In Too Deep (2 page)

Quinn looked at the shoreline, noting the tide was still going out. “They can stay here if they want.”

“Says the man with no kids.” Lily grinned. “I might let them walk from the research center to Thad's house, but leaving them alone on the beach…” She shook her head.

“Asking for trouble, huh?” Time to be agreeable, though he thought she was being a little overprotective. Then again, maybe this was the way caring mothers acted. Like he would know.

“Big-time.”

As soon as Lily saw that the kids were right behind them, she headed toward the path that led up the steep slope to the research center. The bounce in her step matched the enthusiasm in her voice. “Do you have the data for the clams harvested from the Juan de Fuca site? Since this vent isn't as deep, any variances should be interesting.”

Quinn followed her, wondering if she'd managed to really bring enough order to the files that she really did know
exactly.
He would have spent a couple of hours looking for the files, much as he'd never admit that to her. “Given your previous research, I would have thought the microscopic life around the vent would be more interesting to you.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “Like the barophiles? Or the autotrophs? They're magical.”

That wasn't the word he would have applied, but he liked the thought.

“Have you isolated any organisms yet?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We're still in the survey stage. We've scheduled a week to gather samples when the summer break ends.”

“Figuring out how a living thing creates food from inorganic material,” she continued, “could keep a scientist happy for years.”

“You?”

Her smile faded. “I…left that behind.”

He still couldn't believe that he'd managed to snag someone with her credentials for the research assistant's salary that he could offer within the budget of his current grant. Now that he'd met Lily Jensen, Ph.D., he was even more confused. Especially after she'd made it clear during their phone interview that she was now using her married name. Since all of
her publishing had been done under her maiden name, why in the world was she distancing herself from it?

“What made you give up the publish-or-perish career track to come here? There's not much challenge for someone who's had her own lab and grants big enough to support a staff.” He didn't elaborate that the grants he'd secured so far were much too small to do the research needed. If she had come across those documents, she would have already figured that out. He gave her one of his practiced smiles. “Kick me if I'm being nosy.”

She didn't respond for several seconds, then carefully said, “I needed a career change. No. More than that. A life change. My sister Rosie lives here, so we came here.”

“Ah.”

“Ah?” She turned face him.

“Everyone sometimes does,” he said with a nod. “Needs a change that is. After a divorce—”

“I'm not divorced.”

“After being fired.” His smile stayed firmly in place. He knew he was prying, and he wondered how long it would be before she told him to back off.

“I wasn't fired. The university even offered me a bigger lab as an inducement to stay.”

That didn't surprise him. She had a slew of papers that made his own publishing record look meager. “After rescuing your kid from drugs.”

“Annmarie is only five-years old, for pity's sake,” she responded. The corners of her eyes crinkled as though she couldn't decide whether to laugh at him or to be mad at him. “Okay, yes, wanting a good place for her to grow up was part of it. But I'm not so idealistic as to think children in small towns don't have their problems. I grew up in a small town—”

“Where?”

“Petersburg.”

“Alaska? You're not a California girl?” From her blond hair, casually secured in some kind of big clip at the back of
her head, to the honey tan of her skin, she conjured images of the old Beach Boys' song about California girls.

Lily shook her head with a chuckle. “Not me, though I lived there for the last ten years.”

“Which explains why you're cold.” The long red sweater belted around her waist hadn't kept her from shivering, even while they walked up the slope.

She shivered again, glancing back toward the beach where the children were tagging along behind them. “It's a nice day.”

Without hesitation, he took off his vest and draped it over her shoulders. She stopped walking and turned around to face him. Since she was higher on the slope, they were eye to eye, and he realized she was petite, her bone structure fine.

A question formed in her eyes. “Are you always this—”

“Inquisitive? Pushy? Nosy?” he finished.

She shook her head, her gaze deeply searching his eyes as though she saw a hero. For an instant he wished he were.

She simply watched him with those dark brown eyes that were unusual in a complexion as fair as hers. He'd been around enough women to recognize the spark of interest in her expression, which was totally at odds with her body language.

Thinking she was way too likable for his peace of mind, he said, “You moved here to escape the scandal of being involved with a student.”

“Outrageous.” She laughed.

“That bad, huh?”

“Your behavior,” she said. “Pushy, maybe. Nosy, absolutely. And definitely outrageous.”

“That's my stock in trade.” He grinned at her. She hadn't taken his barbs seriously, and she'd responded with humor. An assistant with a sense of humor was a plus. Double if she was easy on the eye, and she was.

They reached the crest of the slope and she stopped walking so suddenly he nearly ran into her. She glanced at him, then away. “My husband died two years ago—”

“I'm sorry.” Something in her voice made him believe that she wasn't beyond that. That put her in the do-not-touch category, which was too bad since he'd been thinking she was a woman he'd like to touch. All over.

“—and,” she rushed on, “I had a grant that ran out. So the timing to make a change was good. And I really did want to be closer to family again.”

He figured she was telling him the truth—just not the whole truth. He'd read her curriculum vitae and her papers. Her work was original, brilliant, and represented years of commitment.

“So you're giving up research?”

“For now,” she said.

A shadow chased through her eyes, and he again wondered what she wasn't telling him. Beneath her easy laugh and open smile, he sensed a flicker of sadness that he suspected she worked hard to hide. Deliberately teasing, he said, “Now that I know you can file…”

As hoped, she grinned. “I knew there was a down side to this job.”

“I have a theory about how the office got to be such a mess.” He waited a beat before adding, “In the dead of night, the files and papers get together, mate, reproduce and create new piles.”

“A topic for your next paper, hmm?” she returned. “Something you could publish in the
Journal of Organizational Science,
maybe?”

He laughed. “Maybe.”

Lily watched the kids coming up the trail behind them. She gazed at her daughter as though the child was more precious than life. Nobody had ever looked at Quinn like that, but until now he hadn't thought it mattered.

The kids came over the crest.

“We made it!” Annmarie exclaimed, throwing her arms wide. “I'm king of the mountain.”

“You can't be king,” Thad said. “'Cause you're a girl.”

“I can be anything I want,” she informed him. “My mom said.”

“Okay if we go inside and look at the aquariums?” Thad asked Quinn.

“Sure.”

“Last one there has to eat raw fish eggs,” Annmarie taunted. They took off toward the building at a run.

Quinn grinned. “Now that's one I'm going to remember.”

By the time the two children reached the door, they were neck and neck. Something had caught Annmarie's attention, and she pointed.

“Mom!” she shouted, her voice full of fright. “Look out!”

Quinn's gaze followed the line of her pointing finger. A dark-green vehicle was rolling down the slope, picking up speed…and headed directly toward him and Lily.

L
ily glanced over her shoulder, her first thought for her daughter. To her relief Annmarie stood on the stoop in front of the door.

“Move!” Quinn pushed Lily out of the vehicle's path. Then he sprinted after the car.

“You stay there,” Lily shouted. When her daughter nodded that she understood, Lily started after Quinn. Dear heaven, he was a crazy man. Didn't he realize he could get hurt?

The vehicle—her car, good God,
her car
—rolled across the shallow slope like some monstrous, lumbering beast, tipping when one of the wheels rolled over a small boulder. The vehicle veered in a new direction. Quinn caught up with it and pulled on the door handle. He stumbled back, swore, and made a second grab, this time at the back door. The vehicle picked up speed and jerked him along like a rag doll.

“Let go!” Lily's heart rose to her throat. Any second he was sure to lose his balance and end up under the wheels. The car was headed directly toward the cliff between a huge
pine and a flatbed trailer parked in the lower lot—a trailer she didn't remember seeing earlier.

A tire rolled over another large rock and knocked Quinn to the ground. He disappeared from view and she screamed. A second later the car hit the trailer with a grinding crunch.

Lily came to a skidding halt by Quinn, who was already sitting up. She dropped to her knees next to him. He had a gash on his head that pumped blood. It ran down the side of his head and neck. His attention was focused completely on the car. She spared it only a fleeting glance while raw fear for him pulsed through her.

“Oh, God,” she panted. “You're hurt.” She grabbed a packet of tissues from her pocket and pressed a wad against the gash. Instantly the blood soaked through.

“Damn it all to hell.” Rolling to his feet, he ignored her and the blood streaming from his head. He stalked toward the crash.

Shaking, Lily stood and trailed after him. Head wounds, even minor ones, bled like the devil. How hurt could the man be when he was swearing? Her attention shifted to the accident. One wheel of her car was in the air, still spinning. Her car, that she had just paid off, looked as though it was permanently attached to the trailer. She hadn't taken fifteen steps when he turned around to glare at her.

“That's not my car.” He waved up the hillside toward the parking lot. “That is.”

“It's mine,” she said, following the line of his finger. His vehicle was nearly identical to her dark green SUV. Except hers was perched precariously against the open trailer. She finally gave the trailer a closer look. Sitting on its flatbed was a small robotic submarine—a huge white and silver ball with headlights—one of them broken—and mechanical arms—also one broken—that looked alive.

“And that—” he was beginning to sway as he gestured toward the trailer “—is a submersible that has been here for exactly—” He squinted at his watch as though he couldn't read it. “Forty-three minutes. I parked it down here so no
body had a chance in hell of running into it. Do you have any idea what I went through to get it? Only sell my soul.”

Her legs rubbery, Lily's gaze followed his accusing finger. The whole passenger side of her car was caved in, and the trailer was dented where the car had hit it. She wrapped her arms around herself, which did nothing to lessen her shaking or the fear that made her throat tighten.

Once again, Quinn tried to open one of the doors on her car, then leaned down to peer inside. Straightening, he swore again.

“You left the keys in the ignition,” he accused. Blood continued to pour down the side of his face, and he was looking more pale by the minute.

“We've got to get you to the clinic.” She laid a hand on his arm to steady him. “You're bleeding.”

“I'll get a Band-Aid later.” He shrugged off her support and looked back up the hillside. “How the hell did this happen?”

“I don't know.” What she did know was that Quinn looked worse.

His knees buckled. Before Lily could reach him, he fell. She cried out and knelt beside him. Pounding footsteps made her look up. Max and the children were running toward them.

“Well, damn,” Quinn said, struggling to stand up.

“You stay put.” She pushed him back down.

“Damned if I will.” Somehow, though, Quinn found himself without the energy to stand. Which was ridiculous. The woman couldn't weigh more than a hundred and ten pounds sopping wet. He bench-pressed triple that. Of course she couldn't hold him down.

Except that resting for a minute seemed like a better idea.

Through a haze of red he watched Max and the two children come to a halt next to him. Lily's child threw her arms around her mother. Lily automatically hugged Annmarie with words of reassurance and a gentle admonishment to stay out of the way.

That didn't keep the child from kneeling next to him and
peering into his eyes. “You're going to be okay,” she crooned, patting his hand, then said, “I don't think he's in there, Mom.”

Where else would he be? Especially since his head was beginning to feel like it would crack open if he so much as moved it.

“Got your car keys in your pocket?” Max asked, appearing in Quinn's line of vision.

“Vest,” Quinn responded, his voice sounding thick to his own ears. Everything was growing more blurry by the second.

The next time he looked up, his car was parked right next to him and Max was getting out of it. Didn't make sense since they'd just been talking.

Lily's face appeared in front of him and Quinn tried to smile. Her hair framed her face in a golden halo. God, but she was pretty. Why had he been mad at her?

“Can you stand up?” she asked.

He nodded.

To his complete irritation, he felt as weak as a wet noodle, and it took both Lily and Max to hoist him up. Just moving…made him sure that any second his head would simply explode.

After an eternity of awkward moves to get in the car, he collapsed in the back seat with Lily. Max and the two kids were in the front seat. The ride down the hill to Lynx Point had never seemed longer, and Max didn't miss a single pothole on the way down, Quinn was sure of it. He wanted to know where they were going, but didn't have the energy to ask.

He slumped over, somehow found his head resting on Lily's lap. He opened his eyes and looked at her. Her mouth was moving, but it took too much effort to figure out what she was saying, so he watched her. He didn't think anyone had ever smelled better, and he turned his head toward her belly and inhaled. She smelled like comfort. Through the soft texture of her sweater against his cheek, her body was warm.
He decided being right here like this would be about perfect if his head weren't pounding.

“I'll go get a gurney,” Max said sometime later.

Quinn managed to open an eye. Through the window he could see a weathered sign. Medical Clinic. A scant two months had passed since he was last here. No way was he being wheeled in.

“I can walk.” Straightening and opening the car door required a Herculean effort that made him break into a sweat.

This time he managed to stand with only Lily supporting him, her shoulder fitting under his arm like it was meant to be there. She wrapped an arm firmly around his waist. Somehow he managed to walk the eight or ten 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 really does need to be checked on for the next twenty-four hours,” Hilda was saying. “Maybe the handyman…”