by Lee Kilraine
“You’re a fake. A big, fat fakety-fake.” Delaney leaned in to look at him as he tried to hide behind his “I’m too cool to bother” face.
“Bullshit, lady. You don’t know me.”
“Two all-beef patties of fake with special fake sauce on the side. You want to run so bad,” Delaney accused. “It was all over your face when you were watching them run.”
He nodded in her direction. “Right back at you, lady. Now what?”
“Well, hell. I think it means we’re going to have to run, Hoss.” Delaney could not believe those words had just left her mouth. Was it too late to take them back?
“The hell you say.” The teen stood up, pulling a water bottle out of his front sweatshirt pocket. He unscrewed the cap and proceeded to pour the water around his neckline, splashing some up under his armpits, then once over his head. Tossing the water bottle aside, he slapped his cheeks twice. Damn if he didn’t look just like he’d sweated during a hard run. “There. Cross-country practice is over, and I’m heading home and pretending I never talked with the one-legged crazy lady.”
Let it go, Delaney. Leave it alone, and both you and this kid can slip back into the safe harbor of denial. Except she couldn’t block out the kid’s look of painful yearning. “What if I coached you?”
“Whoa. Wait. Lady, I don’t even know you.” He took a step back.
“My name is Delaney Lyons and I—”
“—hold the Climax High School record for fastest 5K and the mile. I’ve seen your name on the plaque in the trophy case. So, you’re gonna coach me. Where’s your skin in the game?”
“I told you. I can’t run. I lost a foot.”
“Hey, Luke Skywalker got his hand chopped off by Darth Vader in Cloud City and he didn’t quit.” He took a step toward her.
Delaney stood up from the bleacher seat and took a step in too. “He tried to commit suicide by throwing himself into the void of space. Only a garbage chute saved him. He quit.”
“Maybe I’m your garbage chute. Maybe you’re my garbage chute. He didn’t quit. Instead of giving in to failure, he asked his friends for help. He got his prosthetic hand and then became a major badass in the next movie.” With each point, he took slow, measured steps toward Delaney until he ended up standing toe-to-toe, looking down at her.
Delaney looked up from her five and a half feet, unwilling to let this kid intimidate her with his height and his bulk. “What is your point?”
“My point is I’m calling bullshit. You want me to take all the risk while you get to sit all safe on the sidelines wrapped in your excuse. Smells like grown-up bullshit to me. You think I’m the only overweight person in my family? My parents are on my case all the time, but who do you think buys our food and cooks our meals? Yeah, my overweight parents. You can bet they aren’t running.”
The kid was right. Delaney sat back on the bench and dropped her head into her hands to rub the building tension headache away. Damn, he was so right that she felt nauseous realizing she either had to accept this risk or walk away from a chance at a real life. Accepting meant no more living in denial, going through the motions, escaping into a bottle of wine or the nonsense of fuzzy red monsters. At least it could start here, on this track, which had saved her once before, and out of the prying eyes at the gym or the town Grapevine.
She lifted her head and looked at the teen. He’d been quiet for a few minutes, but when he looked at the seriousness of her face, the dim light of hope faded from his eyes.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He turned to walk away.
“No. You’re right. I am an absolute chicken-shit hypocrite. I’m in. Let’s go.”
Delaney stood up and limped toward the track.
Looking a little stunned that she had agreed to risk as much as he had, he followed her over to the track. “Now? Uh, you know I can’t run, right?”
“Aw hell, kid, neither can I. We’ll start slow. Baby steps. We’ll run a few steps, then walk. Run a few more, then walk. My leg hurts like a bitch and you’re out of breath already, but let’s go once around the track while we work out the details.” Delaney felt a spark of her once-famous determination. “I don’t care if we’re both crawling on our knees at the end—we will make it around this track. What’s your name, kid?”
“Marcus. My name’s Marcus,” he said in between wheezy breaths.
“No kidding? Slow your breathing. That’s it. You can pace yourself by talking. If you can’t talk, it means you’re running too fast and need to ease up. Tell me about the cute girls at school. . . .”
Quinn left the gym without looking to the right or left. He didn’t even stop to talk to Greer. What in the hell would he say? His mind was numb, still bombarded by the shock waves of Delaney’s situation. He carved a straight line through the buzzing gossip in the gym, a man on a mission. He needed to talk to Tynan. His brother had done a few tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. If anyone could help, it would be Ty. He tracked him down over at the house he was renovating on Maybelle Court. Throwing his truck in park so abruptly it rocked forward, Quinn jumped out and approached Ty at the backend of his F350.
“Look, Ty, I’m out of my depth here. I mean, in my profession, we get spit on or shot. Our lives don’t explode and we don’t lose limbs. I can’t even wrap my head around this. I thought I had prepared for all the possibilities—but I was thinking car accident, not—”
“Whoa. Quinn, hold up. I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Tynan leaned against the lowered tailgate of his pickup truck and reached calmly for his fast-food coffee cup. “Take a damn minute and start at the beginning.”
Quinn knew he needed to pull himself together. Dammit, he should be handling this better. Calm the hell down, and work the problem. “Everyone in town knows Delaney was in an accident. The Grapevine’s been on fire since I brought her home.”
“Well, it’s Climax.”
“That’s not the problem.”
“Good, because you’ll never silence the Grapevine.”
“Over the past few weeks I’ve prepared myself to deal with whatever Delaney is dealing with—you know, getting ready to make my move.”
“Well, considering you’ve been hung up on her since high school, you’re a painfully patient guy. So, come on, Quinn, if I were a tree I’d have three more rings by now. What are you getting at?” Tynan stood back up, readjusting his tool belt, and took a last swig of his coffee.
Quinn paced away from Tynan and his truck, trying to figure out what he was trying to say. What was making it hard was he wasn’t even sure what he was feeling. He released a sigh and turned back around. “I don’t know if I can handle what she’s dealing with.”
“Shit, Quinn, you’re a damn cop. You handle car accidents all the time.”
“She lost a foot.”
“Damn.” Tynan blinked in surprise. “That’s a real bitch. But you’ve—”
“In Afghanistan.”
“Fuck.” The color leached out of Ty’s face. He sank onto the tailgate of his truck as if his legs had been swiped out from under him. His eyes shifted from sympathetic to bleak in a blink, losing focus.
Quinn felt the bile rise in his throat when Ty’s face cemented into the harsh, cold expression he had returned from the war with.
“I need your help, Ty.”
“I’m probably the last person to ask for help.” Ty looked down at the now-crunched coffee cup in his hands. “I can’t say exactly what Delaney is going through. Some deals are worse than others. I’ve seen too many friends travel this same path, and I’m going to be honest here, not everyone makes it back from the edge. I sure as hell know no one does it alone.”
“You were supposed to tell me everything will be fine.”
“You want me to blow sunshine up your ass?” Tynan stood up and started tossing his tools around with more force than necessary, only to stop, his hands resting flat on the tailgate, his head dropped forward. “This is serious shit here, Quinn. She might be dealing with PTSD
along with her injuries. You better think real hard about your commitment—because if you aren’t all in, you have no right toying with her.”
Quinn wanted to punch his brother for stating the obvious. “Why do you think I came to you? I know all that. I’m looking for answers.”
“If you’re not sure, she’d be better off if you walked away.” Tynan shook his head and looked up at him. “Just because you love her doesn’t mean you can handle what she’s going through. And she needs someone who can handle it.”
What the hell was Ty talking about? Love? Lust, yes. But love? He detoured around that thought. “Will you talk with her?”
“That would be a bad idea.” Tynan sat back on the tailgate and stared off at the line of pine trees beyond the house, his eyes distant like he’d checked out of the conversation. He shook his head. “No. I’m not the right person to ask, but try over at the VFW. General McLong and Sergeant Rodriguez, you know that group? They helped me when I first got back.”
“Yeah, I know them. Okay, I’ll try that. Thanks.” Quinn turned to leave, only to turn back around to his brother. “You are okay, aren’t you, Ty? I mean, you’d talk to one of us if you weren’t, right?”
Ty grunted something unintelligible.
“I can tell Mom to ask you.”
“You’d sic Mom on me? Low blow, Quinn, but maybe you should focus on your own problems right now.” He pointed at Quinn. “You take tonight and think long and hard before you mess with Delaney. No one will think any less of you if you walk away.”
“I don’t think I want to walk away.”
“You need to know. It’s gut-check time.”
Too restless to sit and too angry to be around people, Quinn took himself off for a run. Knowing this would be an all-out run, he left his dog at home. The 24/7—hell, the whole town—would still be buzzing about Delaney’s shocking scene in the gym today. Normally, the Grapevine struck him anywhere from amusing to mildly annoying. That wouldn’t be the case today. No, he needed to be alone. Throwing on sweats and his running shoes, he left his house and headed down the street to the park, where the off-road running trails would provide the quiet solitude he needed. Shortening his stride, he picked up speed and sucked in the cool fall air as his thoughts jumbled around in his head.
Tynan’s harsh warning poked at him. Think real hard about your commitment—because if you aren’t all in, you have no right toying with her. His commitment? Hell, he could track the whole twisted path like it was lit up with luminol at a crime scene.
In high school, he had been committed to worshipping Delaney from afar, since he was her little sister’s best friend. Until that one week when he wasn’t. But even back then he’d known he didn’t want to be a placeholder in her life. Then, after college, when Greer told him Delaney wasn’t coming back to Climax, he had been committed to getting over her for good. It took a few years, but he’d moved on. Only then Greer had sent him to D.C., and it turned out all the moving on he did? Not so much.
So next he’d committed to resisting her, and when that had fallen apart, he’d decided to save his sanity and commit to giving in to the physical attraction. Only in the month of being near Delaney, of trying to convince her they should give in, his commitment had deepened. Which explained why this afternoon at the gym had been a punch to the gut. Just because you love her doesn’t mean you can handle what she’s going through. She needs someone who can handle it.
He’d never been in love before—or maybe he had been all along. But Tynan was right. He needed to make sure he could handle what she was going through. Or he needed to get out of her life. Damn. What if what he wanted and what he could handle were two very different things?
He had spent many a night since bringing Delaney home running scenarios of car accidents through his mind, trying to imagine what Delaney was going through as he fell asleep. He’d seen some pretty horrible injuries from car accidents over the years. But an explosion? Hell no. How do you prepare for that? What had Tynan said? PTSD? He knew about PTSD. He knew a cop or two who suffered from it.
Tension built as the smack of his running shoes on the hard-packed trail, step after step, echoed in his head. Leaves slapped and stung his face as he whipped through the overgrown trail. Anger and fear tangled together, a heavy weight in his chest. He kicked into an aggressive pace, trying to punish his own body, pushing himself well beyond his normal pace and distance. He remembered watching Delaney run in high school. Her speed and athletic grace a beautiful thing to watch. But the memory of her sleek, muscled body racing to the finish line disappeared in an instant of shattering glass. Images from the news of IEDs exploding, scattering lives and body parts, had him catching his stride.
“Oh, God.” He stumbled. His lungs seized and his gut wrenched. And in the next instant he was doubled over the nearest bush, throwing up.
Chapter Twelve
Quinn Cates was gone. It was all the Grapevine could talk about. Not that she needed them to know. The man had made it his life’s goal to invade her space and her life since that kiss in her kitchen a few weeks ago. Every time she’d turned around, he had been there tempting her, teasing her, daring her. And now he was gone. He’d disappeared four days ago. The day he’d found out about her missing foot and her prosthesis.
It was better this way. She was used to handling things on her own, so this was no different. Heck, she knew Greer was trying to help, but she didn’t want to burden her any more than she already had. So, she would figure out a way to try again. She’d managed to commit to her rehabilitation the first six months after the explosion. So she’d fallen off the wagon. Wait, no, that wasn’t right. She’d fallen out of the saddle. Now she just had to dig deep and find the courage to climb back on, right? The problem was, for the last four days, whenever she tried to dig deep, she only found all the messy, squishy places she’d been hiding all her pain.
She sank under the water in the large cast-iron claw-foot tub as if trying to wash the pain away. When she surfaced, she washed and rinsed her hair, her fingers rough on her scalp, her thoughts continuing to whirl. She’d been soaking and stewing so long her bath bubbles were only a memory. Damn Quinn Cates. For getting her hopes up. For pretending to really care about her. Sure, she’d rejected him at every turn, but apparently she’d secretly hoped he’d wear her down. How stupid was that? Wasn’t she too cynical for that? The tough shell she’d developed to survive her childhood should have stamped out any shred of optimism long ago. Her brain knew Quinn had made the smart choice to exit the hot mess that was her life. It was just that her heart had been stupid.
What would happen if you let go and trusted me? This. This would happen, dammit. She’d fall apart all over again and end up with a deeper hole to climb out of.
She rested her head against the soft bath pillow and moved her thoughts away from Quinn before she drove herself crazy. There was another guy in her life now, and she smiled at the memory. She was still sore from running with Marcus four days ago, and wouldn’t be surprised if he was still sore also. They had shuffled around the track, baby steps for both of them, but for the first time in a long time she was moving in a forward direction. Afterward, Marcus had announced that running sucked, but he could last as long as Delaney could. Which wouldn’t be long, if the pain in her leg was anything to judge by, but they’d agreed to meet again after school.
The door slammed downstairs, signaling Greer was home. Delaney called out a “hello.” She’d get out soon . . . any minute now . . . and help cook dinner. But not yet. She closed her eyes and listened to the water lap against the side of the tub.
“Knock, knock.”
Her body startled at the deep baritone, splashing water in her face. She wiped her eyes clear with shaking fingers. “Go away. Why am I always telling you that?”
“What? I can’t hear you through the door.” Quinn opened the door, stepping in boldly.
She stared at him in silence for a moment. “Excuse me, do I know you?”
; “Oh, holy heck, you look good naked.”
“Thank you. Now go away.” Delaney closed her eyes again.
“Oh, okay. I owe you an apology. I left town and should have told you. I had an opportunity come up, and I needed some time to think.”
“You don’t owe me anything. Honest, Quinn. Stop thinking and go live your life. You might want to find a place to park that big ego of yours. Believe it or not, I managed to survive without you in my life.” She didn’t have to tell him it had felt like she’d needed an airplane’s emergency oxygen mask to drop down when his disappearance had sucked the air from her lungs.
“I deserve everything you want to throw at me, but I’d like to call a truce. Just for tonight.”
“What for?”
“For Greer.”
“Oh, hell. Seriously? How long are you going to toss my guilt over Greer in my face?”
“Until it stops working. Crap, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you need to get dressed. I’d like to take you on a date.” Quinn reached into the end of the tub, pulling out the plug. His hand ran over her foot and calf, making her jump as she nervously watched his eyes.
“Hey, watch where you’re looking, buster,” Delaney warned, trying to stay cool and sophisticated even though his blue gaze had her heating up. He wore blue jeans and a brown plaid button-down shirt with his cuffs rolled up to his elbows. In an effort to avoid looking into his eyes, she focused on his bare forearms. Tanned, with the well-defined muscles of an athlete and only a light dusting of hair. Drops of water caressed his muscles like liquid crystals as he pulled his hand from the tub. What the hell, was she breathing faster? The silence between them developed substance. Quinn turned to grab a towel, stretching to hand it to her without moving too close to the tub. She took it, avoiding his eyes. The soft lap of the bathwater sounded erotic. And then her stomach growled, allowing her to quickly exit the crazy train. “We are not going on a date.”
