Читать книгу Vegas Wedding, Weaver Bride - Allison Leigh - Страница 11
ОглавлениеQuinn’s words jangled inside Penny’s mind.
He was standing there, annoyingly handsome and militarily straight, waiting for an answer.
She wanted to ask him if they hadn’t already had enough blows for one day.
She was still grappling with the notion that some idiot had spiked their drinks. The only thing gained by knowing that fact was that they now had an explanation for ending up in Quinn’s hotel suite the way they had. They had an explanation for not being able to remember any of it. She already knew Quinn had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. If he learned she’d also been a virgin—
“Penny?” Quinn took a step toward her. His eyebrows were like straight slashes above his level brown eyes. “Are you on birth control or not?”
“I don’t really think that’s any of your business,” she said evasively.
His eyebrows shot up. “Until I know otherwise, you’re my wife. I think that does make it my business. So are you on the pill? Implant? Anything?”
“Mmm-hmm.” She managed a nod, trying valiantly to pretend her neck wasn’t getting hot.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re lying.”
The heat spread up her jaw and into her cheeks. Her forehead. Until her entire head felt like it might well be smoking. “Why would I lie about that?”
He suddenly leaned back against the dresser in front of the bed and folded his arms across his wide chest. “I don’t know,” he said calmly. “Why are you?”
She’d been a better liar when she’d been ten than she was now.
She turned her back on him and went over to look out the window. Unlike his suite with that stellar city view and balcony, her room looked out over a roof and a bunch of mechanical equipment. There was one window. No balcony. And it was still costing Mrs. Templeton over four hundred dollars a night.
“No, I’m not on the pill,” she admitted flatly. “There’s nobody in my life. Hasn’t been for a while.” She wasn’t going to tell him that there’d never been anyone. Not that way. She and her fiancé, Andy, had been foster kids living in the same foster home. They’d never chanced it, knowing that they’d be separated in a nanosecond if they were caught doing anything improper. Then he’d graduated from high school, announced to their foster parents during his graduation party that they were engaged, and he’d headed to boot camp a day later, leaving Penny behind to finish high school.
Quinn’s silence penetrated her memories and she looked over her shoulder at him. “What?”
“You’re not on anything?”
She shook her head.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his fingertips against his temples. “So you could be pregnant. On top of everything else.”
“What? No!”
He gave her a look. “I don’t have to spell out the details of unprotected sex, do I?”
She made a face. “Obviously not.”
“Then you know there’s a chance just as well as I do.” He inhaled deeply, then straightened once more. “Which means nothing’s happening about anything until we know one way or the other.”
She couldn’t remember making love. She darn shooting couldn’t imagine having conceived a baby with him. She and Andy had talked about having a half-dozen kids. About having the kind of real family that neither one of them had grown up with.
Her throat felt tight. “I can’t talk about this anymore.” She hurried past him and yanked open the room door. “I need you to go.”
“Penny.”
She stared hard at the gold patterned carpet beneath her sandals, willing away the tears that burned behind her eyes. “Please, Quinn. Not now.” Not ever, if she was lucky.
She heard the impatience in his sigh as he came over to the door. But there was no hint of impatience at all in the way he touched her shoulder. And no matter how badly she wanted to ignore him, she couldn’t help looking up at him.
For a man who could look as fierce as he could look, he also had an unsettling capacity for showing extreme gentleness.
And she felt shaky because of it.
“Whatever happens, whatever we learn, we will work it out together. All right?”
Her teeth were practically gnawing a chunk out of the inside of her cheek. “I’m not your responsibility, Quinn.”
“Well, now, I’m going to have to disagree, since you seem to be my wife.”
“An unintentional one.”
“Doesn’t make it any less real as far as I’m concerned. And as such, you are my responsibility.”
“Doesn’t that make you my responsibility, as well?”
His thumb rubbed her bare shoulder before falling away. “You can handle it. You handle Vivian, after all. And she’s a lot more to take on than me.”
Despite everything, Penny felt a tearful laugh catch in her throat. “I’d just gotten off the phone with her when you knocked on my door.” Her hand felt sweaty on the door handle.
“How’d you end up working for her anyway? You get tired of working for my dad or something? You worked for him a long time.”
“Ten years,” she murmured. So long that she’d even become Dr. Templeton’s office manager. “I met Mrs. Templeton when she came to see your dad at his office last summer.”
“Bet that went well.” His voice was dry.
She nodded. “They had a shouting match. About what you’d expect. Before she left, she told me that I looked intelligent enough if not for the fact that I worked for her son.”
“Nice.”
“I think the only reason she started calling me to come work for her as her assistant was because she knew it annoyed your father.” She hesitated because she wasn’t sure Dr. T would appreciate her sharing the truth, even with his own son. “Eventually, she offered double my salary. Your dad said I should take it. I started working for her shortly before last Christmas.”
“Just like that. Ten years of loyalty tossed aside for a few dollars more?”
The accusation accomplished what nothing else did. It dried up the knot of tears threatening to break loose inside her.
“He said I should take it for the money, and then he asked me to keep my eye on her for him. No matter what he says about not caring about your grandmother, your dad does care. Very much. And because I care about Dr. Templeton, I did what he asked.”
“You did what my son asked, dear?”
Penny caught her breath and looked out the door she was holding open to see Vivian standing a few feet away in the hall.
How much had she heard?
Vivian’s carefully penciled eyebrows went up as she approached. “Well?”
Penny couldn’t seem to form an answer to save her life. She looked up at Quinn. He looked surprised, but definitely wasn’t at a loss.
“She told him she’d keep an eye on me while we were here in Vegas,” he lied easily. “You know what Dad’s like.”
“Overprotective,” Vivian said crisply. “When it comes to my possible bad influence.” Her bright gaze was running back and forth between Penny’s face and her grandson’s. “Well, I can’t say that’s much of a surprise.” She brushed her hand down the lapel of her chenille jacket as if she were brushing away the thought. “Is that what the two of you are doing together in your room, Penny? Looking after my grandson?”
Penny’s face went hot.
Which seemed to be exactly the response that Vivian was looking for, because the elderly woman gave a faint smile and a sage-looking nod.
If Quinn noticed, he ignored it. “What’re you doing slumming on the fifth floor anyway, Vivian?”
“Now you sound like dear Arthur. He had that attitude about me when we first met.”
“You cured him of it?” Quinn’s voice was wry.
“He cured me of it,” Vivian said simply. “Now, Penny dear. I came down to tell you that we’re starting a new project.”
Wariness coursed through her. Vivian’s latest project had been planning this Las Vegas jaunt.
And look where that had landed them.
“What project is that, Mrs. Templeton?”
“I’ve decided to run for the open seat on the town council.”
Penny blinked. She wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Weaver’s town council?”
“Well, not Las Vegas’s town council,” Vivian said humorously. “Now, the vote isn’t until September, which gives us a little over six weeks to mount my campaign.”
“I didn’t know you were interested in politics.”
“Oh.” Vivian looked annoyed. “I’m not. But somebody needs to run against that coot, Squire Clay, and since nobody else in town has stepped up to do it, I will. I’m hardly afraid of an old cattle rancher, even if he does think he owns the entire town. Do you know that he actually tried to keep me from building my house where I wanted it? Said I was impinging on the natural view from the town. You can’t even see my house from the edge of town.”
Penny had never met Squire Clay, herself, though she’d certainly heard the man’s name. The Clay family owned one of the largest cattle ranches in the state and as far as she knew, they formed a good portion of the very backbone of Weaver. The Clays were also relatives of the Templetons, though that was a recent revelation Vivian had admitted to only after she’d moved to Weaver from Pittsburgh.
“Vivian,” Quinn offered reasonably, “I’ve heard you and Clay aren’t the best of friends, but—”
“We’re not even the best of enemies.” Vivian cut off Quinn. “He’s as bad as my two sons when it comes to holding old grudges. I can’t imagine how any sister of my Sawyer—illegitimate or otherwise—could have had the bad taste to marry a man like Squire. He was a boor sixty years ago and nothing has changed in the years since. It’s amazing to me that he actually found another woman willing to marry him after Sarah died.” She focused on Penny again. “So, the first order of business is to make sure my name is filed right away as a candidate. I want you to take care of that even before we leave for home. All right?”
“Of course.” Penny had no clue whatsoever what was involved, but she knew how to pick up a phone and ask questions.
“Very good.” Vivian smiled, running her gaze approvingly over the bathing suit that Penny had reluctantly purchased at her boss’s insistence. “Now, run along, you two. Get to the pool. The manager here has invited me to join him for dinner, so you’ll be on your own this evening. We’ll all have breakfast in my suite before we check out of the hotel, so I’d appreciate you arranging that, Penny. Quinn, make sure Delia drags herself to breakfast, also. Until then, I trust you’ll find something to entertain yourselves.” Smiling slightly, she turned on her heel and strode away.
Neither Penny nor Quinn spoke until the old woman was out of sight.
“So that tumor is making her crazy now,” he finally said.
“She’s definitely not crazy.”
He was silent for a moment. A moment in which she became painfully aware of the warmth of his shoulder where it brushed against hers.
“My old man really asked you to keep an eye on her?”
She moistened her lips. Little prickles of sensation were springing to life beneath her skin. “He really asked me.” If Quinn would move even an inch, she could have slid past him back into the safety of her hotel room instead of standing there in the opened doorway.
But he wasn’t moving.
Not even an inch.
She tugged at the knot on her scarf, tightening the slick fabric once more. Ali had been the one to insist the bathing suit was perfect. But Maddie had tossed in the scarf, obviously understanding that Penny didn’t feel comfortable parading around in a suit that left so much of her butt exposed.
