Perfect Pairing (27 page)

“So,” Quinn said, as they pulled out of the parking lot and saw the police cruiser turn the opposite direction, “what's next on the menu?”

“Literally or figuratively?” Hal asked, still shaken from her earlier meltdown.

“Either or both. I don't care.”

“Well,” Hal said, casting a sidelong glance at her. Quinn had twisted in her seat so her back rested against the latched door of the truck. She curled one knee to her chest and rested her chin on top. She seemed so relaxed there in that seat, so comfortable, and Hal had to admit the sight comforted her too. “Despite what we just heard from the local law enforcement, this is still our weekend of whims. How can I fulfill yours?”

“I would say I kind of want to hang out by the water, but I'm not sure the truck should be seen anywhere near the local beaches for a while.”

“Good point, but I know a way around that, if you'd like.”

“More getting around rules. Lovely.”

Hal laughed at Quinn's attempt not to sound bothered. She really had done a pretty stellar job of not freaking out so far, better than herself. Time to give her a bit of the vacation she really deserved. “Actually, what we're about to do won't break any rules at all.”

“I love when you say sexy things like that.”

She felt her smile return with the witty banter. “I aim to please.”

“And there's the please word I love so much. The day is looking up.”

Hal couldn't disagree as she turned off of 6A when it split from Province Lands Road and spun into a little circle drive around a small patio where a stone marker commemorated the site of the pilgrims' first landing. The monument was less grand than the mammoth tower rising up from the center of town to commemorate the same event. Still, what it lacked in grandeur, it made up for with its amazing view.

To their right stretched the expansive curve of the Province Lands, with their rising dunes and waving grasses as they cradled the western shoals of Provincetown Harbor. Directly across the water stood a small lighthouse, square and white against the horizon, with its black cap looking so much like a dapper hat. And between them, stretching out like a bridge across a bay, stood a solid string of piled rocks, jagged and dark, both dividing and connecting the beautiful landscapes before them.

“What is this place?” Quinn asked. “It's so beautiful. I mean I feel like I keep using that word here, but every place we stop is more gorgeous than the last.”

“It's a breakwater.”

“I've seen something like this in the outer harbor on Lake Erie.”

“Similar concept, but for slightly different reasons.” Hal killed the engine and climbed out of the truck. “In both cases they are there to protect the shore or the boats in the harbor from high surf. It literally breaks the water, or the waves, as they hurl toward land.”

“Makes sense.”

“This one, though, doesn't have any houses or boats to protect. It's there to protect the sand.” Hal leaned against a metal railing along the sidewalk.

“The sand?”

“Provincetown and this whole curling finger of Cape Cod is just a glorified sand bar. There's no bedrock, so the dunes are always shifting. They're never in the same place twice, which is why it's so important for people not to tramp down the grasses or cut down what little shrubbery grows out here.”

“And the rocks do the same thing for the water?”

“Exactly,” Hal said, “they provide a buffer for the waves so they can't take the beach we just got kicked off of out into the ocean. It also makes for a perfect estuary and a sweet tourist attraction.”

“That's pretty genius.”

“It is, but it's also just plain pretty. You can walk all the way across to the lighthouse, or you can just go out halfway into the middle of the harbor, find yourself a flat rock, and take in a little sun.”

“I vote for option number two.”

“I thought you might.” Hal swung open the back door of the truck and unlatched a cargo hold. She hadn't exactly planned the excursion, but that didn't mean she hadn't hoped they'd end up here at some point. “Let me grab you a beach towel and me a fishing pole, then we'll go find your little piece of heaven.”

She threw the towel over her shoulder, then with a small tackle box in one hand and fishing rod in the other, she and Quinn set off onto the rocks.

Aside from pointing out the occasional gull diving for a crab or fishing trawler pulling into the harbor, they didn't talk much along the way. Hal enjoyed watching Quinn's blue eyes scan their surroundings, so filled with awe and wonder. She'd been so much more than expected on this trip. She'd gone along for the ride, she'd engaged in so many steps along the way, and she hadn't complained about the work or the conditions. If anything, she'd reveled in them. The vision of the pushy, uptight banker Hal formed the day they'd met had all but faded away. Even in the aftermath of the police bust, when Quinn's frustration valve cracked, she'd taken the time to listen, to consider Hal's points, and to change her mind.

If anything, Hal had been the unyielding one. She didn't know what came over her when she'd seen Quinn with those cops. A feeling
she'd never felt before grabbed hold of her chest, or her throat, and shook her like a tight fist. Something inside of her had cracked a little bit. If she didn't know better, she'd have sworn she'd been jealous. But she wasn't a jealous person. Her whole outlook on life centered on not wanting things she couldn't have, not getting too attached to anything she did have, and never ever claiming ownership of anything that couldn't really belong to her. Still, when Quinn had started to flirt with the cop, she'd felt ten years old again, being ripped away from yet another dream she'd let herself get entirely too comfortable in.

She'd kind of freaked out.

And she'd kind of lashed out.

Then she'd tried to close Quinn out.

And yet there she stood, golden and perfect in the sunlight right beside her.

“I like this spot,” Quinn said, oblivious to the stream of consciousness rushing through Hal's mind. “This is my rock.”

Hal glanced at the large, flat stone about the size of a kitchen table, then set down her tackle box and handed Quinn the large, red beach towel. “Nice choice. Now stake your claim.”

Quinn caught hold of the end of the towel, then shook it out on the breeze and unfurled it like a flag, allowing it to flap a second or two before settling to the side and leaving plenty of room for pedestrians to pass by without disturbing her. Foot traffic wasn't as heavy as expected for the holiday weekend, with only the occasional lesbians hiking with their dogs, or families with children hopping from rock to rock, and many of them turned back before they reached Quinn's rock.

“Are you going to catch us dinner?” Quinn asked.

“I may. If I'm lucky.” Hal scooted down to a rock just below Quinn's on the side facing the main harbor. She flipped open the tackle box and pulled out a lure. “These waters have been overfished for generations, but sometimes you can still hit on a school of cod or fluke.”

“Well, look at you busting out your angler knowledge.”

“It's not my first trip to Ptown.”

“I don't want to think about you being here before,” Quinn said. “Is that silly of me?”

“Maybe,” Hal said, then thought more, “but I kind of like you being silly, so I guess that makes me silly too.”

“Then it's our first trip to Ptown. Good luck with that fish-catching.” Quinn seemed amused by the idea, her smile playful as she lay on her side to watch.

She looked like a classy pin-up, if there ever was such a thing. Her legs went on forever under her khaki shorts, and she'd shed her over-shirt, revealing a simple white tank top. She was so long and lovely laid out like that, her blond hair golden in the sun and her blue eyes sparkling like the water below.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Huh?” Hal realized she'd been caught staring. “You comfortable?”

“Very. What about you? Stalling?”

“No.” Hal busied herself baiting her hook. “I've got everything under control. You won't starve on my watch.”

“I never worried I would. I'm just interested to see how you're going to catch me a grilled cheese.”

“A what?”

“You said you were going to catch dinner, and we always eat sandwiches, so I figured that's what you're fishing for.”

Hal smirked. “I feel like there was a challenge in there somewhere.”

“No, a challenge would be if I said I'd suddenly grown lactose and gluten intolerant.”

“That wouldn't be a challenge. That'd be the end of our relationship,” Hal mumbled.

“I heard that.”

“You were meant to.”

“Really? Are you so insecure about your own abilities—”

“Who said anything about insecure?”

“Well when people don't think they can live up to a challenge . . .” Quinn let the end of that sentence dangle.

“I can live up to it. A meal without bread or cheese, that's not hard to do. It's like eating air.”

Quinn laughed and flipped down a pair of sunglasses she'd stolen
from Hal's truck. Damn, she looked good in them. A warmth greater than that of the summer sun started in her chest and spread lower. God, there was something about a woman in a pair of cheap sunglasses . . .

Wait, what had they been talking about?

Eating.

Food.

Bad food.

Without bread and cheese.

The thought helped return her focus. “I can make you a dinner without bread and without cheese and still knock your shorts off.”

“Prove it, Fryboi, and we'll see whose shorts come off first.”

Hal grinned as she cast her line out as far as she could. Quinn clearly thought Hal would be the one on the hook at the end of the day. Maybe, but when it came to challenges from beautiful women, she couldn't resist biting.

Chapter Seventeen

“I got one,” Hal said after half an hour.

Quinn lifted her head and lowered the rim of her purloined sunglasses to get a better look. Sure enough, Hal's line pulled taught with the strain of a fighting fish. She reeled and pulled, then let the line run out a little before jerking back again. Quinn sat up, no longer watching the line so much as the woman working it.

She wouldn't know a good fishing technique from a knitting pattern, but Hal certainly looked convincing. She seemed so casual, so effortless, so fluid. Quinn suspected Hal might just be one of those people who was quietly good at everything. She cooked, she cleaned up after herself, she could do business math in her head. She was funny and quick witted, a great dancer, and apparently a skilled fisherwoman. Most of all, she'd had nothing handed to her—no formal training, no real education, not even a parent or family to help mold her. Quinn liked to think of herself as a self-made woman, but when she looked at Hal, she had little doubt about which of them had made more with less.

Hal, on the other hand, seemed unaware of how amazing she really was. While she had not an ounce of insecurity about her chef skills, she'd shown some big ones in other areas when the police had arrived earlier, and even more when they'd left. Was she really jealous about Quinn's flirting with the uptight cop? Was it just her residual feelings of helplessness regarding the foster care system, or did her reaction say something deeper about their relationship?

“Hey,” Hal said, pulling her prize out of the water. “How about some credit here?”

The flat and brown fish had tan spots and a thin frill all the way
around. She scrunched up her nose. “That's the ugliest fish I have ever seen.”

“Are you kidding me? This is a fluke. It's a kind of grouper. It's a thing of beauty.”

“If that's your idea of beautiful, I'm beginning to rethink all the compliments you've ever given me.”

“Come on.” Hal laughed. “It's huge for shoreline fishing.”

“It is big,” she admitted. “More than a foot, probably.”

“Probably? I'd say closer to two feet.”

“You're such a guy sometimes.”

“A guy who's going to make you dinner.”

“With that?” She wrinkled up her nose. “It looks like a wet scab.”

“It won't when I get done.”

“I don't know, Hal.” A twinge of regret pricked at her skin. Why had she made that silly bet about no bread or cheese? Now there'd be nothing between her and that slime ball. “What if we went out to dinner? My treat.”

“Not a chance.” Hal beamed proudly at her catch. “This is going to work perfectly, and it's just the beginning.”

“There's more?”

“Of course.” Hal unhooked the fish and put it in a net she fastened to her tackle box, before she dropped it back into the water between two of the big rocks. “The tide's about midway between high and low. We should have a good, fast current heading in now.”

Quinn shook her head, not sure what emotion the news should inspire in her. “Give a boi a fish and she'll make you a sandwich. Give her a fishing pole, and suddenly she's an expert on local tides and currents.”

Hal cast again, and this time Quinn remained sitting up to watch. She liked the warmth of the sun on her shoulders, she liked the gentle lapping of the tide against the rocks, she liked the scent of salt in the air. Mostly, though, she liked the sight of Hal, her body tan and boldly outlined against the blue horizon. She cut such a compelling profile, strong and competent, and Quinn felt a familiar stirring in the pit of her stomach. Only this time the warmth spreading there didn't head directly south. Instead it crept up toward her heart. This wasn't the
incendiary flame that always inspired her to rip Hal's clothes off, but it didn't lack the strength or the pull toward her. If anything, its complexity made it hard to resist, and harder to file away into some tidy box labeled “lust” or even “attraction.”

“Got another one,” Hal called again as her line went taut once more, but as soon as she began to reel it in, the line went slack.

“What happened?”

“I don't know.” Hal reeled the line all the way in and inspected her clean hook. “Something took my bait and spit out the hook.”

“Smart fish.”

“A little too smart for a fish,” Hal muttered as she slid another anchovy onto the hook, then stood up and cast again.

This time the line had barely been in the water a minute before it dipped low and tight. Hal jerked back hard to set the hook, but once again it refused to bite on whatever had bitten it. She started to wind it up slowly, but then froze, her eyes scanning the water.

“What is it?”

“There.” She pointed to a spot a few yards from where the line dipped below the surface.

Quinn saw the water ripple as a slick, black head emerged, followed by two black eyes and a set of wiry, white whiskers. “Oh my God. It's a seal.”

“A thieving seal.”

“He's so cute.”

“Don't let his looks fool you. He's only here to rob us blind.”

“Hal,” Quinn scolded, “how can you say that about such an adorable seal? A seal! I've never seen one before.”

“They have them at the zoo in Buffalo.”

“I mean in the wild.” She got to her feet for a better view. The little guy watched them as intently as she watched him. “He's so close. Give me an anchovy.”

“No. It's not good to feed them.”

“What's the difference between me tossing him one and you feeding him one on a hook?”

“The hook, but I'm not trying to—”

“Right, mine won't have a hook in it, so it's safer.”

“It'll teach him to eat people food,” Hal warned.

“First of all, anchovies are barely people food. Second of all, I think he's already learned how to eat them.”

Hal sighed and gave her an exasperated look, eyebrows raised and shoulders slumped.

Quinn pursed her lips in a pout. “Please?”

Hal shook her head but grabbed another anchovy from the can in her tackle box. “Come down here.”

Her smile stretched her cheeks as she slid off her rock and onto Hal's lower one.

“Hey, little buddy. You want a snack?”

“He's already had two,” Hal grumbled, and Quinn nudged her with her elbow.

“Here it comes.” She held the anchovy in her fist, then rearing back, lobbed it toward the seal. It landed within a few feet of him, and he quickly dove to catch it, his tail flicking up a little splash as he went. They both waited and watched the water until the seal surfaced again only a couple yards from where the fish had landed.

“Do you think he got it?” Quinn asked, clutching Hal's arm.

“Yeah. I think he got it.”

“Really?” She couldn't tell. The seal looked the same as he had a moment ago.

Hal didn't reply, and Quinn tore her attention from the seal to meet her eyes. There was something deep and sweet, amused and caring swirling there. Quinn clearly saw it all but had no method for making sense of the mix. “What are you thinking?”

Hal shrugged and turned away, suddenly busying herself with the tackle box. “Nothing. I never pegged you for someone who'd go all soft at the sight of a cute seal is all.”

“Maybe you pegged me wrong.”

“Yeah.” Her voice sounded a little choked. “I think I did.”

Quinn didn't push her anymore. She didn't want to know what she meant. She didn't want to know if Hal's chest felt the same tightness she'd experienced earlier, and even more than that, she didn't want to know if Hal had a word for that feeling, because she was almost certain now she wouldn't like it.

“You going to keep fishing?”

“No point to it. Either your little friend steals my bait, or he's somewhere eating the fish I want to catch.”

“Do you have enough fish for dinner?”

“Oh yeah, if I can find a few things to go with it, I can still make you quite the feast.”

“Lucky me,” Quinn said, trying to recapture their playful tone as she started to climb back onto the higher rock, but about halfway up she looked back over her shoulder and caught Hal staring at her ass. Her smile was slow as her emotions returned to a level she was more accustomed to.

“Lucky me, too,” Hal said, then wrapped an arm around Quinn and pulled her back down. “I apparently get an amazing dinner and a show.”

“If the dinner is as amazing as you seem to think it'll be, you might get more than that.”

Hal kissed her quickly, on the mouth, right out in the open, causing a thrill to shoot up her spine. “How about an appetizer?”

“I'm not sure I could focus on an appetizer with such an obvious reminder of the main course,” Quinn quipped.

Hal arched an eyebrow. “How so?”

She pushed off again and climbed back up to her rock before saying, “You smell like fish.”

Hal laughter followed her up the breakwater. “Actually, now you do too. How about showers, then dinner, then maybe something a little better for dessert?”

Quinn thought about that as she collected her beach blanket. Yes, dessert. Light, airy, sweet, and without any pretense of something more. Dessert didn't try to pass itself off as the main course. Dessert knew exactly what it was, and it was awesome.

“Dessert sounds more up my alley.”

Hal already had a handful of olive oil and sea salt-coated asparagus on the small grill when Quinn came up from the cabin. Her long
blond hair still damp from the shower, she'd slipped into another pair of shorts and one of Hal's T-shirts, with a picture of a whisk and a caption that read, “Whip it real good.” If the message wasn't enough to make her smile, the fact that Quinn clearly wasn't wearing a bra would have been enough to push her into a new level of joy.

“What's that smug little grin for?” Quinn asked.

“You look good in my clothes. Maybe you should keep that one.”

“I might. I could wear it to board meetings, lighten up the mood.”

“Go figure, all those times in Buffalo I thought you were dressed for a sailing excursion off Cape Cod,” Hal said, pouring a glass of white wine. “But when I finally get you on a sailboat off Cape Cod, you dress like you're from Buffalo.”

Quinn laughed and accepted the glass. “I like to keep you on your toes.”

“Oh you do. Up on my toes and back on my heels, all parts of my feet engage around you.”

“And you always do such a lovely tap dance I can't help but want more.”

Hal looked up and met Quinn's eyes. They'd gone a shade darker, causing her to wonder if she meant what she'd just said. “Do you really want more?”

Quinn sat on the curved bench seat and sighed. “That's the question to end this trip on, isn't it?”

“I'd hoped we could avoid it until tomorrow morning,” Hal admitted. “But it's out there now.”

“I don't suppose we could throw it back into the ocean like the ugly fish you caught?”

Hal smiled in spite of the seriousness they were avoiding. She grabbed the plate of fish fillets she'd descaled and boned. “Look at these now, all cleaned up. If you hadn't seen it until this moment, what would your first impression be?”

Quinn sighed and bit her lip before smiling. “I'd probably think it was perfect.”

“Perfect,” Hal repeated as she stacked all the asparagus to one side.

“Yes,” Quinn said more wistfully, “perfect.”

Hal laid the fish out on the grill and basked in the glow of being right.

“But what about you?”

“Me?” Hal asked, still focused on adjusting a few coals.

“Can you look at me now like you're seeing me for the first time? Without all the stuff that came between us before?”

The question seeped in, trapping her breath painfully in her chest. She did see Quinn. She saw her beautifully open before her, surrounded by the earliest orange fringes of sunset across the tranquil harbor. She was golden and stunning, her eyes deeper and more inviting than the water. Hal fought the urge to look away.

“What?” Quinn asked. “Did I ask too much of you?”

“No. I mean, yes and no.” She rubbed her face. “You didn't ask too much. But maybe you are too much.”

“Thank you?”

Hal sat down beside her and took her hand, looping her pale fingers through her own. “I see you, Quinn. I see how beautiful you are, how smart, how committed, how strong, and I want to linger in this perfect moment with you.”

“But?”

“There's no but. There should be, but there's not. I like you, Quinn. A lot. And whether it's right or wrong, I want to be with you.”

“Really?” All the nervousness and insecurity fled Quinn's expression, and her smile spread so wide it crinkled the corners of her eyes.

She seemed so young, so innocent, so hopeful, Hal couldn't resist hugging her. “Really.”