by J. H. Croix
Gage set the spoon down and wiped Holly’s mouth before handing her a stuffed turtle, which she immediately latched onto. His eyes flicked from Marley to Quinn. Quinn didn’t know Gage all that well yet, but it was more than obvious not much slipped past him. “It won’t come to that,” he said firmly. “I’ve seen the way Lacey looks at you, and, trust me, you’re far more than just a friend to her.” His eyes canted sideways to Marley, his mouth curling in a grin, before his gaze swung back to Quinn. “Marley might not appreciate what I’m about to say, but Lacey’s stubborn as hell. Don’t let that get in your way.”
Marley rolled her eyes. “Fine. My sister might be kind of stubborn, but it’s the best kind. Just…” she paused, worry entering her gaze “…give her a little time. Do you feel like you need to stay somewhere else? Will that make it messier?”
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know what’s best, but I don’t know if I can keep my own sanity if I try to muddle along like nothing’s going on when that seems to be what she wants me to do.”
Marley traced the beads of moisture on her water glass and sighed. “I get it. Any news from her doctor?”
“She ordered another MRI yesterday after what happened and…”
Marley cut him off. “What happened yesterday?”
Quinn silently swore. He should’ve guessed Lacey might have avoided mentioning her collapse on the beach yesterday. He looked over at Marley and ran a hand through his hair again. “I guess she didn’t mention that to you, huh?”
Marley shook her head sharply. “She asked me to pick up her car because she was catching a ride with you, but that’s all she said. What happened?”
“She was running on the beach again and her leg gave out. She called me, so I went to get her and dragged her straight to Dr. Marshall’s office.”
“I swear, I wish she’d wasn’t so damn determined never to ask anyone for help. I guess I should be relieved she called you, but it pisses me off she hasn’t even mentioned this to me.”
Quinn shrugged. “Look, she’s just trying to get through this. I don’t think she was purposefully hiding it, but it’s not fun to give updates on stuff like this. Give her time to get used to it.”
Marley sighed and leaned back. “I know, I know. I just wish she’d notice that there’s only one person she happens to be comfortable asking for help. You. If there’s anything that tells me how she feels about you, it’s that.”
Lacey flipped through the channels on television and couldn’t keep her eyes from veering to the clock on the wall behind the woodstove. She’d started a fire and settled in to try to take her mind off wondering where Quinn was. It wasn’t like he needed to report back to her, but after this morning, she was worried he’d already found another place to stay and hadn’t even bothered to tell her. She’d spent most of the day valiantly trying to keep her mind off of him by busying herself with work and cleaning her house. Winter was a quiet time for her when it came to work. She mostly scheduled summer trips online here and there and did some planning for equipment needs. In short order, she’d run out of official work to do, so she’d thrown herself into cleaning the house, completely ignoring Dr. Marshall’s recommendation to take it easy. By the time the light had faded to gray and the snow started falling in earnest, her cabin was sparkling clean. Quinn hadn’t called or texted and still hadn’t come home.
This isn’t his home. You made that perfectly clear this morning. Her mind taunted her with the truth about the effect of her words earlier. But I want it to be his home. Her heart gave a hard thump, and anxiety knotted in her chest. She couldn’t let herself go there now. It was too much to face how much he’d come to mean. Every time she thought about it, she considered that she wasn’t the woman he’d always known. She wasn’t strong, independent and invincible anymore. She wasn’t silly enough to think she’d ever been invincible, but she’d felt like she could charge at anything that came her way. Needing someone the way she’d needed Quinn yesterday was such an unfamiliar feeling, she didn’t know how to navigate it. She didn’t know how to reconcile that with trying to let this thing between them be real.
Oh it’s real. It’s already very real. She swatted that thought away and changed the channel. Her eyes quickly bounced beyond the television to the snow glittering under the outside lights as it fell steadily.
Chapter 18
Quinn stood in Lacey’s kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. After a few sips, he felt halfway human, although his heart hurt and his stomach was churning like mad. All the coffee did was wipe the cobwebs out of his brain after a crappy night’s sleep. He’d arrived home late last night to realize the text he’d thought he’d sent to Lacey telling her he was grabbing dinner had never left his phone. He must’ve missed the send button when he dashed it off last night. Lacey had been sound asleep upstairs, so he’d crawled quietly into bed beside her. He’d woken this morning with her draped all over him. With his body thrumming with need and his cock throbbing, he’d slowly untangled himself and headed straight for a chilly shower. Much as he could hardly bear the thought of sleeping without Lacey, this morning reinforced why he needed to create some space. He couldn’t take much more of this and have his heart survive it.
A few minutes later, she came downstairs, her auburn hair damp and her jade eyes bright in the gray, snowy light. His heart clenched at the sight of her. She took his breath away in more ways than one. She held her phone up. “Just got your text. I’m guessing you thought you sent it last night?”
“Good guess. Sorry ‘bout that.”
“No problem,” she said, her tone guarded. “Thanks for shoveling off the deck and my car yesterday.”
“Of course. Coffee’s ready if you want some.”
She stepped immediately to the cabinet, pulled out a mug and filled it. The space between them felt stilted and heavy with unexpressed feelings. He steeled himself to say what he knew had to be said before he lost his mind and they lost the good friendship between them.
“Lace, I, uh… I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s best if I stayed somewhere else right now. It sounds like we might be on different wavelengths, and I don’t want to blow things up worse than we already have.”
She didn’t look at him, her eyes studiously staring out the windows. She swallowed, the sound loud in the quiet room. His heart was banging against his ribs. He wanted to take his words back. Finally, she looked back at him, pain glimmering in the depths of her gaze. “You don’t need…” She paused for a breath. “I don’t want you to…” Her words trailed off, and she swallowed again, her eyes canting down to where she was tracing her fingertip along the edge of the counter.
His heart leapt at her words, hope flaring inside. Then, she shook her head sharply. “Okay. I understand,” she said, her words firmer this time.
Lacey hurried from Dr. Marshall’s office to her car. It was late afternoon and another snowstorm was blowing in. Autumn, which had been making a slow bow, had hurried off the stage with winter roaring in to replace it. It had snowed almost every other day since Quinn moved out. She jumped into her car to start it and bounced back out to brush the snow off while the car warmed up. Snow blew in a swirl around her, the wind indecisive about which direction it wanted to blow and blowing every which way as a result.
Moments later, she climbed back into her car, snow whirling in with her. The heat had barely made a dent, although it was blowing mightily on the highest setting. She leaned her head back and sighed. Dr. Marshall had finally diagnosed Lacey with MS this afternoon. All the emotions Lacey had been battling over Quinn had worn her out. She had no idea how she’d gotten through today’s appointment without falling apart, but she dredged up every ounce of internal strength and held it together while Dr. Marshall discussed preventative treatment options. She’d sent Lacey off with information to review and scheduled a follow up appointment within a few days.
Lacey sat there, shivering in the icy air, and wished upon wish she had more courage. Quinn had moved to the lodge tempo
rarily while he looked for his own place to live. Marley had stopped by yesterday, ostensibly for a casual visit, although Lacey could tell Marley was worried about her. Lacey couldn’t bring herself to admit she missed Quinn so much it hurt, so when Marley had asked about Quinn, Lacey had sidestepped and stayed vague. For once, she was relieved to talk about her pending appointment with Dr. Marshall and the results of her latest MRI. Every time she thought of Quinn, as she did now, her body recoiled against the reverberating emotional pain. She’d gone and done the stupidest thing ever, and she couldn’t figure out how to fix it without feeling more vulnerable and exposed than she already did.
Quinn, being the decent guy he was, had already called and texted, his tone reminiscent of how it had been before she’d known him so intimately that it seared her soul. She knew he was trying to get them back on the footing of their once solid friendship, but she chafed against it. She wanted to spin back to where they’d been, but she was afraid Quinn wouldn’t allow it unless she actually faced up to how much he meant to her. That meant tapping into a vein of fear she hadn’t realized ran so deep within her.
Her whole life, she’d thrived on being strong and independent and not needing anyone. She loved her family and friends, but she flew solo through life, touching down only occasionally. Life, being the jokester it was, seemed to have decided she was due for a reality check in more ways than one. First, she was being forced to face up to her physical limitations and the reality she’d have to find a way to define herself within a different context. From what Dr. Marshall had offered, treatment options were available that would offer ways for her to prevent these episodes that brought her to her knees. She’d also shared there were some new treatment approaches through stem-cell transplants of Lacey’s own stem cells that showed promise for completely halting the progression of MS if hers turned out to be more severe. Those details aside, Lacey no longer felt like she lived up to her old childhood nickname. She wasn’t feeling too Brawny anymore.
Then, there was Quinn. She couldn’t have known that giving into her desire for him would mean her heart would entwine itself so tightly to him, she couldn’t find a way to let go. She needed him like the very air she breathed, and she was terrified of what that meant. It was bad enough to have the core of how she defined herself—strong, powerful, beyond the reach of needing anyone for anything—shake under the reality of a new medical diagnosis. Even worse, she felt emotionally fragile and tossed asunder by how quickly and deeply she’d fallen for Quinn.
A tear rolled down her cheek, cool against her skin. She wiped it away and straightened in her seat. The snow was picking up its pace, already starting to pile up on her windshield again. She turned on her windshield wipers and tugged her seatbelt on before easing her car forward and making her way home through the falling darkness. When she arrived at her small cabin, its red roof the only spot of color in the snowy dusk, she trudged through the snow on her way inside. She immediately realized she hadn’t stocked the small wood rack inside and had to turn around and go back out into the snow. She brushed the woodpile off and trekked in and out to fill the rack inside. With the wind howling, she started a fire and plunked down on the couch to watch television. A few months ago, she’d have been perfectly content. Tonight, she missed Quinn like crazy.
Her phone beeped, indicating a text had arrived. She snagged it off the table by the couch and glanced down to see a text from Quinn.
Roads aren’t so great. Just checking to make sure you made it home okay.
Her heart squeezed, and she had to force herself to breathe before she replied.
Yup. Safe and sound.
There was so much more she wanted to say, most specifically she wanted to beg him to come back to the little cocoon they’d been living in at her cabin. Her rather monstrous pride held her back. He seemed to be managing okay with this whole ‘back to friends’ thing, so she’d have to find it in her to do the same. Problem was, she wasn’t so sure she could pull it off.
Quinn closed his laptop and glanced at his watch. Another busy day was done. Donna had left a few minutes ago, leaving him alone in the quiet office. He’d come to savor the few minutes he spent at the end of the day in the office. From the moment he arrived until the last patient left, his days were filled. He was finding he thoroughly enjoyed a general medical practice like this, mostly because every day involved a wild variety of challenges. He stood from his desk and walked to the front of the office. Snow was falling lightly again. Winter had stopped its teasing and firmly taken hold the last few weeks. His mind wandered to Lacey. Truthfully, any moment he wasn’t entirely preoccupied with something else, his thoughts went straight to her.
It had been a full two weeks since he’d ended his temporary stay with her. He was looking in earnest for his own place to live, but had yet to find one. Marley and Gage insisted he could continue to stay at the lodge, although he’d been worried it was impinging on Lacey’s frequency of visits there until Marley had shared Lacey was making a point to only stop by when he was at work. Marley was firm in her belief that he and Lacey were meant to be. Given that Lacey seemed barely able to tolerate seeing him, Quinn wasn’t so sure about that. He’d made efforts to try to act the way he would’ve when they were just friends and hadn’t nearly singed themselves on the fire burning between them.
He’d seen Lacey only once in two weeks, and he missed her every moment of every day. He watched the snow fall softly and wondered how to break through this impasse with her. He wished he could see into her heart and know what she wanted. Since that wasn’t possible, he gnawed on his own feelings and tried to rein them in. To make matters worse, he couldn’t stop worrying about her. He hadn’t heard a peep about her latest medical tests. As the friends they’d once been, she’d have called him and peppered him with questions. Her silence concerned him. Either she was avoiding him, which was painful to consider, or she was struggling with whatever the results were.
As he stood there wondering, his phone vibrated in his pocket. He slipped it out and saw an unfamiliar number. Not really caring who it was since it wasn’t Lacey, he answered.
“Quinn here.”
“Quinn, it’s Rita Marshall. Do you have a minute?”
Feeling as if the universe had read his mind, he nodded before he realized she couldn’t see him nodding. “Sure do,” he belatedly replied. “What’s up?”
Dr. Marshall quickly summarized a case and sought his feedback. After they finished discussing that, she moved on. “I want you to know I wouldn’t normally ask, but I have a release on file to talk with you and I’m concerned about Lacey. Has she spoken with you about how she’s doing?”
His stomach knotted with tension and his pulse jumped up a notch. It was not a good sign to have Lacey’s doctor wondering how she was doing. “No, uh, she hasn’t. Is everything okay?”
“Medically speaking, I’ve confirmed an MS diagnosis based on the last MRI. She and I met to review the results. I went over some preventative treatment options and scheduled a follow up. That was roughly two weeks ago, and she canceled yet another appointment today. My receptionist told me each time she’s canceled, she just says something else came up, but I’m getting the feeling she’s avoiding it at this point. I don’t mean to bother you, but I thought I’d ask.”
Quinn’s gut churned with concern about Lacey. He forced himself to breathe slowly and answer calmly. “No problem. Feel free to call again if you need to. I’ll try to check in and see what’s going on. Obviously, it would be good for her to get started on a preventative course.” He had a million other things he wanted to say, but they weren’t for Dr. Marshall, so he held his tongue.
“That’d be great. I’ll keep trying to reschedule with her in the meantime.” At that, she hung up.
He slowly lowered the phone. His mind spun with worry. As frustrated as he knew Lacey to be about her symptoms, it wasn’t like her to avoid something like this. Reflexively, he tapped his phone screen and pulled up her name. In seconds
, the phone was ringing. After several rings, he got her voice mail. He left a message asking her to call back and snagged his jacket off the hook inside the hallway closet and stepped out into the snowy evening.
He couldn’t stop himself from driving to her cabin, galvanized by his concern. All the feelings he’d been trying to tamp down and wrestle into submission flared high. She was so much more than a friend now and damn if he knew what to do about it. It was becoming painfully obvious that his attempt to create space and let his feelings cool down had only illuminated just how impossible that might be. He turned into the winding drive that led to her cabin, his heart dropping when he saw the small parking area in front was empty.
Chapter 19
Lacey stared through her windshield at a snowflake drifting lazily down. A small gust of wind caught it and spun the fluffy bit of snow in a circle before it landed against the glass and skidded sideways. The circle of light cast by her headlights illuminated the snow falling around her. Moments ago, her leg had gone tingly and weak. When she tried to push on the brakes, her foot slipped off the pedal and her car had bounced gently into the ditch. She rested her head against the seat and berated herself for blowing off her appointments with Dr. Marshall. All she’d needed to do was go in and discuss her options for preventative treatment and maybe this particular moment wouldn’t be happening. She couldn’t seem to face anything right now.