“I didn’t know toys made so many noises these days.” She smiled weakly and went to grab the red ball. That, at least, didn’t sing or talk or chirp or buzz.
“Penny.”
She dropped the ball into the toy box and bent over to grab the book about trucks.
“What are you so afraid of?”
She managed what she thought was a credible amount of offense. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Then sit here. Talk to me.”
Wasn’t it supposed to be a woman’s lament that the man in her life never wanted to talk?
Since when is Quinn the man in your life?
He’s my husband, isn’t he?
She thought she might well be losing her mind as the argument raged inside her. “This is all your fault,” she accused, pointing at him with the book.
Instead of defending himself, though, he just looked at her with those beautiful, dark eyes. So solemn. So serious. “I know. I should have done a better job protecting you.”
“I don’t need your protection!” Frustration bubbled in her veins. She threw out her arms. “I don’t want to feel this way!”
His brows pulled together slightly. He leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. His palms turned upward. “What way?”
Stymied, she flopped her arms down to her sides and paced to the toy box. She dropped the truck book inside and scooped up a headless, naked baby doll by the arm. “We’d both better hope I’m not pregnant. Because you know what I know about kids?” She shook the headless doll at him. “Nothing.” She dropped it into the toy box.
“You worked at my father’s practice for ten years.”
“I handled supplies and billing,” she dismissed. It was a gross understatement and she knew it. “Not the children.”
“Right. None of those kids who still ask about where you are.”
She grimaced. She stared down at the poor, bedraggled baby doll body. “How can I think about having a baby—” Quinn’s baby “—when I can’t even remember making one?”
“You want a refresher?”
She gaped at him.
“Don’t look so shocked. God knows I’m willing.” His eyes roved over, suddenly full of heat.
Tempting heat.
“And I can be pretty persuasive,” he added with a devilish smile.
Warmth was blooming inside her. The problem was that he wouldn’t have to work hard at persuading. At all. “I’m not having...having sex with you just because I can’t remember having sex with you!”
His lips twitched. “I might be a little wounded by that if it didn’t sound so funny.”
“Nothing about this is funny.”
He stood and came over to her, trapping her between his big, tall body and the toy box behind her legs. He closed his hands around her arms and squeezed lightly. “Look at it this way.” He smiled wryly. “It’s been a couple weeks. You say you’re never late. So you’ll get your period today or tomorrow and you can choose to look at it as just a night of forgettable sex. Literally.”
“My only night of forgettable sex,” she grumbled, too determined to resist being coaxed out of her funk to think about what she was saying. “My only night of sex, more like.”
She felt the change in his grip. One second, easy and light. The next second, not.
“What do you mean, your only night of sex?”
Chapter Eleven
“Penny?” Quinn tightened his grip on her arms when she didn’t answer. But the tide of red creeping up her neck was all the answer he needed. “Are you saying you’re a virgin?”
Her eyes skated away from his. “I think was is more applicable.”
Realization was setting in. And anger. Squarely aimed at himself. “Why the hell didn’t you say something?”
That got her blue eyes focused on his face again. “Because it’s such an easy thing to work into a conversation? Oh, by the way, Quinn,” she said in a mocking tone, “while you’re stirring your cup of tea there, don’t you think it’s just hilarious that I finally had sex and can’t remember a single second of it?”
He ignored the sarcasm. “You were engaged.” He couldn’t fathom any red-blooded young man not wanting to jump the gun on that score.
Her eyebrows went up. “I told you there were strict rules living with the Bennetts. What do you think would have happened if Andy and I had been caught having sex? We’d have both been yanked right out of that foster home and placed elsewhere. Placed God knows where. We might have ended up in different towns, even! There wasn’t anything worth taking the chance of being separated.”
It was hard to believe. “Once Andy turned eighteen? What was the danger then?”
Her jaw worked. Her cheeks were red. “He wanted to wait until we were married. So we waited. You don’t know what it was like,” she said defensively. Her words came faster, like she’d tumbled over a hill and was picking up speed. “For kids like us. Andy’s mom was a prostitute. She lost him when he was eight. Before the Bennetts, he landed for a few years with a minister and his wife. He learned the Bible. He learned about being good. But then Mr. and Mrs. Minister had a baby girl of their own. So they suddenly didn’t have room for him. Not the boy whose mom was a sex-addicted hooker.
“So he got shipped to the next place. And the next until he finally got to the Bennetts. To me.” Her eyes shimmered. “But he never got mean like some did. And he never got angry. He just said we could wait until everything was legal and right and nobody could take us away from each other.” Her voice went hoarse. “Ever.”
She was killing him.
He closed his arms around her and pulled her against him.
Her fists thumped his back. “It wasn’t fair.”
“No. It wasn’t fair.”
“I would have been a good wife.”
He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against the top of her head. There was no competing against a dead man. Particularly one who’d apparently been half saint when he’d lived. “I know.”
Her hands stopped thumping. She gave a deep shuddering sigh, resting her head against his chest. He could feel her heartbeat.
“I’ll be a better mom than my mom was,” she finally said huskily. “You know. If and when.”
His eyes stung. “Yeah. I know.”
She pulled back and looked up at him with an expression he couldn’t read. Then suddenly, she stretched up, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his.
Sparks zinged straight down his spine, flaming the fire banked inside him. As easy as it would be to let it burn; as much as he wanted to let it burn, he couldn’t. Not now. Not when she still had tears on her cheeks from grief over someone else. And not when she might as well still be a virgin—emotionally if not physically.
Even if she was pregnant with his baby.
The irony was almost too much to stomach.
He gently pulled her clinging hands from his neck. Reluctantly pulled his mouth away from hers.
Her luminous eyes had darkened. From aquamarine to sapphire. And no less disturbing. “Well.” Her voice was tight. “This seems familiar.”
He knew she wasn’t talking about that night two weeks ago. She was talking about that night nearly fifteen years ago. Before Andy. “You were a kid.” And a hell of a temptation despite that fact. “And I could’ve landed my ass in jail if I’d taken what you were trying to offer.”
“Everything is entirely proper now.” Her voice was tight. “Lawfully wedded and everything.”
“And you’re as off-limits as ever.”
She swiped her hand over her cheeks, pulling away from him. “Don’t make excuses, Quinn. It doesn’t suit you.”
He slapped down a backdraft of anger. “It’s not an excuse. It’s a fact. You think I
don’t want you? You think that was an aberration, waking up like we did in Las Vegas?” He grabbed her forearms and pulled her against him, feeling her shocked oomph when he slid his hands around her hips and hauled her even closer. So she would have no more doubt about that particular fact.
Her lips parted.
“Yeah,” he said through his teeth. “I want. And now, there’s no way I can have.” He let go of her and stepped away, automatically avoiding the brightly colored stacking blocks in his path. “If it weren’t for that night that neither one of us can remember, you’d still be a virgin.” It wasn’t entirely true that he didn’t remember that night. He remembered the wedding. He remembered getting back to the hotel. To his room.
The memories had been haunting his sleep since they’d started recurring. Remembering the taste of her mouth as it opened under his. The feel of her skin as he’d pulled away her dress.
Her cheeks had gone red again. But there was no way to get through this mess without stating the facts, whether she was embarrassed by them or not.
“If I’m still a virgin, at least that would be grounds for an annulment.” Her tone was flippant.
He exhaled roughly, raking his fingers through his hair. His gaze fell on the lawyer’s paperwork. They’d been more of an excuse to see Penny than a burning desire to get going on the undoing of their Vegas “do’s.” Particularly when he wasn’t certain he wanted to undo anything.
Penny hadn’t known where he’d been over the last several days. No one did. He’d been in the Tetons hauling backpacks loaded down with sandbags to mimic the weight of the rucks he wore on a mission and enough water to keep from getting dehydrated. He’d rock-climbed. He’d rappelled. He’d hiked until he couldn’t distinguish the pain of his healed injuries from the pain everywhere else.
And he’d sat on a ridge where it was easy to imagine no human had ever sat, and he’d watched the sun come up over some of the most beautiful land he’d seen around the globe.
He still didn’t know what he was going to do when his leave was up. Continue fighting to regain his flight status when he had his exam with the flight surgeon in a few weeks, or take the promotion he’d been offered and the desk that came along with it?
But he knew he didn’t want to go back without at least exploring this thing that hung between him and Penny. It wasn’t just the wedding business. And it wasn’t just the fact that he couldn’t close his eyes without imagining her against him. Beneath him. Over him.
It was something else.
Something that was a damn sight more disturbing.
Something that was making him seriously consider what he wanted his future to look like, regardless of how well things went with the flight surgeon.
The noise from the baby monitor sounded loud. Penny jumped. He was a little more battle-hardened to sudden and unexpected noise.
She snatched up the monitor, though, with the fervor of a drowning person.
“You can hold on to the paperwork,” he said, heading to the door. “Figure out what you want to do about it. I’ll be in touch. And Penny—”
She gave him a wary look. “What?”
“Just for the record, I’m not hoping that you’re not pregnant.” Technically, that should mean that he was hoping she was, which he wasn’t quite ready to admit, either.
Her lips parted. He’d obviously shocked her.
But if he’d hoped that she would convey a similar feeling, he was headed for disappointment.
A wail suddenly reverberated through the apartment as well as the monitor, causing an echoing effect.
“I, uh, I’d better check on Matty.” She started to leave the room. But stopped. “I’ll call you, if, um, if—”
“There’s any reason to call?”
Her lips twisted. She nodded once before hurrying out of the room.
Quinn exhaled. He looked over the mess of toys still scattered everywhere. Then he let himself out the front door, turning the lock so it would latch behind him.
* * *
Four days later Penny chewed the inside of her lip as she studied the store shelf. There were pink boxes. There were blue boxes. Purple ones. White ones. Name brands. Store brands.
Five tests in a box. Two tests in a box.
She plucked a large box of Stork Strips off the shelf just out of sheer disbelief. “Twenty test strips?” As far as she was concerned, whoever needed that many pregnancy tests was really living on the edge.
“Penny. Is that you?”
She shoved the box back on the shelf when she heard her name and looked over to see a pretty blonde approaching.
She stifled her frustration. It was ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning. She’d thought it would be a safe time to make a run into Shop-World and purchase a test kit when the store was notoriously slow. But she’d already run into Bubba Bumble, and then Josh McArthur and his wife. And now, one of Vivian’s granddaughters?
Didn’t anyone have to work in this town?
She reached above the shelf of pregnancy tests and grabbed a box of tampons, as if that was what she’d been standing there in that aisle to choose all along. “Hi, Hayley.” She dropped the box into her cart.
A needless box, since her period was still MIA.
Ergo her furtive attempt to select a dang pregnancy test without someone she knew seeing. Along with tampons she didn’t need, she also had a twelve-pack of toilet paper and two rolls of paper towels that she didn’t need. The oversize bottle of pain reliever, though?
She was beginning to think that would come in handy.
Obviously, it wasn’t going to be a quick hello-how-are-you as they passed in the aisle. “How’s your summer going?”
Hayley smiled but her gaze slid to the shelves of blue, pink and purple boxes and Penny willed herself not to blush.
“It’s good.” Hayley tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “I heard about my grandmother’s trip to Pennsylvania last week.”
Penny could well imagine. Carter Templeton was Hayley’s father. And after he’d seen his mother’s gift of the portrait, he’d called Vivian to rail at her tactics. He didn’t appreciate her thinking she’d have to bribe him to want a portrait of his own father.
Unfortunately, since Vivian had refused to take the telephone, Penny had been on the listening end of the man’s tirade.
“It was an interesting trip, that’s for sure. I’ve never seen a mansion like that. Outside of television or the movies, I mean.”
“You’re one up on me. I’ve never been there at all. Seth tells me that we should go before Grandmother sells it. But with his work schedule at Cee-Vid and my patient load, I don’t know when we’d fit it in. We had dinner with her last night. Sounds like she’s expecting an offer on it any day.”
Penny didn’t know if it was her paranoia or not that made it seem like Hayley was intentionally lingering there. Vivian was particularly close to Hayley. But Vivian wouldn’t have told Hayley about Penny and Quinn.
Would she?
And even though Vivian knew about the wedding, she couldn’t possibly know about the rest.
“Anyway...” Hayley finally plucked a bottle of deodorant off a low shelf and dropped it into the handbasket she was carrying over her elbow. “It was good to see you.”
Penny smiled. “You, too.” She pushed her cart around to the next aisle while Hayley slowly headed the other way.
She hoped Hayley left soon. Penny was due to pick up Vivian from the hairdresser in less than a half hour. The rest of their day was already filled, and that evening Penny was planning to stake out Colbys Bar & Grill for a chance to corner Squire Clay about the debate. After missing him the other day, his wife had given Penny fresh intel.
Feeling the time ticking away, she hovered there in the dog and cat food aisle, even though she had no
such dog and no such cat. After what felt like ample time for Hayley to have vacated the danger zone, she pushed her cart back around the corner.
But Hayley had gone right back to where they’d been. She was looking at that same 20-stripper box of Stork Strips.
Consternated, Penny started to back away with the cart, but Hayley spotted her before she could, giving her own startled jump. Then she flushed and held up the box. “You caught me,” she said with a chagrined smile. “Who would need twenty tests?”
“Somebody who is having a lot of sex,” Penny managed wryly.
Hayley chuckled. “Whoever it is, obviously there’s a market for it, or it wouldn’t be here on the shelf at Shop-World.” She made a face, then gave a sort of “oh-well” shrug before snatching a pink box and placing it into her basket.
Penny had been so self-involved that it took her a moment. She had such a beleaguered conscience that she hadn’t even considered Hayley would have her own reason for being in that shopping aisle. “Oh. Wow. Congratulations.”
“Well...” Hayley lifted her slender shoulder. “That remains to be seen. But Seth and I are hopeful.” She switched the basket to her other arm. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? If it’s positive, we want to make a proper announcement.”
“Of course!” Penny mimicked locking her lips. “No worries on that score.”
“Thanks.” Hayley glanced at the narrow watch on her wrist. “Shoot. I’m really running late now.” She turned on her heel with a wave. “Thanks again, Penny.”
Hayley wasn’t the only one running late.
Penny gave a last glance at the test kits stacked so neatly and so colorfully, and turned her cart around to head for the exit. She found a clerk on her way and apologized for the stuff in her cart that would need to be restocked, because she didn’t have time to stand in the checkout line and still be on time picking up Vivian.
“Nobody apologizes for that,” the clerk said with a smile. He took the cart and rolled it away as Penny headed for the exit. She saw Hayley standing in line and sent her a thumbs-up before hurrying out to the parking lot and the Rolls Royce.
Vegas Wedding, Weaver Bride Page 14