Daughters Of The Bride

“Is that nice mute man going to be joining you?”

Quinn sighed. “Zealand isn’t mute. He just doesn’t talk much.”

“I’ve never heard him speak at all. Are you sure he can?”

“Yes. He’s said words at least twice.”

Zealand might not have much to say, but he was the best soundman in the business. He would be the one deciding if the space Quinn was interested in could be converted into a killer studio. One where they could work and turn sound into magic.

Movement caught his attention. He looked up and saw a tall blonde walk to the bar. She had long hair pulled back into a ponytail and wore black pants and a long-sleeved black shirt.

It wasn’t her face that caused him to keep looking, although she was pretty enough. It was more the way she walked—partially hunched, with her shoulders rounded—as if she didn’t want to be noticed.

When she reached the bar, she and Kelly spoke. They both laughed. The blonde said something else, then turned to leave. As she took a step, she somehow got tangled in a bar stool and stumbled. She righted herself, glanced around to see if anyone had noticed, then hurried away.

“That was Courtney,” Joyce told him. “You’ve met her before.”

Quinn knew his grandmother well enough to say, “No,” in a firm voice.

“I’m only—”

“No. Whatever you have in mind, no.”

“There’s more to her than meets the eye.”

Kelly delivered their wine and the cheese plate. Pearl and Sarge immediately sat up. Quinn saw there were two dog biscuits on the tray. Kelly handed one to each dog, then smiled and left.

“You’re not too old for her,” his grandmother added, dashing his hope that the arrival of their drinks had been a distraction. On the bright side, there was obviously nothing wrong with her mind. On the not-so-bright side...damn.

“She’s what? Twenty-five?”

“Twenty-seven. That’s only a fourteen-year difference.”

“It’s not the years, it’s the miles.”

“You’re still a handsome man.”

He paused in the act of raising his glass. “Okay, that’s creepy.”

She laughed. “You know what I mean.”

They touched glasses. Quinn sipped the crisp, buttery chardonnay. “Nice.”

“I like it. Now, about Courtney—”

He held up his free hand. “Not happening. I love you like my grandmother, but I’m not going there.”

“You have to at some point. Don’t you want to fall in love?”

A familiar question. The answer to which had always been hell, no. But lately...he’d started to wonder. A year ago there’d been someone in his life who had made him think there were possibilities. Before he could figure out what, she’d fallen in love with someone else. While he’d gotten over her, the fact that he’d been considering more than his usual no-strings we’re-in-it-for-the-sex had surprised him. And gotten him to thinking. Did he want more?

He hadn’t reached the point of defining the question as did he want to fall in love? He wasn’t sure there was a guy on the planet who thought that way. But having someone around on a permanent basis—that might work.

“I need to figure it out,” he admitted.

“Figure fast. You’re not getting any younger.”

He laughed. “What happened to I’m a good-looking man?”

“Beauty fades.”

He raised his glass to her. “Not yours.”

Joyce rolled her eyes. “Your charm is lost on me. I’m old.”

“You are perfection.”

She didn’t smile back. Instead, she looked at him intently. “I mean it, Quinn. I want you to find someone. Settle down. Have children. I worry about you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Yes, dear, but sometimes it’s nice if you don’t have to.”

* * *

Actually writing a marketing plan wasn’t that big a deal. It was getting to the point where it could be written that was the tough part. Courtney decided to reward her three hours of tedious research and number crunching with some ice cream and maybe a cookie chaser.

She stood and stretched as she weighed the sugar high against having to leave her room. In truth, the trip from the fourth floor to the kitchen was no big deal. Still, it was late and she should probably just go to bed.

But the thought of ice cream could not be denied. She saved her work on her laptop, then walked to the door.

Her room in the hotel was at the end of the hall, by the stairs. It was tucked next to the linen closet and right by one of the HVAC units, not to mention several water pipes. There was also a large tree that had grown tall enough to completely block any hope of a view beyond leaves. In short, a complete disaster to rent to guests.

Joyce had tried remodeling it several times and even offering it at a discount, but there were always complaints. A couple of years back, she’d come to Courtney with a trade. Free room and board in exchange for a certain number of hours of maid labor. For the time Courtney worked beyond that, she got a paycheck.

The deal gave them both what they wanted. Courtney had taken possession of an old twin bed Joyce had been ready to toss, along with a battered desk and a dresser. She was a sound enough sleeper not to care about the HVAC or pipe noise and the lack of view was totally fine with her. Free rent, meals and utilities meant she only had to work enough to pay for her car, cell phone and books. The money she’d saved for college wasn’t quite enough to cover tuition, but she’d been lucky enough to land a few scholarships and grants. Every semester she managed to squeak by. Now she was only a year away from graduating, and with luck she would do so without a loan.

“Yet another reason to celebrate with ice cream,” she told herself.

She took the stairs to the main floor and crossed the quiet lobby. Her sneakers were silent on the hardwood floor. While her threadbare jeans and secondhand USC sweatshirt weren’t exactly haute couture, she knew the odds of running into a guest at this hour were slim.

She didn’t bother with overhead lights in the kitchen. She knew her way in the twilight produced by the soft glow from under-the-counter illumination and exit signs. She collected a bowl and a spoon, then crossed to the walk-in freezer to pick her flavor.

She walked out with a three-gallon container of vanilla chocolate chip and found herself in the brightly lit kitchen, facing a tall, broad-shouldered man.

She shrieked and jumped. The ice cream slipped from her hands. She grabbed, he grabbed and they both ended up with their arms wrapped around a very cold, very large container.

They were close enough for her to see the various shades of blue in his irises and inhale the scent of clean fabric and man. His jaw was strong, his beard about two days old and his gaze piercing. Her heart thundered in her chest, but it had very little to do with shock and everything to do with attraction.

“One of us should let go,” he said.

“What?” Oh, right. She immediately released the container and straightened. “Um, sorry. You startled me.”

“I got that.” He put the ice cream on the counter. “Late-night snack?”

“Something like that.”

They continued to watch each other. One corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.

“I’m Quinn.”

Seriously? “We all know who you are. There are all kinds of pictures of you in Joyce’s bungalow. Plus, she talks about you all the time.”

He groaned. “I don’t want to know what she says.”

“Most of it is good.”

His brows rose. “Most?”

Courtney grinned. “You said you didn’t want to know. I’m Courtney, by the way. We’ve met a few times before.”

“I remember.”

She doubted that. A man like Quinn would remember meeting Rihanna and Taylor Swift, but not someone like her. She would have been nothing but staff, and who remembered the woman who cleaned his room?

She pointed at the container. “It’s vanilla chocolate chip—our flavor of the month. You want some?”

“Sure.”

She grabbed a second bowl and spoon, then scooped out ice cream for both of them. She returned the container to the freezer. When she walked back into the kitchen, she half expected to find Quinn had gone. But he’d pulled up one of the stools by the counter as if he planned to stay. She did the same, careful to leave a polite amount of space between them.

“Oh, there are cookies, too,” she said. “If you want some.”

“No, thanks. This is enough.”

Not a philosophy she could get behind, but now she wasn’t comfortable adding a couple of crushed cookies to her bowl. Later, she promised herself. She would take them up to her room.

“You’re up late,” he commented.

“I like the hotel at night. It’s quiet. All the guests are asleep. Or at least not wandering around, making trouble.”

“Is that how you see them?”

“You’ve never cleaned up a hotel room after a rowdy party.”

“That’s true.”

They ate in silence for a few seconds. Courtney found the moment surreal. Quinn might not be an actual rock star, but he was famous for discovering musical talent of all kinds and taking those talents to the top of the charts.

“A fan?” he asked, nodding toward her.

It took her a second to realize he meant her sweatshirt. She glanced down at the USC college logo. “Not really. One of the guests left it behind and it was way too nice to throw out.”

She remembered the pretty but tearful coed who’d tossed the sweatshirt at her, demanding it be burned.

“It had been her fiancé’s, and it turned out he’d slept with one of the strippers hired for his bachelor party.” She licked her spoon. “I’ll never understand the whole concept of inviting trouble a few days before you commit yourself to someone for the rest of your life. But weddings are all about drama.” She eyed him. “Are you really moving back to Los Lobos?”

He nodded.

“But you live in LA.”

“That’s not necessarily a good thing.”

“Isn’t your business there?”

“It’s mobile. I’m ready for a change.”

She wondered if any part of his decision was about his grandmother. “She’s doing fine, you know. Mentally and physically.”

“Thanks for the update. She’s not the only reason, but she’s one of them.” He paused.

Courtney took a bite of ice cream. As if he’d been waiting for her to be in that delicate act of swallowing, he then said, “She’s trying to fix us up.”

Courtney began to choke.

He waited until she’d regained control to add, “Or have me take you on as a project. Which makes me wonder why you need fixing.”

The door was so far away, Courtney thought longingly as she glanced toward the exit. She ignored the heat burning her cheeks. There was no pretending that wasn’t happening, not with the overhead lights blaring down. In a matter of seconds, she knew her face was as brightly colored as her sweatshirt.

“You’re imagining things, I’m sure,” she managed, thinking that as much as she loved her boss, she was going to have to kill her. There was no other response that was appropriate.

He waited.

She sucked in a breath. “I don’t need fixing. I’m doing great. I’m only two semesters from graduating with my bachelor’s in hotel management. I have a good job and lots of friends.”

“You’re twenty-seven.”

She was torn between wondering how he knew that and the relevancy of the statement.

“So?”

“You waited a while to go to college.”

A statement, not a question. Yet she was somehow compelled to explain. Maybe it was the way his dark blue gaze settled on her face. Maybe it was the fact that it was nearly one in the morning. Maybe it was a latent babbling gene choosing this inopportune moment to surface. Regardless, she started speaking and then couldn’t seem to stop.

“Not everyone makes it to college out of high school,” she began. “Did you know that returning female students are the most successful demographic in college?”

“I did not.”

“It’s true. My theory is they’ve tasted fear. They know what it’s like to try to survive without a good education and it’s not easy.”

“Because you’ve done it?”

“Uh-huh. I left high school when I turned eighteen. I was only in eleventh grade because I got held back a couple of times. I didn’t wait for the semester to end or anything. I legally became an adult and I was gone.” She licked her spoon. “It wasn’t so much about everything happening at home, although that was a part of it. Mostly I couldn’t stand being two years older and labeled as dumb.” She glanced at him, then back at her ice cream. “I had a learning disability that didn’t get diagnosed until I was nearly ten.”

She didn’t bother with the whys of that. No reason to go over that material.

“After I left high school, I got a job at Happy Burger.”

“I love Happy Burger,” he told her.

“Everyone does. I rented a room in a house on the edge of town and supported myself.” Which was mostly true. She’d been forced into a series of second jobs to make ends meet, had cut off ties with her family for nearly a year because she was eighteen and angry and needed to grow up, and had taken up with a series of really bad-for-her guys.

“I was going nowhere. Around the time I turned twenty, two things happened. I got a job here as a maid, and the manager of Happy Burger told me that if I earned my GED, he would recommend me for a management position. He told me that I had a real future at Happy Burger.”

“Was that good news or bad news?”

“It was the worst. I didn’t want to spend my life at Happy Burger. But it was the wake-up call I needed. I got my GED and started at community college. Along the way, I quit the burger job.”

“And now you’re two semesters away from your bachelor’s.”

She waved her spoon. “You know it.”

“Impressive.”

“The info dump?”

He flashed her a sexy smile. She was sure he didn’t mean it to be sexy, but he probably couldn’t help it. Quinn was just that kind of guy. It wasn’t in the way he moved, because right now he was sitting still. But whatever it was still existed. Maybe it was a confidence thing, or a pheromone thing. Either way, she found herself wanting to lean closer and sigh.

“You’re impressive,” he clarified. “Look at where you started and where you ended up. I respect that. I work with a lot of talented people. Most of them don’t follow traditional paths to success. Good for you for doing the work.” He smiled again. “You’re right. You don’t need fixing.”

His words made her beam as a warm glow filled her. A glow that lasted all of eight seconds, right until ice cream dripped off her spoon and onto her sweatshirt. She held in a groan and wiped at it with her finger.

Couldn’t she just once be sophisticated and elegant? Or even casual and coordinated? Did she always have to be spilling, bumping and dropping?

This was what her sister Sienna would call “pulling a Courtney”—a phrase Courtney had always hated but had to admit existed for a reason. And speaking of her family—

“You can’t tell anyone what I told you,” she said quickly. “About the college stuff.”

Quinn frowned. His eyebrows drew together and little lines formed. It was even sexier than the smile had been.

“What do you mean?”

“Joyce knows, but no one in my family does. About me going to college. I don’t think they know I have a GED. If you run into them, it would be great if you didn’t, you know, say anything.”

“Okay. Interesting. Why?”

She raised a shoulder. “It’s a long story.”

“Right. And you’re not one to overshare.” He stood. “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Thank you.”

He studied her for a second. She had no idea what he was thinking but figured that was probably for the best.

“Good night, Courtney.”

“’Night, Quinn.”

He put his bowl in the dishwasher, then walked out of the kitchen. She watched him go, allowing herself the pleasure of admiring his butt and the way he moved. The man had grace and style. He was sophisticated and unexpectedly nice. If she were someone other than herself, she would so want to start something with him. But she wasn’t. Besides, she was focused on school and working and getting through her last year of college. Then she would land her dream job and find someone to date. A smart, kind man who thought she was exactly what he was looking for. Assuming that man existed.

She put her bowl next to Quinn’s before hunting down the cookies and grabbing a handful. As she walked back to her room, she imagined what would have happened if Quinn had reached across the table and pulled her close. No doubt she would have dropped her spoon and spilled all over him. Or burped during their kiss. Because that was how her life went. Even in her dreams.

5

RACHEL WAS CONFIDENT that laundry multiplied in the night. What had been a single load a couple of days ago was now four. Five if she did Josh’s sheets. He would tell her it wasn’t necessary, but she thought differently.

She glanced at the clock and held in a groan. It was five on Sunday afternoon. She’d worked late the previous day with the idea that on a weekend when Josh was with his dad, she could earn a little extra money. Which was great, but by the end of her workweek, she was always exhausted. That had turned into sleeping late, which she probably needed, but it didn’t get any of her chores done.

She’d done grocery shopping, paid some bills and spent the past two hours weeding in the yard. In between, she’d baked cookies, put a stew in the Crock-Pot and made her son’s lunch for the following day. Now she faced laundry and cleaning the kitchen. Once Josh got home—which should be any second now—they would go over his homework, assuming his father had remembered to make him do it, review his schedule for the week and then watch a show for an hour before bed. And starting tomorrow, she would do it all over again.

She put the whites in the washer, added detergent and bleach, then hit the start button. She already had the baseball uniforms in the sink in the laundry room. Between the grass stains and the ground-in dirt, those had to be pretreated or they would never get clean. Honestly, she didn’t know how professional sports organizations kept their uniforms so nice. Maybe they didn’t bother. Maybe every player wore new ones for each game.

She heard footsteps in the front of the house followed by a familiar “Mom! I’m home!”

There were a million things to do and she was still tired and maybe a little cranky, but none of that mattered. Josh’s voice was the best sound in the world, and knowing he was back made everything a little easier.

She walked toward the living room and smiled when she saw her son.

He was tall for his age. All gangling with too-long arms and legs. At eleven, he was on the verge of adolescence. His voice hadn’t changed yet and he’d yet to get a single chin hair, but she knew that was coming.

He’d inherited his father’s dark hair and eyes, but her smile. He was a good kid. Smart, caring, generous. Easygoing. Now he dropped his duffel on the floor and hurried to greet her.

“Dad bought me a new glove,” he said, holding it out in one hand while he reached for her with the other. He gave her a quick hug, then he stepped back and offered the glove.

“It’s exactly what I wanted. Dad and I played catch yesterday, to break it in, then he hit balls and I caught them. Try it on.”

She slid her hand into the glove and was surprised when it wasn’t too small for her.

“Is this an adult size?” she asked.

Josh grinned. His too-long hair fell into his eyes and he swept it back with a gesture that reminded her too much of his father. “Uh-huh. The guy at the store said I was in between, so we decided it made sense to get the bigger one.”

She held up her right hand and he held up his left. They both spread their fingers. Rachel was stunned to discover her eleven-year-old son’s hand was nearly as big as hers.

“When did that happen?” she asked.

Josh laughed. “I’m going to be as tall as you soon, Mom. Then taller.”

“I can’t decide if that’s good or bad,” she admitted.

“Me, either.”

The voice came from behind her. She took a second to brace herself against the inevitable reaction to seeing her ex-husband, then turned.

“Hello, Greg.”

“Rachel.”

He looked good, but wasn’t that always the way? Every time she saw him, she looked for some sign that he was aging. Decaying would be better. But there was only the ever-present handsome face, perfect hair and sex-god-like body.

“I thought I’d go get pizza for dinner,” he told her. “The usual for you?”

She wanted to say no. That she wasn’t interested in eating with him. That pizza was the last thing she needed. That her constant exhaustion, and the feeling that no matter how hard she worked the best she could hope for was to not lose ground, had led to a horrible snacking habit that was taking its toll on her body. That or elves were shrinking her clothes while she slept.

She felt fat and old and tired, while he got to be handsome and toned and in his prime. Of course, if she had every other day off, she would have time to do things like eat right and exercise. If she lived with someone who cooked the meals and cleaned the house and took care of every other chore, she wouldn’t be so rushed or exhausted. If she wasn’t the custodial parent, then...

She drew in a breath. The mental litany wasn’t new, nor was her frustration. But there was much she couldn’t change and more she didn’t want to. Being Josh’s mother, having him most of the time, was important to her. The price of that was one she was willing to pay. The same with the house. She needed to be here. The rest of it would take care of itself.

“Pizza would be fine,” she said, thinking the Crock-Pot dinner would keep for tomorrow.

“You okay?”

“Fine. Doing laundry, getting meals ready for the week. The usual.”

“How can I help?”

The unexpected question stumped her. Help? Greg didn’t help. He played. He surfed with his best friend, Jimmy. He hung out with the other firefighters. He tinkered with his truck.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “Did Josh do his homework?”

“Uh-huh, and I checked it. The essay needed some work, but he did great on the math.”

“Good. Only another month until summer vacation. I’m going to have to look into the park camp for him.”

An expense that would eat into her budget. Greg would pay for half of it, but she would have to cough up the rest.

“I’ll get you my work schedule for the next two months this week,” Greg told her. “Once I have it, let’s sit down and plan out the summer as best we can. I can be responsible for him on my days off. If he’s in camp, I can take him and pick him up so it’s one less thing for you to deal with.”

She told herself not to be surprised. While Greg hadn’t been that great a husband, he’d always cared about Josh. Although he wasn’t into the details, no one could doubt his love for his son.

“It would be nice if he could spend more time with you,” she said cautiously.

“Then it’s a plan.”

She nodded.

He flashed her a smile. “I’m going to get the pizza. You didn’t say if you wanted your usual.”

“Yes, please.”

“Then we’ll be right back.”

Josh returned from taking his things to his room. “Can I have soda, Mom?” he asked.

“No.”

He laughed. “One day you’re going to say yes.”

“One day you’re not going to ask.”

“Never gonna happen.”

“I did make cookies.”

He gave her a quick hug. “You’re the best.”

“Put that in writing.”

“I could paint it on the garage door.”

“That would be nice.”

Greg held open the front door. “You say that now, but if he really did it, you’d be pissed.”

“Don’t get any ideas,” she told him. Because helping Josh paint phrases on the garage door was exactly something Greg would do. He would think it was funny.

Rachel set the table. She got a beer for Greg, a glass of wine for herself and juice for Josh. In the distance, the washer chugged away. She checked the Crock-Pot, then went to change the sheets on Josh’s bed.