Chapter 21

Quinn’s heart felt like it had stopped beating.

Frozen in place, all she could do was blink as his words burrowed through her shocked brain. There was someone else? But then why did he…? How could he…?

Before her mind went to all the dark places of who this other woman was and what she and Rock had done the past week, Fury stepped in, pushing the hurt defensively behind her as she championed for Quinn. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she spat. “You’ve been sleeping with me while you’re committed to another woman?”

His expression softened. “Geez, Quinn. No, of course not. It’s not like that. It’s not another woman. I wouldn’t do that to you. But there is someone else. Someone I’m thinking of. That I’m trying to think of. Someone who deserves something better.”

She was so confused. Her emotions were tumbling like they were being spun in a mixer. “What are you talking about? Who?”

“Max.”

Her breath caught, and she brought her hand up to cover her mouth, a shudder of emotion ripping through her chest.

Max?

Not another woman. But her son?

“Max? Why? What does my son have to do with this? I thought you liked him.”

“I do. I love that kid. I know that sounds crazy. He’s not mine, but this last week, spending time with him, with you both, I completely fell in love with the little guy. He climbed right into my heart, and that’s why we can’t do this. Why I can’t do this. I can’t do this to him.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“No. You wouldn’t. That’s because you’re not a young boy that’s had to grow up without his dad.”

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head, feeling his words like a slap to the face.

“I’m not saying you haven’t done a great job. Max is an amazing kid, and so much of that is attributed to you and how you’ve raised him. But he has a chance to have his dad in his life, and I can’t be the one to screw up that chance.”

“His dad? What are you talking about? This is about Monty? Rock, you’re not making any sense.”

“I saw you, okay. I saw you through the window last night when I brought the books and the LEGOs for Max.”

“I knew they were from you.”

“Who else did you think they were from?”

“Max assumed that Monty brought them, and he didn’t do anything to correct that assumption.”

A muscle twitched in Rock’s clenched jaw. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. Those were really thoughtful gifts, and Max loved them. Why didn’t you give them to him yourself?”

“I was going to. But then I saw you through the window. You were all three sitting on the floor, playing with the dog. I could hear Max giggling, and you…” He paused and swallowed. “You were laughing too. You looked like a family, a real family, and it struck me, in that moment, that that’s what you would look like if I weren’t around.”

“But you are around.”

“Not really. Not all the time. I have this whole other life. My career. I don’t even live here. I still have the team, and I’m gone all the time. I’m not even home long enough to have a dog. I’ve made a lot of selfish decisions in my life, things that affected not just me, but other people around me, people I cared about. People I loved. And I don’t want to be that guy anymore. I don’t want to be that selfish guy who only cares about himself.”

“But what about me? Do I even get a say in this matter?”

“No.” His voice was soft but stern. “Because your say doesn’t matter. The only one who matters is Max.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “I know. I know what it’s like to grow up without a dad. And I don’t want Max to know what that feels like.”

“But what about us? What about everything that’s happened between us the past week?”

“This last week has been amazing. And maybe things would have been different if Hill hadn’t shown up when he did.” He reached his hand out, as if to touch her, then changed his mind and let it fall. “Hell, I know they would have been. But he did show up. And he’s here now, and he’s making it pretty clear that he wants to be in Max’s life. So, it doesn’t matter what I want, or even what you want. It matters what’s best for that sweet kid.”

How could she argue with his logic? He was making perfect sense. To her head. But all her heart heard was that he was leaving. That he was walking away from her again.

“We can work this out.”

“I am trying to work this out. I’ve been thinking about this for days. And this is the answer. The only answer. The thing that is best for Max. He’s a great kid, Q. You’ve done an amazing job with him. You’re a great mom. But a kid needs a mom and a dad. And Hill is stepping up and trying to be there. And as much as I can’t stand the guy, my opinion doesn’t matter. So far, he’s proven he wants to be a father to his kid.”

She rolled her eyes. “After eight years of ignoring him.”

“I hear you. But he’s here now.”

“He’s only been here for a few days.”

He pounded his fist onto the workbench again. “Damn it, I’m trying to think about someone besides myself. I’m trying to be a better man than I’ve been in the past. Don’t make this harder on me than it already is.”

She winced and tried to take a step back, but he reached for her, pulled her to him, and held her in a tight hug. He pressed a kiss to the side of her head, then drew his head back and looked down into her face.

He touched her cheek, laying his palm tenderly against her skin. His voice was low, gruff with emotion, and his pain shown evident in his eyes. “I love you, Quinn. I always have. I always will. But it’s not enough to tell you that. I’ve said it before. This time, I’m trying to show you. Show you that I love you and your son enough to let you go.”

He tilted his head and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. One sweet, tender, beautiful kiss that left Quinn’s body aching for more. Then he did what he said he would do.

He let her go.

He turned and walked out of the barn, leaving her standing—heartbroken and stunned—next to the workbench, disregarded and abandoned. Both her thoughts and his tools were jumbled, spread in disarray, the only sounds in the barn the hushed flutter of the swallows in the eaves and the sad country song playing softly on the radio.

* * *

The walk back across the pasture was spent crying over and cussing at Rockford James. He made a crazy sort of sense, and Quinn tried to see it from his point of view. But that’s what kept sticking in her craw. It was all from his point of view. She didn’t even get a vote.

Well, screw him.

She didn’t need him anyway.

She didn’t need anyone. She’d taken care of herself and her son just fine over the last eight years. It was time to quit pining over a guy she’d loved when she was a teenager.

So what if she still loved him and he said he still loved her? Sometimes things didn’t work out. That was life. Shit happens.

She still had to get out of bed in the morning and face her day and take care of herself and Max. No one else was going to do it for her.

Pushing her shoulders back, she wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand as she rounded the corner of the barn. She didn’t want Max or her dad to see her crying. Didn’t want to have to explain that she and Rock were through.

But she didn’t have to worry. Her dad’s truck was gone. The only car in the driveway was Monty’s beat-up blue sedan.

Great. Just what she needed. More humiliation.

It was bad enough that Rock no longer wanted her, now she had to face Monty, the man who’d made no secret of the fact that he hadn’t wanted her all those years ago.

His car was empty, and she didn’t see him in the living room or kitchen as she climbed the porch steps and peered through the front windows.

Is this how it had been for Rock the night before? When he’d seen them through the window, laughing and playing with the puppy?

How they must have looked like a perfect, happy family to him.

Where was Monty?

She scanned the outbuildings. He must be in the barn or walking around the farmyard.

Maybe she could slip quietly into the house, and he wouldn’t even have to know she was there. Then maybe he’d drive away, and she wouldn’t have to face him at all.

The last thing she wanted right now was to make small talk, or any kind of talk at all with her ex.

All she wanted to do was crawl back into her bed—the bed where she’d made reckless love to Rock only a few nights before—pull the covers over her head, and lick her brokenhearted wounds.

She stepped into the house, catching the screen door so it didn’t slam behind her.

A makeshift gate of blankets and chairs had been stretched from the wall to one side of the kitchen island. She could see Truman asleep on a blanket next to the refrigerator, most likely comforted by the steady hum of the appliance.

The note she’d written still sat on the kitchen table, but it had been flipped over, and her dad had scrawled another note back, telling her he’d taken Max into town to pick up the things for the dog.

She jumped as a noise sounded from down the hallway, like a clink of metal against plastic.

Grabbing a chunky candle from the center of the table, she held it up, her first instinct to reach for a weapon, ready to clobber a burglar. Not that a cupcake-scented candle was much of a weapon, but at least it was something.

Taking a deep breath, she tried to slow her pounding heart, laughing at herself as she realized it probably was not a home invasion, but more likely Monty. He must have decided to wait for Max in his room.

She quietly approached the door to her son’s room—just in case—but the laughter died on her lips when she saw Monty standing next to Max’s bed, dumping out the contents of his savings bank and stuffing the bills into his pockets.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Monty’s head whipped up, his eyes round, his gaze searching the room as if desperate to find a plausible explanation for why he could possibly be stealing from his own son.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he stammered.

Quinn could see the sheen of sweat on his upper lip. “Oh, really? It’s not? Because it looks like you’re stealing the money from Max’s savings bank—the money he put aside to give to his Sunday school class and to save for something special. But if it’s not what it looks like, then by all means, please enlighten me.”

He had the gall—and the arrogance—to look offended. “I’m not stealing it. I’m just borrowing it. Just until my next paycheck.”

“Paycheck? What paycheck? You never even mentioned that you had a job.”

His face changed, like a mask shifting into place. His features went from slack guilt to contempt, his lip curling into a disdainful sneer. “You think you’re so much better than me.”

She cringed, drawing her head back as if he’d thrown something more at her than his scornful words. “What are you talking about?”

“You walk around, acting all holier than thou, with your schedules and your expensive car and your filthy rich boyfriend.”

She let out a harsh laugh. “Who? Rock? He’s not my boyfriend. And I don’t have an expensive car.”

He crossed the room in two large, foreboding steps and pressed her back against the wall. His eyes narrowed in hatred, and she could smell onions and stale cigarettes as his hot breath grazed her cheek. “Don’t lie to me. I see the way he looks at you. The way you look at each other. I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing, but you’re not fooling me.”

“I’m not trying to fool you. Or anyone. Why would I? I don’t care what you think of me.”

“You should care. Because I know things. Things that could tear your perfect little life apart.”

What the heck was this guy talking about? “Are you threatening me?”

He offered her another scornful sneer. “Not threatening. Just letting you know that you’re not holding as many cards as you think. I didn’t realize what claiming Max as my son could do for me before, but I do now.”

“What did you say? You didn’t realize what claiming Max could do for you?” Fury built in her, forming a swirling ball of heat in her gut and spreading out through her limbs. This man was in her son’s bedroom, stealing money from his piggy bank, and he had the audacity to tell her that he just realized what Max could do for him, like her child was some kind of commodity. And then to threaten her?

No. This shit was not going to fly.

She pushed back against him, summoning up all of the bravery she could muster. “Get the hell out of here. I knew this was a mistake, letting you in here. I want you out of this house and out of Max’s life.”

He laughed, a hard, mean huff of a sound. “Or what?”

“Or I’ll throw you out.”

“Yeah? You and whose army? I don’t see anyone here but us.”

Shit.

He was right.

Heart pounding, she realized the desperateness of her situation.

She was alone.

Even if she screamed for help, no one was around to hear her.

This is what she’d just been thinking on her way back from Rock’s. She was on her own. In this room and in her life. The only one she could really count on was herself.

She tried not to panic. Her gaze darted frantically around the room, looking for a weapon, anything to defend herself.

She still had the chunky candle in her hand. It might smell like vanilla cupcakes, but it could do some damage if she smacked it against the side of Monty’s head.

His gaze followed hers, and his lip curled in contempt. “I hope you aren’t getting any crazy ideas in your head now, Quinn. You might think you’re tough, but you’re not. You’re nothing.”

Anger simmered in his words, in the barely controlled tremor in his voice, in the pungent smell of his sweat. His body tensed, his muscles quivered, and she knew she was in trouble.

Before she had a chance to even raise the candle, he struck. His movements quick, like a snake striking its prey.

With one hand, he grabbed her arm, and with the other, he seized her collar, twisting it in his fist and hauling her tighter against him. The chain of her necklace popped and slid from her neck, and the sound of fabric ripping tore through the air.

But all she could feel was the tight grip that he had on her upper arm, the intense pressure of his fingers digging into her tender flesh.

“Drop the candle,” he ordered.

She bit down on her lip, trying not to cry out from the pain. His knuckles were pressing into her windpipe. It’s not like she could use the stupid jar candle anyway. She’d have to think of something else. A different kind of weapon. Like her brain.

That she could do. She might not have made it to college, but she could outsmart this idiot.

She opened her palm and let the candle fall to the floor. It hit the carpet with a thud, but didn’t break.

He let go of her shirt, releasing the pressure against her throat, and she sucked in a deep breath.

His other hand still held her arm in a death grip, but he pulled back a few inches. Just enough for her shirt to fall back and for her to realize that the ripped fabric left her bare and exposed.

He realized it too. His gaze fell to her chest, to her lace bra now visible beneath the torn shirt, and the dark look in his eyes changed from anger to a greedy lust. “We are all alone out here. We shouldn’t be fighting, Quinn. Not when we could be using this time for better things. Like making us another Maxie.”

The tone in his voice was lecherous and threatening, and her anger slipped away, replaced by cold, stark fear.

Sweat broke out on her back, and she struggled to stay calm. To think.

He dipped his other hand, sliding it down her neck, then cupping her breast and holding it firmly in his grasp as he bent his head closer to her ear. “Remember the night we made Max? You were so easy that night, so desperate to get back at your stupid boyfriend, you practically begged me for it.” He tightened his grip, squeezed her breast painfully. “Well, I’m here now. And I won’t even make you beg. Not much anyway.”

He offered her a vulgar chuckle—a laugh mixed with crudeness and threat.

Bile rose in her throat. “Get your filthy hands off me.” She tried to raise her leg to knee him in the groin, but he blocked her with his thigh.

He still had her pressed against the wall, and his body was strong, his grip on both her arm and her breast tightening further. “Oh, she’s getting tough. That’s good. I like a fighter.” He twisted her around and threw her down on Max’s bed.

She scrambled backward through the array of coins and bills that lay scattered across the bed. Grabbing the plastic bank, she threw it as hard as she could at Monty’s face.

He howled when the bank hit him in the cheek before it fell to the floor.

A red mark flamed on his cheek, and he pressed his fingers against the spot. His anger intensified, his eyes narrowing into tight slits as he reached for her legs. “You’re gonna pay for that, bitch.”

She kicked out, trying to use the strength in her legs, trying to connect her feet to anything that would cause him pain and keep him away from her. Trying to think of anything to say that would stop him. “Don’t do this. My dad’s going to be back any minute now. And you know if he catches you here like this, he’ll kill you.”

He paused, for just a second, as if digesting her words.

“And my brother is supposed to be home anytime now too.” She grabbed the loose bills left on the bed and tossed them toward him. “Just take the money. That’s what you came here for. Just take the cash and get out.”

He stood glaring at her, his arms held out at his sides, his chest heaving.

She held her breath, desperately praying he would either take the money and leave or that her dad or brother would arrive home any second.

Either the lure of the money or the threat of Ham and Logan must have tipped the scales, because he scooped up the money and shoved it into his pockets.

He pointed a finger at her, and she stared at it, noticing the thin line of grease still under his nail and that the cuticle was torn and bleeding. “This isn’t over. Not by a long shot. I tried it the easy way. Now you’re gonna pay.”

Backing out of the room, he left her with one more threat. “And so is Max.”

She heard his footsteps moving quickly down the hall, and she scrambled from the bed, slamming the door shut and leaning her back against it.

Her heart racing, she held her breath, listening as the front door slammed, followed by the sounds of a car door and an engine starting. She heard the gravel as his wheels spun and he tore out of the driveway.

Letting out her breath, she sank to the floor, her back still against the door.

Spying her broken necklace on the carpet, she crawled toward it. Clutching the chain, the key, and the heart pendant in her fist, she curled in a ball and let loose a sob.

She gave herself a few minutes, a few minutes to let the terror and the anger of the situation out in her tears, then she pulled herself together and stood shakily to her feet. She didn’t want Max or her dad to see her like this. Logan wasn’t really supposed to be home until tomorrow. That one had been an empty threat. But her dad really could drive up at any minute.

She pulled the bedroom door open and walked down the hall, hoping Monty hadn’t done any other damage on his way out of the house.

Her mouth felt full of cotton, her throat parched and dry. She needed a drink of water and to wash her face.

Still clutching the necklace in her hand, she headed toward the kitchen.

Her heart froze as she saw the makeshift gate had been thrown apart, the blankets and chairs tossed to the side.

Oh no. Oh, please no.

Running toward the mess, she wildly searched the floor for the puppy. She knew before she saw the empty kitchen, knew Monty had carried out his threat of hurting Max.

The puppy was gone.