“Water?” he asked, his words muffled.
Cal shook her head. “No, thanks.”
He slammed the fridge door closed and cracked the lid on the water bottle before lifting it to his lips.
“How is your dad?” he asked, remembering why she was back in the city, back home.
“Okay. The triple heart bypass was successful. I went straight from the airport to the hospital and spent some time with him. He was awake and making plans so I suppose that’s a good sign.”
“I’m glad he’s okay.”
“He’ll be fine. Stressing about when he can get back to work.” He saw the worry in her eyes, heard fear in her flat tone. “The doctors said he won’t be able to return to work for a couple of months and that sent him into a tailspin.”
“He had the operation a few days ago. Maybe he should relax a little. The foundation won’t grind to a stop because he isn’t there.”
The Adam Foundation was the wealthiest charitable organization in Canada, funded by the accumulated wealth of generations of her Adam ancestors. Money from the Adam Foundation allowed an ever-changing group of volunteers, and Cal, to travel the world to assist communities who needed grassroots help.
Cal bit the inside of her lip and her arched eyebrows pulled together. “He’ll need somebody to run it until he’s back on his feet.”
“Is that person you?” he asked, annoyed by the spurt of excitement he felt. God, he and Cal hadn’t lived in the same city for ages and having her around would be a very nice change.
“Maybe,” Cal replied, unenthusiastic. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Quinn frowned as he tried to work out why Cal felt so ambivalent toward the city they’d been raised in. It was beautiful, interesting and eclectic, but Cal only came home when she absolutely had to. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that her husband had been killed when the light aircraft he’d been piloting crashed into a mountain to the north of the city around four...no, it had to be five years ago now.
She’d married the same week she turned twenty-four and, thanks to their massive argument about her nuptials—Quinn had loudly and vociferously told her that she’d lost her mind—he’d missed both her birthday and her wedding that year.
“Does the press corps know you are home?” Quinn asked, changing the subject. Like him, Cal had a hate-hate affair with the press.
“Everyone knows. They were at the airport and at the hospital.”
“Remind me again where you flew in from?” It had been a couple of months since they last spoke and, while they exchanged emails regularly, he couldn’t recall where her last project had been. Then again, Cal—as the troubleshooter for her family’s foundation—jumped from project to project, country to country, going where she was needed to ensure everything ran smoothly. She could be in Latin America one week and in the Far East the next. Cal collected frequent-flier miles like politicians collected votes.
“Africa. Lesotho, to be precise. I was working on a project to counter soil erosion.” Cal nodded toward the center island of the kitchen, to his landline and cell phone. “Your cell rang and then your phone. Mac left a voicemail saying that he and Wren and Kade were on the way over to discuss today’s train wreck.” She tipped her head and narrowed her amazing, blue-black eyes. “What trouble have you landed yourself in now, Q?”
Quinn heard Mac’s and Kade’s heavy footsteps on the outside stairs and lifted a shoulder. “You know what they say, Red—the trouble with trouble is that it starts off as fun.”
* * *
After greeting his best friends—who were also his partners, his colleagues—and Wren, the Mavericks’ PR guru, he gestured for them all to take a seat and offered drinks. While he made coffee, Cal was hugged and kissed by his friends and asked how she’d been. It didn’t matter how infrequently they saw her, Quinn mused, she automatically slotted back into his life and was immediately accepted because Mac and Kade understood that, just like they did, Cal had his back.
Quinn delivered mugs of coffee and sighed at their doom-and-gloom faces. He could deal with their anxiety—Mac and Kade constantly worried that he’d kill himself chasing his need for adrenaline—but he didn’t like their frustration and, yeah, their anger. His teammates and their head of publicity were pissed. Again. Not necessarily at him but at the situation he’d found himself in.
He tended to find himself in a lot of situations.
Hell, Quinn thought as he pushed his fingers through his sweat-dampened hair and gathered it into a knot at the back of his head, here we go again.
“Make yourself some coffee, bro. You’re going to need it,” Mac suggested, leaning back and placing his booted foot on his opposite knee.
“I’ll do it,” Cal offered.
Though he appreciated her offer, Quinn shook his head. “Thanks, Red, but I’ve got it.”
Quinn ran his hand over his thick beard as he walked around the island into the kitchen to where his coffee machine stood. He picked up his favorite mug, placed it under the spout and pushed the button for a shot of espresso. The machine gurgled, dispensed the caffeine and Quinn hit the button again. He wanted whiskey, but he supposed that a double espresso would have to do.
“So how did the meeting with Warren go?” he asked as he turned around.
Mac, as forthright as ever, gestured to Cal. “Maybe we should do this in private.”
Cal immediately stood up and Quinn shook his head. “You know that you can talk in front of Cal. What I know she can know. I trust her.”
Mac nodded and rubbed his jaw as Cal sat down again. “Your choice.”
“Warren is less than happy with you and he’s considering pulling out of the deal.”
Quinn gripped the granite island to keep his balance, feeling like a forty-foot wave had passed under the bow of the yacht. “What?”
“And why?” Cal demanded, his shock echoed on her face. “What has Quinn done?”
“Is this about the interview Storm gave?” Quinn asked.
“Partly,” Kade replied.
Quinn took a sip of his coffee, planted his feet apart and looked out to the water. Earlier in the week he’d woken up to the news that his three-week stand had, a month after he ended it, decided to share the intimate, ugly details of their affair and final breakup. Storm tearfully told the world, on an extremely popular morning breakfast show, that Quinn was emotionally unavailable, that he constantly and consistently cheated on her. For those reasons, she now needed intensive therapy.
None of it was true, but she’d sounded damn convincing.
He’d been played; the world was still being played. He’d made it very clear to her that he wasn’t looking for a relationship—and three weeks did not constitute a relationship!—but she’d turned their brief and, to be honest, forgettable affair into a drama. Storm’s interview was a massive publicity stunt, the next installment in keeping her admittedly gorgeous face in the news.
“Come and sit down, Quinn,” Kade said, gesturing to a chair with his foot. Quinn dropped his long frame into the chair and rested his head on the padded back. His eyes darted from Kade’s and Mac’s faces to Cal’s. Her deep, dark eyes—the exact color of his midnight-blue superbike—reflected worry and concern.
“It’s just the latest episode in a series of bad press you’ve received and Warren is concerned that this is an ongoing trend. He told us, flat out, the Mavericks can’t afford any more bad press and that you are the source.”