He stopped when he realized he was talking to dead air. He lowered the phone, staring at the screen that told him the call had lasted eighteen seconds.

Funny, it seemed shorter.

He turned to his wife, Hayley, who had come out onto the deck with two mugs of coffee and was now looking at him curiously.

“Charlie.”

“Ruh-roh,” she said with exaggeratedly widened eyes as she handed him his coffee.

“Yeah.”

He wrapped his hand around the mug. It was due to rain by this evening, and he’d come out to scan the clouds. The warmth of the coffee was welcome against the chill of the shifting season.

“Dare I ask?” Hayley said after taking a sip from her own morning brew.

“Gavin’s on his way here.”

“Our Gavin? De Marco?” Her brow furrowed. “Do we need him?”

“No.”

“Then why—”

He offered her his phone. “Call Charlie and ask.”

She laughed. “No, thank you. So she didn’t say why?”

He shook his head. “Only that it was life-and-death that he get out of there.”

Her eyebrows rose. “Whose?”

“No clue. Maybe he’s just driving Charlie crazy.”

“Now that,” Hayley said with a grin, “is a frightening thought.”

Quinn laughed. “For you? I don’t believe it.”

And he didn’t. The first time she’d met his fearsome sibling, and gotten that up and down, assessing, calculating look that intimidated less hardy souls, Hayley had never wavered.

So you’re the one who thinks she can tame my brother?

I don’t want him tamed. I love him as he is. And he loves me. So if you hurt me, you hurt him. Don’t.

Charlie had blinked, stared, then burst into laughter. She’ll do, little brother. She’ll do.

Indeed she would. Forever.

“Well,” Hayley went on after a moment, “if something’s really eating at him, one of us should be able to get him to talk.”

A quiet woof turned both their heads. And simultaneously, they laughed at their dog, Cutter.

“You can, is that what you’re saying?” Hayley asked the clever animal.

Cutter’s plumed tail wagged, and his amber-flecked dark eyes gleamed with amusement. Given the dog’s history, Quinn wouldn’t put it past him to have even the man who had once been the most famous attorney in the country spilling his guts to him.

And then the dog’s expression changed, and his head swiveled around, looking north. Never one to waste time, he trotted off to investigate whatever had caught his attention.

“Good thing all the neighbors know him,” Quinn said.

“And we don’t live

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