Cold Midnight (22 page)

“Dinner time,” he said, rolling to his feet and aiming for the door. Jesus, he sounded like someone had used sandpaper on his vocal cords. Thank God, he could keep his back to her. No need for her to see what a fucking teenager he was. “I’m sorry I insisted on waking you up, but you really need to eat.”

“Okay,” she murmured.

He glanced back to see her ease back down. “Kylie.”

She opened one squinty eye but didn’t otherwise move. And, hell, she looked so fantastic in that white towel, the cinched ends emphasizing cleavage that begged for a tongue dip.

He cleared his throat. “Seriously. You need to eat. Half an hour, and you can crash again.”

He left her alone and returned to the kitchen, not sure she would actually get up, but he figured it was up to her now. She knew best what she needed more.

Meanwhile, he checked the cupboards for something alcoholic to take the edge off his own need.

34

QUINN RAISED HIS HEAD AND BLINKED SEVERAL
times, trying to figure out what had awakened him. A noise of some kind. Thunder? Yeah, that must have been it.

He dropped his head back to the couch cushion and ran both hands through his grungy hair. He hadn’t had a shower or changed clothes since going to jail and still had no desire to do either. Or eat, even. The thought of food turned his stomach. The thought of
living
turned his stomach. It’d be easier for everyone if he took a page from Kylie’s playbook and fled the state. He’d have to leave the country, though. And how far would be far enough? Australia perhaps. Had to be Australia. They spoke English there. It’d take time getting used to the flipped seasons, but he could live with it. Everyone would be happier that way.

Another round of pounding snapped his head up again. That wasn’t thunder. Someone was at the door.

Groaning, he pushed himself up into a sitting position, placing his feet flat on the floor, and considered blowing off whoever it was. He looked and smelled like crap. Well, not crap literally, but close. He couldn’t remember the last time he brushed his teeth.

He figured it wasn’t reporters. They’d stopped bugging him around the time the cops had cited two or three for trespassing. Chase Manning’s doing, probably. Not that it mattered. That guy’d throw him in a dungeon in a heartbeat if he could get away with it. And Quinn couldn’t blame him. He would have thrown himself in a dungeon if he could find one in Florida.

More pounding, followed by a woman’s voice: “Quinn? It’s Trisha. I know you’re here.”

Trisha? Trisha
Young
? Kylie’s friend? What did she want?

Going to the door, he pulled it open to frizzy auburn curls and freckles that he’d begun to think were pretty cute the last few years, not that he’d ever mentioned that to either of his sisters. Standing in the doorway, he didn’t say anything, just arched an eyebrow at Trisha.

She gave him a tentative smile that looked as fake as plastic palm trees. “Hi,” she said, a little breathless and awkward. “I . . . Kylie asked me to check on you.”

Quinn leaned a shoulder against the door jamb and cocked his head. “Why?”

“She’s worried about you.”

“Yeah? Then why isn’t she checking on me?” He had to admit it hurt that Kylie hadn’t been the one pounding on his door by now.

“I . . .” Trisha moistened her lips. “She didn’t say.”

“Ah.” He couldn’t stop the bitter twist to his lips. He’d wondered how long his older sister would stick by him after he’d been arrested for her attack. She talked a good game, but when it came right down to it, she was only human.

“You know she’d be here if she could be,” Trisha said.

“Maybe she’s on her way back to LaLa Land. I get the impression she prefers it there. No messy baggage to deal with.”

Trisha pursed her full lips as she looked him up and down. “She’d probably be able to smell you there, though.”

He glanced down at his wrinkled shorts and stinky shirt, and felt like a pig. A pitiful, headed-for-slaughter pig. “This is my new look,” he said, and glanced up with a wry grin. “You don’t think it works?”

She shook her head, curls bouncing. “It really doesn’t for someone who’s having company.”

“I’m not having company.”

“Oh. I guess that means you’re not inviting me in for dinner?”

He paused, surprised. “Uh . . .”

Trisha smiled, blue eyes starting to sparkle with lights he’d never noticed before. “Hey, I know. How about you go take a shower, and I make
you
dinner?”

He snapped out of his shock. Was he really so sad and pathetic that Kylie had sent a friend over to babysit him? “That’s not necessary. But thanks.”

She pushed past him into the house as if he’d shouted, “Sure, come on in!”

“Wow, it’s dark in here,” she said, and went to the front windows to roll open the blinds to let in some meager light from the fading day.

“Storm’s brewing,” she said, peering out between the blinds as if she hadn’t just come from outside. “Looks like it’s going to be a doozy, too.”

Quinn watched her, noting that she filled out her khaki slacks more fully than either of his sisters did, and he liked that. More to grab onto during . . . okay, where the hell did
that
come from? Not cool, thinking about sex while appreciating the butt of his sister’s best friend. Of course, they were all adults here and Kylie had hinted more than once that he and Trisha would make a good pair . . .

Trisha flashed a smile over her shoulder. “You know, the longer it takes you to get cleaned up, the longer it’s going to be before we can eat. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”

He stayed where he was, considering his options. Ask her to leave and continue his downward spiral or . . . well, he hadn’t eaten a decent meal in several days.

He gave her a sloppy salute and headed down the hall toward the bathroom, where he took the fastest shower he’d ever taken, complete with razor and toothbrush. While he was towel-drying his hair, he heard the doorbell. Damn, that better not be Jane, he thought. Nothing like his youngest sister to analyze all the potential fun out of a situation.

After throwing on a clean T-shirt and shorts, he padded barefoot to the kitchen. Something smelled heavenly, like pizza . . . no, Chinese food . . . no, pizza . . .

Either way, his stomach growled even as he wondered what on earth Trisha could have whipped up so quickly with what he had in his fridge: beer, cheese, mustard and perhaps some butter.

He paused in the kitchen doorway and chuckled. Domino’s and China Express had both paid a visit.

Trisha looked up from where she was setting plates and silverware on the table. “I wasn’t sure which you’d want, so I ordered both. Pepperoni okay?”

“Happens to be one of my favorites.”

“And I remember you said you liked moo shu chicken.”

His mouth started to water. “Perfect.”

Trisha pulled out a chair and plopped down. “Dig in. I’m about to expire.”

“How about some wine?” Quinn asked, opening the fridge. “I think I’ve got a bottle of pinot in here.”

“Water for me,” Trisha said before she sank her teeth into a thick slice of pizza. “You should have water, too. You’re probably dehydrated.”

He figured she was right and figured, too, that she’d steered him away from the alcohol on purpose. Surprisingly, he didn’t mind. After filling two glasses with ice and water, he settled at the table and helped himself to some pizza.

“So how much prison time are you looking at?” Trisha asked.

Quinn stopped with the slice half an inch from his mouth. “What?”

Trisha shrugged as she reached for her water. “You’re acting like it’s a done deal, so I just wondered how much time you think you’ll get.”

He lowered the pizza back to his plate, no longer hungry as nausea churned through his gut. “I didn’t do it.”

Trisha’s forehead wrinkled as if that shocked her. “Really? Because holing up with the blinds closed, drinking yourself into oblivion and letting yourself waste away clearly says to the world, ‘I’m innocent.’ ”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Hell if I know. What
can
you do? I mean, the whole town’s already decided you’re the monster who tried to maim his own sister. What is there to do?”

He picked a piece of pepperoni off his pizza and dropped it on his plate without eating it. “I’m thinking of leaving.”

Trisha gave an exaggerated nod. “Oh, that’s the perfect solution. Definitely. Because then you’d be, what, a fugitive? That wouldn’t make you look guiltier at all.”

Sitting back, he wished he’d broken out the bottle of wine after all. He wished, too, that he’d let Trisha keep banging on the door instead of opening it and letting her in. Deep down, he supposed he was still an optimist. That wouldn’t last. “What would you do?”

She looked at her plate as she finished chewing, then washed it down with a drink of water. When she spoke again, she met his eyes with a sympathetic expression and an apologetic shrug. “I really don’t know,” she said softly. “I’m just trying to, you know, buck you up. How am I doing?”

He pushed back from the table and went to the fridge to retrieve the wine. To hell with it. A nice buzz would mute the frustrated voice screaming in his head. He returned to the table with the bottle, two wineglasses and a corkscrew.

Trisha watched him as he dispensed with the cork and splashed wine into both glasses. “That isn’t the answer,” she said.

“It is for now.”

She reached out and covered his hand before he could pick up his glass. “Kylie knows you didn’t do it.”

Amazingly, his eyes began to burn. What was it about another person’s touch that could jerk the emotion right out of you? “She’s not here, though, is she?”

“She sounded stressed when she called. I didn’t ask questions.”

He drew his hand away and sat back but left the glass on the table. “What do you think of Australia?”

“I think it’s a long way away, mate.”

He grinned at her joke as he picked up his pizza and took a bite. A few bites later, the constant throb in his temples began to ease.

“You’re not really going to run, are you?” Trisha asked as she reached for the boxes of moo shu.

He shrugged. “I’m thinking about it.”

“What would it accomplish?”

“Everyone would be happier. Especially Kylie.”

Trisha cocked her head. “You think Kylie would be happier thinking you ran because you were guilty? Did you let the booze soak all the common sense out of your brain?”

“A trial would destroy her,” he said, his throat threatening to close up on him. “She’d have to relive all of it, in detail, in public.”

“And she’d do it in a heartbeat, every damn day for the rest of her life, if it meant proving you innocent.”

He smiled slightly. “You like to overstate things.”

She grinned and nodded. “To make a point, yeah. Especially one that needs to be made because the person I’m making it to is too dim to get it on his own.”

His smile broadened. “Did Kylie know you’d talk to me like this when she sent you over?”

“I have no doubt. She knows what a hardass I can be.”

“Yeah, you’re a real hardass.” He pushed aside the wine bottle and snagged a box of moo shu. “Do you talk to her like this?”

“Are you kidding? Any time I try, she shuts me down with that look. You know that look, right?”

“Oh, yeah. The look that says, ‘One more word and you’re toast.’ ”

“That’s the one.” Trisha made an exclamation point in the air with her fork. “One more word and life as you know it will cease to exist.”

Quinn chuckled. “One more word and I’ll break my racket over your head and wrap the handle around your neck.”

“I don’t think I’ve seen that one,” Trisha said. “She must reserve that one for pesky brothers.”

“I was
never
pesky.”

Grinning, Trisha waggled her finger at the white takeout box near his elbow. “I think the pancakes and plum sauce are in there.”

He handed it over, sobering when their fingers brushed and heat flushed up his arm. “Thank you,” he said, his voice lower than before. “I needed this.”

She smiled. “Pizza and Chinese food fix everything.”

“Yep,” he said with a nod. “It’s the food.”

35

KYLIE OPENED HER EYES AND YAWNED. GOD, IT
felt so good to just lay there and drift. She considered continuing to do just that when she scented garlic in the air. Had Chase mentioned garlic bread? Oh, yeah, and spaghetti.

Stomach rumbling, she sat up and started to scoot off the bed. That was when she realized, holy crap, that she still wore the towel from her shower. Not one of those big, fancy bath towels that covered a lot of acreage, either. This one barely reached from the tops of her breasts to midthigh. And she had an impression of Chase sitting on the side of the bed talking to her, coaxing her to wake up in a low, sexy voice.

While she’d lain there in nothing but a thin towel.

Her heart thudded in her ears, and her cheeks heated as she remembered the images flitting through her mind as she’d drifted. Chase, shirtless and filmed with perspiration as he’d fired tennis shots at her under the hot sun. Chase, muscles and tanned skin streaming with seawater as he rose out of the surf, swim trunks clinging to the part of him that made her throb with want. Chase kissing the side of her neck, the underside of her jaw, teeth nibbling at the pulse in her throat, hands and fingers stroking and soothing and, oh, yeah, venturing slowly and agonizingly into dark, weeping places that ached for attention. The best part had been building when she woke up and found Chase right there, watching her with an intensity that speared right through her.

Could he have known? He’d certainly seemed rattled when he went to the door. Rattled and in a hurry to get out.

Sitting on the side of the bed like that, he could so easily have kissed her, and she would have wrapped herself around him in a heartbeat. But he hadn’t kissed her. He hadn’t made any move at all. Maybe he’d decided she was too much work. She wouldn’t have blamed him. She
was
too much work.