Home at Last--Sanctuary Island Book 6

by Lily Everett

  Instead, she carefully shifted her weight away from him. Uncurling her legs, she sat on the stool the normal way, letting the process of finding her balance restore her balance in other ways, too. “Told you I could be persuasive.”

  Quinn was impressed with the lightness of her tone. She sounded almost normal. She couldn’t quite bring herself to meet Marcus’s watchful gaze to see if he was convinced. Luckily, in that exact moment, the bell over the bar door rang to signal another new customer, and Quinn felt her phone start to vibrate in her back pocket.

  With a tilt of her head toward the stairs at the back of the bar, Quinn waved her phone in Marcus’s direction before answering it and hurrying up to her tiny, one-room studio across the hall from Marcus’s apartment. She needed to get herself together.

  Half an hour later, Quinn trooped back downstairs feeling more wrung out and stressed than she had been when she went up.

  She paused on the threshold, though, and the sight that greeted her did more to lift her spirits than anything else could have. The Buttercup Inn wasn’t filled to capacity, but it was busy enough to buzz with the energy of a vibrant, energetic place. Miss Patty’s bridge club was on their second round, if the increasingly raucous sound of their laughter was any indication.

  Of course, Miss Patty had been in before. But tonight, she wasn’t the only customer. A couple of farmers were propped up at the bar, nursing beers, and there was a table of six teachers from the high school earnestly debating something academic over two bottles of wine.

  Behind the bar, Marcus was in his element, mixing drinks and pulling glasses of draft beer as if he’d been born to do it. He didn’t look obviously overjoyed at the bar’s sudden popularity—he wasn’t the sort of man to openly grin and joke around with his customers—but Quinn was surprised to realize she knew him well enough to be able to tell.

  Marcus was happy.

  At least, he was until he caught sight of her hovering in the doorway. Whatever he saw on her face had a shadow lowering Marcus’s brow like a thundercloud. Throwing down the white cotton towel he’d been using to wipe glasses, he rounded the corner of the bar and headed straight for her like a heat-seeking missile.

  It’s a show, Quinn told herself firmly as all that concentrated intensity and attention sent a shiver over her skin. He doesn’t mean anything by it. At least, not what you want him to mean.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded as soon as he was within arm’s length of her.

  Ignoring the way he loomed, all big and muscley and ready to beat down anybody that looked at Quinn funny, she said, “Nothing, really.”

  She tried to laugh it off, but it stuck in her throat. Marcus crossed his arms over his chest like he intended to intimidate the truth out of her. “Really.”

  “That was my dad on the phone.”

  His brow cleared a bit. “Ah.”

  “Yeah.” She wrapped her arms around her torso, feeling suddenly cold. “To say my father is unhappy that Mother invited Ron Burkey to stay with them indefinitely—well, ‘unhappy’ would be a major understatement.”

  “Understandable. I’m not all that thrilled at the prospect, either.”

  “I know. Believe me, there are people I’d rather be locked in a house with. Satan springs to mind. But my father … I don’t know how well you remember my parents, from growing up down the lane.”

  He shrugged, massive shoulders bunching. “Not that well.”

  “I’ve never heard my dad sound like that,” she explained haltingly. “Like he didn’t see the point of anything, like he might be ready to just give up.”

  Marcus didn’t say anything, but his intent gray eyes never left her face. Quinn knew he was hearing her, and it gave her the courage to keep going. “I feel like a stupid kid for being so thrown by it, but my father has always been the strong one in our family. The steady one. My mother—I mean, you met her. She’s lovely. I love her. But I can’t count on her, not the way I count on Daddy. Sorry, I know that sounds childish…”

  “No,” he surprised her by saying. Marcus glanced away, back toward the bar, but Quinn thought it was more to hide his eyes than to check whether the guys were done with their beers yet. “I get it. When the person you rely on falters, when you lose them, it changes everything.”

  All of a sudden, Quinn remembered how the young Marcus had looked on the day his mother died, as if the bottom had dropped out of his world.

  Her father wasn’t dead, but for Quinn, the solidity of her parents’ marriage had always been a touchstone. If it fell apart, she’d lose some essential faith in things turning out the way they were supposed to. Maybe that’s what it meant to grow up.

  She set her jaw. If that’s what growing up was, she wanted no part of it.

  “Did your father agree to let Burkey stay at the house?”

  “I guess so.” Quinn pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, trying to stave off a headache. “Again, you met my mother. She might seem wispy and vague, but she knows how to get her own way.”

  A wry twist tugged at Marcus’s mouth. “Hmm. Who else do I know who’s good at getting her way?”

  Quinn slapped the side of his arm, trying not to shiver at the hard bulge of his bicep. She couldn’t help it if her hand lingered a bit. “Shut up! Or wait, does that mean you plan to give in and spend the next two weeks at my parents’ house, sharing the misery with me?”

  Their eyes locked for a long moment, during which Quinn felt the muscle under her lightly resting fingertips tense into solid steel. For the space of a heartbeat, she had the wild fantasy that it was taking everything he had to restrain himself from reaching for her. Tension ratcheted up and up and up while Quinn held her breath and waited to see what Marcus would do or say.

  The moment broke with an almost painful snap when a smooth masculine voice behind her said, “Yes, Mr. Beckett. Do tell us if you’ll be joining in our grand treatment plan at the Harpers’ house.”

  Quinn stiffened in dismay. She couldn’t help pleading up at Marcus with her eyes, ignoring the surprise presence of her mother’s guru behind her.

  Unruffled, Marcus said, “I haven’t decided yet.”

  Her heart sank even as Ron Burkey hummed thoughtfully. She stepped aside to turn their twosome into a three-way conversation, taking in the calculating sharpness of the marriage guru’s gaze.

  “I have to wonder why you would refuse.” Ron placed a short, stubby finger to his chin in a contemplative pose. “Surely you want to help your future in-laws repair the energy disharmony that’s causing their marital issues.”

  “Of course he does,” Quinn said, darting a gaze at Marcus, who was staring stone-faced at Ron Burkey. Stone-faced and silent, of course. Quinn clenched her jaw in frustration.

  “Unless…” Ron stroked his bronzed chin. “Unless you two are experiencing some energy disharmony of your own.”

  “We’re not! We’re perfectly happy!” Quinn hastily looped her arm through Marcus’s, trying to behave as though she felt one hundred percent comfortable putting her hands on him.

  “I wonder. Because I have to tell you, I’m quite sensitive to aura imbalance, and your two auras are in direct conflict. The kind of conflict I’d expect to see with a couple in an advanced phase of their breakup.”

  Quinn’s blood ran cold. How could he know they’d broken up? Before she could panic, Marcus’s hand came up to cover hers where it wrapped around the inside of his crooked elbow. “Our auras are just fine,” he said with a sardonic curl of his lips. “Thanks for the concern.”

  Ron shook his head sadly. “A skeptic. I sensed that about you. But you know, auras don’t lie. I’d encourage you to accept Ing’s invitation—if we had two weeks to do some breath work and a little body whispering, I’d feel comfortable attempting astral healing on you. That’s like psychic surgery for your aura. It could be very beneficial. Not just for your relationship, but for your life.”

  From the way Marcus’s muscles twitched under her
hand, she knew he’d caught it, too—the slightly mocking emphasis Ron placed on the word “relationship.”

  “It’s kind of you to take an interest in our relationship,” Quinn said cautiously. “Considering that you already have your hands full with my parents.’”

  “Well, you really made it impossible for me to ignore you when you cited your relationship as a reason your parents should ignore my professional advice. Of course I’m delighted that one of the major blockages stifling open energy pathways between your parents is resolving itself—that would be you, my dear,” Ron said kindly. “And your parents’ worries over your aimless, directionless life.”

  Quinn sucked in a breath as that jab socked her square in the eye, but Ron wasn’t done.

  “I’ve read your parents’ star charts backward and forward. I’ve studied the gestalt of their marriage, holistically and exhaustively, and it’s my considered opinion that the house on Lantern Point is so layered with years of bad energy that it’s become a psychic scar that will be quite difficult to heal. I feel so strongly about it, I even offered my wife’s services to help them offload the house—she’s a very successful real estate broker in Santa Fe, but she has connections on the East Coast as well. I’m sure we could have put together a deal that would allow your parents the freedom to paint a portrait of retirement that allows them to soar into the future … but if you’re determined not to allow that, who am I to oppose you?”

  Quinn’s heart was pounding so loudly in her ears, she had to focus hard to take in the last part of Ron’s speech. She had no doubt this guy was bad news, but at the same time, the idea that she was selfishly keeping her parents from doing something that would help their marriage was so painful that for a moment, she wondered if it was true. Maybe she was a spoiled brat, a whiny baby who couldn’t bear the thought of not having the house of her childhood to run home to when being a grown-up got too hard. Maybe she needed to take her own wants out of the equation and only consider what was best for them.

  Honing in on her soft underbelly, Ron said silkily, “I sense that you don’t entirely disagree with me. Or maybe you’re rethinking your stance, now that you’ve seen their energy disharmony for yourself.”

  Marcus uncrossed his arms, making Quinn drop hers to hang at her side, empty and adrift. Until he lifted the arm she’d been holding and curved it around her shoulders. The warm weight of it anchored her in place, solid and steadying, and she gave him a grateful smile.

  After a moment of silent study of her face, Marcus looked back at Ron Burkey’s waiting, smug smile and said, “The only thing we’re rethinking is how soon we can move into the house with Paul and Ingrid.”

  Disappointed anger flashed through Ron’s eyes for an instant before he pulled the gentle Zen veil back over his face. “And me. We’ll be very cozy; it’s not a huge house. Snug as five little bugs in a rug, all getting to know each other’s secrets and learning so much about ourselves. Wonderful. I’ll be looking forward to watching the two of you interact as a couple.”

  With that, Ron Burkey turned on his heeled, pointy-toed boots and walked out of the bar. Quinn gazed after him. “I have the awful feeling that all we’ve done is delay the inevitable. Still, a stay of execution is better than a beheading, any day.”

  “The next two weeks are going to suck.”

  Quinn melted a little at the reminder of how relieved she’d been when Marcus spoke up and shut Ron down before she could waffle. “It will suck. But you’re going to do it anyway, because you’re my hero.”

  He hated that, she could tell. “I’m nobody’s hero.”

  “If you want me to buy that,” she told him, “you’re going to have to stop being there for me when I need you the most.”

  *

  Hoping if they showed up late, it might be less awkward, Marcus threw a random selection of shirts and pants into a backpack and clomped down the stairs to meet Quinn by his truck for the drive to her parents’ house.

  Marcus was in too deep. He knew it. The worst part was that he was afraid Quinn was starting to get the idea, too.

  She had him wrapped around her little finger. It was embarrassing and idiotic, but true.

  His goal for the next two weeks was to get through it without sinking any lower than he already had. He’d played off that kiss okay, but it hadn’t done a damn thing to release the sexual tension between them. If anything, it had torqued it tighter, twisting the coil of hunger around his guts until he could barely breathe for wanting her.

  And the way he reacted when anyone came after her? From her own parents to the slick bastard who’d tried to make her feel like her parents’ divorce was her fault … Marcus would happily burn them all right down to the ground if it would keep that shattered look off Quinn’s face.

  He was in trouble. But at least he knew it. His only hope lay in the fact that Quinn currently believed that he didn’t want her anymore.

  Now all he had to do was keep up that pretense for two weeks of being in her presence pretty much nonstop, and he’d be fi— Oh crap.

  Marcus paused at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the door to the outside, and cursed with the silent viciousness he’d learned to employ around a former First Lady who hated foul language.

  Sighing, he pushed open the door and saw Quinn waiting for him, her hands snugged up under her armpits to combat the chill of the spring evening. “How many bedrooms does your parents’ house have?” Marcus asked, tossing his backpack into the bed of the truck.

  “Three,” she said, frowning. “Why?”

  He didn’t even flinch. That was the value of bracing for the hit. “No reason.”

  Quinn’s mouth dropped open and her eyebrows crinkled together in consternation. “Oh! Oh. I guess … you and I will be sharing a bedroom for the next two weeks.”

  “I guess we will. Unless you’d prefer to share with Dr. Ron.”

  She snorted. “See above, re: preferring the actual devil to that shiny-suited, shellacked, fake-baked jerk.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say anything so mean about anyone,” Marcus marveled. “Not that I disagree.”

  Climbing into the cab, Quinn slammed the door grumpily while Marcus started the engine with the well-oiled growl that gave him a deep-down satisfaction every time. “It’s fine. I’ll sleep on the floor.”

  “Is that really necessary? We’ve shared a bed before.”

  She said it lightly, easily, as if they’d been platonic roommates in college or something. But the words—and the image they conjured—sparked a flame of lust in Marcus’s belly that he had to grimly snuff out.

  “Not up for discussion,” he clipped out, flipping the truck into reverse and taking off down Main Street.

  Silence reigned in the cab as they passed into the darker reaches of the island, away from the street lamps and cozily lit houses of the town center. The warm glow of lights from houses came along more and more infrequently until it had been five minutes since they passed a single other car on the road and Marcus had the brights on nonstop to illuminate the narrow road that skirted Lantern Lake.

  There was a house out there now, just one, right on the edge of the lake. And after they passed it, the road stretched out, black and empty for several miles. Marcus didn’t speed. The wild horses who made Sanctuary Island their home were too smart to wander carelessly into the road, but this far out from town, the lines between civilization and wilderness were blurred. It was more likely to see wild horses grazing right along the roadside out here than anywhere else on the island.

  As they made the final, familiar turn that would take them out onto the slender jut of Lantern Point, Marcus felt his pulse rocket into overdrive.

  He was going home.

  Chapter 9

  “Is this the first time you’ve been out this way since you got back?” Quinn asked, skirting the subject of his father with surprising delicacy. Quinn was many things, but subtle wasn’t usually one of them. It was something Marcus treasured about h
er.

  “Yes,” he said shortly.

  “That’s got to be weird.”

  The tentative sympathy in her voice made him feel like crap. Was he really such a bear that she hesitated even to express … actually, yeah. He definitely was. And she’d known that going in.

  “I’m fine.”

  Out of the corner of his peripheral vision, he noted the compression of her lips. She didn’t believe it. But she didn’t push. “Okay.”

  Marcus risked a glance away from the winding road to see her staring out the passenger window. Her strawberry-blond hair looked wine dark in the shadows, the messy braid lying over her shoulder a stark contrast to the graceful turn of her pale, freckled cheek. She said nothing more, and he tried to believe he wasn’t disappointed.

  This was what he’d wanted. For Quinn to stop trying to save him, and to quit believing he’d save her. She could do better than a broken-down old man like him, and Marcus, well … he was beyond saving.

  The sight of his father’s darkened house looming on the right-hand side of the road drove that home to Marcus like nothing else. It was late, but every single window was black and not a single porch light was lit to push back the night.

  Marcus’s foot lifted off the gas without him intending it, slowing the truck as they passed by the two-story seaside cottage. There were his mother’s prize azalea bushes, overgrown into a tangle of bare, dead branches that nearly overran the front porch railing. The porch steps sagged on the left and one of the window shutters upstairs had come loose and hung at a disreputable angle. He wondered if the curtains his mother had hand sewn and put up by herself while Dad was at the hospital were still there. The paint was peeling in patches, he could see, and the whole house had an air of neglect that was hard to look at.

  “I tried to offer to help him paint,” she said guiltily. “Last year.”

  “But he wouldn’t accept help,” Marcus finished, determinedly focusing his eyes forward again and stepping on the gas.