“Hey, hey, no need to get your panties in a bunch. We’re just kidding around, Kane. Quinn and I are friends. Good friends.” He gave her a wink and finally she’d had enough.
In her old job she tried to ignore it when her employer made lewd innuendos, little jokes. Figured she’d treat him like a child. If she gave him no reaction, he’d stop.
But he didn’t and that’s how she lost her job. One night he went too far, had too much cocaine washed down with champagne and decided that the best revenge for fighting with his wife was screwing his assistant. Whether she liked it or not was of little consequence. He was big but out of his mind, and Quinn fought him off. When his wife walked in, she thought that the woman would leap to her defense. But instead she called her a “home-wrecking whore.”
Before Quinn could open her mouth to quit she was fired.
All her life her mom had told her to pluck her eyebrows, wear push up bras, and “smile pretty.” She had even tried to for a while. Even when her job required her to babysit a grown man who threw a fit over the kind of bottled water served in the green room or because the media questioned him about whether or not he got Botox treatments.
Screw nice. She didn’t want to smile.
“You and I don’t have a date planned.” She folded her arms. “And you’re not welcome here in my home.”
Wilder moved to the door and opened it. “Guess some things never change, do they, buddy? You still have a hard time knowing when to back off.”
Garret finally lost his easy grin, rising to his feet. “You know what? Fuck this,” he snapped, taking his time to look Quinn up and down. “You think you’re a hot piece of ass but your shit stinks same as everyone else’s.”
“Say another word to her and your tongue will be in the front yard.” Wilder’s face didn’t betray a single emotion and that made him utterly terrifying.
“Or what?” Apparently Garret didn’t value self-preservation. “You going to clobber me with your peg leg.” He turned to Quinn with a sneer. “Gimps do it for you? Please tell me he takes it off and you ride it like a fucked-up dildo—”
Wilder’s punch came hard, fast, and unexpected, like a striking snake. All she registered was a flash, a wet smack, and then Garret’s face was bleeding. Looked like his lip had split open.
Her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh my God.”
“If you’re not out the door in three seconds,” Wilder said acidly, “you’ll lose the tongue and be writing postcards to your front teeth.”
“What the fuck, man?” Garret backed up.
“One . . .” Wilder held up a finger.
Garret eyed the door as if calculating how much time he had to scram if he left a parting shot. “Everyone was right—you are a fucking lunatic.”
Wilder stepped forward, closing the distance. “Two . . .”
“I’m out. Watch your back, Kane.”
“Three . . .”
Garret was down the front steps, jogging toward his motorcycle. Wilder slammed the door as the engine revved to life.
Quinn took his hand and squeezed it. “You didn’t need to punch him for me.”
“Sometimes a man needs hitting.”
“Maybe that’s true, but I could tell that doing it bothered you.” She rubbed the inside of his palm with her thumb.
“It’s who I am, Quinn.” He was unable to keep the disgust from his voice. “At least who I used to be, and people never really change, do they?”
“I think we grow as time goes on. We get more life experience. Maybe we never lose the core of ourselves, but I think that we don’t stay the same either.”
He pulled her close and leaned in as if to nuzzle her hair before averting his face. “I’m sorry you saw this part of me. I’m . . . not proud of that part.”
She gripped his strong arms, holding him steady. “You used to get into a lot of fights. It sounds like you were angry.”
Wilder shrugged.
“Why?”
He shrugged again.
“You can tell me anything. Seriously. I doubt it’s more shocking than anything I disclosed today.”
Wilder wavered, and for a moment she felt positive he’d open up about whatever it was that was burning inside him. Then he set his mouth and the guy who’d read her Jane Austen, made a cake, and gone down on her until she was dizzy vanished behind a stony wall.
“You aren’t alone.” She brushed her lips over the edge of his clenched jaw. “I know we just met, but I care about you, and your family cares about you.”
He stiffened. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“He got to you, didn’t he? Oh no, Wilder—”
“You’re quick to see the good in people, at least the good in me. And I’m not going to lie . . . I like it. But you’re a good girl. That truth is plain on your face from a mile away, and me? I’ve done bad things. Things that would make you lock that front door, lock me out.”
“Calm down, nothing you say is going to scare me off.”
“Why not? You should be frightened.” He raised his voice.
“Knock it off.” She gave his chest a push. He didn’t budge, but his expression did change to one of surprise. “This big act you are pulling?” She was really heating up. “It’s worked for you in the past, hasn’t it? You yell, make your face get all mean . . . yeah . . . just like that. Ooh, I like how your nostrils flare, an excellent touch. You put on a show and everyone ducks for cover, don’t they?”
He chewed the inside of his cheek.
“Well, guess what, that behavior isn’t going to fly with me. You go on and on about the darkness, as if you’re the only one who’s ever had something go wrong. Here’s a news flash. Everyone hurts. Everyone deals with life junk. So do us both a favor and cut the badass con. You’re a man. But it’s not your physical strength that impresses me. It’s not that tough-as-nails attitude you throw around. It’s your gentleness. The kindness that brought you over here in the first place with a paper bag full of cake mix, rainbow sprinkles, and Jane Austen.”
He opened his mouth and closed it.
“You don’t scare me, Wilder Kane. Waiting to learn if I can expect to develop early-onset Alzheimer’s? That’s the sort of thing that gives me the bad kind of goose bumps. But leave your bulldog behavior on the front porch before you ever think of coming to visit my house again, got it?”
Her chest heaved. Lack of sleep, a hot bath, an impending sugar crash, post-orgasm fatigue, and good old-fashioned annoyance had shaken loose her tongue. In short, unadorned sentences she stated exactly what had transpired during the last year, how the blood draw went today, and what she could expect to learn in the next few weeks.
Wilder’s face was like a mirror to her words, it started out agitated, angry, turned to shock, and finally a mounting horror as comprehension sank in. He slouched over and rubbed his temples. “I’m sorry for starting crap with King. Garret and I have history.”
“That much was crystal clear.”
He looked at her then, his gaze oddly intense. “No use crying over baked beans.”
“That’s the weird saying of my dad’s.”
“What about you, have you ever used it?”
She shook her head, puzzled. “I’m twenty-five, not exactly ready to settle in with the folksy sayings.”
“That same day I had a big fight with King, I had a blowout with Grandma and considered running away from Brightwater, from her and my brothers. Figured they’d do better without me. All I ever seemed to do was cause problems and it had gotten old. I didn’t have my license yet, figured I’d start walking, thumb a ride, and head to a new place. I’d decided on Phoenix.”
“Phoenix?”
His mouth crooked. “Rising from the ashes and all that.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t end up in Hollywood, put that flair for the dramatic to good use.”
“There was a reason I stayed. A little girl kicked some sense into me.”
“Wait.” A glimmer came back to her, faint but growing stronger by the second. A horse stall. A big boy who’d been crying. “Wait a second.” She pressed a hand to her mouth.