Tilly grimaced. “I can work on that, but no.”
“A promise to make me coffee every morning?”
“A box of your baby clothes,” Tilly said. “My mom—our mom—made them for you.” She gestured to the small chest. “I found it a while ago, which was mean and selfish of me. I’m sorry about that too.”
Quinn opened the chest and gasped softly. “These are mine?”
“Handmade,” Tilly said. “She was excited about being pregnant with you. Happy. I don’t know what happened or why that changed, but she was really young.” She met Quinn’s gaze. “I mean if it was me, I wouldn’t be grown up enough to be able to keep a baby, you know?”
Quinn nodded.
“I thought you’d want to know that she did want you.”
Quinn’s eyes shimmered brilliantly and she nodded. “Thanks,” she whispered. “You’re a good sister.”
Tilly chewed on her lower lip, her gaze saying she hadn’t been a good sister and she knew it. “I wanted to end our trial period a long time ago,” she burst out with. “I just didn’t know how.”
Sometimes it was the big things. Death. Love. Life. But sometimes it was the small things. A hug. A few words. Quinn set aside the chest of clothes and smiled. “Took you long enough.”
Tilly let out a low laugh. “We’re not going to have to hug again, are we?”
“Yes,” Quinn said and hauled her in.
Her face smushed into Quinn’s shoulder, she asked, “Are we going to have to hug a lot?”
“Yes. Deal with it,” Quinn said and Tilly smiled against her neck and knew everything was going to work out. Messily, no doubt, but they’d be okay.
Far more okay than she could’ve hoped for.
MICK WAS KNEE-DEEP in negotiations with the owner of the Wild West B & B when he got a call from Tom. Mick stepped outside to take it, knowing it wasn’t going to be anything good. Colin had sent him the evidence he’d alluded to in their phone call. A full accounting of expenses Tom had incurred in the past year—which didn’t come close to matching up with his salary. The discrepancy was more than a million dollars.
He could give it to the county prosecutor’s office and Tom’s fate would be in their hands.
“Heard you and your girlfriend had an exciting night,” Tom said.
“What do you want, Tom?”
“I want what I’ve always wanted. You to go the fuck away and stay away. You were a shitty influence on Boomer all those years ago and you still are. He was doing fine until you came back and now he’s in rehab for fuck’s sake.”
It took everything Mick had to not refute that statement but he did because Tom didn’t understood Boomer and never would.
Boomer deserved better.
“I know that you think you’ve got something on me,” Tom said. “You’re wrong.”
“If that was true,” Mick said, “you wouldn’t be calling.”
“Fine. Then let me spell things out for you. If you don’t drop this vendetta against me, you’re going to be sorry.”
“Am I?” Mick asked, squatting to rub Coop’s belly.
“You will be when I have Quinn deemed an unfit guardian, and then have Tilly taken away from her and put in foster care.”
Mick rose to his feet. “Try proving Quinn unfit. She’s an amazing guardian.”
“Let me remind you that not once but twice now, Tilly’s run away. She’s driven without a license, crashed a car, and damaged county property—while under Quinn’s care. And I’m sure if I think real hard, I can come up with even more charges. I’ve got a lot of influence and pull in this county and you damn well know it.”
“What I know,” Mick said evenly, “is that you’ve been taking kickbacks instead of providing jobs to this town. That’s on you and no one else.”
“Even if you manage to prove that and take me down, facts are facts. The girl’s been acting out while under Quinn’s care. On top of everything else, there’s also evidence she’s been shoplifting.”
“Bullshit,” Mick said. “Where and when?”
“Let’s just say that if there isn’t evidence of it yet, there will be,” the slimy bastard said. “So stand down, or I take you and yours down with me. Oh, and one more thing. You’re going to stand up at the next town meeting and announce that you’ve reconsidered your position and you’re backing me and my projects one hundred percent.”
Mick wanted to reach through the phone and punch his smug face. Because now he was faced with either letting his old friends and neighbors down, or watching Quinn be publicly deemed unfit and lose Tilly.
Neither of which he could let happen.
QUINN KNEW SOMETHING was wrong when she got a call from Cliff that afternoon. “What’s up?” she asked, immediately moving down the hall to peek into Tilly’s room.
When she saw the teenager sprawled out on her bed, lost in her own world with headphones on, she took a deep breath.
No one had run away, stolen the car, crashed the car . . .
“I just had an odd phone call,” Cliff said. “I was questioned about you and Tilly by someone at the county.”
“Questioned?”
“About the legality of your taking guardianship of Tilly,” Cliff said. “Something doesn’t feel right to me. I’m going to look into it, but I wanted to warn you that I think something’s up.”
Her stomach tightened. She’d had just about all the drama she could take. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. I’ll call you back tomorrow, sit tight.”
But Quinn didn’t do sit tight very well. She waved at Tilly, who sat up and pulled the headphones away from her ears. “What?”
“I need to go talk to Mick,” Quinn said.
“Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“It’s a real talk! Jeez. I’ll be back in a few,” Quinn said and went to the garage. She cranked over Carolyn’s old Bronco, drove to the Wild West B & B, and knocked on the door of the room Mick always used when he was in town.
He opened the door wearing a pair of low-slung basketball shorts and a set of headphones around his neck. His laptop was open. Clearly he was working, and just as clearly, he was surprised to see her. “Hey,” he said. “I was coming to you in a little bit.”
“Beat you to it.” She ducked under his arm and let herself in.
“Is this a booty call?” he asked hopefully.
She wished. “No, I have to get back to make Tilly dinner.”
“You know, if you wait long enough to make dinner, people will just eat cereal. It’s science.”
She laughed, but the smile fell quickly from her face. “I just got an odd call from Cliff. Someone’s questioning my guardianship.”
Mick’s eyes darkened with anger, but not, she couldn’t help but notice, surprise. She let out a breath and sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s going on, Mick?”
He hesitated and then came to sit down next to her. “Tom Nichols called me,” he said and then told her the rest, what Tom had sworn to do if he didn’t back down.
“But you’re not going to back down, right?” she asked.