The Major Gets it Right Read online

  They were eyes that Clairy remembered all too well looking at her as if she was an ugly bug he shouldn’t have to be bothered with.

  The sound of a car horn honking drew Clairy out of her scrutiny of the person she’d always considered her enemy.

  “That must be Harry?” her grandmother said, making it a question she aimed at Clairy.

  “It is,” Clairy confirmed after a quick glance through the screen door and a wave to the former town doctor.

  With that confirmation, Mim said to Quinn Camden, “I’ll have to leave Clairy to tell you about the will, the library, the foundation...well, everything.” Then the older woman turned back to Clairy and said, “Will you do that, honey?”

  Clairy recoiled. “Me?” she blurted out in unveiled repugnance.

  “Please,” Mim said, making the single word more an edict than a request.

  And what could Clairy say? That since she was six years old she’d wished this guy off the planet? That now, when the wound from her lack of any meaningful relationship with her father was reopened by his death, the last thing she needed was to have anything to do with the biggest cause of that poor relationship? That that was asking too much? That Mim should have an inkling of that and help her stay away from Quinn Camden, not shove him in her face?

  No, she couldn’t say any of that.

  Instead, she said a chilly “I guess...”

  At which point Mim clasped one of Quinn Camden’s boulder-like biceps and said, “I’m sorry to have to run, but we’ll talk soon. Mac would be so thrilled that you answered the call...”

  Then the older woman rushed out of the living room, pausing only a split second to kiss Clairy’s cheek. She whispered, “I know, I know, but please be good—it’s what your father wanted,” then went out the front door and left Clairy alone with Quinn Camden. And the full bucket of loathing that Clairy had for him.

  Loathing and a sudden awareness of how she looked...

  No makeup, her hair all askew, ragbag clothes.

  Not the way she wanted to be seen by anyone, let alone by someone who had always had the advantage over her.

  It was Quinn Camden who broke the silence then. “Clairy... I figured as much from the red hair.”

  Or from her grandmother calling her by name—which Clairy thought was more likely, because she didn’t believe there was anything about her that would have spurred recognition in him when, all those years growing up, she’d been invisible to this guy. How unlikely was it that he had any recollection of her one way or another?

  Oh, how she’d been hoping her grandmother would deal with him so she didn’t have to!

  But here he was, dumped in her lap...

  For now, anyway.

  Just do this and then Mim can deal with him from here on, she told herself.

  So, reluctantly, she left the entryway to join him in the living room.

  Still keeping her distance, she stayed standing and didn’t invite him to sit down, either.

  But just as she was about to get to the point, Quinn Camden said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  The obligatory condolences. Coming from him, it made Clairy bristle. “I imagine it’s your loss, too, isn’t it?” she said with an edge to her voice. “Everyone knows he thought of you as his son. And since you spent more time with him than I ever did—”

  “Let’s say it’s a loss to us both,” Quinn interjected.

  She just wanted this guy out of her house!

  And the only way to do that was to get on with her assignment from her grandmother.

  So, not worrying if she was being rude, she said, “Mim didn’t say whether or not she told you about my father’s will.” She didn’t give him the opportunity to respond; she just launched into it. “I didn’t know this, but a few years ago he bought the building that Merritt’s original library was in. He bought it so that after his death it could be turned into the Robert McKinnon Military Memorial Library and Foundation. He left all of his money and tangible assets to that, and asked that I move back to Merritt to set it up, oversee the library and memorial, and run the foundation that he wants to aid veterans and their families.”

  She paused but, again, not long enough for Quinn to speak.

  “The will also asks that with whatever time from your duties you can spare, you help with the inception of the library and memorial that will—first and foremost—honor him, his military career and legacy. His wishes were for you to make sure he’s portrayed the way he would want to be portrayed. He also wanted you and your military service to be highlighted, and to have your family’s service well represented, too. Once that’s done, the rest of the library will be for Montana veterans past, present and future who would like to be a part of it—that will fall back into my job description because he didn’t expect you to be taken away from your own service long enough to keep up with that,” she explained, hearing the formality in what she’d said, the lack of warmth, the aloofness. And not caring that that was the way she’d said it.

  For a moment, Quinn still didn’t respond. He just stood in the center of the living room that was in transitional disarray, his arms crossed over his middle, his handsome face somber.

  Then, with a note in his deep voice that made it seem as if he wasn’t sure he should say it, he said, “I know. Mac told me when he bought the old library building and what he wanted done with it, what he wanted you to do, what he wanted me to do. We’ve talked about it since then. He gave me things of his that he wants put on display. He told me what he has stored in the attic here so I’d know to look for more of it... What to look for...”

  “Of course he did,” Clairy muttered dryly.

  How stupid was she to have believed her father would have left his valued protégé in the dark just because she hadn’t known a single thing about any of this until she’d read the will? And when would she learn?

  “I’m sorry...” Quinn muttered.

  “For what? That you were his pride and joy? That’s what you worked for, wasn’t it?”

  Clairy regretted the outburst the minute she let it loose.

  And she had no idea why it didn’t raise the satisfied smirk from Quinn that it would have raised years ago. Or—even more—why it softened his expression instead.

  “I wouldn’t say I was working to be his pride and joy. And for your sake...for starters, it is one of the things I’m sorry happened,” he said quietly.

  Oh, sure, and she believed that as much as she believed she didn’t look a mess at that moment.

  Quinn Camden did seem to have mastered the art of appearing sincere, though. She’d give him that. Which she considered actually more dangerous than how he’d been as a kid, when he’d been too cocky to conceal anything. Now she had to wonder what he was covering up, because sincerity from him had to be camouflage for something.

  “Anyway,” she said, skipping past what she considered nothing more than a forced apology, “obviously Mim is happy that you’re honoring my father’s wishes, and the two of you can go on from here.”

  “Meaning you don’t want anything to do with me.”

  It was a statement of fact that Clairy saw no reason to deny because it was the truth.

  “I figured I’d left some bad blood with you,” he said. “But maybe not how deep it goes.”

  She just stared at him.

  “It goes pretty deep, doesn’t it?” he observed.

  Clairy didn’t disabuse him of that notion, either.

  He nodded slowly. “Okay,” he said, seeming to accept the situation.

  But why shouldn’t he just accept it? How she felt, how his role in her father’s life had affected her, didn’t matter to him—and never had. Why should it have, when his goals were being accomplished? So what if it had been at her expense? So what if his tramping over her had left marks?

  “For what it’s w
orth,” he continued, “I’ve taken stock of some things recently and... Well, the way things were with you and your dad and me, that’s been one of them.”

  Sure it has, Clairy thought.

  “And I’m genuinely sorry,” he reiterated, emphasizing the word that had already been bandied about a lot.

  As if her lack of belief in him and in anything he was saying showed on her face, he said, “You haven’t done anything you regret?”

  Opening the door just now to you.

  But she didn’t say that. She said, “You expect me to believe that you regret what you did—willfully—for years? When you got exactly what you wanted? Now, all of a sudden, you’re sorry? Please,” she said facetiously.

  He nodded again. “I probably have that coming...”

  No probably about it...

  He took a breath, a deep enough one to expand his already expansive chest, and exhaled. Clairy had no idea what that meant. And didn’t care any more than she’d cared about omitting niceties or being polite.

  But after the breath he’d drawn, he left the subject of his regrets behind and said, “Have you talked to your grandmother about how this is going to work?”

  Like his previous knowledge of the will and her father’s wishes, that sounded as if he knew more than she did again.

  “Mim knows how I feel,” Clairy said simply.

  “Maybe. But she told me I’d be working with you because this is all your baby. And I know that’s how Mac wanted it—not that we work together, but that the whole project be done by you, the way you see fit. He was impressed by other work like this that you’ve done, and he wanted you to do something on par with that for him.”

  “There was nothing I ever did that impressed my father. He just didn’t like that I didn’t come home to Merritt after college to look after Mim. This was his way of trying to control that—it just happened to come at a time when I’d decided moving home was what I wanted. So you can stop trying to grease whatever wheels you’re trying to grease,” she accused.

  Quinn Camden’s bushy eyebrows arched somewhat helplessly. “I’m not trying to grease any wheels, and Mac really did admire the things you’ve done for vets and veterans’ organizations.”

  “Sure,” she said flippantly, clear disbelief in her tone.

  “Anyway,” he said, taking a turn at moving this along, “I think your grandmother isn’t planning to be involved in this. I think she’s counting on you and me working together.”

  “Well, she might have to stop counting on that,” Clairy informed him.

  He nodded once more. “I guess I’ll leave that for the two of you to sort out.”

  “Do that,” she said stubbornly, and with a certainty that she would not be dealing with him from now on.

  “Just let me know,” he said.

  “Mim will.”

  Another nod from him. “Okay, then.”

  Clairy didn’t verbally ask him to leave, but she did clear the way to the front door.

  He got the hint and went to the entryway.

  But with one hand on the screen door to push it open, he turned back to her and said, “Honest to God—”

  Clairy cut him off with a glare and a raise of her chin that dared him to go any further.

  He took one more deep breath, gave her one more nod that acknowledged his acceptance that there was nothing he could say to soften her and finally walked out.

  Unfortunately, Clairy was left with the image of broad shoulders that V’d down to a truly great male derriere.

  But none of that mattered to her.

  Because regardless of what a spectacular specimen of male flesh he might be, she still resented the guy with every ounce of her being.

  Chapter Two

  “Were you thinking you were feeding a whole battalion today, Pops?” Quinn asked his grandfather when Ben Camden called him, his older brother, Micah, and Tanner—one of the other triplets—to the table for Sunday brunch.

  “How much you want to bet the three of you are all it’ll take to clear this out?” the seventy-eight-year-old challenged.

  The brothers laughed, but not one of them took the bet, despite the fact that the large dining-room table was laden with serving platters of cheesy, red-and-green-peppered scrambled eggs, pancakes, bacon, Ben’s homemade sausages and biscuits beside a bowl of gravy.

  “And how come we’re in the dining room instead of the kitchen?” Micah asked.

  “Wouldn’t all fit on the kitchen table,” the elderly man answered simply as they each took a seat and began to load their plates.

  “I thought maybe Quinn rated better than the rest of us,” Tanner joked.

  “It has been too long since he’s been home,” Ben complained.

  And if I’d come home five months ago instead of going to Camp Lejeune to visit Mac, Mac would probably still be alive...

  The thought went through Quinn’s mind, bringing with it a wave of the guilt he’d become too familiar with over the last five months. And since he didn’t want to get into any of it, he decided to put some effort into a lighter topic.

  “So where are the newest family members?” he asked his brothers. “You’re both engaged? And, Tanner, you resigned your commission and you have a kid?”

  “Micah’s engaged, I’m engaged—yes, I resigned from the marines, and yes, I do have a kid,” Tanner said, confirming everything at once.

  But Quinn wanted more out of his diversion than that, so he said, “Micah, you finally won over Lexie Parker?”

  “The love of my life,” Micah said without embarrassment.

  “Persistence paid off?” Quinn asked.

  “It wasn’t persistence. I gave her years and years and years between her being my high-school crush and us meeting up again now. Then I had to work hard to clean the slate before things turned around.”

  “And you, Tanner—a Markham after all Della put you through?”

  “Della passed,” Ben reminded him in a hurry, as if Quinn should be treading more lightly there.

  Quinn did take it down a notch, reminding himself that part of his grandfather’s brief update when he’d arrived last night had included a death even more recent than the General’s.

  But still, he said with disbelief, “Della never gave up the ghost on you and didn’t make it through giving birth to a baby that was yours?”

  “That about sums it up,” Tanner said.

  “So now you’re a father and somehow you ended up with the younger of the Markham sisters?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you’re resigning your commission with the marines?”

  Tanner said another simple “Yep.”

  “You guys have been busy,” Quinn said, marveling. “And where are the future wives? And...wow, I have a niece...”

  “They had to go to a baby shower for somebody,” Tanner said.

  “For Shawna Schultz—we went to school with her.” Micah provided the information that Tanner was vague about.

  “Wow,” Quinn repeated, genuinely flabbergasted by what he’d come home to. “A lot’s happened around here all of a sudden.”

  “You can say that again!” Ben said, as if he was slightly flabbergasted by it all, too.

  But then, despite Quinn’s efforts to keep this a light family reunion, his grandfather said, “I was a little peeved when you decided to go to Jacksonville—to Camp Lejeune—on your last leave instead of coming home. But now I’m glad you did. It was like fate getting you there to see Mac before it was too late.”

  “Were you with him when he had the heart attack?” Tanner asked.

  As reluctant to talk about the death of Mac McKinnon as Quinn was, he knew it was too big an event to avoid, even if he tried to pull off another diversion.

  “I left him about midnight,” he answered Tanner, sticking purely with the f
acts. “They thought the heart attack hit about three a.m.—so, no, I wasn’t with him at the exact time. No one was, or help might have been called in.”

  “Hard for you to lose him,” Ben said compassionately. As always, he was the heart and soul of the family. “You loved him like a father.”

  A father who probably wanted to disown me when I left him that night.

  “Mac was good to me from the minute I showed up on his doorstep when I was eight,” Quinn acknowledged, the truth in that making that final evening with his mentor and friend weigh on him all the more.

  “Was he sick? Were there any signs?” Ben asked.

  “He was as feisty as ever. Had his usual two Scotches to end his day...” And then maybe I ended his life... “If he was feeling anything coming on, he didn’t say it or show it.”

  Instead, what the sixty-two-year-old Robert “Mac” McKinnon had shown was plenty of temper to rage back at the ultimatum Quinn had given him over the mistreatment of women marines that Quinn discovered in Mac’s training orders.

  “When your time comes, your time comes,” Tanner said philosophically.

  “Worse ways to go than a heart attack,” Micah added.

  Quinn didn’t say anything, mentally reliving for the hundredth time that last monumental argument he’d had with the General. He felt disloyal—terribly disloyal to a man he owed everything to—for starting an argument that seemed to have caused the attack and made him responsible for Mac’s death. Even though it was a decision that had to be made.

  He took a slow drink of his steaming black coffee, kept his hand around the cup and put his focus there to anchor himself.

  Maybe he could get this off his chest.

  Maybe he could talk to Ben, to Tanner, to Micah, about what he’d found out, about the fight.

  This was his family, after all. He knew none of them would judge him.

  But it was still so ugly. It had brought up so much he was still trying to figure out about how Mac might have influenced him. He didn’t want to get into it over this nice meal, though. Not when it was just good to be home and with his family.