“I mean vandalism, hang-up calls, strange mail, anything like that?”
“No,” she said, then automatically thought of the three hang-up calls last night. God, was it just last night? She'd attributed them to Angie. That made the most sense to her. The idea of a stalker had never occurred. It still didn't seem a possibility.
“I think you should park on the street,” Quinn said. “This might have been some transient going through the neighborhood, or it might have been some kid playing a joke, but you can't be too careful, Kate.”
“I know. I will—starting tomorrow. How long have you been here?” Kate asked as they started for the house.
“Not long enough to have to do that.”
“That's not what I meant.”
“I just got here. I tried calling you at the office. I tried calling here. I went to the office—you were gone. So I took a cab. Did you get my messages?”
“Yes, but it was late and I was tired. It's been a rotten, rotten day, and I just wanted out of there.”
She let them in the back door and Thor greeted them with an indignant meow. Kate left her boots in the entry, dropped her briefcase on a kitchen chair, and went directly to the fridge to pull out the cat food.
“You weren't avoiding me?” Quinn said, shrugging out of his coat.
“Maybe. A little.”
“I was worried about you, Kate.”
She set the dish down on the floor, stroked a hand over the cat, and straightened with her back to Quinn. Just that one little sentence brought the volatile emotions swirling once more to the surface, brought tears to her eyes. She wouldn't let him see them if she could help it. She would choke them back down if she could. He was inviting her to need him. She wanted to so badly.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “I'm not used to anyone caring—”
Christ, what a poor choice of words. She wasn't used to anyone caring about her anymore. The truth, but it made her sound pathetic and wretched. It made her think of Melanie Hessler—missing for a week without anyone caring enough to find out why.
“She was my client,” she said. “Melanie Hessler. Victim number four. I managed to lose two in one night. How's that for a record?”
“Oh, Kate.” He came up behind her and slipped his arms around her, folding his warmth and his strength around her. “Why didn't you call me?”
Because I'm afraid of needing you. Because I'm afraid of loving you.
“Nothing you could do about it,” she said.
Quinn turned her in his arms and brushed her hair back from her face, but he didn't try to make her look at him. “I could have done this,” he murmured. “I could have come and put my arms around you and held you for a while.”
“I don't know that that would have been such a good idea,” she said quietly.
“Why not?”
“Because. You're here to work a case. You've got more important things to do.”
“Kate, I love you.”
“Just like that.”
“You know it's not ‘just like that.'”
She stepped away from him, instantly missing the contact. “I know that we went five years without a word, a note, nothing. And now in a day and a half we're in love again. And in a week you'll go. And then what?” she said, moving restlessly, hands on her hips. “What am I thinking?”
“Apparently, nothing good.”
Kate could see that she'd hurt him, which hadn't been her intent at all. She cursed herself for being so clumsy with such fragile feelings, but she was out of practice, and she was so afraid, and fear made her awkward.
“I'm thinking about every time in those five years that I wanted to pick up the phone but didn't,” Quinn said. “But I'm here now.”
“By chance. Can't you see how that scares me, John? If not for this case, would you ever have come? Would you ever have called?”
“Would you?”
“No,” she said without hesitation, then softer and softer, shaking her head. “No . . . no . . . I've had enough pain to last me a lifetime. I wouldn't have gone looking for it. I don't want any more. I'd rather not feel anything at all. And you make me feel so much,” she said, her throat tightening. “Too much. And I don't trust it all not to just disappear.”
“No. No.” He caught hold of her by the arms and held her in front of him. “Look at me, Kate.”
She wouldn't, didn't dare, wanted to be anywhere but right there in front of him on the brink of tears.
“Kate, look at me. It doesn't matter what we would have done. It matters that we're here now. It matters that we feel exactly what we felt back then. It matters that making love to you this morning was the most natural, perfect thing in the world—as if we'd never been apart. That's what matters. Not the rest of it.
“I love you. I do,” he murmured. “That's what matters. Do you love me?”
She nodded, head down, as if she were ashamed to admit it. “I always did.”
Tears slipped down her cheeks. Quinn caught them with his thumbs and brushed them away.
“That's what matters,” he whispered. “Anything else we can work around.
“My life has been so empty since you left, Kate. I tried to fill the hole with work, but the work just ate away more of me, and the hole just got bigger and bigger, and I kept digging like crazy, trying to backfill. Lately, I've been feeling like there's nothing left. I blamed the job, thought I'd given away so many pieces of myself to it that I don't know who I am anymore. But I know exactly who I am when I'm with you, Kate. That's what's been missing all this time—the part of me I gave to you.”
Kate stared at him, knowing he meant what he said. Quinn might have been a chameleon when it came to the job, changing colors at will to get the result he wanted, but he had never been less than honest with her in their relationship—at least until the end of it, when both of them had pulled the armor tight around bruised hearts. And she knew what it cost him to open himself up that way. Vulnerability was not something John Quinn did well. It was something Kate tried never to do at all herself. But she felt it now inside her, pushing hard at the gate.
“Have you noticed how our timing really sucks?” she said, winning a smile from him. He knew her well enough to realize she was trying to back them both away from this edge. A little joke to slacken the tension. A subtle sign that she wasn't ready, didn't have the strength to deal with it all just then.
“Oh, I don't know,” he said, easing his arms around her. “I think right now you need to be held, and I need my arms around you. So that's working out pretty well.”
“Yeah, I guess.” She let herself put her head on his shoulder. Resigned was the word that came to mind, but she didn't fight it. She was too tired to fight, and she did indeed need to be held. She didn't get many opportunities these days. Her own fault, she knew. She told herself she was too busy to date, that she didn't need the complication of a man in her life right now, when the truth was that there was only one man for her. She didn't want any other.
“Kiss me,” he whispered.
Kate raised her head and invited his mouth to settle on hers, parted her lips, and invited the intimacy of his tongue on hers. As with every kiss they had ever shared, she felt a glowing warmth, a sense of excitement, but also a sense of contentment deep within her soul. She felt as if she had been unconsciously holding her breath, waiting for this, and could now relax and breathe again. A sense of rightness, of completeness.
“I need you, Kate,” Quinn whispered, dragging his mouth across her cheek to her ear.
“Yes,” she whispered, the need pounding inside her like waves against rock. The need speaking above the fear that this would all end in heartache in a day or a week.
He kissed her again, deeper, harder, hotter, letting the reins out on the hunger racing through him. She could feel it in his muscles, in the heat of him; she could taste it in his mouth. His tongue thrust against hers even as he dropped one hand down her back and pulled her hips tight against his, letting her feel just how much he wanted her. She groaned deep in her throat, as much at the stunning depth of the need as at the feel of him hard against her.