Start Me Up (21 page)

Eventually, the world steadied around her. Heat soaked into her back and she felt concrete against her skin. Her front sidewalk, all warm and cozy in the afternoon sun, just like it had been after she’d run through the sprinkler as a little girl. She was sighing with pleasure when a hand gripped hers and set bone scraping against bone.

“Ah!” she screamed. “Fuck!” The words hurt her head, and Lori was suddenly furious. “Let go!”

“Lori,” Ben’s voice murmured, warm with relief. “Thank God. What happened?”

“My hand,” she groaned, and the fingers let her go.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. The ambulance should be here any minute.”

“Don’t need an ambulance.”

“Quiet.”

An extraordinarily annoying mosquito began to buzz in her ear. She tried to brush at it before it got louder and turned into a siren. Too many people surrounded her. Something cold slid under the neckline of her dress. A metallic snick rang in her ears.

“What the hell?” she cursed, struggling to sit up.

“Lori,” Ben Lawsons’s voice cut in. “They need to get the dress off you or the oil could hurt your skin.”

She looked down at herself, at the strange sight of her new dress paired with steel-toed boots, like a candid peek into her recent life. But now her beautiful blue dress was soaked with grease and cut at the neckline and even the boots looked ruined.

“Fine. Just get me a blanket, would you?”

The paramedics handed her a blanket and Ben moved away to talk on the phone. Her blood pressure was measured, her neck braced, her hand splinted. More lights flashed as she lay staring at the overhang of her house. These lights weren’t like the others. They were orange.

“Who’s that?” she asked no one, not expecting a reply, but Ben answered from somewhere behind her.

“It’s the county. They’re calling up the EPA to monitor the spill.”

“Oh, son of a bitch. This is just great.”

“Can you tell me what happened before they cart you off to the hospital?”

She gave him the short version. Heck, there wasn’t much to tell.

“Were you at Quinn’s all night?”

Her neck didn’t budge when she tried to nod. “Yeah.”

And then Molly was there, crying and holding Lori’s unbroken hand, and it was such a relief to watch someone cry for her that Lori felt better even though her head was pounding. “Hey, Moll,” she murmured. “Say something funny.”

Molly shook her head, but relented in the same moment. “Don’t go toward the light,” she sobbed.

Even Lori herself couldn’t believe it when she managed a laugh. “Deal. I’ll tell my dad to go take a flying leap if I see him beckoning.”

With a loud, wet sniff, Molly nodded. “Okay. Good.” She flipped open her phone, but kept a hold on Lori with her free hand. “I’ll call Quinn.”

“No! Why?”

“He should be here.”

“He should not. He’s not my boyfriend. And anyway, he’s on his way out of town today.”

Molly just looked at her, phone still menacingly open.

“Do. Not. Call. Quinn.” Lori ground out.

“He’ll be furious if I don’t.”

Lori played her best card. “You’re making my head hurt with this shit!” She didn’t have to call tears to her eyes; they were already there, waiting.

“Oh, God,” Molly gasped. “Don’t cry. I’m sorry. I won’t call him.” She closed the phone and put it away.

Good.

Lori wanted him here. Wanted to lean on him and let him take care of her. But after that conversation this morning, leaning on Quinn wasn’t an option. That kind of thing led to crying and cuddling and quiet moments and deep talks. That kind of thing led to love. And if she’d thought her life was screwed up this morning…Well, this afternoon it was completely in the ditch, engulfed in flames. There was no room for company.

But throughout the afternoon as he’d tried in vain to arrange an earlier flight home, as he’d left message after message for Lori, as he’d slowly worked his way across the continent from Vancouver to Denver and Denver to Aspen, anger had built inside him. It seemed that getting closer to Tumble Creek was like drawing closer to a red-hot grill. From a distance it looked like nothing…no flames, little smoke. But a closer view revealed waves of shimmering air over the glowing coals. Closer still and you stumbled onto the sudden danger of a blast of superheated air singeing all the hair off your body. Quinn wouldn’t have been surprised to look into a mirror and find that his eyebrows had vanished in the heat of his own fury.

Thanks to the small proportions of the Aspen airport, Quinn was in his car and headed closer to the source of his anger within a few minutes. Twenty more minutes—most of which he couldn’t recall later—and Quinn’s tires were throwing up gravel in the lot of Love’s Garage. The sun glinted like flames off of the wind-shields of the parked vehicles as he slammed out of his car and headed for Lori’s house.

He wasn’t the only one angry with her, apparently. As he approached, he could hear the sound of shouting from within.

“But what the hell were you thinking, trying to walk through that mess?” a man’s voice boomed, the words carrying easily through an open window in the living room.

Lori’s reply was too soft to hear.

“You could have killed yourself.”

Whatever she said, it was dismissive.

“Damn it, just sell that land and get out already. I don’t even care if it’s me anymore, just get the best price you can and get out of here.”

Frowning even harder now, Quinn banged on the door. The voices froze. When the door opened, it was Lori’s mechanic, Joe, holding the knob. “Hey,” he said. After a glance back at the couch, Joe shook his head and brushed past Quinn. “I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

Quinn just stood there in the open door, staring over the back of the couch at the top of Lori’s head. She must know it was him. He’d left enough messages letting her know he was on the way.

More than twenty-four hours had passed since her accident. More than twenty-four hours and she hadn’t called. Hell, he’d still been in town when she’d been hurt.

Quinn closed the door softly, his hand shaking. “Are you all right?” he asked first.

Her head nodded.

“They kept you overnight at the hospital?”

“Just for observation,” Lori muttered.

Circling the couch, he finally got a look at her. Eyes swollen and skin pale, she cradled her hand, encased in a bright white cast, against her chest. Some of his anger wanted to crumble like sand. Quinn tried to shore it up.

“What the hell is going on, Lori?” When she shrugged, his anger stopped crumbling and solidified to concrete. “I missed you today,” he growled. “I missed you and you wouldn’t answer my calls, and I wanted to feel some connection, so I called Ben just to fish for news about you. I wasn’t expecting to hear that you were in the hospital.”

She stared at her lap.

“I wanted to feel a
connection.
How fucking stupid was that?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but it’s not your business.”

Despite her brutal words, he was overwhelmed with the sudden urge to touch her. Still furious, he laid a gentle hand against the side of her face to assure himself that she was fine. “Lori. I can’t believe someone hurt you.”

“It was my fault. An accident.”

“But somebody
did
this. More than once, according to Ben. Why?”

“I don’t know.”

He gritted his teeth. “You don’t know? Or you don’t care to tell me?”

Her face finally tilted up and her dull eyes met his. She very pointedly said nothing.

Quinn latched on to what he’d overheard. “Does this have something to do with your property?”

The skin around her eyes tightened almost imperceptibly. “Why don’t you ask some of your developer friends about that?”

That seemed such an inexplicable shift of topic, Quinn felt momentarily dizzy. “Why would my developer friends be interested in Love’s Garage? Not that it’s not…special.”

“Never mind. There’s no way to tell who’s done this. It’s just vandalism, just kids, probably. I was stupid enough to get myself injured. Nobody hurt me.”

“This isn’t just vandalism—”

“It is. Ask Ben. Hell, it could be some kid I turned in for drunk driving after an accident. Who knows?”

Muscles burning, Quinn began to pace the short length of her living room. The sight of the ugly moss rock hearth made him madder still. “You’re in danger. Regardless of how you feel about me and my inconvenient interest in your life, I’m staying here.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I’m not going to leave you alone.”

“Yes, you are.”

Quinn spun around and glared at Lori. “What the hell is wrong with you? We’ve been friends for years. You need help. Let me help you. Don’t tell me a damn thing if that’s the way you want it, but let me stay.”

She reached out slowly for the chenille throw and wrapped it around her body, the cast making the movements awkward. Nearly a full minute passed while she tucked it beneath her legs and fiddled with the edges. She didn’t look at him when she spoke.

“My garage is ruined. It’s going to cost thousands of dollars to get it back in working order. My septic tank is full of oil. Some of the oil leaked out into the gravel, so I have to pay the EPA to monitor my soil and test my well for the next couple of years.

“The insurance company finds the whole thing ‘suspicious,’ so God only knows how long they’ll take to pay whatever they’re willing to pay. And I’ve got to find some way to get everything up and running, or I can’t pay my workers. I’ll lose the trucks. I’ll…”

He took a step toward her, but she shook her head.

“I just want to be alone, okay? I can’t
do
this right now, Quinn. I can’t do anything right now, so please go away and leave me alone.”

His anger tumbled into alarm. She was serious. She’d rather be alone and in danger than with him. “Please let me stay. Or at least go sleep at Molly’s. Just don’t stay here by yourself, damn it.
Please.
”

Her good hand emerged from the cocoon of the blanket and rubbed at her eyes. She seemed to consider his perfectly reasonable request for a long while.

“Fine,” she muttered, and the beast clawing through his chest paused to listen. “You can sleep on the couch.” Without a glance in his direction, Lori lurched to her feet and swiped a prescription bottle off the coffee table. “I’m going to bed. My hand hurts.”

She shuffled away.

“Hey,” he called, “have you eaten anything today?”

Her only answer was the slamming of the bedroom door. Pitifully, this did nothing to ruin his relief. He could stay. He could watch over a woman who didn’t want him around and find out what the hell was going on.

After grabbing Lori’s keys off the table, Quinn headed for the front door. He’d take a quick look around the grounds, grab his overnight bag from the car, and then he’d call Ben and threaten a law enforcement officer with physical injury in an attempt to get more information.

But instead of hunting down the creep who’d been harassing Lori, Quinn stepped onto the sidewalk and ran straight into his turncoat sister.

Molly grabbed his arm. “How is she doing?”

“She’s fine. She doesn’t want to see anyone.”

“You’re not leaving her alone, are you?”

“No, I’m not leaving her alone! And you’d damn well better start apologizing or there’s a good possibility I’ll never speak to you again.”

Molly crossed her arms. “She asked me not to call you. What was I supposed to do?”

His throat burned with remembered panic. “Call me.”

“I wanted to, Quinn. I swear I wanted to. But she said you were on your way out of town and…Well, you’re not really her boyfriend, are you?”

“Yeah, thanks. I’ve heard that a little too often in the past few days. I’m just an emotionless sex worker. I get the message.”

“I’m sorry!” She reached for his arm again, but Quinn shook her off.

“If you want to make it up to me, send your boyfriend over here. I want to know what the hell is really going on.”

Molly, regret seemingly forgotten, rolled her eyes. “He’s not going to reveal any ‘official police business,’ not even to you.”

“We’ll see.”

“Ooo, tough guy,” she muttered, then quick-stepped backward when she caught his glare. “Fine, I’ll send Ben over. Tell Lori I’ll come by later.”

Quinn nodded, but he was already heading toward the back. The police couldn’t be here all the time, and Lori Love needed his protection, whether she wanted it or not.