“Close encounters of the accidental kind—happens to this guy all the time.”
Lily cleared her throat. “This one is my fault.”
“No, it’s not.” Quinn’s gaze snapped to her. To his shock her eyes shimmered as though she was a breath away from tears.
Hilda patted his arm. “I get to sew you up again, big guy.”
“Okay.” His attention didn’t leave Lily, though. She had taken off the enveloping red sweater. The blouse underneath was cream-colored…and smeared with his blood. She still gripped his hand, but didn’t look at him.
“He’s going to be okay?” She glanced at Hilda.
“Fine,” Quinn said for himself. “This wasn’t your fault.”
“It was my car.” Finally she looked at him. “And like you said, the keys were in the ignition.”
“Little sting while I deaden this,” Hilda said, adding, “He’s got a concussion. Somebody needs to keep an eye on him, wake him up every couple of hours.”
Lily’s expression became even more guilt-ridden. “Do you have anyone who can do that?”
He searched her gaze. A man could drown in those dark, beautiful eyes. “Do what?”
“Be with you tonight?”
He managed a grin despite the needle pricks against his forehead. “Are you volunteering, darlin’?”
A blush swept up from her cheeks, then turned her fiery-red to her hairline. He couldn’t remember if a woman had ever blushed when he teased her.
“Last I knew, he lived alone.” Hilda wasn’t as gentle as Lily as she washed the blood away from his forehead, and he closed his eyes to keep his focus on something besides the pain.
“I still do,” he muttered.
Time blurred after that, and Quinn drifted in and out, absorbing bits of conversation between Hilda and Lily, who bantered like old friends. There was something about a house being built for Lily with somebody named Ian overseeing the project. And Rosie, who still had morning sickness.
Each time Quinn opened his eyes, he found Lily watching him. Each time, she squeezed his hand and gave him a soft smile as though his being hurt really mattered to her. Wasn’t that a hell of an idea.
When they began discussing him again, he forced himself to pay attention.
“He really does need to be checked on for the next twenty-four hours,” Hilda was saying. “Maybe the handyman…”
“Max?” Lily finally inserted.
“Yeah. Maybe he can look after Quinn tonight.”
“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