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  She looked at each of her brothers and their faces were superserious. “What things? What changes? What—what are y’all talking about?” she asked.

  All eyes shifted to their father.

  As he began to speak, laying out the new rules of Kaitlyn’s life, she felt like her world was moving in slow motion. Soon the buzz in her ears was so loud that she saw her father’s lips move, but her mind was locked on certain words and phrases.

  “Get a job. . . . Pay your own bills. . . . Move to a cheaper place. . . .”

  Kaitlyn rushed to her feet in protest, just before she felt light-headed and collapsed to the floor. This cannot be life, she thought as she passed out.

  CHAPTER 2

  Quinton “Quint” Wells stepped back with the router tool in his hand as he eyed the detailed edge he had just placed on the armoire built of maple. All he had left to do was light sanding and then the application of a clear stain to protect it before he would surprise his daughter, Lei, with it. It was the perfect piece for the empty corner in her room—the space where her dollhouse had sat.

  Quint smiled as he shook his head and stepped back up to trace her name carved on the doors in elaborate scroll. My little girl is growing up, he thought.

  Lei turned twelve and declared she was too old for dolls and a huge six-foot dollhouse that he had built for her when she was three years old. Quint respected her wishes and moved the dollhouse into his work shed, but it had been so hard not to try and convince her otherwise.

  For the past two years, he was a man raising a daughter alone, and he spent many a moment trying to relate to the many differences between them. The many, many differences.

  Glancing at his watch, he tossed the router onto the workbench and wiped his hands on his jeans before leaving the brightly lit work shed, which was just big enough for his tools and whatever project he was working on.

  Hitting the switch, Quint left the shed and locked up before crossing the paved parking lot to walk to the rear entrance of the twenty-unit apartment building, where he worked as the manager and occasional handyman. Basically, he made sure everyone paid their rent on time and kept everything in working order—either by doing it himself or contracting someone else to do it.

  It was the only apartment complex in the small town of Holtsville and was set so far back off the main road of the downtown area that most people outside of the town limits did not know about it. It offered plenty of privacy for what it lacked in luxury. It was an afterthought of a wealthy hometown boy who moved on to bigger and better business ventures and paid Quint to give a damn about the business he didn’t. It was such an afterthought for the owner that he never even named the complex.

  There were ten units on each level of the brick structure, with black wrought-iron stairs at both ends of the building. The stairs ran up to the balcony and led up to wrap around it, running across the front doors of the top ten units. The paved parking lot, landscaping, and shutters gave the small complex a charming, homey feel. It didn’t look that much out of place next to the single-family and modular homes on the road.

  Ever since he accepted the position, Quint made it his business to make sure common-sense rules were set and abided by. He learned early that it just saved everybody involved a bunch of headaches. So far, he’d only evicted one family because the teenage son was selling weed out of the apartment.

  Thankfully, the tenants spread the word early and fast that he didn’t tolerate foolishness. He simply wasn’t going to have someone’s badass teen or live-in lovers drawing the wrong element into the complex and making his residents—including his daughter—feel unsafe.

  The job fulfilled no great passion of his, but it paid him well while being able to be home more for his adolescent daughter and find the time to work on his cabinetmaking. Those were his two great passions . . . and in that order.

  Quint changed his mind and walked around to the front of the brick building. The sun was just setting and only a few residents were outside enjoying the final days of summer. He smiled and waved to them before making a mental note to call a painting contractor to come in and paint the apartment above his, since it was finally vacated by a young man who hadn’t paid rent in two months.

  But that’s for tomorrow. Right now, I’m starving. He gave the front of the two-story building another quick look before pulling out his key to unlock the front door of the first-floor apartment.

  “Quint . . . Quint.”

  He turned and looked over his broad shoulder as one of the tenants climbed from her small bright pink compact car. Quint bit back a smile and shook his head slightly as he watched Mrs. Harper walk around the small car and open the passenger door to pull her Yorkie terrier from the dog seat. She tucked the dog under her arm as he walked across the paved parking lot to meet her. Mrs. Harper was a petite and plump elderly woman, and her silvery blue hair surprisingly fit her ageless, dark chocolate complexion.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Harper,” Quint said, squinting his deep-set, hooded eyes as he watched her pop the trunk.

  “You really are a good-looking man,” she said in wonder.

  As if she never saw me before, and said that before . . . and next she’ll say . . .

  “You really need to find a woman to soak up all that handsome before old age dries it up like prunes, baby.”

  Quint nodded his smoothly shaven bald head. “Yes ma’am,” he said as if he agreed.

  And that was a lie. That last thing Quint wanted in his life was a relationship. His casual relationship with female friends fulfilled the only thing he desired from a woman—and that he would allow a woman to desire from him. Anything else would open his daughter up to possibly being hurt, and he wasn’t taking a chance with her heart while on a quest for his own.

  Not after what Vita did to her. Not ever after what Vita did to her. . . .

  “Quint, grab my packages for me,” she said in her soft voice. “It’s hard to manage them and hold my Fifi.”

  Quint literally shook himself and flexed his broad shoulders to come out of the pain of the past. He moved to grab the grocery bags from the trunk and fought the urge to remind her that she could just toss Fifi in one of the bags . . . since the dog had died last year and was stuffed like a teddy bear via a taxidermist. He just smiled a little and shook his head as he followed her to her first-floor apartment, directly next to his.

  “We’re home, Fifi,” Mrs. Harper said as she stepped up on the curb and unlocked her front door.

  Quint no longer found it odd that the woman found comfort in pretending the pooch wasn’t dead and had no ability to answer her—but at least in life, it could’ve barked in response.

  As long as she ain’t asking me to talk with or hold or walk Fifi . . .

  His elderly neighbor crossed the room to set Fifi on an embroidered dog bed, which sat at the foot of her pale pink recliner in front of the dated floor model television. He ignored the various shades of pink décor as he rushed his tall and broad figure down the short hall to her kitchen to set the bags on the round kitchen table.

  “You going for a run tonight?” she asked, coming into the kitchen to begin removing her packages.

  Quint got a rush just thinking about tossing on some sweats and doing his usual five-mile run across the length of Holtsville, but he shook his head. “No, not tonight. Lei has a movie she wants me to watch with her,” he answered, admitting to himself the little bit of dread he felt because he knew it would be an hour and a half to two hours of something either emotional or centered around fashion or dancing. Girly things.

  But he would do it. If he had to sit and watch some little knuckleheaded teen star doing some bad acting, then he would suffer through it for his kid.

  Quint turned to leave and his shoulder brushed against one of her many picture frames on the wall. Like with all of the one-bedroom apartments, there wasn’t much living space. Quint felt as if the walls were caving in on his six-foot-two, two-hundred-pound frame. This was especially true, since
Mrs. Harper had packed into the small space the majority of the furniture and knickknacks from the home she had sold after her husband of fifty years had passed two years ago.

  “Night, Mrs. Harper,” he said over his shoulder, quickly taking two large steps toward the front door.

  “Hold on!” she called out.

  Quint kept going, right on through the door, before she had a chance to press a dollar into his hand like he was a twelve-year-old boy. He knew she meant well, but he was definitely too grown a man to be tipped for doing an elderly woman a favor.

  He closed her door securely and made his way down the concrete walkway to his own front door. As soon as he entered the two-bedroom apartment, he spotted Lei already sitting on the leather couch, waiting for him with the TV and DVD remotes next to her. Paper plates and a bottle of strawberry soda sat next to the box of pizza and buffalo wings.

  She looked up at him and smiled, her cheeks mirroring his dimples—the only feature they shared. Everything else about his daughter was an exact replica of her mother and his ex-wife, Vita: the round face and full features, her short height and thicker frame, which was developing far faster than her twelve years. She was Vita’s Mini-Me.

  So why did she leave her behind?

  Quint’s gut tightened at his now-familiar anger about his ex-wife packing up and deciding to move to Hawaii with her new boyfriend when he secured a position on a semipro football team—leaving her daughter behind to move in with him.

  The difficulty hadn’t been his becoming a full-time father. He had been in the home with his wife and daughter until the prior year, when he had caught Vita cheating and then ended the marriage. The difficulty came in helping his daughter heal from being hurt and feeling abandoned. That had taken a long time, and Quint would never forgive Vita for that.

  Selfish bitch.

  “So what we got tonight?” he asked, dropping down on the sofa beside her as he reached over to pull her ponytail playfully.

  “An oldie but goodie,” Lei said, picking up the remote to turn on the DVD player.

  Quint leaned back against the plush sofa in surprise when the opening scenes of Beverly Hills Cop filled the forty-two-inch television screen.

  “Hey, this my favorite movie. I thought it was your pick?” he asked.

  Lei shook her head. “Daddy, puh-leeze. Anything I wanted to see and you woulda been asleep thirty minutes in,” she teased him, sitting forward on the couch to open the pizza box.

  Quint made a fist to offer her a dap, but then he paused and reached for the remote to place the movie on pause. A girl’s relationship with her father affected how she dealt with her relationships. “Uhm, Lei . . . listen. I really appreciate you looking out for your pops and all, but I just want you to know that I promised you it was your movie pick . . . and—and you didn’t have to give up what you want to make me happy,” he said, accepting the plate she handed him, which was piled high with pizza slices and wings.

  “Daddy, it’s not even that serious,” Lei drawled as she shrugged. “It’s just a movie.”

  “But I want you to remember that what you want is important,” Quint stressed, motioning with his hand as he tried to stay true to what he hoped was a classic Cosby Show moment.

  Lei side-eyed him. “Is this about boys?” she asked, sounding bored before taking a bite of the pizza.

  Quint nodded. “Hell yeah,” he stressed, his face dead serious. “For the first eighteen years of my thirty years on this earth, I was one of those same horny boys who played all kind of games in a girl’s mind to get what I wanted . . . and I don’t want you falling for that shit.”

  Lei wiped her lips with a napkin. “So after those eighteen years, did you stop the mind games, or did you just become a horny man playing mind games?” she asked, her full eyes twinkling.

  Quint held up his hands as he chewed on pizza. “In those two years before me and your moms . . . got . . . married,” he finished weakly as he saw the light dim in her eyes a bit at the mention of her mother.

  Vita barely found the time to call their daughter. She hadn’t once asked her to come for a visit or made the time to travel back to South Carolina to see her.

  “I got Beverly Hills Cop, one and two, Daddy,” she said, picking up the remote again to start the movie—and change the subject.

  Quint let it drop. He didn’t know what to say to erase the truth of Vita’s actions. “One and two—”

  “But not the third one,” she assured him.

  “It sucked,” they said in unison and then laughed.

  Later that night after their movie marathon, Quint did change out of his jeans and T-shirt into oversized basketball shorts, a hoodie, and his favorite running sneakers. Grabbing his iPod, cell phone, and his keys, he slid them deep into the pockets of his shorts as he put on his stereo headphones. Leaving his bedroom at the rear of the apartment, he knocked on Lei’s door.

  He made sure to pause, not wanting to make the same mistake of knocking and opening like he had done when she first moved in. Her high-pitched squeal and mad dash onto the floor had scared the hell out of him. He learned then that his little girl was growing up, and the rules had changed.

  “Come in.”

  Quint opened the door. Lei was lying across her bed with her thumbs flying across the keyboard of her cell phone.

  “I’m going for a run,” he said, pulling his hood up over his head and earphones.

  “’Kay.”

  She didn’t even glance in his direction.

  Maybe I shoulda just texted her.

  Quint closed the door and made his way out of the apartment, being sure to lock the door behind him. Since it was late, he decided to do only a mile or two instead of five. Mainly, he didn’t want to leave Lei home alone for too long. He wasn’t worried about his safety at all. Boxing was another of the physical activities he enjoyed to stay fit, and he would straight knock a fool out for trying him.

  He filled his ears with Rick Ross as he jumped up and down, flexed his shoulders, and rolled his head to warm up his body. A few knee hugs and lunges and he started off. He headed out of the parking lot at a brisk walk, before upping it to a jog, and then he burst into a full-on run on the sidewalks of Holtsville’s small Main Street area. Since darkness had fallen, there wasn’t much traffic. However, Quint ran against the flow of traffic because the town served as a major thoroughfare from the much larger cities of Summerville and then Charleston to Walterboro, the next biggest city on the other side of Holtsville.

  He made the left turn by Donnie’s Diner, a Holtsville landmark, and soon continued on past Holtsville Elementary School. His cell phone vibrated in his pocket and he started to ignore it. “Might be Lei,” he said aloud, stopping to run in place to maintain his heart rate as he pulled the phone from his pocket.

  It was a text. He opened it: U BUSY?

  Joni.

  He curved his lips into a smile as he continued running in place. Joni was fine, sexy . . . and uncomplicated. No phone calls throughout the days. No desire to be wined and dined. No misconceptions of “it” being any more than what it was. Two adults fulfilling each other’s desires . . . no strings attached.

  Joni never contacted him unless she had some work for him to do for a couple of hours. He stopped running as he thought about taking her up on her offer. She’s hell with that tongue. . . .

  He looked back from the direction he had come. He could run and be to Joni’s house on Frontland Circle in less than five minutes . . . but there was no way in hell he would have the stamina to run back afterward. No way in hell.

  But. . .

  Quint texted her back: Be there in ten minutes.

  I’ll run home and get my truck, instead.

  Bzzz.

  Quint opened the text: HURRY.

  He headed back the way he came, and soon he was turning through the short brick columns flanking the entrance to the apartment complex. He pulled up short when he spotted Mr. Hanson from Apartment 12 coming out of the apartm
ent of Mrs. Kilton. He wondered what Mrs. Hanson and Sergeant Kilton would think about it. Mrs. Hanson worked at night, and Sergeant Kilton was on a tour. While the cats are away . . .

  Quint wasn’t one to judge, and he understood the childish urges of most men. However, having been on the receiving end of unknowingly sharing his wife’s goodies, he didn’t respect cheating. An adult walked away from a relationship that wasn’t fulfilling, emotionally or sexually. They didn’t find a side piece to supposedly do the job.

  But that was their problem. Not mine.

  “Hey, Quint,” Mr. Hanson said, walking past him to head for the stairs. “Damn good night, ain’t it?”

  Quint said nothing and just nodded as he pulled out his keys as he moved to the door of his apartment.

  “Uh . . . Quint.”

  He turned to find the tall and thin older man coming back down the few steps he climbed to walk over to him.

  “Yeah?” Quint asked.

  “I was just dropping off their mail that was put in our box by mistake,” Mr. Hanson said before laughing nervously.

  “Huh?” Quint said, playing crazy.

  The man looked surprised. “Uhm . . . nothing . . . n-never mind,” he stammered before turning to jog up the stairs.

  Quint just shook his head as he entered the apartment. “Leave me out of that shit,” he muttered as he headed for Lei’s room.

  Man, save them lies for your wife.

  He raised his hand to knock on his daughter’s door, but he turned his head at the sound of the toilet flushing to look at the bathroom door across the hall. He continued down the hall to his master bedroom, which was decorated in various shades of charcoal with black leatherlike accents. He felt sweaty from the run and decided on a quick shower before he headed to Joni’s.

  Jerking off the earphones, he tossed his keys, wallet, and cell phone on the bed before rushing out of his running clothes and boxers. Naked, he strode across the slightly disheveled room to his en suite. It was relatively small for his height and athletic build, but he didn’t complain. He was a simple man; and for him a bathroom was a place to wash and relieve himself. It didn’t take a minimansion-sized room for that.