reached out and brushed his hand. “Let me...”
He sat so still, so watchful, as she undid the tie completely. It made a soft, slithering sound as she slipped it from around his neck. She laid it carefully over the arm of the sofa. Then she turned to him again and unbuttoned the top two buttons of his snowy dress shirt, smoothing the collar open, revealing the powerful column of his neck and the sharp black point of one of those intricate tattoos that covered his shoulder and twined halfway down his arm.
“Better?” she asked.
They shared a smile as he nodded. He said, “There’s more.”
She took his right hand and turned it over, revealing his cuff buttons. One by one, she undid them. “Tell me.”
“I’m dyslexic,” he said, his voice rougher than usual, freighted with something wary, something wounded. “You know what dyslexia is?”
“I think I do. I think I remember reading that it’s when a person has difficulty in learning to read or interpret words, letters and other symbols?”
“That’s pretty close to the generally accepted definition.”
She took his left hand and unbuttoned that cuff, too.
He spoke again. “Most people think dyslexia is what you just said. A learning disorder, period. It’s more. It’s a challenge, a tough one. But it’s a gift, too.” She sat with his hand in her lap, the buttons undone, drinking in every word, as he explained, “You remember how I was as a kid. Trouble. Always getting in fights. Everyone thought I was stupid because I couldn’t get the hang of reading. I hated school, hated being the slow kid. I acted out constantly. Only later did I figure out that my problem was I couldn’t learn the way most kids learn. A traditional school environment did nothing for me. I don’t get phonics, don’t get learning things in rote sequence. It completely overloads me. So I would lash out.”
She did remember that troubled boy so well. “You always seemed so angry.”
“You bet I was. By the time I was eleven, my mother was at the end of her rope with me. As a last-ditch effort to find something I could do well, she enrolled me in a karate class—and everything changed for me. For once, I got something, really got it. Yeah, I have to work my ass off to try and get the meaning out of a line of letters across a page. But I’d always been damn good at fighting. The way my brain is wired makes me more capable than most people of visualizing the moves of my opponents in advance. I see the whole picture, I guess you could say. And that makes me more willing to follow my instincts. So I was good at karate, and finally being good at something was damn motivating. It got me going, gave me hope. I was driven to excel.” He took her hand then and wove his fingers with hers.
It felt so good, her hand in his. She held on tight. “Answer me a question...”
“Name it.”
“You seemed nervous about telling me this. Were you?”
He squeezed her fingers. “Yeah, I was.”
“But I can’t see why you would be, not after the way your life’s worked out.”
“There’s more. And you need to hear it.”
She needed to hear it? She almost asked him why, but then decided that the whys could wait. “All right...”
“Dyslexia is often genetic.”
She frowned. “So you’re telling me that Annabelle is dyslexic?”
“No. So far, Annabelle shows none of the signs. Already, she can recognize her alphabet and sound out simple words. But you should know that any child of mine could possibly be dyslexic.”
She should know? It was an odd way to phrase it.
And he still had more to say. “I plan to be proactive. If a kid of mine showed signs of dyslexia, I would be on it, arranging for early testing, providing alternative learning systems and support, working with the school so everyone’s on the same page about what needs to be done. If one of my kids was dyslexic, I would see to it that he didn’t have to go through the crap I went through. I would make sure any kid of mine never had to feel stupid and incompetent and lag way behind the learning curve.” He tipped his head then and asked with wry good humor, “You still with me, Chloe?”
“Absolutely. Yes. And I’m so sorry, Quinn. That you felt stupid and incompetent when you were little. No child should have to feel that way.”
“I got past it.”
“That doesn’t make it right.” At his chuckle, she chided, “It’s nothing to joke about, Quinn.”
He shrugged. “Tell me something.”
She had that odd feeling again; there was more going on here than she was picking up. “Of course.”
He let go of her hand, reached for his coffee—and said just what she’d been thinking. “Do you have any clue why I’m laying all this on you?”
She watched him take a sip. “Whatever your reasons, I have to say it’s really nice to have a guy just sit right down and talk to me about the toughest things. It’s rare.”
“Right.” He set the cup down again and rolled one of his unbuttoned cuffs to the elbow. “It’s what women love. A guy who won’t shut up...”
“I don’t know about ‘women.’ But I know what I like. And you telling me about what matters to you, about what made you who you are? I do like that. A lot.”
“Well, all right.” He rolled the other cuff. She watched him, admiring the hard shape of his arms, thick with muscle, roped with tendons, dusted with light brown hair, nicked here and there with small white ridges of scar tissue. He went on, “But I do have a reason for loading you up with way more info than you asked for.”
“And I keep trying to make you see that you don’t need a reason.”
He slanted her a teasing look. “Got that.”
A low laugh escaped her. “Well, okay, then. I get it. You’re trying to tell me the reason—so go ahead. I’m ready for it.”
“You sure?”
She groaned and executed a major eye roll. “Will you please stop teasing me?”
Now he looked at her so steadily, a look that made her warm all over, especially down in the center of her. “All right.” And then, just like that, he said, “I want to marry you, Chloe.”
Quinn wasn’t finished. “I want to build a life with you, have kids with you. Like I said, I’m a guy who follows my intuition, a guy who has trouble sounding out a word—but also a guy who gets the big picture. And once I know what I want, I go for it. I want you, Chloe, for my wife. I want you for my little girl, too, because I know you’ll be the mother Annabelle needs.”
Chloe just
