Annmarie stood on the stoop in front of the door.
“Move!” Quinn pushed Lily out of the vehicle’s path. Then he sprinted after the car.
“You stay there,” Lily shouted. When her daughter nodded that she understood, Lily started after Quinn. Dear heaven, he was a crazy man. Didn’t he realize he could get hurt?
The vehicle—her car, good God, her car—rolled across the shallow slope like some monstrous, lumbering beast, tipping when one of the wheels rolled over a small boulder. The vehicle veered in a new direction. Quinn caught up with it and pulled on the door handle. He stumbled back, swore, and made a second grab, this time at the back door. The vehicle picked up speed and jerked him along like a rag doll.
“Let go!” Lily’s heart rose to her throat. Any second he was sure to lose his balance and end up under the wheels. The car was headed directly toward the cliff between a huge pine and a flatbed trailer parked in the lower lot—a trailer she didn’t remember seeing earlier.
A tire rolled over another large rock and knocked Quinn to the ground. He disappeared from view and she screamed. A second later the car hit the trailer with a grinding crunch.
Lily came to a skidding halt by Quinn, who was already sitting up. She dropped to her knees next to him. He had a gash on his head that pumped blood. It ran down the side of his head and neck. His attention was focused completely on the car. She spared it only a fleeting glance while raw fear for him pulsed through her.
“Oh, God,” she panted. “You’re hurt.” She grabbed a packet of tissues from her pocket and pressed a wad against the gash. Instantly the blood soaked through.
“Damn it all to hell.” Rolling to his feet, he ignored her and the blood streaming from his head. He stalked toward the crash.
Shaking, Lily stood and trailed after him. Head wounds, even minor ones, bled like the devil. How hurt could the man be when he was swearing? Her attention shifted to the accident. One wheel of her car was in the air, still spinning. Her car, that she had just paid off, looked as though it was permanently attached to the trailer. She hadn’t taken fifteen steps when he turned around to glare at her.
“That’s not my car.” He waved up the hillside toward the parking lot. “That is.”
“It’s mine,” she said, following the line of his finger. His vehicle was nearly identical to her dark green SUV. Except hers was perched precariously against the open trailer. She finally gave the trailer a closer look. Sitting on its flatbed was a small robotic submarine—a huge white and silver ball with headlights—one of them broken—and mechanical arms—also one broken—that looked alive.
“And that—” he was beginning to sway as he gestured toward the trailer “—is a submersible that has been here for exactly—” He squinted at his watch as though he couldn’t read it. “Forty-three minutes. I parked it down here so nobody had a chance in hell of running into it. Do you have any idea what I went through to get it? Only sell my soul.”
Her legs rubbery, Lily’s gaze followed his accusing finger. The whole passenger side of her car was caved in, and the trailer was dented where the car had hit it. She wrapped her arms around herself, which did nothing to lessen her shaking or the fear that made her throat tighten.
Once again, Quinn tried to open one of the doors on her car, then leaned down to peer inside. Straightening, he swore again.
“You left the keys in the ignition,” he accused. Blood continued to pour down the side of his face, and he was looking more pale by the minute.
“We’ve got to get you to the clinic.” She laid a hand on his arm to steady him. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’ll get a Band-Aid later.” He shrugged off her support and looked back up the hillside. “How the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know.” What she did know was that Quinn looked worse.
His knees buckled. Before Lily could reach him, he fell. She cried out and knelt beside him. Pounding footsteps made her look up. Max and the children were running toward them.
“Well, damn,” Quinn said, struggling to stand up.
“You stay put.” She pushed him back down.
“Damned if I will.” Somehow, though, Quinn found himself without the energy to stand. Which was ridiculous. The woman couldn’t weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds sopping wet. He bench-pressed triple that. Of course she couldn’t hold him down.
Except that resting for a minute seemed like a better idea.
Through a haze of red he watched Max and the two children come to a halt next to him. Lily’s child threw her arms around her mother. Lily automatically hugged Annmarie with words of reassurance and a gentle admonishment to stay out of the way.
That didn’t keep the child from kneeling next to him and peering into his eyes. “You’re going to be okay,” she crooned, patting his hand, then said, “I don’t think he’s in there, Mom.”
Where else would he be? Especially since his head was beginning to feel like it would crack open if he so much as moved it.
“Got your car keys in your pocket?” Max asked, appearing in Quinn’s line of vision.
“Vest,” Quinn responded, his voice sounding thick to his own ears. Everything was growing more blurry by the second.
The next time he looked up, his car was parked right next to him and Max was getting out of it. Didn’t make sense since they’d just been talking.
Lily’s face appeared in front of him and Quinn tried to smile. Her hair framed her face in a golden halo. God, but she was pretty. Why had he been mad at her?
“Can you stand up?” she asked.
He nodded.
To his complete irritation, he felt as weak as a wet noodle, and it took both Lily and Max to hoist him up. Just moving…made him sure that any second his head would simply explode.
After an eternity of awkward moves to get in the car, he collapsed in the back seat with Lily. Max and the two kids were in the front seat. The ride down the hill to Lynx Point had never seemed longer, and Max didn’t miss a single pothole on the way down, Quinn was sure of it. He wanted to know where they were going, but didn’t have the energy to ask.
He slumped over, somehow found his head resting on Lily’s lap. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her mouth was moving, but it took too much effort to figure out what she was saying, so he watched her. He didn’t think anyone had ever smelled better, and he turned his head toward her belly and inhaled. She smelled like comfort. Through the soft texture of her sweater against his cheek, her body was warm. He decided being right here like this would be about perfect if his head weren’t pounding.
“I’ll go get a gurney,” Max said sometime later.
Quinn managed to open an eye. Through the window he could see a weathered sign. Medical Clinic. A scant two months had passed since he was last here. No way was he being wheeled in.
“I can walk.” Straightening and opening the car door required a Herculean effort that made him break into a sweat.
This
