Crazy for You Read online

  “He only wanted you for sex?” Quinn hated saying it. For one thing, she didn’t want to be reminded that he’d had sex with Zoë.

  “No, that’s the only thing I wanted him for. I don’t know what he wanted me for. A wife, I guess.” Her voice grew thoughtful. “Although he was never very possessive. It was more like I was just along for the ride. After three months, I made him take me home to see you and Mom, and I was so happy to be back in Tibbett that I knew something was wrong. When we went back to Dayton, I left. Couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Are you sorry?” Quinn asked, wanting absolution, wanting Zoë to say, Take him, he’s yours.

  “No. Is he?”

  Quinn thought back to the few times he’d mentioned Zoë. He’d said her name without inflection, like anybody else’s name, nothing special. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem like he’s hiding anything.”

  Zoë’s laugh snorted over the line. “Then he isn’t. Nick couldn’t hide anything if he tried. What you see with Nick is what you get.”

  Quinn had a sudden sharp image of Nick lean and naked beside her. “Okay.”

  “He was fun, just no zazz.” Zoë didn’t sound broken-hearted, and then her voice faded as she turned away from the phone to say, “Yes, you have zazz. That’s why you’ve got me.”

  Quinn heard the rumble of Ben’s voice and then Zoë laughed, and she felt a twinge of envy. It must be wonderful to live with a man you loved and who loved you, the way Ben and Zoë lived. “How did you know Ben was the one?” she asked suddenly. “How were you so sure? You just met him at work, how did you know?”

  “I didn’t really meet him at work,” Zoë said. “I mean, I told you and Mom that, but actually, he picked me up in a fountain.”

  “What?”

  “There was this fountain outside our building.” Zoë sounded embarrassed. “And I went out there one day, really depressed because I was almost thirty, and I was never going to have kids, and I wanted them, and because I was wearing a suit and being normal instead of, well, you know—”

  “Instead of being Zoë,” Quinn said, knowing exactly.

  “And I took off my shoes and pantyhose and went wading in the fountain because that’s what I would have done before I got to be a suit, and I didn’t even know Ben was there until he said, ‘You have great legs.’ He was sitting on the other side of the fountain with his pants rolled up and his feet in the water, looking at me through those horn-rim glasses, and I thought he was trying to pick me up, so I shut him down. And he said, no, it was just a scientific observation because he was happily married and the father of a fine son named Harold—”

  “You’re kidding me,” Quinn said.

  “—and I told him only a sadist would name a kid Harold, that my daughter was Jeannie and she was the star of her ballet class—”

  “This is great,” Quinn said.

  “I know,” Zoë said. “I felt like me again. And then we told each other about how great our spouses were, and somewhere in there I realized he was lying in his teeth, and I told him I was actually a Russian spy with a license to kill, and he said, ‘I’ve always wanted to have sex in the afternoon with a Russian spy with a license to kill,’ and I said what a shame it was that he was married to such a wonderful woman or we certainly could have had sex, and he said ‘She left me,’ so we spent five days in a suite at the Great Southern and then eloped to Kentucky.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah,” Zoë said. “That’s why I told you we met at work and we’d known each other a long time. Dumb, huh?”

  “It’s wonderful,” Quinn said. “No wonder you don’t miss Nick.”

  “Hey, Nick was a good guy,” Zoë said. “Just not the right guy. Why are you asking about him so much anyway?”

  “I’ve just been thinking about the way we used to be,” Quinn said truthfully. “Who we all were back then. Who we are now.”

  “Yeah, well, I bet Nick’s the same now as he was then. Guys don’t change. Nick was always sports, cars, and sex.”

  That sounded like Nick.

  “Not that that was bad; I just got so tired of Fleetwood Mac I was ready to scream—”

  Quinn went cold. “What?”

  “Fleetwood Mac. He liked to fuck to Fleetwood Mac, and I will bet you a nickel he still does. Ask Lisa. I bet she’s heard ‘The Chain’ so many times she can come to it without him.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Quinn said.

  “What?”

  Well, there she was. One of a series brought to you by Nick Ziegler. Music by Fleetwood Mac. The bastard.

  “Quinn?”

  He’d even pulled it out of her CD stack that night after Meggy and Edie had left. Making his move, changing his mind. She’d put it on. He’d kissed her because of Fleetwood Mac and stopped kissing her because of her hair. Then she’d cut her hair and—“I’m going to kill him.”

  “You slept with him.” Zoë’s voice was flat.

  “Yep.” The more Quinn thought about it, the more her blood boiled.

  “Well.”

  “Well, what?” Quinn said, ready to fight with anybody.

  “Well, nothing. Except that you slept with my ex-husband, and you’re my sister, and we sound like one of Jerry Springer’s greatest hits.”

  “I thought you didn’t care who he slept with.”

  “I don’t.” Zoë sounded a little surprised. “I care who you sleep with, though.”

  “Well, you can stop caring because I’m never sleeping with anybody ever again.” Quinn thought of Nick naked and hot on top of her, and shoved the thought aside. “Never.”

  “It was that bad?”

  “No.” Quinn tried not to think about it. “I just can’t believe he used Fleetwood Mac on me, too. He kissed me halfway through ‘Hold Me’ and had me naked by ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun.’”

  “I don’t think we ever made it to ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun,’” Zoë said. “That was at the end of the album. He didn’t last that long. I’m not kidding about ‘The Chain.’ If I hadn’t made it by then, I wasn’t going to because he was done.”

  “He’s changed,” Quinn told her. “‘Hold Me’ was on its second play by the time I came. I don’t believe this.”

  “I don’t remember ‘Hold Me’ at all,” Zoë said. “The Rumours album, right?”

  “They’ve made a few others since you were eighteen,” Quinn said. “This was the Greatest Hits.”

  “And I imagine he’s been making a few with it, too,” Zoë said. “He was always good at taking girls to bed. The rat bastard.”

  “He still is,” Quinn said. “I’m so mad I could spit.”

  “I can’t believe he seduced my little sister,” Zoë said. “He was always sex-crazed, but I thought he’d have matured—”

  “I seduced him,” Quinn said.

  “What?”

  “I went over to his place so he’d take me to bed.” Quinn felt stupid saying it. “I wanted to know what it would be like. So I went over and propositioned him.”

  “Oh.” Zoë regrouped. “So why are you mad at him? I mean, I’m mad at him because you’re mad at him, but now I don’t know why you’re mad at him. Was it bad?”

  “I thought I was different.” Quinn felt like a fool while she was saying it.

  “You probably were until you went to bed with him,” Zoë said. “You have to be the only woman he was ever close to that he’d never seen naked. Besides his mother and Darla.”

  “Thank you,” Quinn said. “That makes me feel so much better.”

  “In fact, he was probably closer to you than anybody he’d ever seen naked. He was never very good at combining emotion and sex. Don’t expect a lot of phone calls discussing the relationship.”

  “I can’t believe I was so dumb,” Quinn said.

  “Tell me again why you did this,” Zoë said. “Because for the life of me, I can’t figure it out.”

  Because he’s darling. Because he’s sexy. Because I trust him. “Because I wanted to be