“And time’s almost up.”
Cal nodded at Gage. “We need to show the stones to the others. We took an oath, we all have to agree to that. If we hadn’t, I’d have-”
“Shown yours to Quinn already,” Fox finished. “And yeah, maybe you’re right. It’s worth a shot. It could be it needs all six of us to put it back together.”
“Or it could be that when whatever happened at the Pagan Stone happened, the bloodstone split because its power was damaged. Destroyed.”
“Your glass is always half empty, Turner,” Fox commented. “Either way, it’s worth the try. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” Cal looked at Gage, who shrugged.
“What the hell.”
CAL DEBATED WITH HIMSELF ALL THE WAY INTO town. He didn’t need an excuse to stop by to see Quinn. For God’s sake, they were sleeping together. It wasn’t as if he needed an appointment or clearance or a specific reason to knock on her door, to see how she was doing. To ask what the hell was going on.
There was no question she’d been distracted every time he’d managed to reach her by phone the last couple of days. She hadn’t dropped into the center since they’d rolled around his office floor.
And she’d told him she was in love with him.
That was the problem. The oil on the water, the sand in the shoe, or whatever goddamn analogy made the most sense. She’d told him she loved him, he hadn’t said “me, too,” which she claimed she didn’t expect. But any guy who actually believed a woman always meant exactly what she said was deep in dangerous delusion.
Now, she was avoiding him.
They didn’t have time for games, for bruised feelings and sulks. There were more important things at stake. Which, he was forced to admit, was why he shouldn’t have touched her in the first place. By adding sex to the mix, they’d clouded and complicated the issue, and the issue was already clouded and complicated enough. They had to be practical; they had to be smart. Objective, he added as he pulled up in front of the rental house. Cold-blooded, clear-minded.
Nobody was any of those things when they were having sex. Not if they were having really good sex.
He jammed his hands in his pockets as he walked up to her door, then dragged one out to knock. The fact that he’d worked himself up to a mad might not have been objective or practical, but it felt absolutely right.
Until she opened the door.
Her hair was damp. She’d pulled it back from her face in a sleek tail, and he could see it wasn’t quite dry. He could smell the girly shampoo and soap, and the scents wound their way into him until the muscle in his gut tightened in response.
She wore fuzzy purple socks, black flannel pants, and a hot pink sweatshirt that announced: T.G.I.F. THANK GOD I’M FEMALE.
He could add his own thanks.
“Hi!”
The idea she was sulking was hard to hang on to when he was blasted by her sunbeam smile and buzzing energy.
“I was just thinking about you. Come inside. Jesus, it’s cold. I’ve so had it with winter. I was about to treat myself to a low-fat mug of hot chocolate. Want in on that?”
“Ah-I really don’t.”
“Well, come on back, because I’ve got the yen.” She rose up on her toes to give him a long, solid kiss, then grabbed his hand to pull him back to the kitchen. “I nagged Cyb and Layla into going to the gym with me this morning. Took some doing with Cyb, but I figured safety in numbers. Nothing weird happened, unless you count watching Cyb twist herself into some advanced yoga positions. Which Matt did, let me tell you. Things have been quiet in the otherworldly sense the last couple days.”
She got out a packet of powdered mix, slapped it against her hand a couple of times to settle it before ripping it open to pour it into a mug. “Sure you don’t want some?”
“Yeah, go ahead.”
“We’ve been a busy hive around here,” she went on as she filled the mug, half with water, half with two percent milk. “I’m waiting to hear something about the family Bible, or whatever else my grandmother might dig up. Today, maybe, hopefully by tomorrow. Meanwhile, we’ve got charts of family trees as we know them, and Layla’s trying to shake some ancestry out of her relatives.”
She stirred up the liquid and mix, stuck it in the microwave. “I had to leave a lot of the research up to my partners in crime and finish an article for the magazine. Gotta pay the doorman, after all. So?” She turned back as the microwave hummed. “How about you?”
“I missed you.” He hadn’t planned to say it, certainly hadn’t expected it to be the first thing out of his mouth. Then he realized, it was obviously the first thing on his mind.
Her eyes went soft; that sexy mouth curved up. “That’s nice to hear. I missed you, too, especially last night when I crawled into bed about one in the morning. My cold, empty bed.”
“I didn’t just mean the sex, Quinn.” And where had that come from?
“Neither did I.” She angled her head, ignoring the beep of the microwave. “I missed having you around at the end of the day, when I could finally come down from having to hammer out that article, when I wanted to stop thinking about what I had to do, and what was going to happen. You’re irritated about something. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”
She turned toward the microwave as she spoke to get her mug out. Cal saw immediately she’d made the move as Cybil was stepping through the kitchen doorway. Quinn merely shook her head, and Cybil stepped back and retreated without a word.
“I don’t know, exactly.” He pulled off his coat now, tossed it over one of the chairs around a little cafe table that hadn’t been there on his last visit. “I guess I thought, after the other day, after…what you said-”
“I said I was in love with you. That makes you quiver inside,” she noted. “Men.”
“I didn’t start avoiding you.”
“You think-” She took a deep inhale through her nose, exhaled in a huff. “Well, you have a really high opinion of yourself, and a crappy one of me.”
“No, it’s just-”
“I had things to do, I had work. I am not at your beck any more than you’re at mine.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You think I’d play games like that? Especially now?”
“Especially now’s the point. This isn’t the time for big personal issues.”
“If not now, when?” she demanded. “Do you really, do you honestly think we can label and file all our personal business and close it in a drawer until it’s convenient? I like things in their place, too. I want to know where things are, so I put them where I want or need them to be. But feelings and thoughts are different from the goddamn car keys, Cal.”
“No argument, but-”
“And my feelings and thoughts are as cluttered and messy as Grandma’s attic,” she snapped out, far from winding down. “That’s just the way I like it. If things were normal every day, bopping right along, I probably wouldn’t have told you. Do you think this is my first cannonball into the Dating and Relationship Pool? I was engaged, for God’s sake. I told you because-because I think, maybe especially now, that feelings are what matter most. If that screws you up, too damn bad.”
“I wish you’d shut up for five damn minutes.”
Her eyes went to slits. “Oh, really?”
“Yeah. The fact is I don’t know how to react to all of this, because I never let myself consider being in this position. How could I, with this hanging over my head? Can’t risk falling for someone. How much could I tell her? How much is too much? We’re-Fox and Gage and I-we’re used to holding back, to keeping big pieces of this to ourselves.”
“Keeping secrets.”
“That’s right,” he said equably. “That’s exactly right. Because it’s safer that way. How could I ever think about falling in love, getting married, having kids? Bringing a kid into this nightmare’s out of the question.”
Those slitted blue eyes went cold as winter. “I don’t believe I’ve yet expressed the wish to bear your young.”