steps to the door of the clinic.
Thad opened the door, and Quinn made every effort to walk through in a straight line. He’d had to do that once for a cop after he’d celebrated getting a scholarship for college. It had been easier then.
At the jingling sound of the bell, Hilda Raven-in-Moonlight came out of one of the back rooms of the clinic. Remembering something about Thad being her son and being Lily’s childhood friend, Quinn studied her. As usual, she was dressed in jeans, a unisex sweater, and jangly earrings he’d never seen her without.
“You never told me you had a kid, Doc.” Quinn flashed her a smile, straightening to his full height, and hoping for her usual tart reply to being called “Doc.” The very first time he’d been to see her, she had informed him she was a physician’s assistant, not a doctor. In his book, she was better than an M.D. any day of the week. Hopefully she hadn’t noticed that he’d fall over if Lily wasn’t holding him up.
“I have four of them, and that gash on your head will get bigger if it involves any of them.” For all the gruffness in her tone, she was gentle when she put an arm around his other side and steered them toward an examining room. She settled him on the examining table, hoisting his feet up. “How did he manage to get you involved in one of his hare-brained schemes, girl?”
“No scheme.” Lily caught his bloody head as though she somehow knew it was killing him and gently eased it back until he was lying down. “A stupid accident. This happened when he tried to keep my car from running into a trailer.”
Quinn heard tears clog her voice. Realizing she was more affected than her casual words suggested, he reached for her hand and found it was trembling.
“You should have seen it,” Annmarie said, close enough that she could peer into his eyes. “Mommy’s car bumped along and then it crashed right into the other one with a big kaboom.”
“Everybody else okay?” Hilda asked.
“Fine,” Max said. He came through the doorway and dropped the keys to Quinn’s car in Lily’s hand. “I’m going to go and see what needs to be done to take care of things at the lab.”
“Do you need a ride?” Lily asked.
“Nah. It’s not that far.” With one of his quick smiles that always looked vaguely foreign on his face, he turned around without waiting for a goodbye.
“Me and Annmarie are gonna play video games,” Thad said.
“I want to watch Hilda sew Mr. Quinn up,” Annmarie said. “Okay, Mom?”
Lily shook her head. “Not okay. Go play with Thad and I’ll be along in a bit.”
“Mom.”
“Go.”
Quinn liked the way Lily was firm with her daughter—as though what she did really mattered. Mrs. Perkins had been like Lily in that way. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to remember, just for a moment.
He had been one of five foster children in her house. She had made sure they studied and did the chores and remembered to say “Yes, sir” and “Yes, ma’am” when talking to grown-ups. Quinn had been pretty sure she was a mean old biddy until she died less than a year after he had gone to live with her. Kenny Jones had been in the car with her, and he died, too. Not the drunk who hit them, though.
As foster parents went, she hadn’t been so bad. She’d never taken a strap to him. She’d never treated him like she figured he’d steal whatever wasn’t tied down. She insisted that “sir” and “ma’am” be used when addressing adults and that he do his homework in the kitchen under her watchful eye. After she died, those two habits were key to his staying out of trouble.
His hand tightened around Lily’s and her fingers pressed reassuringly back. He sighed and opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling until the crack he remembered from his last visit came into focus.
“A mundane car accident?” Hilda said from the vicinity of the sink. “That’s a first. Last time it was pulling seaweed out of a propeller.”
When Lily glanced back down at him, he nodded toward his arm closest to her and tried to waggle his eyebrows. That hurt to much, but he smiled anyway. “Wanna see my scar?”
“Stop bragging. Not every woman is impressed with scars,” Hilda scolded, appearing in his line of vision. “Let’s see how big this hole in your head is.”
She pulled off a huge gauze bandage he had no recollection of anyone putting on him. When had that happened?
“Close encounters of the accidental kind—happens to this guy all the time.”
Lily cleared her throat. “This one is my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” Quinn’s gaze snapped to her. To his shock her eyes shimmered as though she was a breath away from tears.
Hilda patted his arm. “I get to sew you up again, big guy.”
“Okay.” His attention didn’t leave Lily, though. She had taken off the enveloping red sweater. The blouse underneath was cream-colored…and smeared with his blood. She still gripped his hand, but didn’t look at him.
“He’s going to be okay?” She glanced at Hilda.
“Fine,” Quinn said for himself. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my car.” Finally she looked at him. “And like you said, the keys were in the ignition.”
“Little sting while I deaden this,” Hilda said, adding, “He’s got a concussion. Somebody needs to keep an eye on him, wake him up every couple of hours.”
Lily’s expression became even more guilt-ridden. “Do you have anyone who can do that?”
He searched her gaze. A man could drown in those dark, beautiful eyes. “Do what?”
“Be with you tonight?”
He managed a grin despite the needle pricks against his forehead. “Are you volunteering, darlin’?”
A blush swept up from her cheeks, then turned her fiery-red to her hairline. He couldn’t remember if a woman had ever blushed when he teased her.
“Last I knew, he lived alone.” Hilda wasn’t as gentle as Lily as she washed the blood away from his forehead, and he closed his eyes to keep his focus on something besides the pain.
“I still do,” he muttered.
Time blurred after that, and Quinn drifted in and out, absorbing bits of conversation between Hilda and Lily, who bantered like old friends. There was something about a house being built for Lily with somebody named Ian overseeing the project. And Rosie, who still had morning sickness.
Each time Quinn opened his eyes, he found Lily watching him. Each time, she squeezed his hand and gave him a soft smile as though his being hurt really mattered to her. Wasn’t that a hell of an idea.
When they began discussing him again, he forced himself to pay attention.
“He
