“What do
“Because I believed he’d be strong enough to stand up to you.” She set the tea aside. “And because on the surface, he appeared to be exactly the wrong man for you, so I didn’t worry you’d be suspicious about my real motives.”
“What do you mean, your real motives?”
“I may be an old lady, Tess dear, but I’m not blind. Quinn is a handsome, virile man. A caring father who values family, from what I’ve observed.”
“Memere.” Tess fell back against the cushions, shocked to her core. “You hired a stud for your own granddaughter.”
“I’m glad you agree about the stud factor. I told you, I have a great deal of experience reading people. Close your mouth, Tess dear. It’s unattractive to let your jaw hang open like that.” Geneva flapped a hand in Tess’s direction. “As you told me yourself, I can be one hell of a scary lady.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll get the results you want,” Tess told her steely spined grandmother with a grin. “You always do, Memere.”
QUINN SAT on his sofa that night, cushioned by pretty pillows, his daughter tucked beside him.
“Dad. Talk to me.” Rosie pulled the remote from his hand and switched off the television. “You can say anything. You can’t say anything worse than stuff I’ve already said to myself, a dozen times.”
“That sounds familiar.”
She shrugged. “I probably heard it on TV. On one of those sappy family shows. The ones with the perfect parents and the perfect kids.”
“No one would watch a show like that.”
“Don’t change the subject.”
“That sounds familiar, too,” he said. She pinched him, hard.
“You’re upset about Tess, right?”
“Yeah,” he admitted. “How’d you know?”
“Lately, everything is about Tess.”
“That’s not right,” he said, frowning. “Everything is supposed to be about you.”
Rosie shifted away with a disgusted snort. “No wonder you’re having problems.”
They sat in silence for a while, and then she began to twist the ring Tess had bought for her on one of their afternoon shopping trips. “Maybe this is about me,” she said. “About me and Tess. And you and Tess. About the three of us.”
“The three of us?”
Twist, twist, twist. “Do you love her?”
“Yeah,” he said with an unhappy sigh. “I do.”
“Does she love you?”
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know why she would, but-yeah.” He shrugged away the hurt. “I’m pretty sure she does.”
“Dad.” Rosie shifted to face him. “This is awesome.”
“It is?”
“Of course it is. Now you can marry her, and we can go live in her house, and I can get a dog, and she can pick me up every day from school and-”
“I haven’t asked her to marry me yet.”
“Well, are you going to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dad.”
“Rosie.” He rubbed a hand over his eyes, fuzzy with exhaustion and humming with nerves. “This is important. I can’t just ask someone to marry me so we can live at her house and get a dog.”
“So ask her because you love her.”
It sounded like a good idea, but maybe sleep deprivation and stress were twisting his thought processes like warm taffy. Tess might turn him down, but what did he have to lose by asking, except a chance to be with her forever?
Tess. Being with Tess forever was worth just about anything he’d have to do to get her to say yes.
“What about you?” he asked his daughter.
“Don’t worry. I love her, too, Dad.”
God, he was getting tired of this tendency toward hot, dry lumps in his throat. Unable to speak, he lifted his arm and dropped it around Rosie’s shoulders to pull her closer.
“Dad.” Her voice was muffled against his shirt.
“Yeah.”
“Let go. You’re acting like one of those sappy dads on TV.”
He gave her one last squeeze before releasing her. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I don’t think we’re ever going to be one of those sappy families.”
“Not while Tess is around.” Rosie gave him what looked suspiciously like a sappy grin. “She won’t let us.”
QUINN STOOD outside Tess’s office the next day, a bouquet of long-stemmed blue flowers in one hand and a cup of syrupy coffee in the other. He wished he had a ring, but he wanted to get the proposal out of the way first. Besides, Tess would be so picky about what he put on her finger he was safer letting her choose it.
The lady had great taste. Whatever she selected would likely bite a pretty big chunk out of his savings, but he had no doubt it would be the prettiest ring in the shop. He’d enjoy seeing it sparkle on her long, slender hand when she pointed to something on her computer monitor or clacked the keys on her keyboard or gestured as she told a tale. He’d like knowing it was on her hand when she walked down Main Street as if she owned the strip, with all the men watching and admiring and knowing she belonged to him.
And to Rosie.
Tess opened her door and stood with one hand on the knob and the other at her waist. “Are you going to stand out there all day?”
“No.”
“Are you going to come in?”
“Yeah.”
She turned and headed toward the back of the room. “You brought me coffee?” she asked over her shoulder.
“And flowers.” He extended his arm. “Here.”
“‘Here.’” She took them from him and set them on her desk. “How romantic.”
“You want romantic?”
“You tell me. Do I?”
He grew very still and stared at her, watching for some clue as to what he should say or do next.
She sucked in a deep breath and covered her eyes with her hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t snap at you. This time, anyway.” She dropped her hands with a sigh. “And the flowers are very nice. Thank you.”
“You’ll need to put them in water.” Quinn gestured awkwardly toward the bouquet and then let his arm drop. “Or something.”
“I know what to do with flowers.”
“I don’t want to talk about the damn flowers.”
“Fine.” She set her hip against her desk and crossed her arms. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Howard Cobb, for a start.”
She gripped the desk’s edges until her knuckles turned white. “Has he been arrested?”
“Brought in for questioning. Wade couldn’t keep his story straight for long, especially when parts of it never made much sense. He’s a weak man. A coward. He’d need someone like Cobb to spur him on while giving him the idea for a cover.
“And Cobb had plenty of motive, not to mention a public record of fighting Geneva over the environmental angle. So.” Tess dragged in a deep breath and exhaled a long sigh. “I guess this is the beginning of the end.”
The end. Quinn’s nerves hit hard, ahead of schedule. “So to speak.”
An uncomfortable silence filled the space between them. Neither of them moved. Eventually, Tess picked up the coffee he’d brought her and sipped.
“Sweet enough?” he asked.
“Perfect. Thanks.” She sipped again, staring at him over the rim of the cup. “Is there something else you want to talk about?” she asked.
“Rosie.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Fine.” He opened his mouth to say something else, one of the points he’d planned on making, but his spit had dried up along with his train of thought. “You like her, right?”
“She’s okay, for a kid. A kid with a smart mouth and a lot of problems.”
They’re not my problems. I’m not the one who has to live with her.
“She’s…” He cleared his throat. “She thinks…”
The alarms went off, and Tess swore as she circled her desk and grabbed her purse. “Damn meter. I swear, I-”
“Here.” Quinn pulled a jar from his pocket and set it on her desk. “I brought you this, too.”
Tess froze, her gaze locked on the fat condiment jar tied with a crumpled red bow and filled with quarters.
“Rosie added the ribbon,” Quinn said to fill another strained silence. “She said it would look better that way. Sorry I smashed it.” He poked at one of the loops, trying to make it right. “It looked a lot better when I left home.”
“It’s beautiful.”
Tess’s voice sounded funny, and Quinn glanced at her beautiful face. Suddenly it didn’t look quite so attractive. It went all pale and sort of folded up like a slow-motion implosion, and her nose was turning an ugly shade of red. And then her eyes brimmed with tears, and one of them plopped on her shiny black jacket and made an ugly splotch. “I’m sorry,” he said.
