But Lisa loved that man.

“I’ll come back to the firm,” he said, but not committing. He wasn’t that crazy. “But you have to get him to go.”

Quinn hated to admit it, but Bruce would be the one who got Kyle to go to college. “He’s interested in buying a boat with his college money.”

He saw the anger seep into the hard creases of Bruce’s face. He made a snarky comment that Quinn couldn’t decipher into real words.

“He wants to fish?” Bruce looked disgusted. “Doesn’t he know where he came from?”

That’s the problem, thought Quinn. “I’ll need to finish a few things before I can start.”

“No grandson of mine is going to be slopping through lobsters.” Bruce looked like he smelled rotten fish. “Why is he wasting his life?”

Even after twenty years, Quinn still couldn’t shake his inadequacies in front of this man. Where he had come from. Who his father was. What he’d grown up in. But he wasn’t going to play into the shame he still harbored for growing up in the small nothing town around Bruce Girard.

“I should go,” Quinn said, jabbing his thumb behind him. “I have to meet up with clients for dinner.”

Bruce got up from his chair. “I expect good work from you.”

“I think I’ll be ready to return to the firm as soon as the fall,” Quinn said. “But only if you can secure Kyle’s funding.”

“Are you really that broke that you can’t even afford college for your kid?” Bruce grumbled.

Quinn could feel his face heat up, and a quick slight sat on the tip of his tongue. There was so much he had stored in his mind to say to Bruce on his dying bed. Not when he was begging for college money.

“Bruce, I appreciate you keeping your promise to Lisa.” Quinn watched Bruce’s eyes shoot over at him at the mention of her name. “I know you want what’s best for Kyle.”

“I do,” Bruce gruffed back.

Quinn nodded. “It’s good to see you, Bruce. I’ll talk to Kyle about coming by and seeing you on Sunday.”

He would leave the rest up to him.

The drive home took a lot longer than he wanted it to. The heavy traffic crawled along 95. Once he took Blueberry Bay’s exit, his nerves became more jittery the closer he got to home. A different kind of energy than with Bruce.

What was it about Meredith that got him all rattled? She was stunning. Like Cindy Crawford stunning. The kind of woman that woke up gorgeous without even putting on make-up. She also had a presence that he enjoyed in confident woman—the way she didn’t care how she behaved or what she said. So many women played nice.

Lisa had been the hardest bull attorney Quinn had ever worked with. It was why she’d been so good. No one had seen it coming from the five-foot-two petite woman.

She had also been the only one that wasn’t afraid of Bruce. In fact, she could make him turn to mush by just giving him a look. His only daughter, his pride and joy, his only family besides the law firm.

Quinn thought about how that might be the last time he saw Bruce because he wasn’t going back unless Kyle was going to college. He wanted his son to be able to play some football and be a kid. He could go somewhere close. Maine had great state schools, and New England had some of the best schools in the world. But he could go anywhere with Bruce’s kind of money. The kid deserved more than just fishing.

CHAPTER25

Meredith would never be able to describe it, but when she saw the boat, she almost cried.

She had never experienced a spiritual moment, never had that sense of something beyond her, but when Kyle walked them to the spot and showed her Jacqueline, a feeling of peace blanketed over her as she stood there staring at the boat sitting in the field behind the barn.

“He named it after Mom,” Remy said. Her sister had fallen completely in love with the romance of their mother’s first marriage, the whole story of Jacqueline and Jacob romanticized in her mind.

“Are you comfortable climbing up?” Kyle asked politely, but she couldn’t help but laugh at how old he must think she was.

“I’m good,” she said, holding onto the ladder and climbing her way up.

As they climbed aboard, she looked out at the boat’s bow, which viewed the Atlantic. The water shimmered under the blazing sun. Behind her, a field of blueberry bushes climbed up the hill.

“You can sleep in it?” she asked, peeking inside the cabin and seeing a bed underneath.