Chapter 9
Quinn set her jaw, and her eyes went hard. “I”m not going back.”
“Are you suicidal?” I had to ask.
“No,” she said, no give in her expression. “But I refuse to live in fear.”
Our eyes locked. I tried to wait her out, but she held my gaze in silence. Her jaw didn”t unclench. Her eyes didn”t soften. She wasn’t going to give in.
I should have known. I understood the sentiment exactly. But that didn’t mean she was right.
I glanced out the window at the snow still falling in the fading light and decided to embrace reality myself. “There’s no point arguing about it now,” I said. “The snow is forecast to last until tomorrow morning. We”ll figure out what to do when it stops.”
“Fine,” Quinn agreed, the temper draining out of her face.
She cut another piece of steak. I did the same.
Hers was half gone when she said, “This is really good. Do you know how to cook or is this all you can make?”
I shrugged. I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk. No good could come of talking about myself to Quinn, but what was I going to do, refuse to answer? I imagined seeing her face fall when I rejected her. She was just trying to be nice. I could pretend to be nice for an hour or two. “I wouldn’t say I know how to cook,” I said slowly. “Not like Finn.”
Quinn snorted a laugh. “Nobody knows how to cook like Finn.”
“True,” I agreed. We were just talking about food. It wasn’t a big deal. “I can make steak. I grill a mean burger. I know how to bake a potato. Meatloaf. I like broccoli, so I can make that. But that’s about it.”
“What”s your favorite thing to cook?” she asked.
“Probably steak,” I said. “Second would be spaghetti and meatballs, though I usually buy the meatballs frozen. What about you? You grew up with a cook. Do you know how to feed yourself?”
Quinn”s laugh was like sunshine. She shook her head. “Not well,” she admitted. “Camp food? Absolutely. I can cook over a fire like you wouldn’t believe. Cowboy chili, coffee, burgers. Hot dogs and sausages. I can do a lot with a fire and a Dutch oven, but I’m lost in a regular kitchen. When I went to college, there was a food hall, and I had a meal plan, so I didn”t cook there. And then after, Ford helped me set up Sawyer Outdoor Adventures, and I moved in there.” A wistful smile spread across her face. “I love that place. There”s a small bedroom in the back, along with a bathroom and a tiny kitchen. I use most of the space for the business, so I never tried to expand it. There’s not really enough room to do much cooking. I like to eat, but cooking isn’t really my thing.”
“How did you get into guiding?” I asked, curious. I told myself I didn”t need to know. I didn”t need to, but I wanted to. I wanted to know anything she was willing to tell me about herself. Especially how Quinn Sawyer, a member of one of the wealthiest, most influential families in the country, ended up running a guide business. “You’re not exactly following in the family footsteps of turning millions into billions.”
Quinn’s smile was serene and joyful. “I love the woods,” she said. “Always, as long as I can remember, I was running off and hiding in the woods. Used to drive my mother crazy when I was little. I’d disappear, and they’d find me under the trees, watching the birds and squirrels. I always felt more at home in the woods than I did inside.”
She chased an onion around her plate with her fork, her eyes distant.
“The old groundskeeper was an outdoorsman. He was like me, never more at home than when he was outside, the wind on his cheeks. I annoyed him, always asking questions about the trees and the plants.”
I could picture that bright smile on a child’s face, her infectious enthusiasm. She’d gotten me, a man known for monosyllabic answers, talking about my favorite foods. I had no doubt she’d charmed the old groundskeeper just as easily.
“I didn”t want a garden,” she said. “I just wanted to know about the outdoors. And then I found out that he loved to camp and hunt and fish and hike. And he taught me things. What plants I could eat, and what to stay away from. How to find or make a shelter. How to fish. How to leave the woods the way I found them. Later, I talked Prentice into sending me to summer camp, and I learned more. Kayaking and canoeing. I got to camp for real. Prentice didn’t like having me around, so he was more than happy to pay to get rid of me. At least in the summer. When I was a teenager, I tried to get him to send me to one of those outdoorsy boarding schools, but Sawyers go to Laurel Country Day.”
“Except for Finn,” I said, trying to make her smile. I hated the look in her eyes when she talked about her father. All the life faded, leaving her dull and lost. Not like my Quinn.
I was rewarded with a quirk to the side of her mouth. Not exactly a smile, but I’d take it. “I wish I’d thought to set the principal”s office on fire,” she said, “but I never had the balls. Too scared of my father.” Her eyes dropped and she looked away.
There was pain there. Not simply the pain of a neglected child. This was more. Deeper. Ugly. I wanted to ask. I didn’t. I had my own ugliness buried inside, ugliness I’d never show someone as bright and lovely as Quinn. And I couldn’t ask for hers if I wasn’t willing to show her mine.
Fuck.This was why I didn’t talk to people. Too complicated. I didn’t want to know Quinn’s pain…
And that was a lie. I wanted to know everything about Quinn. I wouldn’t ask. But maybe I could make her feel a little better.
“From what I’ve heard,” I said, “almost everyone was afraid of your father.”
Quinn lifted her chin and nodded, stabbing at a mushroom still left on her plate. “Well, that”s true. He was a real asshole. Anyway, I didn”t know what I wanted to do with my life after college. After I graduated, Ford took me on a two-week kayaking trip out West. A few days into the trip, I was watching the guide organize us, showing us what to do and keeping all the gear together, and I realized that I could do that. I wanted to do it, to plan trips and show people everything I love about the outdoors. Ford thought it was a great idea. He helped me figure it out.”
“What did he do to help you?” I asked, curious to see another side to Ford Sawyer. As Griffen’s friend, I knew Ford as the brother who’d betrayed Griffen and stolen his life. In my mind, Ford was a villain, full stop. Clearly, that wasn’t who Ford was to Quinn.
“He ran interference with Prentice to fund the business, for one thing,” she said. “And he paid for all of the training courses I needed out of his own pocket. It would have taken me years to pull it off without him.”
“You really love it,” I said, though I didn”t need to ask. It was written all over her.
She shot me that quick grin again. “I do. I didn”t think there was anything that was better than being out in the wild, but showing it to other people, seeing them fall in love with it is amazing. So many people come to this part of the country to appreciate all the beauty we have here. It”s a privilege to get to show them what it”s really like.”
Quinn straightened in her seat, taking a sip of water.
“I had a client last spring. He was a fly fisherman and dragged his wife and their two kids along with him to Sawyers Bend. They didn”t want to come here. They were voting for Orlando and the parks. But man, his wife caught a rainbow trout, and the smile on her face–” Quinn glowed at the memory. “Then the kids got into it, and by the end, I had a family of fishermen. It was so cool. It doesn”t always happen like that. Sometimes people hate it. Sometimes they complain. Sometimes they think they know what they”re doing better than I do. Sometimes they do, and that’s really cool, too. There’s always more to learn.”
She sat back and crossed her arms over her chest, the side of her mouth curling in a smirk.
“Sometimes the dudes try to mansplain fishing or hiking. That’s always fun.”
I snorted, picturing that exactly. “What do you do with them?” I asked, already knowing Quinn didn”t take shit from anyone.
“It depends,” she said. “It doesn”t pay to fight with clients. And depending on where we are and who it is, it”s not always a good idea to piss a guy off. I”m not exactly six-four or a black belt, you know?”
My gut went cold at the picture her careless words painted.
“I do have a speck of charm,” she said. “I drag it out in those situations. And if the guy is being a total jackass, I just let him do what he wants. I had one guy last year who was absolutely convinced he could fly-fish with worms. Told me that was how his daddy did it, and that was how he did it. No woman was going to tell him different, and no amount of convincing could change his mind.” She snorted a laugh and rolled her eyes. “Idiot.”
“He catch anything?” I asked, wondering at her patience with that level of stupidity.
She laughed. “Not a damn thing. He got jack shit, and the rest of us had a great day. He stormed out and didn”t show up the next day, which was fine with me. I had his money. Too late for refunds.” She let out a sigh. “I do hope he finally bought some flies, though.”
Looking down at her empty plate, I asked, “Are you done?”
“Oh, yeah. That was so good. Thank you.”
“Any time,” I said, meaning it more than I should. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t remember a time when I’d enjoyed a simple meal with a woman more. Dammit.
I carried our plates to the sink, staring out the window into a wall of swirling white. Was it snowing harder? Was that even possible? No, it was just getting dark, making the snow look thick, impenetrable, and unending.
I had to get the fuck out of here.
Self-control had never been a problem of mine. Never. So why now? Why her? Why Quinn, with her bright smiles and soft skin? Fuck. Why couldn’t I keep my shit together?
“Where”s that bourbon?” I asked, knowing alcohol was the last thing I needed.
“Lower right cabinet,” Quinn said. “I don”t really have glasses. Those camping mugs up there on the shelf should do the job.”
I snagged the bottle of bourbon, a stout, rounded vessel of thick beveled glass with a distinctive horse and rider cork. Blanton’s. This was the good stuff. I grabbed two of the blue-speckled enamel mugs and brought them to the table, pouring for both of us, Quinn”s serving more generous than mine. The last thing I needed was too much alcohol in my system. My judgment was impaired enough with Quinn in the same room.
She took a sip and swallowed, letting out a sigh of contentment. “Thanks for rescuing me,” she said quietly.
I nodded and didn”t answer. I couldn’t put words to the complicated twist of emotions in my chest. Bone-deep terror that someone had tried to hurt her. What would have happened if I hadn’t been following to tell her the weather? What if— No. I shut it off. What-ifs weren’t any good to anyone.
I wanted to promise I”d never let anything happen to her, that I’d protect her always.
I couldn’t make that promise for so many reasons. For one thing, I shouldn’t be close enough to her to keep that promise. And for another, I couldn’t protect anyone forever. What was I going to do, follow her everywhere?
“We”ll find him,” I said, hoping I wasn’t lying.
She just nodded and took another sip of the bourbon. “It hasn”t snowed like this since I was a kid,” she said. “The winter I was thirteen, we got almost two feet, and it stayed cold for over a week. It took ages to get somebody to plow the driveway, and we were all stuck in the house. My father was on a business trip and couldn’t get home. It was just us kids and the staff who got stranded with us. That week was the most fun I remember from growing up there.”
I felt the smile lift the side of my mouth. I had my own memories of snow days and sledding, my mother waiting with hot cocoa and a hug. My childhood was long gone, but while it lasted it had been great. Quinn’s best memory was a storm like this one, of being trapped with her siblings. I knew without asking that it hadn’t been her siblings or the snow that made the memory good. It had been the absence of her father.
My life had gone to shit after my parents died, but while I’d had them, they’d been the best. People liked to think money could solve any problem, but I wouldn’t trade the small house I’d grown up in, my thrift store sneakers, and store-brand cocoa for Quinn’s childhood. Not for all the millions she might one day inherit. I’d ruined my own life with bad decisions, but while my parents lived, I’d had love, which was a hell of a lot more than Quinn had.