she was moving again, going over to Jenn, who was still holding Taylor.
He shook out the sweatshirt, put it on, tugged it down, then raked his fingers through his hair. “It fits,” he said.
“I’m Jenn Blake,” the visitor said out of the blue. Quint looked at her and met a smile. “And you are…?”
“He’s late. He’s got an appointment,” Amy said before Quint could say anything, and started to pick up the presents Jenn had put on the floor. “Wow, you outdid yourself with all of this, Jenn.”
Jenn was still looking at Quint. “Whoever you are, won’t you stay for some hot cider, or carol-singing or some holiday spirit, or just plain old spirits, as the case may be?”
He liked her. She had the ability to go with the flow, just adjust to whatever she found, even a half-naked man. He just wished he had that ability at the moment. “I really have to be going. I’ve got an appointment, business.”
“Oh, not on Christmas Eve, surely,” Jenn said, as Taylor squirmed out of her arms to get to the presents on the floor.
Amy crouched by Taylor, offering her one of the smaller gifts, but looked at Quint over her daughter’s head. “I’ll get back with you about your clothes,” she said, while Taylor ripped the silve
r paper off the package.
It was obvious she wanted him out of there, and he should have wanted out of there, too. “Don’t worry about it,” he said as he crossed the room, picking his way past the laundry to get to the two women and the child.
He looked at Jenn. “By the way, my name isn’t ‘he’s late.’ It’s Quint Gallagher. And it was nice to meet you.”
He glanced at Amy, and found her face slightly flushed and her eyes narrowed. Oh, yes, she wanted him long gone. What galled him was, just looking at her made him think things he didn’t need to think. Feel things he didn’t need to feel. The safest of all the feelings was the urge to brush at a single strand of hair that had fallen loose from the ponytail and lay against her throat. That was foolish. And the thought of kissing her again was definitely insane.
So he said, “Merry Christmas,” and turned away before he acted on impulse. He wasn’t an impulsive man, never had been, but this woman brought out the worst in him.
He went out into the hall, swung the door shut behind him, and walked away, the way he had the night before. But this time it was even harder to keep going.
AMY SANK DOWN on the floor with Taylor, sitting cross-legged while she watched her daughter stack the colored blocks that had been in the wrapped box. She braced herself for the questions that would be coming, but Jenn surprised her by kneeling by the two of them and reaching to stroke Taylor’s silky hair. “Such a relief to see her feeling better,” she said.
“She’s a lot better, thank goodness.” Amy looked at her sister-in-law. “And I owe you an explanation.”
“Me? No, no way. But, if you feel compelled to tell me why you had a drop-dead-gorgeous half-naked man in your apartment, I’m as open to an explanation as the next shocked-out-of-her-socks aunt.” Jenn grinned at her. “Okay, who is he?”
Amy envied Jenn’s ability never to take life too seriously. Really envied her sometimes. “He works for LynTech, just came on board, and he left his wallet at the center last night.”
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