When I rise early in the morning and head to the kitchen to make breakfast for the men, I find Quinn already there, standing in the middle of the room like he’s been waiting in that spot for centuries.
Surprised, I stop short in the doorway and look at him.
His eyes are bloodshot. His hair’s a mess. He’s wearing the same shirt he had on yesterday, the one with the rip through the shoulder and bloodstains down the sleeve.
He looks strung out. Dangerously wired. As if he was up all night mainlining cocaine.
“Good morning,” I say cautiously.
His gaze drags over me like a rake over hot coals. His voice comes out rough. “You all right?”
“Yes. Why, did something happen while I was asleep?”
He shakes his head, then shoves a hand through his hair. He stares at me for a moment, then turns away abruptly and starts to pace back and forth in front of the island with his hands propped on his hips and his brows drawn down.
This is normally where I’d make a smart remark about his calm and cheery personality, but there’s something different about him today. His thunderclouds have a heavier aspect. He’s all charged nerves and crackling tension, and it makes me worried.
I take a few hesitant steps into the kitchen. “Quinn?”
He makes a sharp cutting motion with his hand and growls.
I put my hands up. “Okay.”
Ignoring him, I set the oven to preheat. Then I head to the fridge and start pulling things out. Next, I hit the pantry. I put everything on the counter by the stove, start a pot of coffee, and begin to chop veggies and prep for the meal.
Behind me, Quinn paces back and forth. Every so often, he huffs, sounding like a bull pawing the ground before it charges.
I fight the almost overpowering urge to turn around and give him a hug.
He drops heavily into a chair, exhales in a gust, then groans. The sound is low and full of misery.
When I turn to look at him, he’s got his elbows propped on the kitchen table. His eyes are closed and his head is gripped in his hands, his hair sticking through his fingers.
Without saying a word, I pour coffee into a big mug, add a teaspoon of sugar, and set the mug in front of him. Then I go back to cooking and ignore him again.
After a while, he says in a low voice, “How did you know I take my coffee black with sugar?”
Beating eggs in a mixing bowl, I smile to myself. “You seem like a man who likes a little sweetness, but doesn’t want anyone to know it.”
Grouchy as hell, he snaps, “Aye? Any other witty observations you’d like to share?”
“Drink your coffee. It’s too early to argue.”
For the next ten minutes, we don’t speak. With words, anyway. He sits and throws lightning bolts at my back, which I deflect with a calm that only seems to incense him more.
I can tell he’s spoiling for a fight, but I won’t give it to him.
Twice, he jolts up from the table and refills his mug from the coffeepot, only to return to the table, fling himself into a chair again, and recommence brooding.
After he lets out his third loud grumble in as many minutes, I’ve had enough.
I stop what I’m doing, cross to the table, pull up a chair beside him, and say quietly, “What is it? I’m worried about you.”
Stunned, he blinks at me.
“I’m serious, Quinn. I want to know what’s wrong. Please tell me.”
He blinks again. “Did…did you just say please?”
“Cut the bullshit. What’s happened?”
When he only sits there staring at me like I just landed from outer space, I prompt, “Did you argue with Gianni? Did you find out something about those men? Has there been a change of plans?”
“The wedding’s still on, if that’s what you mean,” he says crossly.
I gaze at him for a moment, then sigh. “I’m sorry I’ve been so negative about that. I’m sure you can understand why, but…well, I was thinking that I’ve been really hard on you. Unfairly hard. After what you did yesterday…”
“What did I do?”
He says it as if he really has no recollection that he went full John Wick mode and hunted down and killed the men who blew a hole in the side of the house and wanted to kidnap Lili.
“You protected us. All of us. And you saved my life.”
He swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing. His burning gaze never leaves my face. He says gruffly, “You saved mine.”
“Probably not. I mean, that guy was a terrible shot. You would’ve blown a hole in his forehead before he could’ve gotten off another round. If it were me shooting you in the back, you’d be dead. Not that I would shoot you, because I’ve decided I don’t hate you anymore, but you know what I’m saying.”
When I smile at him, he exhales a small, astonished laugh.
“Just like that, you don’t hate me anymore?”
I make a screwy face. “Let’s say I’ve downgraded it to intense dislike and leave it at that.”
“And all it took was a few murders,” he says, looking dazed. “Had I only known that sooner.”
“Ha. But seriously, all joking aside. Are you okay?”
He stares at me for a long moment in silence, then demands angrily, “Who are you right now? Where’s the swamp witch?”
“Why can’t I be a swamp witch and a sweetheart? Hecate had three forms, and everybody worshipped her. Also, you’re one to talk, Dr. Jekyll.” I stop to think. “Or is it Mr. Hyde? I can never remember which one’s the monster.”
Appearing exhausted, he sags back into his chair and passes a hand over his face. “Every time I have a conversation with you, I feel like I’m going insane.”
“I take it that means you’re not going to tell me what’s wrong.”
“I can’t!”
That leaves me deflated. “Because you don’t trust me.”
“No, because I don’t want to be telling secrets to the soul eater who replaced Queen Devil Bitch with this reasonable person.” He waves a hand at me in irritation. “Whoever she is.”
I raise my brows and stare at him. “Excuse me…Queen Devil Bitch?”
“Aye,” he says without missing beat. “No, wait. That’s not it—it’s Queen Devil Bitch of All Existence.”
I’m horrified. “That’s what they call me? How awful!”
He chuckles. “No, that’s what I call you. God only knows what the other lads call you, but whatever it is, I’m damn sure they’d never say it to your face.”
Deeply insulted, I say, “That’s because they’re afraid if they did, their wives would be picking out their caskets. Quinn, a swamp witch is one thing, but…Queen Devil Bitch of All Existence? Seriously?”
“Have you even met yourself, lass?”
“I’m not that bad!”
He snorts and scratches his beard. “Aye. And vipers aren’t that poisonous.”
I cross my arms over my chest and smile at him. “Oh, that reminds me. It wasn’t sugar I put in your coffee. It was arsenic.”
“You’re only proving my point!”
The oven timer dings. I rise, pour the egg casserole mixture into six greased baking dishes, and put them in the double ovens. Then I turn back to Quinn.
“Fruit?”
“Pardon?”
“Would you like some fruit with your egg bake, or are you strictly a proteins kind of guy?”
He quirks his lips. “You mean you don’t already know?”
I tilt my head and look at him from under lowered lashes. “I’d say you’re a big-time fruit eater.”
A faint tinge of pink stains his cheeks. He swallows. “What I really need is scotch.”
“No, what you really need is a shower and a new shirt. I’d give you one of Gianni’s, but you’re much too big across the chest and shoulders to fit into anything of his.”
“Was that…did you just give me a compliment?”
“Oh, stop gaping at me. I was only saying you need a change of clothes. We can’t go ring shopping with you looking like you crawled out from under a bridge.”
His face falls. “Ring shopping. Right.”
He looks utterly depressed by the mention of it, which is confusing, considering he’s the one who’s so insistent on this marriage.
“Quinn?”
He glances up at me.
I hesitate, but decide I have to say it, no matter how much he won’t like it. “Lili’s going to need patience from you. Your marriage, at least at the beginning, will be very hard on her.”
When his look sours, I quickly add, “I’m not talking about your dizzying mood changes now. I’m talking about the fact that she’s young and naïve.”
Not to mention madly in love with someone else.
My voice drops. “She’s scared, okay? Please be gentle with her. If I won’t be around to hold her hand, you’re going to have to. And I know you can, because I’ve seen the human side you try so hard to keep buried. Give that side to her, and you’ll make her happy.”
He stares at my face with an expression on his own that’s indescribable. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was anguish.
He says gruffly, “Goddammit, woman. Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you grow another Hydra head and knock me on my arse again.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Will you please stop calling me woman like it’s a bad word? I hate that!”
His piercing gaze on mine, he replies softly, “I’ve never said it like it’s a bad word. It’s the most beautiful word in the language.”
Then he stands and walks out of the kitchen, leaving me staring after him in stunned silence.
An hour later, I’ve fed the men, checked on a still-sleeping Lili, and splashed enough cold water on my face to cool it from scorching to merely warm.
No such luck with my panties. They’re still on fire.
Quinn called me beautiful.
I mean, I think he did. In a roundabout sort of way.
Didn’t he? Or am I making it up in my head? Has my vagina hijacked my intellect and held it hostage so that it makes everything the man says now sound suggestive?
I hate myself for not knowing. I hate myself even more for wanting to know.
I hate myself most of all for hoping I’m right.
When Quinn reappears in the kitchen in a fresh shirt and says he’s ready to leave, I can’t look him in the eye. I just nod and keep rinsing dishes.
He stands there vibrating tension until he growls, “Any time this century.”
I turn off the water, dry my hands, and walk past him, out of the kitchen.
“Where are you going?”
“To get my handbag, if that’s all right with you, Prince Charmless.”
He grumbles something under his breath that I ignore. Ten minutes later, we’re in his big black Escalade, headed into the city.
The silence in the car is deafening.
When I can’t take it anymore, I try to make polite conversation. “So where will you honeymoon?”
He looks at me as if he’s unfamiliar with the word.
“Don’t tell me you’re not taking her on a honeymoon!”
He glares at the windshield, gripping the steering wheel so hard, I’m sure he’s wishing it were my neck. Through clenched teeth, he says, “I really can’t wait until I never see you again.”
I stare at his stupid, handsome profile, forcing myself to refrain from dragging my nails down the side of his cheek. I don’t want Lili to have to look at his gouged face during her wedding vows.
“You should take her to Ireland,” I pronounce, then stare out the passenger window because I can’t look at him one second longer.
After a while, he says gruffly, “Why Ireland?”
Resisting the urge to make a crack about the joys of drunken pub yodeling, I say instead, “So she can see where you were born, Quinn. Get to know you better. You know, meet all your relatives from the motherland and whatnot.”
“I don’t have any relatives left in Ireland.”
The dark way he says it makes me glance over at him. His jaw is hard and his thunderclouds are gathering, but I have to ask.
“Because they’re all in the States now?”
“Because they’re all dead.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
Don’t ask. Don’t say it, Reyna. Be smart and leave it alone.
Into my ambivalent silence, he says, “Aye, lass, all of them. And no, I don’t have anyone here, either.”
“So it’s just you?”
“Aye.”
“No parents? Siblings? Cousins? No one?”
“No one,” he repeats gruffly, then sends me a pointed look. “And that’s the truth.”
“You’re the last Quinn?”
“There are a million Quinns,” he says with a flick of his fingers. “Just not any I’m directly related to.” After a pregnant pause, he adds, “Which was the point.”
That sounds ominous. But he doesn’t offer any further explanation, so I say, “I don’t understand.”
He closes his eyes briefly, shakes his head as if he’s regretting the entire conversation, then heaves a sigh. “In the Old World, when someone really wants to send a message, they wipe out an entire family tree, top to bottom. Grandparents, parents, children, husbands, wives…every living generation related by blood or marriage to the one who caused the offense.”
And here I thought the Cosa Nostra was brutal.
“That’s what happened to your family?”
Instead of answering, he switches on the radio.
I reach over and switch it off. “How did you survive?”
He glances at the tattoo on my left ring finger. “How did you survive?”
I look out the window again, at the passing suburban landscape creeping toward the city. “Day by day. Any way I could.”
“Then you already know. The details don’t matter.”
He switches on the radio again, ending the conversation.
I close my eyes and allow the sudden and intense longing to get to the dark heart of this strange changeling of a man to pass through me until it’s only a faint, bittersweet taste on my tongue.
The wedding can’t come soon enough.
He’s a riptide and I’m swimming far out in dangerous waters, getting pulled under fast no matter how hard I fight to stay afloat.
