The Good Girl's Second Chance

Manny wiggled his white eyebrows. They grew every which way and he never bothered to trim them. “Aren’t you gonna ask me why?”

Quinn gave a low chuckle. “We both know you’ll tell me anyway.”

Manny snorted. “Yes, I will. I’ve spent over a decade makin’ sure you learn what you need to know. No reason to change now.”

Quinn only looked at him, waiting.

Manny announced, “Romance is like everything else worth doin’ in life. You gotta follow up, put some energy into it, or it goes nowhere.”

“I don’t know why you’re telling me this.”

“I’ll give you a hint. Chloe Winchester. Only a fool would pass up his chance with a woman like that.”

“That’s given that he had a chance in the first place.”

“See there? That’s defeat talkin’. Quinn the Crusher, he spits in the face of defeat.”

“Quinn the Crusher retired, remember?”

“From the Octagon, sure. But not from life. Last time I checked, you still got a pulse.”

“Leave it alone, Manny.”

Manny did no such thing. “A woman like that, she lets you in her house in the middle of the night, you got a chance. You got more than a chance.”

“You need to stop sticking your nose in where it doesn’t belong. Somebody’s likely to break it.”

“Won’t be the first time.” A raspy cackle. “Or the second or the third.” Manny swiped a gnarled, big-knuckled hand back over his buzz cut and then took a pull off the longneck in his other fist. “I will repeat. Momentum is everything.”

Quinn got up from his deck chair and headed for the French doors. “Night, Manny.”

“Where you going?”

“I’m halfway through A Tale of Two Cities.” He had it in audio book, and tried to get in a few chapters a night. Little by little, he was working his way through the great books of Western literature.

Manny wasn’t impressed with Quinn’s highbrow reading. “It’s just dandy, you improving your mind and all, but a man needs more than a book to keep him warm at night.”

There was no winning an argument with Manny. Quinn knew that from years of experience. “Lock up when you come in.” He stepped inside and shut the doors before the old fighter could get going again.

* * *

The following Monday, Chloe was selling new carpet to Agnes Oldfield, a pillar of the Justice Creek community and a longtime friend of her mother’s, when who should walk in the door but Manny Aldovino? Quinn’s little girl was with him, looking like a pint-size princess in an ankle-length dress with a hot pink top, a wide white sash at the waist and a gathered cotton skirt decorated with rickrack in a rainbow of bright colors.

Chloe ignored the fluttering sensation beneath her breastbone that came with being reminded of Quinn, and greeted the newcomers with a cheery “Hi, Manny. Annabelle. Have a look around. I’ll be right with you. Crayons and paper in the hutch by the window treatment display, in case Annabelle would like to color. And there’s coffee, too.” She gestured at the table not far from the door.

“Sounds good,” said Manny. He winked at Agnes. “How you doin’ there, Agnes?”

“Mr. Aldovino.” Agnes gave Manny an icy, dismissive nod. She’d always been a terrible snob and she looked down on anyone she didn’t consider of her social standing. Also, Quinn’s father’s first wife, Sondra, had been Agnes’s beloved niece. Agnes thoroughly disapproved of Quinn’s mother, Willow, and of all of Willow’s children. Now Agnes pointedly turned her back on Manny and said to Chloe, “Please continue, dear.”

Agnes’s attitude could use adjusting. But Chloe reminded herself that she needed the business and she couldn’t afford to offend a customer. She sent Manny an apologetic smile and waited on the old woman, who wanted new carpet for three rooms. She’d already settled on a quality plush in a pretty dove gray. Chloe accepted her deposit and gave her the number to call to arrange a time to have the spaces measured.

In her eighties, Agnes always dressed as though she’d been invited to tea with the Queen of England. She adjusted the giant, jeweled lizard brooch on her pink silk Chanel suit and said, “Thank you, my dear.”

“Have a great day, Agnes.”

The old lady sailed out the door.

“Wound a little tight, that one,” Manny remarked drily once Agnes was gone.

With a sigh and a shrug, Chloe joined the old man and the little girl at one of the worktables. “Now. What can I do for you?”

Annabelle glanced up from coloring an enormous, smiling yellow sun. Chloe saw Quinn in the shape of his daughter’s eyes and the directness of her gaze. Really, the little girl was downright enchanting, with that heart-shaped face and those chipmunk cheeks. Chloe felt a bittersweet tug at her heartstrings. Annabelle reminded her of the children she should have had.

But after that first time Ted punched her, having kids had never felt right. And Ted hadn’t really cared about children anyway. He wanted his wife focused on him.

“I want a princess room,” the little girl announced. Chloe gladly put away her grim thoughts of Ted to focus on the sprite in the darling dress. “Manny says you can make me one.”

“Yes, I can.”

“I want all the princesses. Belle and Merida and—” Manny chuckled and tapped the little girl on the arm. She glanced up at him. “But, Manny—”

“I know, I know. You want all the princesses and you’re gonna get ’em, but what did we talk about?”

Annabelle huffed. “To wait my turn and not be rude.”

The old man beamed. “That’s right.”

Annabelle leaned close to him, batted those big eyes and whispered, “But I want my princess room.”

“It’s yours. Promise. But the grown-ups have to talk now.”

“Okay.” Annabelle bent to her smiling sun again.

Manny spoke to Chloe then. “Quinn’s pretty busy getting the business off the ground.” His gym, Prime Sports and Fitness, was just down the street from Chloe’s showroom, at the intersection of West Central and Marmot Drive. “You know Quinn, don’t you?”

“Of course. We...went to school together.”

“Right. So Quinn takes care of the business. I look after Annabelle and run the house. You ever seen the inside of our house?”

Chloe blinked away a mental image of Quinn, up on his knees between her legs. Quinn, gloriously naked, his beautiful blue-green eyes burning down at her. “Erm, your house? No, I haven’t been inside.”

“It’s a good house, big rooms, great light, four thousand square feet. But built in the eighties, and looks like it. Too much ceramic tile and ugly carpet.”

“So it needs a little loving care?” she asked, trying to sound cool and professional and fearing the old man could see right inside her head to the X-rated images of Annabelle’s dad.

“What it needs is a boatload of cash and a good decorator. Starting on the ground floor and moving on up.”

“You want to redo every room?” That would be good for her. Very good. Not only for the money, but for Your Way’s reputation. She could put up a whole new website area, if Quinn and Manny agreed, showing the before and after of at least the main rooms. Their housing development was an upscale one. However, like Quinn’s house, most of the homes were more than twenty years old. Doing a full-on interior redesign always got the neighbors’ attention, got them thinking that their houses could stand a little sprucing up, too. She could end up with a lot of new business from the job Manny described. She asked, “What about the bathrooms and the kitchen?”