by Marie Force
Big Mac’s face lit up with pleasure, and Mallory gave Quinn points for saying the perfect thing to her dad, who took such pride in his family. “That they are. Where’re you two off to on this fine day?”
“Quinn is taking me sailing.”
Her dad’s smile faded noticeably, making her want to ask if it was okay if she went, which was silly. She didn’t need his permission, but damn if she didn’t want his approval. So she went ahead and asked the question. “Is that okay?”
“You know what you’re doing out there?” he asked Quinn.
“Yes, sir. I’ve been sailing all my life.”
“What will you do if you see even the slightest sign of fog rolling in?”
“We’ll head back in. I’m no fan of fog, believe me.”
Big Mac seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. “Okay, then. Sorry for the inquisition, but I nearly lost three of my boys in a crash in the fog last Race Week. Fog and I aren’t friends anymore.”
“I understand completely, and you have my word that Mallory will be very safe with me.”
Mallory got the feeling that Quinn was talking about much more than sailing at this point.
After a long pause in which he never blinked, Big Mac said, “Good enough.” Shifting his gaze to Mallory, he said, “Let me know when you’re back on dry land.”
“I will.” And for the first time since she found out that he was her father, she spontaneously went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Don’t worry.”
“Might as well tell me not to breathe.”
She patted his chest. “I’ll check in when we get back.”
“You do that. Have a good time.”
“We will.”
Quinn gestured for her to go ahead of him down the ramp that led to the floating dock where his dinghy was tied. “Did I just pass a major test there?”
“I think so.”
“Are you… Are those…”
Mallory dabbed at her eyes. “I’m sorry. It’s so silly, but that was the first time I’ve ever introduced a man to my dad and watched him go into protector mode. You’ll have to excuse me for acting like a ninny over it.”
“You’re not acting like a ninny. You’re acting like someone who finally has the daddy she always wished for.”
His kind assessment had the tears flowing fast and furious, much to her dismay. She wiped them away with the sleeve of her shirt.
Then he was there with his arms around her, holding her while she took a moment. She breathed in the incredibly appealing scent of soap and citrus that, when combined, made for a rather potent formula. “I’m okay now.” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to put a damper on the day.”
“You didn’t.”
“I’m still getting used to it all, you know?”
“I totally get it, and no apology needed.”
Mallory took advantage of the ride to the boat to get herself together. As they passed the far end of the McCarthy Marina pier, her dad waved to her.
Mallory returned his wave, noting that his usual big smile was missing from his face. After what happened last year, he was more worried than he would’ve been about one of his kids going out on the water.
One of his kids… I’m one of his kids. A wave of regret and sadness for everything she’d missed with him and her siblings had her weeping again the way she had after she first met them and came to understand exactly what her mother had kept her from by refusing to reveal her father’s identity. She hated herself for having a meltdown in front of Quinn, but she couldn’t seem to help it.
He tied up to a bigger than expected sailboat and helped her onboard, passing her bag to her, all of it done without acknowledgment of her blubbering-mess status.
She noted that he moved more carefully than usual as he transferred from the dinghy to the boat.
Brutus barked a greeting from the cabin.
“Before I let him out, you want to talk about it?”
“You can let him out. He wants to see you, and it’s probably hot in there.”
“The hatches and windows are open for him. I’ll try not to let him jump on you, but he’s enthusiastic when meeting new people.”
“I’m ready.”
Chapter 12
Quinn unlocked the cabin and ordered Brutus to be nice as he introduced the adorable dog to Mallory. In the scope of two seconds, Brutus managed to lick most of her face and make her laugh so hard, she nearly forgot she’d been crying two minutes earlier.
“Brutus! Stop it. Sit down and be a good boy.”
Brutus’s rump dropped to the deck, and his tail thump, thump, thumped with excitement. A mixed breed of multiple colors, he had floppy ears and big paws. Mallory immediately thought he was adorable.
“What a good boy you are,” Mallory said, framing his face with her hands and scratching his ears.
“He loves that.”
“I can tell,” she said, laughing when Brutus’s eyes seemed to roll back in his head from pleasure.
“You’ve made a friend for life.”
The comment touched her and made her wonder if he was talking about the dog or him.
“Keep an eye on him while I get the boat ready?”
“Yep.”
Quinn went up to the front of the boat to do something with the sails, and by the time he returned to the cockpit, Brutus was practically in Mallory’s lap.
“Push him away if he gets to be too much.”
“He’s a love.”
“He does good snuggle.”
“He certainly does.”
Quinn pulled the navy cover off the sails, cranked on something and tugged on some ropes, the combined effect raising a huge sail that flapped in the wind.
Brutus barked at the sail.
“Hush,” Quinn said. “You know what that is.” He went back up to the front of the boat to cast off the mooring, setting them free.
Mallory noticed that he was careful in the way he moved about the boat, as if he didn’t entirely trust the prosthetic. She wanted to ask him about that but wasn’t sure if the question would be welcome. Instead, she contented herself with petting Brutus and watching Quinn assess the wind and the sails as he took the big silver wheel to steer the boat. Ropes were adjusted until he was satisfied.
Then he sat on the other side of the cockpit, propping one leg on her bench and keeping one hand on the wheel. “Now you can say you’ve been sailing.”
“I love it.” She found the entire experience exhilarating, from the salty sea air to the glide of the boat through the blue water to the heat of the sun on her face and her handsome companion. “Thanks for taking me.”
“Happy to have you.” He glanced up at the sails, made an adjustment on the wheel and then turned his formidable gaze on her. “You doing okay?”
She nodded. “Sorry about that before. Sometimes… It’s just hard to be reminded of what I was denied my entire life by my mother. My feelings toward her are very complicated these days, and of course, that makes me feel bad after everything she did and sacrificed for me. And it’s compounded by the fact that she’s not here anymore and can’t defend herself.”
“You can still appreciate the things she did for you while being angry about what she kept from you.”
She smiled at him. “I can? Really?”
“Yes, I give you permission to do both at the same time.”
“She was afraid he’d try to take me away from her.”
“Did she have reason to fear that?”
“Not because of him. I think it was more because her parents disowned her when she got pregnant out of wedlock. That was a big deal back then. She probably panicked at the thought of ending up all alone.”
“I’ve known him all of five minutes, and I can already say he doesn’t seem the type to take a baby from its mother.”
“I knew that right away, too, but she was young and alone and afraid. That’s all I’ve got when it comes to defending what she did.” She looked down at Brutus, w
ho was now sleeping with his head on her chest and his body between her legs. “I keep thinking I’ve gotten over the anger, and then something will happen, like just now, to remind me of what I missed.”
“And then you’re mad all over again.”
“With a dead woman who can’t defend herself and who did everything for me.”
“You should cut yourself a break, Mallory. What she did, for whatever reason she did it, was unfair to you and your father. Admitting that doesn’t take anything away from what a good mother she was to you. If you can, try to separate them in your mind.”
“You’re absolutely right, and that’s what I’m trying to do, but every so often, it gets muddied. I have a whole lot of emotions where she’s concerned. Mostly I miss her and wish we’d had more time together. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her when Ryan died so suddenly. She came out to San Francisco the day he died and stayed for a month.”
“Maybe if you think about that stuff when the anger hits, you’ll be able to reconcile it a little better.”
“Maybe so.”
“After I got back to the boat last night, I was thinking about you losing your husband the way you did and how awful that must’ve been.”
“It’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, by far.”
“I was wondering—and don’t tell me if it’s too hard to talk about—but how did you hear about it when it happened?”
Touched by his interest in knowing the details, Mallory shifted her gaze to the water rushing by the boat as she thought back to that long-ago day that had changed everything. “I was in the NICU with a set of micro-preemie twins, thinking the very worst thing that could happen to me that day would be losing one of them. It was a really complicated case, and my attending had put me in charge of their care, and nothing else, for my entire shift. I’ll never forget what he said when he left me to do rounds. ‘Don’t take your eyes off them for a second, not even to pee or eat or anything until I get back.’”
“Sounds like a real prince among doctors.”
“He was actually the best. I learned so much from him, but he was exacting, to say the least, and I never wanted him to be unhappy with me. So I did exactly what he told me to and watched over them like a hawk.”
She took a deep breath before she continued. “One of the NICU nurses came in to tell me I’d received an urgent call from the surgical ward, asking me to come down there immediately. I had no idea why they’d want me there. What’s funny is that it never occurred to me for one second that it was something to do with Ryan. I took my eyes off my babies to look at her, and the expression on her face told me whatever was going on, it was bad. She said my attending was on his way to take over for me, which scared me even more than I already was. By then I was certain I was about to get fired, although I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. The attending came rushing in a few minutes later and told me to go. Just go, he said. The nurse was a friend, and she went with me down to the surgical ward, where I was met by what seemed like the entire medical staff. One of them, Ryan’s closest friend at work, put his arm around me and took me off to the side to tell me he’d collapsed in surgery.
“At first I thought, oh, good, he only fainted. We can work with that. But then I asked which room he was in, and his friend started crying. Even then, I still wasn’t prepared for him to say that Ryan had basically dropped dead.”
“Who would ever be prepared for that?” Quinn said softly. He turned the boat and switched to her side of the cockpit, nudging Brutus to move to the other side so he could sit closer to her. He raised his arm, and Mallory slid closer to him, loving the way his arm felt around her shoulders.
“I don’t remember much after that. I have big blank spots in my memory.”
“I don’t remember much of anything for two weeks after I was injured. I swear that’s the brain’s way of protecting you from things you’re better off not knowing.”
“Probably. That day marked the start of a long downward spiral for me. I went from being a married doctor to widowed and, a couple of months later, unemployed when I couldn’t work up the fortitude to return to a job I’d loved. I never stepped foot in that hospital again.”
“Can’t say I blame you.”
“I lasted about six months in San Fran before I packed up our place and went home to my mother in Providence. The drinking got pretty bad after that, until my mom got my best friend, Trish, involved, and the two of them wrestled me into rehab. They saved my life, but you couldn’t tell me that then.”
“It started with pain meds for me after I was injured. I know what it’s like to not want help that others are forcing on you.”
“Mom and Trish did the right thing, but it was a long, hard-fought battle that was finally won the second time I went to rehab.”
“What did the trick that time?”
“A counselor helped me see I was using alcohol to numb the pain of my loss rather than confronting the pain head on. So I confronted the pain head on, and that was tons of fun. But I was better afterward. Something clicked that time, and when I got out, I had no desire to go back to the way I’d been living before. That’s when I started taking steps to become an RN and pick up the pieces of my professional life, such as it was.”
“Why’d you decide to become a nurse rather than finishing your medical training?”
“I wanted to be more involved with patient care than I’d been as a resident. I used to envy the nurses who had a real rapport with the patients that we often didn’t have the time to establish.”
“I can understand that. As a trauma surgeon, I had very little contact with the patients under my care. I pieced them back together and handed them off to the clinical staff. The nurses did most of the heavy lifting.”
“It won’t be like that here, you know. You’ll be very involved with all of them—and their families.”
“Believe it or not, I’m actually looking forward to that. Hey, are you hungry?”
“I could eat something. Oh, and I brought some snacks that are in my bag.”
“Take the wheel and keep it right where it is.”
“Wait, you want me to drive the boat?”
“I want you to take the helm. If you’re going to be a sailor, you need to learn the lingo. Come here. I’ll show you how before I leave you in charge for a minute.”
Mallory stood and took a second to get her sea legs under her before she joined him at the helm.
“Put your hands right here.” He maneuvered them so she stood in front of him. Reaching around her, he placed his hands on top of hers and helped her gain a feel for how the wheel controlled the boat. “See?”
“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to learn anything with him wrapped around her. Then he dropped his hands from the wheel, put his arms around her and kissed her neck.
“You’re doing great,” he said, his breath warm against her sensitive skin.
“I’m going to crash if you keep that up.”
“No, you won’t. I won’t let you.”
Mallory wanted to lean back against him, to let him hold her up when the load became too heavy to carry on her own. For someone who prided herself on fierce independence, that thought alone should’ve made her think twice. But with him pressed against her, she couldn’t be bothered with anything as boring as thinking.
“You got it?” he asked.
“I hope so.”
“I’ll be quick.”
Because it felt so good to be held by him, she wanted to ask him not to let go. But she didn’t say that or anything when he left her in charge of the boat and went down to the cabin. Mallory had things under control until the sail caught a gust and the boat began to list to the side. “Quinn! What’s it doing?”
“Heeling. Totally normal. Steer the boat into the wind if it becomes too much for you.”
She did as he directed and marveled at how that slight adjustment righted the boat, but it also made the sails flap uselessly.
“Too much,” he said. “Fall off a little bit the other way.”
She made that adjustment and smiled when the sails filled, propelling them forward once again.
“You’re a natural,” he said when he came up with a tray of sandwiches, chips, fruit, cookies and bottled water.
“Sure, I am,” she said with a laugh. “What do I do when we run out of water over there?” She nodded to the beach that was getting closer by the second.
“We tack, which is the sailing term for turning. Let me show you how.”
He walked her through the steps from releasing the main sheet—which he said was another word for rope—and turning the boat, and how to always watch out for her head when the boom came across the cockpit. “It’s too high to hit you on this boat, but that’s not the case on all boats. You haven’t lived until you’ve taken a boom to the skull.”
“Sounds pleasant.”
“It’s not. Trust me on that. You want me to take over?”
“Not yet. I think I might be figuring it out.”
He handed her half a turkey sandwich wrapped up in a napkin.
“Thank you. You’re going to spoil me if you keep feeding me.”
“I can live with that.”
Brutus lay with his head on his paws, staring at Quinn, begging without making a scene. Quinn rewarded the dog’s patience with a big piece of sandwich and a handful of chips.
“Something tells me that dog is frightfully spoiled.”
“Ridiculously so,” he conceded. “And I make no apologies for it.”
“Nor should you. He’s a good boy.”
“He really saved me when I was at my lowest point after rehab when I was trying to figure out my next move. One of the nurses at the rehab facility suggested I get a dog when I was ready to. She said having a pet would force me out of my pity party and get me out for the daily walk I refused to take on my own. She was right about both those things.”
“Nurses are wise, wise people.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“I had a question after last night, too,” she said tentatively.
“What’s that?”