Calico Cupid

by Kay P. Dawson

  Vicki nodded in agreement. “She’s already been hinting at me that I should be finding someone. Something along the lines of if I’m not careful, I’ll be the last single Quinn.”

  They’d enjoyed their meal and now the guests were up dancing and mingling. Stanley had curled up under their table, completely played out from his duties today. Somehow, Travis had become his dog-sitter today and he’d mentioned that even he was starting to wonder if he wasn’t actually some kind of animal whisperer.

  Since the wedding wasn’t as formal as some, they’d left the seating up to everyone to sit wherever they wanted. Caroline had been relieved when Travis had found her after the ceremony and made sure she was at a table with him and his sisters. She knew a few of the other Quinns, but she wasn’t sure how comfortable she would have been sitting at a table with strangers.

  “It wouldn’t be the end of the world to be the last single Quinn, would it?” Caroline laughed at Vicki’s pretend look of horror.

  “Are you kidding me? Everyone knows whoever the last one standing is, will be hounded by Grams every minute of every day until they are married too. At least now, she’s focusing on more than one at a time.” She shuddered. “No one wants to be last.”

  “I’m sure you guys are exaggerating. I think it’s kind of sweet how much your grandma cares about you all so much.”

  Robyn laughed as she leaned against her husband’s shoulder. “Me too. They’re just being spoil-sports.”

  Travis rolled his eyes at his sister. “Easy for you to say. But you were feeling the exact same way a few months ago.” He smiled at Caroline. “We aren’t actually annoyed with Grams, we just like to tease her. Truthfully, we know she just wants us all to be happy.”

  “And in a couple of weeks, she’ll be beaming all over again.”

  Caroline turned to see who had walked up behind them and joined their conversation. She knew it was one of the Quinn cousins, but she couldn’t remember which one.

  “Hi, Raina.” Travis moved over to let his cousin pull in a chair at the table. “Caroline, this is one of the cousins I mentioned who is getting married in the next double ceremony.”

  “Yep, that’s how our family rolls. We don’t do anything simple or small. Some families go years between weddings, we go just a couple of weeks and even double them up for fun.”

  She shook the other woman’s hand as she sat down. “Although we might have been tempted to join in on the wedding today if not for the fact we are waiting for our brother to get home. He’s been gone for so long and there’s no way we were getting married without him here.”

  “Oh, right. I’ve been hearing everyone talking today about your brother coming home from the Marines soon. Everyone is quite excited.”

  “Well, first I’m going to hit Bobling for being gone so long, but then I’ll be happy to see him.”

  Caroline choked slightly on the sip of water she’d just taken. “Bobling?”

  Raina nodded as though that was a perfectly normal name for a man. “Yes, well that’s just what we call him. He says when he gets back, he expects us to call him by his given name, Jake, but that’s not going to happen. He’ll always be Bobling.”

  Caroline pressed her lips together and looked at Travis who was grinning. “I’ll be sure to call him Jake when I meet him.”

  They chatted for a while about the wedding and Grandma Gertie, then a slow song came on. She felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up to see Dustin standing behind her with his hand out. His grin was so wide, his dimple took up most of his cheek.

  “Could I have this dance, please?” He bowed slightly for dramatic effect as he waited for her to take his hand.

  Laughing, she took it and stood up, letting him pull her chair out from behind her. As she turned to walk to the dance floor, she noticed Travis was watching intently with an annoyed look on his face.

  Surely, he wasn’t jealous of his cousin? Yes, Dustin was a very good-looking man, but he wasn’t Travis. And he was also a sweet guy, but not as sweet as Travis.

  And honestly, why would he be jealous? He could have asked her to dance if he’d wanted to. Plus it wasn’t like they were actually a couple or anything.

  But as Dustin took her into his arms and started to move on the dance floor, her eyes kept finding Travis sitting at the table. He was watching every move and she found herself wishing he was the one she was dancing with.

  “Travis looks like he’s ready to fight a bear.”

  Dustin’s voice laughed into her ear. She looked up at him with her eyebrows pulled together. “Are you trying to annoy him by dancing with me?”

  He shook his head, even as the grin remained on his face. “Not at all. I simply wanted to dance with the prettiest girl in the room.”

  Now she laughed and rolled her eyes. “Well, I’d take that as a compliment if you weren’t related to all of the other women in the room.”

  “True, there isn’t a whole lot of single girls I’m not related to at this venue. Which is why I don’t know why Travis hasn’t had you up on this dance floor before now.”

  “You are trying to make him jealous!”

  He just shrugged and spun her around closer to the table where Travis sat glaring at his cousin. “I can’t help it if he’s too thick to notice when a pretty girl should be asked to dance. He’s never been much of a charmer around women, so I figured a little nudge might not hurt him.”

  She chuckled to herself. “Travis is very charming. He’s just being a gentleman. We’ve never even discussed anything more than friendship.”

  Dustin raised his eyebrow as he looked down at her. “Maybe, but I’ve known Travis my whole life and when I see how he looks at you, he doesn’t want to just be your friend. I would pretty much bet my life savings on that.”

  Caroline looked back at Travis just as the song was ending. He’d stood up and was now walking toward them. “And I think maybe he might be ready to admit it,” Dustin whispered in her ear as Travis came and put his hand out for her.

  He led her across the dance floor and to the door that led out to a courtyard. Her heart pounded in her chest as she wondered if Dustin was right.

  Or was it just wishful thinking?

  Chapter Twelve

  “Sorry if it seemed I was dragging you out of there. I just needed some fresh air and I wanted the chance to talk to you without a hundred Quinns standing around.” He still held onto her hand as they slowly walked up a pathway toward the back of the hotel. The sun was just going down over the horizon and he noticed the coolness of the night in the air. He quickly shrugged out of his vest and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Sorry, I never even thought it might be chilly out here for you. I don’t have a jacket, but you can keep your arms tucked up under this.”

  She smiled at him as she held the vest closed near her throat. “Thank you, this will be fine.”

  He started to walk again, not even sure where they were going. Tucking his hands into his front pockets, he nervously looked out at the colors in the sky beyond them. “The sky is giving us a bit of a show tonight. I don’t remember the last time I saw so many colors.”

  He knew he sounded like a fool, but now that he had her alone, all the things he’d wanted to say as he’d watched her dance with his cousin were gone.

  “The sunsets in Quinn Valley are beautiful. The window in the apartment above your parents’ office faces to the west, so I’ve been able to see just about every one since I arrived.”

  He smiled nervously at her, grateful she wasn’t questioning him for dragging her outside to talk about sunsets. Why couldn’t he be more like Dusty and be able to sweep a woman off her feet simply by smiling at her?

  He walked over to a bench along the path and waited for her to sit down, then sat beside her, keeping his eyes on the fading light in the sky. He leaned forward slightly and placed his elbows on his knees, cupping his hands together in front.

  What was he supposed to say? He couldn’t just blurt out that he couldn’t s
top thinking about her, or how whenever he was around her his heart beat so erratically, he was sure he should likely see a doctor.

  “I think Dustin was trying to make you jealous.”

  She broke the silence, offering him a way to open up to her. He chuckled softly in his throat.

  “Yeah, I figured that’s what he was doing. He knows he’s a bit of a ladies’ man, so sometimes I’m left feeling like a bumbling teenage boy around women when I’m near him. Even though I’ve told him there wasn’t really anything between us, I guess he figured I wasn’t telling him the complete truth.” He finally got the courage to peek over and offer her a smile.

  “Well, sometimes women are more attracted to the bumbling guys than the ones who are more sure of themselves.” She shrugged. “Dustin is a great guy, but not someone I’d ever be attracted to.”

  He swallowed the relief that rose from his chest. However, she’d never come out and said she was attracted to him either.

  “So, I know it’s none of my business, and you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, but you seemed upset that day I showed up and you’d received those flowers.”

  He cringed inwardly as he looked back to the now dark horizon. What a way to open up a conversation. He’d been wondering about them since that day, because he could see how upset she was. If there was someone back home she was missing, then obviously there would be no point in pursuing anything more with her.

  But he could have found a better way to bring it up instead of just throwing it out there like that.

  As they sat in the quiet of the evening, he was just about to change the subject to anything else he could think of to try and save some face.

  Finally, she sighed quietly and pulled his vest tighter around her. “They were from my ex-boyfriend. I’ve mentioned him to you, but never really told you much about anything that happened, or why I ended up all the way in Quinn Valley.”

  He glanced over at her, offering her a smile. “You don’t need to tell me anything, if you don’t want to. I know we all have things in our past.” He didn’t have any right to pry, but he needed to understand why she held herself at a distance and whether or not he was wasting time letting his heart go to a woman who could never return it to him.

  “It’s okay. I can talk about it. It’s just that I still don’t know where I’m at, or even what really happened.” She took a deep breath.

  “I was with Lawrence for a long time. We started dating in high school, and I was sure I was going to spend my life with him.”

  Travis clenched his jaw at those words. She’d obviously loved him a great deal to have believed he was the one she would be with forever.

  “And the thing is, I thought Lawrence really was a nice person, so that’s what made everything so hard. But it just wasn’t all the time. I was so tired of never knowing when he was having a good day or bad. I was constantly walking on eggshells around him because when he did lose his temper, the way he spoke to me was awful.” She shrugged sadly.

  “But I always forgave him because everyone knew how much he doted on me, and I just felt like maybe that’s how things were supposed to be. He was the image of the perfect boyfriend. Sometimes he was great to be around, and I’d almost forget the bad times. Every time I’d think I’d had enough, he would be good for a while, and I’d start to hope things had changed. Eventually, I started to realize that I was just going through the motions and wasn’t even living anymore.”

  He watched as she chewed on her bottom lip, trying to find all the words to explain everything. He knew it must have been so jumbled in her mind for so long, she was having a hard time sorting it all out.

  “I always had to choose between my family or him, and he didn’t like it if I wanted to do stuff with them. I only have my dad and brother, Dylan, and we’ve always been close, especially since my mom died.”

  “Didn’t he know you were close with your family when he started dating you?”

  She nodded. “He did, but I guess he figured over time I’d let them go and spend my time with just him. Over the years, it got to the point I felt like I had to lie if I even wanted to go visit with my brother or my dad. It wasn’t worth the argument I knew would happen if I told the truth.”

  She sat quietly for a few moments, but he knew she wanted to keep talking so he just waited for her to continue.

  “The worst part, though, was his anger. He never raised a hand to me, but the words he spoke were sometimes worse than if he’d hit me with his fist. Then within a few hours of silent treatment, I’d usually just give in and apologize for whatever I’d done to make him so angry. Sometimes it was something as small as not calling him back when he’d left a message. He just became so grumpy all the time, I got to the point I didn’t even want to be around him because I never knew what mood he’d be in.” She sighed heavily.

  “And the funny thing was, it wasn’t just me he was grumpy with. It’s like he was mad at the world. No one did anything right or the way he thought it should be. I ended up just feeling like I must be crazy, because during the times he was in a good mood, things were great. What everyone saw was the wonderful, loving and doting boyfriend who would do anything for me, and who gave me anything I wanted. And I knew he loved me, but his anger destroyed who I was inside. I just started to give up. I’d already given up so much because he didn’t like it—my family, friends, horseback riding…”

  She swallowed hard, and his arm made its way around her shoulders, offering her comfort. Her head rested back onto his arm.

  “About a year ago, I started fighting back and not letting him control everything. That started to make him even angrier, but I soon realized that my dad, my brother, and my closest friends all knew the truth. They’d watched me become withdrawn and they could see what was happening. It gave me the courage I needed to continue to stand up for myself, and one day when I’d had enough, I told him we were over.” She grimaced as she relived that scene.

  “He promised to get help for his anger, but I tried to tell him it was too late. I’d been asking him to do that for years. It killed me to break up with someone who I knew was a good person deep down, and who I know loved me, but it was destroying me to stay with him. His family and friends were devastated that I could walk away from someone who treated me so well, and after everything he’d done for me. They made me feel like I was making the biggest mistake of my life.”

  “You had to do what was best for you. No one should stay with someone because of a sense of obligation or because they hope that person will change. And no one should spend their lives afraid to be themselves, or walking on eggshells all the time, not sure how they will be treated that day.”

  “I know that, deep down. But it was hard to believe it when he kept coming over to talk to me, reminding me of the good times. He made me feel so guilty for leaving him. We’d been together so long, it was like losing one of my best friends.”

  She looked at him and smiled. “That’s why I ended up here. After a few weeks of Lawrence continuing to try wearing me down, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I knew I needed a fresh start, away from him and the memories tied to everything back home. My dad and brother pitched in and gave me some money to get away. They said they wanted to see me get myself back.”

  After everything she’d told him, he knew he had to give her time to find herself again. The last thing he wanted was to push her into something she might not be ready for.

  “And it’s been the best decision I’ve ever made. Being here, away from everything back there has opened my eyes to how much I’d lost of myself. I already feel like I’m me again, as silly as it sounds. These past couple of weeks, being around you and your family has given me the chance to just be me.”

  “It doesn’t sound silly at all. I’m glad you came here, Caroline. And I’m even happier to hear that you’ve started to find yourself again.”

  Now that he knew the truth about Lawrence and what had made her decide to come to Quinn Valley, h
e believed they just might have a future together after all, when she was ready.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You know, Bentley isn’t going to be impressed when you come home smelling of some strange animal. Especially when he’s been stuck at home by himself all day.” Travis looked over at her as they rode over the pasture beyond the pen. Wayne looked like he wanted to run across the field, but Travis was holding him back and staying at a nice slow pace for her and Frank.

  “Bentley is never too impressed with much. Besides, he’s probably already sitting over on your back deck wondering why you aren’t letting him in.”

  Travis chuckled and looked ahead. “I never thought about that. He might be mad at me now too.”

  They’d started just in the pen again today, and then she’d felt brave enough to go on her own for a while. Finally, she’d asked Travis if they could go beyond the pen and see how she did. She’d been doing the exercises ever since he’d given them to her, and she could already tell it was helping her leg. Normally when sitting for this long, especially in something like a saddle, it would be aching. But at the moment, she couldn’t feel any pain at all.

  Her eyes stayed on Travis, taking in every detail of his profile. Ever since the wedding this past weekend, and the long talk they’d had, she felt like a weight she’d been carrying for months was finally gone. It was like the final piece of her past was let go, allowing her to be happy again.

  She still wasn’t sure what it meant as far as Travis, but she hoped they could figure that out soon. As always, he was being the perfect gentleman, even though secretly she wished sometimes he wasn’t.

  “There’s a little patch of trees just up over this hill. We can stop there for a few minutes, then make our way back. I don’t want you doing too much today that could set you back.”