“No buts, Quinn.” He lifted her easily and set her aside, then strode into the kitchen, where he yanked open the door of the cupboard above the refrigerator. “We need the money and you know it. I don’t need a guilt trip from you.”
His words stung. They had only been in Key Lake for two months—not even—and Quinn had sent out a dozen resumes. The one job she really wanted at the preschool had fallen through, but she couldn’t bring herself to fill out an application for Walmart. Not yet. How could Walker throw that in her face?
Quinn was equal parts miffed and contrite. Well, not quite equal. She was spoiling for a fight and found herself wanting to hiss across the space between them that Walker’s piece wasn’t sold. But she managed to control the urge. Accusations would accomplish nothing except for pushing him further away. Instead, she warned: “Shhhh!” Quinn pointed at the closed door to the spare room where Lucy was, ostensibly, asleep. She hoped.
If Walker heard her he didn’t let on. Instead, he grabbed a bottle of Crown Royal and a highball glass and poured himself a double shot, neat. He took a few sips before splashing in a bit more and leaving the bottle uncapped and sitting on the kitchen counter. He returned to perch on the arm of the couch. Far from Quinn.
“You know how I feel about this,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“I really can’t handle you complaining about it.”
Quinn dipped her head in acknowledgment. “You’re the only person I have to talk to.” She didn’t mention her mother and the fact that there were now three of them who knew Nora’s secret. She wasn’t ready to tell Walker that. “It’s just a lot to deal with.”
When Walker softened it was a visible, tangible, obvious thing. Like butter melting. Like ice transforming to a puddle on a sun-warmed picnic table. To Quinn, it was hope itself, and she lifted her face to him now, expectant.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“For what?” He looked at her warily, as if her answer mattered much.
“For everything. All of this. For Lucy. For making you do something you don’t want to do.”
“It’s been a rough summer,” he admitted.
“Do you regret coming here?”
He tipped his glass, watching the dark liquid inside. “I’d go anywhere with you,” Walker said eventually. He meant it, Quinn knew he did. He told her they were one in a million, a love story for the ages, and she believed that it was true. Usually. He was a lot to contain. Too much to know. There were things about her husband that were still a mystery, and Quinn feared she’d always follow a step behind. Forever reaching for him.
“I’d go anywhere with you,” she said.
“I know.”
Walker gave her a stiff smile, but he slid off the arm of the couch so that their knees were touching. On again, off again. Hot and cold. Lust and love and desire and longing and all the things that she could put a name to plus several that she couldn’t.
“I love you,” she said, because it seemed like the only thing that she could say.
“I know.”
“My mom’s having a party tomorrow night,” she blurted when the silence between them began to turn stale. A classic Quinn move. Distract. Redirect. Anything to keep the peace. Of course, her attempts to pacify sometimes backfired. Quinn didn’t quite understand the difference between keeping the peace and making peace. One required diversionary tactics. The other, battle plans.
But Walker was willing to play along. “Ah.” He smiled and tossed back the last of his drink. “A legendary Sanford gathering, I presume?”
“Of course. My mom is begging us to come.”
“Us?”
“Of course.”
“It’s an event.” Walker nodded sagely. “How many years has it been?”
“Lots. I don’t know. I hated them when I was a kid. All those adults with sour breath and wrinkled clothes. My mother is the picture of propriety, but those parties always had a slightly desperate air to them.”
“Those are some pretty profound thoughts for a kid.” Walker put his empty drink on the table and Quinn restrained herself from slipping a coaster underneath the glass.
“I was a teenager when it hit me that they were playing at youth,” Quinn said.
“What do you mean?”
“I walked past a group of my mom’s friends and they started commenting on my skin, my hair, my legs. They thought I couldn’t hear them, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I know now that they were jealous. Of a seventeen-year-old.”
“I imagine every woman you meet is jealous of you.” Walker’s hand was on her bare leg, his thumb tracing the arc of three small freckles on her thigh.
Quinn’s skin tingled where he touched her. This was different from the foot rub, different from the way he reached for her throughout the day as if she were a lodestone and he simply needed to be grounded. She loved it when he touched her like this. With intent. With desire.
“I don’t know about that,” Quinn managed as Walker’s fingertips brushed beneath the hem of her khaki shorts. They were so short he didn’t have to reach far to graze the lacy edge of her hip-hugging panties.
“I do.” Walker pushed her back gently into the pillows and kissed her slow. His mouth was fire and longing. Warm and insistent. Quinn both loved and loathed the way he made her feel consumed. As if she were drowning, but instead of gasping for air she let herself be pulled under, deeper still.
There were things that they should talk about. Realities to face. But Quinn was in no state to address them. She gave in and kissed him back, her hands twisting in his hair, holding tight.
“Go to your mom’s party,” he told her, nibbling at her bottom lip.
“Lucy . . .” she whispered, but the girl was little more than a ghost of a thought.
“I’ll stay with her.” Walker’s hand was under her shirt now, following the line of her hip, her waist, the fine bones of her arching rib cage.
“But—”
“Go. I’ve got this covered.”
And then, suddenly, Quinn didn’t care about anything but his body above her.
NORA
THE DOOR WAS OPEN, the narrow gap dark as a wound, and that scared Nora even more than the silence. It was eerie, the quiet. The night was hot and sticky, stagnant when it should have been alive with the chirp of crickets, the low whine of cicadas in the trees. But the world seemed to be holding its breath, waiting for the first few raindrops of the storm that swelled on the horizon. Even the house was still, the shades pulled, the windows black.
Nora had stood on these steps dozens of times. More. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was in the wrong place. Where was the tinny soundtrack of a show turned up too high on the TV? Sometimes the radio played tug-of-war with sitcom stars, and sometimes Tiffany’s voice drowned it all out. The bark of her laugh or belted show tunes that filled the farmhouse with a warm luster. Tiffany loved to fill up space with sound, to talk, laugh, sing, and Nora was used to hearing the muffled noise through closed doors. Tiffany believed in shutting the world out. In padlocks and chains. And she never turned from a door without securing it behind her.