Harlequin Special Edition October 2015, Box Set 1 of 2

by Christine Rimmer

  Not her mother, then. The douche canoe ex. Had to be. “Just tell me.”

  Her delicate jaw was set. “Not until you promise.”

  He could see it so clearly and it would be beautiful. Just him, the ex and maybe a fat length of steel pipe, up close and personal—and hold on a minute. No. Scratch the pipe. Much more satisfying to deliver the message with his bare fists.

  “I mean it, Quinn. You have to promise me.”

  He studied her unforgettable face for several really long seconds. No doubt about it. She meant what she said. Plus, a man had to respect the wishes of his woman. He made himself release the pleasant fantasy of teaching Ted Davies a lesson in pain he would never forget. “All right. You have my word. Anything I do, you’ll agree to it first.”

  She watched him narrow-eyed. “Is that a trick answer?”

  “Come on. You know me. If I give my word, you can count on it.”

  Her slim shoulders sagged again. She shut her eyes, drew in a slow breath and when she looked at him once more, she held out her hand. “Please come back.”

  He couldn’t get to her fast enough. He took the hand she offered and dropped down beside her. “I’m here. I’m listening.”

  She let out a small, sad little sound low in her throat.

  That got to him, made an ache in him, the deep-down kind. He hated it when she was sad. He slid his other hand along her soft cheek and then wrapped it around the nape of her neck, beneath the heavy fall of her hair. He pulled her close.

  She settled against him, feeling like heaven in his arms, smelling of French soap and fancy flowers he didn’t even know the names of. He caught her face between his hands and tipped it up to brush a kiss across those lips he never tired of tasting. “It’s okay,” he promised, stroking a hand down her hair. “It’s going to be okay...” Because he would damn well make it so. He kissed her again.

  She clung to him for a minute and then pulled back and settled against the pillows. “I was checking the emails for the Your Way website,” she began. And she went on to tell him about the message Davies had sent her and the file she’d started on him. When she was done, she added hopefully, “It was only one email and he sent it two weeks ago. I hadn’t gotten around to checking the website in a while. Nothing since then. I really don’t think it’s that big a deal.”

  He disagreed, though he didn’t say so. It was a big deal. The dirtbag refused to leave her alone—after all this time, after she’d pulled up stakes and moved home to get away from him. He said, “You need to write back to him.”

  She was shaking her head before he could finish the sentence. “That never works. You have no idea how many times I’ve told him I want nothing to do with him ever again.”

  “But you’re keeping a record now, remember? It’s been more than a year since you left San Diego. Unless you have a restraining order on him or some formal proof somewhere that he’s harassed you in the past...?”

  “No,” she admitted unhappily. “God. I was such a big coward.”

  He took her by the shoulders. “Look at me.”

  “Oh, Quinn...”

  “Listen. This is not your fault. You are not to blame here. This guy is a major scumball and he’s the one who’s causing the trouble. Guys like that, they love to make you think it’s all somehow your fault. Don’t you fall for that garbage. Don’t you let him do that to you.”

  She pressed her lips together and nodded. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

  “Good.” He gave her shoulders a last squeeze and let her go. “So you write a two-sentence email. ‘Never contact me again. I am blocking this email address.’ And you send it to him. You forward his email and your reply to me and then you block him.”

  She stiffened against the pillows. “Wait a minute. Why am I forwarding it on to you?”

  “I’m going to write to Ted and introduce myself.”

  “Oh, no. No, now, that is a bad idea...”

  “Don’t give me that look. There’s nothing to get freaked out about. There’ll be no dirty words and I won’t be making any threats. Just a simple, straight-up little note. I’m going to tell him that I’m your fiancé and I know you’ve blocked him and told him you don’t want to hear from him again. Ever. I’ll say that I expect him to respect your wishes and if he has questions, he should write back to me, that I’ll be happy to deal with anything he has to say.” Her eyes were mutinous. He could see her quick brain working, ticking off objections. He went on. “You can read it before I send it—in fact, emails aren’t really my strong suit. Takes me forever to write one. So I’ll bring my tablet over tomorrow night. I’ll dictate the email to you and you can type it in for me, so you’ll know exactly what I’m sending. Then that can go in your file, too.”

  “But...what if he writes back to you?”

  “Oh, angel. I hope he does.”

  “Quinn. I don’t like this. The whole point is that I don’t want you involved.”

  “How can I not be involved? We’re getting married, remember?” If I can ever get you to set the damn date.

  “It’s not that. It’s not about us. It’s my old...stuff, you know? My big, ugly mess. I should be the one dealing with it.”

  He reached for her then and pulled her close. She resisted at first, but then she sagged against him with a long sigh. He wrapped his arms good and tight around her and reminded her, “You are dealing with it. You can’t get away from it. Look at you. It’s tearing you up inside. I’m only backup, that’s all. I only want this jerk to know that you’re not alone, that you got family and we got your back.”

  She cuddled in closer. “When you say it that way, I almost feel justified in dragging you into this.”

  He pressed his lips into her hair. “You’re not dragging me. I’m a gung-ho volunteer.”

  She gave a weary little laugh and then grew serious again as she tipped her head back to meet his eyes. “Any communication you get from him, I have to read, Quinn. You don’t get to protect me from anything he says. And I want to read it right away. No putting off sharing it with me while you decide on your own what to do next. You bring it to me. We decide together.”

  A few bad words scrolled through his head. He’d hoped to have a little more leeway. But at least she’d agreed to the basic plan. “All right. He writes back, I bring it to you, we decide together what to do next.”

  She lifted herself up and kissed him. “Agreed.” She breathed the words against his mouth. Her soft breasts pressed into his chest.

  He wanted to kiss her some more, to take off that pink shirt, to see if she had anything else on under it and get rid of that, too. But they weren’t finished with the subject of Ted. “There’s more.”

  She moaned. “Oh, God. What else?”

  “Do you remember what florist those flowers came from?”

  “Bloom. Why?”

  He’d figured as much. There were only two florists in town. His sister Jody owned Bloom. Jody had a real flair. Tilly’s Flowers, at the other end of Central from Bloom, was kind of boring by comparison. “You call Jody tomorrow and you get her to look up the order for the flowers he sent you. Then you ask her not to accept any more orders from Ted.”

  “What if the order came from some big online company and Jody only filled it?”

  He bent close, nibbled on her ear and whispered, “Jody will know how to refuse any more orders from him, believe me.”

  “So, then, if he does it again, he’ll just use Tilly’s.”

  “And then you’ll block him from Tilly’s. After that, he’d have to get them delivered from Boulder. All I’m saying is, why make it easy for him? Not to mention, Jody can send you a copy of the original order and of the note that came with the flowers, meaning you’ll have proof that he sent them.”

  “Hmm. Well, proof would be good...�
��

  He studied her worried face. “You’re still not on board with this. Why?”

  She reached up and pressed her soft hand to his cheek. “I’m ashamed to admit it...”

  “You got nothing—nothing—to be ashamed of.”

  “Yes, I do. In the end, I’m my mother’s daughter through and through. I don’t want to call Jody because I’m worried about what your sister’s going to think of me.” He probably shouldn’t have grinned at that, but he did. And she shoved at his shoulder. “Don’t you laugh at me.”

  “I’m not laughing, and you’re worried about nothing. I can tell you what my sister’s gonna think.”

  “Oh, really?” She kind of looked a little like her mother right then, one eyebrow raised, all superior and cool—not that he was fool enough to tell her that. “Now you read minds?”

  He shrugged. “Jody will think that you’re engaged to me and you don’t want flowers from other guys.”

  She blinked. “Oh. Well. That’s a good point. She probably will think that. I would think that.”

  “Damn straight.” He bent close and nuzzled her throat. God, she always smelled so good.

  She wrapped her hand around the back of his head, threading her soft fingers into his hair. “Come to bed now,” she whispered.

  He kissed her once, hard and fast. “We’re not done here.”

  She groaned. “I can tell by the look in your eyes. I’m not going to like whatever it is you’re going to say next.”

  “Probably not. You need to call your mother. We need to have a talk with her.”

  “Quinn! How can you say that? I’m not speaking to my mother.”

  “Yeah, you are. At least long enough to get what we can out of her. You said she’s been in touch with Davies.”

  “Which is why I don’t want to talk to her. She betrayed me.”

  “Chloe. Think about it. We need to know exactly what she’s told him—and what he’s said to her.”

  “That’s assuming she’ll answer a single question we ask her.”

  “We need to try.”

  “No. Really, I don’t want anything to do with her. Everything else will be plenty, more than plenty.”

  He ran a finger down the side of her throat. Smooth as satin, every inch of her skin—and he needed to keep on task here. He explained, “So far, Ted’s the aggressor. Always has been. So far, the way it’s always been, he chases you. You see that, right? You see that has to change.”

  “But I don’t want to chase him or aggress on him. I just want to be finished with him, to have him completely out of my life.”

  “Yeah, well, Chloe, sometimes the only way to get rid of a problem is to make yourself ready to stand up against it. So if the time ever comes when you have to go toe-to-toe, you’re in the light.”

  “What does that mean, the light?”

  “It means that whatever you can learn about your opponent, you learn. You don’t hide from the facts. You don’t lie to yourself. You don’t go brushing things under carpets and worrying about what other people are gonna think. You admit your own weaknesses and work to get stronger. You never deny his strengths or refuse to admit how far he might go. You bring everything out in the open. Into the light.”

  She dipped her head close and rested against his shoulder. In a small voice, she asked, “My mother? Really?”

  He tipped up her chin to him. “You can call her in the morning.”

  “Ugh.”

  “You watch. It’s going to be fine.”

  “Keep telling me that.”

  He gathered the fabric of her big shirt in his two fists. “Right now I got other things on my mind. Lift up your arms.”

  * * *

  Grateful that they were finally through discussing what to do about Ted, Chloe lifted her arms. Quinn took her pink shirt up and away.

  “Come here.” She tried to reach for him again.

  “Wait.” He got up, but only to pull back the covers. “What’s this?” His eyes had that gleam in them. And the look on his face sent heat surging through her.

  “Tap pants.”

  “Pretty.” He bent close and ran a slow finger along the lace band that crossed her stomach just below her navel. Goose bumps chased themselves across her skin, and longing pounded in her veins with every hungry beat of her heart. He eased the tap pants down and tossed them over his shoulder.

  By the time he rose to his height and yanked his T-shirt over his head, she’d all but forgotten about her mother, about Ted, about the unpleasant things she needed to do in the morning to bring the situation “into the light,” as he called it.

  For now, for the rest of the night, there was only Quinn. Only this beauty they had between them, only the feel of his hands on her yearning flesh, the deep rumble of his voice filling her head. Only her need to be with him, held by him, filled so full of him that there was only her love for him and the hope and joy he brought her, day by day.

  Naked, he came down to her. She wrapped her arms around him, breathing in the clean, male scent of him, loving the feel of him under her hands. He rolled them until he was on his side of the bed, on his back, with her on top. With a gasp and a short burst of laughter at the suddenness of the move, she gazed down at him. Such a beautiful man, inside and out.

  “What?” he asked, gathering her hair and lifting it, wrapping it around his arm the way he loved to do. “You don’t want to be on top?”

  Any way he wanted it was fine with her. “I’ll be on top.” She bent and pressed her mouth to his. “On top is perfect.” Even better because they didn’t have to fumble for condoms anymore, not since the talk they’d had a couple of weeks before. She’d been on the pill for months, long before the first time he came up the hill to her. As for safety, well, there’d been no one for her since her divorce. For him, it had been over a year. And since that slipup that became Annabelle, he’d never gone without protection.

  More kisses, deep and wet and never-ending. He unwound her hair and smoothed it back over her shoulder. It only fell forward again, curling between them, tangling around them.

  He caressed her with long, lovely strokes. She rose up to her knees above him as he touched her, his big hands moving down her body, cupping her breasts, rolling her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. When he found the heart of her, she cried out. He answered with a low groan of satisfaction as he dipped inside and, oh, she was so wet and so ready.

  She couldn’t wait any longer. She reached down and wrapped her eager fingers around the thick, hard length of him. The sound that escaped him then was like a groan of pain.

  But it wasn’t pain. It was pure pleasure. She guided him into her and sank slowly down, taking him deep and then deeper still. He surged up, meeting her, filling her all the way, until she let her head drop back and gave herself up to him.

  The only word in her mouth was his name, the only thought in her head was of him, of the two of them, together, with nothing between them but heat and wonder and the slow, thick pulse of their shared pleasure, their mutual desire.

  He came first, his big hands at either side of her waist, holding her down, tight to him, hard. She felt him pulsing and that sent her over, too.

  In the end, she collapsed on top of him. He wrapped her up close in those muscled, inked arms of his. And he brushed kisses against her cheek. He breathed them into her tangled hair, laid them in a sweet, hot line along the curve of her shoulder.

  A little while later, before they went to sleep, he told her about his bedtime conversation with Annabelle. When he finished, his sea-green eyes full of fatherly doubt, he asked, “You think I did okay?”

  “You did beautifully. Just right.”

  He grunted. “But I’m not out of the woods on the subject of Annabelle’s mom yet, am I?”

  “T
ruth?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “The good news is you’ve told Annabelle what she needs to hear for now. She probably won’t bring it up again for months, maybe years.”

  “But she will bring it up again. That’s what you’re tellin’ me, right?”

  “Almost certainly, yes.”

  “Crap.”

  “Lighten up, Quinn. It’s human nature to want to understand where we came from.”

  “Yeah. Okay. I know you’re right.”

  “I am right—about this, anyway. And you really are a good dad.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Absolutely. You love her. She knows it. She’s a happy little girl. That’s what matters. The rest, you’ll work out as you go along.” She turned to glance at the bedside clock. After midnight. “Let’s get some sleep.” She sat up and turned to reach for the switch.

  He touched her shoulder. “Chloe...” His voice was hesitant now. Careful.

  She dropped her arm and focused on him. “Now what?” She said it teasingly, with a silly eye roll and a breathy laugh.

  But he wasn’t laughing. Far from it. He stared at her, a burning kind of look, his eyes gone dark as night. “I want to set the date. I want us to be married. And soon, like you said when you told me yes. I want you living in my house. Or we can buy another house that you like better. Anything you want. It doesn’t matter where we live. It matters that we belong to each other and that the whole world knows that we do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “I...” Chloe had nothing.

  It was getting to be a habit with her. Quinn brought up setting the date, and instantly her mind was a muddy swirl of all the stuff she hadn’t worked through yet, of Ted and her mother, all the leftover threads of her old, screwed-up life that kept popping back up to remind her of her mistakes, her questionable choices, her longtime fear of facing hard truths.