Her Best Friend. Sarah Mayberry
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Quinn was free to love again. If he wanted to.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she said out loud.
Because she’d been waiting for Quinn Whitfield to notice her since she was fourteen years old. A full sixteen years of yearning, longing, jealousy and heartache. Long enough to know better.
She closed her eyes and pushed the weasel words down into a deep, dark corner of her mind. Because she did know better. Even if some aberrant, hope-springs-eternal, deluded part of her psyche refused to lay down and die, most of her knew the truth: Quinn had never seen her as anything other than his good friend. And nothing she ever did would change that.
SHE SLEPT BADLY and woke early. Her first thought was that Quinn was getting a divorce, her second that she now owned the Grand.
Great priorities. Not.
She lay in bed reviewing the evening’s momentous events, then started to formulate plans for the day ahead. The way she saw it, she had two options—hunt down Quinn and ask all the questions she hadn’t asked last night, or find Reg Hanover and talk him into giving her early access to the Grand.
She chose option B, because she might be a hopeless case where Quinn was concerned, but she wasn’t stupid. No matter how wonderful and sad and torturous it was to have him in town, tomorrow he would fly home to Sydney. The Grand was her future, her big dream come true. She needed to keep that fact top of mind no matter what other distractions were on hand.
By nine she was waiting out at the front of the council building, keeping watch for Reg’s distinctive beige Volvo. She saw him turn in to the parking lot and waited until he’d parked before walking toward him.
“Ms. Parker,” he said stiffly as he exited her car. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”
Amy spared a glance for today’s tie—a sketchily drawn blue marlin leaping on a purple background—before focusing on Reg’s face.
“I want to talk to you about getting access to the Grand before settlement.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.” His tone implied that he thought her request was inappropriate, to say the least.
Amy gave him her brightest smile. “I don’t see why not. It happens all the time, and it’s not as though there’s a tenant. The place has been empty for years. Surely it’s to the community’s benefit that the restoration start as soon as possible?”
Reg opened his mouth to reject her again.
“Before you say no, I should warn you that I’ll be back tomorrow to ask the same thing. And the day after that, and so on. I’ve always been stubborn like that.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”
“I know, but I also know where you live, Reg.”
He glared at her, his thick eyebrows meeting in the middle. She could see his desire to punish her for last night’s defeat warring with his need to be rid of her. She held her breath, waiting to see which way he would jump.
Ten minutes later she was pushing the chrome-and-glass front doors of the Grand wide open. She stepped into the dusty foyer and glanced around.
“Honey, I’m home,” she called, her voice echoing in the empty space.
It was tempting to gloat a little, but she’d done her celebrating last night. She rolled up the sleeves on her bright orange sweater and performed her first act as owner of the Grand, tearing down the tattered yellow paper that had masked the front windows for years. Light streamed into the foyer, unkindly highlighting the old cinema’s many flaws.
“Don’t worry, baby. We’ll put you right.”
An hour later she was dragging a small mountain of damp cardboard out to the rear parking lot. She’d arranged for an industrial-size rubbish bin to be delivered first thing Monday, but she was too impatient to wait until then to get started. She hefted the cardboard onto the pile she’d created near the door just as a dark sedan pulled up next to her rusty old station wagon. It took her a moment to recognize Quinn behind the wheel. She dusted her hands down the front of her jeans as he exited his car.
“I should have known you’d be here,” he said.
He was wearing faded jeans and scuffed brown boots with a charcoal-gray sweater. Her heart did stupid, teenage things as she took in his broad shoulders and lean hips and wry smile.
“No point in wasting time.”
“How much rent are the council charging you to have early access?”
“None.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “How’d you pull that off?”
“I have my ways,” she said mysteriously.
He looked amused. “Sure you do. You want a hand?”
He’d caught her off guard. “It’s nice of you to offer, but it’s mostly donkey work. Clearing out all the crap the old tenants have left behind.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to chew up all your time. You’re only home for the weekend.”
Plus I’m a little out of practice putting on my game face when you’re around. Witness the fact that I’ve got goose bumps just because you’re standing a few feet away, smiling at me.
“I came home to help you, Ames. I’m all yours for the weekend.” He walked past her toward the entrance. “Want to show me what needs doing?”
He disappeared inside the building. She stared after him, thrown.
It’s no big deal, Parker. A few hours aren’t going to
kill you. It’s not like you’re going to suddenly jump on him after sixteen years of self-restraint.
Sliding her hands into her back pockets, she followed him into the corridor.
The power wouldn’t be connected until Monday, but there was enough light filtering through the archway to the foyer and the propped-open back door to see what they were up against. She gestured toward the moldering piles of carpet, tattered cartons, broken furniture and other flotsam and jetsam littering the floor. The worst of it had been masked by the shadows last night, but now it was revealed for what it was: a lot of backbreaking work.
“Like I said, it’s mostly donkey work.”
He surveyed the space with his hands on his hips. Then he glanced at her. “You realize you’re going to owe me dinner after this, right?”
“How does McDonald’s sound?”
“Inadequate.”
“I’ll see what else I can come up with.”
Quinn gave her a dry look before reaching for the waistband of his sweater and pulling it over his head. He was wearing a plain white T-shirt underneath, the soft fabric molding his shoulders and chest and belly. She deliberately looked away.
Nothing to see here. Please move on.
“Let’s get this party started, city boy,” she said.
IT HAD BEEN A LONG TIME since Quinn had used his muscles for anything except lifting weights at the gym. It felt good to do something real for a change. To get out of his head and lose himself in the rhythms of physical labor.
By midday they’d cleared more than half of the debris from the main theatre and the balcony section. They walked across the road to get sandwiches for lunch and sat on the marble steps to eat, talking occasionally but mostly just eating and thinking their own thoughts.
For the first time in a long time, something inside Quinn relaxed. He felt … okay. As though he was exactly where he needed to be.
He glanced at Amy. She had