by Vonnie Davis
Why couldn’t he get beyond the pain of his past and open his heart to love? Lord knew he wanted to. He wanted Cassie, needed her. Yet with all his baggage, he’d never be good enough, free enough for her. She deserved better than he’d ever be. Hell, his angel deserved the moon and seven stars, not a man with scars so cavernous he couldn’t climb out of their depths no matter how hard he tried.
Added to this was the very real possibility he’d put her life in danger. He had to get as far away from her as he could and had to prove to everyone he’d contacted in DC that he’d changed his mind about returning to government work. God, his life was such a hellacious mess.
The nightmare he’d suffered for over three years surfaced to pay him a daytime visit. He angled his cheek against the tile, fighting the rising horror of the night his life had tumbled headlong into hell.
His descent hadn’t been a split-second event, but a gradual one born of ego and ambition. Fresh out of college, he’d gone to work for the State Department in the huge Harry S. Truman Building on C Street in Foggy Bottom, not far from the White House, determined to prove he deserved the position despite his father’s influence.
He’d been such an eager beaver shit, a pain in everyone’s ass. So much so, when the department needed a patsy, a dispensable bastard to send over to the DEA for a temporary long-term assignment, they gladly chose him. Not overtly, of course, but covertly—and he’d been too drunk on self-importance to realize it.
Department heads included him in a meeting about drug trafficking from Bolivia into Chile. The DEA, in tandem with the State Department, wanted to plant someone in Arica, a city in northern Chile, to watch the Indian runners carrying drugs across the borders on their backs. From there, whatever agent they assigned, along with his team, was to follow the cars taking the cocaine to southern Chile for refining. The biggest part of the job, though, was to find which parts of the country’s thousand miles of coastline was used to ship the product abroad.
Superiors played on his ambitious ego like a cheap saxophone. After the brass laid out the bare bones of the mission, they tossed around names of guys to send, no doubt knowing he’d see it as a golden career opportunity and volunteer. And he’d eagerly swallowed their bait. With supervisory experience overseeing a team of four Americans and two Chileans, he was sure a promotion would be waiting at the end of the assignment.
What he hadn’t counted on was Renata—one of the Chileans. Against his better judgment, he’d gotten involved with the dark-eyed beauty. Blinded by her sexuality, he’d been careless with his computer passwords and phone calls.
One night, on a recon run to Puerto Montt, to where one of his men had discovered a boat bound for the States tied to a small pier, everything went south in a hurry.
Someone had tipped off the drug cartel—not just Renata, the woman he’d loved, but someone deep inside the agency, the organization he’d respected. Betrayal was a bloodsucking motherfucker. Nine chances out of ten, its victims were the innocents who paid the ultimate price. Those victims were his men: Andy, DeShawn, Skip and the Chilean, Vicente. He’d nearly lost Chris too.
Their mission that evening had been a total cluster-fuck from the time they exited their vehicles. Pandemonium reigned as gunfire pierced the night. His heart pounded as memories of explosions lighting up the sky brought forth sensations of the earth trembling beneath his feet. Dark smoke filled his nostrils and stung his eyes. There were screams and the stench of torn flesh. He lost four of his men and another was captured.
As those long-ago events flashed through his mind like a slideshow from hell, he struggled to keep his breathing from slipping into the frenetic category. Gasping for breath, his hands trembled as the shower droplets stung his face. Man, get a fuckin’ grip. He willed his erratic breathing to slow as second by second, heartbeat by heartbeat, he got his shit together.
Damn the mole in the agency.
Damn his weakness.
Damn Renata.
But mostly, damn himself for falling in love. With force, he turned off the faucets and jerked a towel from the rack, rubbing the water from his hair and body before he stepped from the steam. Tossing the towel aside, he trudged into his bedroom and stopped.
Memories of Cassie lying tangled in his sheets was burned into his brain. He’d gone into the bathroom after they’d recovered from making love to dispose of the blood-speckled condom. When he’d returned, her expression wavered from expectation to devastation.
She’d patted the bed. “Come here, big guy. You still have a few positions to teach me.”
He snatched his jeans from the floor and turned his back to her before he stepped into them. “I think I’ve taught you enough already. You were a virgin when you came here.”
“I waited on you, Quinn. I waited on you for three years. I gave my virginity to you freely. I have no regrets.”
“Christ, don’t say that.” He didn’t mind being a first-class heel with every other woman, but not with her.
The bedclothes rustled behind him. “What are you afraid of? Loving me or hurting me? Because I have to tell you, you’re doing a damn fine job of tearing me apart.” Her fingertips brushed his back before he made for the door.
“I’m going outside to check on my bike and grill. I think it’s time you went home.”
Five minutes later, when she’d stormed past him, all but running to get to her car, she was crying. He wanted to call out to her, but he knew it was for the best to let her go, to allow her anger for him to fester. They’d already said their goodbyes. It was over.
She’s right. I am a chicken-shit bastard. The sweetest girl in the word hands me her innocence and I toss her a dose of fuckin’ attitude so I don’t have to deal with her heartache. Hell, I can barely deal with my own.
Reliving that scene was doing him no good. Hell, he’d treated her terribly before she left. Now that he’d re-secured his Harley to the inside of the U-Haul trailer, lugged his grill into the other corner, and rearranged his packed boxes, he’d come back to his apartment to shower. His flashback hadn’t been part of the plan, nor was his ginormous dose of regret over Cassie.
He tugged a pair of navy sleep pants out of his duffel bag and yanked them on before he flopped across the bed, inhaled her peaches and cream fragrance that lingered on the pillows and groaned. She would always be a part of him, the happiest part, the best part.
Why hadn’t she told him she was a virgin? He replayed their earlier conversation in the living room. When she’d talked about loving a man who went commando, he’d assumed… He shook his head and snorted. She’d been playing him and he fell for it. But damn if Miz Innocence hadn’t given exceptional head. Jealousy churned in his gut again. Just where in the hell had she learned that fine talent?
He ran a palm over his face before locking his hands behind his head. What did it matter? He was leaving Clearwater. He’d pushed her away and ruined their friendship. One more thing to add to his list of unpardonable sins. Only this fiasco topped them all. But if he kept her safe, then that would be one plus against all the minuses of his life. The most important plus he could ask for.
Furball leaped onto the bed, landing like a whisper on the sheets. He flopped next to Quinn’s side and began kneading his owner with his white front paws, his purring growing louder. In an absent-minded move, Quinn stroked the cat even as his thoughts remained on Cassie. Dammit to hell, the last person he ever wanted to hurt was his angel.
His cell rang and he snatched it from his nightstand. The caller ID showed Caller Unknown. “Gallagher.”
There were a couple of clicks and a faint whir. “Hey, you ignorant ass son of a bitch, how’s it hangin’?”
Quinn smiled for the first time in hours and rose to sit on the edge of his bed. “T-Bone? Hey, long time no hear, man.” Hell, he hadn’t heard from Chris “T-Bone” Mason in nearly a year. Even so, he recognized the deep, rasping voice, a result of barely surviving a hanging in Chile. The hiss of a lighter sounded and a long inhale
followed.
“Thought you quit smoking.” Quinn tried not to dwell on memories of finding T-Bone dangling from a chain looped around a rafter in an abandoned warehouse in Puerto Montt after everything went to shit. Two more men of his team, Andy and DeShawn, were discovered beaten and dead in the next room. Skip was out back, his fingers cut off and his throat slashed.
Quinn pressed the speaker button on his cell and laid it next to him so he could sink the heels of his palms against his eyes, hoping to block out the images of finding his tortured team. The large chain digging into T-Bone’s bloody, swollen neck, his back scared with multiple tracks of a whip. He still had no clue how long his friend had hung there. As for Skip, Andy and DeShawn, their deaths had not come swiftly; signs of their suffering were gruesome. The cartel held no qualms against mutilating their enemies.
Cold sweat broke out on Quinn’s body. The bile of guilt burned the back of his throat. If only he hadn’t been so beguiled by Renata, so into her body, maybe none of the torture to his comrades would have happened.
T-Bone’s gravelly voice ripped him from his thoughts. “I did quit smoking. Hell, it’s bad for your health. Two weeks later, I got run over by a cigarette truck.” He wheezed at his own joke. Then his voice turned serious. “Sent you an email, man. Did you read it?”
“Yeah. Just haven’t had a chance to respond. I’ve been packing up my apartment.” And deflowering my best friend.
“So?” T-Bone had patience the length of his pecker.
“So, I’m still thinking about it. Give me twelve hours to give you an answer.” He’d have to make arrangements for Furball. Taking him to a shelter was out. The little devil deserved better, a hell of a lot better. Maybe he could convince Cassie to…then again, after the way he’d just treated her, maybe not.
“You got eight hours to decide, buddy. I need to know who’s going to be on my team so I can line up training. Bet you’re soft as a motherfucker. Bring warm clothes and snow boots. Montana can be a bitch in the winter, but I love the solitude. Got any skis?”
“Water skis.”
“Hell man, the only water we got here is the frozen variety. Get yourself some snow skis and snow shoes. They’ll help build up your legs for where we’re going. How many miles a day are you running? Bet you can barely climb a flight of steps, you candy-assed-motherfucker.”
Quinn chuckled. Spending time with T-Bone again would help ease the agony in his soul…or would it? Quinn had come out of the mission with two bullet holes that eventually healed, yet he was mentally crippled. He’d often questioned that fact in the darkness of night. Why him? Why had he survived?
T-Bone would bear the scars forever. Seeing them every day would be a constant reminder, but then maybe that’s what he needed. A strong dose of facing up to what he’d done, what he’d allowed to happen because of his involvement with Renata.
“Hey, any of your team members have pets?”
“Pets? You mean like Dobermans and shit?” T-Bone took another drag on his cigarette.
“Any kind of pets. What do they do with them while everyone’s out on a mission?” Furball could take a couple days of being alone with an automatic feeder and water supply, like he did when Quinn was on duty at the station for forty-eight hour shifts. Even so, Milt made it a practice of coming up twice a day to hold the cat and make over him, but Quinn wasn’t sure how Furball would handle a week or more of being alone, with no human interaction. Nor could the territorial tomcat take being around big dogs. Even little Killer put him in a pissy-cat mood.
“Nah, we ain’t got time for worrying about dumbass animals. Lots of time, we’re gone within the hour heading for a new target.”
Working for T-Bone would take some serious thought. “Eight hours and you’ll have my answer. Later, man.” He ended the call and eased back on the mattress. His gaze snagged on a small ribbon of dried blood on the sheet. Cassie.
Four steely pointed paws stomped up his chest until two beady copper-colored eyes glared at him and a warm nose barely touched his.
“Hungry?”
Furball responded with a loud meow.
Quinn stood and headed for the kitchen, the cat streaking around him as if he hadn’t been fed earlier that day. He washed the feline’s bowl and snapped open a can of Fancy Feast. Furball pounced onto the counter and headbutted Quinn’s arm. “Oh, yeah, one smell of fish and I’m your BFF, you old food-hound.” He sat the filled bowl on the floor on a plastic placemat emblazoned with the cat’s name. Wouldn’t T-Bone roll with laughter if he knew he’d taken a liking to a stray cat? But then weren’t they alike in that regard? He and Furball, alone and doing their damnedest to survive in a world that concentrated too much on an emotion that eluded them both—love.
Opening the refrigerator, he snagged a bottle of beer and the makings for a chicken salad sandwich. By the time he opened his laptop on the coffee table, he was onto his second beer and halfway through the sandwich. Three unopened emails sat in his inbox. One was from Becca, trying to set up a time for a farewell party with family and co-workers. “Not gonna happen, sweetheart.” Family meant Cassie. As far as he was concerned, they’d said their goodbyes. He wouldn’t put her through any more emotional angst.
The second email was from Lance Blakewell, his old boss at the State Department. It was written in his typical short and succinct style: Call me.
The third was from his dad and practically emitted the smoke of an angry man when Quinn opened it. It hadn’t taken long for news to circulate through the department grapevine that he’d been making inquiries. Nor had it taken long for his old man to voice his narrow-minded, hold-onto-a-grudge-forever mentality. Hudson “Buck” Gallagher, head of the Bureau of International Intelligence and Research within the State Department, had never forgiven his son for the failed mission, for leaving the agency and for inadvertently smudging his sterling thirty-four-year work record.
Quinn hit the delete button. Hell, he hadn’t planned on screwing up everyone’s life. The shit just happened. “Yeah, I love you, too, dad.”
He did a search of fire and rescue companies advertising for personnel. He found two in Miami and Saint Augustine and filled out the online applications. He’d be far enough away from Cassie that she’d give up hope of a future with him, yet he’d be close enough if she needed him for any kind of emergency. Lynn Haven and Pensacola had openings too. So did Brunswick, Georgia. After applying at those stations, he made a list of everyone he’d emailed earlier in the day and composed a standard message stating he’d decided to stay closer to the water and warmer temperatures. Thanks for checking around for openings for him, but he planned to stick to fire and marine rescue. Blah, blah, blah, have a nice, boring life. Kiss my ass and leave my woman the hell alone.
His email to T-Bone was more personal. He mentioned the need to move on, yet stay near the ocean. Even joked about joining the navy or the coast guard if he were younger. T-Bone would get a charge out of that. Only one person remained to reply to—Buck “the man” Gallagher. While he told his father he was looking for another position as a fireman, he also stated he was not considering government work ever again. He asked about his mom and Grandpa Hudson.
Once he finished that email, he went into his bedroom and stripped the sheets and tossed them in the washer. Sleeping with Cassie’s fragrance on his bedclothes was more torture than he could handle. For now, his focus had to be keeping her safe.
CHAPTER TEN
Cassie rotated her shoulders after settling on a stool at Ryder’s Healthy Café and tried to ignore the aches in her leg muscles and feet. It had been a long day at the beauty shop with next to zero time to sit. The manager wielded a pair of scissors in one hand and a whip in the other, too often forgetting the stylists were human beings with legs and backs that throbbed if they didn’t have a chance to rest. Just five minutes with one’s feet propped up worked wonders.
Working for someone else wasn’t as rewarding as having her own business; thank goodness it was onl
y temporary. Repairs to the strip mall where a fire had gutted Cassie’s Wolf Den salon ten days after her grand opening were progressing. The debris was finally cleaned out. The rafters and roofing replaced. Exterior walls and insulation were to go in this week and then electricians would come to install new wiring—a welcome upgrade since faulty wiring had been the cause of the blaze.
She’d found some cool shampoo and station chairs on eBay at a fraction of the cost of new. Mirrors and counters were on order, as were myriad small, yet essential items. If all went according to her timeline, she’d be cutting hair in her own shop in less than sixty days.
Time seemed to control all facets of her life right now. Her business. Quinn.
“Want your usual, baby doll?” Ryder leaned his muscled forearms on the counter. Fluorescent lighting glistened on his bald head, glinted off the gold ring in his brown earlobe. She nodded and he reached for the blender to fill the pitcher with ingredients for a strawberry-blueberry smoothie.
“Yes, something to calm me down. Some moron driving a black crotch-rocket nearly ran me down in the mall’s parking lot.”
“You don’t say.”
“I think he followed me here. Whizzed past me when I got out of my car, stared at me through his dark helmet. Gave me the willies.” She jerked her thumb toward the street. “I think he pulled into the parking lot of Gulfside Treasures.”
“Jest a sec, while I have a look-see.” Ryder stalked toward the door and opened it, stepping out onto the sidewalk. The drone of the bike whined up the street, showing off. Ryder chuckled when he came back inside. “Probably just some young buck, checkin’ you out. Quinn joinin’ you?”
“No. He’s packing to move.”
Ryder scooped in blueberries. “No shit? Really? He buy a condo? A house?”
She shook her head, wishing that were true. A house for both of them to go with a set of wedding rings and bridal china. “No, he turned in his notice at the fire station. He’s leaving Clearwater.”
