Love on the Line (26 page)

Chapter Nineteen

Cara woke on Monday without the comfort of her usual routine. Normally she’d shower, make coffee and head off to drive the bus. But not today. Though there’d been talk of petitioning the county for additional funds, that process would take time. The parents at the middle school had arranged an efficient system of car pools using a couple of the vans and their personal cars. Cara’s car hadn’t been needed. The staff had hinted that they wanted her to be free to look for a new job. She’d driven for the last time on Friday and said a wobbly goodbye to the kids. She’d see them around town, but it wouldn’t be the same.

She stared out her bedroom window. Unplugged from her routine, she wasn’t sure what to do. She checked her emails. Ryan wrote to say that surely she could find time to get together before three weeks were up. She stared at the screen, tapped out a very sensible list of reasons why she couldn’t, then deleted her reply. No answer would send the better message even if it ran against everything she felt in her heart.

To clear her head she considered driving to the National Seashore at Point Reyes and walking the beach there or maybe hiking Mount Wittenberg. Instead she fussed in her kitchen, organizing and cleaning out drawers and moving objects around that didn’t need attention or moving. Then she poured a third cup of coffee and sat at her kitchen table, put her head in her hands and wept.

A few miserable minutes later, her front door banged, and she heard footsteps crossing her living room. She wiped at her eyes. There was absolutely no one she was up for seeing right then.
Maybe
she could handle Molly. But from the heavy sound of the footsteps, she was sure it wasn’t Molly.

“Nice security,” her brother, Quinn, said, grinning as he burst into the kitchen.

She leaped up and threw her arms around his neck. He closed her in a bear hug and to her dismay, she began sobbing against his shoulder.

“I was only gone two months,” Quinn said. He eased her away and held her by the shoulders. “Want to tell me what’s up?”

She pulled away from him and in between hiccupping gulps of air, she told him what had happened since she’d moved to Albion Bay. About the foundation, about Molly and Sam, and about the clinic.

He crossed his arms, narrowed his eyes and gave her his best gunslinger stare. It used to make her laugh. She wasn’t up for laughing at the moment.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

She paced to the window. There were no secrets between twins.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Laci, about her reasons for killing herself.” She stared out at her side garden and searched for words to put to her feelings. “I’d nearly put it behind me until Alston called with the news about the foundation.” She ran her palm along the frame of the window, followed the newly painted wood with her fingertips. “Laci got swallowed up, engulfed by forces she couldn’t handle.”

Quinn crossed to her and turned her to face him. “You’re not Laci, Cara. You’re nothing like her. She was, well, fragile, I guess you’d say. Even before that loser left her.”

“We didn’t help her.”

“You tried. We all tried. When she died, I felt guilty too. Guilty for our efforts not being enough. But you have to let all that go, Cara. Laci had to want help. She had to
choose
it. It’s not your fault that she went searching for it in men and in a needle, things that couldn’t fix what needed fixing.” He shook his head and pinned her in the loving gaze she’d missed. “In the end, no matter how much family or community offered help, Laci had to want to save herself. You couldn’t change that.”

“Why didn’t you say this before?”

“You were too raw at first—losing Laci after trying so hard to help her had your body and emotions stressed out. And then we found out that Grandpa was sick. Remember? And then didn’t you break up with Roger around the same time?”

“But he was nothing to me. Not really.”

“But it was just one more stress on top of everything else.” He rubbed at his stubbled jaw. “And I could have been more understanding. I could’ve hung around and not run off to China that year.” He slid his hands from her shoulders and grasped her hands, squeezed them. “And I did try to tell you that what happened to Laci wasn’t going to happen to you. But I should have been there to support you.”

She wriggled her hands free and closed her arms around him. His words entered her mind, each like a careful stitch helping to pull together the ragged edges of the wound she’d worked hard to seam up. As she rested her head against his chest, she exhaled the sigh she’d held for three years too many.

“You’re here now,” she said as he smoothed her hair with his hand.

She pulled back.

“Actually, why
are
you here right now?”

“My current version of support,” he said in a suddenly cool tone. “And it may not be something you’re going to like.”

“Spill.
Now
. I don’t like being part of your plots.”

He glanced around the room and then settled a very determined-looking gaze on her. “Maybe we should have a cup of tea first?”

“
Not
happening. Besides, I’ve had three cups of coffee.” She crossed her arms and took a step back. “I know that look, Quinn Barrington. I am
not
going off to China or wherever with you—I have
responsibilities
around here.” Although now that she didn’t have the bus driving, what did she really have?

“You’ll wish it were as simple as refusing a junket. I’m here to kick your butt. To get you to get back in the game.” He planted his hands on his waist. “You need to boot that SOB Bender out—put yourself in the president’s chair and do your thing.”

“Quinn—”

“I’m not kidding. You
love
to give, you love making sure every last dollar gets to those who need it or who can put it to use. You’ve always been that way, which is why Grandpa drew up his will the way he did.” She opened her mouth to protest, but he held up a hand. “Don’t try to deny it. Alston’s kept me in the loop. I know what you’ve managed to do with the limited resources of your own foundation.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, a gesture
she
made when she was about to make her case for something, one of the many gestures they shared.

“Cara, you know I prefer to go to the sites, dig in for a few months, see what the needs really are. And I admit it—I get distracted by the causes themselves. I don’t want to muck around with the finances and the contracts and all that. I want to roll my sleeves up or pull my boots on or spend two months with the people we help, building something with my hands. But I suck at the grant-making part of it, the weighing the benefits, the decision making. You love it; I don’t. You’ll make a great foundation president.”

“Quinn—you
don’t
get it. It’s not just taking the reins of the foundation that’s the issue—if I do that, I’ll lose what I love about my life here, lose everything that’s helped me keep it together and not melt down into a disaster like Laci.” She caught herself rubbing at the back of her neck and pulled her hand down to her waist. She had to make him see. She needed someone to understand what was really at stake.

“Out here people see me just for who I am. I used to hate not knowing why people smiled at me. Why they agreed with me. Why... why they wanted to spend time with me. Not being able to trust people—to trust that the connection is genuine—it’s no way to live.”

“I can’t change our family and neither can you,” he said in a flat tone she rarely heard from him. “And you can’t change that you have a
responsibility
. It might be one you didn’t sign up for, but Grandpa’s money, he made it fair, by providing something of value, and
someone
is going to disperse that money back into the world. It should be you, Cara, you and a team you put together. Not some hairball ass that Dad owes a favor, and not the government. Grandpa intended that the funds go to causes that can make lives better, and make the world a better place.” He gestured to her small kitchen. “If you hide out here, you’re making a choice about where the money goes, but you’re letting a jerk direct it. You’re giving him power he doesn’t deserve.”

“Laci felt worthless,” she said, not following his train of thought.

Quinn whirled toward her.

“Cara, Laci’s problem was different, we’ve been over that. You have to let all this stuff about her go.” He tilted his head, as if her words were just registering. “And you can’t possibly think that if people know you for who you are that they won’t like you—that you’re not worthy of people’s affection.”

She looked away. Hearing Quinn state her fear so baldly made it seem both immense and ridiculous at the same time.

“Cara—you’re kidding me, right?

She shook her head.

He wrapped his hands around her neck and pressed his forehead to hers.

“You knucklehead, of course you’re worthy. I love you, don’t I? And Mom and Dad, for all their quirks, they love you. And then there was Grandpa. He was a pretty good judge of character.
He
liked you. Hell, even that mean old dog of his liked you. And she used to bite my ankles any chance she got.”

Cara laughed as hot tears spilled down her face.

“And haven’t you found friends here, in this town?” He wiped at her tears with his sleeve. “Don’t they like you for being the delightful pain in the ass that you are?”

She slugged him, and he pulled away laughing.

“So... ?”

So... He was right, the jerk. “Yeah, I’ve got some good friends.”

“And I repeat,
so...
?”

So what did it mean? It meant that she was worthy of being a friend, worthy for just being herself. She’d proved it, but holding on to the snarled tangle of her old fears, she just hadn’t been able to let the realization register.

“Anybody whose affections change because of this isn’t someone you should be friends with in the first place.” He picked up a knife from her table and tossed it from hand to hand. “Lesson one in dealing with being a Barrington.” He pointed the knife at her. “And you’ll just have to suck up the hangers-on and trust that I can help you with that bit. It’s not as hard as you think.”

Why had it taken her so long to see what Quinn had nailed in less than half an hour? She grinned—how she hated when he was right and she was wrong. But this was one time she was happy he was right.

But then it struck her. She might be ready to face stepping into a leadership role in the world of philanthropy, especially if she could do it on her own terms, and she might be ready to face the reactions of her friends and the people in the town, but in no way did she feel ready to face Ryan. Now that she’d discovered what love felt like, she wasn’t ready to lose it.

She turned away as a shudder ran through her.

Quinn spun her to face him.

“Want to tell me what other demons we need to slay today?”

He slashed his arms through the air using the knife as a pretend sword, and she couldn’t help but smile.

She sat down at her table and told him about Ryan.

He shot her a grin. “Little Sis lands an All-Star, huh? Think he can get me tickets to the game tomorrow?”

He liked calling her Little Sis, even though he was only seventeen minutes older than she was.

“Quinn, it’s not funny. I finally meet a guy I care about, and he thinks I’m everything I’m not.” She closed her eyes. “He wants everything I’m not.”

“Hardly. He just doesn’t know that you make twenty times more than he does. Might scratch his ego.”

“It’s not his ego I’m worried about. He has integrity. He hates lies.
I
hate lies. It’s a disaster.”

“You can talk to him and explain. But wait till the season’s over. I want the Giants to win the pennant, and he’s their best bat. Don’t want to screw with that,” he said with a laugh that told her he was only half-joking.

“You’ll be glad to know I’ve already guarded against screwing up his season. I’m dodging him. And everybody else.” She glanced out her kitchen window. “Which car did you bring?”

At this point worrying about cars in front of her house was ridiculous, but she couldn’t help it.

“It’s a rental. A Ford. Your secret’s safe.” He held out his hand. “Let’s go into your living room. I have something I want you to see. Something worth flying three thousand miles to show you.”

He sat down at her desk and fitted a thumb drive into the side of her laptop. A document spread across the screen with several columns of numbers, narrow paragraphs below each.

“Alston’s suspicions about Dray Bender were right on.” He reached and tugged her to his side. “Look at this.”

She scanned the columns and numbers, read Quinn’s careful notes alongside each.

“He’s skimming funds,” she said, not hiding her dismay.

“Boat loads. But he’s shrewd. He’s cleverly disguised his trail; we won’t be able to prosecute him. Alston says we can’t prove anything.” He clicked the document shut.

“I still can’t believe Dad hired him.”

“He hired him by phone,” Quinn said. “From Australia. Our illustrious father didn’t want to interrupt his golf tournament; an ostrich had just eaten his balls.”

She laughed, but she wasn’t so easily put off track.

“It’s easier for you, Quinn, easier for you to step up. You fit the lifestyle. You love it.”

Quinn pressed his lips into a line and crossed his arms.

“Don’t tell me you don’t,” she said. “It’s me, remember? I shared a womb with you.”

He wrinkled his nose. “Damn close quarters.” He looked around the living room. “Sort of like this place.”

She punched his arm.

“Okay, I like your place. Especially the roads leading to it. Perfect for a new Veyron Legend.”

“Not happening. This town already has one Bugatti. We hardly need another.”

“I might like this Ryan guy.”

“That’s the problem—you
would
like him. I think I love him.”

Quinn whistled. “If he breaks your heart, I’ll flatten his tires.”

“I’m touched. But my deception is a gap even an All-Star won’t be able to leap.” She leaned her hip against the edge of her desk. “I told him I couldn’t see him for a while.”