by Vonnie Davis
Tears filled Milt’s eyes. “No. When she came out she was dazed and bleeding down both arms.”
Fuck, no. What have I done to her?
“And you didn’t think to come get me?” Anger curled Quinn’s fingers into fists, not with Milt, but with his own thoughtless treatment of Cassie. Disgust with himself made his stomach drop and shame extend its sticky antennae to catch it.
He had to reach her, talk some sense into her and reassure her how important she was to him. God help his angel, he’d driven her back to cutting. Of all the people in the world he never wanted to hurt, Cassie was at the top of the list, his mom second and this irascible old coot in front of him was third.
“I used her cell to call her brother, the big one. Wolf.” Milt collapsed onto a chair. “I did my best to stop the bleeding. It was coming from her chest and down her arms. When her brother got there, he took one look at her, cursed a blue streak and carried her to his truck.” Milt wiped his eyes. “He mentioned the hospital, if you care enough to go.”
“If I care enough—hell, man, I love that woman.” Quinn grabbed his wallet off the bar at the kitchen and glanced at his feet. “Need shoes.”
“Might do with a pair of pants and a shirt too. You get dressed proper and meet me at my apartment. I’ll throw on a shirt, let Killer out to water the grass and drive us to the hospital. You’re not fit to be behind the wheel of a car. You don’t seem too steady on your feet. What all went on up here? You been smokin’ weed, son?”
“Weed? Hell, no! I had a flashback. I don’t even recall all of what I said to Cassie.”
“Flashbacks? Holy shit. My baby brother had them after he got back from ʼNam. Ranted about killing Charlie and went into a world of his own, wild-eyed, almost feral. Is that what you’ve been living with, son? Is that why you’re okay some days and moody as hell on the others?”
Quinn scrubbed his hands over his eyes. “Yeah.” He pushed the word from a throat rusted shut with regret. Whatever he’d said to Cassie had driven her to cut herself again. Damn his worthless life to hell.
Milt eased out of the chair as if every bone in his body ached. “Meet me in ten minutes.” He turned and ambled out. His gnarled fingers grasped the edge of the door, and he stopped. “I never saw anyone disintegrate like that. Cassie is always the sweetest blend of sugar and vinegar. Lord, you never know what that girl’s gonna say next, but her heart is pure gold. To see her bleed like that…” The old man shook his head, exhaled a long, pained sigh and closed the door behind him.
What the hell did I say to her to push her over the edge?
Quinn tried his best to replay their earlier conversation as he hurried into his bedroom, but all he could focus on was her cutting. He snagged his jeans off the floor and stepped into them. Grabbed a clean t-shirt from his packed duffle bag and jerked it over his head. When he sat on the edge of his bed to yank on his sneakers, something golden sparkled under the light—Cassie’s angel necklace.
She loved that piece of jewelry. Why would she take it off? He picked it up; was the clasp broken? He rested his elbows on his thighs and fingered the chain. What had he said to her to make her take it off?
He’d told her about college, his job at the State Department, volunteering for the assignment in Chile. Milt’s words socked him in the solar plexus. You “had sex with her and then bragged about how much you loved another woman, that you gathered flowers for her bathwater and how she woke you every morning with a song.”
Fuck me blind. I have got to be the world’s biggest asshole.
He palmed the necklace into his pocket and strode through the hallway, grabbing his keys and ball cap off the bar between the kitchen and the living area. He sat Furball’s automatic feeders and water container on the kitchen floor before charging out the door.
Milt was waiting for him in the building’s vestibule. Quinn tossed him his keys. “Here. You drive my Jeep.”
The old man tossed them right back. “Don’t need ʼem, son, my car’s got a V-8. Don’t make engines like that anymore. Got a little duct tape here and there but, other than that, she’s in prime condition.”
The back bumper was duct-taped to the body of the orange vehicle that was probably once red. From the four-inch height of the landau roof, Milt evidently had been adding a layer of duct tape twice a year over the vinyl top since Reagan was elected president.
“Can’t this piece of shit go any faster?” Hell, Quinn could run to the hospital quicker than Milt was driving. I need to see Cassie. I need to apologize.
“Watch it now. This is a classic seventy-six Cutlass Supreme.”
“Yeah, well, looks like the supreme part wore out. Can’t this heap pick up some speed? Or are you afraid the duct tape won’t hold under the wind velocity?” I have to get to Cassie.
“Speed limit’s thirty-five. Besides, this baby hasn’t gone over the speed limit since ninety-eight when I was late for my proctologist exam. Driving at a sensible speed saves wear and tear on the engine.” The narrow-shouldered man, hunched over the steering wheel, braked for a red light.
“Name me one person who drives the damn speed limit.” Quinn’s nerves jittered so badly he was ready to crawl out of his skin. He had to see Cassie, had to find out if she was all right. She must have bled something fierce if Milt had all that blood on his shirt.
“Yeah, well, douchebag.” Milt aimed a disgusted expression Quinn’s way. “Name me one man who screws a woman and then brags about how much he loves another. Never known you to bring a woman to your place, except for Cassie.”
Quinn never had. Going to the woman’s place kept things on a more impersonal level and made it easier to go home once the itch was scratched for both of them. Saved him the embarrassment of having one of them showing up on his doorstep whenever Cassie was there. His home was for him and her; it was their place to hang out, even though nothing sexual ever happened until yesterday.
God, he had to see her, make sure she was okay. “How damn long is this freaking light going to stay red?” He wanted to punch his fist against Milt’s dash in frustration.
“Stay calm, son. Everything happens in its own time.” Finally, the light turned green and the old man stomped a sandaled foot on the accelerator. The car sputtered forward on a cloud of blue smoke and Milt farted some noxious fumes of his own.
“Hell man, what crawled up your ass and died?” Quinn depressed the window button for some fresh air, but it didn’t open.
“Those automatic window-operating buttons stopped working in oh-one.”
“And you never paid to get them fixed? Cheap bastard.” He tried to turn the old-style window crank, and the chrome handle snapped off in his hand. In a fit of desperation, he flung it over his shoulder onto the back seat. “If you don’t soon get me to the hospital, you stingy-assed old coot, medical personnel will have to pry my hands from your throat.”
“No need to keep bitching at me. We both know it’s you you’re damned mad at.”
Quinn grunted and tugged the bib of his ball cap lower.
“Years back, when my wife and I owned our house, she asked me to replace a few basement steps she claimed were getting weak. I was drinking pretty heavily back then. Stopping at the corner bar after work, staying too long. Was just too tired and drunk to fix the steps once I got home.”
Milt turned a corner at five freakin’ miles an hour while Quinn gnashed his back molars together. What the hell do I care about your damn steps? I need to see Cassie. Don’t you get it?
“I kept putting her off. Then one day, when she was carrying a basket of dirty laundry down the steps, one of the boards snapped in two and she fell. Broke her leg. Messed her other ankle up pretty bad. ‘An accident,’ they called it. But I knew deep in my soul that I’d caused it. I loved that woman to pieces, but I loved the taste of liquor too. Even to an idiot like me, it was clear I had to make a choice. While she was in the hospital, I took my self-hate out on those basement steps, beat them to hell and back. Sometimes a ma
n needs a physical outlet to get his pain out.”
“I don’t think there are enough things for me to tear apart to ease the way I’m feeling right now.”
Milt eased the old car into the hospital’s parking lot. “I had to decide which I loved more—my woman or the booze. You gotta do the same thing. Which means the most to you? Cassie or the memory of that woman from your past?”
“Hell, that’s an easy decision to make. Cassie.”
“Glad to hear that, son. I hope you got a strong apology lined up. One that will win her heart back. And I hope you get a chance to spit it out before her brother tears you apart. You gotta be expecting that.”
“I can handle whatever Wolf dishes out.” Quinn deserved every cuss word, every threat, every punch Cassie’s protective oldest brother threw at him. My God, what had he been thinking to tell Cassie about Renata? As soon as the car came to a stop, he tried to unlatch his seatbelt. It wouldn’t release. Quinn shot the old man a murderous look while he pulled and tugged and cursed.
“Ain’t no use carrying on like that. Seatbelt hasn’t worked since oh-four.”
Quinn jammed his fingers into a pocket of his jeans, coiling them around his Huskie emergency knife he’d been using earlier to cut packing rope. He snapped open the largest blade and began sawing away at the seatbelt. Sweat beaded on his face from the combination of his efforts and frantic nerves. If he didn’t soon see Cassie, he’d lose his damn mind. “How in the fucking hell does this deathtrap pass inspection? You wanna tell me that? Huh?” His knife finally cut through the tight weave of the seatbelt.
Milt grinned. “I’ve got this cousin…”
“Well, damn your cousin to hell and back.” When Quinn pulled on the door handle, Milt coughed and farted. Quinn slowly turned his head to scowl at the old man. “So help me God, if you tell me this goddamn door doesn’t work, I will rip off the handle and jam it up your skinny, flatulent ass.”
Milt farted again. “No need to get so testy, son. Life is full of little inconveniences. You’ll have to get out on my side. The passenger door stopped opening from the inside in oh-seven. Still opens great from the outside though.”
Quinn shifted in his seat and, with one solid kick, forced open the door. “Well, I just gave your cousin some more fuckin’ work.” He took off running for the emergency room entrance. Milt wheezed behind him, his sandals slapping on the pavement.
Once Quinn inquired about Cassie Wolford, the receptionist pointed them in the direction of the waiting area on the fringes of the emergency room. Cassie’s older twin sisters, April and Jenna, were there. So was Jace—one of her brothers and Quinn’s friend and fellow firefighter— who sat with his arm around his wife, Wendy Anne. Her baby bump was growing bigger every time Quinn saw her. Not sure whom to address, he simply asked how Cassie was doing.
Becca, who walked into the waiting area with a cardboard container full of coffee cups and a couple bottles of juice, evidently overheard his question. “Wolf’s in the examining room with her. She’s had a few stitches. They’ve called in the psychiatrist she hasn’t seen in several years, to talk to her. I’d think it’s safe to say the three of them are battling it out now.”
Quinn’s gaze swept to the curtained cubicles. “But she’s all right. I mean…hell, she’s not all right, is she?”
“Take a deep breath, son. You’ve been on an emotional tear since I told you what happened to her.” Milt wrapped his gnarled hand around Quinn’s bicep.
“It should never have happened, Milt. I should never have told her all I did.”
Jace stood, jerked his hand from Wendy Anne’s firm grasp, and advanced on Quinn. “It took us over two years of counseling and constant reinforcement to get our baby sister beyond her self-destructive behavior, and in a couple of days you’ve got her cutting again.”
Stars exploded when Jace’s fist made contact with Quinn’s eye. He’d been expecting it from Wolf, the protective older brother, but not from jovial, gentle Jace. The power of the impact forced Quinn back a couple of steps. Cassie’s family crowded around in one collective gasp of support, and he doubted any of it was for him. Milt’s support backed against the wall along with his bloody shirt, his hand over his bony chest and his eyes wide.
“I had that coming.” Quinn straightened. “And more. I’ll grant you another shot before I start standing my ground. Because you have to believe me when I say I want to rip something apart so badly right now, I can barely see straight. We’ve been friends. Good friends. I’d rather it not be you I tear into.”
Jace landed another blow, this time to Quinn’s stomach.
“That’s two.” The hit barely hurt his hardened abs.
Jace shook his fist as if to relieve the sting. “Well, damn if you don’t take the fun out of revenge. You’re supposed to fight back.”
“No way in hell! I’m not staying!”
Everyone’s heads swiveled in the direction of the cubicle from where Cassie’s shrieking emanated.
A female’s response was too low to completely distinguish, although Quinn caught a couple of terms like “overnight observation” and “possible treatment”.
Quinn made a few steps toward Cassie’s cubicle when Becca’s hand touched his arm. “Not yet. Not until they get her under control.”
His gaze swept to her cool hand resting on his forearm and then to the concern in her eyes. “Don’t try to stop me. I’m the only one who can help her.”
“Look, it was just a temporary relapse.” Cassie’s voice stopped Quinn in his tracks. “Like…like an alcoholic tossing back a shot after learning someone he loved had just died. I am not going to cut myself again. And I, for damn sure, am not spending a couple of nights in the psychiatric ward. Wolf, either you take me home or I’m calling one of my sisters.”
April and Jenna groaned and shook their heads. Their arms were wrapped around each other’s waists, their expressions mirror images of each other.
“She needs me.” Why was it so hard for everyone to understand? “I’ll talk to her. Apologize.”
“Apologize?” April scoffed. “Wolf said you’d upset her to the point of cutting again. No. Let family deal with this like we’ve always done.”
“Megan gets off her nursing shift in four hours. Let her handle Cassie’s temper.” Jenna fiddled with her rows of bangle bracelets. “Remember what it was like dealing with her before when she was cutting?” She covered both eyes with her hands and sobbed. “I…I can’t bear seeing her go through this again.”
April enveloped her sister in her arms while giving Quinn the evil eye.
“That little girl’s got herself worked into a state. That’s for sure.” Milt scratched his neck and tweaked a bit of gas.
There had been fear in Cassie’s voice, and Quinn’s urge to go to her was greater than he expected. She was his. His to protect.
His demeanor must have telegraphed his thoughts because Jace waved his index finger under Quinn’s nose. “Don’t even think about it, Gallagher. The last person she needs to see right now is you.”
Something in him clicked. It clicked so soundly it felt right, damned right. Maybe it was the sound of distress in her voice, or his hunger to be needed by her, or his rebellious nature resenting what anyone said he could and couldn’t do. But, in that instant, surrounded by the antiseptic smells of the hospital, the squeaking of crepe soles and the almost constant squawking of some doctor’s name over the intercom, he knew he’d crawl through hell and back for this woman. He had to tell her how much he cared for her, that Renata’s shallow, exotic beauty was nothing compared to the complex mixture of sass and sweetness that lined the preciousness of Cassie Wolford’s soul.
He switched his attentions to Becca. “I said some shit to her I never meant for her to hear. Things from my past. Cassie kept telling me we needed to learn to trust each other with everything and so I communicated with her in a bungling, foolish way.”
She pursed her lips and blinked a couple times. “You finally
opened up and told her about the woman who hurt you so badly?”
He removed his ball cap, twisted it in his hands and then slapped it once against his thigh before resettling it on his head. “Yeah,” he glanced toward the curtained space that held the woman he loved.
“It had been so many years since I’d talked about it, my words were clumsy, and I hurt Cassie like hell in the bargain. I need to make things right. I need to tell her how much more important she is to me than that other woman ever was.”
Becca removed the plastic top from a coffee container and blew on its contents. “Wolf will pound the heck out of you, you know. He’s very protective of his sisters.”
Quinn exhaled a harsh bark of laughter. “Hell, won’t be anything I don’t deserve. I just need to do whatever I can to stop Cassie from hurting so much. A few days ago I decided to leave Clearwater to keep from screwing up her life. Now I’m not sure if I can leave until I know she’s over this depression I put her in.” He glanced at Becca. “Until I’m sure she’s safe.”
April, the most outgoing of the twins, got right in his face. “You think your leaving for good won’t put her into a deeper depression? You’re the only man she’s talked about in, like, forever. She sees you as some Greek god or something. When we went shopping for my wedding gown, she picked one out for herself. One she thought you’d like.”
“Please, tell me she didn’t buy it.” Marriage to him would be disastrous with his baggage and ghosts.
April lifted a shoulder and huffed her annoyance. “She put it on layaway.”
“Veil, too,” Jenna chimed in.
“I’m telling you, I’m not staying and you can’t make me!” Everyone’s head whipped around at Cassie’s threat. The green curtain shook as if she were climbing the fabric walls.
“Cassie, I’ll get a court order and admit you myself.” Wolf returned his own warning.
Like hell! No one makes her do what she doesn’t want.
“I’ll never forgive you if…” A sob rose above the rings of the curtain and tumbled over the connecting rod. Her words choked, ripping Quinn’s heart in two.