Chapter Twenty-Two
Sunbathing and walking through quaint islands were incredible. There seemed to be more people on the ship and in the little island communities than in their own town. It was like a dream. Unfortunately, like all dreams, waking up was inevitable, and after two weeks, it was time to head home.
Arriving back home to the realities of life, Quinn was busy finishing his last days with the sheriff’s department when they received the call that seemed to make the world stand still.
Liam called. They needed help to find Katie.
Quinn and the other O’Connor men, except for Da, left for Montana.
It was more than thirty-six hours before Da got the stand-down message.
Katie was safe. It was a scary thing to realize there were crazy people in the world and the O’Connors were not immune to their effects.
When Quinn called Cheyenne, he spoke sweet nothings to her, and he wanted to do nothing more than talk with her until they both fell asleep. When he flew back home, he held her for most of the evening and night, not letting her get far from him.
“That scared me. I don’t want you going anywhere alone,” said Quinn in adamant tones.
“Quinn, honey waiting for escort all the time isn’t practicable or feasible for me to do. Or anyone, really. I promise I’ll be very careful when you’re gone.”
“You had better or you know what will happen.”
“All of you will come looking for me, silly, we all know that.” Her answer met with a center swat to her lower cheeks to bring heat to her sitting zone and a consuming kiss that brought heat to her upper cheeks.
CLOSING THE PHYSICAL doors of Sterling Accounting Firm, which her father had opened twenty-five years ago, was hard.
The business, opened nearly thirty years ago, was still technically open.
It had gone back to its roots when it started in the second bedroom of her parents’ home, only this time it would be housed in her and Quinn’s home.
It made Cheyenne pause, not for the first time, wondering if she was deserting her father’s dream.
She wasn’t. She was expanding it to include the O’Connor name.
She was going to keep the business as Sterling but bring it under the umbrella of O’Connor Enterprises. She smiled. Dad would approve.
The tears rolled down her cheeks as she walked through the little office that her father had said he made sure had a second room for when his newborn daughter would join him in the firm.
As she grew up, James had said that she would not need to be an accountant, but have a job or business that needed an office.
He knew he needed her beside him always.
For the last two years in college and two after graduation, she was.
Then he was gone. It was an incredible four years.
She wished there had been many more. She turned out the lights and locked the doors for the last time.
Next was the final packing up of the apartment.
The original plan was to be out by November first, but while the major packing up had been accomplished except for her bed, she had wanted to keep the apartment.
Quinn had agreed. They were glad they did because newlyweds need privacy.
With the biggest Christmas Cheyenne had ever experienced over, the plan was to be moved out before the New Year.
That was more packing and crying for the loss of familiarity.
She wasn’t only leaving her apartment and her office, but her whole town and, in some ways, her lifestyle.
There was no club to release tension in, no group of girls to hang out with, and she would not have her own place to decompress when Quinn irritated her.
“It’s not like I don’t love him to distraction,” she explained to Jacquie, “but he’s so much.
I mean, bigger than life. His whole family is bigger than life, and I won’t have a place to go to breathe.
I know it sounds crazy, and I’m probably working myself up over nothing but there won’t even be a place like The Sting to play in and let go. ”
“No, I don’t think you’re crazy. You and Quinn have built a life around things like this and you’re so right when you say they are bigger than life.
Quinn won’t understand it even if he wanted to because he was born in the middle of all of this.
It’s normal for him. Listen, I think you should tell him. ”
“What? Tell him what? I love you but life with you is too much of everything? The sex is mind blowing, the dominant part is instantly freeing, the family is smilingly overwhelming and the changes in my life are alarming. Yes, I know we talked about it but now that I’m living it all, I’m suffocating from the sheer bigness of everything.
Yeah, I can see me saying all of that to him.
I love him so much it hurts and even that can be overwhelming.
How do I let him now that I need help but I don’t know what kind of help I need? ”
“I think you already did,” said Jacquie. She tilted her head in the direction of Ace and Quinlan, who had walked in behind Cheyenne right when she was making her last impassioned speech.
They stood quietly as Cheyenne finished her words.
Quinn nodded his head after Jacquie spoke.
He walked up behind Cheyenne, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed the tender spot on her neck, nipping a bit, causing her to startle but then relax.
Jacquie walked around them and said goodbye to the couple, but it went unacknowledged as they worked through the newness of marriage in a larger-than-life environment.
They then spent a long evening figuring things out.
Quinn, being the alpha male, wanted to fix everything. Cheyenne, somewhere between type A and type B personality, but submissive to her dominant husband, wanted no part of it.
“Quinn, you can’t just barrel in and take over.”
He leaned away from her and said, “You do remember who I am, right?”
“That isn’t what I mean. You can’t just fix this. It takes time. I need you to understand that those are my feelings and support me as I deal with them. Help me by allowing me time to put things in their proper place in my own life and then in our life.”
“Okay, what can I do then?” Quinn pulled her back into his arms and cuddled her.
“Just don’t get irritated when I work through all of my feelings. Don’t get impatient and try to take over. Promise you won’t get out of control.”
He shook his head. “I don’t see how that is going to help. I’m a good fixer.” He looked at her face and agreed. “Fine. You tell me what you need, and I’ll try to meet those needs.”
She smiled and leaned up. “I love you, Mr. O’Connor.”
He met her lips halfway. “And I love you, Mrs. O’Conner.”
Finally, the apartment was packed, moved to storage, and the apartment cleaned in time for the New Year celebration and a few days of nothing but relaxation to calm frayed nerves and finalize their plans.
Quinn would go to the training, and Cheyenne would stay at his parents’ house until he returned.
He had the movers set to pick up and move their things to the new house in Montana near the end of January, as his reporting date was February first.
Telling his thoroughly satiated wife goodbye for a few weeks was difficult, but a necessity. He kissed her one last time, landed a solid swat on her bottom for a “deterrent” and off he went for three long weeks.
Cheyenne missed him already by the afternoon, and while life with Sean and Siobhan was filled with love and laughter, she missed having things to do.
She missed Quinn more than ever because of the added intimacy and closeness of the past month.
It was the beginning of the very busiest time of the year for her, and she was anxious to get things started, but she was out of her normal working environment.
Everything felt off. She was more than restless and hated how irritable she was becoming.
Work was not as satisfying as it had been.
She used Da’s office for the O’Connor accounting, and it was easier to have immediate access to their records but not enough to stave off the aimlessness of the days.
Quinn called daily, but Cheyenne grew more restless, and she decided she would pick up her gear, the household things, and go to the new house.
She was anxious to leave and get there after she made the decision.
Quinn would be back on the twentieth, and the house would be empty by the fifteenth.
He had arranged for their things to meet them there on the twenty-third, and she would have to change it up by ten days.
He had everything set up perfectly so as not to repeat Liam’s mistake of believing Jocelyn when she said it was no big deal when it was a big deal.
Quinn had told Cheyenne, in his no-nonsense Dom voice, to wait for him, but she was so ready to get going in her new life she decided to drive to the Circle C and visit until the furniture arrived.
Cheyenne knew that if Quinn was not happy with her, it didn’t matter if they were newlyweds or not; she would most certainly feel his displeasure.
For some reason, her head knowledge didn’t speak to the rest of her, and she made the decision to go early.
When she called her sisters-in-law to tell them she was preparing to come early, they all advised against it.
In fact, Kelli went on to recount several times in her early life when she had chosen to go against Quinn and Ciarán, and the dire consequences she suffered because of it.
When she told Siobhan that she was leaving, that good woman tried to talk her out of it as well.