The Major Gets it Right
Autorzy
Victoria Pade
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19,0K
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8
Chapter One
“Clairy, honey, I’m here...”
“I’ll be right down, Mim—I just need to put on some clothes,” Clairy McKinnon answered her grandmother’s announcement. Clairy was in the upstairs master bedroom of the small Victorian two-story house that was now hers.
From the time she was six until she’d left for college at eighteen, Clairy had lived in the house with her grandparents, occupying one of the other two, smaller bedrooms. When widowed eighty-year-old Mildred McKinnon decided to accept her boyfriend’s invitation to move in with him, Mim—as everyone called her—had signed the house over to her sole heir just before Clairy’s recent decision to return to her small hometown of Merritt, Montana.
She’d arrived from Denver late the night before—too late to disturb Mim at her new home with Harry Fergusen—so Clairy had come straight here, letting herself into the clutter of her own furniture and belongings that had arrived days ago, and the last of Mim’s things yet to be moved to Dr. Harry’s.
“I made some tea to ice—it’s in the fridge,” Clairy informed her grandmother in a voice loud enough to be heard as she pulled clothes from her unpacked suitcase on this blazingly hot June Saturday.
Mim wouldn’t be staying—she’d already let Clairy know that she and Dr. Harry had to attend a wedding in Billings this afternoon. Clairy planned to use the day to finish packing her grandmother’s things so they were ready for the last of the move on Sunday, then work to settle in herself with whatever time was left.
Aware that there was a limit on Mim’s visit today, Clairy hurried.
Dressing purely for comfort and serviceability, she pulled on a too-big, too-many-times-washed gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off into ragged edges at her elbows, and a pair of faded black yoga pants spotted with ugly dots where bleach had splashed on them.
Ten minutes earlier she’d been in the shower, so her burnished copper-colored hair was still damp. Rather than wait for it to dry, she gave her shoulder-length hair a cursory brushing and gathered it into a very lopsided topknot, which kept the thick mass of naturally wavy hair contained and out of her face, but was hardly attractive. She didn’t expect to see anyone except Mim today, though, so it didn’t make any difference to her.
Her entire grooming took about five minutes and it was obvious she hadn’t put any effort into it when she caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror on the inside of the open closet door. But she didn’t care. She was more interested in seeing Mim for the first time since Clairy’s father’s funeral five months ago.
“When do you need to leave for Billings?” she called to her grandmother as she went down the stairs and made a sharp left, bypassing the living room to head for the kitchen at the back of the house.
“I didn’t hear that...” Mim called back.
Clairy started to repeat her question, but before she went too far, she spotted the elderly woman.
Clairy had inherited her red hair from Mim, who still wore it in a chin-length bob—minus any gray, thanks to Mim’s hairdresser. Never without fashionable clothes, earrings, several necklaces and at least three rings on each hand, Mim was decked out in a fancy paisley pantsuit, full makeup and more jewelry than usual.
“Oh, you’re ready to go,” Clairy said. She’d assumed she’d have most of the morning with her grandmother before Mim went back to the doctor’s place to change and head for Billings, which was about sixty miles south of the small town. Obviously not...
“Harry dropped me off so I could see you while he went to pick up the present. He’ll come back for me after,” Mim explained. “Twenty minutes or so—his cousin wanted us to have lunch and then go to the wedding together, so we’re leaving early.”
Clairy reminded herself that even if she didn’t have long with her grandmother right now, she’d see her frequently because they’d be living only two blocks apart. So she didn’t complain. She just went to the kitchen and hugged Mim hello.
Mim hugged her in return and held on tight. “I’m so glad you’re home!” her grandmother said warmly.
“Me, too,” Clairy said with equal enthusiasm.
It was still another moment before Mim released the hug. Then she stepped back and said, “How are you doing?”
“I’m good. Glad to have that drive from Denver behind me, glad to be home, glad all my stuff got here okay ahead of me.”
“But you must be sad, too, though—divorce is sad! You don’t have to put on a good face for me.”
To Mim, divorce was unthinkable. A tragedy. Mim had been married a month before she’d even graduated from high school, and she’d gone through thick and thin with a military husband until the day Walter McKinnon died six years ago.
“I’m not putting anything on—I am good,” Clairy insisted. “The marriage was... Well, it just was what it was... Now that it’s over, I’m moving on—I’m doing a reset.” It was something she’d said to her grandmother several times since she and Jared had separated, trying to convince Mim that she wasn’t a victim. Because she wasn’t.
“You had to leave so much behind, all your friends...” Mim said sympathetically.
“There weren’t really any left who were just my friends—Jared only socialized with his own clique, so over the years I saw less and less of my pre-Jared friends. And once the split happened, I was out of his circle—his friends went back to being just his friends.”
“The snooty—”
Clairy cut off her grandmother to give her the brighter side. “Marabeth has been my best friend all along and is still my best friend—it’ll be good to live near her again, to see her more than a few times a year, the way it’s been since college. So who I left behind in Denver isn’t a big deal,” she assured Mim.
But her grandmother continued to see the situation as tragic, despite Clairy’s best efforts. “Still, seven years down the drain...”
“Better than eight. Or nine. Or ten,” Clairy said to put a positive spin on that, too. Although she was sorry it had taken her that long to realize she’d made a mistake.
The same mistake she’d been so determined not to make, just dressed up to look different.
“And now that’s it? It’s all over and done with?” Mim said, as if that, at least, brought her relief after a lengthy battle.
It hadn’t been lengthy or a battle, but rather than try to persuade Mim that the whole thing had gone so smoothly it was as if the marriage had never happened, she simply said, “Yes, it’s all over and done with.”
“And that visit Jared wanted yesterday morning before you left town? What was that for?”
Oh, Mim was not going to like this answer...
“It was sort of a walk-through so he could make sure I wasn’t taking anything I shouldn’t be taking—his artwork, anything from his collection of watches, his wine collection, that stuff. I wasn’t taking anything, anyway, so it didn’t make any difference.”
Mim clenched her teeth in anger. She’d already made clear how unfair it was that Clairy was leaving the marriage with only what she’d had going into it. “And the girlfriend, who I still think he had on the side before—”
“He didn’t even have a minute for me, Mim. I know he wouldn’t have cut in to the more important use of his time with a side dish.”
“Then how do you explain how fast he found this one?”
“That’s how he operates—about a year after we were married he told me that he doesn’t like to be single because his friends drive him crazy wanting to set him up. And he doesn’t have time for it. So the minute I was out of the picture, I’m sure he looked for someone he could plug into the empty slot to avoid the setups and keep him free for what he does want to devote himself to. Unfortunately, my replacement doesn’t know that yet. Any more than I did until later. I just feel kind of sorry for her.”
Mim actually shivered with rage at that. “And why did he want your replacement to come along yesterday? You already met her.”
“She’s his fiancée now—”
“Oh, of course she is! Whirlwind Wedding Willy—three months to get you to the altar, and he’ll probably have this one there even quicker.”
Clairy didn’t comment, hating that she’d let herself be swept off her feet and into the abbreviated courtship that had had her married to Jared so soon after they’d met. She’d let romance override common sense and better judgment. It was something she would never do again.
“You know I stayed in the loft when we separated while he went to try out a two-floor penthouse to see if he might want to buy it... Well, he does—”
“Because he thinks he deserves even more.”
Clairy ignored the snide remark and went on with what she was saying. “He wanted Tina to see the loft before he decided whether to sell it or not now that he has decided to upgrade.”
“Why sell it? He doesn’t need the money, and now—when the time comes—he’ll have a place for her to live through their divorce the way you lived in it through yours. That snake!” Mim said angrily.
Clairy finally accepted that nothing she was doing to ease her grandmother’s anger at her ex was working, so she decided to just try reasoning with the older woman. “Please don’t get upset, Mim. None of it is worth raising your blood pressure. I just want to put the whole thing behind me.”
She thought Mim got the message when the elderly woman sighed elaborately. “I’m just glad you’re home,” she repeated at the exact moment the doorbell rang.
“Harry?” Clairy asked with a glance in the direction of the front entrance.
“It’s not Harry—he’s just going to honk.”
“Company, then?”
“Not for me,” Mim said. “Everyone knows I’m at Harry’s now. Maybe it’s Marabeth...”
“I don’t think so... She was going to come by to help around here today. Then, just before I got in last night, she texted me that she couldn’t make it and put a whole lot of giddy emojis at the end of the text—I don’t know what that was about. Maybe she had a particularly good Friday night that was going to last through today...” Clairy mused.
“Then I don’t know who this could be,” Mim said with a shrug.
Both Clairy and Mim went to the front door. Clairy opened it, and standing just outside the screen door on the covered front porch was a military man—something easy to determine even from a cursory glance because of the camo pants tucked into combat boots, a khaki-green crewneck T-shirt and the ramrod-straight stance.
Before Clairy had gotten beyond the clothes and posture to look at the face, Mim said, “Quinn!”
Quinn Camden?
Oh, great...just my luck...
Quinn Camden had sucked up every minute her father had had from the General’s first visit to Clairy after shipping her to Merritt to be raised by her grandparents. And he’d gone on sucking up every minute on every other visit from then on, trailing her father like a shadow.
Quinn Camden was the person her father had thought of as the son he’d never had. The son the General had wished he’d had.
Quinn Camden was the man Clairy continued to have more contempt for than anyone she knew, including her ex-husband. She held him at least partially responsible for her bad relationship with her father—more so than the long absences required by the US Marine Corps because Quinn had made himself a brick-wall barrier between her and the General in his pursuit of her father as his mentor. And nothing—not even begging him to stay away—had raised so much as a drop of compassion or consideration in him.
Tough luck.
That had been his smug reply to her plea and it still rang in her ears all these years later...
“Oh, I wish I had more time!” Mim’s voice interrupted Clairy’s thoughts. “I’ll have to leave for a wedding any minute. But please come in! I’m so glad you could get here!”
Clairy stepped aside, unwilling to participate in the welcome.
“Clairy, it’s Quinn,” her grandmother said, likely realizing that the two had not seen each other since Quinn Camden left for Annapolis sixteen years ago, when Clairy was sixteen.
“Ahh,” Clairy acknowledged—and not in a friendly way. She hadn’t recognized him, even when she had had a glimpse of his face.
But Mim was so happy to see Quinn, and so eager to get him inside, that her grandmother didn’t seem to notice that Clairy had turned to ice. And since Quinn Camden’s focus was on the effusive older woman, he didn’t seem to have noticed, either.
As he came into the house and Mim ushered him into the living room, Clairy remained near the front door, merely watching.
So this is you now... she thought scornfully, taking a closer look at the man he’d grown into as he and her grandmother exchanged pleasantries.
Sixteen years ago he’d been a skinny teenager with bad skin. It was no wonder she hadn’t connected the man before her with that image, because as much as she didn’t want to admit it, now he was a very, very long way from it.
He was at least six foot four, and the T-shirt he had on was filled out with broad shoulders, undeniably impressive muscles in a wide chest and biceps that were cut and carved.
His waist was trim, his hips were narrow, and the thighs in those camo pants looked strong enough to kick down a wall.
And when her gaze finally rose up the full length of him to take in the face she hadn’t yet studied in any detail, it shook her slightly to discover that he was the best-looking man she’d ever seen in person.
In fact, he was so good-looking that she didn’t know how that hadn’t drawn her attention from the start. It was certainly a face any woman would stare at—high cheekbones, a razor-sharp, granite jaw, a straight, slightly pointed nose and an unmarred, squarish forehead. He was so supremely handsome it was difficult even for Clairy not to be awestruck.
He had dark, almost black, hair, cut short but still longer than her father’s. In fact, the stubble that covered Quinn Camden’s face and surrounded his solemnly sensual mouth was longer than the hair on the General’s head had ever been.
As were the full eyebrows over those eyes that should have been a dead giveaway as to who he was the minute she’d opened the door—the Camden eyes that were a distinct, unique, bright cobalt blue.
They were eyes that Clairy remembered all too well looking at her as if she was an ugly bug he shouldn’t have to be bothered with.
The sound of a car horn honking drew Clairy out of her scrutiny of the person she’d always considered her enemy.
“That must be Harry?” her grandmother said, making it a question she aimed at Clairy.
“It is,” Clairy confirmed after a quick glance through the screen door and a wave to the former town doctor.
With that confirmation, Mim said to Quinn Camden, “I’ll have to leave Clairy to tell you about the will, the library, the foundation...well, everything.” Then the older woman turned back to Clairy and said, “Will you do that, honey?”
Clairy recoiled. “Me?” she blurted out in unveiled repugnance.
“Please,” Mim said, making the single word more an edict than a request.
And what could Clairy say? That since she was six years old she’d wished this guy off the planet? That now, when the wound from her lack of any meaningful relationship with her father was reopened by his death, the last thing she needed was to have anything to do with the biggest cause of that poor relationship? That that was asking too much? That Mim should have an inkling of that and help her stay away from Quinn Camden, not shove him in her face?
No, she couldn’t say any of that.
Instead, she said a chilly “I guess...”
At which point Mim clasped one of Quinn Camden’s boulder-like biceps and said, “I’m sorry to have to run, but we’ll talk soon. Mac would be so thrilled that you answered the call...”
Then the older woman rushed out of the living room, pausing only a split second to kiss Clairy’s cheek. She whispered, “I know, I know, but please be good—it’s what your father wanted,” then went out the front door and left Clairy alone with Quinn Camden. And the full bucket of loathing that Clairy had for him.
Loathing and a sudden awareness of how she looked...
No makeup, her hair all askew, ragbag clothes.
Not the way she wanted to be seen by anyone, let alone by someone who had always had the advantage over her.
It was Quinn Camden who broke the silence then. “Clairy... I figured as much from the red hair.”
Or from her grandmother calling her by name—which Clairy thought was more likely, because she didn’t believe there was anything about her that would have spurred recognition in him when, all those years growing up, she’d been invisible to this guy. How unlikely was it that he had any recollection of her one way or another?
Oh, how she’d been hoping her grandmother would deal with him so she didn’t have to!
But here he was, dumped in her lap...
For now, anyway.
Just do this and then Mim can deal with him from here on, she told herself.
So, reluctantly, she left the entryway to join him in the living room.
Still keeping her distance, she stayed standing and didn’t invite him to sit down, either.
But just as she was about to get to the point, Quinn Camden said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The obligatory condolences. Coming from him, it made Clairy bristle. “I imagine it’s your loss, too, isn’t it?” she said with an edge to her voice. “Everyone knows he thought of you as his son. And since you spent more time with him than I ever did—”
“Let’s say it’s a loss to us both,” Quinn interjected.
She just wanted this guy out of her house!
And the only way to do that was to get on with her assignment from her grandmother.
So, not worrying if she was being rude, she said, “Mim didn’t say whether or not she told you about my father’s will.” She didn’t give him the opportunity to respond; she just launched into it. “I didn’t know this, but a few years ago he bought the building that Merritt’s original library was in. He bought it so that after his death it could be turned into the Robert McKinnon Military Memorial Library and Foundation. He left all of his money and tangible assets to that, and asked that I move back to Merritt to set it up, oversee the library and memorial, and run the foundation that he wants to aid veterans and their families.”
She paused but, again, not long enough for Quinn to speak.
“The will also asks that with whatever time from your duties you can spare, you help with the inception of the library and memorial that will—first and foremost—honor him, his military career and legacy. His wishes were for you to make sure he’s portrayed the way he would want to be portrayed. He also wanted you and your military service to be highlighted, and to have your family’s service well represented, too. Once that’s done, the rest of the library will be for Montana veterans past, present and future who would like to be a part of it—that will fall back into my job description because he didn’t expect you to be taken away from your own service long enough to keep up with that,” she explained, hearing the formality in what she’d said, the lack of warmth, the aloofness. And not caring that that was the way she’d said it.
For a moment, Quinn still didn’t respond. He just stood in the center of the living room that was in transitional disarray, his arms crossed over his middle, his handsome face somber.
Then, with a note in his deep voice that made it seem as if he wasn’t sure he should say it, he said, “I know. Mac told me when he bought the old library building and what he wanted done with it, what he wanted you to do, what he wanted me to do. We’ve talked about it since then. He gave me things of his that he wants put on display. He told me what he has stored in the attic here so I’d know to look for more of it... What to look for...”
“Of course he did,” Clairy muttered dryly.
How stupid was she to have believed her father would have left his valued protégé in the dark just because she hadn’t known a single thing about any of this until she’d read the will? And when would she learn?
“I’m sorry...” Quinn muttered.
“For what? That you were his pride and joy? That’s what you worked for, wasn’t it?”
Clairy regretted the outburst the minute she let it loose.
And she had no idea why it didn’t raise the satisfied smirk from Quinn that it would have raised years ago. Or—even more—why it softened his expression instead.
“I wouldn’t say I was working to be his pride and joy. And for your sake...for starters, it is one of the things I’m sorry happened,” he said quietly.
Oh, sure, and she believed that as much as she believed she didn’t look a mess at that moment.
Quinn Camden did seem to have mastered the art of appearing sincere, though. She’d give him that. Which she considered actually more dangerous than how he’d been as a kid, when he’d been too cocky to conceal anything. Now she had to wonder what he was covering up, because sincerity from him had to be camouflage for something.
“Anyway,” she said, skipping past what she considered nothing more than a forced apology, “obviously Mim is happy that you’re honoring my father’s wishes, and the two of you can go on from here.”
“Meaning you don’t want anything to do with me.”
It was a statement of fact that Clairy saw no reason to deny because it was the truth.
“I figured I’d left some bad blood with you,” he said. “But maybe not how deep it goes.”
She just stared at him.
“It goes pretty deep, doesn’t it?” he observed.
Clairy didn’t disabuse him of that notion, either.
He nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said, seeming to accept the situation.
But why shouldn’t he just accept it? How she felt, how his role in her father’s life had affected her, didn’t matter to him—and never had. Why should it have, when his goals were being accomplished? So what if it had been at her expense? So what if his tramping over her had left marks?
“For what it’s worth,” he continued, “I’ve taken stock of some things recently and... Well, the way things were with you and your dad and me, that’s been one of them.”
Sure it has, Clairy thought.
“And I’m genuinely sorry,” he reiterated, emphasizing the word that had already been bandied about a lot.
As if her lack of belief in him and in anything he was saying showed on her face, he said, “You haven’t done anything you regret?”
Opening the door just now to you.
But she didn’t say that. She said, “You expect me to believe that you regret what you did—willfully—for years? When you got exactly what you wanted? Now, all of a sudden, you’re sorry? Please,” she said facetiously.
He nodded again. “I probably have that coming...”
No probably about it...
He took a breath, a deep enough one to expand his already expansive chest, and exhaled. Clairy had no idea what that meant. And didn’t care any more than she’d cared about omitting niceties or being polite.
But after the breath he’d drawn, he left the subject of his regrets behind and said, “Have you talked to your grandmother about how this is going to work?”
Like his previous knowledge of the will and her father’s wishes, that sounded as if he knew more than she did again.
“Mim knows how I feel,” Clairy said simply.
“Maybe. But she told me I’d be working with you because this is all your baby. And I know that’s how Mac wanted it—not that we work together, but that the whole project be done by you, the way you see fit. He was impressed by other work like this that you’ve done, and he wanted you to do something on par with that for him.”
“There was nothing I ever did that impressed my father. He just didn’t like that I didn’t come home to Merritt after college to look after Mim. This was his way of trying to control that—it just happened to come at a time when I’d decided moving home was what I wanted. So you can stop trying to grease whatever wheels you’re trying to grease,” she accused.
Quinn Camden’s bushy eyebrows arched somewhat helplessly. “I’m not trying to grease any wheels, and Mac really did admire the things you’ve done for vets and veterans’ organizations.”
“Sure,” she said flippantly, clear disbelief in her tone.
“Anyway,” he said, taking a turn at moving this along, “I think your grandmother isn’t planning to be involved in this. I think she’s counting on you and me working together.”
“Well, she might have to stop counting on that,” Clairy informed him.
He nodded once more. “I guess I’ll leave that for the two of you to sort out.”
“Do that,” she said stubbornly, and with a certainty that she would not be dealing with him from now on.
“Just let me know,” he said.
“Mim will.”
Another nod from him. “Okay, then.”
Clairy didn’t verbally ask him to leave, but she did clear the way to the front door.
He got the hint and went to the entryway.
But with one hand on the screen door to push it open, he turned back to her and said, “Honest to God—”
Clairy cut him off with a glare and a raise of her chin that dared him to go any further.
He took one more deep breath, gave her one more nod that acknowledged his acceptance that there was nothing he could say to soften her and finally walked out.
Unfortunately, Clairy was left with the image of broad shoulders that V’d down to a truly great male derriere.
But none of that mattered to her.
Because regardless of what a spectacular specimen of male flesh he might be, she still resented the guy with every ounce of her being.
