“June 14.”

Usually when I told people the date of the wedding, they assumed I meant June 14 in one year and several months. When I explained that it was June 14 less than three months away, they always responded with shock.

Shelly also responded with shock, her gaze moving to mine, holding it. “Three months? So long? Why the wait?”

I smiled at her typical atypical response. “I insisted on a big wedding.”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“Because Quinn and I get along so well. I thought it would be a good idea for us to experience a degree of suffering prior to taking vows.”

She gave me a once over, her expression flat, then she grunted. “You’re weird. I ordered you pancakes.”

“Thanks. What are you building?”

“I don’t know.” She dropped her hands to the counter and frowned at the Styrofoam creation. “Some kind of gate, I think.”

“That’s what I thought it might be. It reminds me of a gate I saw when I went to the Victoria and Albert museum in London. I like it.”

“Hey.”

We both looked up at the sound of Quinn’s voice and I gave him an automatic welcoming smile, which he returned. He paired it with that softness, the dreamy quality in his eyes that I usually found so disconcerting. Today, however, after not seeing the expression for several days, it felt like a cool, soothing balm to my itchy, uncomfortable, overactive imagination.

Quinn placed his helmet on the counter then cupped my jaw with a gloved hand, kissing me. It was a socially acceptable kiss for our surroundings, yet I couldn’t help but want more.

He pulled away, his eyes holding mine, a gentle smile on his features, then shifted his attention to his sister.

“Hey, Shelly. Nice gate.”

“Thanks. I like it. I think I’ll build it for real and give it to you guys as a wedding present.”

Quinn frowned—just a slight frown—and glanced at me. “You already told her?”

“No, I….”

“I took one look at her and guessed. She looked like she was preparing to tell me some big news.” Shelly gave me a wide smile and the expression looked out of place on her face. For a second I thought she was going to tussle my hair with affection as if I was a dog.

“Ah….” Quinn nodded and took the stool next to me.

His leg—hip to knee—pressed against mine. It was the closest we’d been in days. He smelled good, like Quinn. If we’d been alone I would have attacked him.

“How was the drive up?” He signaled for Viki, our usual waitress, as he addressed his question to Shelly.

“Fine.”

“Are you staying tonight?”

“No.”

“Did you order already?”

“Just for Janie and me. I didn’t know if you were going to eat pancakes with us or stick to that egg white omelet crap.” Shelly said this with no malice. In fact, for her, it was almost tender.

Viki approached, gave us all a wag of her unibrow, then rested her eyes on Quinn. “What’ll it be, handsome? The usual?”

“I’ll have the same as Janie. Blueberry pancakes, right?”

Viki nodded, scribbled on her notepad, poured coffee into our cups, then left.

I assumed all engagement talk was over and was about to change the subject to Shelly’s horses. But she surprised me—likely both of us—by asking, “Are you going to tell them?”

Quinn stiffened. I felt the change in him where our legs were pressed together. Then I watched him stall by sipping his coffee more slowly than usual. Finally, with no other way to avoid responding, he asked, “Who?”

“Mom and Dad. Are you going to tell them about Janie?”

I opened my mouth to inform them of my conversation with their mother, but Quinn spoke before I had a chance to. “Yes.”

“Don’t.” Shelly shook her head, her expression hard. “Don’t tell them.”

“Why not?” I blurted, leaning back in my seat so I could watch them both at the same time. “Why not tell them?”

Shelly didn’t look at me when she responded, her glacial glare boring into Quinn’s profile. “They don’t deserve to know.”

Quinn’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep sigh, though his back straightened. “You need to let it go, Shell. Des, the funeral…it was a long time ago.”

Her expression grew dark, agitated. “They disowned you, Quinn—at our brother’s funeral. You said they told you to leave, they kicked you out of the family, said you were dead to them. Why would you even consider sharing Janie with those people?”

Shelly’s words made me flinch, and my heart hurt for Quinn as unbidden images of him suffering surfaced in my mind’s eye. Quinn, no older than twenty-one or twenty-two, being kicked out of his brother’s funeral; a brother he loved; a brother whose death he felt responsible for.

I tried to reconcile Shelly’s words with the woman I’d spoken to on the phone, the one who taught high school calculus, who wanted to know what my favorite dessert was and insisted that we schedule dinner as soon as possible. The woman who wanted me to call her on the phone, and requested that I refer to her as Katherine.

Quinn’s eyes flickered to mine, then to his coffee cup. “It’s up to Janie.”

I studied them both, horrified with myself, wondering why I’d never thought to ask Quinn about the circumstances surrounding his prolonged separation from his parents before now. I wanted to hug him, kiss his neck, and tell him how I loved him. I wanted him to know how much he meant to me.

So I did.

He grew rigid again when my arms tightened around his torso, but he relaxed when I placed several quick kisses on his neck and whispered in his ear, “I love you, Quinn Sullivan. You are precious to me, and I will love you always. And if I die before you, I plan to haunt you.”

He glanced at me over his shoulder, his eyes sad but warm, and stole another quick kiss from me. “Ditto,” he said.

I ensnared his gaze and suggested, “Perhaps you could learn to make pottery so that posthumously we can use the wheel together in a sensual, mystically transcendent display of affection.”

I was rewarded with a grin and an expression that was considerably less melancholy when he responded, “Consider it done.”

***

I waited until Shelly used the bathroom to tell Quinn about my conversation with his mother. Shelly usually took fifteen minutes or more, which I felt was odd. I wondered what she did in there. It felt like a big mystery. I’d never asked her about it.

She excused herself, leaving cash on the counter for all three of our meals, “Can you watch my hat, Janie? I’m going to leave it here.”

I nodded. “Your hat is safe with me.”

“I know.” She said, then turned and walked away.

I watched her go then slipped my hand under Quinn’s arm into the crook of his elbow. “I have to tell you something. I was going to tell you last night, but you came home so late. Then, I was going to tell you this morning, but you left early.”

“What’s up?” he asked, not addressing his coming home late or his leaving early.

I decided to ignore both for now and just get to the point. “I spoke to your mother yesterday.”

His face went completely blank and something shuttered behind his eyes. After a beat, he said, “I see.”

“Was that okay? I thought it was, because on Wednesday you and I discussed it and you said ‘fine,’ which I figured meant ‘yes, that’s fine.’”

“Yes. It’s fine. You said you were going to do it.”

I released a breath and studied him; still no expression in his eyes or inflection in his voice. He may as well have been a robot.

“Do you want to know what we talked about?”

He shrugged, like he really didn’t care. “If it’s relevant.”

“Relevant?”

“If I need to know.”

“You never told me that she’s a math teacher. She teaches calculus.”

He nodded, just once. “That’s right.”

“Quinn….” I twisted my mouth to the side, my eyebrows pulling low as I searched his face for something, anything other than complete ambivalence. “Your mother and I scheduled a dinner; it looks like maybe two weeks from today. Is that okay?”

His eyes moved to my right, to the wall behind me. “That should be fine. I have some projects in Boston I should check on any way.”

I frowned at him, at his complete lack of emotion, then reached for his hand with both of mine and pulled it to my lap. It was warm even though his countenance was cool.

“We don’t have to do this, you know. I didn’t realize about the funeral; I didn’t understand about Des, what they said to you. I could just cancel and tell her I made a mistake.”

His eyes came back to mine then moved over my face in that way he frequently employed as if he was memorizing every detail. “It’s fine. We should do it.”

I was about to give him another out, at the very least a suggestion of postponement, when he used the hand I was holding to tug me forward and give me a kiss. This kiss was less appropriate than the one he’d given me when he arrived. He removed his hand from mine, gripped my h*ps with both of his, and pulled me forward until I was standing between his legs.