One in a Million (16 page)

“I'm sorry to hear that.” She couldn't hold his gaze. There was darkness in his eyes and sorrow that she knew
instinctively he didn't want her to see. The subject of his relationship with his mother was one he didn't intend to pursue. She would respect his wishes even though her heart was heavy with sorrow. She took a quick, steadying breath, forcing her mind away from the shattering impact of his touch. She raised the volume on the TV slightly so that they wouldn't have to sit in silence, but not loud enough that the sound of the big engines roaring to life would startle Brianna who had settled once more. “So,” she said with false brightness. “Tell me where Eli finished in case I fall asleep again.”

B
Y
T
UESDAY THE RAIN
had ended and the heat of early September had returned. Quinn was getting ready to go into Charlotte to take care of a number of things at the office that had been waiting his attention through the long holiday weekend. She and Brianna were going with him as far as Mooresville where they would spend the afternoon holding court at Cut 'N' Chat and then, if Brianna wasn't too fussy, they would join the Tarts for their regular evening at Maudie's Down Home Diner.

Daisy was relieved to be spending the day on her own. She couldn't seem to get the memory of Quinn's fleeting caress out of her thoughts or her dreams. It was the starting point for a whole series of intimate, sensual imaginings that told her she was much closer to falling in love with him than she had ever thought she would be.

She had no idea how he felt about her.

She knew she was going to have to leave this secluded cabin soon. The realization saddened her more than she wanted to admit. It was definitely time to go, to get her life back under her own control. Today she would make plans with Rue and Sheila to return to her apartment. Her ankle was still not as strong as she would like it to be but she couldn't stay here, alone, with Quinn any longer. Not if she didn't want to fall completely and helplessly in love with him and end up with a broken heart.

“Ready to go?” he asked coming out of the kitchen with the small insulated cooler she used for Brianna's bottles.

“Ready.” She gave him a blinding smile that probably looked as manufactured as it felt and held up her tote. “Everything we need for a girls' day out on the town.” It had taken her almost half an hour to pack everything she thought was essential to her daughter's comfort. Soon she wouldn't have the luxury of spending ten minutes picking out just the right outfit, deciding on which receiving blanket was the best match for the little pink jumper with the tiny bunnies embroidered on the front, whether to dress her daughter in the crocheted booties or the tiny white shoes and lacy anklets. She wanted to savor every moment.

“I brought the car around while you were getting Brianna ready.” He reached for Brianna's carrier.

Daisy shook her head. “I'll do it,” she said. “My ankle's almost healed. It's time I got used to carrying her.”

Quinn frowned. “Are you sure? The yard's still pretty rough.”

“I'm sure,” Daisy said firmly. She had made her decision in the sleepless hours before dawn. She was going home, soon. She had no other choice.

His eyebrows drew together as his frown deepened. Was he reading her thoughts again? It didn't matter. He would know soon enough that she was leaving for good.

“Daisy—”

“We'd better get started. You've got plenty of work to catch up on before the weekend.” Quinn was going to Richmond for the last race before the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup began. Eli Ward was on the bubble, thirteenth in points. A good finish Sunday would move him up in the standings and qualify him for the ten-race Chase. He would leave for Virginia on Friday morning.

She would leave on Thursday. It would be better that way.

“We need to talk,” he said, retaining his grip on Brianna's carrier. “We need to talk about—”

“This evening,” she said, hurriedly. She wanted to have all her options laid out, all her arguments ready or she was afraid she would weaken and give in to the growing desire, the growing need inside her, to stay, here, with Quinn.

“Not this evening,” he said forcefully. “Now—” A knock on the door stopped him in mid-sentence. “Are you expecting anyone this morning?”

Daisy shook her head, suddenly apprehensive. It had been so peaceful and she felt so secure in Quinn's company she had almost forgotten the danger August Carlyle's threats posed to her and her child. She looked past Quinn's shoulder, alarmed to see a sleek, black sports car parked behind Quinn's SUV. “Don't open the door,” she said, giving voice to her fears.

It was too late. Quinn had already set Brianna's carrier down on the couch and opened the door. His broad shoulders blocked Daisy's view. Acting on instinct she reached down and picked up the sleeping baby, holding her tight against her heart. “Who is it, Quinn?” she asked.

He didn't answer her but spoke directly to the person on the other side of the screen. “Mom, what are you doing here?”

His mother? Daisy relaxed a tiny fraction, not really certain why, only that her greatest fear, that it was August Carlyle himself standing on the porch, had not come true. She reached out and touched Quinn's arm. He moved out of the doorway but didn't invite his mother inside.

Fiona Carlyle's gaze was locked on Brianna's face as she slept against Daisy's shoulder. The cool, composed expression she usually wore dissolved into softness. “She looks so much like the pictures I've seen of Brendan at that age,” she whispered and Daisy saw the shimmer of tears in the older woman's eyes.

Eyes almost exactly the same incredible blue of Quinn's.

Daisy was a mother now and she sensed the older woman's emotional response to Brianna was real. Fiona Carlyle was a mother grieving for a lost child, not her flesh and blood, it was true, but a child of her heart. This woman had lost part of herself when Brendan died, and she had nothing left of him but memories. And adding to that burden of grief was her estrangement from her own son. Sadness and pity welled up inside Daisy. She made a decision she hoped she would not regret and reached past Quinn to open the screen door. “Come in, Mrs. Carlyle,” she said, taking a step back.

“Thank you.” Fiona Carlyle was dressed as expensively and impeccably as she had been the day she and her husband came to the hospital, but beneath the flawless makeup Daisy saw strain and the dark shadows of sleepless nights.

“What do you want, Mom?” Quinn asked. Daisy was standing close enough to feel the waves of tension radiating from him although his voice betrayed no emotion beyond politeness.

Fiona made an effort to tear her eyes away from Brianna. She clasped her hands around her designer shoulder bag—one that Daisy knew for a fact would cost her more than a week's salary and tips—and faced her son. Her expression didn't change when she encountered his cool indifference but she stuttered slightly, betraying her inner turmoil. “I…I came to see the baby. To see Brendan's little girl.”

“Does August know you're here?”

Fiona lifted her chin, as though she had had enough of his cross-examination, and Daisy recognized a feminine version of Quinn's stubbornness in the gesture. “No, I came on my own.”

“I'm surprised you stepped that far out of line,” Quinn said darkly.

“I don't always tell your stepfather everything I do,” she
returned, but Daisy could see the words had hit a vulnerable spot.

“Quinn, let your mother say what she came to say,” Daisy interrupted.

“Thank you. I don't wish you any harm, Daisy. I just wanted to ask you to meet with my husband and try to work something out between you.”

Daisy shook her head. “I don't think that's possible. I'm sorry but I don't trust your husband at all.”

“He's not a bad man, just one that is used to getting his own way. Losing Brendan was a terrible blow to my husband. Brianna is all that he has left of his son.” Fiona looked to Quinn as if hoping against hope that he might agree with her. He remained silent and Fiona seemed to wilt a little under his impassive stare. “This wasn't a good idea, me coming out here, was it?” she said finally.

Daisy didn't want to feel sorry for Quinn's mother. It was so much easier to stay strong when her heart was filled with anger and righteous indignation toward both the Carlyles. She didn't want to start thinking about Fiona's loss, her heartache, all that she would miss out on in her grandchild's life, but she couldn't retreat. Fiona might not be as much of a danger as she had thought before but she was convinced August still was. “I won't change my mind,” she said as much to herself as to Fiona. “Never.”

Brianna started to fuss, sensing Daisy's distress. Fiona broke eye contact with Daisy and returned her stricken gaze to the baby. “Please,” she said, “may I hold her, just for a moment?”

Daisy wanted to say no. Her own mother hadn't held Brianna yet, so why should she let this woman?
Because Fiona had loved Brianna's father and lost him and grieved for him,
her inner voice prompted. Daisy was a mother now; she understood these things. Fiona deserved the comfort of
holding Brendan's child. “Yes,” Daisy said. “You may hold her.”

Fiona smiled and held out her arms, but before Daisy could hand her the baby, a second car, almost as expensive as the one Fiona drove, pulled into the yard and a short, compact man in a dark suit exited the driver's side. He was carrying a briefcase. Even though Daisy had never seen him before she knew instinctively he was a lawyer, and his being here could mean nothing but trouble.

“What do you want?” she asked, stepping up to the screen but not opening it. The lawyer stood on the other side, aloof and detached although she noticed that laugh lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes and mouth, or perhaps they weren't laugh lines, but only the result of hours spent playing golf in the hot Carolina sun.

“I'm here to see Deidre Brookshire. May I come in?”

“No,” Quinn said sharply, moving to stand close behind Daisy. “What do you want?”

“I have a communication from my client, August Carlyle.” The stranger's gaze flickered to Fiona for a moment then confronted Daisy again.

“What does he want?” Daisy asked, proud that her voice came out strong and steady despite the way her knees were shaking. She could feel Quinn's warmth and rock solidness behind her and it helped steady her to have him so close, even though two weeks earlier he had been as much a stranger as the man on the other side of the screen.

“Mr. Carlyle is giving you one more opportunity to meet with him and his representatives to make arrangements for the future well-being of his grandchild. If you do not agree to such a meeting he intends to go to Child Protective Services and file a complaint. It is my client's sincere belief that you, an unmarried, single woman of modest means and education cannot properly care for his granddaughter.”

“That's not true,” Daisy said, tightening her grip on
Brianna so that the baby woke, startled and began to cry. “That's not true at all. I have a good job. I can take good care of my baby.”

“That remains to be seen,” the lawyer said in a voice whose very blandness made it even more of a threat than if he had shouted at the top of his lungs. “I take it you're rejecting my client's offer of a meeting without even giving him the courtesy of hearing what he is prepared to offer you and your daughter?”

“I am.”

“Leave the paperwork,” Quinn said. “Ms. Brookshire will look it over. If she changes her mind we'll be in touch.”

The lawyer switched his gaze to Quinn, hesitated a moment as if hoping he might intimidate the younger man, then nodded. “Very well.” He took a legal-size envelope out of the briefcase and laid it on the seat of the rocking chair nearest the door. “Ms. Brookshire, may I give you a piece of advice?”

Daisy wanted nothing more than to slam the door in the man's face but that childish gesture, no matter how satisfying, wouldn't solve anything. “I don't suppose I can stop you,” she said, proud that her voice didn't waver.

“It would be in your daughter's best interest, indeed in your own best interests, to meet with August Carlyle. You are a young woman alone in the world. You don't have the means to fight a man with my client's resources and standing in the community. You are in very real danger of eventually losing custody of your daughter. Think about it.”

“I think about it all the time,” Daisy said, holding on to her courage as tightly as she held her baby. “But it won't change my mind. Please, leave us alone.” This time she did shut the door in the man's face.

She turned blindly. Her knees were shaking so hard she was afraid they would fold under her and topple them both to the floor. Quinn was watching her from narrowed eyes,
his hands balled into fists at his side, but it was Fiona Carlyle's white, strained gaze that locked with hers. Daisy took a half-step backward. The last few minutes had been so emotionally charged, her attention focused so completely on the confrontation with August Carlyle's lawyer that she had momentarily forgotten his wife had been witness to it.

“I…I think you should go, too,” she said. Her head was pounding, her pulse racing with a surge of adrenaline. Fight or flight, didn't they call it? The lawyer was right. She couldn't fight August Carlyle and come out ahead so she would have to go. Leave Mooresville and Cut 'N' Chat and her friends. Leave Quinn.

“Daisy, please, I knew nothing about this, you have to believe me.” Fiona took a step forward, her hand outstretched. Daisy kept her teeth clamped shut. Did she believe Fiona? Could her husband have been planning something so monstrous as trying to have her declared an unfit mother without his wife knowing about it? “Quinn?” Fiona turned beseeching eyes on her son.

Quinn returned her look with one as hard as stone. “Daisy's right. I think you'd better go, Mom,” he said.

“Quinn, you believe me, don't you?”

“I'd like to, Mom,” he said. His expression was still hard but his voice had gentled slightly. “But even if you didn't know he was planning this you wouldn't have tried to stop him. You never have before.”

“Quinn—” She covered her mouth with her hand as though to hold back a sob. “I'll make this right,” she said, turning to Daisy again. “I swear to you I'll make this right.”

Daisy didn't answer. She didn't dare. “Please, just go,” she said wearily. She stepped away from the door. “Now.”