Yours at Midnight by Robin Bielman Page A

His gaze fell to her mouth. He took a step back.
    “Did you tell him? Did you tell the guy that got you pregnant he was going to be a dad?”
    Lyric shut her eyes. If it hadn’t been for the car at her back, holding her up, she would have slumped to the ground. She hadn’t prepared long enough for this moment. The hundreds of scenarios she’d dreamed about weren’t enough when a living, breathing Quinn stood in front of her and she saw him differently now.
    He wasn’t a loner, he was lonely. He wasn’t bitter, he was grieving. He wasn’t uncaring, he was sorry.
    “No,” she whispered.
    “How come?” he asked, so full of compassion that she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting him with the truth—yet he also took a small step back and shook his head.
    She looked down at the asphalt and let her purse slip from her shoulder to her feet. “He left me. Didn’t want me. I didn’t want to screw up his life, so I decided not to tell him.”
    Quinn took her hands in his. “The guy’s a jackass.”
    “Not really. He gave me Max.”
    “Does anyone know?”
    His questions were getting harder and harder to swallow. Lyric gulped. If he kept thinking about it long enough, would he think to ask the right question?
    “No one knows who Max’s dad is but me, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
    “You’re positive it’s not the ass in the coffee shop, though, right?” Quinn held tight to her hands like he needed to feel her answer as well as hear it.
    “He’s not an ass. He was very nice and—”
    “But you didn’t sleep with him.”
    She slipped her hands out of his and picked up her purse. “I didn’t realize whatever is going on between us meant you got to ask me about my sex life.”
    “Answer the question.”
    “You can shove your questions—”
    “Lyric.” He cupped her cheek and stroked his thumb back and forth.
    Heat spread through her like a lit fuse. “What do you want from me?”
    “For starters, while I’m here, no seeing other guys.”
    Like she saw other guys. “You’re here for what, four more days?”
    “Right. So it should be easy for you.”
    She narrowed her eyes. Nothing about her feelings for Quinn was easy.
    …
    The next day, Quinn walked over to Caroline and Douglas’s with life-size cardboard cutouts of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. His mother had bought them for the New Year’s Eve party, before she’d left.
    His mom had sounded good on the telephone. They’d talked for longer than they had in a long time. He’d shared with her his need to reconcile the past so he could move forward. He’d apologized for his long absence, too, and told her the details of the car accident. To his surprise, she wasn’t angry with him. She’d asked him to stay home until she and his dad got back, but Noble needed him in the office on the morning of the second.
    “Hello?” he called out, then poked his head through the open kitchen door.
    “Quinn? Come on in.” Caroline’s eyes brightened. “Oh, those are perfect.” She clapped her hands together before taking Elvis. “Your mother is the best.”
    “She says the same about you.”
    “We rub off on each other.” She put Elvis in the corner and returned to the stove. “Chili’s almost ready. You hungry?”
    He put Marilyn beside Elvis and took a seat at the kitchen island. “Sure. Where is everyone?”
    “You mean where is Lyric?” She looked over her shoulder at him with expert mom vision that said she knew he still had a crush on Lyric. Her sparkling eyes had always read him with just a little too much ease.
    “Uh, okay.”
    “She had a client to visit. Everyone else went ice skating.” She glanced at the large decorative wall clock. “They should be back around five.”
    “Does she ever take a day off?” Something stirred inside him. Lyric had always put others before herself, and he imagined her business did well because of it.
    “On occasion. But she’s always on call. This particular family has had a