Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) (32 page)

Quinn replaced the coffeepot, made his way to the kitchen bar, and sat down on a stool. He gathered up pen and paper, the ones he’d left on the bar, and got ready to take down the information Grady had gadiered. But first he’d give Grady his moment, let him build the suspense. “That depends. Would you call Alfred Taite a snake?”

“Uncle Lush?” Grady’s voice broke on a sudden, delighted laugh. “God, Quinn, don’t tell me Uncle Lush is there.”

“He’s here, he’s real, and he’s busing tables at the same restaurant where Shelby is working as a hostess. Stop laughing! He’s blackmailed me into advancing him money for his rent, here in this same building—and then he charmed our landlady into letting him move in without putting down a deposit. Grady, damn it, I’m not going to tell you anything else if you don’t stop laughing.”

“I’m not laughing, Quinn; I’m
howling.
More, more. Tell me more. Is he washing dishes? I’d pay real cash money to see a Taite washing dishes.”

Quinn took a sip of hot coffee, giving Grady a moment to collect himself. “What else is there? Oh, yeah. He wants everyone to call him Al.” At this point, even Quinn was smiling, because—and he faced the fact—the whole thing
was
funny.

“You can call him Al? Didn’t Paul Simon do a song like that a few years back? Hey, is he pinching the ladies?
Al
really enjoys pinching the ladies.”

“Let’s just say all the dear old ladies didn’t need their heart-stimulating medication today, okay, and get on with it. I’m running out of time, Grady. Shelby is going home on Saturday, Sunday at the latest. Somehow, between now and then, I’ve got to tell her who I am, why I’m here, and hopefully tell her who’s been writing her threatening letters, faking a damn kidnapping, if you can believe that.”

“All of that, huh? And I guess I’m supposed to help?”

“Only if you’ve got information for me, which you said you do. Come on, spill it.”

“All right, but afterward we’re going to have a small talk about fake kidnappings, poison-pen letters, and why in the hell Shelby Taite isn’t home in her mansion, writing out wedding invitations.”

“You know why,” Quinn said, picking up the pen. “You damn well know why. Besides, I think she’s made me. I don’t know for sure, and it certainly took long enough, but I think she has. Which just makes everything worse.”

“Bucko, I don’t think it could
get
worse. Not unless Somerton and Jeremy show up. I don’t think East Wapa-thingamigig would ever fully recover from
that.
Somerton punching Westbrook—I still can’t get over that one, old Stiff Ass nailing Westbrook, more power to him—and Jeremy asking Shelby to make sure the kitchen help cuts the crust off his sandwiches.”

“Right, whatever. Your information, Grady. If I’m going to hell, at least I first want to know that I’m right, and that no matter how Shelby will hate me, probably already hates me, she won’t marry that jerk.”

“You know,” Grady said, dragging out his end of the conversation as long as he could, “it still could be those Vietnam vets who sent her the notes, tried to kidnap her. It doesn’t have to be Westbrook, just like I told you yesterday when I called with the information on the license plate.”

“It was a rental, picked up in Philadelphia. And it wasn’t the regulars. Shelby’s planning a huge fund-raising dinner for them this Friday. They worship her, for crying out loud. Which reminds me— I still haven’t written George’s speech. Damn.”

There was a short, pregnant silence at the other end of the phone; then Grady remarked conversationally, “Quinn, old buddy, I can’t tell you how much I’ve been enjoying these little late-night conversations of ours. You’re better than summer reruns, a damn sight better. You’re writing a speech? Quinn Delaney, who had to romance the prof’s daughter to get a C in Lit? Why haven’t I heard that one before now?”

“Because I knew you’d react just as you have, that’s why,” Quinn said, feeling the world rolling straight over him, flattening him beneath a mountain of problems, only some of them caused by his own actions. Well, okay, a
lot
of them caused by his own actions. “Now give me what you’ve got, or I’m coming down there to choke it out of you.”

Quinn was knee-deep in computer-generated reports, bits of information that still had to be brought together in something coherent enough for the auditors, and had been all morning, only taking time out to surreptitiously watch Shelby on her walk down the street to Tony’s just before noon.

The reports had to be done, and it was better than thinking about Shelby, thinking about how he was going to approach her, what he was going to say.

It would be so much simpler if he could just kidnap her, take her to Vegas, and set her down in front of some justice of the peace.

“She knows,” he said out loud as he went to refill his coffee mug. A few more cups of coffee and he could probably fly Shelby and himself to Vegas without a plane. “She has to know. But she doesn’t know all of it, can’t know all of it. Which makes you either her savior, Delaney, or some smug son of a bitch who’s going to be told to keep his damn nose out of her business.”

Grady’s information about Parker Westbrook III had been even better—no,
worse,
he really should think
worse
— than he had thought, and a lot easier to obtain than either he or Grady had believed it would be.

Joining a few mutual acquaintances at their club at lunch, then mentioning—just in passing—that Westbrook sure seemed to have a lot of irons in the fire and he wondered if he could keep all those irons hot, had been all that was needed to get the men talking.

And talking. Once one said something, the rest seemed more than eager to join in, add their bits to the evidence that was fast going to bury Westbrook. Unless he had a very large infusion of funds before all those irons fell out of the fire and burned his hotshot ass.

Marriage to Shelby Taite, and her money, would be Westbrook’s salvation.

He needed her, needed her badly.

Badly enough to try to scare her into coming home?

“It’s so far-fetched,” Quinn told himself as he walked across the room to answer a knock that showed no signs of stopping. “Oh, it’s good old Al. Yippee,” he said sarcastically to Uncle Alfred as he turned away from the open door. “What happened? Were you fired already?”

“Honest toil for an honest dollar,” Uncle Alfred said, making himself at home on the couch, “does not mean working one’s fingers to the nub. My presence is not required at Anthony’s establishment until two o’clock.”

“And in the meantime, you’ve decided to come in here and visit with me. Once more with feeling—yippee.”

“Yes, thank you, I will have coffee.”

“Did I offer any? You pour it all day at Tony’s. I think you can muddle through here and find your own cup.”

“How the high have fallen. You know what, I’ve decided something. The next time I think about living a
real
life— which I doubt I will do, Somerton or no Somerton—I’m going to bring at least one Taite employee with me. The cook, I think, or one of the maids, as I don’t think I have whatever it takes to repair what I seem to do to bedding in a single night. Thank heaven for Bertha. Good woman, good woman, but unnervingly like the ladies I squire about town in her own way. Now Tabitha. Ah, that’s another matter entirely, and part of the reason my sheets were in such disarray.”

Uncle Alfred sighed, remembering his evening, then retrieved a cup and filled it, leaving just enough room for a dollop of the Irish whiskey he had in his flask. “I may be wrong here, but I do believe you’re unhappy about something?”

Quinn gave a short laugh, saved his work on the laptop, and shut it down. “What was your first clue?”

“I’ve been in love a time or three myself, son, and recognize the symptoms. That hearts-and-flowers business is just so much claptrap. Suffering. That’s what love is, which is why I ran far and fast when I found myself sighing and moping. But you’re not running, are you, son? And neither is Shelby. Interesting.”

“Yeah, a real nail-biter,” Quinn said, then quickly caught himself as he realized he was about to sigh. “I’ve got to tell her, Al, tell her all of it. Soon. Even if I think she already knows some of it, most of it.”

“Well, of course she knows,” Uncle Alfred said, sipping his spiked coffee, then sighing himself, but in satisfaction. “She’s my niece, isn’t she? Do you think she’s stupid? Now ask yourself something else—why hasn’t she confronted you? Why hasn’t she left town? And don’t tell me it’s just because of this little charity soiree she’s tossing, because that’s ridiculous. She may have planned it, but it’s running along quite splendidly on its own, according to Tabitha—a dear girl, by the way, and quite talented. In any event, Shelby isn’t needed anymore, not really. So—and this will be rhetorical, because you look as if you’ve swallowed your tongue—why is my niece still here? She’s still here because she loves you. Now tell me what you’re going to do about it before I begin to think she’s lost her heart to an idiot.”

Quinn looked at the older man for a long time, measuring him, deciding what to tell him. “Westbrook needs Shelby’s money,” he said at last.

“Well, of course he does, son. We all never have all the money we want, even if we have all that we need.” Then he frowned. “Oh. He
needs
her money? How do you know this?”

“Does it matter?” Quinn asked, beginning to pace. “I just don’t know if I can tell Shelby.”

The flask came out once more. “She could be grateful, I suppose. But I doubt that. She’d probably want to know what the devil you were doing, meddling in her affairs. I don’t think I’d blame her. You know, pointing out that Westbrook isn’t the perfect fiance, all that sort of thing, as if she’s about to make a terrible mistake—and you’re going to save her. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if she hauled off and hit you.”

Quinn pushed his fingers through his hair. “Yeah, that’s about how I see it. Except if Westbrook is behind the letters, that pseudo kidnap attempt, I’ll have to tell her, explain the reasons behind them. As it is, she thinks it might be the regulars. Or maybe me,” he said, his voice trailing off as that thought hit him and seemed to make some sort of twisted sense.

Uncle Alfred slapped his knees and stood up. “I’d say you’re well and truly hung on the horns of a dilemma, son. Pity. Now, if you could turn your mind to another subject, I’d appreciate the return of the rest of the funds you so generously advanced to me. I’ve a game going, you understand, with that marvelous group Shelby calls the regulars. Oh, and Tabitha, of course, and Mutt and Jeff, too. Those two were more than happy to join us, especially as they seem to want to keep me in sight. We stayed after Anthony closed up last night, doing a few rounds of poker in the back room, and, sadly, I find myself financially embarrassed today.”

Quinn pinched the bridge of his nose and winced. “Poker. At
Anthony’s.
And Mutt and Jeff? Those would have to be the knee-smashers. Figures.” He shook his head, reached into his pocket, and pulled out another three hundred dollars. “I don’t know why, but it figures. You’ll never learn, will you?” he asked as Uncle Alfred pocketed the bills.

“Hopefully not, son, hopefully not,” he answered, grinning through his well-trimmed beard. “I’m old now, and this is one dog who isn’t interested in new tricks. You, however, are young, you and Shelby both. You don’t yet have a grasp on the fact that you’re mortal, that life is short, and to be lived hopefully without regret. Life is to be grabbed at greedily, and with both hands. In other words,
talk
to the girl. Now, today.”

Quinn stared at the door for a long time after Uncle Alfred left, thinking. He knew Uncle Alfred would watch Shelby today, Uncle Alfred, and Tony, and the regulars, even Mutt and Jeff—they’d all watch her. For many reasons, Shelby was immensely watchable. She’d be safe, and safely at work until nine o’clock.

Then he went back to work, forgetting to eat lunch, slapping two pieces of ham between some almost stale bread for dinner. But by eight o’clock that night, the reports were all done, both those he sent via E-mail attachments to the Philadelphia office and those he’d printed out and faxed to the auditors.

He was free and clear, with nothing standing between him and Shelby but their mutual lies… and so he thought as he walked into Tony’s just before closing and leaned against the wall beside the cash register.

Then, belatedly, Quinn realized something else. Something surprising, actually unnerving. Unsure. Nervous. Was this Quinn Delaney? It sure wasn’t any Quinn Delaney
he
remembered. He knew himself to be calm, self-assured, the kind of guy who could walk away from anything, anyone, with no regrets. Just move himself on to greener pastures. And now here he was, looking for fences. Praying for fences.

“I’ve come to escort you home,” he told Shelby as she made change for a customer. “If that’s all right?”

Shelby silently congratulated herself for not literally jumping out of her skin. She’d been missing him all day, wondering where he was, worried about where he was, what he might be thinking. Running conversations in her head, trying to approach the subject of their mutual lies from so many directions she had nearly become dizzy, not to mention sticking her thumb into Mrs. Miller’s bowl of creamed cucumbers. Only Uncle Alfred could keep her from complaining to Tony that Shelby was trying to poison her.

“Thank you. That would be nice,” Shelby answered, shutting the drawer, but not looking up, not looking at him. “Have you eaten? You haven’t been in all day.”

“Now that you mention it, I could eat something. We could go back to my apartment, order a pizza?”

And talk,
he ended silently.

“I’ll just tell Tony I’m leaving,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t sound so weak and quavering. “He’s, um, he’s going to be here until at least midnight anyway.”

“Playing poker,” Quinn said, grinning. When she looked at him, frowning, he added, “Let’s just say there’s been a rumor to that effect. Is the police chief in on it yet? I’ll bet he is, and I’m not a betting man.”