Unaccountably, his gaze skittered away. Rae’s heart sank. She was wondering how to press when he caught the error. Quinn pulled his attention back to her.
“We’re good, Rae,” he said too quickly. “We’ve covered everything.”
Nightfall dropped the temperature to near freezing.
Grass crunched beneath Rae’s boots. Swinging the flashlight in a loose arc, she strode past the barn.
The air smelled boggy and damp from winter’s thaw. Small pools of water dotted the pasture, the last remnants from the snowdrifts that had blanketed the acres. A hawk swooped through the approaching night. Its dark wings caught a downdraft as it sped toward the forest.
Slowing her pace, Rae sorted her jumbled thoughts.
She feared she wasn’t finished with Penny and Mik. In one form or another, they’d reappear. They’d continue to badger Quinn, putting at risk the fragile equilibrium she’d brought to his life. They wouldn’t stop there. Mik and Penny were like seventeen-year locusts, once dormant and now deadly. Burrowing up from the past to destroy everything in their path.
They’d devastated the emotional terrain of Rae’s life once before. On a dreadful March night, two months after the White Hurricane had upended her world.
Would they do so again?
Normally Rae wasn’t a fatalist. Yet their reappearance in her life felt preordained. Like an error that destiny insisted she repeat until she’d learned a critical lesson.
Grimly, she halted in the pasture. What is the lesson?
She’d worked hard to bury the past’s mistakes. To seal them over and move on. Even though she’d lost her precious daughter, Rae knew she’d built a good life. She loved her job and cherished her friendship with Yuna. Her father was now getting on in years, but he was thankfully in good health. Having Quinn around had put a spring in Connor’s step.
It had been years since she’d been haunted by thoughts of Quinn’s parents. Bedeviled by the memory, which she’d relived countless times in her unwelcome sleep. The nightmares hadn’t stopped until Lark’s toddler years, when Rae’s job at the Witt Agency went from part-to full-time. The combination of long work hours and motherhood proved an unexpected remedy. Each night she’d fallen into bed exhausted, welcoming the dreamless sleep.
Quinn’s arrival into her life hadn’t stirred those private demons. Hadn’t punched through Rae’s subconscious to start the nightmares once again. Would the encounter with Penny?
I can’t get trapped in the past. I must stay sharp.
A necessity, she decided. The battles with Penny and Mik weren’t over.
Chapter 20
For days, Griffin immersed himself in the monotony of work.
He trudged into Design Mark at dawn. Often, he stayed until midnight. His assistant joked he should sell his house and live in his office.
In between meetings, he attempted to reach Sally. His sister refused to pick up. The sincere apologies Griffin left on voice mail, he suspected, were summarily deleted.
For two siblings so close, the break in diplomatic relations was a first.
Griffin took full ownership of the mess. Last weekend, when Sally had appeared in his office, hurling accusations like well-aimed darts, he shouldn’t have become defensive. It should’ve been obvious she was upset about more than Katherine’s revelations concerning Lark. Or because Katherine still harbored feelings that Griffin couldn’t return.
His sister’s anger ran deeper.
Sally believed he’d broken a key element of their relationship: trust. Which he’d done through his inability to give her the full, unvarnished truth. Why hadn’t he mentioned taking Lark to Dixon’s for ice cream? Had embarrassment kept him silent? Playing a shadow game, he’d offered some facts while hiding others.
Now Sally viewed everything he’d told her as suspect.
By Thursday night, it became clear the standoff might last indefinitely. The prospect spurred Griffin out of Design Mark. What choice was there but to drive over to Sally’s house? When two adults disagree, nothing beats in-person negotiations. A face-to-face would soothe his sister’s ruffled feathers. Griffin was prepared to eat crow, if it came to it.
On the first knock, the door opened a crack. His brother-in-law looked agitated.
“I don’t know what you’ve done, pal.” Trenton spoke at barely a whisper. “Your sister is hotter than Death Valley. She’s more dangerous than extreme weather. She’s like the volcano that erupted in . . . which country was it? Somewhere in Asia.”
A query not worth exploring. “I get it, Trenton. May I speak with her?”