After all, she’d treated countless people who had been mugged. Snuck up on. Beaten. Worse. How many of them had been under the illusion of safety?
Stuffing the thought down deep with all the rest of the ones that had kept her mind racing all night, Quinn took the elevator to the third floor. Repeating the words I’m fine over and over again like a mantra, she keyed her way inside her apartment, not wasting a single second as she flipped the dead bolt, then latched the chain on the door. She got about three steps over the hardwood before a giant, geriatric furball that was more fat than cat launched himself against her shins. The tenuous reminder of her normal life sent a tiny spiral of relief through Quinn’s chest, and she bent down to scratch the old guy between the ears.
“Hey, Galileo. Did you miss me?”
His purr sounded off like an El Camino with a busted muffler, and guess that answered that.
Quinn managed a smile, her first one in…God, she didn’t even know how long. “I missed you too. Come on. Let’s get you and Max fed, since I’m sure you hogged all the dry food from her while I was at work.”
The normalcy of her routine took a chip out of her nerves, albeit a very small one. Putting her bag away, she fed the cats—Max was nowhere in sight, but that was kind of a given—and surveyed her fridge out of habit before abandoning the idea of breakfast altogether. She considered texting Parker to see how his hand was feeling, but he was probably—rightfully—still sleeping off his pain meds. Anyway, she’d overheard Hawkins and the guys from squad say they were heading over to his place later today to make sure he was still standing, so she knew he wouldn’t want for anything. She’d text him in a bit, though, just to be sure. For now, she should really catch up on some sleep.
Quinn slipped off her sneakers and padded down the hallway to her bedroom. Pulling back the sunshine-colored duvet, she didn’t even bother with changing into pajamas before she slid under the sheets.
Her heart started to pound after only ten seconds.
“Okay. Deep breaths,” she murmured. She shuffled through all the relaxation techniques she knew by heart, trying to ease the chatter in her mind. The squeeze of the zip ties against her wrists. The thick, coppery smell of Jayden’s blood, invading her nostrils and flowing over her hands to soak the quilt beneath him. The pressure of Damien’s gun between her shoulder blades. Pushing. Threatening. Capable of blowing a hole in her chest from behind…
Quinn ripped the duvet from her body, sitting up sharply and gasping for breath. Maybe she just needed something low-key to get her brain to settle down, like one of those astronomy shows on the Science Channel, or better yet, a Lifetime movie marathon. With a hero who had lean, sexy shoulders. And strong hands. And a piercing, ice-blue gaze—
The buzzer on her intercom system sounded off, startling the ever-loving shit out of her. She tiptoed back to the open space between her kitchen and her living room, where the unit stood mounted on the wall. No, she wasn’t expecting anybody, but Ice hadn’t exactly struck her as the Miss Manners type. If he was going to stalk her, would he really call from the front entrance and ask her to buzz him up first?
“Hello?” Quinn said, pressing the button on the intercom system before she lost her nerve.
“Quinn, it’s me. Slater,” he added, and cue up a big ol’ batch of whaaaaa? “Can I come up?”
After a couple rapid-fire blinks, she realized the fear making her pulse race had turned into relief. “Sure.”
She released the button in favor of the one next to it that would unlock the front door and allow him access to the lobby. Running a hand over her curls (which had air-dried, so they were probably more like giant tendrils of frizz that aspired to be curls when they grew up), she waited out the two minutes it would take Slater to get from Point A to Point B. After a quadruple-take through the peep hole confirmed that, no, she wasn’t hallucinating from a lack of sleep, and yes, the knock on the other side of her door did in fact belong to her temporary partner, Quinn slid the security chain free, following it quickly with a flip of the dead bolt and a turn of the knob.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, unable to keep her curiosity in check. He looked so normal (also, gorgeous) standing there on her threshold in a pair of low-slung tan cargo shorts and a dark gray T-shirt that outlined just enough of his pecs to make her belly do a little flip, and it occurred to her all at once that she’d very rarely seen him in anything that wasn’t his RFD uniform.
Welcome back, reality. You little bastard.
“I was…” Slater sent a furtive gaze over the hallway. “Would it be okay if I came inside for a minute?”
“Sure. Yes. Of course. Sure.” Annnd on top of her French-fried nerves, she was babbling. Fantastic.
“Thanks,” he said once he was inside and the door was re-latched to the nines. “I’m sorry to just show up like this, but I just wanted to be sure…you know, that you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” she answered automatically. Before he could put the high levels of doubt on his wildly handsome face to words, she asked, “So how did you know where I live, anyway?”
Slater paused, and score one for distraction. “Oh. I kind of looked up your address on January’s computer before she got to work this morning.”
Several things popped into Quinn’s head in reply, but since holy shit, that was ballsy and thank you, sweet Jesus were just a smidge less than graceful, she went with, “Kind of?”
“I know it’s against the rules. But I was worried about you.”
Her spine stiffened, but she pasted a smile over her face. “That’s sweet, really. But I’m fine.”
“Have you eaten breakfast?” he asked.
Not wanting to heighten his concern, but also not crazy about this idea of lying outright, Quinn went with the mostly-true, “I’m not really hungry.”
“I didn’t think so.” He raised the brown paper bag she’d just noticed he was holding. “I stopped at the Holy Roller. In case that changes your mind.”
Quinn’s mouth watered so hard, Pavlov would have been proud. Well played, rookie. “Best doughnuts in Remington.” Probably the universe, if you wanted to go all brass tacks about it.
“Yeah,” he said. “I had to run an errand, and the Holy Roller was right there, so…anyway, I got raspberry jelly-filled since they’re your favorite.”
Surprise shot her brows upward. “How did you know that?”
Slater smiled, just a half-lift of one corner of his mouth, but as far as her oddly overactive lady bits were concerned, it so counted.
“I’ve been at Seventeen for seven months, Quinn. Just because I don’t share a lot doesn’t mean I’m not paying attention.”
Huh. He had a point, there. He did seem like a speak-once-for-every-ten-observations kind of guy. “Oh. Well, you really didn’t have to bring me doughnuts.”
“Actually, I really did.”
“You didn’t,” she said, her face prickling with heat as soon as the words were out. “Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate you looking out for me. I do. But yesterday is over.” Her voice canted lower, as if she’d somehow be overheard even though they were standing in her foyer, behind a very locked door. “Ice let us go, and we’re going to stay quiet like he told us to. Everyone will be safe. So honestly, I’m fine.”
Slater took a slow step toward her. His expression was tough to read—nothing unusual there. But his sudden proximity had her instincts fired up, not with wariness or unease, but with a sudden urge to feel his arms wrapped around her again. To lose herself in the safety of him for just a few minutes. God, just to breathe.
“I’m glad to hear you’re fine,” he said softly. “But I meant I really did have to bring breakfast because I haven’t eaten yet either, and I’m hungry.”
“Oh. Oh.” The warmth on Quinn’s cheeks doubled up. God, she was an idiot. “I’m sorry, I just thought…you know what, why don’t I make some coffee?”
Slater smiled, and even though the gesture was all manners, her nipples s
till had a field day against the thin cotton of her bra. “Coffee would be great.”
He followed her into the kitchen. She was happy to have tasks to keep her hands—and her apparently untrustworthy brain—busy, making full use of both as she grabbed two single-serve pods from the stainless steel carousel next to her Keurig and filled the reservoir with fresh water from the nearby sink.
“Your place is nice,” Slater said, spinning a look around her kitchen before taking a seat at the farmhouse table along the far wall of the room, across from the stove.
“Thanks. Do you live nearby?”
She should know that, right? After working with him for seven months, it felt like something she should know. Especially since not even two minutes ago, she’d had to fight off the urge to climb him like Mount Everest.
“Not far. Look, are we really going to do this?” he asked, sending Quinn’s pulse skyrocketing and her panties into the damp zone.
She dropped the pair of plates in her grasp to the table with a thunk. “Do what?”
Slater looked up at her, his gaze perfectly steady and the complete opposite of the ruckus currently going on behind her breastbone. “Not talk about what happened yesterday,” he said.
“No. Yes. I mean”—Quinn paused, forcing herself to reset—“It’s not a good idea to talk about it. If we get into the habit, we might slip at the fire house in front of the others.”
“Would it really be such a bad thing if they knew?” he asked with so much calm that she had to fight a humorless laugh from climbing the back of her throat.
“Uh, yeah. We’ve already talked about this, Slater. We agreed not to say anything.”
“Luke.”
“What?” The answer caught her totally by surprise, her head jerking back as she stared at him, trying to make sense of his answer.
He pushed up from the table. Reaching around her, he carefully pulled out the chair across from the one he’d just abandoned, waiting until she sat before walking to the Keurig and grabbing both cups of steaming hot coffee.
“I know the last-name thing is a fire house standard, but we’ve been through a lot together in the last twenty-four hours. So”—he placed one of the coffee mugs in front of her before reclaiming his seat across the table—“you can call me Luke. If you want.”
“Luke,” she said, testing the name out on her tongue. It felt oddly personal to call him by his first name. Almost intimate.
Jesus, what was wrong with her? “If it’s okay with you, I’d just as soon put what happened yesterday behind us. And that includes talking about it.”
“You don’t think we made a mistake, not calling the police?”
The way his muscle flexed tight over the days’ worth of stubble on his jawline told her in no uncertain terms that he did, but oh no. No freaking way. She could not—would not—put everyone she cared about in danger.
“Do you not remember the threats Ice made? Or the fact that he has our driver’s licenses? Our cell phones? And that he can see which contacts we call most often, not to mention all of our texts. He knows everything.”
The realization of exactly how much detailed personal data the maniac had access to seemed to sober Luke up, lickety split. “I remember. But—”
“No.” Quinn’s voice shook, but God, at this point, she didn’t even care. “I mean it. Yesterday is over. Done. We can’t change that. We did all we could to try and save Jayden, and that’s all that matters. I just want to forget the whole thing and move on.”
“Okay,” Luke said after a heartbeat’s worth of a pause. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
Ooookay. Not what she’d been expecting, but… “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Reaching into the bag, he unearthed two softball-sized doughnuts, placing the slightly bigger one on the plate in front of her before brushing the sugar off his fingers and folding them just briefly over the edge of the table in what looked like prayer.
“So who’s this guy?” Luke asked, the small action over and done before she could be one hundred percent certain she’d seen it, much less ask about it.
“Huh?” Quinn followed his downward gaze, her confusion morphing quickly to a small smile as Galileo slothed his way between Luke’s shins with a hefty purr.
“Oh, sorry. That’s Galileo. He’s kind of an attention whore. And by ‘kind of’, I really mean ‘completely’.”
Luke’s half-smile reappeared. “That’s okay,” he said, reaching down to scratch between the cat’s ears with one hand while reaching for his coffee with the other. “I don’t mind.”
“Really?” Quinn’s curiosity sparked, but he just gave up an easygoing shrug.
“Yeah, really.”
She fiddled with her doughnut, breaking off a small piece as she took her fishing expedition a little farther from shore. “You just don’t seem like the cat type.”
“What about you?” Luke asked, pausing to take a draw from his coffee cup. “How long have you had Galileo?”
“Oh, he and I go way back to when he was eight months old and I was a whopping fourteen.” She couldn’t help but smile at the memory, faded as it was around the edges.
Luke’s black brows lifted up toward his nearly shaved hairline. “That’s quite the partnership.”
“Thirteen years,” she agreed. “My father got him for me from the animal shelter just after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. My dad, I mean. Not the cat.”
“Oh.” Luke’s spine snapped against the ladder back of his chair. “I’m sorry.”
But Quinn shook her head. Back before he got too sick, her father had made her promise to always remember him happily, the way he’d lived. With the exception of the months directly after he’d died, she’d honored that request. Still did. It wasn’t easy, but it was what he’d wanted.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “He passed away seven years ago, but I’m okay talking about him. And thank you. I’m sorry too.”
Luke paused for a second, seeming to consider his words. “So you and your father were close?”
“That is one hell of an understatement.” She broke off another small piece of doughnut, the sugar and jam combo melting like perfection on her tongue as she popped it into her mouth. “My father was all the family I had. He and my mom were both only children who had lost their parents before I was born, and she died when I was six. She had an aneurism while she was sleeping. The doctors said she never felt a thing.”
A shadow crossed Luke’s eyes, darkening them to a stormy blue-gray. “I’m sorry to hear that, too.”
Quinn nodded her thanks. “I don’t remember her much, although I remember that I loved her, obviously. It was always really just me and my dad. When he found out he was sick, that’s when we got Galileo. That cat was the runt of the litter, if you can believe that. So skinny and small, nobody wanted him.”
“No way,” Luke said, and she laughed. She wouldn’t have believed her if she were him, either. The cat was practically spherical.
“Scout’s honor. But my dad was a great caregiver. He fattened Galileo right up.”
Luke ate for a minute, giving her a chance to do the same. The silence wasn’t strained or overwhelming the way it had been before he’d hit the buzzer and interrupted her mini-panic attack, and she managed to get about half of her doughnut—and most of her coffee—down the hatch before he spoke again.
“So that’s where you get it from. Being a great caregiver, I mean.”
Huh. She’d never thought of it that way, but… “Yeah. I suppose so. And for the record, you’re not a bad caregiver yourself.”
“Come on, Quinn,” he said, letting go of a soft laugh. “You make sure everyone in the house eats breakfast before every single shift, including at least one fruit or vegetable.”
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” she semi-argued, although her smile probably watered down the effect.
Luke continued. “Right. How about when you rounded us all up
to go to that flu shot clinic last winter? Including Captain Bridges.”
“Hey, germs know no rank. And anyway, that was an act of self-preservation. When Faurier got the flu the year before that, he whined like a preschooler, and guess who had to start an IV of fluids just to keep him from driving us all crazy?” Quinn pointed to the front of her tank top with both index fingers. God, she loved squad’s second-in-command, but honestly. Sam Faurier was probably the worst patient she’d ever had. Toddlers included.
“Call it what you want,” Luke said, finishing off his doughnut with a wry quirk of his lips. “But you’re always looking out for everyone. Especially at Seventeen.”
“Okay. I guess I do focus on taking care of other people a lot,” she admitted, because really, he wasn’t wrong. “When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be a doctor.”
“Seriously?”
Luke looked as shocked as she felt that she’d unearthed that little nugget. Not that it was a secret, necessarily. The fact just felt like ancient history, mostly forgotten and fully covered in dust.
But it was also out of the bag, so Quinn said, “Yep. I did two years of pre-med at Remington University. I’m here to tell you, organic chemistry is not for the faint of heart.”
“What made you change your mind?” Luke asked.
“My dad’s health started to decline after my first semester freshman year.” Her heart twisted. Just because she wanted to honor his request not to be sad didn’t make it an easy task. “He’d gone through ups and downs before, but this was a lot worse. He was in and out of the hospital—mostly in—and to be honest, I was lonely.”
Luke looked at her from across the table. “What about your friends?”
“They sympathized. Or at least, they tried to,” Quinn said. “But none of them really understood what I was going through. I mean, they were out playing beer pong and hooking up at last call, I was learning about end-stage Parkinson’s and picking out caskets. Those two worlds don’t really touch, you know?”
In Too Deep: Station Seventeen Book 3 Page 10