Chapter 22 #2
After dabbing perfume behind her ears, she slipped on her skyscraper heels and wobbled to Liz’s room.
Archer followed, watching her with canine concern, as if he were angling for the best spot to catch her when her ankles folded and she came tumbling down.
Heels had been a regular accessory for professional garb, but lately?
Flats all the way, and she was out of practice.
A muffled “Come in” sounded behind Liz’s door when Sarah knocked, and she let herself in. Liz was propped up in her bed, legs stretched out in front of her, an e-reader in her hand. She set it down, lifted her glasses onto her head, and let out a loud whistle. “Look at you! Sarah, you are smoking!”
Sarah perched on the edge of her bed, suddenly self-conscious. “Is it too much?”
“Oh no, doll. You look fantastic. You’re gonna have that guy eating out of your hand—as soon as he stops drooling.” She let out a little sigh. “And Quinn’s gonna be eating his heart out.”
“No, he’s not!” Sarah scoffed a little too loudly. Why did Liz’s words set off a little flare of heat at Sarah’s core that rushed to her cheeks? “He won’t even know I’m gone. He’ll probably be catching up with his girlfriends. That’ll take all night.”
Liz shook her head. “I doubt it. He’s never been one for relationships. I have a feeling his family is partly to blame for that.”
“What do you mean?” Quinn rarely mentioned the rest of his family.
Liz patted her hand. “Long story—stories—silly family squabbles.”
Sarah laughed. “In other words, none of my business. Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”
The older woman seemed to appraise her. “No, doll. That’s not what I meant. Every family has its skeletons, and it didn’t occur to me that you’d be interested in ours.”
“Well, you know about mine, so it’s only fair. If you feel like sharing. I’m running early anyway.”
Liz stared up at the ceiling. “It’s complicated. But I guess what family isn’t? I think it all started to derail right after the accident.”
Sarah leaned back on her hands. “Accident?”
“Quinnie didn’t tell you?”
“No. He’s never mentioned it.”
“Interesting. Well, Mike, Ronan, and I were coming back from a tournament in Minnesota. Ronan was in an elite league, like Quinn, only Quinn was a few years behind.”
“Quinn wasn’t with you?”
“No, he was competing in a different tournament, and he was billeting with a family in Portland, so he went with them.” She shook her head.
“Thank God he wasn’t with us. Anyway, it was late, we were all exhausted, and we were smack in the middle of a winter snowstorm.
I told Mike we should get a motel, but he was anxious to get home.
We went round and round, and I lost that battle.
” A wistful smile played over her features.
“So we drove. Mike and I were supposed to share the driving—Ronan didn’t have enough experience for the road conditions.
Mike agreed to wake me for my shift, and I fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was long past time we were supposed to switch, but Mike was still behind the wheel.
I could tell he was tired, and the snow was coming down in heavy, hypnotic flakes.
“When I suggested we pull over and trade, he just shook his head. I think some of that macho bravado was at play. ‘I’m the man. I’ll drive.’ Ronan was asleep in the backseat, and I tried not to, but I dozed off again. And then it happened.”
Something—the memory—passed through Liz’s bright eyes, dulling them.
She appeared as though she watched a movie playing only in her head.
Before continuing, she drew in a long, shuddering breath.
“I woke up to the car hitting a guardrail—Mike had fallen asleep and the car drifted. It felt as though we spun forever, smashing and bouncing and scraping against that guardrail. It was horrible. I was terrified. My husband and my boy were in that car, and I thought we were all going to die.”
Sarah sat in stunned silence, wanting to reach out and take Liz’s hands, but they were firmly twisted in her lap. Instead, she rested her hand on Liz’s ankle, trying to suffuse her with strength and caring.
“Obviously, we didn’t die,” Liz chuckled mirthlessly.
“But in some ways, we did. Ronan’s leg was fractured in three places and had to be pinned together.
I suffered injuries, including head trauma the doctors think might have triggered the Parkinson’s.
Mike didn’t get a scratch on him, and I think that was a worse fate.
He couldn’t forgive himself for hurting me and for ending Ronan’s dreams of making it in the NHL, so he shut down.
When he was offered a one-year coaching job in Poland, he jumped at it.
I think the guilt was eating him up inside, and he wanted to leave the memories behind for a while, so I went along with it.
“One year turned into two. When he wanted to stay through a third year, I felt as though he’d given up on us, and I told him he was a coward.
” She paused, hauling in a breath. “I was angry, hurt, and I told him not to come back. We’ve been in this strange limbo ever since.
Right before I came to live with Quinn, I asked Mike for a divorce. ”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “Does Quinn know?”
Liz shook her head. “No. I haven’t told either boy. Until things are settled between Mike and me, there’s no point. They don’t need the extra heartache.
“My poor Quinn took the brunt of his father’s guilt and his brother’s rage.
Especially when he got drafted into the NHL.
He and his brother had pushed each other, but then they’d been friends.
That was shattered after the accident. Whether Ronan would have made it or not is something we’ll never know.
But instead of enjoying Quinn’s success, Ronan became more jealous and Mike more guilt-ridden.
Quinn was surrounded by a broken family through no fault of his own, and he took flak he didn’t deserve, so he put up his own walls.
We’re all like individual guard towers, built out of the same stone, close in proximity but wholly apart. I wish it were different.
“I’m proud of what Quinn’s achieved. He’s smart, he’s determined, and when he makes up his mind about something, he’s tenacious.
He goes all in. The fame and fortune came, and having no one to give him a reality check, he threw himself into a new lifestyle the same way he does everything. Wholeheartedly.”
“He doesn’t do anything halfway,” Sarah said almost to herself.
Liz laughed. “No, he most certainly does not. As a mother, I’m not terribly proud of some of his behavior, but I’m hopeful. I think you’re a good influence.”
Sarah’s surprise at this statement came out in a squeak. “Me?” In that moment, all she could picture were the overflowing swear jars.
“Yes, you. Usually, he surrounds himself with women who … Well, let’s say they have their own agendas and they tell him what he thinks he wants to hear, and he buys into it.
Maybe it helps him forget. I don’t know.
But these women aren’t the type he can build anything with.
They won’t sustain him through the long haul.
“I think being around you grounds him in a way they won’t and I can’t. It’s good for him to know there are strong, intelligent women he can’t make swoon with a wink. That have far more substance than the bimbos he takes up with.”
Sarah bit back a chuckle. Liz seemed not to notice, and she continued.
“He respects you. He listens to you. I see it. What you do and say matters to him. And though he acts devil-may-care, it was a charade until you showed up and the real Quinn—the genuine, lighthearted one—re-emerged. I thought it had been lost.”
As she absorbed the details of Quinn’s family, Sarah’s head reeled. No way was she what Liz played her up to be, but still, she was touched.
She swiped at an errant tear on her cheek. “I’m so sorry about what happened, Liz. But at the same time, I’m glad you told me. It explains … Well, that insight helps me understand your family dynamic a little better.”
Liz sighed. “It’s a rather ugly dynamic.
And my heart aches for us all. Especially Ronan.
He’s turned this tragedy into something even more twisted by being vengeful.
Did Quinn tell you about Jennifer?” When Sarah shook her head, Liz followed up with, “No, that doesn’t surprise me.
It’s just one more unpleasant memory. Would you like to hear it? ”
Did Sarah want to hear it? A surprising tug of jealousy said no. But curiosity, and a desire to understand, won the argument. “Yes, I would.”
“Quinn had just started dating Jennifer, a lovely girl. It wasn’t serious, but Ronan, for reasons known only to Ronan, pursued her behind Quinn’s back. I guess he wanted whatever he thought belonged to Quinn. And he got her.”
“So Ronan’s wife … the kids …”
“Yes. That’s Quinn’s Jen.”
Quinn’s Jen. Sarah realized her mouth had dropped open.
“He must have been devastated.” Even as her head spun with everything Liz had stuffed into it, she tried to picture this girl Quinn had dated.
It didn’t seem right to ask to see a picture of the happy family just to satisfy her perverse curiosity.
She realized Liz was talking, and she tuned back in. “It wasn’t as though Quinn was ready to marry the girl, but the idea that his brother—who’d once been his best friend—would hate him so much that he’d do such a thing … It was a blow, you know?”
Sarah recoiled. Where in the narrative was the blame to be laid at Jennifer’s feet? Ronan betrayed his brother by going after her in the first place, but it took two to tango, and Jennifer’s betrayal was just as stomach-turning as Ronan’s.
Liz seemed to remember herself. “Oh my gosh, Sarah. You have a date to get to, and I’m holding you up.” She made a pushing motion with her hands. “Go enjoy yourself!”
A bit dazed, Sarah left Liz’s room and wandered to the kitchen, only to face Quinn, who stood like a massive tree, his arms crossed over his chest. As he looked her over—with an expression she couldn’t read—she looked him over.
Through yet another entirely different facet of the same crystal she’d been looking through. Who was this man?