Yours at Midnight by Robin Bielman

Author:Robin Bielman [Bielman, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance, entangled publishing, cookie429, Extratorrents, Kat, one night stand, friends to lovers, secret family, ever after, secret baby, best friend, girl next door, novella, new year's eve
Publisher: Entangled Publishing, LLC (Ever After)
Published: 2012-12-10T13:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Quinn knelt at his brother’s headstone. Four years tomorrow. Myriad emotions surged through his bloodstream. Four years that sometimes felt like fourteen. Four years that sometimes felt like no time had passed at all.

The sun did little to warm his back. Drab, dark clouds flitted across the sky in patchwork with the somber blue.

He didn’t expect to feel solace this morning, but that was the only thing he could think of to explain the newfound quiet in his head. The past few days—of taking himself less seriously and getting a few things off his chest—had helped.

Lyric had helped.

She’d reignited that foolish dream of his—the one where he woke up every morning with her in his arms. With her effortless warmth and compassion, she’d given him the one thing he never thought he’d get back: hope. Her forgiveness fueled his own.

He’d tried talking to Francesca once—two years ago on New Year’s Eve—but she’d been more concerned with her cocktail dress than his feelings about his dead brother.

Probably why he’d picked her. No risk of heart damage there.

“Quinn?”

He stood and turned. “Julia?” She’d cut her long brown hair so it hung at her chin now, but there was no mistaking her big round eyes. Seeing her brought back a slew of emotions.

“Hi. Wow, it’s good to see you.” She hugged him.

“Good to see you, too. It’s been a while.”

His brother’s old girlfriend looked happy. Her smile reached the corners of her eyes; her face glowed like she’d just returned from a tropical vacation.

She glanced down at Oliver’s grave. “Yeah, it has.” She bent and placed a small bouquet of daisies on the long blades of grass intruding on his brother’s marker.

“What are you doing here? I mean not here, here. But Oak Hills,” she asked. “The last I heard, you were in New York.”

“I’m still there. Just home for the holidays.” He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he shoved them in the pockets of his jeans.

“Your parents must be thrilled.” Had she kept in touch with his parents more than he had? Probably. In the days after Oliver’s death, Quinn’s defense mechanisms had gone up, while Julia had opened her heart even wider.

“They are.” He didn’t want to get into the whole passing in mid-air thing, so he said, “Do you come here often?”

“Once a year, always on the thirtieth. I’m just too heartbroken on the thirty-first, and never wanted to visit Oliver feeling so sad. This is the last time, though.”

“How come?”

“I’m getting married next week.”

He smiled, but his stomach knotted for reasons he couldn’t quite identify. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks. You married?”

“Not yet.” Tie another one in his gut. What the hell was wrong with him? Yet? When had he ever thought about marriage?

Julia looked around the cemetery before her serious eyes settled back on him. “You staying at your parents’ place?”

“Yes.”

“Have you seen Lyric?”

He rocked back and forth. Why did her question surprise and baffle him? “I have. Why do you ask?”

“You’ve kept in touch with her?” She watched him for a few seconds, her head canted to the side.

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