Summer Kisses (284 page)

A couple of joggers darted around me. I kept up a steady pace, resisting the urge to speed up. No one here to impress but myself. A woman pushing a baby carriage had stopped by one of the benches along the walkway. She smiled as I walked by, and I smiled back.

My legs quickly warmed up to the point that any lingering stiffness was gone. I paused briefly on a bridge that goes over a little waterway to admire a couple of mallards swimming in the water and the rich mix of colors of the flowers along the banks.

By the time I returned home, I felt better. I still wasn’t looking forward to seeing Quinn again tomorrow, but at least I wasn’t dreading it like my own execution. How weird. Exercise had actually made me feel
better
.

~~~

The next morning, my hands shook as I got to Mitchell Fitness headquarters before even Quinn’s assistant. I settled in, wanting to be ready to get access to the log files and leave if so inclined.

The conversation I’d overheard yesterday had hurt me in a way I couldn’t face and certainly couldn’t describe. Quinn may very well have figured out what I’d overheard and want to apologize or at least talk about it.

Honestly, I couldn’t even face the idea of
that
conversation.

On the other hand, if the morning went well, I’d also brought my gym clothes so I could work out later.

“Good morning.” Quinn popped his head in. “How are you this morning?” His tone was bright, his smile as natural as if he hadn’t ripped my heart from my chest the day before.

“I’m fine. You?” I tried to keep my tone free from resentment. How could he not know?

“I’m great.” His presence lit the room and made me catch my breath. “Let me go drop my stuff in my office and grab a cup of coffee, and I’ll be ready to get started.” He took a step away then leaned back into the room. “Can’t have you dashing out again before you get everything you need.”

My heart couldn’t help itself from responding to the intensity of his smile. At the same time, my head churned up another notch of resentment.

Over the course of the past week, Quinn had led me to believe he was a good guy. He’d taken care not to hurt my feelings about my weight when we were working out and in the few conversations we’d had about it.

He had no idea that I’d overheard his and John’s conversation, or he wouldn’t have been so flippant. But that in itself pissed me off. He
should
know, dammit. He should immediately realize something was off. As my fantasy of the perfect man—the one fate and my chubby body wouldn’t allow me to actually have—he should simply be able to sense when all was not well in my universe.

Okay. Yes, I realized in thinking that that I sounded a bit like a princess. Quinn wasn’t a mind reader, and even fantasy men should be handed half a clue. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

He came in and sat down, ready to work.

“I need some login information, so I can check out the logs. See if we can find out where the paper got its information.”

Quinn didn’t answer for a moment. When I did finally look in his face, he said, “Hey, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” I changed my mind. I didn’t want him to notice that something was wrong. I didn’t want to have this conversation.

“Are you sure?” His eyes narrowed on mine, and I looked away.

“Positive.” I tried to make my features as pleasant as possible and not look anywhere but at his face.

“Okay.” He sounded unconvinced, drumming his fingers on the table for a moment. “So why did you leave so suddenly yesterday?”

After a quick mental scramble, I remembered what I’d told Paige. “I had a client that had an emergency.”

“I missed working out with you.”

I refused to read anything into that. Easier to make unflattering comparisons between Quinn and Curtis even if in my heart of hearts I knew Quinn would never act like the jerk Curtis was.

“I’m sure you’ll make up for it with an extra torturous session today.” I tried to bring some humor to the situation before I blurted out what I’d overheard.

Quinn wiggled his eyebrows, which had a shocking effect on my ability to breathe easily. He was so stunningly beautiful. But when you add to it that he was a nice guy and set aside his overly healthy habits and image obsession, the combination was lethal. He had good manners—he’s spoken kindly of his mother—and he had a great work ethic.

The perfect man except for the fact that he was health-obsessed and thought being seen with a fat girl on his arm was something that needed explanation or
spin
. I sighed and clenched my eyes shut for a second. I couldn’t go there again.

I didn’t want to contemplate the questioning look in his eye.
Just leave it alone
.

Katherine was pissed, but she wasn’t giving me even a clue as to why. I wracked my brain and replayed the morning.

Nope. Nothing that I’d done today could have caused her to be this distant.

However, she did leave suddenly yesterday, and she’d been fine at lunch. Fine when I left her to go into my first meeting. Fine until she’d disappeared only to come back today, acting like a complete stranger.

I swear to God I don’t understand women.

I found the login information she needed and walked it over to her office. Other than a quick “Thanks,” she made no reply.

On my way back to my office, I considered pumping Paige for information, but I’d done that yesterday. Besides, she’d had an appointment this morning, so she wouldn’t have anything new anyway.

Katherine left for lunch before I could invite her to go with me. She came back and returned directly to work. I checked on her twice during the afternoon. Both times she was completely absorbed in what she was doing. Either that or she was avoiding me, something that looked more and more likely.

Dammit. Had I done something? Or was it possible that John had said something to her?

I would kill him—as soon as I figured out what the hell was going on.

I was already irritated with John. Partly because he’d been so rude about Katherine and partly because he hadn’t been wrong.

Though, I wasn’t going to go as far as to say he was
right,
either.

But John hadn’t had the opportunity to say anything to Katherine, so that wasn’t the issue.

Maybe she was having a bad day.

But something nagged at the back of my brain that it was something more.

Late that afternoon, Quinn reached a hand into my borrowed office and turned out the light. “It’s quittin’ time.”

I looked up and raised an eyebrow. “You headed home?”

“No.
We’re
headed down to the gym.” He grinned. “Nice try, by the way.”

I still wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to spend any additional one-on-one time with him. But if I skipped, he’d know something was up, and frankly, my pride wouldn’t let me discuss it with him.

I’m self-aware enough to know that this is a problem of mine. When I’m upset, especially with someone close to me, I tend to suppress my anger. This isn’t always a bad thing. I rarely let my temper out and say something I’ll regret. On the other hand, eating that many emotions requires the consumption of a lot of Oreos to wash them down.

You’d think knowing this about myself would help me deal with it and blurt out what I’m feeling when I’m feeling it. But alas, it does not.

I shut my laptop down, shoved it into my briefcase, and picked up my duffel. After following Quinn to the locker rooms, I changed and met him in the gym, a lot more nervous about
this
workout than I’d been about even my first one.

“You realize I’m going to have to really abuse you since you missed a day,” he warned as I stepped up to the stationary bike. He had a devilish grin on his face, and I looked away, not wanting to be taken in by his smile, his joking, or his beauty.

“In my defense, I went for a long walk when I got home, so the only thing I missed was the weight training,” I informed him as he turned toward the elliptical machine.

He ground to a halt and turned back around, his grin turning to a smile of... Was that
pride
? “That’s great. How was it?”

Almost more than I can stand
. I cleared my throat. “Not bad. I think I like walking better on the street than at the gym.” So I didn’t have to look at him, I pushed the buttons required to set the resistance on the bike.

He brushed my arm with his hand. I hadn’t seen it coming, and I jumped a little. Quinn’s face fell as he pulled his arm away. “Good for you.” He turned back to the elliptical machine, and I felt snappish.

So much for acting like everything was normal.

For the first time, the warm-up didn’t hurt me at all. As he took me through my weight training, he’d set the weight then climb on the machine I’d vacated. Other than Quinn increasing the weight on the upper thigh machines—and they burned like the devil during the third set—it wasn’t too bad.

After thirty arm presses, I turned to glance at him and took more pleasure than I should have watching the muscles of his arms, shoulders, and back bulge and relax. His concentration seemed complete.

He turned toward me and met my eyes. “Enjoying the view?”

Oh, hell. What would the me of two days ago have said? The me before he’d shredded my confidence and nearly broken my heart?

“Immensely.”

He chuckled as I took my embarrassed self over to the treadmill. I climbed on and started walking at a brisk two-point-nine miles per hour. Quinn joined me a moment later, a fine sheen of sweat on his skin. To be honest, I started to lose my mad and that made me even angrier.

In theory at least.

I wish I could write it off to his being eye candy. But the truth was, it was way more than that. He was truly supportive. Never made me feel like a weakling when the weights were too much. He’d simply back off the weight and encourage me to keep going.

After five minutes on the treadmill, Quinn bumped his speed above seven. I took mine up a few notches, determined to stay above three miles an hour. I plugged the headphones around my neck into the console and turned to a station known for playing rock with a hard and driving beat. Nickelback came on, and I concentrated on feeling the power of the music. Twenty minutes into it, Quinn tapped me on the shoulder and I slid my headphones off.

“How’re you doing?” he asked.

The muscles in my right calf had started to ache, and I was sweating like a horse. But I was hanging in.

“I’m feelin’ the burn,” I told him.

“Do you swim?” he asked before I could plug my headphones back into my ears. I hesitated before hanging them on the console. As emotionally weak as I was feeling, getting chummy would be a bad idea, but I nodded between pants.

“Ever been scuba diving?”

“Once. On a college trip to the Bahamas. Just a shallow dive though. I’m not certified. Why?”

“Well, I’m a certified dive instructor. I was thinking that maybe we could go for a dive as an alternative to the gym.”

I couldn’t believe he could keep up a conversation while running—according to his console—7.4 miles per hour.

“Isn’t sending people... away from the gym... bad for business?” I asked, trying to catch my breath. I checked out the red LED display. 8 minutes left. I could do this.

“Maybe. But I thought you might enjoy it.”

“That does sound fun,” I said in spite of myself. A self-deprecating joke about my whale-like affinity for the water reached the back of my throat, but I wouldn’t let it past my lips. A, I wasn’t quite ready to joke with him. And B, while a week ago I would have made the joke, I was really going for a new self-attitude, which demanded fewer jokes at my own expense.

Moments after the words left my lips, I regretted it. Did I really want to spend an entire afternoon with him in the water? A slightly bitter part of me considered that at least no one would see us together, which would be a benefit to his way of thinking.

I put my earbuds back in my ears before I could agree to anything else that would leave me open and vulnerable to his charm.

More quickly than I would have believed possible, the treadmill’s console beeped at me and I was done.
I’d done it!
With an abrupt wave to Quinn, who still had fifteen minutes to go, I let my rubbery legs carry me into the locker room to get cleaned up.

He caught me as I came back out. “Can I walk you out and ask you something?”

My first inclination was to shout a loud, “
No!”
I tried to gauge his expression but couldn’t. “I guess.”

“Something’s been bugging you all day, and I need to make sure I didn’t say or do something to offend you.”

I guess he gets points for being able to read me after all. I hesitated a moment too long before protesting. “Not at all.”

He stopped cold and placed a gentle but firm hand on my upper arm. “You’re lying. What is it?”

I shook my head. Quinn released my arm as soon as I started walking again.

How could he see through me so easily?

“Katherine. What did I do?”

“Nothing. You didn’t do anything.” Including protesting John’s comments. Including seeing through my chunky figure to the beautiful woman who was dying for a man like him to take notice of her.

Quinn stepped in front of me before I reached my car, blocking the door. Standing with his legs braced shoulder-width apart, he had his arms crossed over his chest in a stance that meant to be imposing.

“Something happened yesterday afternoon. What was it?” I could almost hear the cogs clicking away in his brain, and I prayed they wouldn’t click into the right order. “Something made you leave...”

The blood drained from his face, and I looked away. “You overheard John being an ass, didn’t you?”

I bit my lip. The jig was up.

Slowly, he cupped my shoulders with his palms. “Oh, God. I’m sorry.”

I shrugged. “No biggie. Don’t worry about it.” I tried to keep it light. I sucked my lip back between my teeth. My pride wouldn’t allow me to let him see how much he’d hurt me, however inadvertently.

His thumb reached out and brushed over my lip until I released it. The move was so... intimate. So familiar. My breath caught in my throat as his fingers dug into the hair behind my ear. I wondered briefly whether or not he would kiss me. I should definitely pull away, but I froze. Instead of a kiss, he pulled me into a hug.