The Mighty Quinns: Jack (10 page)

“I guess you’re right. If it weren’t for them, there wouldn’t be any us.”

“Well, not necessarily. When I first saw you in the airport, I knew I had to meet you. I walked out and then I turned around and came back in looking for you. I was going to ask you out for a drink.”

“Really? It wasn’t because your name was on my sign?”

“Nope. Although, when I saw my name on your sign, I was pretty pleased. After all, it did make things a little easier. So, the way I see it, we would have probably ended up here, with or without our parents.”

She smiled to herself. No matter what silly worries were going on in her head, Jack always managed to make her feel better about herself. He knew exactly the right thing to say to brighten her mood.

“All right,” Mia murmured. “No more worrying over things I can’t possibly change. You and I are going to have some fun.”

They moved slowly into the next dance, a faster number that required a bit more focus on their footwork. But Jack gamely tried to follow and his attempts were more than amusing. By the time the song ended, they were laughing so hard that they could barely stand up straight.

“I need a drink,” Jack said. “And I think your toes could use a break.”

They walked back to the table and were surprised to find a bottle of champagne waiting in an ice bucket beside the table. Jack pulled it out and poured a glass for them both, then touched his glass to hers. “To us,” he murmured.

Mia felt her heart skip a beat. “To us,” she repeated.

As they sipped their champagne, they continued to watch the dancers. When the band’s version of “I Left My Heart In San Francisco” ended, the band leader stepped to the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, tonight is a special night here at the Bellingham. We have a couple here who first met fifty-five years ago. Their lives moved in separate directions, but through the wonder of modern technology, they met again about six months ago. We’d like to play this next song for Ben McMahon and Elyse Quinn.”

Mia glanced over at Jack and forced a smile. “How sweet,” she murmured.

But before the band could start the next number, her father stepped up onto the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m hoping you can give me a hand here. I’ve got a very important question to ask Elyse Quinn and I figure, what better opportunity will I have? Elyse, when you walked back into my life, everything changed. The happiness I thought I’d lost had returned. In your smile, in your sweet voice, in that beautiful face that hasn’t changed in fifty years. Elyse, I can’t imagine spending a minute away from you. Will you marry me?”

“What?” Mia cried.

“Oh, shit,” Jack muttered.

“Yes!” Elyse said, her hands clasped to her chest.

“Yes?” Mia cried.

“No,” Jack said.

They watched as Ben rushed down the steps and pulled Elyse into his arms. The room erupted into applause, as people gathered around the pair to congratulate them. Adding to the mood, the band began to play “Moon River.” Ben pulled Elyse into his arms and led her around the dance floor, their gazes locked, tears glittering in Elyse’s eyes.

Mia pressed her hand to her chest and felt her own tears threatening. She swallowed them back, knowing that once she started crying, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Her dad hadn’t even bothered to mention this to her, to ask how she and her sisters felt about him remarrying.

Oh, God, Elyse Quinn had managed to cast her spell in three short days. She’d probably been planning this all along, drawing him in for six months with letters and phone calls, knowing that as soon as he saw her, he’d be completely lost. “I have to go,” Mia said, her voice thick and barely audible.

“Mia, come on. You can’t. We have to at least say something to them.”

“You said she didn’t want to get married again. You said she’d never leave Chicago.”

“Maybe she isn’t going to,” Jack said.

Mia groaned. She grabbed her purse and started toward the door, but Jack caught her and pulled her back to the table. “Stop,” he said. “You’re not going to run away from this. We’re going to offer them our best wishes and then we can leave.”

“No,” Mia said. “This is crazy. They’ve known each other for three days. What do you think they’d say if we announced our engagement after just three days? Do you think they’d be happy about that? No! They’d be doing everything they could to convince us that we didn’t belong together.”

“Look, they’re heading over here,” Jack said. “You’re going to smile and congratulate them and then you and I are going to get the hell out of here and find ourselves something stronger to drink.”

When Ben and Elyse arrived at the table, Mia steeled her emotions and pasted a smile on her face. She gave Elyse the perfunctory kiss and lied through her teeth about looking forward to having her in the family. Jack probably did the same, though Mia’s head was buzzing so loudly that she could barely hear herself speak.

When it was over, Jack took her hand and led her out of the ballroom. They got into the elevator and rode down twenty floors to the lobby, Mia biting on her bottom lip in an attempt to keep herself from weeping.

They waited out front for the valet to bring her car and when it arrived, Jack helped her into the passenger side and took his place behind the wheel. The moment he got inside, Mia clenched her fists and screamed as loud as she could. She pounded on the dashboard and kicked her feet, the tantrum loud enough to draw the attention of the parking valets.

“Go!” she shouted.

Jack pulled the car out onto the street and aimlessly drove toward the bay. Mia stared out the window, shaking her head. “What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “I don’t think we can have them committed. Maybe you and your sisters could make up some kind of emergency to get him out of town. Or maybe my sisters would do that.”

“Would they?”

“Probably not. They were thrilled when my mother reconnected with your dad. They won’t be any help at all.”

“My sisters are a different story,” Mia said. “I need to call them. They’ll know exactly what to do.”

Jack pulled the car over to the curb and turned to Mia. “Are you sure you want to do this, Mia? You understand that you might be ruining your father’s happiness?”

“He’s not thinking straight,” Mia insisted. “You don’t make a decision like this after just three days. No one falls in love in three days.”

Jack turned away and stared out the windshield. “I don’t know. I never thought it was possible, but now, I’m not so sure.”

Mia groaned, shaking her head. “Just take me home.”

* * *

M
IA
WAS
CURLED
UP
ON
her bed, still wearing the pretty flowered dress she’d chosen for the Bellingham dance. She’d kicked off her bright pink shoes and they were sitting on the floor beside the bed.

Jack sat down next to her and held out the mug of tea. “Drink it,” he said. “It will make you feel better.”

The minute they’d gotten back to her apartment, she’d crawled into bed and refused to speak, staring at the wall without registering any emotion whatsoever. Jack would have preferred it if she’d shouted or cursed or wept uncontrollably. At least then he’d know what she was thinking. But the silence was difficult to interpret.

“You’re going to have to talk to me sooner or later, Mia.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you,” she said.

“Do you blame me for this?”

“No!” She sat up and crossed her legs in front of her, then took the mug from his hand. For a long moment, she stared down at the tea, as if she was trying to formulate an explanation for her behavior. She opened her mouth once to speak, then snapped it shut and shook her head.

Suddenly, her eyes began to fill with tears. Huge, watery droplets tumbled down her cheeks and landed in her lap. Jack leaned close and pulled her into his embrace. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t cry. It’s going to be all right. I swear it will.”

“No, it won’t,” she said, her voice cracking. “I’m a terrible, terrible daughter. He’s never going to forgive me for running out like that. He just wanted me to be happy for him and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t allow him that much.”

Jack drew back and looked into her face, wondering at the change in her attitude. “I’m sure he’s not thinking that.”

“It just happened so fast,” she said. “Didn’t you think it was fast? Too fast?”

“Yeah. But I guess when you’re their age, you don’t want to waste another day.”

“Do you believe people can fall in love in three days?” Mia asked.

That was the million dollar question. And the only way he could answer was with the truth, as improbable as it seemed. “I do,” Jack admitted. “Look at us, at how quickly things have happened between us. We didn’t really think about what we were doing. We just acted. It may not be love, but it’s a powerful thing. And maybe that’s what’s happening with your father.”

“You think he might be making a mistake?”

“I think he might have been swept away by the moment,” Jack said. “And my mother might have gotten swept away with him. Maybe they’ll realize it later. Or maybe not.”

“That’s a lot of maybes,” Mia muttered. “You sound like someone who really isn’t sure about anything.”

“Well, you’d be right there.”

She sat back in bed, sinking into the pillows stacked against the headboard of the bed, then took a slow sip of the tea. Jack watched as she evaluated his explanation. But she couldn’t know that his feelings were more than just superficial. He didn’t just believe that a man could fall in love in three days. Jack was actually experiencing it for himself.

The notion had seemed impossible at first, but the more he thought about it, the more Jack believed that what he was feeling for Mia was love. There was no other explanation. When he thought about leaving her and going home, he felt an ache in his heart so deep that he could barely breathe. He’d spent the past few days trying to figure out a way to make a relationship work and had come to the conclusion that the only sensible thing was to take the new job in California and give it a go.

Though he changed his mind five or six times every hour, he knew that by the end of the week, he’d have to have something figured out. He didn’t care if Mia wasn’t ready to admit her own feelings for him. Jack was willing to wait. For Mia, he would wait as long as it took for her to recognize what they shared.

“It seems like only yesterday,” Mia said softly. “But it’s been three years.”

“I barely remember my dad. I was nine when he died. Sometimes, I look at a photo of him and he’s like a stranger to me. But other times, I have these dreams and we’re talking to each other and it’s like I remember everything about him.”

“That’s so young to lose a parent,” Mia said.

“I have photos of him teaching me how to ride a bike and throw a football, but I don’t remember the actual events.”

“I don’t want to forget her,” Mia said. “And I don’t want my father to, either.”

A long silence grew between them and Jack stared down into her beautiful face. He knew her so intimately already, yet he hadn’t a clue about her childhood. “Tell me about her,” he murmured.

Over the next hour, she talked, telling him everything about her parents, her sisters, the life she’d led before he’d met her. Jack settled in beside her and listened, knowing that everything she told him would add to his own picture of the woman she was. He didn’t ask questions or interrupt, he just allowed her to offload all her thoughts.

“I was kind of a tomboy as a kid,” Mia said. “My dad didn’t have any sons, so by the time my mom had me, he decided, if I was a girl, he was going to treat me like his son. My sisters were into boys and makeup, while I played tennis and swam. I was always trying to please my dad, but in high school, I realized that the person I really wanted to please was my mom. She had such a quiet confidence and I wanted to be just like her.”

“She sounds like a remarkable woman,” Jack said.

Just the chance to talk had already calmed Mia’s troubled mind. Jack could feel her relaxing beside him, stretching out tense limbs until they were soft and supple, her leg tossed over his hips, her arm resting across his chest.

“We should probably drive back to the house in the morning,” Jack said. “Just to make sure everything is all right.”

“I can apologize then,” Mia said. She drew a deep breath. “I feel much better now. The tea really helped. But I’m starving.”

“I could eat,” Jack said. “Are you going to cook for me?”

“No,” Mia said. She rolled over and opened the drawer of her bedside table, then pulled out a stack of crumpled menus, setting them down in front of him. “I’ll let you pick the restaurant. Thai Palace delivers, so does Donatello’s Pizza and Spiros Greek. The King of Szechuan has the best General Tso’s chicken in the world and if you like barbeque, I’d recommend Larry’s. Other than that, I have bread and cheese in the fridge. If you’d like, I could make you a really good grilled cheese sandwich,” she said.

“Add some tomato soup and you’ve got my favorite meal,” Jack said.

“I think I have tomato soup,” Mia said.

Jack smiled, then leaned closer and brushed a kiss across her lips. Her soft hair tickled his cheek and he drew a deep breath and kissed her again, this time with more purpose.

It was impossible to be close to her without touching her and when she wrapped her arms around his neck, Jack pulled her close, dragging her beneath him.

His fingers tangled in her hair and her body grew soft and pliant to his touch. She wasn’t a perfect woman, he’d come to realize. But that didn’t matter. She was perfect for him.

Jack gently stretched out beside her. His hands skimmed over her body, searching for a place to rest. When he found her waist, Jack pulled her on top of him, dragging her thighs up along his hips. The friction between them was enough to send a jolt of desire racing through him and he arched against her, his pleasure frustrated by the clothing they still wore.

He felt himself growing hard and he wanted to stop, to slow down. But she was just too much. Just the taste of her was enough to send his senses into overdrive. When her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, he watched her silently.