The Best Part of Me (24 page)

As his irritation had simmered throughout the afternoon, he'd come up with lots of different ways to remind Quinn just what she'd missed while she was out of town. Step one in his master plan was pulling her away from the party so they could have some privacy. Maybe he'd toss her in the bed of his truck and drive her up the lane to the abandoned Ballagh school house. Those old school desks were made of sturdy stuff and could definitely take their weight.

He'd given up tormenting himself about how much he wanted her. Hell, ever since she'd left, he'd done nothing but think about her. The fighting last night had done nothing to alleviate his longing; neither did the throbbing welt under his eye.

So be it. He wanted her. He was going to leave it at that and think no further. He wasn't a bloody philosopher. He didn't need to dig deep into his subconscious to pull out what his feelings really meant. Quinn was a fiery, strong-willed, beautiful woman with a killer ass. He was a very willing and very able hot-blooded man. It made sense. And that rationale had helped him sleep last night.

Now where the hell was she?

“Where's Quinn?” he asked Darcy.

She shook her head. “No idea. I thought she might come with you.”

He did a quick scan once more of the crowd, and there was still no sign of her. He was about to head in Rory's direction when he saw his cousin pull into the driveway. He knew Sean had driven straight in from a late-afternoon meeting north of Boston and was no doubt ready to tie a few on. Sauntering over with that shit-eating grin on his face, he clapped Ewan on the back before turning his megawatt smile to Darcy.

Sean cleared his throat and took a giant breath before belting out “Happy Birthday to you…Happy Birthday to you…Happy Birthday, dear Darcy…”

Jesus, what a clown. He felt sorry for Darcy as Sean's serenade drew the attention of everyone at the party. Her big eyes looked to him, beseeching that he do something to shut his idiot cousin up. Thankfully, the song was short.

“…Happy Birthday to youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu.” Sean finished with a grand gesture, arching his arms over his head. Darcy looked like she was slowly shrinking. Loud applause and yells came from the crowd around the bonfire, leading Sean to bow several times in their direction.

“Thanks Sean. That was…great.”

“Most welcome. That was my gift to you. Priceless really.”

“Cheap ass,” she laughed.

Sean's look of mock offense was way over the top. “I'm wounded!”

Darcy laughed again. “You'll get over it.”

Sean smirked and turned his attention to Ewan.

“Where's your lady friend? Have your brooding ways and lack of vocabulary bored her to tears yet?”

Ignoring the jab, Ewan shrugged. “Not sure. I just got here.”

“She'll be here soon, I'm sure. She's bringing the cake,” Darcy said, taking a sip of her beer.

“Nice. By the way, have you seen Lisbeth around?” Sean asked her.

Darcy's eyebrows shot up, and her mouth went slack as she pulled her beer bottle away from her lips. She looked completely bewildered. But as quickly as it came, it left and was replaced by something that looked close to anger.

“How should I know where she is?” Darcy snapped.

Sean hesitated at Darcy's tone. “Because she's your friend?”

Darcy narrowed her eyes at Sean, her mouth setting in a straight line.

“I'm not her keeper. Go look for her yourself.”

Ewan looked back and forth between the two of them, and Sean appeared to be just as confused as he was.

“In fact,” Darcy continued, her voice growing a little louder, “she's probably in the house, bent over the back of the couch with her skirt pulled up to her waist waiting for you, Sean. Although you might have to take a number. But oh, wait! You've already taken your turn, haven't you?”

Sean's mouth fell open. “Darcy, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Really, Sean? I'm sure Lisbeth would be crushed to know that you don't even remember fucking her. Don't you know what a blow like that would do to her ego?”

“What the fuck's the matter with you?” Sean said, confusion quickly turning to anger.

Darcy threw back the rest of her beer. “I don't know, Sean, you tell me. God knows I've wondered the same thing myself!” Glaring at Sean, Darcy turned on her heel, threw her empty bottle into the recycling bin, and stalked away.

The two of them stood motionless, watching Darcy stalk across the yard into the crowd of people with her Jameson whiskey bottle in her hand.

“What the fuck?” Sean said.

Ewan didn't really know what to say to him. “You said
something
she didn't like.”

Sean ran his hand through his hair. “I just asked where Lisbeth was. She left the dome light in her car on, for fuck's sake.”

Women. They were complicated creatures most times. Always talking in riddles and expecting men to read their minds. Ewan had no explanation to offer his cousin, who stood beside him with his hands on his hips. Knowing Sean, he would shake it off quickly and chalk Darcy's bitchiness up to some unknown reason that had nothing to do with him.

Because God forbid Sean could ever do anything wrong.

There was usually nothing he couldn't talk his way out of. But the growing look of unease on Sean's face led Ewan to believe that his cousin was finding it hard to come up with an excuse why Darcy had just flipped out on his ass.

A car door slammed shut, and Ewan looked over his shoulder to see Quinn making her way from the drive to the side of the house where he and Sean were standing. It was about time she'd finally gotten here. She was carrying a clear round cake container in front of her as she stepped carefully through the yard.

He started to salivate, and it wasn't because he was excited to eat her cake.

She dressed in dark denim that hugged her slim legs and a light-colored shirt with a corduroy blazer. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail that swooshed behind her as she tried to avoid the uneven spots along the ground.

Stepping away from his dumbfounded cousin, he started toward her and caught her attention. Her normally sunny face seemed weary. She smiled at him. But when the smile didn't quite reach her eyes, he knew something wasn't right.

Suddenly, the side door of the house flew open right into Quinn's path.

More precisely, right into Quinn's cake.

Lisbeth, looking disheveled and on her way to being drunk, gasped when she realized she'd hit someone with the door. And when she yanked the door back, Quinn stood behind it—motionless. Her arms were still extended in front of her, but the cake was lying on the ground. The container had popped open and icing was smeared along the inside of the lid, and sections of cake were lying in pieces on the grass.

“Oh, God, Quinn. I'm so sorry!” Lisbeth instantly knelt to help save the unsalvageable birthday cake.

Quinn stood staring down at the ground, finally dropping her arms to her side. The surprise on her face twisted into complete defeat as she took a shuddering breath. She exhaled with a loud sob.

Before Ewan could reach her, she quickly turned and hurried back toward the driveway, her face in her hands.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Lisbeth muttered as she tried to shove the cake back into the container. “Ewan, don't let her leave!”

Obviously, he wasn't going to let her leave. Stepping around Lisbeth, he jogged after Quinn and caught up to her just before she reached her aunt's car.

“Hey, wait up.” He put his hand on the car door as she tried to pull it open.

“Please, I want to go home.” She sniffled.

“There's no reason to go home,” he said. “So the cake got trashed. Big deal.”

“I don't care about the damn cake,” she shouted, stomping the ground. Her eyes flashed helplessly at him, and he could see a lot more hurt than dropping a cake could ever cause. He watched as she scrunched her nose before tears flooded into her eyes and started rolling down her cheeks.

Fuck. Anything but tears. He couldn't handle tears. Why couldn't she be angry and screaming at him? He could deal with that.

“I just want to go home,” she said, wiping her face.

He wasn't about to let her get behind the wheel in the state she was in.

“Let's take my truck,” he offered, steering her away from her car in the direction of where he'd parked. He opened the door for her, and she crawled into the cab of the truck without a word. Because he realized she had no intention of doing so herself, he pulled the seat belt across her body and buckled her in. He gently shut the door and hurried around to the driver's side.

He had no plans to take her home. Maybe if he drove her around for a while, she'd cry whatever it was out of her system. So he headed south toward the Blue Hills Reservation. They left the streetlamps and house lights behind them, and soon the only light came from the waning moon.

After about fifteen minutes, Quinn had settled beside him, her body swaying with the movements of the truck. He should say something to her, but damned if he wasn't out of ideas. He glanced over and saw the tear tracks on her cheeks as she looked down at her hands in her lap. God, what did he say to make her feel better?

Well outside of town, he pulled his truck off the road into one of the tourist overlooks. The national park lay open before them, illuminated by the moon. In high school, he'd bring girls here in the wee hours of the morning to make out. But making out was the furthest thing from his mind at the moment with Quinn sitting next to him breaking to pieces.

After turning the ignition off, he angled toward her, not knowing if he should reach for her or take her hand. If it were him, he'd want to be left alone. But he didn't know if Quinn wanted that. He'd never been in a situation that required him to deal with this. Shit, he'd never been in a situation where he cared enough to
want
to deal with this.

“I'm sorry.” She swiped at her cheeks. “I didn't even say hi to you.”

“It's okay.”

She wiped her hands on the front of her pants. He decided to crack his window a little, and the cab was instantly filled with the sound of crickets. The gentle breeze blew the lazy branches of the trees on both sides of the tiny gravel overlook. It was a beautiful night. One of the nicest nights that they'd had in a long time. But somehow he knew Quinn wasn't thinking about the breeze or the breathtaking view in front of them.

“Did you know that my parents were killed a little over a year ago?”

Her question surprised him. “Yes.”

“Do you know how they died?”

“No.” His low voice was barely above a whisper.

She was looking straight ahead out the front windshield, staring off into some unknown but painful memory before she continued talking.

“It was a picture-perfect day. A Friday. I remember that much. I had an exam that morning, and then I was free until later in the afternoon. I'd made plans with my parents to meet them for lunch downtown. We had a standing lunch date. Every Friday.”

Ewan wanted to stop her from telling this story. A story that she didn't want to tell. But he sensed that she needed to tell it, so he let her continue.

“The university was offering a summer semester in Paris, and although it was something that we probably couldn't afford, my parents had encouraged me to go. The only place outside the United States I'd been to was Germany, and traveling the world was something that they both advocated. I was so excited to go study in France with some of the most beautiful gardens in the world as my backdrop. I'd always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. To walk in the footsteps of the king and queen at Versailles.” She bit her bottom lip and dropped her chin. “I needed a student visa for my passport. So to condense some errands, we'd stopped at the post office in the federal building across from our lunch spot.”

As soon as she mentioned the federal building, he knew where this story was going.

Ewan stared at her fingers as they flexed and twisted in her lap, resisting his urge to take her hand. He sensed the mindless tangling of her fingers was what was anchoring her in her story. Like a focal point of concentration.

“The line was unbelievably long. We stood inside those thick plush rope lines that zigzagged back and forth in the lobby. My afternoon class started at two o'clock, and I hadn't counted on such a long line to mail off the passport. I'd needed to go deposit a few checks as well, so my parents remained in line at the post office for me while I headed a block away to the bank.”

Ewan moved his gaze to her profile and watched as her bottom lip trembled. She stopped talking for a minute before looking up at him with sad gray eyes. Eyes that carried so much pain.

“I never saw them again.” Her voice caught on the last word.

She looked back out the front windshield and took a deep breath.

“Quinn, you don't…”

“Yes, I do,” she whispered.

He didn't want to hear any more. He didn't want to see that look on her face, like her whole world was collapsing.

“I was at the bank when the bomb went off. It tore a hole in the front of the federal building. Sixty-three people died that day. My parents among them. And if I hadn't been at the bank, I would have died too.”

“Christ,” Ewan whispered, his quiet curse seemed loud inside the cab of the truck. His body shuddered, and he tensed at the thought of her being that close to death.

“They said it was a disgruntled employee. Someone who worked at that building who'd just been laid off. He planted a bomb in a backpack and left it beside one of the pillars in the lobby, right next to the post office.”

She pulled her lips in and squeezed her eyes shut.

“You don't know how many times I've thought back and tried to recall every single person I passed as I walked out on my way to the bank. I search through all their faces in my memory, trying to find that man. Someone who may have been acting suspicious. Someone with an angry face. I figured that for someone to do something so awful, he must have looked awful, right? But I can't remember. I try to tell myself that it doesn't matter. That even if I did see him, there isn't anything I can do about it now. But it haunts me. Knowing that I could have rubbed shoulders with him on the way out. That I could have held the door open for him as he walked inside.”