Crazy For You (26 page)

Nick raised his head from the Subaru he was working on and squinted out the window. “Who?”

“Not out there. Darla.” Max sounded exasperated. “She just left a message on our machine that the boys should come to dinner again. Not me, just the boys.”

“She probably thought you’d be eating at the Anchor Inn.”

“Fuck you,” Max said. “This is stupid. We’re married. She should be home.”

“Yep.”

“It looks weird. People are talking, damn it.”

Nick kept his head under the hood. “Maybe if we were nice to them, they’d let us watch.”

“You can make jokes,” Max said. “You’re not missing anything.”

The hell I’m not.

“It’s been over a
month,”
Max seethed. “I didn’t go this long in high school.”

“Oh,” Nick said. “That’s why you’re so grumpy.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

Nick thought about telling him it didn’t matter how long it had been, it was the idea it was never going to happen again that was making him nuts, but he didn’t. Some things he just wasn’t interested in discussing with Max even if he couldn’t help thinking about them himself.

He had to fight the urge every day to drop by Quinn’s house to see if she needed anything. Like him inside her. Of course with Darla and Joe there, he was out of luck, and Quinn wasn’t stopping by his place any more, so short of jumping her on the street, he was pretty much screwed. Or in this case, not. Which was good. She was just a friend, and anyway, his attention span was not that long. He should have been past this by now. He was not the kind of guy who obsessed over women.

He wanted her naked under him again.

No, he didn’t.

“I’ve been over to the Upper Cut,” Max said, lost in his own problems. “She says no. I can’t, figure out what to do. I go to Bo’s and she laughs. I date Barbara to make her jealous, and she tells me to avoid the lobster next time.”

“I told you that was a dumb move,” Nick said.

Max ignored him. “I tell her to tell me what she wants, I tell her she can have it, whatever it is. She says if she has to tell me, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“I hate that one,” Nick said, his sympathy veering back to Max.

“She wants change,” Max said. “I like our life. Why should I change?”

“To get your life back?”

“She’s my wife,” Max said stubbornly. “She belongs to me. I’ll just wait. She’ll come to her senses.”

Before you’ve lost yours?
Nick wanted to say, but it was fairly clear that Max’s mind had already gone seriously astray, and Nick wasn’t in any position to criticize since he wasn’t doing any better. After all, he was still fixated on a woman he was never going to see naked again, never hold, touch, stroke, squeeze, bury himself inside—

Not that he wanted to. Much.

“Go over there and kidnap your wife,” Nick said. “The hell with waiting.”

Max snarled at him and went back in the office, and Nick stared at the Subaru and tried to get a calm rational grip on the way he felt about Quinn without actually thinking about the way he felt.

Okay, everything was under control. He’d lost her before for two weeks after the night on her couch, and that had made him edgy but only because he liked having her around, liked hearing her voice, her laugh, seeing her face, watching her hair swing—
Quinn, her hair cropped, twisting under him, beautiful cheekbones, the shape of her skull under his hands as he pushed into her
—really liked her as a friend for companionship and conversation. Like reading the articles in
Playboy,
which were damn good.

And now it had been almost a week since he’d seen her—
naked, round and wet
—and he wanted her back.

To talk to.

He couldn’t believe how much he missed her. As a friend. She’d been his best friend, and now she wasn’t in his life anymore—
See,
he wanted to tell her,
this is why it was such

a bad idea for us to have sex, I knew this would happen, I told you so
—and he missed her. Talking to her.

He hadn’t really appreciated how important conversation with a woman was until he’d spent time with one who didn’t have any. Barbara was a perfectly nice woman aside from her addiction to married blue-collar workers, but if he never had to spend another five minutes with her again, it would be too soon.

Quinn had always had plenty to say. They’d talked about books and movies and people and her teaching and his abysmal dating habits, but it wasn’t until his week dating Barbara that Nick realized that it was Quinn’s conversation he missed most. They were friends. They should be talking.

And that was why he wanted her back. He nodded. That was good. Reasonable. Sensible.

He loved Quinn like a sister, so of course he wanted to be with her. It wasn’t her body he loved—
lush and tight and slippery under him,
never mind that sister thing, bad analogy, forget that, don’t go there—no, it was her mind he loved, who she was, Quinn, the person, not Quinn the body.

Perfectly reasonable.

But the problem was that—entirely separate from the love thing, the two things were totally different, not even in the same universe, completely apart—he craved her body shuddering hot under his.

That made sense, Nick told himself. That was fairly simple. It was like separation of church and state, integral to the continued freedom of both. Love over here, sex over there. No mixing.

Of course, it was easier if there were two women involved instead of one. In fact, he realized now, one of the things that had made his life so easy up until now was that he’d loved Quinn and slept with other women. So since it was easier to find women to sleep with than to love, he’d just keep loving Quinn—he didn’t think he could stop anyway— and find somebody else to fuck.

The memory of her body came back to him—hot and yielding under his hands, the way he’d learned her, felt her, sensed her, known her, made her shudder and made her come—and that made him hard all over again.

He had to have her again, or he wasn’t going to get anything done.

Nick leaned on the Subaru, almost defeated. Okay, there was no need to panic. He could still do this. He just had to remember to keep the two things separate. Love the mind, fuck the body. That way when he stopped fucking the body, he could still love her mind.

Clearly logical. Maybe he could talk her into buying it.

But first he had to convince her to let him near her without kicking him.

The phone rang while he was trying to think of a way, and when he answered, Joe said, “Nick? Could you come over here when you’re done tonight?”

“Here?” Nick said. “You mean Quinn’s?” He couldn’t possibly be this lucky.

“Yeah,” Joe said. “Quinn just fell down the stairs and messed up her ankle. The stair rail came loose.”

“Oh, hell.” Nick’s libido evaporated with his concern. “Is she all right? You need me to take her to the hospital?”

“Darla’s taking her.” Joe’s voice sounded grim. “I think somebody loosened that rail. It’s supposed to have three screws in each bracket and there was only one in each. I put it back up, but it’s loose now. And when I got home last night, I smelled gas, somebody’d messed with the valve in the basement, and when I went down there, I found a broken window. Anybody could have gotten in here. I think this place is booby-trapped.”

“Who—” Nick started to say and then stopped. “Not Bill?”

“I don’t want to believe it, but yeah, after that thing in the storeroom, that’s my guess, too.”

“What thing in the storeroom?” Nick said, and as Joe told him, his concern for Quinn morphed into rage, much easier to deal with than love and fear. “Christ,” he said. “You should have called me and we could have both gone to see him.”

“Quinn said no,” Joe said. “You know how she likes things calm. I think she thought if she was patient and didn’t cause a fuss, he’d just give up, but after this, we got to do something. I got a call in to Frank Atchity, and I’m going through the house now, but I want somebody double-checking me on this. If you—”

“I’ll come over now,” Nick said. “So will Max. It’s Saturday, we can close an hour early.”

“Thanks,” Joe said.

“My pleasure,” Nick said.

Bill had been thorough.

It seemed as if everything with a screw or a nail in it had been loosened. Wires had been frayed, pipes unscrewed slightly, a leg on the couch weakened, cans poised to fall out of cupboards. “It must have taken him hours,” Max said finally, and Joe shook his head, years as an electrician and general handyman behind him. “Always takes longer to fix than it does to screw up. You don’t have to be careful when you’re screwing up.” Nick stayed silent, testing everything he found twice, feeling more and more outraged with every sabotage they found.

They were just heading for the stairs to do the second floor when the phone rang, and Nick picked it up.

“Hello,” he said, and Zoe said, “Who is this?”

“Oh, good,” Nick said, her voice coming back to him over twenty years. “You I needed right now.”

“Nick?”

“Yep.”

“So I hear you’re fucking my sister.”

“Every chance I get,” he said. “She’s not here. I’ll tell her to call you.”

“Wait a minute, if she’s not there, what are you doing there?”

When he’d told her, she was silent for a minute, and then she said, “Shit. Move in with her.”

“What?”

“Move in with her. She loves you, you love her, and that nutcase needs to know that. Stop screwing around and move in.”

“It’s not that easy,” Nick said.

“Oh, grow up,” Zoe said. “You’ve loved her forever. Stop being a baby.”

“Gee, I’ve missed you,” Nick said. “I’ll have Quinn call you.”

“Do that. But in the meantime, you stay there and watch out for her. I mean it, Nick,” she added, annoying him as much as ever. “Don’t screw up.” Then she hung up.

“Who was that?” Joe asked as he came down the stairs.

“Zoe,” Nick said, hanging up the phone.

“You do have an interesting life,” Joe said and got a screwdriver from the drawer. “What’d she say?”

“She wants me to move in with Quinn,” Nick said.

Joe smiled. “That’s my Zoe. Hell of a kid.” He started back up the stairs, but stopped as the front door opened and Quinn hobbled in, Darla’s arm around her, holding crutches. Quinn’s ankle was taped, and there was a big Band-Aid on her elbow, but the part that made Nick sick was the bruise on her forehead.

“You look like hell,” Max said, and Joe glared at him.

“I’m okay,” she said to all of them. “It looks a lot worse than it is.” She put her crutches under her arms. “I won’t even need these by the end of the week. It’s just to keep my weight off the ankle. It’s just a sprain—”

“A bad sprain,” Darla said grimly, closing the front door behind them.

“—and I’ll be completely back to normal in a couple of weeks.” Quinn took a deep breath and smiled, and Nick thought,
I’ll kill him. He ever gets near her again
—

“But I’m going to bed now.” Quinn headed for the stairs, clumsy on her crutches. “I’m tired as hell.”

Nick moved to pick her up but Joe got there first. “Let me carry you,” he said, and scooped her up in his arms.

“You’ll break your back,” Quinn protested, dropping her crutches. “I can walk.”

“Nope.” Joe carried her up the stairs while Nick followed behind in case he dropped over from a heart attack.

Joe dumped Quinn in the middle of her big oak bed and leaned against the wall for a minute. “Used to do that when you were little,” he wheezed. “You’ve put on some weight.”

Quinn grinned up at him. “I love you, Daddy,” she said, and when Joe grinned back, Nick was struck for the first time by how alike they were. Meggy and Zoe were the scatty ones who got all the attention while Quinn and Joe went with the flow, just sort of solid and there, nobody really noticing them. Except that Quinn was everywhere he went now, a permanent part of his thoughts, every day. But then she always had been. He just hadn’t been tormented by her before, the way he had for the past few weeks.

Or terrified for her, the way he was now.

“I love you, too,” Joe said gruffly when he’d caught his breath. He kissed her on the top of the head. “Stay there for a while until I get my breath back. I got to get more exercise.” He shook his head and left, and Nick, unable to think of anything else, went over to the bed and pulled the pillow she wasn’t leaning on out from under her quilt.

“Sit up,” he said, and when she did, he stuffed it behind her. “You got any more pillows?”

“Why?” Quinn frowned at him. “This is plenty. Thank you.”

“For your foot. Your foot should be up.” He opened the pie safe behind him and found a blanket. “This’ll work.” He rolled it into a thick tube and then lifted her bandaged foot gently, stuffing the blanket under it. “It won’t swell so much if it’s up. You got a cold pack? I can go—”

“This isn’t like you,” Quinn said. “Relax, I’m fine.”

“Right.” Nick backed up a step. “Anything else? Diet Coke? Food?”

“I’m fine,” Quinn said, and he backed up another step. “I really am, Nick. This is sweet of you, but I’m great. Darla and Dad are going to drive me crazy waiting on me hand and foot. You don’t have to do this.”

“Right,” Nick said again, and looked at the shadows under her eyes and the bruise on her forehead. “I’m scared for you,” he blurted. “I never thought he’d hurt you.”

Quinn shook her head. “I don’t think he meant to. He probably didn’t think it through that far. He’s in trouble.”

“Screw him.” His voice was sharper than he’d meant it to be, and Quinn looked concerned.

“Listen, it’s okay.” Quinn’s voice was the same as always, practical and sure. “I’ve got Darla and Dad here, and a ton of people at school, and Darla and Edie at play practice. I’m safe.”

“You really think Darla’s going to be able to protect you from Bill?” Nick said incredulously. “I think—”

“Hey, who would you rather meet in a dark alley?” Quinn grinned, and Nick had to admit it wouldn’t be Darla. She had a real mean streak when she was riled.

“Just be careful,” he said, and she sighed and said, “
I will,
okay?”

“Okay,” he said and turned to go, stopping only when she said, “Nick?”

He looked back at her, leaning toward him a little, her copper hair mussed from the pillow, her eyes huge and beautiful.

“Thank you,” she said. “Really. You’re a good friend.”

He swallowed as the word
friend
knifed through him. “You need anything, you call.”

“I will,” she said, and there wasn’t anything else he could do but leave her and go out into the hall.

Friend. Well, that’s what he wanted. Everything back the way it was.

Max came out of the bathroom. “Sonofabitch frayed the cord on her blow-dryer. He could have electrocuted her.”

Nick felt cold. “We check everything in this house three times. Every damn thing.”

When Nick left two hours later, he saw Patsy Brady watching out her front window, and on a hunch, he went up and knocked on her front door.

“My lucky day,” she said when she opened it.

“Not really,” Nick said. “Have you seen anybody hanging around the house next door?”

Patsy lounged in the doorway, her terrycloth robe pulled carelessly shut. “Next door. The teacher’s place.”

“That’s it.”

Patsy shook her head. “Just the big guy.”

Nick stiffened. “Big guy?”

“Yeah.” Patsy shifted and so did her robe. “Big blond guy hanging around her backyard. Let her dog out once.”

“You recognize him?”

“Nope.” Patsy shifted again, her robe now close to qualifying her for indecent exposure. “You want to come in?”

“No,” Nick said. “Did he look like Coach Hilliard?”

“Nah,” Patsy said. “I’ve seen him down on the field. This guy is big but the coach is huge.”

“Sometimes guys look smaller up close,” Nick said.

“No shit,” Patsy said.

Nick said, “Okay, let’s try this another way.” He picked up a yellowed ad circular from Patsy’s porch and got his pen out of his workshirt pocket to write Frank Atchity’s number on it. “If you see this big blond guy again, will you call this number?”

“This yours?” Patsy said, one eyebrow raised.

“The sheriff’s,” Nick said. “Please.”

“The sheriff? No way.” Patsy drew back and Nick said, “Wait a minute then,” and scratched out the first number and wrote two others down.

“Call me then,” he said, handing it to her. “The first one’s my work number and the second one’s my apartment. Call as soon as you see him.”

Patsy frowned at him but she took the paper. “What’s going on?”

“Somebody booby-trapped her house.” Nick jerked his head toward Quinn’s. “She fell down the stairs and screwed up her ankle.”

“Shit.” Patsy looked at the number again. “Yeah, I’ll call you. That sucks. I thought he just had the hots for her, you know? Looking in the window. Big deal.”

“He’s dangerous,” Nick said.

“So are you.” Patsy looked him up and down. “But I guess you’re hers, right?”

“Right,” Nick said, just to keep things simple.

“Lucky her.”

“Not really,” Nick said. “I’m a pain in the ass. Look, thanks for helping. We appreciate it.”

Patsy pulled her robe closed. “Hey, we girls gotta stick together around here what with the way men are.” She shook her head. “Sonofabitch.”

“Right,” Nick said.

He walked off the porch feeling vindicated that he’d been right and even more afraid for Quinn than before, trying to figure out how to protect her. She’d be all right at home as long as Darla and Joe were there, but she wasn’t home all the time, there was school and that damn play—

And under it all, he wanted her. Needed her, which was worse, but there it was.

An hour later, he was home, still trying to figure out how to get back next to her—maybe send her flowers for a start?—when Joe called him.

“We talked to Frank Atchity,” he said. “Tried to get him to come out and get fingerprints. He’s not real interested.”

“Why the fuck not?” Nick said. The Tibbett police force wasn’t exactly
NYPD Blue,
but Frank had always been competent before.

“We’ve got no proof.” Joe sounded disgusted, too. “It’s an old house, the city has already been here a dozen times for violations, so the gas leak and the broken window just sounded like business as usual to him. And Bill is God around here, all that charity shit he does and the work with the kids. Frank just didn’t want to hear it. He said he’d come out and look tomorrow, but he didn’t sound too interested.”

“Fuck,” Nick said again. “I’ll talk to him.”

“No,” Joe said. “Let me handle it. I’m her father. I play poker with him. I’ll make him do something when he comes out tomorrow.”

Nick fumed until Edie called at eight that evening. “Hey, Nick,” she said. “Quinn and Darla are doing the tech for the play, but we’re running out of time and could use some help on lights and sound. I was wondering—”

“Joe called you,” Nick said, knowing he couldn’t get that lucky twice in the same day.

“Yes,” Edie said. “He’s worried about her. So am I.”

“Me, too,” Nick said. “I’ll be there. So will Max. She’ll never leave my sight.”

“Just like Bill,” Edie said.

“Nothing like Bill,” Nick said.

Monday morning, he called the florist and had them send a dozen red roses to Quinn at school. It wasn’t much, but it was a start.