Chapter 25
Q uinn hadn’t meant for his overnighter with Delilah to end so disastrously. The date with her and the kids had gone so well—and then he’d had to show her his hurt feelings.
Damn it, he knew better than that. When you showed a woman your hurt feelings, you lost your advantage. If he’d ever had an advantage in the first place.
He could blame it on the fact that he’d been groggy from sleep. He hadn’t had coffee yet. Hell, he hadn’t even peed yet.
But he’d only said what he was really feeling. He had been hurt by the implication that what he had with Delilah was some dirty secret that had to be hidden from her sons. He’d been hurt by her constant reminders that this thing wasn’t going anywhere and was only a fling.
He drove home, let himself into his house, and went through his normal morning routine of coffee, shower, breakfast. While he did, he brooded about everything that had happened.
Quinn had told Delilah that he didn’t mind climbing out the window and falling into the hedges. Metaphorically. But he did mind, it turned out. He wanted a clear, visible place in her life. He didn’t want to be some kind of shameful secret.
When he was dressed and fed and ready to begin his day, he responded to some e-mails from potential clients wanting to book day hikes; he began making corrections to the furniture website in response to the notes the client had sent him; and he made some notes for an article about largely overlooked hiking trails in the Big Sur area where you could go when you wanted to get away from the tourist crowds and be alone with nature.
It occurred to him that if he managed to sell the article to one of the larger outdoors magazines, the trails might not be so overlooked anymore. But that couldn’t be helped.
Just as he was brainstorming ideas for the article, listing trails and some pros and cons for each, someone knocked on his door.
He got up, dressed in faded jeans and a sweatshirt that was fraying at the edges, and answered it.
“Oh. Mrs. Foster.”
His first thought was that he’d been playing his music too loud, then he realized he hadn’t been playing any music.
“Quinn, dear. I was just popping by to see if you’re okay. I noticed you didn’t come home last night.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t come home a lot of nights.” She’d never come asking about him when he slept in the van after a long hike, so why was she here now?
“Well, I suppose that’s true. But I’m a worrier, so—”
“You’re not really a worrier, Mrs. Foster.” Where was this going? What was she getting at?
“Oh, all right.” She deflated a little at being caught out in her lie. “My friend Dolly told me your car was in front of that Delilah Ballard’s place all night, and I came to find out if you’re finally going to settle down with a nice girl. By the way, I’d love a cup of tea. Do you have some?”
“So, she basically told me to get out.” Quinn wrapped up his story as Mrs. Foster finished her tea. “It’s like she thinks I’m going to corrupt her kids or something.”
“Oh, Quinn, she doesn’t think that.”
They were sitting at his dining table, a mug of tea in front of Mrs. Foster, Quinn with a cup of strong coffee. He’d scrounged around in his cupboard and found an unopened pack of cookies he’d forgotten about, and several of them sat on a plate between them.
“Really?” he said. “Because it sure seemed that way.”
“She’s protecting her children. You can’t blame a mother for that.”
“Protecting them from me? I’ve never been anything but nice to those boys.”
“Oh.” She waved a hand to dismiss what he’d said. “She’s not protecting them because she thinks you’re some kind of danger. She’s protecting them because she doesn’t want to break their hearts. Honey, those kids have lost their father. Yes, he’s still there, but he’s half a world away, and he didn’t choose them. That hurts. Delilah doesn’t want her boys to love you and then lose you if things don’t work out.”
He shifted in his chair to face her more fully. “Who says things won’t work out?”
“Delilah’s life experience, for one.” She shook her head sadly. “A woman gives her life to a man—really gives it to him—and then gets thrown aside for someone else? You don’t get over that right away, and for her, it probably feels like it happened yesterday.”
He could see the sense in what she was saying, and he reluctantly had to admit she had a point.
Even though he felt like shit, he allowed Mrs. Foster a slight grin. “You know a lot about Delilah for someone who’s never met her.”
“I know a lot about people, that’s all.” She shrugged. “That, and the fact that Dolly and I do like to talk. What fun is it to live in a small town if you can’t know everything about your neighbors?”
Delilah went through her morning routine worrying about how she’d left things with Quinn.
Part of her was angry. She’d explained to him why she couldn’t let Jesse and Gavin know they were a couple. Hadn’t she? And hadn’t he said he understood?
If he couldn’t live with the conditions she’d set on their relationship, then maybe he should find someone else and move on.
But the idea of him finding someone else made her sick with dread. What if he did? What if he really did decide that dating Delilah was too complicated? He could find another woman—someone single, someone fully available to him—in a heartbeat.
When Delilah thought of how he made her feel, when she thought of all of the fun they’d had together, the thought of never having that again felt like a death—like a tragedy.
And, okay, maybe she hadn’t been fair to him.
As she made pancakes for Jesse and Gavin, she thought about how she would feel if she were seeing someone she cared about and that person treated their relationship like some kind of shameful secret.
She hadn’t done that—not really. Quinn had spent lots of time with the boys. She wouldn’t have allowed that if she hadn’t thought he was good for them.
But she’d kept the nature of the relationship a secret from them, and to Quinn, that had to hurt. He might understand it better if he were a father, but he wasn’t. There were some things you just couldn’t explain to someone who hadn’t lived them.
She flipped a batch of pancakes on the griddle, lost in thought. She didn’t realize Jesse was talking to her until he’d raised his voice to repeat himself.
“Mom! I asked if we could have chocolate chips in our pancakes.”
She blinked a few times as though she’d been startled awake. “Oh. No, sweetie, we still don’t have any.”
“Aww.”
“But we do have some leftover whipped cream from our hot cocoa. You could put that on your pancakes.”
Mollified, Jesse scrambled down from the barstool at the kitchen island and went to tell his brother about the whipped cream windfall.
It seemed to Delilah that she had to make a decision. Did she think things with Quinn were serious enough to let the boys in on the fact that they were dating? Or was this secrecy thing a hill she was willing to die on?
She called Jesse back into the kitchen, put a plate of pancakes with whipped cream in front of him, and went to work on making a batch for Gavin.
As she worked, she said casually, “Jesse?”
“ Hmmf ?” His mouth was too full of pancake for him to utter more than a vague sound.
“I was just wondering … What would you think if I … if I maybe started seeing someone? Like a boyfriend? Someone other than your father?”
Jesse chewed, swallowed, and without hesitation said, “Quinn should be your boyfriend.”
She was so startled that her mouth fell open. Then she composed herself. “He should? Do you think so?”
Jesse nodded. “Yeah. He’s fun. And you’re different when he’s around.”
“I’m different?”
He nodded again and shoved a forkful of pancake into his mouth. When he’d eaten the mouthful, he said, “Yeah. You’re like … sparkly.”
“I’m sparkly?” For some reason, she seemed to be repeating whatever he said.
“Kinda. It’s neat.”
Delilah finished making Gavin’s pancakes, then called him in for breakfast.
When he was seated with his food in front of him, she posed the same question to him. “Hey, Gavin? What would you think if Quinn was my boyfriend?”
Gavin’s reaction was even more enthusiastic than Jesse’s. He bounced up and down in his seat, his eyes wide. “Is he? Is he really your boyfriend?”
“Well … maybe.”
“So are you going to get married? Is he going to come and live with us?”
“No, honey. No. We’re just getting to know each other.”
“But when you’re done getting to know each other? Maybe then?” Jesse asked.
The boys were so excited, so enthusiastic, that Delilah knew she’d been right to worry that their hearts would be broken if things didn’t work out.
But what if things did work out?
“Guys.” Delilah leaned her elbows against the counter to face them. “It’s way too soon to think about Quinn living with us. Way too soon. And I want you to know that if Quinn and I are a couple … it might work out, or it might not. We could date and get to know each other and still decide we don’t want to be together.”
“Like you and Dad,” Jesse said.
“Well … sort of.” She reached out and took Jesse’s hand in one of hers and Gavin’s in the other. “Guys … people date to find out if they want to be together. And sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. I’m just afraid that if Quinn and I do become a couple and it doesn’t work out, all three of us will be really sad. Just like when Dad left.”
“Or we could be happy,” Gavin said.
She squeezed his hand. “You’re right. That’s possible, too. We could be really, really happy.”
She called Quinn later that day.
“I asked the boys what they would think if you and I were a couple.”
“You did?” He sounded surprised, and she hoped the surprise would outweigh any anger or hurt he might still be feeling.
“I did.”
“And what did they say?”
She let out a breath. “They wondered when you’re going to come live with us.”
“Oh. I don’t … That’s not …”
“Relax. I told them you and I are just getting to know each other, and sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn’t. That kind of thing.”
He was silent for a moment, and she gave him time to absorb what she’d said. Clearly, he was flustered. She supposed she would be, too, under the same circumstances.
After a moment, he let out a breath. “Mrs. Foster told me you were trying to protect them from getting their hopes up, but I thought … Hell, I don’t know what I thought. I guess she was right.”
“Mrs. Foster?” Delilah said.
“Yeah, my neighbor.”
“Why does your neighbor know about my kids’ hopes?”
“She’s a friend of Dolly’s. She knows everything, apparently.”
Delilah wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed with Dolly. On one hand, Delilah didn’t love the fact that her romantic relationship was being bandied about on Main Street. On the other, Dolly had been such a help since Delilah and the boys had arrived in Cambria, it was hard to be too upset with her about anything.
“Well … yes. Mrs. Foster was right. The boys took to you so strongly from the first moment they met you that I thought it would be devastating for them if they thought we were a thing and then suddenly we weren’t a thing anymore.” Privately, Delilah reflected that it wasn’t just the boys who would be devastated if that happened.
Protecting her sons was important. Essential. But protecting herself mattered, too.
Still, if she didn’t take a chance, how would she ever find something good to replace all the bad that had happened to her? How would she ever realize reward without risk?
“I get it,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry I gave you a hard time about it. I get where you’re coming from.”
But that wasn’t why she’d called, was it? She hadn’t called to reinforce her position. She’d called to change it.
“Quinn?”
“Yeah?”
She steeled herself to say what she needed to say to him.
“If this is just fun for you, that’s okay. It really is. But we need to end it now, before the boys get hurt.” And before I do. “But if it might be more than that, potentially … well … I think it’s time for us to be open about it with the boys.”
“You do?”
“I do. I really do.”
Quinn had so many conflicting reactions to what Delilah was saying that he almost felt dizzy. He sat down on the edge of his sofa, the cell phone to his ear.
The sound of her saying the words I do made him feel vaguely sick—but not in a bad way. More like the way you felt when the bottom dropped out from under you in a carnival ride. You thought you might puke, but that didn’t mean you wanted the ride to stop.
He’d been wanting her to tell the kids. He’d pushed her to do it. But now that she was giving him what he wanted, it also meant that he had to take a stand, here and now.
Either he thought this thing might become serious, or he didn’t.
Suit up or go home.
“Quinn?”
It wasn’t until she spoke that he realized he hadn’t said anything.
“I’m in,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Hell … yes. I’m all in.”
He couldn’t know this soon into the relationship whether things were going to become serious. But he knew he wanted to find out, and he knew he didn’t want her to leave at the end of the month without him.
The idea of getting to January first and never seeing her again? Hell, never seeing Jesse and Gavin again? It was intolerable. It was a worst-case scenario that he couldn’t let happen.
The whole thing felt a little bit like diving into a swimming pool without checking first to see if there was any water in it.
But, hell. He’d will the water into existence if he had to.