Chapter 2
1927 Words
He stared at her, horrified. “When?”
She smiled and shook her head. “A long time ago and in a different country.” She didn’t look like she was going to tell us, which was too bad. She was one fascinating woman.
“Watch your step,” I advised her. “This walk is in pretty rough condition as well.” And then as luck would have it, one of the brick pavers, which was out of alignment with the others, caught the tip of my cane. I swore as I felt myself start to topple, but Quinn snatched my arm and kept me from falling on my face.
At one time, I would have bitten his head off for babying me like that, but we’d been together for more than a year. I’d seen him through a kidnapping, through a betrayal by a director he worked under, and the aftermath of his mother’s car accident; he’d seen me through a bullet wound to my upper arm as well as my thigh, and it was kind of nice.
“Do you think it’s worth saving?” Quinn made sure I was steady before letting me go, but he stayed close, just in case it happened again.
“Thanks, babe.” I leaned down and kissed his cheek.
“You’re welcome. Have to keep you safe, don’t I?”
“Someone will have to inspect it,” Novotny said loudly.
“You want to put that on the list, Portia?”
She smiled at me. “Of course, Mark.” She took a small notebook and a fountain pen from her purse, and jotted that down.
“Let’s go see what the interior of the house looks like.” Quinn paced slowly at my elbow, watching to see if I could handle the steps.
Once at the top of the steps, we crossed to the front door, and Quinn took a key ring from his pocket. He had to go through a couple of the keys before he found the right one, and he glanced at me sideways.
“What?”
“You’re not going to mock me for not immediately choosing the correct key?”
“You actually think I’d do something like that to you? Oh, Quinton, I’m cut to the quick.”
Novotny snorted, but Quinn just laughed and tugged gently on my ear. “I don’t know what I was thinking.” He turned the doorknob and pushed the door open. It made a spooky, creaky sound.
“Y’know, all this needs is a rainstorm and for it to be midnight.”
“A dark and stormy night?” Unseen by either Novotny or Portia, Quinn pursed his lips and sent me a silent kiss, and in spite of myself, I could feel a blush creep up my cheeks. He grinned and turned toward Portia. “Mother?”
“I’ll put it on the list, sweetheart. Oil the hinges of the front door.” She studied the door. “Perhaps replace or restore it?”
“I imagine we’ll need to see which is required.”
We entered the foyer, and Novotny flipped the light switch by the door. Of course there was nothing. The electricity had been off for more than a year.
“Good thing we came prepared,” I said as I pulled a flashlight from my coat pocket.
Novotny curled his lip at me and took a flashlight from his pocket. “Indeed.”
Well, s**t.
Quinn closed the door behind us, although there wasn’t much need to do that. It was actually warmer outside than inside the house.
Portia glanced down at the worn runner. Novotny stooped and pulled it back. “The hardwood floor seems to be in good condition.”
We walked down the corridor and gazed through an arched doorway.
“This was the formal parlor,” Portia said, a tinge of sadness in her voice.
“Let’s go take a closer look.”
Quinn stepped into the huge room. I hobbled in after him, and I could understand Portia’s sadness. The room was a disaster. Except for a ratty, tattered sofa, it was empty of furniture. The bricks surrounding the fireplace were soot-stained. The wallpaper above it was also stained.
Portia sighed. “Something else to go on the list. Have the fireplace flue and chimney inspected and cleaned.”
Strips of the discolored paper were peeling on either side of the fireplace, no doubt due to water damage—there were water stains on the ceiling as well as mold in the corners.
Portia shook her head. “Your father and I weren’t here frequently, but this was once a lovely house, and it’s a shame to see it reduced to this.”
“I never saw it,” Quinn murmured.
“No, Addison extended an invitation to us only once after their father died, but we had to attend an official function and couldn’t make it. He took it personally and never invited us again.”
He sounded like a real asshole.
A curving staircase led up to the second floor. The treads were scuffed and dust bunnies collected in the corners. Beyond it was what promised to be a more casual living space.
Portia sighed again. “According to your father, his mother had the most beautiful Christmas tree placed in that corner,” she told Quinn. “All the lovely ornaments belonged to her family, as well as the crèche that was a hundred years old at that time. Those were the only fond memories your father had of this house. Mr. Mann invited us for Christmas the first year we were married, and I asked him if we might have them, or at least some of them, but he refused.”
Like father like son. “Another asshole,” I muttered under my breath so Portia wouldn’t hear. She was a modern woman, but she was also a lady, and I tried to keep my swearing to a minimum in front of her, just like the other men of the family…
I’m part of this family. It had been years—more than thirty—since I’d been a part of any family.
And Quinn wanted to marry me. Of course we couldn’t, but he’d said he wasn’t taking anything other than a yes from me.
A man like Quinn, wanting to be tied to me legally… He’d first brought it up in the small parlor in his mother’s house in Great Falls the other day, and if it hadn’t been for the bullet hole in my leg, as well as where we were, I’d have jumped his bones right there.
Just then, Quinn must’ve seen I had something on my mind. He ran his hand down the arm that hadn’t been shot, and gripped my fingers for a second. Then he let me go.
“I don’t blame Addison’s daughter,” Portia said. She walked further into the room, and Novotny trailed after her. “This didn’t happen overnight. It took a very long time.” She continued making notes while Novotny wandered around the room, shaking his head.
“What do we do?” Quinn scrubbed his face. “How do we repair this kind of damage?”
I tipped his chin up. “Trust me, okay?”
“Do you know someone for the job, Mark?” Portia asked, and I grinned over at her. “Of course you do. I have to say I was very impressed by the work your interior designer did on your condo.” She’d been with me when I’d first gone to look at it, and it had been so… pink. The next time she’d seen it had been at Thanksgiving, after she’d gotten out of the hospital and Theo had finished up with it.
“Theo is just a friend who happens to have a talent for design.”
“Well, he did a much better job than that designer I referred to Quinton.”
“Yeah?” I’d always thought Quinn’s town house had a cool, elegant air to it. Not exactly to my taste, but then the designer hadn’t been creating the space for me. And of course she’d probably seen Quinn as Quinn wanted the world to see him, as the Ice Man.
“Really, Mother? I wish you’d let me know before now. I would have made some serious alterations.”
“Why didn’t you, sweetheart?”
“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”
Portia burst into laughter.
“Seriously.” Quinn turned to me to explain. “It was my first home, and Mother was so thrilled. In fact, I thought she was indecently happy to see me out of the house,” he teased.
She patted his cheek. “I’m a very good actress. I didn’t want you to leave, but of course I knew you needed to be on your own.”
He folded her into a hug. “I love you, Mother.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.”
“I’m gonna check out the butler’s pantry,” Novotny said. “Uh… I assume a place this big and this old has one?”
“Of course. It should be right through there if I recall correctly.” Portia indicated a narrow passageway that led off to the right.
Novotny approached the passageway with cautious steps, giving a bounce or two every few paces. “Are we sure this floor hasn’t rotted out?”
Quinn sighed. “Something else we’ll need to have an inspector look into.”
Normally I’d taunt Novotny about the floor being unable to hold him—not that he was overweight, but just to piss him off—but I had other things on my mind. While Quinn and his mother examined the parlor more closely, I pulled out my cell phone and hit six on speed dial.
As luck would have it, I got the answering machine.
“Hi. You’ve reached the residence of Theo and Wills. We can’t take your call right now because we’re in bed, having wild monkey s*x, so you’d better not be thinking of coming by to rob us. We’d be in a really bad mood, and Wills would have to hurt you. So anyway, leave a message at the tone, and we’ll get back to you.”
On a weekend, they normally would be in bed, but this Saturday, Matheson, my agent, was out of town, taking care of business for the WBIS.
I thought of my own bed, the one in Aspen Reach. It was large enough to hold two men comfortably, and I missed it. Portia had invited me—okay, it was more like ordered—to stay with her and Novotny until I could get around better. It was because of those damned bullet wounds. I’d been shot in a sub-basement of the Division in Paris—and didn’t that sound like a solution from Clue?
I was losing it, and I didn’t even have the excuse of painkillers making me loopy. I shook my head and grinned at myself.
The tone sounded.
“Theo, it’s Vince. I need your expertise if you’ve got some free time. Oh, and I have to say I’m glad you changed your greeting.” It used to announce they couldn’t come to the phone because they weren’t home, and I’d told Theo that was setting themselves up to get robbed.
I shut my phone, put it away, and strolled as best as I was able with a limp and a cane to the far end of the room. According to Portia, this was the spot where Nigel Mann’s mother had placed the Christmas tree. Beyond it, french doors opened onto the backyard. I unlocked the door and pushed carefully. Although the glass panes were cracked and discolored, none were broken, and I wanted to keep it that way. It was bad enough people seemed to be using the garage as party central. The last thing Quinn needed was squatters deciding a broken pane was an open invitation to make themselves at home.
The view might have been breathtaking at one time. Now, it was a disaster.
“We’re going to need a landscaper,” Quinn murmured in my ear.
“You’re right, Quinton,” Portia said. “All new sod has to be laid down for the lawn. The shrubs and hedges will have to be torn out, and the trees…” She sighed. “Those beautiful live oaks and willows... They may need to be removed as well.”
“Perhaps we’ll replace some of them with Japanese maples?” he asked me. Not that I knew much about landscaping a yard.
- Writer
