His mother whooped and clapped her hands. “I want one!”
“I’ll take you to get one, if you like,” Sarah offered. The smile was back in place as she addressed his mom. Her jacket had parted, giving him a look at a different T-shirt from yesterday’s. This one said, “I Do What the Voices in My Head Tell Me.”
Quinn stared at the scene in front of him. Since his mother had come to live with him—correction: since he’d traded in his awesome condo for this leviathan of a house just to accommodate her—she hadn’t been so lively.
Nelson jarred him from his woe-is-me wallowing. “Hey, Hads. Can I check out your home theater? I’m trying to get ideas for what I want to put in our new place.”
“Yeah, sure.” Though Quinn didn’t want to, inviting Nelson’s sister was the polite thing to do. “Do you want to come with us, Sarah?”
“No, she’s going to stay here and keep me company,” his bossy mother tossed out.
He arched his eyebrows in question at Sarah.
“I’ll stay here and chat with Liz,” she said with warmth directed at his mom.
Relieved, he led Nelson to the theater room. Nelson whistled softly. “Wow, Hads. This place rocks. You must love living here.”
“It’s okay.” Truth was, he missed his condo. A lot. It had spanned the top two floors of a stunning building—an architectural marvel with endless walls of glass. Perks of the building had included a rooftop gathering area complete with a heated infinity pool that drew lots of eye candy.
Clinging to the hope his mother’s unexpected presence in his life was a temporary setback, he couldn’t bring himself to put his one-of-a-kind bachelor pad on the market. So he’d let the building’s rental staff fill it with strangers who enjoyed it while he languished in suburbia.
He realized Nelson was staring at him, and he felt the need to elaborate. “Living here wasn’t my first choice, but I needed to rent a one-level quick, which meant slim pickings.”
Nelson nodded. “Your mom …”
“She’s got Parkinson’s. She doesn’t usually need the wheelchair, but with the way the disease progresses, it’ll become more and more of a necessity. She was living with my brother, but when his third kid arrived, she needed a more relaxed environment.” Quinn left out the part that she’d become more dependent on the wheelchair, and that he suspected it was amped-up stress caused by living with him. Damn, he didn’t want her to backslide, especially on account of him.
“So how does that work when you’re gone? Do you have someone come in?”
Quinn smiled at the irony. “I’ve been trying. She’s gone through three caregivers in a month. Last night, she called me at the bar to tell me she’d fired the latest one.” Seeing his mom’s number pop up had scared the ever-loving shit out of him. But after he took the call, he’d been royally pissed off.
Nelson nodded. “That’s gotta suck.”
Quinn puffed out a breath. “Yeah, it slowed me down for a hot minute. Somehow, though, I still got hammered enough to need a ride home.” He’d pounded down a slew of rum and Cokes before switching to tequila shooters. Bad idea. He hadn’t had an abundance of brain cells to spare as it was, and the partying had disabled the few he did have—as he’d proven when he wound up in the backseat of his Ram truck with the blond fish. Dory. They’d steamed up the windows fucking each other stupid.Not his smartest play, but the drunker he’d gotten, the better she’d looked, and lust mixed with frustration had given logic a swift kick to the curb.
In the end? It hadn’t been nearly as hot as his dick had led him to believe it would be, but that seemed to be the way with all his hookups lately. In this case, he’d been left with a twanged butt muscle and buyer’s remorse.
He glanced over at Nelson, who was inspecting the screen. “So you and Lily. Things good with you being crowded together in that tiny little house? Wedding’s still on for August?”
A shit-eating grin spread all over Nelson’s face, followed by a look Quinn could only call blissful satisfaction. Wonder what that felt like?
“Wedding’s definitely still on,” Nelson said, “and we’ll be settled in the new place and able to spread out before that. Sarah and Archer will move into the guesthouse.”
This brought to the fore a question that had been spinning in Quinn’s head. “So what made your sister move all of a sudden?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out. But I plan to drag it out of her today.”
“Well, good luck with that, Nelsy.” Judging by the glimpse Quinn had had of Sarah Nelson’s prickly personality, she wasn’t the type to do anything she didn’t want to. Just like his mom. They could have been peas hanging out in the same pod.
Chapter 3
I Wasn't in Line the Day God Handed Out Smarts
"Okay, Sis. Time to spill.”
Trying to ignore Gage jabbing at her for answers, Sarah intently stared out the passenger window as they streaked along the freeway toward Denver’s sawtoothed skyline. The flat browns and grays brought to mind the homespun clothing worn by characters in a favorite period series she’d watched. Dull. Different from Seattle’s cityscape. And yet the sky here, unlike the treeless late-winter terrain it spanned, was so vivid it practically shimmered. Big Sky Country. Or was that Montana? Not that it mattered because she’d see it every day going forward. Her stomach clenched with the recognition that this was her new reality.
“What do you mean, Little Bro?” She put as innocent an inflection in her voice as she dared.
“What I mean, Big Sis, is what the hell happened in Seattle?”
“Who says anything happened?”
He chuffed. “This is me you’re talking to, Sar. If you showing up on my doorstep isn’t evidence enough of some epic disturbance in the Force, I don’t know what is. Plus, you were pretty cold to my
