The Good Girl's Second Chance

Was she actually expecting him to be watching, waiting for the moment when she wandered out under the stars?

Not really. It just felt...reassuring somehow. To gaze down at his house, to know that she would see him again, would share dinner with him on Friday night.

When the French doors opened and he emerged, she let out a laugh of pure delight and waved to signal him up.

He didn’t even hesitate, just went on down the steps at the side of his deck and forged up the hill. She went to meet him at the top of her stairs, feeling breathless and wonderful.

Tonight, he wore ripped old jeans, a white T-shirt that seemed to glow in the dark and the same moccasins he’d been wearing that other night. He said, “Love those furry boots.” When she laughed, he added, “I was getting worried you might never come outside.”

“And I was absolutely certain there was no way you might be glancing up to see if I was looking down for you.” She held out her hand. He took it. His skin was warm, his palm callous. Just his touch made her body sing. “Come sit with me?”

He looked at her as though she were the only other person in the world. “Whatever you want, Chloe.”

She tugged him over to the two chairs they’d sat in that other night and pulled him down beside her.

Silence.

But it was a good silence. They just sat there, staring out at the clear night and the distant mountains. A slight wind came up, rustling the nearby pines. And an owl hooted off in the shadows somewhere between his house and hers.

Finally, she said, “I met with Manny. I think it went well.”

“He says so, too.”

“And I’m in love with your daughter.”

He chuckled, a rough and tempting sound. “She has that effect on people. Manny’s tough, but Annabelle still manages to wrap him around her little finger. Truth is she rules the house. We just try to keep up with her.”

She looked over at him. “Has she asked you about her mother again?”

“Not yet.” He met her eyes through the shadows. “I know, I know. Wait until she asks. And then don’t load her up with more information than she’s ready for.”

“That’s the way.” She thought of the flowers she’d crushed in the compactor—and then pushed them out of her mind. Why ruin a lovely moment by bringing Ted into it?

Instead, she asked him how he had met Manny. He explained that the old ex-fighter had been his first professional trainer. “I met him at the first gym I walked into after leaving home. Downtown Gym, it was called, in Albuquerque. Manny ran the place and worked with the fighters who trained there. We got along. When I moved on, he went with me. I had a lot of trainers. And over time, Manny became more like my manager, I guess you could say. And kind of a cross between a best friend and a dad.” He shot her a warning look. “But don’t tell him I said that.”

She grinned. “Why not?”

“He already thinks he knows what’s best for me. If he ever heard I said I thought of him as a father, he’d never shut up with the advice and instructions.”

She softly advised, “But I’ll bet it would mean the world to him to know how you really feel.”

“He knows. Hearing it out loud would only make him more impossible to live with.” Quinn faked a dangerous scowl. “So keep your mouth shut.”

She laughed and held up both hands. “I swear I’ll never say a word.”

“Good.”

“So, how did he end up back here in Justice Creek with you and Annabelle?”

“I don’t think either of us really considered a different option. He moved in with me when Annabelle was a baby, to help out.”

When Annabelle was a baby...

So the little girl had been with her dad from the first? What had happened to the mother, the one Quinn said Annabelle would most likely never meet?

So many questions.

But Chloe had such a good feeling about the man beside her. She trusted him to tell her everything in his own good time.

He said, “When I decided to retire from the Octagon last year, Manny was already taking care of Annabelle full-time.” Chloe knew what the Octagon was: the eight-sided ring in which Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed-martial-arts fighters competed. During the rough years when she was still married to Ted, she’d watched more than one of Quinn’s televised UFC fights. It had lifted her spirits to see how far the wild, angry boy from her hometown had come. He continued, “I asked Manny to stick with me when I moved back home. He agreed right off, said he supposed it was about time he settled down. Annabelle’s a handful, but so far he’s managing.”

“From what I’ve seen, he’s great with her. He’s patient, encourages her to express herself and make some of her own decisions—but he stays in charge, too.”

“Yeah. He’s a champ with her, all right...” Quinn’s voice kind of trailed off and there was another silence, one somehow not as comfortable as the first.

She glanced over at him again and found him watching her. “Whatever it is, you might as well just say it.”

“I got a question, but I don’t want to freak you out.”

An unpleasant shiver traveled down the backs of her arms and she thought of Ted again. Because if her freaking out could be involved, it probably had to do with Ted.

Then again, how would Quinn know that? She’d mentioned her ex once, on the night that Quinn came to her bed. What she’d told him had been far from flattering to Ted, but she’d said nothing about how thinking of him made her want to crush flowers and break expensive vases.

“Ask me,” she said. “I can take it.” The words came out sounding so confident. She was proud of them.

“All right, then. Does your mama know you’re going out to dinner with me?”

Her mother. Of course. “No.”

“It’s Justice Creek, Chloe.”

“Meaning she will know?”

“I’d say the odds are better than fifty-fifty, wouldn’t you?”

Chloe kept her gaze steady on his. It was no hardship. Looking at him made her think of hot sex. And safety. And that combination really worked for her. “That girl—the mama’s girl I was in high school?”

“Yeah?”

She slanted him a teasing glance. “You’re not even going to argue that I was never a mama’s girl?”

“Hey. You called it, not me.”

And she made a low, rueful noise in her throat. “Yes, I did. And I was. But I’m not anymore. I tried living my life my mother’s way. It didn’t work for me. I’m all grown up now and my mother doesn’t get to tell me what to do or whom to spend my time with.”

One side of his beautiful mouth curved up then. It was a smirk, heavy on the irony, more like the old, dangerous, edgy Quinn from back in high school than the one she’d been getting to know lately. “Whom. Always so ladylike.”

“Don’t tease me. I’m serious.”