QUINN
QUINN TRIED TO TALK her mother into a cup of coffee or tea, one of Walker’s scones, anything. When none of those suggestions elicited a response, she reached for the bottle in Liz’s hands and said, “Here, let me uncork the wine.” Quinn had to wrest it away; Liz had an iron grip on the smooth glass.
“I’m not thirsty,” Liz said. Her jaw was lifted, her eyes narrowed. Quinn knew the look well. It was power and authority, a call to obedience. When Quinn was a child, all Liz had to do was tilt her chin just so and her kids scrambled. But Quinn wasn’t a little girl anymore. She wasn’t sure how to respond to her mother like this.
But whether she wanted it to or not, the truth spilled out. “We think she’s Nora’s,” Quinn said quickly. There was no point in pretending. Liz was sharp and inquisitive. Unexpectedly bright. She often knew things she couldn’t possibly know: who Quinn had secretly loved in tenth grade, where she hid the pack of cigarettes she once bought to feel rebellious, when Quinn snuck out of the house to meet up with friends on the beach.
“Of course she is,” Liz said. “She’s the spitting image of your sister at that age. Minus the hair, of course. Who . . . ?” But she let the question hang heavy in the air between them. Who, indeed.
Quinn realized that she was holding a wine bottle in one hand and an armful of flowers in the other. “Come on,” she said, motioning that her mother should follow. “I’ll put these in water and we’ll sort this out.”
“I don’t think so.” Liz unzipped her purse and poked around inside for a few seconds before closing it without taking anything out. “I have to go.”
“But—”
“We’ll talk later,” Liz said decisively. And then she left without a backward glance.
Quinn faltered in the entryway for a moment, flowers sagging in her arms, and felt a surge of annoyance. No, she was more than just annoyed. She was angry. Wasn’t this just like her mother? Liz was tough and demanding, quick to fix whatever surface-level problem cropped up. Messes and arguments and skinned knees were all treated with the same quiet calm. She was judicious in her prudent administration of palliative care, but she was no heart surgeon. Anything deep or hurtful, truly difficult or dirty, was ignored.
“Fine,” Quinn muttered to herself. “I’ll handle it on my own.”
But she grabbed her phone off the counter and texted her mother a single cryptic message: Don’t you dare tell a soul. I mean it. She hesitated, wondering how much to say. Enough to ensure Liz’s silence but not enough to unnerve her. Quinn finally settled on one last word: Please.
There was no response.
Nora had made it clear that no one was to know about Lucy, but her secret hadn’t lasted a day. Quinn might as well call JJ and fill him in on the family news, too. “Nora has a secret daughter. JJ, you’re an uncle!” Just the thought made her queasy. In Quinn’s mind, JJ was still the disinterested and slightly menacing teenager that she remembered from her youth. He had been arrogant and moody, convinced of his own importance and appeal. Who could resist Jack Sanford Jr.? Who would want to?
JJ had always been a part of her personal landscape, but Quinn hadn’t given her older brother much thought until she had a sleepover her freshman year in high school. JJ had been a senior and would barely acknowledge her existence, but when he’d walked through the living room near midnight and found her curled up on the couch with a handful of girls, he had paused to lean in the doorway.
“You going to introduce me to your friends, Q?” One corner of his mouth twisted up in a half smile that Quinn all at once realized most girls would find sexy. She could feel the way her friends shifted on the couch, leaning toward JJ almost imperceptibly.
“No,” she said. “Go away.”
But somebody invited him to sit, and he did, right on the arm of their father’s favorite chair, where he distracted Quinn’s friends to the point of giddiness. She was so angry she could feel her blood begin to fizz.
It took Liz wandering into the living room bleary-eyed and still cinching her robe to finally convince the girls it was time to retreat to Quinn’s bedroom. But sleeping bags on the floor and fingernail polish didn’t stop them from filtering in and out on their way to the bathroom, the kitchen. And when Quinn learned through the rumor mill several weeks later that Sarah had made out with some older guy, she wasn’t surprised to find out it was JJ.
No, Quinn had never been close with her brother. And she wasn’t about to try to change that now.
She placed her mother—and her brother—firmly out of her mind and tried to focus on caring for Lucy. It proved much more difficult than Quinn imagined it could be.
It wasn’t just the screaming over breakfast. That had been terrifying enough, but Lucy refused to thaw even a little in spite of what Quinn hoped was her attentive warmth. It was no good. Lucy wouldn’t let Quinn touch her and tried more than once to leave the cabin when Quinn wasn’t looking.
“No!” Quinn finally shouted when Lucy tried to wrench the front door open and escape for the third time. She stood in the doorframe, arms stretched wide to block the little girl from escape. “Stop it, Lucy! You’re stuck with me!”
They both cried.
But something seemed to break in Lucy. She slipped into quiet compliance—which Quinn decided was, in some ways, worse. Lucy’s deference was almost creepy.
They spent the rest of the day circling each other, wary, reluctant. Quinn didn’t want to admit it, but it crushed her a bit that she wasn’t able to break through the little girl’s steely defenses.
It wasn’t for lack of trying. The cabin was equipped with a game cupboard, and Quinn’s first tactic involved Candy Land with a side of cheerful banter. Even when the board was set up and Queen Frostine was doing her sparkly best, Lucy remained unmoved. Maybe she was too old to enjoy Candy Land? Yahtzee was next, but the din of dice in the red plastic cup only gave Quinn a headache. When the games proved ineffective, she moved on to puzzles (a thousand pieces of a lake sunset—Quinn didn’t get very far), bubbles (they were favors leftover from an outdoor wedding), and finally, a dance party thanks to Spotify and the portable Jambox that projected “Uptown Funk” throughout the entire cabin.
Lucy didn’t so much as crack a smile.
“What do you want, Lucy?” Quinn asked as she powered off the Bluetooth speaker. The melody of horns and bass cut abruptly, and in the ensuing stillness the cabin seemed unnaturally quiet.
Nothing.
The little girl was sitting on the sofa, her back straight and ankles crossed primly. As Quinn watched, she smoothed her dirty dress over her knees and picked at a loose thread with an almost alarming intensity. She was, without a doubt, the most focused child Quinn had ever met. Preternaturally good at playing hard to get. Lucy was flat-out ignoring the woman in front of her—even though Quinn had done everything but swallow flaming swords while standing on her head.
“I’d love to take you outside,” Quinn faltered, gazing longingly at the sun as it glinted off the water. They would make a little sand castle in the tiny beach beside the dock and then dip their toes in the water when the afternoon got too hot. Maybe Lucy didn’t know how to swim. Maybe Quinn could teach her.
But that was an idle wish. Quinn couldn’t take Lucy outside. Not with the dozens of boats circling in and out of the bay. Small-town curiosity was a powerful force and Quinn knew exactly how it would go: a local would spot her with a pint-sized companion and cut the engine, tossing the dock line to her as they puttered through the water. “Now, Quinn, my girl. Who do we have here?” And she would have to talk and entertain, pull a couple of drinks out of the cooler that was conveniently hidden in the bench seat at the end of the dock. Snapple and straight-talk, that was how the fine folk of Key Lake liked to spend a summer afternoon. And when the sun began to set they traded in iced tea for Coors Light. Cans, of course, because they were safer than glass on the water.
No, Lucy couldn’t go outside.
They were at an impasse. So after hours of trying and failing, Quinn finally gave up and let Lucy click through stations on the flat-screen TV. And that’s exactly what the child did: flip, flip, flip. Past Wheel of Fortune and MSNBC and Ellen. Home improvement shows and Say Yes to the Dress and reruns of The Big Bang Theory. Whenever Curious George ambled across the screen or Princess Sofia made an appearance, Quinn held her breath. But Lucy never stopped.
Quinn was grateful when the sun began its slow descent and she could bundle Lucy off to bed. The child didn’t make so much as a peep.
“She’s in bed?” Walker asked when he came in past dark.
Quinn was curled up on the couch, a magazine in hand though she hadn’t read a single paragraph. “Of course she’s in bed. She’s not a teenager.”
“That bad?” Walker plopped down on the couch and grabbed Quinn’s ankle, settling her foot in his lap. He ran his finger lightly down the curve of her arch. She squirmed.
“You know I hate that.”
He smiled, pressing his thumb into the soft spot beneath the ball of her foot and circling slowly. “But I know you love this.”
Quinn sighed and tipped her head back against the couch cushions. She had always considered herself a kid person; she’d loved babysitting in high school and couldn’t wait to be a mom herself, but an entire day with Lucy had thoroughly scuffed the patina on those shiny dreams.
Walker moved his hands over Quinn’s foot, gently cracking each bone in her pretty little toes. She stifled a shiver.
“I think . . .” Quinn wasn’t sure she dared to voice what she really thought.
“What?”
“I think there’s something wrong with her.”
Walker exhaled through his nose and fixed Quinn with an arch look. “You’ve just figured this out?”
Quinn reached over and punched him on the shoulder. “I mean, besides the obvious.”
“Let’s see,” Walker mused as he put his shoulders into massaging Quinn’s heel. “She was abandoned—”
Quinn tried to protest but Walker talked right over her.
“—with a stranger—”
“Hey!”
“—in a strange place. She’s lonely and frightened and confused. And who knows what she endured before she was dropped in our laps.”
“I’m not sure she was dropped in our laps.” Quinn sounded accusatory, which was an accident. She was going for lighthearted. With an edge. The truth was, she had felt alone all day. Abandoned in her own way.
Walker stopped rubbing her foot. “Excuse me?”
Why did she push him away when what she really wanted was to hold him close? I wanted you here, is what she meant. With me. Quinn crawled across the couch and straddled her husband’s lap, cupping his face in her hands. But he didn’t melt like she hoped he would. Walker held himself still, aloof. “I didn’t mean that,” she whispered. “Not that way. It’s just that you’ve been so busy lately.”
“Working,” Walker interjected.
“I know. But . . .”
“No buts, Quinn.” He lifted her easily and set her aside, then strode into the kitchen, where he yanked open the door of the cupboard above the refrigerator. “We need the money and you know it. I don’t need a guilt trip from you.”
His words stung. They had only been in Key Lake for two months—not even—and Quinn had sent out a dozen resumes. The one job she really wanted at the preschool had fallen through, but she couldn’t bring herself to fill out an application for Walmart. Not yet. How could Walker throw that in her face?
Quinn was equal parts miffed and contrite. Well, not quite equal. She was spoiling for a fight and found herself wanting to hiss across the space between them that Walker’s piece wasn’t sold. But she managed to control the urge. Accusations would accomplish nothing except for pushing him further away. Instead, she warned: “Shhhh!” Quinn pointed at the closed door to the spare room where Lucy was, ostensibly, asleep. She hoped.
If Walker heard her he didn’t let on. Instead, he grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal and a highball glass and poured himself a double shot, neat. He took a few sips before splashing in a bit more and leaving the bottle uncapped and sitting on the kitchen counter. He returned to perch on the arm of the couch. Far from Quinn.
“You know how I feel about this,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“I really can’t handle you complaining about it.”
Quinn dipped her head in acknowledgment. “You’re the only person I have to talk to.” She didn’t mention her mother and the fact that there were now three of them who knew Nora’s secret. She wasn’t ready to tell Walker that. “It’s just a lot to deal with.”
When Walker softened it was a visible, tangible, obvious thing. Like butter melting. Like ice transforming to a puddle on a sun-warmed picnic table. To Quinn, it was hope itself, and she lifted her face to him now, expectant.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?” He looked at her warily, as if her answer mattered much.
“For everything. All of this. For Lucy. For making you do something you don’t want to do.”
“It’s been a rough summer,” he admitted.
“Do you regret coming here?”
He tipped his glass, watching the dark liquid inside. “I’d go anywhere with you,” Walker said eventually. He meant it, Quinn knew he did. He told her they were one in a million, a love story for the ages, and she believed that it was true. Usually. He was a lot to contain. Too much to know. There were things about her husband that were still a mystery, and Quinn feared she’d always follow a step behind. Forever reaching for him.
“I’d go anywhere with you,” she said.
“I know.”
Walker gave her a stiff smile, but he slid off the arm of the couch so that their knees were touching. On again, off again. Hot and cold. Lust and love and desire and longing and all the things that she could put a name to plus several that she couldn’t.
“I love you,” she said, because it seemed like the only thing that she could say.
“I know.”
“My mom’s having a party tomorrow night,” she blurted when the silence between them began to turn stale. A classic Quinn move. Distract. Redirect. Anything to keep the peace. Of course, her attempts to pacify sometimes backfired. Quinn didn’t quite understand the difference between keeping the peace and making peace. One required diversionary tactics. The other, battle plans.
But Walker was willing to play along. “Ah.” He smiled and tossed back the last of his drink. “A legendary Sanford gathering, I presume?”
“Of course. My mom is begging us to come.”
“Us?”
“Of course.”
“It’s an event.” Walker nodded sagely. “How many years has it been?”
“Lots. I don’t know. I hated them when I was a kid. All those adults with sour breath and wrinkled clothes. My mother is the picture of propriety, but those parties always had a slightly desperate air to them.”
“Those are some pretty profound thoughts for a kid.” Walker put his empty drink on the table and Quinn restrained herself from slipping a coaster underneath the glass.
“I was a teenager when it hit me that they were playing at youth,” Quinn said.
“What do you mean?”
“I walked past a group of my mom’s friends and they started commenting on my skin, my hair, my legs. They thought I couldn’t hear them, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I know now that they were jealous. Of a seventeen-year-old.”
“I imagine every woman you meet is jealous of you.” Walker’s hand was on her bare leg, his thumb tracing the arc of three small freckles on her thigh.
Quinn’s skin tingled where he touched her. This was different from the foot rub, different from the way he reached for her throughout the day as if she were a lodestone and he simply needed to be grounded. She loved it when he touched her like this. With intent. With desire.
“I don’t know about that,” Quinn managed as Walker’s fingertips brushed beneath the hem of her khaki shorts. They were so short he didn’t have to reach far to graze the lacy edge of her hip-hugging panties.
“I do.” Walker pushed her back gently into the pillows and kissed her slow. His mouth was fire and longing. Warm and insistent. Quinn both loved and loathed the way he made her feel consumed. As if she were drowning, but instead of gasping for air she let herself be pulled under, deeper still.
There were things that they should talk about. Realities to face. But Quinn was in no state to address them. She gave in and kissed him back, her hands twisting in his hair, holding tight.
“Go to your mom’s party,” he told her, nibbling at her bottom lip.
“Lucy . . .” she whispered, but the girl was little more than a ghost of a thought.
“I’ll stay with her.” Walker’s hand was under her shirt now, following the line of her hip, her waist, the fine bones of her arching rib cage.
“But—”
“Go. I’ve got this covered.”
And then, suddenly, Quinn didn’t care about anything but his body above her.