Chapter Fourteen
Lark knew she couldn’t stay away from home forever. For one thing, she only had one pair of clothes. And her panties were honestly missing. They were somewhere in Quinn’s room. She was starting to get scared they’d gotten put in his laundry.
There was something intimate about laundry mixing. About her panties tumbling around with his Fruit of the Looms.
Not that there was anything less intimate about rolling around naked in his bed all morning. Which they had. Saddle sore didn’t begin to cover it. But it was freaking worth it.
Sadly, she couldn’t stay in bed with Quinn forever. There were already other employees on the premises, and she didn’t relish the idea of one of them catching them like this. Which meant she needed clothes. Sometime at around ten that morning, the third time Quinn had taken her to heaven and back, he’d told her she definitely needed to stay, and that they would be as discreet as they needed to be, but he wanted her in his bed.
She had not been about to argue with that.
But that meant she was headed back to Elk Haven—without Quinn, because she didn’t want her brothers to shoot him and mount him on a wall.
She was a little too attached to him to let that happen. Which was another problem, because this was a temporary affair. She knew it. Had known it from moment one. Quinn had never lied to her about that.
But for some reason her stupid female emotions were drawing hearts, flowers and Mrs. Quinn Parker all over that memo.
She was a mothereffin’ cliché.
She put her car in park and hesitated before turning the engine off. She didn’t want to go inside. She didn’t want to face her brothers like this. They’d been mad at each other before, but this had felt different. It was different.
This felt like permanent rift material. It made her feel sick to her stomach.
She walked up the porch, her steps heavy on the wood, then stopped at the front door. It was strange, but she almost felt the urge to knock. To get into her own house.
“Stupid.” She pushed the door open and walked into the front room. Cade was standing there, leaning against the counter that held the computer they used to check in guests. Great. The person she was most hoping to avoid.
Because just looking at him made her feel guilty and sad and angry, all at the same time.
His eyes widened.
“What?” she asked. “I freaking live here.” She slammed the door shut and headed up the stairs.
“Hey, wait a second.”
“No.”
“Why are you here?” he asked, his tone accusing.
“Just getting my things.”
“Your things?” He walked to the stairs and gripped the ends of the handrails, looking up at her. “What do you mean you’re getting your things?”
“What do you think it means?” she shot back, wanting to yell at him and cry at the same time. “I’m going to Quinn’s. I’m going to stay there.”
“Are you serious, Lark?” he shouted “Are you that stupid?” Heavy footsteps were now following her up the stairs.
She stopped and turned. “Seriously, Cade? Insulting my intelligence. Again? That’s what all of this is about. Well, half of it. And all you’re doing is reinforcing my convictions.”
“He’s using you,” Cade said.
“What? For sex? Because I do know that. I know I’m not going to marry the guy, and if you dare get pissed at me about that, I will cry bullshit, because you aren’t a virgin and you aren’t married.”
“He’s using you to get . . . to get back at me.”
“How? How does him sleeping with me affect you?”
“I would always be pissed at the guy who was sleeping with you, but this . . . Do you not see how damned affected I am, Lark Mitchell? I can’t believe that . . . animal somehow convinced you to let him put his hands all over you, when he just about killed me . . . how do you not see it?”
Her heart was hammering hard, the beat echoing in her head. “I don’t think he did it, Cade,” she said, her voice choking out partway through the sentence.
“What?”
“Have you ever thought, for a second, that you could be wrong?” she asked.
“No. Lark, I haven’t. No other guy on the circuit would have done it. I’m friends with them. This is why I can’t believe it. He is an antisocial jackass. He doesn’t have any friends. He’s got a crew, but they don’t mix with us. I couldn’t pick any of them out of a lineup. The only time Parker ever went out in a group with us, he ended up bar brawling.”
“And the other guys weren’t involved?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Who threw the first punch?”
Cade shrugged. “He was at the center of it. That’s all that matters.”
“No, that’s not all that matters. What do the other cowboys say to him? How do other people treat him? You don’t have any evidence, Cade. You never did. No one did. It’s all just about not liking him, and I can’t get behind that.”
Cade shook his head, his expression dark. “Lark, some people just cause trouble wherever they go. It’s like he’s . . .”
“Bad blood?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I’ve called you an a*shole a lot of times, Cade, but I’ve never really meant it. But now I do. You are an a*shole. You aren’t even willing to think, for a second, that he didn’t do this to you, and you’re willing to let him lose his whole life over it. Because you just don’t like him? That’s BS. High school garbage. And you’re better than that. You want me to grow up? You first.”
She turned away from him and stomped up to her room, flinging the door open and grabbing her Rainbow Brite duffel bag from the back of her closet, flinging her clothes into it. She didn’t have anything sexy, or she might have paid closer attention to her things.
“Actually . . .” She turned her computer on. Oh, her computer. She would miss it. Actually, weirdly, she hadn’t missed her clan as much as she’d thought she would. How long had it been since she’d checked her email? Two days?
Why didn’t she care that much?
Maybe because life had suddenly gotten more interesting. Maybe because she had Quinn.
She logged in to the computer and grabbed her phone out of her purse, doing a quick search for her early correspondence about Longhorn and pulling up the email that had his address.
One lingerie website and a mortal wound to her bank account balance later, she had some sexy winging its way to Longhorn Ranch of Silver Creek, care of Quinn Parker. Rush delivery.
Because they didn’t have all that much time.
She swallowed the lump in her throat and went back to packing. Then she zipped her bag up and slung it over her shoulder, and nearly ran into her sister-in-law.
“What’s up, babycakes?” Kelsey asked.
“Kelsey, you just about scared a year off my life.”
“And you’re actively scaring years off mine. What’s going on?”
“I’m staying at Longhorn for a while.” She lifted her chin, feeling all defiant.
“This is the guy who hurt Cade, Lark. The reason he can’t walk right. The reason he can’t ride . . . That’s not like you. This isn’t like you.”
“He didn’t. Kelsey, he wouldn’t.”
“Some guys are really good at making up stories, honey. Trust me, I was with one for a long time. A guy who would try to play off me catching him in bed with another woman as ‘not what it looks like.’”
“But that’s not Quinn. He’s been really honest with me. He has. He told me what our relationship was. It’s physical, and that’s all. And I get that me having a purely sexual relationship makes Cole and Cade want to burn out the portion of their memory that holds that information with a branding iron, but I wouldn’t have told them.” She looked down at her duffel bag and examined Rainbow Brite’s hair with an unnecessary attention to detail. “But he also told me, from day one, that he didn’t sabotage Cade’s ride, and I believe him. And what if that’s true, Kels? What if he didn’t? And Cade is just being angry and he’s directing it at the wrong person. Including him in all this for no reason.”
“But . . . He’s so convinced . . .”
“Yeah, and I was too. Until I got to know Quinn.”
“Okay, so for a second here, I’m going to let the Cade thing go and just . . . I have a sister thing to do. Because Cole and Cade won’t. Are you using condoms?”
Lark’s face burned. “Yes. Gosh.”
“He’s not doing anything to hurt you?”
“No!”
“Not asking you to do things you don’t like?”
“No. I’m getting everything I want out of the relationship.” Lies. “And I mean, yeah, I like the guy, but he’s not going to break my heart or anything.”
“The first guy is a hard guy to get over, Lark. And my first was a lame teenage guy who probably thought a *oris was a type of salamander.”
Lark let out a harsh breath. “Yes, and Quinn is a multi-orgasmic god of bedroom gymnastics. I get that. I get that it will be hard to give up.”
“Well, yeah. That’s why I married your brother. I found a good thing and kept it.”
Lark scrunched her eyes closed and frowned. “TMI.”
“You deserve it for what you put Cole through today, and I’m not finished. When it’s that good, it makes you feel a lot of things. You’re going to feel a connection with him; it’s only natural. And I’m just afraid you’re going to get hurt.”
“Well . . . yeah, maybe I will, but I’ll get over it, right? It’s . . . everyone has to go through a crazy and turbulent love affair at some point.”
“I guess, but most of us don’t go into it knowing they’ll fail.”
“Really, Kelsey? Don’t TMI me, but you knew you were going to marry Cole the first time you—”
“Oh, hell no. I just wanted his body.”
“See?”
“But Lark, I did marry him. And it is what I wanted eventually. And when I thought things weren’t going to work out, it devastated me.”
“Well, the difference is that you love Cole, and I don’t . . . love Quinn.” She blinked against the strange feeling in her chest, the one that made her feel like what she’d just said was a lie.
“I didn’t love him at first; I fell into it. Without my own permission. Thanks in part to the sex. I’m just worried about you, that’s all.”
“I’m not going to confuse orgasms with love. I promise. We’re not in a complicated situation like you and Cole.”
“Really? Really, Lark? Because I think your brother punched your boyfriend in the face today because he believed he’s partly responsible for his life-altering injury. Is that not complicated?”
She sighed. “Fine. It’s complicated. Right now though, I’m picking Quinn.” She picked her bag up from the bed. “It’s been two days since I checked my email. I haven’t gamed in a week. I rode a horse. I . . . I feel like me, but better. And it’s because of him. I want that for as long as I can have it.”
“I understand,” Kelsey said, looking down at her hands, twisting her wedding ring in a circle. “I really do. But please be careful. And keep using condoms.”
“Thanks, Kels.” She gave her sister-in-law a hug and walked out of her bedroom, down the stairs, saying a prayer of thanks that Cade wasn’t out there still.
Then she got in her car and headed back to Quinn’s. And when she got there, she didn’t feel like she had to knock.
***
“The boys are coming today.”
Lark opened one eye and found herself staring at a denim-clad thigh. Then she looked up and saw Quinn standing there, arms folded over his chest, looking down at where she was still curled up in his bed.
“Oh.” She scrambled into a sitting position and pushed her hair off of her face. “What time is it?”
“Ten.”
“Ten? FFS, Parker, I should have been working an hour ago!” She slid out of bed, holding the sheet up over her boobs as she started digging through her duffel bag for clothes.
“I kept you up late.”
“Doesn’t matter, I have a job here, and I need to make sure everything is running perfectly for your snot-nosed hoodlums when they get here.”
“Be nice.”
She looked up at him and quirked a brow. “Did you just tell me to be nice?”
“Yeah. They’re just hoodlums. They’re old enough to wipe their own noses. And they’ll really be learning that here. That they have to wipe their noses, make their beds, and work for their food. Life blows, and no one’s entitled to bypass labor via laziness and crime.”
“Well, I have to double check that your vile, soon-to-be-self-sufficient hoodlums can’t search for kinky crap on the web.”
“I thought you had that done.”
“Just a precaution. I’m even more acquainted than you are with what men will do for a flash of boob.”
“Entire countries have fallen for the pursuit of boob flashes.”
“And boob flashing happens a lot for Mardi Gras beads. Does that mean they’re all powerful?”
“The key to world peace or total destruction.”
“Note to self: Buy Mardi Gras beads. Take over the world. Bypass Quinn’s hard work edict.”
“You’re going to be a bad influence, aren’t you?”
She dropped the sheet and shook her shoulders. “Maybe. Eeek!” She found herself flat on her back on the bed with Quinn on top of her, his eyes hungry.
“Distracting woman,” he said, raising his hand and cupping her breast, his thumb sliding over her nipple.
“It proves my point though,” she said, breathless, wanting him again.
“Does it?”
“They’re getting me out of work.”
“I didn’t realize you were going to use your breasts. I thought you were going to use Mardi Gras beads and the breasts of other women.”
“Whatever works.”
He rolled to the side. “I really do have to go tie up all the last-minute details. And I need to also not be having sex when social workers and the like roll in.”
“Fine, fine.” She got up and turned back toward her bag, and Quinn slapped her rear with a resounding smack. “Hey!”
“You liked it.”
She smiled. “Yeah, I did.” She rummaged around, finding a pair of Dalek undies that read EXTERMINATE. She laughed as she tugged them on and turned to face Quinn again.
His eyes widened. “Is that a threat?”
She swayed her hips from side to side. “I dunno. Want to take your chances?”
“You’re wicked this morning, Mitchell.”
“And you’re a pansy-ass this morning, Parker. Afraid of my panties.”
“Your panties are threatening my bits.”
“Nothing bitty down there,” she said, tugging her jeans on. “Not even a little.”
“You flatter me.”
“Not flattery. The truth.”
She put her bra on and earned a cranky grunt from Quinn, then pulled her t-shirt over her head and earned a glare. “You were the one who said you couldn’t be caught with your pants down when social services showed up, Quinn.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“Regretting it.”
“Hell. Yes.”
“Eat your heart out, baby.”
“Or I could just eat out—”
“Quinn!”
“Breakfast. We could eat breakfast out.”
“What about the social workers?”
“We’ve got a couple hours.”
She crossed her arms. “And you’re choosing an outing over sex?”
“A date, Lark. Because you’re right. I’ve taken you on a table, but not a date. And that needs to change.”