What Love Can Do: O’Neill Brothers (Home to Green Valley Book 1)

Seventeen

Unbelievable. Quinn stormed into his bedroom and slammed the door shut. “Get up,” he barked at Conor, still in bed, surfing on his phone in his underwear. Was that how he planned on living his whole life? “Get up.” He smacked his foot through the sheets. “We’re leaving.”

“What? Why?” Con sat up in bed, alarmed by Quinn’s harried entrance. Since Con was little, he was usually quick to react and please Quinn, being three years older, so Quinn took advantage of his rank over him every so often.

“We’ve been here long enough,” Quinn said, throwing open his suitcase in the armchair and slamming his balled-up shirt inside. “We’ll get a room at a cheap hotel on the road.”

“What happened? Why are you half naked?”

“Nothing happened. I’m ready for a change of scenery, that’s all.” He almost yelled but kept his disdain under his hat under tight restraint. It wasn’t Con’s fault that Lilly couldn’t face her mother’s judgment.

“So that’s how it is?” Con stared at him motionless. Quinn could feel resistance coming. “You decide we cremate Mam’s body, we do it. You decide we come to America, and we do. You decide we spread Mam’s ashes here, and that’s the plan. Now you’re ready for a change of scenery, you snap your fingers, and I’m just supposed to jump? Is that how it works? Everyone operates on your timeline?”

Ouch. “No, that’s not how it works. You’re welcome to stay if you like, but I’m leaving. I know when I’m not wanted, and I’m not about to beg.” Quinn stomped through the room, collecting random articles of clothing off the floor.

“Is this about Lilly? About the Phillipses? What?”

“No, it’s about the fucking Pope, you maggot. Yes, about them. I’m tired of trying, only to be set aside,” he huffed.

“You need to give them time, you dry shite. We’re the new men in town. Two weeks is not an eternity. You can’t just barge in here with your big man self and expect people to fall in love with you. This isn’t the RLI.”

It was so like Con to mention Quinn’s rugby league in such a disgusted tone. Then again, he wouldn’t expect someone who’d never amounted to anything to understand. “I don’t expect anything, that’s the problem.” Quinn paused, hand on hips, to unload on his little brother. “I’ve let the wind push me wherever it wants. Mam says, ‘Come help me with the Yankee. I need you,’ and I go work at the restaurant. Rita says, ‘Let’s up and visit Manchester,’ and I go, even though I really want to take her to Paris for the weekend. I come here, and meet Lilly, and think about buying Paul’s pub, only Lilly’s leaving for six months, so I push the idea of the pub aside.”

He was ranting, and he knew it, but perhaps he’d held this all in way too long.

“Like Mam wrote in her journal,” he continued addressing his quiet, perplexed audience, “she didn’t know what would happen, where the wind would take her… In the end, she accepted her choices, but she gave up her passions, and after that she didn’t expect much from anyone. That’s why she told us to go find our passions, Con, because she didn’t want the same to happen to us. Don’t you see that?” he stressed.

“What are you talking about?” Con shrugged, like that was the stupidest thing he’d ever heard. “Mam loved her life.”

“No. She loved us. Not her life. Didn’t you read all she wrote? Her dreams were bigger. Not once did she mention she wanted to manage an ailing restaurant in the suburbs or live in a house too small for us. But she was too proud to face her family again, to hear our grandfather say she fucked up. So she stuck it out.”

“You’re mad, I swear it. What’s this got to do with anything?”

“What it’s got to do with is that Mam accepted it. These people snubbing here.”

“Quinn, what choice did she have?”

“She had a choice. She chose to stay away. She could have faced them. Stood up for herself and made them accept us. Not that they would have, but she should have tried harder. What does someone have to do to prove themselves worthy in Green Fucking Valley? Own a fucking vineyard? What, like the O’Neills are not worthy of association with the Parkers and Phillipses, because we’re not wine family? What makes them so fucking special?” He charged into the bathroom to collect all his items, grabbing toothbrushes and contact lens case and mouthwash and throwing them into his travel bag.

“Actually, we are wine family,” Con reminded him, sticking his head into the bathroom. “Or have you forgotten what you told me about Mam’s sister, Suzanne. A woman you met, I’ll remind you, because of Lilly.” He raised his eyebrows over bright greens. “Quinn, is that what this is about? You’re pissed at Mam because she didn’t try harder to stand up for us, and you’re pissed at Lil for doing the same thing?”

Quinn shouldered him aside on his way back into the bedroom. Sometimes he hated his little brother—especially when he was right.

“She lied to us, Con. Told us she had no other family when it wasn’t true.”

“To protect us, Quinn.”

“To protect us or to protect her? Because then she wouldn’t have to do the hard—”

“Where are you going?”

Quinn spun toward the voice in the open doorway. He thought he had locked the door, but apparently not. “Lilly, how about knocking? Jesus, Joseph, Mary, you scared me.”

“Quinn, can we talk?” She wrung her hands together.

“Nothing you can’t say in front of my brother.” He turned from her and kept collecting and sorting his clothes. “Oh, wait. You don’t have a voice of your own anyway.”

Hurt flashed across her pretty face, making Quinn feel like an ass. But this thing, whatever they’d had between them, was over. If Lil couldn’t even stand up for him in front of her mother and that other woman, then it had never even really started.

“That’s not fair, Quinn,” she said, her voice trembling. “I’ve changed a lot in such a short time, and it’s because of you.”

Quinn, Lilly, and Con all waited for something, staring at each other, until Con stretched his smooth, agile yoga-like body in his underpants. “Whew! Am I ready for a walk. I think I’ll go take one right now.” He moved toward the door, Lilly stepping out of his way.

“In your Y-fronts, snapper?”

Con looked down at his underwear, smiled at Lilly sheepishly, and stepped into his jeans, throwing his sweater over his bare body. He carried his shoes out with him. At the door, he paused, his bed head hair sticking up on top. “You’re not too late. Better brother,” he said, pointing at himself and winking back at Quinn. “That one’s a chancer.”

Quinn lifted his middle finger.

Once he was gone, Lilly entered the room like a fog of remorse and sat on the edge of the bed. “Quinn, I know I have to face her. And I have. But she caught me off guard just now.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Quinn shrugged.

“It does matter. It matters to you and me both, but I’m getting there,” she said, aimlessly smoothing out the edge of the blanket. “You have to understand…you…you arrived here at an odd time for me. I’ve been needing to pull away from this town for a while, building the courage. In retrospect, I think I applied for the Food Network internship hoping I would win, so that I’d have a legitimate reason to leave. But I was shocked when I won. Even then, I still had a hard time facing my mom. So imagine my shock when you came into my life, needing someone to stand up for you, when I can barely stand up for myself.”

Quinn took in the pained conflict in her face. Knew she was right—she’d already been coping with changes in her life as best as she could. But he couldn’t shake the feeling of betrayal he’d felt when he’d reached for her hand in the kitchen and she’d crossed her arms.

“I wasn’t prepared for you, Quinn,” she continued, as if hearing his thoughts. Rising, she walked up to him and placed her hand on his arm. “But I’m doing it, little by little. I just need time. Please forgive me?”

Quinn sighed a huge rush of air. He wanted so much to give her the benefit of the doubt and be over this. But he could still hear the words he’d been spewing to Con before she’d appeared. How he’d blamed his mam for failing to stand up for them, the same way Lilly had failed to take his back downstairs, but also how he’d resented directing the course of his life based on other’s needs rather than his own. He hadn’t even known he felt that way until the words were out of his mouth. And yet here he was again, about to hitch his dreams to those of another person. Bottom line, the paths they chose to pursue would be influenced by whether they were indeed a couple or not. It was fine to make sacrifices for love when you knew what it was you were giving up, but when you didn’t? No. They needed to be sure what they wanted from life before committing to one another. As much as it killed him, it was better they go their separate ways and do that.

“I do forgive you, Lil. It’s fine. Just…let me go.”

“No! Quinn, how can you say that? I don’t want to let you go.”

He clenched his fists, fighting back the urge to gather her in his arms and sweep this all behind them. He was so torn. “I didn’t like being judged in that kitchen. You have no idea what it was like to stand there, and the one person I could depend on to say something—anything—dropped my hand and sided with my enemy.”

“I didn’t side with them. I didn’t side with anyone, and that was a mistake.”

“That’s fine. I understand. It just…it feels awkward here. It would be best if I stayed somewhere else, at least for a while.”

She watched him with fear brimming in her chest. “So you’re just leaving?”

“I’ll find a motel somewhere.”

“But I’ll see you again, right? You and all your brothers?”

“I—I don’t know, Lil. I just need to think.” He cupped her face in his hands and stared deeply into her eyes. “But no matter what happens, stop letting your mam and her friends control you. How can you ever expect to open your own business when you can’t even stand up to your own mam in the house kitchen?”

He knew it was tough love to come out and say that, but she had a lot of growing up to do. Maybe in the future, if conditions were right, they could try again. Maybe they had just had a good time together and that was it.

Her eyes glossed over, forming a pang of guilt in his chest. “God, Quinn, I’m trying. You have no idea what it’s like to live with her. She’s always been strong-willed, but since my father died, it’s gotten both better and worse. She can be harsh, I know that, but she—she’s gone through so much, Quinn. She’s tired. Broken.”

“I understand that, Lil.” He did, he truly did, but a tiger never changed his stripes, and something told him that she would always be fighting demons. She’d always be a small town girl at heart, and she’d always feel weird with the son of Maggie Phillips, as long as everyone felt that Maggie Phillips was the town outcast. “I have to go.”

“You think I don’t have what it takes, don’t you?” Her blue eyes implored him, but he couldn’t look straight into them. “Don’t you? You’ve already decided—that I’m not right for you, that I have a lot to learn. I see it, Quinn. I see it in the way you keep shaking your head like it’s not what you want to hear.”

“Nothing’s been decided, Lil. But I have to go now. Please just let me.”

For a long time, she watched him pack his things, just stood against the window, seething. “Just so you know, it’s because of you that I allowed myself the luxury of dreaming big, of imagining the bakery as a real place. When you talked business, about your family’s restaurant, I could actually see myself opening one for real. You’re even pushing me now. You’re helping me grow, Quinn, and I’ll always thank you for that.” She slid across the room and paused at the door, as if hoping, waiting for him to say anything.

But he didn’t know what to say. This was ending and ending badly.

The bubble had popped, the parade had been rained on. It was only a matter of time. God, she was beautiful, even standing there with tears in her eyes, and how he would have loved to cultivate a relationship with her had the timing been right, but alas—it wasn’t meant to be. Just another heartbreak in his life.

Time to move on again.

He finished packing his and his brother’s bags, did a quick sweep of the room to make sure he wasn’t leaving anything in the closet or under the sheets, and then took a solid, long glance at the room that had been his home for two weeks. Pausing at the door to plant a last kiss on Lilly’s forehead, he rushed out of Russian River House before he caught sight of her perfect doll face again and changed his mind.