Part 17 R

Stefan Cassidine had invited Oksana and her family out to Windermere, the Cassidines' house on the island. They arranged for it to be so that it could fit into Quinn's schedule, Oksana thinking it would be much easier to have Zander there if Quinn was there, too.

Zander drove the Porsche, with Quinn in front and Oksana and Peter in the back. This made Oksana happy. They parked the car near the launch site to take a boat out to the island.

"What a nice day, Q.," Pete said. "I hope this doesn't involve staying indoors."

"Oh, no," Oksana said. "It won't."

When they got to the island, Quinn met Nicholas and Gia, the couple who had gotten married.

As they walked around looking at the house, which was large, and which Stefan was showing them, Quinn found herself talking to Gia.

"How was your honeymoon?" Quinn asked.

"Beautiful," Gia answered. "We had three weeks in Italy."

"Wow," Quinn said. "Sounds quite heavenly."

"It was," Gia said. "And relaxing. Weddings are wonderful, but stressful."

"All the preparations and such."

"Yeah," Gia agreed. "And such. Like my divorced father and mother in the same room, with my father's new wife. Having Emily for a bridesmaid, and wondering if she was going to do something to make the wedding notorious."

"Like the party you had, where she had the accident leaving it. I took care of her in ICU and I remember you two coming in, and the old grandfather yelling at you."

"That family spoils her."

"But you must be friends, if she was in your wedding."

"She and Nicholas are pretty good friends, I guess, from way back. Something I did for him."

Quinn smiled. "That happens in weddings."

"Then she brought that lawyer as her date. He's already been over to the house to talk to us about her accident. Lovely coming home present."

"Sean. I knew him in Kentucky myself.'

"Did you? Isn't that where she is going to college now?"

"She was, and it's where she met Sean. But Zander saw her in the PCU parking lot the other day and she said she was going to go to PCU."

"Oh, great."

"Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that."

Gia smiled. "I'm lucky, because I graduated. You don't worry about Zander and her, do you?"

"No. He's real loyal. Like he was to her when I first met him. Have you talked to Sean about that accident yet?"

"Yes. We didn't really have much to say, Nicholas and I. I can't say what she was drinking or when. I didn't notice her leaving."

"She claims she wasn't driving, or, at least, her brother claims he was."

"Which brother?"

"AJ."

"Well, it's no surprise, those people will do anything for her, including break the law."

"So Zander says."

"Zander's doing a lot better now. Even in school. You must have a good influence."

"It's not me that much, but having his family here, I think."

"I remember when we did everything we could to get rid of Zander, I mean, Nicholas was so into that. But now he's talking to him," she gestured up ahead, where Nicholas and Zander appeared to be having a conversation.

"I'm glad you didn't get rid of him," Quinn said.

Joanna invited AJ over for dinner, the weekend the kids were with Charlie.

"How do you like Sean?" she asked him.

"Sean? He's OK. Nice guy. Always has something bright to say."

"Yeah, he's a model of positive thinking."

"I like having him around. I get all this negativity from my grandfather and my cousin. So even if I know Sean is probably schmoozing a bit, you know, trying to get everybody on his side, it's nice. Better than hearing criticism."

Joanna said, "That must be a drag. You know, you could move out of there."

"I think about it every day!" AJ laughed. "And I have for years. I don't have the guts to put up with the trouble they would make, I guess. Or I'm too beat at the end of a day to do it. Sometimes I'd like to get a job independent of them, but then I'm not sure how and I'm not sure I can - like, who wants to hire me besides them?"

"Maybe they want you to think that."

"You're probably right. In fact, you are right. And you do OK when you are young in that family, but I really have to think about Michael getting older. It's like you hit a certain age and if you aren't a prodigy, you can become a family goat. Or black sheep or whatever the psychiatric term is. I bet a psychiatrist could have a field day studying my family."

"No doubt. But do you think Sean really cares about Emily?"

"Not really. I mean, not any more than I think he cares about anything. What am I trying to say? He acts like a friend of mine. But deep down, I'm not sure he really is. But since he's nice and says compliments, as I said, that's seductive to somebody who doesn't hear many of those. So it could be the same with Emily, on a different type of relationship. But the same effect."

"He stopped and talked to Quinn and I the other day, and I get more and more of a feeling he is trying to make some headway with her. I don't know, it's only my suspicion, but I think he could be playing Emily."

"She's not real bright when it comes to things like that. She's not doing well in school again, either! She was class valedictorian the same year she spent so much time with Zander, but her freshman year was an unmitigated academic disaster."

"Maybe she does better at home."

"Well, they want her to go to PCU, which is where she always did want to go, but my parents wouldn't go for it when they thought she was such an academic star. And that year in Kentucky doesn't seem to have done her personally much good, either."

"She always wanted to go to PCU, even when she was an academic star?"

AJ laughed. "Oh, she didn't care about that. It was to be near Zander, of course."

"Well, your parents must be happy. They have it no worse than they would have, and instead of Zander they have Sean, who they must prefer."

"Yeah. Zander would be nice and respectful to them until they crossed a certain line. But they crossed the line due to Zander's actions. Sean is too smart and calculating to do those things, so he can afford to be respectful all the time, and even if he did do those things, I kind of think Sean is able to play respectful anyway."

"Playing - that's the word. Maybe he should have been an actor."

"He's the opposite of Zander, maybe that's what Emily likes. Zander doesn't have the ability to hide anything. If you tick him off, you can tell immediately."

"I think Quinn would rather have that."

"You know, I never could tell what women seem to like about him. Maybe you are onto something there. Women don't like being lied to."

"No."

"Not that Zander should get any credit, because we don't know what he would do if he were capable of hiding his feelings, or telling a lie."

"Good genetic quality then," Joanna smiled.

"Yeah, I guess."

Later they sat on the couch and listened to music. AJ put his arm around her, and Joanna liked this but felt a little nervous. Like I'm in high school, she thought. Silly.

"Where is Michael?" she asked.

"Home. Now there's an advantage of living there. No babysitters needed."

"There's always someone home?"

"Yeah, the cook or the butler at least! Then there's Letitia, but she has weekends off. But I have to be sure somebody knows I'm gone."

"Somebody has to be in charge of Michael, so it's not only servants and none of them know he's there."

"Yeah. The servants are crazy about Michael, though, so I think they always know he's there. I left him with Jason tonight."

"Jason's not out?"

"No. At least, he wasn't! Now you got me thinking I should call there to be sure that somebody is there or that Reginald or the cook knows! I put him to bed, and if Jason left, he would tell somebody. I mean, they always know who is there and who isn't, but - "

"Go ahead and call them!"

He smiled, and she melted a little, thinking how handsome he was. Like I'm a swooning high school girl, she thought. I really have to get a grip.

He called on his cell phone and talked to someone for a minute. "Oh, she is?" she heard him saying. "Great. Could you tell her to call my cell phone if anything happens? Thank you very much. OK. Bye."

He looked at Joanna. "Emily is there, and Sean! Isn't that the best luck?"

"I'm not sure. Yes, I suppose it is!"

He put his arm back around her and then his other arm, and then kissed her. She put her arms around him and kissed him back. They made out there like high school kids for awhile, and Joanna started feeling more relaxed, thinking it was fun. His hands went up from her knees to her thighs, then up so high she grabbed his hand away, laughing, and then not resisting when he just put it back and went higher.

She looked at him; he looked back at her with a look of surrender that was too appealing for resistance. She got up and took his hand and led him back to the bedroom. Before she knew it she was naked and then he was too, and then they were lying on the bed and he was over her, then inside her and then he pulled her up to face him and she put her arms around his neck and was lost to all common sense.