Free Shadow of Regret (Shadow #3) by Barbara Goss Page B

something good would eventually come of this. Maybe she would be the one to bring him some semblance of a life he wasn’t ashamed of.
    Quinn started to feel tired. He sat in the chair and patted his lap. “C’mon here, Rose.”
    She sat on his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. Quinn kissed her, passionately. She leaned into him, and he knew they wouldn’t be able to do much of this, either—it was too tempting. He gently broke the kiss.
    “We can’t be kissing like that too much,” he said. “If I continue to heat you up with passionate kisses it'll seem like I’m teasing you, and I don’t want to do that. It can’t happen, Rose. Are you sorry now that you forced this upon us?”
    She shook her head. “No. I can live with it. It’s better than not having you at all.”

    As much as Jonas liked Quinn, he was anxious to have him out of the house. With Ivy expecting a baby at any minute, and with Zoe still at his father’s, he was anxious to bring some sense of normalcy back to his home and family. He pulled Rose aside the day after the marriage, and asked to speak with her in the sitting room.
    “What are your plans?” he asked, once they were seated.
    “We have none,” she answered.
    Jonas sighed. “As much as I love you both, you can’t stay here. Ivy is due any day, and we miss Zoe.”
    “We have only one place to go, and that’s the apartment Quinn has rented above the hardware store. If you help me get him there, I can care for him,” she said.
    He nodded. “Perfect,” he said. “There is something else. I told Quinn I’d gladly lend him the money to rebuild his business, but not until he’s returns to being the old Quinn—no more women, drinking or saloons. Has he told you he wouldn’t do those things anymore?”
    “No. I hadn’t even thought about that.”
    “If I can see him back the way he was, sober, clean, and going to church, I’ll loan him any amount he needs. Oh, and by the way,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope, “your wedding gift.”
    “Thank you,” she said taking the envelope. “I’ll try my best with Quinn. I’ll love him back to what he once was, I know I can.”
    “I know you can, too,” Jonas said. “We’ll move Quinn tomorrow morning.”

     

Chapter 9
     
     
    Caleb, Jonas, and Miles all helped to move Quinn, along with all of Rose’s things, to the small apartment.
    Caleb also handed her an envelope for a wedding gift, as did Miles. Caleb and Jonas were extremely generous, but she knew they were both wealthy. The gift from Miles was just as generous, compared to his income at the bank. She’d hugged them both.
    When Caleb and Jonas went back to the wagon to pick up another stack of dresses, Caleb said, “That apartment is awful. We can’t let them live like that.”
    “I told you the offer I made him,” Jonas said.
    “It was a terrible offer,” Caleb said.
    “I thought it was generous.”
    “Paying someone to come back to God?” Caleb shook his head.
    “What should I have done?”
    “Just lend it to him. I’ll split it with you. The gift we give them will touch something in Quinn that your offer won’t: kindness, and Christian charity.”
    Jonas thought about it as he lifted the stack of dresses, still on their hangers. “My offer was more like blackmail or bribery, wasn’t it?”
    “It was.” Caleb lifted another box.
    They carried the things up the steep stairs and into the hot, stuffy, two-room apartment.
    Miles was fixing the leg of Quinn’s sofa that had been sheared by one of the bullets, while Jonas and Caleb went down for another load of Rose’s clothes.
    “I have no idea where she’ll put all of these clothes,” Caleb said. “I wish now I hadn’t let Lavinia have my house. I could have sold it back to Quinn.
    “I don’t think he’d have taken it. Too many bad memories,” Jonas said.
    “You’re right. I’d forgotten about that.”
    “I haven’t yet sold my house on Eden Road,” Jonas