The Law and Ginny Marlow Read online

  She wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.

  Ginny was seeing it with her own eyes and she still didn’t know whether or not to believe it. In the past week, the change in Jenny had been nothing short of overwhelming.

  Oh, she still wasn’t the warm, sunny girl that Ginny remembered and carried around in her heart, the little girl who had looked to her for everything. But the belligerence, the thumbing-her-nose-at-the-world attitude was gone, thank God. And there was a glow about Jenny, a zest rather than the I-don’t-give-a-damn behavior that had been the hallmark of everything that Jenny had done in the past couple of years. It had gotten to the point that it pervaded the very air between them.

  Most incredible of all was that Jenny talked, actually talked to her. Not just at the table when two or more of the Cutlers were present to hear, but in the bedroom that they were sharing for the duration of their stay.

  This was just like the old days, Ginny thought as she got ready for bed later that night. The old days when they were still children and she would fall asleep to the sound of her sister’s voice, or vice versa. They would lie awake at night and talk for hours of what was to be and what happiness their future would hold. Anything to keep the world that held them prisoner back then at bay.

  In a strange way, Ginny mused, those little snippets of time were the happiest she could recall. Until recently.

  Tonight Jenny’s conversation was littered with the names of the people she’d met at the drivethrough that Carly had taken her to. Sadie’s was the closest thing Serendipity had to a fast-food restaurant and the only place, aside from the cinema duplex, where teens felt as if they could be themselves for a while.

  Jenny talked of nothing else but Sadie’s since Carly had dropped her off. Ginny noticed that more than a few sentences were devoted to someone named Billy.

  Jenny wiggled out of her jeans, leaving them where they were on the floor. “They said he’d be at the hayride.”

  Programmed for neatness, Ginny automatically reached for the jeans and folded them over the back of the chair. “Hayride?”

  Jenny looked at her impatiently. “The one on Saturday, you remember. Ceely what’s-her-name’s party. The one Quint wants us to go to,” she added when there was no recognition in Ginny’s face. “Remember?”

  No, she hadn’t remembered. She’d dismissed it as soon as it had been mentioned, thinking it was just so much rhetoric. Just Quint giving lip service to helping “reform” her sister.

  Obviously not.

  But then, she’d learned that Quint didn’t give lip service to anything. He didn’t say what he didn’t mean. There weren’t many men like that. None that she knew, at any rate.

  She folded her own clothes on top of Jenny’s. Zoe had given them some clothing that Morgan had left behind. Quint’s sister looked to be close to the same size as they were, which was lucky, since she didn’t fancy wearing the same thing day in, day out, and shopping locally didn’t exactly hold a lure for her.

  Glancing now at her sister, she said, “I think he meant you.”

  “No, he meant us.” Wearing an old T-shirt Kent had donated to the cause, Jenny slid her legs under the covers. “And him.” She looked at Ginny, a grin playing on her lips. “Know what I think?”

  Ginny felt tired tonight, bone tired. She’d put in a long day, putting Jake and Zoe’s affairs in order. Stretching, she murmured, “No, what?”

  “I think he likes you. A lot.”

  The comment froze her for a second before she turned to fix Jenny with a dismissive glance. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you.”

  “No, I’m not.” Jenny wasn’t accustomed to noticing things about other people, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. “He looks at you like…like Jake looks at Zoe.”

  Ginny stopped brushing her hair and tossed aside the brush. “He does not look at me in any manner close to the way Jake looks at Zoe.”

  “Does, too.” She knew what she saw. And there was more. “And you look at him when he’s not watching. But I am.”

  Maybe she had looked at him a time or two, but that didn’t prove anything. “For somebody who’s being kept very busy, you seem to have an awful lot of time on your hands for staring.”

  A defensive tone would have normally been enough to put Jenny at odds with her sister. She’d squared off with far less provocation.

  This time, she merely shrugged. “Just at the table.” Her eyes danced as she watched her sister squirm. Jenny congratulated herself for hitting the nail on the head. “Know what else I think?”

  Ginny braced herself. “No, what?”

  Jenny lay down, snuggling under the covers. “We could do worse than stay in a place like this.”

  That was not what she’d expected Jenny to say. Not even close.

  “A place like this?” Ginny echoed. Maybe she was hearing things. “You couldn’t wait to leave Smoke Tree. You didn’t even want to look back, remember?”

  She refused to be encumbered by the past, for whatever reason. “I was nine. Besides, Serendipity’s nothing like Smoke Tree was.”

  Ginny couldn’t believe she was hearing this. Had her sister gone through a complete transformation, or was this because of some crush she’d developed on this Billy person?

  “What about your friends?” Ginny pressed. “The people you said you couldn’t live without.”

  There’d been more than one fight over that, over the kind of people she hung out with. Now she seemed willing just to walk away from them. Ginny didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Her eyes shut, Jenny moved one restless shoulder in acknowledgment of the question. She debated answering her sister then decided that Ginny had gone through a lot for her. She and Carly had had a long talk about that, about the sacrifices family members had made for them. It had opened her eyes a little, talking to someone closer to her own age about it. Maybe Ginny was entitled to this.

  “They didn’t seem too torn up about me leaving.” Very slowly, almost in slow motion, she turned to look at her sister. “Ginny?”

  Ginny settled in beside her. The tone Jenny took had her slightly leery. Was something wrong? “Yes?”

  “I’m…” She took a deep breath and tried again. “I’m sorry.”

  That Ginny’s mouth didn’t drop open was only because she willed it not to. “For what?”

  Jenny didn’t want to be pressed. “Just that. I’m sorry, okay? It’s no big deal.” She looked at Ginny. “Oh, damn, you’re not going to cry, are you?”

  Ginny sniffed, reaching for the tissue box on the nightstand. “Maybe I am.”

  “I shouldn’t have said anything.” Disgruntled, Jenny burrowed herself into the bed.

  But Ginny wasn’t willing to let it drop, not yet. “Don’t you understand, this is the first time you have said something to me in a very long while. I’m crying because I’m happy.”

  Jenny dismissed the explanation with a snort, but it was obvious even to the casual eye that it pleased her that she meant so much to her sister. That made her sorrier than ever for her previous behavior. “Never understood that.”

  Ginny laughed softly, wanting to hug Jenny, knowing that it was too soon. “Give yourself a couple of years. It’ll come to you.”

  Turning on her side, Jenny shut her eyes. “Boy, I hope not.”

  She pretended to already be asleep as she felt Ginny lightly stroke her head.

  The last time she’d seen Jenny fussing like this, she’d been getting ready to go heaven only knew where and with whom. She certainly hadn’t managed to get it out of her, even under the threat of being grounded.

  This time it was for a party she knew that Jenny would have turned her nose up and jeered at only a short while ago. Now she actually sounded as if she was looking forward to it, although Jenny did sneak a glance her way every so often and tried to tone down her words.

  The nonchalant pose wasn’t taking. Jenny gave it up. She turn
ed around for Ginny’s benefit. “So, how do I look?”

  She was wearing her jeans and a fresh shirt, as well as a smile. “Like someone who’s about to have a good time tonight.”

  Jenny lit up like a candle, looking for all the world like the sister she had lost touch with a few years ago. And she had Quint to thank. Quint and his parents and the general-store owner and Carly…the list, Ginny realized, was a long one.

  She accompanied Jenny down the stairs, if accompanied could be the right word. The girl went bounding down, practically taking two steps at a time.

  Definitely happy, Ginny thought.

  It seemed ironic to her that they had to escape one small town to find their future and return to another to find their souls.

  Quint was at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for them. Was it her imagination, or was he looking even better now than earlier? She found herself looking forward to seeing him more and more the less time they had left in Serendipity. In just a few days, Jenny’s so-called “sentence” would be up. After that, they probably would never see the Cutlers again.

  Or Quint.

  Why did her heart tighten like that? It shouldn’t. And yet, it did.

  “All set to go?” Quint’s smile of approval washed over Jenny, but it was Ginny he was asking.

  He was waiting for her to answer, she realized. “Me? No, I’ve decided not to go.” She’d only feel out of place with all those people, anyway.

  To her surprise, Quint caught her by the hand and drew her away from the foot of the stairs. “Sorry, you have no say in the matter. I intend to take both the Marlow sisters to this party.”

  Ginny looked over her shoulder at Zoe. “Has he always been this bossy?”

  Zoe nodded solemnly as Jake came up to join her. “’Fraid so. Making him sheriff just made him more so.”

  “I have nothing to wear,” she protested.

  Quint wouldn’t budge. Instead, his eyes languidly moved over her. She more than did justice to Morgan’s jeans. “What you have on is fine. Clothes are clothes.”

  Typical male response. What wasn’t typical was the way she felt in response to his gaze. Ginny was torn. She had to admit that part of her wanted to go, wanted to experience as much as she could with Quint before it was all over for good.

  “I guess to avoid bloodshed I should go?”

  Quint had known all along that he was going to win this argument. “Guess so.” He ushered her out before she could say another word on the subject.

  Zoe turned to Jake, a satisfied smile on her face. “What do you think?”

  Jake knew that look. Knew, too, what he’d been watching happen in his own house. “I think someone’s finally lit a fire under that boy.” He laughed, turning away from the door. “I always wanted a lawyer in the family. Looks like I just might get my wish.”

  His chuckle vibrated along his wife’s neck as he encircled her waist from behind and nuzzled her.

  “You know, Zoe, we’ve got the house to ourselves for a few hours. Does that give you any ideas?”

  She curled into his arms. “Lots of them.”

  They went up the stairs together, reaching the landing before Quint had pulled his car out of the driveway.

  10

  Amid the laughter that surrounded the evening, there was a kernel of sadness that sat at the heart of it, refusing to disappear, refusing to be ignored no matter how hard she tried.

  Ginny had never been in the throes of both emotions before, happy and sad at the same time. She felt like a ball at a tennis match, stuck in perpetual motion, eternally being lobbed over the net, first to one side, then to the other.

  The people gathered at Ceely Watts’s birthday party were nothing like the people she’d known when she was growing up. Nothing like the people she’d expected. They’d greeted her and her sister not like strangers, but like new friends to be acquired.

  For once, the easy atmosphere succeeded in stripping away her guard a layer at a time. And did it rather quickly.

  It was an evening she’d always remember. She listened to stories being swapped, danced with Quint, sang “Happy Birthday” at the top of her lungs, eaten cake and then clambered up to the top of a huge hay mound, sinking into it as easily as she sank into Quint’s arms. It helped that he was there beside her.

  Helped and hindered.

  She might have climbed onto a haystack, but she was on the emotional roller coaster of her life.

  Under ordinary circumstances, between the slow pace the horse took, the moonlight and the quiet murmur of other couples, she would have fallen asleep. But not with Quint’s arms wrapped comfortably around her. That burrowed excitement in the midst of easy contentment.

  “Guess what?”

  Her skin tingled as his breath drifted along her flesh. She felt goose bumps form instantly. Felt, too, the smile that was on his lips as it curved beside her cheek. “Hmm?”

  “I think you have finally gotten the knack of relaxing,” he whispered against her ear. Or at least made some headway toward it, he added silently.

  If he only knew, she thought. Everything within her was poised like a tuning fork that had just been struck on the side of a half-filled glass of water the instant his breath touched her.

  “It’s hard to stay rigid on a pile of hay.” She’d been resting her head against his shoulder, absorbing every sensation, every breath like an industrious squirrel saving nuts for the winter. The winter that stretched endlessly before her. The one when she was going to have to do without him. “I’m really going to be sorry to see this all end.”

  His arm tightened about her waist. He looked at the three other couples on the wagon. The quarters were close, but each behaved as if they were oblivious to the others. That included Ginny’s sister and Billy Travis. Nice kid, Billy.

  “I could get Simon to drive us around for another hour,” he offered.

  How about forever? The question was foolish and she bit it back.

  “I don’t mean the hayride, I mean all of it. Being here. I haven’t had a vacation since—” Ginny paused, thinking. “I’ve never had a vacation,” she realized out loud. No matter what had brought it about, the time she’d spent here had been wonderful.

  He brought his cheek to rest beside hers. “This doesn’t have to be a vacation, you know.”

  Could he feel it? Could he feel how he made her heart speed up, then skip a beat? Did he realize what he was doing to her? “What do you mean?”

  Quint had already broached the subject once, earlier in the week. He was more serious than ever this time. “This could be forever, a way of life.”

  He was talking crazy, Ginny thought. “Right, give up working at the law firm, give up a possible junior partnership and move out here.” She’d worked too long and too hard to walk away from that. Hadn’t she?

  “Why not?”

  For a moment, as her mind came up against the simple question, she was speechless. And then she realized that he had to be joking. “And do what?” She laughed. “Go for hayrides the rest of my life? I’ll forget how to walk.”

  She didn’t think he was serious, he realized. “Why not be a lawyer—in between hayrides?”

  “A lawyer—” She twisted in his arms to look at him. “You mean here?”

  “I mean here. We don’t have a lawyer in Serendipity,” he reminded her. “With the town growing, I think it’s high time we had one. A pretty one.”

  Now she knew he wasn’t serious. For a moment, just a tiny, wild moment, she’d almost entertained the idea. “Is that a requirement?”

  He pressed a kiss to her forehead, setting her heart fluttering like a freshly minted butterfly leaving its cocoon. “For me.”

  She would have laughed if she had the breath for it—but he’d managed to snatch that away. “I’d think you’d be surrounded by enough pretty girls already.”

  “None that I noticed.”

  So, he was capable of lying, too, was he? Just when she’d thought she’d found the one honest
man left on God’s earth. Showed what she knew.

  “Yeah, right.”

  Fingertip beneath her chin, he turned her head toward him. “None,” he emphasized again, “that I noticed. Until now.”

  If her heart was hammering any harder, it was going to fall right out into the hay. “You expect me to believe that?”

  His eyes held hers. “I expect,” he said softly, “you to believe me. A woman should believe the man who’s about to ask her to marry him—otherwise, how is she to take the proposal seriously?”

  There was a wild buzzing going on in her ears. Ginny stiffened. He was mocking her, she realized. Making fun at her expense. He had to be. Proposals didn’t just drop out of the sky like this. Just when she’d finally begun to trust him.

  “She isn’t,” Ginny retorted.

  Without knowing where she was, only that she wanted, needed, to get away, Ginny surprised Quint by suddenly sliding off the slow-moving haystack on the wagon bed and tumbling to the ground.

  “Ginny, stop.”

  But she scrambled to her feet, ignoring his cries as she began to run. Into the darkness. Away from him.

  “Stop the damn wagon,” Quint ordered.

  Stunned, six pairs of eyes turned to look at Quint. He pressed his lips together to keep back the ripe oath on his tongue.

  “Wait here,” Quint instructed the driver.

  “Go after her, Quint,” Jenny begged. Squinting, she was having a hard time making Ginny out as she ran up the road.

  “I fully intend to, Jenny. I fully intend to.” It was a promise he meant to keep.

  Jumping off the wagon, Quint broke into a run, afraid of losing sight of her.

  “Ginny, stop. For God’s sake, stop running,” he yelled after her disappearing form.

  Instead, he saw her speed up. Quint swallowed another curse. Shouting it wouldn’t help anything. Damn fool woman, what had gotten into her? What had he said to scare her away like that?

  She was fast, he realized. Faster than he would have thought. But he was faster, and he caught up to her in a matter of a few minutes. He expected her to slow down, but she didn’t. Instead, she poured on one last burst of speed.