His Best Friend's Baby (16 page)

Quinn wondered if she’d already asked him. He knew his mind had been wandering.

“Not blinking. Otherwise, whatever you like is fine.”

“But...it’s your house.”

He didn’t say,
With you gone I won’t be putting them up next year.
That would kill the Christmas spirit.

“I’ve never bought any. I don’t know what I like.”

She gave him a strange look, then wordlessly chose a box of lights from the shelf.

The whole expedition was weird. They were in Fred Meyer. Mindy carried Jessamine in the denim sling and Quinn pushed the cart. They undoubtedly looked like any family out shopping.

“Okay,” Mindy said, in a determinedly cheerful voice, “what about ornaments? Do you like a color theme, or a hodgepodge?”

A picture flashed before his eyes: a tree decorated with what his adult eye realized was no aesthetic sophistication whatsoever, probably ugly by most people’s standards, but the child who remembered the tree was dazzled and thrilled.
He’d
helped string popcorn and wrap the string around the branches. And tonight was Christmas Eve! Santa would leave presents under it for him to find in the morning.

“Quinn?” A hand squeezed his forearm. “Are you all right?”

He shook his head to clear it. “Popcorn.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He pretended to look at the boxes of ornaments. “I just remembered...” A long, long ago Christmas. Before his mother’s addiction had consumed her, when he still believed in childish fantasies like Santa Claus.

Had there been presents under that tree in the morning? No memory of them surfaced, but neither did a ghost of the crushing disappointment that boy would have felt. Maybe, that year, his mother had managed a holiday to satisfy a child.

Funny that he hadn’t remembered, hadn’t known there’d ever been a Christmas like other people had.

“These,” he said, grabbing a box at random. Plain red glass balls.

“Jessie would think those are pretty,” Mindy agreed, probably humoring him. “And shall we get some gold ones?”

They finished selecting enough ornaments to dress a tree, a stand and the skirt to cover it, and a couple of rolls of wrapping paper and ribbon.

He hadn’t bought Mindy anything yet and had no idea what she’d like. Dean had been a champion gift giver. Quinn couldn’t top the BMW. Anyway, she’d just had to get rid of most of what Dean had bought her.

“I’ve gotten a couple of things for Jessie,” he said. “The other day, I was in Pioneer Square. There’s a toy store there.” Embarrassed, he shrugged. “I guess she doesn’t need toys yet, but I asked what was good for a baby.”

Mindy smiled at him. “That’s sweet, Quinn.”

Sweet.

She laughed at him. “You don’t have to look as if I’d just insulted you.”

“Yeah. Don’t let anyone hear you say things like that.”

Her laugh rang out again, and despite himself his mood lifted.

“Let’s pay for this stuff and go find a tree.”

He’d passed a tree lot a block off California Street that day, and despite Mindy’s dire warnings there seemed to be plenty left to choose from.

The night was dark and chilly. Forget the idea of having a white Christmas; Seattle was about to have another gray one.

Garish lights made the lot as bright as day. He lifted Jessie from her car seat and inserted her into the snowsuit he’d bought as Mindy held it out. Then he zipped and put the bundle of baby and suit into the sling. Jessie was clearly awake now and probably needed a dry diaper, but she wasn’t yet squalling. She looked enthralled by the bright lights and strange shadows.

Mindy stopped in front of some bushy trees that looked as if they’d been sheared.

“I like those better.” He pointed toward crude racks of ones that were labeled noble and grand firs.

“But they’re really expensive.”

“Think of it this way. I’ve saved up my money from all those holidays when I
didn’t
buy a tree.”

Her mouth pursed. “Oh. Well...I guess that’s true.” She wasn’t convinced, which amused him. “They are pretty.”

He pulled trees out, one at a time, and Mindy circled them.

“This one,” she said finally. “It’s perfect.”

“We’ll take this one,” Quinn told the lot attendant, who proceeded to wrap the branches with twine and then helped Quinn load it in the trunk. Quinn paid and tied down the trunk while Mindy settled the baby in the car seat.

At home, Quinn said, “Do you want to wait until tomorrow night to set the tree up? Or shall we do it tonight?”

“Tonight,” Mindy said instantly, like a child unwilling to be denied a treat. “If you can wait while I nurse Jessie.”

While she fed the baby, Quinn laid a tarp on the hardwood floor, then carried the tree in and set it in the stand, tightening the screws until the tree stood upright. He filled the cavity with water, then wrapped the red quilted skirt around to cover stand and tarp.

When he returned from the car with the bag of ornaments, Mindy stood halfway into the living room.

“Did we remember hooks?” he asked, even though he knew they had.

“Yes.” Still hanging back, she did follow him to the tree.

“Lights first?” he remembered.

“Yep. You’d better do it, since you’re taller.”

He plugged in the string they’d bought to make sure they worked, then untangled it and began wrapping from the top down. When he was done, they made adjustments, then clipped the small bulbs to branches. Quinn noticed Mindy was keeping the tree between them. Just as well.

The Howies had always made decorating the tree an occasion. A couple of times, he’d tried to get out of it, but they’d been firm. He could hear George saying, “This is something we do as a family.” Quinn could remember making an effort not to feel anything. They could force him to be there, but they couldn’t make him get into the stupid Christmas spirit. He’d known, deep inside, that they were trying to breach his guard and that he was vulnerable.

Carefully hanging a gold ball on a lower branch, Quinn wondered how different his life would be if he’d let himself succumb. Maybe he’d be married by now and have kids.

Maybe he wouldn’t have to imagine that Dean’s wife and child were his.

“Will you put the star on top?” Mindy asked.

He summoned a grin. “You couldn’t do it without a ladder.”

“I can get a kitchen chair,” she said with dignity. “I’m not
that
short.”

“Uh-huh.”

She tossed a pillow. He flung up his arms to defend himself. The atmosphere felt almost normal.

She plugged in the lights while he found the box with the gleaming gold star. When he turned from putting it atop their tree, he saw her gazing at the tree in delight.

“Oh, Quinn!” she breathed. “It’s beautiful.”

He turned to look. She was right; it was pretty, especially considering they’d bought the ornaments tonight. They
had
more or less stuck to a color theme of red and gold, with a few striped and multicolor balls here and there. Mindy had hung a dozen white snowflakes that were made like Victorian doilies and then starched stiff.

“Hey, we’re good,” he said.

Mindy laughed, with a funny choking sound at the end. “Yes, we are.”

Why, he wondered, did he have the feeling she was sad as well as happy?

Later, after she’d gone to bed, he left the Christmas lights on and sat on the couch, gazing at the tree and trying to figure out why something as ordinary as celebrating a holiday evoked such a complicated swell of emotions in him.

Frowning, he tried to separate these strands, as if they were strings of lights tangled after being in a box together for too long.

Grief, for his mother and for Dean and because he’d missed so much, some by his own choice. Images of other Christmases kept flickering through his consciousness. Quinn’s last Christmas before his mother died, when he’d sat alone in their apartment and looked at the blur of other people’s holiday lights out the window and felt afraid, because he knew she was slipping away and he didn’t know what would happen to him. That first Christmas at the Howies’, and Dean’s huge grin as he ripped the big bow from the handlebars of the bike and climbed on it. Drinks on Christmas Eve with Dean. An uncomfortable Christmas dinner or two at the Howies’. Pathetically decorated trees at the station, mistletoe in doorways, invitations tossed in the trash, murders committed on Christmas Day.

And finally, last year, when he hadn’t been able to say no to Dean and had had dinner with him and Mindy. He’d felt stiff and uncomfortable, an outsider, and longed to be able to go home.

Now he had all this new stuff knotted with the old: these feelings for Mindy, Jessie’s birth and his powerful love for her, this sense of his home and life being filled for the first time ever.

And, most of all, the crushing awareness that it was all temporary, that one of these days Mindy would take Jessie and move out, that she might even remarry. When she created a family of her own, he’d be left forever outside the circle of her affection, with no right to have a part in Jessie’s life.

Finally, feeling older than he had since he was that boy waiting for his mother to die, Quinn unplugged the Christmas lights and went to bed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

J
ESSIE
SMILED
for the first time on Christmas Day.

Mindy said she hadn’t, that she wouldn’t be able to smile until she was six weeks old, but Quinn knew a smile when he saw one.

He tickled Jessie’s toes. “You’re just jealous because you missed it.”

“I didn’t have to see it. It was gas. A burp. A grimace. When she really smiles, she’ll light up.”

“Jealous.”

From the other end of the couch, she kicked him. “Am not.”

Lazily content, he kicked her back. “Jealous.”

Her big green eyes laughed at him, though her mouth was pursed primly. “Just wait until she
really
smiles.”

Her hair wasn’t a tousled mop anymore, he realized; chin length, it was more of a shining cap, somehow befitting her status as mom. He suspected it was still lighter than air, downier than Jessie’s pale strawberry fluff.

Nancy let out a gentle snore from the easy chair. Quinn had given George and Nancy his bed last night and slept on the couch. Nancy had insisted she’d tossed and turned because she was so excited.

“A real Christmas!” she’d declared last night, eyes shining.

Quinn had vanquished his guilt for shutting them out by resolving it wouldn’t happen again. For better or worse, they were his family.

They’d cleaned up the wrapping-paper disaster before eating, but a couple of bows still reposed beneath the coffee table, he heard tissue paper crinkling when he shifted and ribbon trailed over the back of Nancy’s chair. The mess was somehow reassuring. It meant Nancy was right; this was a real Christmas.

His gaze kept wandering back to the birdhouse Mindy had made for him. Every time, a smile would tug at his mouth. She’d constructed in miniature an old-fashioned jail, with little iron bars on the windows. But the barred door, flung open, seemed to be hanging from one hinge—though when Quinn poked it with one finger it was solid—and to the side a decrepit scaffolding now served as the support for a flowering vine painted in intricate detail. Maybe she was trying to say something about him. He wasn’t sure. But the thing was clever.

He noticed she was still wearing the necklace he’d given her, too. The pendant was a daisy, tiny diamond petals surrounding a yellow topaz center. Pretty and sunny. Her face had lit when she’d opened the package, so he hoped she really liked it.

A faint odor drifted to Quinn’s nostrils, rousing him from his contented stupor. “Diaper time,” he said.

Mindy stirred.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “Merry Christmas.”

“Isn’t he sweet?” she asked the room in general.

George laughed at Quinn’s response. Stretching, George said, “I suppose I should wake Nancy so we can think about getting going.”

“You could stay another night,” Quinn suggested as he stood, Jessie’s stinky butt resting in the crook of his arm. “Avoid the ferry lines. We can snack on leftovers later.”

“I feel bad taking your bed another night.”

“It’s been great having you here. I don’t mind the couch.” Funny how easy it was to say that, when not that long ago he’d relegated George and Nancy to the category of distant acquaintances. Dean’s family, not really his. “Think about it,” he said, and went off to change Jessie’s diaper.

The Howies did stay. Even Quinn got roped into playing pinochle during the evening. He discovered once again that he and Mindy made a good team.

The sleeper couch was supposed to be a good one, but it still wasn’t comfortable for someone of Quinn’s bulk and height. But he really didn’t mind. The day had been a good one. He wished it wasn’t over.

In the morning he saw Mindy’s light under her door, and she came out looking heavy-eyed and cranky.

“You know that saying about sleeping like a baby? Don’t believe it.”

He slid the mug of coffee he’d just poured for himself across the breakfast bar and reached into the cupboard for a second mug. “I didn’t hear her crying.”

“That’s because I didn’t want her to disturb the Howies. I leapt up every time she squeaked. The poor kid was probably just talking in her sleep, and I kept snatching her up to nurse or to check her diaper or to rock. What do you want to bet she’s as exhausted as I am today?”

“You can both nap once the Howies leave.”

“You’d better believe it,” she agreed with fervency.

He took a swallow of coffee, muttered when it burned his mouth, and said, “I’d better take this with me.”

Sitting there in her bathrobe, bare toes curled over the rung of the stool and her hands wrapped around the mug, she said, “Have a good day.”

A man could get used to having a pretty woman get up to see him off in the morning and be there to greet him when he got home.

This one had better not get too used to it.

“Yeah, you have a good day, too,” he said, and left.

For most of the next week, he felt more natural with Mindy again. The holiday and all those warm, fuzzy feelings had cast a spell that briefly canceled out darker emotions like guilt.

They celebrated New Year’s Eve by watching the party in Times Square on TV, talking about other years, trips to New York City, how Jessamine hadn’t even been thought of a year ago. Mindy said that in astonishment, as if no Jessie was unthinkable. At midnight, they clinked their glasses and went to bed. He’d never enjoyed a New Year’s Eve more.

The next evening, he went to the gym and worked out until his muscles groaned and his vision blurred. He walked in the house, and heard her giggle float from the living room. Gritting his teeth, he thought,
I can’t live like this.

“Quinn? Is that you?”

“Yeah, I’m home,” he called back. “Let me throw my stuff in the wash.”

She sat cross-legged on the sofa in flannel pajama bottoms and a sweatshirt, Jessie against her shoulder. She gave a firm pat, and Jessie belched.

He couldn’t help smiling. “Hey, she’s going to be able to burp those boys under the table when she gets to school.”

Mindy gave him a laughing look over her shoulder. “Oh, great.”

“They’ll all have a crush on her.”

“Who was the first girl you remember having a crush on?” Mindy nuzzled the baby’s neck.

He didn’t have to think. “Rebecca Kane. Fifth grade. She was hot.”

Mindy made a face at him. “I had no crush until I was in eighth grade.”

He pictured her, a stick of a girl with big gray-green eyes and that defiant haircut. No, maybe she’d had pigtails and been meek. He could imagine her just a little shy, not yet having come into her own.

Thinking about Mindy was not healthy for him. “I’m going to hit the sack,” he said, standing. “You two stay up and play all night if you want.”

Mindy lifted Jessie so he could give her a smack on her small button nose. Then he grinned at her. “Sleep tight, kiddo.”

She smiled. Her whole body smiled. Her arms flapped and her face lit with delight.

Pierced to the heart, Quinn said, “Mindy. Did you see that?”

“See what?” She looked up at him in alarm.

“Turn her around. Smile at her.”

“What?” She set Jessie back in her lap, her hand cradling Jessie’s head. “What’s that man talking about?” she crooned, smiling and tickling her tiny daughter’s stomach.

Jessie turned it on like a light.

“Oh, Jessie! Quinn! Oh!” Mindy almost sounded teary. “Did you see? Look at her!”

“I’m looking.”

He couldn’t tear himself away. He hung over the back of the couch grinning at the baby like some idiot just so she’d grin back. Mindy laughed and told Jessie she was the most beautiful baby ever born.

“You are very, very clever to make your mommy and...” She visibly checked before continuing, “And Quinn so happy. Isn’t she, Quinn?”

Mindy sounded breathless, as if she’d almost said
daddy
.
Your mommy and daddy.

Aw, man.

“Yeah.” Even to his ears, his voice had changed. Become remote. “She’s a smart baby. But I’d still better go to bed.”

A man could lead himself to bed, but that didn’t mean he’d sleep. Not when he felt as if he were flying over paradise, craning his neck to look down from that airplane window, wanting to storm the cockpit and yell, “Land here!” even though he knew there wasn’t a runway.

He just couldn’t imagine Mindy looking at him with anything but shock and loathing if he hit on her. Even if he was wrong, even if miraculously she turned out to feel the same way he did, how could he look at himself in the mirror knowing he had what should have been Dean’s?

What
would
have been Dean’s, if not for a bullet.

* * *

S
HE
’
D
ALMOST
SAID
daddy.

She couldn’t stay, Mindy thought in panic. She felt as if they were a family, but they weren’t. She’d seen the look on Quinn’s face, seen his instant retreat. She had scared him, thinking that way.

Steeling herself, the next night at dinner Mindy said, “You know, I can’t stay here forever.”

His gaze sharpened. “There’s no hurry.”

“I know. But, well, what I was wondering is, if I rent an apartment where I can’t set up a workshop, could I maybe pay you a little a month...”

His expression became forbidding.

“Or something,” she continued, more raggedly, “to keep using yours?”

He scowled. “I’m not using it. Of course you can! You know I won’t take money from you.”

“I had to offer!” she retorted.

“Well, you have an answer. The garage is yours when you need it. Because we’re friends, and I’m not using it right now anyway.”

She bit her lip. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Subject closed.

But he stayed moody for the rest of the evening and retreated to his bedroom early.

The next day, she looked at two apartments. She hated the first, and the second was nice but didn’t feel secure with ground-floor windows and no reassuring landlord upstairs.

A week later, she found one she liked. It was in West Seattle, within walking distance of Safeway. The building had only four units, and a tenant in the one that would be below hers had a toddler, according to the owner. Maybe they could exchange babysitting, Mindy thought hopefully. With two bedrooms, Jessie could have her own.

The neighborhood was nice, so Quinn couldn’t complain, and it wasn’t more than a mile or two from his house, so if he wanted to visit Jessie he could easily.

“I’ll take it.” She pulled her checkbook out of her purse. “How much do you need?”

She put off for several days telling Quinn that she’d actually rented a place, finally vowing that tonight would be the night. Her resolve faltered when Quinn came home with deep creases between his eyebrows. He looked battered and soul-weary.

Mindy had started dinner earlier, a bean-and-rice casserole, and had just put corn bread in to bake. Seeing him standing in the kitchen doorway, she said, “You look exhausted! Did you have a bad day?”

“Yeah, but I’m not going to talk about it.” He rubbed a hand over his face.

“Oh, Quinn,” she breathed.

He seemed to give himself a shake. “Smells good. Where’s Jessie?” He spotted her lying on a quilt, her hand tightly clutching a red plastic rattle Mindy had put in it. “There’s my pretty girl,” he murmured, lifting her into his arms.

He set her down again while he went to take off his jacket and weapon, then said, “Shall I make a salad while you nurse?”

“Bless you,” Mindy told him, and carried Jessie to the living-room couch.

Quinn was dishing up when she came back from putting Jessie down for her evening nap.

She touched his arm and felt the muscles tighten. “I’m sorry, Quinn.”

“Crappy day.” He shrugged. “It happens. How was yours?”

“It was fine. Jessie had a good nap.”

As they ate, Mindy sensed he would have preferred to retreat into silence. The knowledge that he would rather have been alone emboldened her at last to push her empty plate away and say, “Quinn, I rented an apartment.”

“What?”

“I can’t move in until the first, so you’re stuck with us for a couple more weeks, but you did keep saying there wasn’t any hurry.”

“You’re moving out.” He sounded stunned.

“Yes, but not far away.” She told him about the apartment, hearing herself talking faster and faster in an artificially cheerful voice. “There’s even covered parking!” she said, as if claiming a sunken Jacuzzi tub or a hot tub on her deck.

“Why the decision to move?” Quinn set down his fork, his voice harsh.

“Jessie is six weeks old. I’ve been here for two and a half months now.”

Muscles flexed in his jaw. “So?”

“So I think it’s time to prove to us both that I can be independent.” Mindy moistened her lips. “Quinn, what you did for me is amazing. But I’m not contributing in any way. I’m guessing if I offered you rent you’d say no.” His expression told her she was right. “There must be days when you’d give anything to be able to come home to an empty, peaceful house.”

“Have I said that?”

“No.”

“Then don’t make assumptions.” He looked at her with a flat gaze. “But obviously you’re ready to strike out on your own and that’s okay. Guess it would be awkward if you lived here and wanted to date.”

Date? The idea had never even occurred to her. She couldn’t imagine ever wanting to flirt and go out to dinner with some man who wasn’t Quinn.

Then, feeling dense, she realized what he was really saying. “You haven’t been dating, either, have you? Of course you haven’t! It would have been hard to explain Jessie and me, wouldn’t it?”

He sounded ticked. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

“You do date?”

“I haven’t since Dean died.”

“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh, dear. We’re a pair of cripples, aren’t we?”

Some emotion flared in his eyes. “I’ll go find my crutch.” He shoved back from the table. “I’ll hope I don’t need it the day you’re moving.”

She stared after him, her chest feeling hollow.

She’d hurt him. She could tell she had. But he couldn’t want her to stay forever. Could he?

No. Her eyes welled with tears she refused to let fall. Maybe she’d annoyed him, but that was all. It was time for her to go, just as she’d planned.