Chapter 5
Elizabeth sat on her favorite bench overlooking the Sound and the city lights watching Alex and Beau play with Maddie.
Beau stood on the pebbled shore looking strong and masculine while he threw Maddie’s favorite ball far into the water, much farther than either she or Alex would have been able to throw it. Maddie loved the exercise. She would joyfully paddle after it and then Alex would summon her back to shore with the hand signals they had worked out.
All three of them seemed to be having the times of their lives. The communication barrier between Beau and Alex didn’t appear to bother either of them. A few times Beau stopped what he was doing to ask her the sign for a word or a translation of something Alex had said, but they didn’t seem to need many words between them.
Maddie bounded out of the water and shook to dry herself, sending a flurry of water droplets flying onto both of them. Beau laughed, deep and rich, and Alex joined him with his sweet little giggle.
Her heart twisted with love for him. Tina’s son was such a sweet, happy boy, despite his challenges. The two of them made quite a picture in the golden light of the setting sun—the big, gorgeous detective and the dark-eyed little boy.
Seeing Beau interact with Alex was a revelation. She wouldn’t have expected Beau to be so good with small children. The day before at his desk he had struck her as someone too impatient, too forceful to have much time for the pesky questions and inevitable dawdling that come with children.
That impression had probably been created out of her own nervousness, she acknowledged, and her embarrassment at finding out he was the same man she had treated so rudely at Grace Dugan’s party.
Whatever the reason for her misperception, he and Alex seemed to be dealing together famously.
This was so good for Alex. With no father in his life, he had spent nearly his entire five years surrounded by women. His mother, Luisa, herself, his schoolteachers and speech-language pathologists. All women.
Even though men had certainly come and gone through Tina’s life, Elizabeth knew she’d worked hard to keep that part of her world separate from her son.
Heaven knows, the times he spent here at Harbor View with her and Luisa had been virtually male free, except for the gardener and occasional visits by old friends of her father.
Although he hadn’t objected to the child’s presence at Harbor View, her father had shown no interest in him, even though Alex had stayed frequently at the house in the months before Jonathan’s death. As long as the child stayed out of his way, Jonathan hadn’t minded his presence.
As a result of that dearth of male companionship, Alex was soaking up Beau’s attention like a corner garden seeing sunlight after weeks of rain.
It couldn’t be healthy for him to live completely under female influence. She was going to have to do something about that, she realized, though she wasn’t exactly sure about her options.
Maybe she could enroll him in a Big Brother program of some sort or hire a male tutor when he was a little older. She didn’t need to worry about it right this moment. She and Luisa had plenty of time to discuss the best options and come up with a plan.
Whoever they ended up bringing into Alex’s life would have to be far less threatening to her psyche than Detective Riley or she wasn’t sure she would survive.
After the next throw, Beau leaned down to Alex and held out the ball. “Do you want to throw it now?” He gestured toward the water, and Alex understood immediately. He took the ball and with his little face screwed up in fierce concentration, he heaved with all his might.
Maddie lunged after it, joyfully jumping through the baby waves that licked at the shore before emerging victorious. At Alex’s signal, she bounded back to them and dropped it at his feet, then flopped to the ground, panting heavily.
“Looks like she’s worn out. We should probably give her a break,” Beau said, then turned back to Elizabeth. “How do I sign that Maddie is tired?” he called.
She showed him the sign for tired and he repeated it. Alex responded and Elizabeth laughed at the little rascal.
“What did he say?” Beau asked, joining her at the bench.
“He said he’s tired of throwing balls, too. The one time that he threw it in must have just been too much for him.”
He smiled, his gaze on Alex, now poking at the pebbles with a stick looking for crabs or other stray sea creatures sometimes washed up by the tide. “He’s a great kid. Does he have any functional hearing at all?”
“Not much. The aids help a little so he can hear loud noises but most spoken conversation isn’t within his range, even with the hearing aids.”
“What caused the loss?”
“Doctors aren’t sure. It was probably something he was born with.” Just as she had been born tongue-tied and stupid as a result of brain damage suffered during a difficult delivery.
“How long has he lived here with Luisa and you?”
“On and off throughout his life. Whenever things got rough for Tina she would send him to live with us until she could straighten herself out. About six months ago she went into rehab and she signed custody of him over to me. That’s the longest he’s ever been here.”
“Why not make his grandmother his legal guardian?”
“She said I could protect him better than her mother.”
“Protect him? From what? His father?”
She shrugged. “She never said. I always assumed she meant from herself. Tina was a wonderful mother but when she was using, she didn’t…” She faltered, but plowed through anyway. “She wasn’t always aware of things. When she was coming down she would sleep for hours. If something happened when she was like that, Alex wouldn’t have been able to use the phone to call for help or go to a neighbor. Tina finally realized he would be much more safe here.”
Had she really gotten through that whole thing without stuttering or dropping a word, with only that one little pause? She couldn’t believe it. Maybe she was finally beginning to relax around the man.
“You seem to have adapted well to the challenge of raising a child with a hearing impairment. I imagine it’s not always easy.”
He couldn’t know that she had always felt a powerful bond with Alex, even before he ever came to live here at Harbor View. Few others would understand the connection. “I feel blessed every day for the chance to be a part of his life. Alex is my son now in every way, the only child I expect to have.”
She hadn’t meant to let that last part slip but the detective immediately picked up on it. “Why would you say that? You’re a beautiful woman. You have plenty of time to meet some smooth country-club type and have an estate full of little blond tennis players.”
“No,” she murmured, gazing out at the Seattle skyline. “That’s not going to happen.” So she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed. Who needs conversation with that hot body of hers and all that beautiful money that goes with it to keep me warm?
Elizabeth closed her eyes as fragments of that terrible, overheard conversation seeped underneath the cracks of the closet in her mind where she usually tried to keep the memory hidden.
No, she would never marry. She had long ago resigned herself to the inevitable fact that she would spend the rest of her life alone. She didn’t particularly like it but she wasn’t foolish enough to dream again of happily-ever-afters. Her silly fantasy of one day having a family of her own had been shattered that day into tiny, jagged pieces.
Even if some man was somehow willing to take on a tongue-tied half-wit for a wife, she would never be sure whether he wanted her for herself or for her father’s millions.
Why was she thinking of her broken dreams now? Two years had passed since she broke her engagement to Stephen Pembroke, an engagement largely orchestrated, she saw now, by her father in that last year when he knew he was dying.
It all seemed another lifetime ago. Yes, she had suffered terrible pain and betrayal at hearing the man she thought she loved—the man she thought had been ju
st as in love with her—dismiss her so cruelly. It had hurt bitterly but she had survived and was stronger for it.
She would have changed the subject to something safer—maybe politics or religion—but Beau wouldn’t let her. “You’re a beautiful woman, Elizabeth,” he repeated. “I seriously doubt I’m the only man in King County who’s dying to find out if that mouth of yours tastes as good as it looks.”
Heat curled seductively through her insides at his low words. She didn’t want to look at him. She couldn’t look at him. There was no denying his meaning. Even an idiot like her could figure out the man was attracted to her, that he wanted to kiss her.
Oh, heavens. What was she supposed to do now? She sought frantically for some kind of witty comeback, some light and harmlessly flirtatious response like Tina might have said.
Nothing came to her.
Absolutely nothing.
Oh, heavens.
It was just a silly, banal comment. Not a proposal. Still, panic started spurting through her veins and she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Come on. Think.
She was painfully aware of him next to her on the small bench, his leg just inches away, his broad shoulder brushing against hers whenever he moved. The silence stretched between them, thin and taut. He seemed content to wait for her response, but anything she might have said in reply was tangled in her head, in her throat, in her mouth.
As the seconds ticked away, she felt heat scorch her face. Finally she couldn’t bear the thick tension between them another instant. She had to get away. Like the idiot she was—the stupid, terrified little girl—she scrambled to her feet.
“Excuse me. I…I need to do something.”
She tapped Alex on the shoulder. Time to go inside, she signed, then she grabbed his hand and hurried toward the house, her face burning with humiliation and her mouth filled with shame.
Well, that was certainly as clear as a damn church window.
Beau watched Elizabeth rush away as if he’d just lit her sweater on fire. All the way to the door, the kid cast baffled looks over his shoulder toward Beau, still sitting on the bench at the water’s edge.
Twice now she’d shot him down, abruptly and brutally. He didn’t need any kind of damn interpreter to figure out Elizabeth Hoity-Toity Quinn wasn’t interested in anything he might have to offer besides his keen investigative skills.
He frowned. No, it was more than that. He’d like to think she was just a cold-hearted ice princess, but somehow the image didn’t mesh with the woman he’d come to know a little better this afternoon.
Something else was going on. He didn’t claim to be the world’s greatest authority on women but he’d never yet seen a woman go so completely cold so fast.
What the hell had he said? He went back over the conversation, wincing a little as he realized he probably had sounded like some balding, middle-aged loser, gold medallion and all, trying to pick up a hot date in a singles bar. But his own inept come-on couldn’t have been enough to put that wild, cornered look in her eyes.
The ice princess was encased in a few more layers than he thought. He had too many self-protective instincts to try thawing them again. He’d just have to leave that to some other man.
Damn shame, though. She had the most incredible eyes, a pure brilliant blue that reminded him of the time he’d gone on a once-in-a-lifetime fishing trip to northern Alaska with some fellow detectives and had encountered clear, crystal mountain lakes exactly that color.
Gorgeous eyes and a sweet smile, he admitted. The few times he’d gotten a glimpse, he’d been completely entranced by the way her features softened and seemed to glow from the inside out, by the rare beauty of it.
But not for him.
He sat there a few more moments, not sure whether he ought to climb into his pickup and drive away or wait around to see if she came back out of the house.
It seemed bad manners to just leave. But then, it wasn’t exactly proper etiquette to leave a guest practically in mid-sentence.
To hell with this, Beau decided. He rose and turned to leave when he spotted Elizabeth walking across the flag-stone verandah, her lovely features set in hard, tight lines. He met her halfway and saw that her hands were trembling slightly, just as they had done the day before at his desk.
She looked at the ground as she finally spoke. “I’m sorry I…left like that. It was…unforgivably rude.”
He noticed she didn’t give any explanation for her strange behavior, just those stiff, tight words that jerked out of her mouth like jagged little rocks striking the ground.
“No problem. I’m sorry if I was out of line.”
She opened her mouth to answer, then he had the distinct impression that she changed her mind about whatever she was going to say. After a beat, she answered. “I’m sure you have other things to do this evening. Thank you for your help.”
Now why did her tone of voice remind him of his grandmother dismissing her houseboy for the day? Damn but he’d always hated that tone of voice.
He was trying his best not to be seriously teed off but it was getting tougher by the second. She was the one who had come to him for his help. She was the one so desperate to find her friend’s killer—if indeed such a killer existed. He was doing her a favor and he didn’t appreciate being treated like the hired help just because he’d dared overstep the serf-princess boundary for a teensy second.
“Don’t mention it,” he muttered.
Something in his tone made her gaze flash quickly to his, then she looked back to the ground looking even more distressed. But still she didn’t respond.
Something was definitely going on with her. His cop instincts wanted him to interrogate her until she told him what it was, but he didn’t have any rights to probe into her life. He was here as a favor to Grace, to find out what happened to Tina Hidalgo, and he’d do well to remember that.
“So I’ll meet you on Monday, right?”
“M-Monday?”
“Yeah, Monday. At First Federal, to check out the safe-deposit box, remember?”
“Oh. Right. The bank. Yes. Of course. I’ll see you then.”
She paused for a moment, then finally met his gaze. “Thank you again and I’m…sorry,” she murmured. “It means a great deal to me that you’re willing to help me.”
Just don’t cross the line into any kind of personal arena again. She might not have said the words but he had no doubt whatsoever that she meant them.
Well, she didn’t have to worry, Beau thought as he walked to his truck. No matter how attracted he was to Miss Elizabeth Quinn, from here on out he’d keep it to himself. He’d damn well bite off his own tongue before putting himself through that kind of rejection again.
Chapter 6
Two days later Elizabeth’s stomach still burned with mortified shame whenever she thought about Beau Riley and those moments by the water, an image that popped into her head far too frequently for the sake of her peace of mind.
She sat in Alex’s classroom with its drawings on the wall and its crayon-and-paste scent, grimly aware that the gorgeous detective and the whole complex mix of fluttery awareness and mortification he sparked in her should be just about the last thing on her mind during her weekly volunteer stint. She knew it, but still she could think of nothing else, nothing but the way she had run away and left him sitting alone by the shore.
Maybe if she wasn’t meeting the detective later that day she might be able to concentrate on helping Alex’s teacher cut out construction paper shapes for the next day’s activities, but with every tick of the clock, her nerves tightened more.
How could she have behaved so stupidly? At the very least she could have changed the subject or laughed off what she could see in retrospect was a very mild flirtation. Instead, what did she do? She panicked. She bolted from him as if she was a frightened doe in hunting season and he had a big, bad rifle trained on her.
What must he think of her?
She didn’t think she wanted to know.
With all her heart she wished she never had to see the man again. But she was meeting him in just—she checked her watch—a little more than two hours. She drew in a shaky breath. She had two hours to figure out how she could face him, to come up with a way to smile and be polite and act as if nothing had happened.
Nothing did happen, she reminded herself. She had certainly made a fool of herself but it wasn’t as if that had never happened before, more times than she could count. She had survived humiliation before and she could do it again.
But, oh, how she wished just once she could carry on a normal conversation with him without sounding so foolish. That she could be glib and funny and unselfconscious.
She sighed again and glanced up to find Alex’s teacher watching her out of concerned eyes. “Is something wrong, Elizabeth?” Jennifer McKay asked. “You’ve been distracted all morning.”
Elizabeth summoned a smile. “Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
Jen grinned. “You’ve got that man-trouble look in your eyes. Want to talk about him?”
The two of them were alone in the classroom as the eight children in the special education preschool class had gone outside to enjoy the weak sunshine on the playground for a few moments with the two classroom aides. For one crazy moment she was tempted to take this chance to spill all to Jen.
She couldn’t, though. Jen was a wonderful friend and a devoted teacher. Since he’d been in her classroom, Alex had made amazing progress and Jen had helped steer Elizabeth to ASL material to broaden her own vocabulary. She was someone Elizabeth both liked and respected. How could she tell her what a fool she’d made of herself without telling her of her own communication problems?
Elizabeth had chosen to keep that part of her life a secret. Very few of her friends knew about her speech impairment. Although she was sometimes afraid she was only deluding herself, she wanted to believe it was never even noticeable to most of the people she talked to. She had come a long way from that silent little girl and could now converse with Jen or with Grace or the others in her small circle of friends for hours without more than the occasional slipup.
The Quiet Storm Page 6