Moments later, he was sitting behind the wheel of his SUV, revving the engine, with two crying kids in car seats in the back. Amy tossed the diaper bag in the passenger door, landing it on the console, but she didn’t get in. “What’s your cell phone number?” she asked over the cries.
He gave her the number, watched her write it on a scrap of paper, then she called over her shoulder, “Be right back,” and hurried toward the door to the center.
He could see her in the side mirror stopping at the door, then crouching, doing something, before going back inside. Moments later she was running to his car. She got in, carrying Charlie in his cage. “Couldn’t leave him if things go bad,” she said, twisting to put the cage on the floor in the back. She reached behind the seat to touch Taylor on the foot, smile at her, then softly pat Travis on his leg. As if her touch was magic, both children quieted and she looked at him. “Okay, we’re ready.”
He adjusted the heater, then started for the ramp that went to the security gates. “What was that all about with the cell phone number?” he asked as Amy twisted in the seat to rub Taylor’s foot, a connection that kept the child calm.
“I left a note for Travis’s mom, gave her my phone number and your cell phone number. So, if she calls you, help her get in touch with me, okay?”
Talk about optimistic, he thought, but just nodded. “Of course,” he said, then looked ahead through the security gate. From this level, he could see the rain sheeting down, and water rushing down the street as if it were a roiling creek. “Whoa,” he muttered.
He sensed Amy move, sitting forward to look out the windshield, then the gate went up and he pulled onto the street into a night torn by the storm. He headed toward the section of the city where Amy lived, driving at a snail’s pace and uneasy about the traffic lights that had been reduced to flashing red lights only.
All of the lights around them were mere smears in the darkness, and the few cars that were on the streets were doing what he was doing—staying as close to the middle of the street as possible to avoid the mini rivers developing near the curbs. When he got to a major intersection, he realized how bad it was when he spotted two cars stalled ahead of him, water rushing up to the bottoms of the doors and submerging part of the front end of another car stalled near the curb.
He negotiated around them, thankful for the added height and surefootedness of the SUV, a car he’d leased simply because it had been available. Now he was glad that they sat higher than the other cars, and that the added weight helped to resist the driving wind to stay steady on the flooded streets.
Suddenly, lights flashed, then one side of the street went completely dark. Even the glow of the Christmas decorations had disappeared, swallowed up by the rain and darkness.
“Did you see that?” Amy asked, the sound of her voice startling him slightly. He hadn’t forgotten she was there—that would have been an impossibility—but he had been so intent on what he was doing that he’d forgotten to talk. “All the lights are out. I was thinking that we should just go back to LynTech, but the building might be dark now, too. This is just like a hurricane, at least with the wind and all, even if it’s the wrong time of year for it.”
“You know what they say—if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” he muttered as he negotiated their way through another flooded intersection.
“A duck’s about the only thing that belongs out on a night like this,” she said. “This is just crazy.”
He looked at her, a quick glance, no more than a second, but he knew right then that the crazy thing was him being in the car with two kids, in this storm, with a woman he wished he’d met years ago so he could have loved her without any barriers.
That thought jolted him, and the car lurched when he overcorrected to the left. Amy gasped, and he steadied the car and himself as he stared straight ahead. Love. He’d thought for years that it was for a select few in this world, the lucky ones who stumbled on it and kept it. The others, like him, just heard about it and never had it. He never would, but it might have been within reach with this woman if things had been different.
Even Quint’s car felt flimsy to Amy as it was battered by the wind and driving rain. Thankful both kids were quiet, she glanced back to see that they were both asleep. They were so trusting, so unaware of the wildness of the world outside the car. But she was aware of that wildness, and of the man right beside her. She turned, taking a quick look at Quint. He was intent on his driving, controlling the big car with an ease that she envied, the same way she envied his ability to deal with things.
If he hadn’t offered this ride, she and the kids would be sitting in an intersection, stalled, being flooded out. And she cringed to think that she would have tried to make it to her place. “You know, maybe…maybe we really should just go back to LynTech?”
He slanted her a look that was shadowed and unreadable. “Not an option,” he said before glancing in the rearview mirror then ahead at the road. “It’s dark back there.”
She twisted and saw he was right. There was no light at all behind them, and only a few flickering lights ahead. Colored lights, flashing. Getting closer.
“What’s up there?” she asked, leaning forward to try and see ahead of them.
“Police,” Quint said as they got closer to the lights and saw that they belonged to two squad cars angled to block anyone going into the next intersection. A dark hulk of a man holding a flashlight came toward their car as Quint slowed to a stop, then cracked his window.
Amy leaned to look around Quint and could only see a shadow outside, but the voice was strong. “Sorry, the streets are out this way. You can’t go through.”
“I’m trying to get to the Bower and Sage area.”
“No way, not tonight. There’s no power and the streets are flooded.”
“Can I get out of the city if I go north to the old highway?”
“Should be able to in this car. Just turn right here and head on out, but maybe you want to find a hotel or motel and wait this out?”
“We’ll head north and see how it goes.”
“Whatever you do, drive carefully,” the policeman said, then backed away and motioned with his light to the right of them.
Quint raised his window, then turned right onto the side street as Amy spoke up again. “This place where we’re going, what is it?”
He adjusted the heater, asking, “Warm enough?”
“Fine. We’re fine. What is this place?”
He exhaled, never taking his eyes off the road. “It’s an old, rambling ranch house on a bit of property, and it can’t be hurt by kids. It’s got heat, or at least enough wood for a good fire.”
“How do you know there’s electricity?”
“It usually has it when others don’t, and there is a backup generator,” he said as he reached in his pocket, took out the cell phone and handed it to her. “But call and find out for yourself.” Then he repeated a phone number for her.
She put in the number, but didn’t press Send immediately. “So, if I call, who’s going to answer?”
“If there’s electricity, the answering machine will pick up. If there’s no electricity, no one will answer. No one’s there.”
“I don’t understand. Why would we go there if no one’s there, even if there is electricity?”
“Because we can,” he murmured, driving onto the old highway and turning north so the wind was behind them now.
“What?”
“Because we can. Because it’s there. Because I have a key.”
“I thought you just got here and that you were at the hotel?”
“I did and I am, but I was born and raised here, and my folks still have their place out there.”
“This is your parents’ place?”
“You got it,” he said. “I’ve lived through worse than this out there, and I know it’s high, dry and warm. Everything I want right now.” He flashed her a look. “How about you? What d
o you want right now?”
She wanted just to sit back and let him take her anywhere he wanted, and she wanted not to worry about where they were going or about a need in her just to let herself sink into the safeness that this man projected. “High, dry and warm sounds good to me,” she said.
“Then we’re heading to the right place. If there’s electricity.”
She hit the Send button, and it rang twice before an answering machine clicked on. A man’s voice that sounded a lot like Quint’s said, “It’s your dime. Leave a message if you want.” Then there was a long beep.
She hung up and said, “Nice message, but there’s power.”
“That’s his idea of making it short and sweet. Sorry.”
“So, it’s their place, but they don’t live there?”
“Yes, and no. They’re in Florida for the holidays. They’ve been wanting me to live out there now that I’m back, but it’s not close enough for the business.”
Amy was uncomfortable with this. Going to his parents’ house? Just going in with them gone? “Quint, I don’t know about this.”
“We’re in too far to turn back. We should have just gone right to the police, let them take care of the baby and then gone to my place and nailed the windows shut, or gotten a room, even if it was at the No Tell Motel.”
“There isn’t a place called that,” she muttered, hating the talk of the police.
“Sure there is. Not here, maybe, but somewhere there is.”
“You’ve been there?”
He chuckled, a rough, warm sound in the car. “If I have, I don’t remember. But, then again, there are many things in my misspent youth that I don’t remember.”
“Misspent youth or not, I can hardly see you at a place with pink lights and fur bedspreads in your expensive suits.”
He laughed again. “Back then not only did I not wear suits, I probably couldn’t have afforded one.”
She sank back in the seat. “Oh, yes. I forgot, you were poor.”
She hadn’t meant to sound so sarcastic, but it came out that way. And it killed his laughter completely. “I never said that. I was never poor, but we didn’t have it easy. And when Mike was little, it was rough. I was working twelve hours a day, and I tried to work out of my house, so I could be with Mike.”
“What about your son’s mother?”
“She wasn’t there for him.”
“She…she died?”
That did make him laugh, a bark of a sound that had little humor in it. “No, she just left. She walked out the door and never looked back.” He cast her a slanting glance. “See, mothers do just leave.”
She knew that, but she couldn’t quite get her mind around a woman who could walk away from a child, a child that should be that woman’s whole life. It made her shiver slightly and she hugged her arms around herself. “I know that, but…”
“But you think that they just come to their senses, and turn around and come back and beg for their babies?”
He made her sound so gullible and stupid. She hated it. “They…they do, some do.”
“That hasn’t been my experience,” he said tightly.
“Are you an expert because you found one child outside the door to a day-care center?”
“No, but I know a bit about it. Mike’s mother walked out and never looked back.”
She waited for anger to come into his voice, to hear some bitterness, but there was none. He simply said the words. She looked at him, and all she could think of was—how could any woman who had been loved by this man just walk away and never look back?
Chapter Nine
Amy wanted to say she was sorry, to tell him that it was the woman’s loss, but she couldn’t. Something in her knew that the man wasn’t looking for sympathy, just showing that people without hearts lived in this world. She knew that herself.
“She just left?”
“Decided she didn’t want to be a mother or wife and walked out the door. She calls Mike every now and then. It’s usually on his birthday.”
“So, you raised him alone?” she asked.
“I had my folks, but they were here and I was there, all over the place, and I couldn’t just dump Mike and see him whenever I could make it.”
“Of course not.”
“Oh, it wasn’t just for Mike’s sake. It was for mine. He’s my family. I needed him around as much as he needed me, and I lucked out being able to do a job that paid well and do it mostly out of my home.” He chuckled. “The kid could do flowcharts when he was four.”
“He’s in college now?”
“Just graduated and got his first position out in Los Angeles.”
“That’s good, isn’t it?” she asked, not sure.
He chuckled. “Did I sound that ambiguous?”
“A bit.”
“I am. It’s hard seeing him grown and out there, even though I’m damn proud of him. We had some rough times, some body piercing I didn’t like much, a tattoo that he’s going to regret, but he turned out good.”
“Then you should be thankful.”
“Years down the road when Taylor walks in and tells you that she’s leaving, that she’s going to get pierced ears, nose, lip, whatever, and maybe a tattoo, you let me know how easy it is to smile and say, ‘Take care,’ and not flinch.”
She sank back in the seat, an overwhelming storm almost forgotten because of the man driving her off to God-knew-where. His voice soothed and even if the subject matter was uneasy he wasn’t. “Well, we’ll skip the tattoo, and pierced ears are okay, but nothing else.” She sighed, unable to think of a time when Taylor wouldn’t be with her. “And I think girls are different.”
“Maybe. I’ve never had one and won’t now, so why don’t you get in touch with me in twenty years and let me know how she does? We’ll compare notes.”
“Sure,” she breathed, turning from Quint to the darkness of the night and storm surrounding them. There were no lights outside, just a flash now and then from lightning way off in the distance. “Some night, huh?”
“Not what I planned,” he murmured.
“Oh, shoot.” She’d done it again. “You had a…an appointment, didn’t you?”
“No, I didn’t. I had plans for a quiet night, reading and trying to figure out what to get Terrel and Lewis’s daughter for the wedding. It’s expected.”
She’d been shocked at the announcement from B.J., the daughter of the founder of LynTech, Robert Lewis, and the artist they’d hired to help design the new center, the day after Christmas that she and Matt were getting married on New Year’s Eve. “A quiet ceremony at the loft,” B.J. had said, with just her father, the boy, Anthony, and Zane and Lindsey if they could get back from Aspen for it. “Maybe they’ll have to cancel if this doesn’t stop. Wait for nicer weather.”
“They want to be married, and I’ve got a feeling they’ll do it, come hell or high water. And the high water is a definite possibility.”
“Love isn’t always willing to wait.”
“They sure blame a lot of craziness on love, don’t they?” he asked.
She stared determinedly ahead into the stormy night. “I guess so, but don’t you think when you’re in love, it’s not craziness, it’s that need to be with the other person no matter what?”
He was silent for a long moment, so long that she finally looked away from the stormy night ahead of them to him. Even in the dim light, she could see the muscle in his jaw working, but she wasn’t sure he’d heard her or if he was so intent on his driving that the talking was going to stop. Whatever it was, there was silence in the car for some time before he spoke, but it had nothing to do with love.
“Finally,” he said, and she didn’t understand until she felt the car slow as they turned off the highway to the right onto a rougher road. After a short distance through the storm and night, the headlights caught a blurred image of posts of some sort that Quint drove between. “We made it,” Quint said as they drove onto an even narrower road.
A ca
nopy of huge trees overhead gave a bit of shelter, but it was unnerving to see them being whipped by the wind as if they were little more than twigs. “How can you tell where you are?” Amy asked, not able to see anything beyond where the darkness was cut by the glow of the headlights.
“I’ve been here often enough,” he said as they broke out into an opening and the wind hit them full force, making the huge car shudder as it kept going. “I learned to drive on this road.”
A flash of lightning came from nowhere, cutting through the turbulent darkness and allowing Amy to catch a flashing glimpse of some buildings, long and low, ahead of them. Quint drove toward the buildings, then circled to the left, turned right and halted the car.
He let the car idle and turned to her, touching the back of her seat with one hand. “Sit tight. I’ll go in the back way and get the garage door up.”
“You can’t go out in that,” she said.
“We don’t have a choice. I don’t have an opener for the garage, and you sure can’t take the kids out in this.” Then he touched her, a light, reassuring tap on her shoulder before pulling his hand back and shrugging out of his jacket. He laid the jacket over the console, then looked at her and said, “I’ll be right back,” and he turned and opened the door.
The car was suddenly filled with a gust of damp coldness, then the door slammed shut and Quint was gone. Taylor stirred, making soft sounds, and Amy reached behind her to touch her daughter’s foot. But she looked ahead to try and see where Quint was going. She caught a glimpse of him running through the night and rain, cutting through the watery beams from the headlights, then she lost him. He was gone. The night was all that was outside, and she felt a jarring sense of abandonment, that bone-deep feeling of isolation.
“Mama?” Taylor asked in a sleepy voice, and Amy took off her seat belt so she could turn around and get up on her knees to look into the back seat. Travis was still sleeping peacefully, the pacifier bouncing in his mouth as he sucked, and Taylor was stirring, her tiny hands stretching over her head.
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