In Too Deep. Sharon Mignerey

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      “No,” Quinn said. “I don’t need a nursemaid.”

      Lily looked at him as though she knew differently. “Ready?”

      He nodded and sat up. Surprisingly, he didn’t feel nearly as bad as he had a few minutes earlier. “Take me home and let me down a couple of aspirin. By morning, I’ll be good as new.”

      “And ready to kayak over to Foster Island,” Hilda said, her voice dry. She took off a pair of latex gloves and dropped them into a trash can. “Stay away from the aspirin. Do you have any Tylenol?” When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “I’ll give you some. And I want to see you back here in the morning.”

      “Yes, ma’am.”

      “Agreeable, now.” Hilda smiled. “Keep that up and you could tarnish your swashbuckling reputation.”

      He stood and took step toward the door. “Like I said, tomorrow I’ll be back to normal.”

      “I’ll get Annmarie and be ready in a minute.” Lily picked up the red sweater she had been wearing earlier and disappeared through the doorway.

      He watched her walk down the hallway toward the door to Hilda’s apartment. Lily might be small, but the curve of her bottom was all woman, round and sexy despite the full cut of her slacks. The lady looked damn near as good walking away as she did coming toward him.

      Hilda cleared her throat and he turned around. She handed him a small bottle. He glanced at the label and put the bottle in his pocket. When he looked up, he found her watching him.

      “So that’s the way the wind blows,” she said.

      “What?”

      She folded her arms over her chest. “Don’t you ‘what’ me. I see how you look at her.”

      “Last I heard, looking wasn’t a crime.” He didn’t add that Lily had been looking back. In fact she was the one who’d started it.

      “She’s still getting over the death of her husband.”

      “She told me.”

      “She’s not the type to have a fling.”

      Quinn pressed a hand against the bandage at his hairline. “Do you always fight her battles?”

      Hilda grinned suddenly and the heat disappeared from her voice. “Since we were seven years old. She’d take in a stray and never check to see if he had rabies.”

      “Talking about me behind my back again?” Lily asked, coming down the hallway from Hilda’s apartment, Annmarie holding her hand. “I haven’t picked up a stray since Sly Devious Beast.” She grinned at Quinn. “He turned out to be a great dog and quite without rabies.”

      “I’m worried,” Annmarie said. “We’ve been gone a long time and Sweetie Pie is probably missing me.”

      “Most likely.” Lily urged her daughter toward the outside door and gave Hilda a quick hug. “I promised Thad that I’d bring caramel corn when we come down for videos tomorrow night.”

      “You’re spoiling my son rotten.”

      “I know.”

      Lily opened the exterior door and waited for Quinn. Annmarie ducked under her arm. He followed her outside where she said, “I’m driving.”

      “Okay.”

      She held open the car door for him, which made him feel like an old man, then waited until he was settled into the passenger seat before going around the vehicle to the driver’s side.

      “I live up the hill from the dock. Second house from the end,” he said after she got in the car and was scooting the driver’s seat forward to accommodate her shorter frame. “You live with your sister, right?”

      “That’s right.” Lily started the car.

      “Then you should take the car after dropping me at home.”

      She smiled at him. “Does your head still hurt?”

      He nodded. “Like hell.”

      “He said a bad word, Mommy,” Annmarie said.

      “Sorry.” Now that they were moving again, his brief surge of feeling better had all but disappeared.

      Lily drove right past the turnoff to his street.

      “You missed the turn.”

      “I know,” she said. “I’m not taking you home. Like Hilda said, you need someone to check on you tonight, and you yourself said there’s no one to do that.”

      “I’ll be fine.”

      “I’m sure you will,” she agreed.

      “But you’re not taking me home.” He really ought to be more upset about that, he decided. Instead the idea of being babied somehow appealed more than being one of the strays she took in bothered him.

      Again she smiled. “I’m not.”

      “Who would have thought you’re stubborn?”

      As they headed south from Lynx Point, he figured his brain cells were still mostly intact. He didn’t have to be a genius to figure out they were on their way to Lily’s sister’s house. There were only a couple of places out this direction, and the nursery was at the end of the road.

      On the drive to her aunt’s house, Annmarie maintained a running monologue, informing Quinn how impressed she was with his car, which was green like hers only much nicer and with lots of dials and stuff, pointing out the turnoff to the house where she and her mom were going to live only couldn’t right now because the house had no walls yet, and relating how her kitten tormented the dog.

      He’d seen the house the last time he had been kayaking, the straight lines of new lumber standing out from the surrounding forest.

      They came around a final bend and the road ended at a gate with a hand-painted sign above it that read Comin’ Up Rosie. Quinn had ridden his mountain bike out here a couple of times, but he’d never been through the gate, which framed a traditional Tlingit totem in the middle of the yard. Beyond the house was a gorgeous yacht anchored next to a pristine dock.

      As Lily parked the car, a woman clad in jeans and a dark green apron came out of the greenhouse. She was followed by the ugliest dog he had ever seen.

      “Do you have a totem pole in your yard?” Annmarie asked him.

      “Nope.”

      “In California, we didn’t have one, either.” Annmarie sat up straighter and waved. “That’s my aunt Rosie,” she informed him. “She’s going to have a baby real soon. Did you know that?”

      “No.” Or maybe he did—something about her having morning sickness. She showed no sign of an advanced pregnancy despite her niece’s assertion.

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