Tears clung to her lashes. “No. But what does it matter now? What I wish has never had any bearing on reality.”
She finished the drink, set the glass aside, and rubbed her hands over her face.
“I wished Emily would live, and she didn't. I wished Steven wouldn't blame me, but he did. I wished—”
She held short on that. What was she supposed to say? That she'd wished Quinn had loved her more? That they had married and had children and lived in Montana, raising horses and making love every night? Fantasies that should have belonged to someone more naive. Christ, she felt like a fool for even having such thoughts and stowing them away in a dusty corner of her mind. She sure as hell wasn't going to share them and risk looking more pathetic.
“I've wished a lot of things. And wishing never made them so,” she said. “And now I'll wish to close my eyes and not see blood, to close my ears and not hear screams, to close out this nightmare and go to sleep. And I might as well wish for the moon.”
Quinn laid a hand on her shoulder, his thumb finding the knot of tension in the muscle and rubbing at it. “I'd give you the moon, Kate,” he said. An old, familiar line they had passed back and forth between them like a secret keepsake. “And unhook the stars and take them down, and give them to you for a necklace.”
Emotions stung her eyes, burning away the last of her resolve to hold strong. She was too tired and it hurt too much—all of it: the case, the memories, the dreams that had died. She buried her face in her hands.
Quinn put his arms around her, guided her head to his shoulder once more.
“It's all right,” he whispered.
“No, it isn't.”
“Let me hold you, Kate.”
She couldn't bring herself to say no. She couldn't bear the idea of pulling away, of being alone. She'd been alone too long. She wanted his comfort. She wanted his strength, the warmth of his body. Being in his arms, she felt a sense of being where she belonged for the first time in a long time.
“I never stopped loving you,” he whispered.
Kate tightened her arms around him, but didn't trust herself to look at him.
“Then why did you let me go?” she asked, the pain just beneath the surface of her voice. “And why did you stay away?”
“I thought it was what you wanted, what you needed. I thought it was best for you. You didn't exactly beg for my attention at the end.”
“You were tied up with the OPR because of me—”
“Because of Steven, not because of you.”
“Semantics. Steven wanted to punish you because of me, because of us.”
“And you wanted to hide because of us.”
She didn't try to deny it. What they'd had in their secret love had been so speciaclass="underline" the kind of magic most people wished for and never found, the kind of magic neither of them had ever known before. But when the secrecy had finally been broken, no one had seen that magic. Under the harsh light of public scrutiny, their love had become an affair, something tawdry and cheap. No one had understood; no one had tried; no one had wanted to. No one had seen her pain, her need. She wasn't a woman drowning in grief, shut out by a husband who had turned distant and bitter. She was a slut who had cheated on her grieving husband while their daughter was barely cold in the ground.
She couldn't say her own sense of guilt hadn't reflected back some of those same feelings, even though she knew better. It had never been in her to lie, to cheat. She'd been raised on a combination of Catholic guilt and Swedish self-reproof. And the wave of self-condemnation from Emily's death and her own sense of breached morality had come up over her head, and she hadn't been able to surface—especially not when the one person she would have reached to for help had backed away, wrestling with anger and pain of his own.
The memory of that turmoil pushed her now to her feet again, restless, not liking the emotions that came with the memories.
“You might have come after me,” she said. “But between the OPR and the job, suddenly you were never there.
“I thought you loved the job more than me,” she admitted in a whisper, then offered Quinn a twisted half-smile. “I thought maybe you finally figured out I was more trouble than I was worth.”
“Oh, Kate . . .” He stepped close, tipped her head back, and looked in her eyes. His were as dark as the night, shining and intense.
Hers brimmed with the uncertainty that had always touched him most deeply—the uncertainty that lay buried beneath layers of polish and stubborn strength. An uncertainty he recognized perhaps as being akin to his own, the thing he hid and feared in himself.
“I let you go because I thought that was what you wanted. And I buried myself in work because it was the only thing that dulled the hurt.
“I've given everything I ever was to this job,” he said. “I don't know if there's anything left of me worth having. But I know I've never loved it—or anything, or anyone—the way I loved you, Kate.”
Kate said nothing. Quinn was aware of time slipping by, of a tear sliding down her cheek. He thought of how they'd come apart, and all the time they'd lost, and knew it was more complicated than a simple lack of communication. The feelings, the fears, the pride, and the pain that had wedged between them had all been genuine. So sharp and true that neither of them had ever found the nerve to face them down. It had been easier to just let go—and that had been the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life.
“We're a pair,” he whispered, echoing what she'd said in Kovac's car. “What did you feel, Kate? Did you stop needing me? Did you stop loving me? Did you—”
She pressed trembling fingers to his lips, shaking her head. “Never,” she said, so softly the word was little more than a thought. “Never.”
She had hated him. She had resented him. She had blamed him and tried to forget him. But she had never stopped loving him. And what a terrifying truth that was—that in five years the need had never died, that she'd never felt anything close to it. Now it rose within her like an awakening flame burning through the exhaustion and the fear and everything else.
She leaned up to meet his lips with hers. She tasted his mouth and the salt of her own tears. His arms went around her and crushed her to him, bending her backward, fitting her body against his.
“Oh, God, Kate, I've needed you,” he confessed, his mouth brushing the shell of her ear. “I've missed you so.”
Kate kissed his cheek, ran a hand over the short-cropped hair. “I've never needed anyone the way I needed you . . . need you. . . .”
He caught the distinction, and stood back to look at her for a moment. He didn't ask if she was sure. Afraid she might answer, Kate supposed. And so was she. There was no certainty in her. There was no logic, no thought of anything beyond the moment, and the tangle of raw feelings, and the need to lose herself with Quinn . . . only with him.
She led him upstairs by the hand. He stopped her three times to kiss her, touch her, bury his face in her hair. In her bedroom they helped each other undress. Tangled hands, impatient fingers. His shirt on the back of a chair, her skirt in a puddle on the floor. Never losing contact with each other. A caress. A kiss. An anxious embrace.
For Kate, Quinn's touch was a memory overlapping real time. The feel of his hand on her skin was imprinted on her mind and in her heart. It drew to the surface the desire she had known only with him. Instantly, in a warm rush and a sweet ache. As if they'd been apart five days instead of five years.
Her breath caught at the feel of his mouth on her breast, and shuddered from her as his hand slipped between her legs, and his fingers found her wet and hot. Her hips arched automatically to the angle they'd found so many times before, so very long ago.
Her hands traveled over his body. Familiar territory. Ridges and planes of muscle and bone. Smooth, hot skin. The valley of his spine. His erection straining against her, as hard as marble, as soft as velvet. His thick, muscular thigh urging her legs farther apart.