quickly closed the file.
The look on Quinn’s face said it all—she’d seen them.
Damn.
“Thanks.” I held out my hand but she dropped the papers on my desk and shook her head.
I lowered my hand and shifted the paper so I could read the printout. Seeing no surprises, I looked back up at Quinn.
“Looks good. Anything special I need to know about?”
“Nope.”
Normally, this was where she’d smile, wave, and flounce out of my office. But she wasn’t moving, which meant she had something on her mind. Before I was dating her sister, I would’ve sat back and waited for it. Quinn was a riot, you never knew what crazy shit was going to come out of her mouth.
Like all the Walker women, Quinn was stunning—shiny black hair and green eyes, Delaney being the exception and inheriting her mother’s blue eyes. All four women could be in a crowd of thousands and you’d still be able to put them together as sisters. But their looks were where the similarities ended. All of them had quick smiles, each was funny in her own way. Smart, thoughtful. But their personalities were very different.
Adalynn and Quinn were probably the most different. Quinn was high-maintenance and high-drama. Not my scene. I avoided both of those the same way I avoided blondes, which in and of itself was why I avoided blondes. Brice on the other hand, didn’t mind Quinn’s drama. He got off on it, which was good since their wedding day was fast approaching.
Knowing all I knew about Quinn, the way she was looking at me, I braced. And it was a damn good thing I did.
“Something happened to my sister.”
Fuck.
No lead-in.
No finesse.
My jaw clenched and I said nothing.
“She’s never said, but I saw the change. It was so slow that at first, I thought I was imagining it. I saw a bruise.” Those last four words were spoken so quietly I barely heard. But I damn well fucking heard.
“What’d she say about it?”
“I’ve thought about it. That was the first time my sister ever lied to me, but it wasn’t the last.”
Shit.
“She told me she tripped and Keith caught her right before she took a header and jerked her up. It was a good lie, a plausible lie, since the bruise was very clearly a handprint on her bicep. You know what’s most surprising?”
“What?” I asked, even though I didn’t want to know the answer.
“How smooth she lied. And the second time, too. That lie was worse. We were shopping and I squeezed into the dressing room to give her a shirt to try on and she had bruises on her back. I freaked the fuck out, and to my face, blushing, she lied and told me she’d had sex on the floor at Keith’s and he had wood floors and she was on her back.”
Jesus, fuck.
“After that, Addy’s pulling away from us wasn’t slow, it was immediate. She even pulled away from Hadley. When anyone asked, she blamed school, said her course load was heavy and she was studying. There was so much going on—Delaney was not herself, Mom and Dad trying to drag it out of her, then Carter came back. Before that, when it started, Tuesday had a stalker and she and Jackson were battling it out.
“But then suddenly, Addy was back. Not the old, shy-but-still-bubbly-and-fun Addy. This new shy-but-watchful, secretive Addy. But she was around all the time like she used to be and things seemed to settle. I know Dad tried to talk to her. Mom did. I did. And she’d lie and tell us that she was fine. Nothing was wrong, nothing was ever wrong, and we were all making a big deal out of nothing.”
Big deal out of nothing.
Fucking hell, I’d heard that before.
Quinn wasn’t done. “The gym. I know you saw it.”
“Yeah, Quinn, I saw it. Not the first time something like that happened.”
“What happened?” Quinn’s green eyes flashed, and fuck me, they were almost as pretty as her sister’s. High-maintenance wasn’t my thing but I could see how it would be Brice’s.
“I’m walking a tightrope here. I won’t break Addy’s trust.”
Quinn’s hands went to her hips. She leaned in and spat out, “Fuck that, Trey. She needs to be sorted.”
“She will be.”
“Trey—”
“I get it, you love your sister. What I’m asking from you is that you get me. We’re feeling each other out, learning each other. Luckily for me, we’re doing that while she’s living with me so it’s going faster than it normally would. But