by Vonnie Davis
He stormed in the direction of the examining area, hell-bent on doing something, anything, to protect her, even if it meant putting his private emotions out there. When he yanked back the curtain, three pairs of eyes pivoted in his direction.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A familiar pair of brown orbs darkened and narrowed. Wolf practically shoved the older woman in the white coat out of his way to get to Quinn. “I will fucking kill you for what you did to her!”
“Ten minutes, buddy, and I’m all yours. That’s a promise. Jace already took a couple shots. Looks like you’ll have to be happy with what’s left.”
Quinn’s gaze settled on Cassie, who had her bandaged arms over her eyes, as if by doing so she could pretend he wasn’t there. Seeing her like this erased all the pain, the agonizing pain of finding his men dead in Chile. At this definitive moment, one thing became flawlessly clear—the depth of his love for Cassie Wolford. The urge to scoop her into his arms and cradle her to him, to take on her agony, was so powerful, he wasn’t so sure he could keep his hands off her.
“Take a good look at her, Gallagher. This is all your handiwork.” Wolf pointed to his sister.
The two men glared at each other. Quinn could see love and fear mirrored in Wolf’s eyes. How could he blame Wolf for caring about the woman Quinn adored? He could understand her brother’s snarling. Damn if he didn’t want to snarl and tear apart every piece of equipment in the narrow cubicle, himself.
“Ten minutes, Wolf.”
Protective brother stepped between Quinn and Cassie. “No way in hell.”
Quinn shoved Wolf aside and placed his hands on Cassie’s thighs. “Baby, give me ten minutes to explain why I had no clue what I was doing.” He gently stroked her legs. “Once I started talking about the past, all the ugly poison of it came flowing out. Honest to God, Cassie, I don’t even remember all of what I said.”
She shook her head and her shoulders trembled from crying. The urge to embrace her was so pronounced he could barely inhale his next breath. He had to ease the agony of what he’d done to her, the frailty of what she’d become. “Angel?”
“No. Not your angel anymore.” She kept her hands over her eyes, refusing to look at him.
Oh, but she was his angel and would be until he took his last breath. Even if she moved on to another man, which she might well do after the way he’d bungled things today. His awkward words must have hurt her deeply to put her here—cut, bandaged, sobbing from the depths of her wounded soul. His hand reached to touch her hair.
Wolf got between them. “Not on your freakin’ life, pal. Can’t you see how delicate she is right now?”
Quinn could see it. Hell, his heart could comprehend it. He looked at the middle-aged therapist. Maybe there was another way. He stepped back and directed his plea to the doctor. “Would you listen, please, and help us through this? Cassie trusts you. If you’ve earned her respect, then you have mine too.”
The woman’s grey eyebrows rose for a second, and she edged next to Cassie, wrapping her arm around her patient’s shoulders. “Can you handle this? Do you want me to do some joint counseling here…today? Or would you rather I made him leave? You’re in charge here.”
“I’m not talking to him. Let him talk. Let him tell you how much he still loves a dead woman. How he loves her more than…more than…”
He had to reach her somehow. “Cassie, if you don’t listen to what I have to say, won’t you always wonder?” His voice was low and, he hoped, calming. “Give yourself the gift of knowledge before you order me to walk out of this cubicle.”
“I hate how you always make sense.” She turned her back and reached for the box of tissues on the bedside table. “Wolf, you’ll have to leave.”
“Are you kidding me?” Her brother’s hands fisted at his hips and his scowl skewered Quinn to the spot. The man cared deeply for his family. No one could fault him for that.
“Couple’s counseling is best done in private, Mr. Wolford.” The doctor pulled back the curtain as a sign for him to leave.
Always one to deliver the last word, Wolf pointed at Quinn. “Ten minutes and your ass is mine.”
“Twenty minutes.” The psychologist made it a point to look at her watch and note the time on her chart. Wolf stormed around the edges of the curtain and she thrust out her hand, a charm bracelet jangling with her movement. “I don’t think we’ve been formally introduced. I’m Dr. Paxwell.”
Quinn shook her hand and noted its warmth. “Pleasure meeting you, ma’am, if you’re the person who helped Cassie in the past, you have my eternal gratitude. I’m Quinn Gallagher.”
“I’ve heard your name mentioned a time or two today. I will demand you leave your macho attitude outside this curtain.” She pointed her pen over her shoulder.
“Anything for Cassie. Just so you realize, sharing with you won’t be easy, but I’ll do anything to help the woman I love.”
Cassie gave her typical smart-ass “huh” and he fought the smile it always brought.
Dr. Paxwell nodded once. “I appreciate that, Mr. Gallagher.”
“It took me a long time to build up enough trust with Cassie to tell her what happened in Chile, so—” He took off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. “No doubt I’ll bungle it up with you the same as I did with her. She was the first person I told in four years and…shit…” He socked his hat back on, pulling it low over his eyes. “I said everything wrong. Look at what I did to her.” He stepped closer, needing to touch her. Without thinking, he fingered her long hair. “I adore everything about this woman, even the fiery part of her personality that drives me crazy insane at times.” He smiled at Dr. Paxwell. “If she only knew how her rants make me laugh deep down inside where no one else can reach.”
Cassie sobbed, covering her eyes with tissues, still refusing to look at him.
“Take your time, Mr. Gallagher. Cassie, any time this gets to be too much for you, you have the power to stop it. Do you both understand this rule? Cassie’s feelings must come first. Her relapse, however temporary, is of great concern to me. It was so unexpected. She was doing so well.”
“I’m to blame for her setback.” Hell, he was always to blame for whatever went wrong.
“I don’t want him to…to…see me like…this.”
Her sobbing was killing him, unmanning him. “Angel, I’ll turn my back.” He shifted and leaned against the foot of the gurney. “I won’t look at you. I promise. Will that be okay with you, baby?”
The sheets rustled behind him. “I suppose.”
“I don’t know how to start this, except at the beginning.” He sighed and gathered his thoughts, jamming his fingertips into the front pockets of his jeans. “Four years ago I was on a clandestine mission for the government.”
“Covert ops?” Dr. Paxwell’s grey eyebrows furrowed.
He nodded. “Yes, in Chile, hunting drug traffickers. I headed a team of four Americans and two Chileans. One of the natives was a woman. Beautiful. Willing. Charming. I wasn’t experienced in long-term relationships. I’d always been more of a one-night stand kind of guy and, for the first time in my life, I allowed myself to get emotionally involved. What I didn’t know was she was working for the cartel I was investigating, and, because of her, I lost three of my American team and the other Chilean. The fourth man on my team was badly hurt.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” The concern in the doctor’s hazel eyes was genuine. “You must carry a great deal of guilt.”
He nodded. “You have no idea. It’s changed my whole life.”
“Guilt often does.”
“When Renata, she’s the woman I was fu…ah…seeing, confessed she was working for the cartel and had given them information that caused my men to die, I was so enraged, I shot her between the eyes.” He glanced at the psychologist, who stared at him, her expression unreadable. “I resigned from the agency and started a new life, here, in Florida. Tried my best to keep to myself, but the guys at the station were the best. Fri
endly. Outgoing. And then there was Cassie.”
“How do you feel about Cassie?”
“I’ve never shared this with anyone.” He crossed his arms and glanced at his crossed feet. Several seconds passed as he gathered courage. “But right now, seeing her like this, I’d tell you every secret I have. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her at her eighteenth birthday party.”
There was a gasp behind him. He wanted to turn to make sure Cassie was okay, but he’d promised he wouldn’t look at her. He gaged the doctor’s reaction to make sure all was well with his angel before he continued.
“I knew she was too young for me. She’s still too young. There’s a seven year difference in our ages. So we hung out as friends.”
“We dated without the sex. That’s what Ryder said.”
The therapist glanced at Cassie. “And who is Ryder?”
“A friend who runs a health bar. He makes the best fruit smoothies. Quinn and I stop in once or twice a week.”
“I see. Do you and Quinn do other things together?”
Cassie blew her nose again. “We jog a couple days a week. Scuba-dive. Go to movies.”
“The two of you alone or do you do these things in a group?” The doctor scratched her grey hair with the blunt end of her pen.
“Usually we go alone. Sometimes her family has picnics or holiday meals, and I’m always invited.” It was the only time he felt part of a real family, with all the noise and teasing and caring.
“Do you enjoy family functions, Quinn?”
He nodded. “As long as Cassie’s around, I enjoy most anything. Hell, she’s even gotten me to go to a few church bazaars and yard sales.”
“And you’ve dragged me along to a few Buccaneers football games.”
Quinn chuckled. “Come on, you love the tailgating parties.”
Her soft laughter alleviated the edge of tightness in his muscles. “Yeah, guess I do. All that yummy food you grill.”
“Cassie, how do you feel about him?”
“You’ll never believe this. I fell in love with Quinn at my eighteenth birthday party—the same night he says he fell in love with me.”
Dr. Paxwell tucked her pen behind her ear and then wrapped her arms around the chart she’d been making notes on, holding it to her chest. “So you two fell in love at first sight and have dated without the intimacy of sex for three years?” It did sound kind of incredulous the way she put it.
“I chased him and he treated me like I was his annoying little sister. The man wouldn’t even kiss me.”
“Why did you do that, Mr. Gallagher? Why hold her off, when you obviously care so much for her? To spend so much time with the same woman with no physical release isn’t healthy.”
He shrugged. “I’m bad news. Thanks to me, four men lost their lives, another was badly scarred and I shot a woman I cared about.” He exhaled a shuddering breath. “Even my own father disowned me. What did I have to offer someone sweet like Cassie?”
“Have you had counseling for PTSD?”
“Yeah, for a month.”
Dr.Paxwell made an annoyed sound in her throat. “That’s hardly enough to scratch the surface. Are you having nightmares? Flashbacks?”
He nodded. “Memory lapses.”
“So you kept all this hidden for nearly four years? What was the impetus for telling Cassie now?”
He stalled in responding. Would Cassie want her therapist to know they’d become intimate?
“We had sex. His attraction to me scares him so badly he’s resigned as a fireman and is leaving Clearwater. Leaving me. I gave him my virginity and he gave me the boot.”
“Dammit, Cassie. I tried telling you I’m damaged inside. What if I hurt you?”
The sheets rustled before her slap landed across the back of his head, knocking off his ball cap. She moved on her knees until they were eye to eye. “Hurt me? Hurt me! You self-centered, self-pitying, control freak.” The tears started flowing again.
He swept her into his arms and stood. She wrapped her bandaged arms around his neck, snuggled her head against his shoulder and sobbed. “Angel,” he whispered as he carried her to the other side of the small room, hoping they’d gain some semblance of privacy. “I hurt you, baby, and I’m so sorry.” He kissed her forehead. “I never meant to imply I loved Renata more than I love you.” He kissed her cheek. “I meant to show you what it did to me to shoot someone I cared about. I mean, hell, what kind of person does that?” He kissed her jaw. “My feelings for her were real, but not nearly as deep, as all-consuming, as they are for you.” His lips barely touched hers. “The way I felt about her wasn’t even close to how intensely I love you. You’re everything to me. Everything.” Then his lips covered hers, and he breathed in the sunshine from her soul.
****
Could she trust him? He pulled her closer to his chest as if he couldn’t bear to let her go. His muscles flexed to tighten his hold on her and his lips—dear Lord, his lips wrought some kind of sensual magic on her whole body.
Quinn finally pulled back from the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers. “I love you, angel.” He leaned her against the bed, shoved his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and removed something. “Open your hand.” When she did, he poured the gold chain onto her palm. “Put this back on and promise me you won’t ever take it off. Whether you’re able to sense it just yet, things between us have changed. I can’t fight how I feel for you anymore. My love for you has changed me.”
The angel with the diamond-encrusted wings stared back at her, almost forlorn in her solitude. “I don’t know.” She’d been in so much pain when she removed it.
She hadn’t wanted Quinn to see her like this, weakened to the point of cutting, something she hadn’t resorted to since the summer between her sophomore and junior years of high school. Her siblings had gathered around her that night, several years ago, and embraced her as they cried. Seeing Wolf, Jace, her three sisters and Jace’s wife, Wendy Anne, in tears was akin to electric shock treatment. She finally realized she wasn’t just hurting herself; she was punishing them all. Her love for her family became her healing focus.
Now, here she was again. Cutting and punishing those she loved because a man she adored had affections for someone else. She was here because she felt “less than” what he normally desired in a woman. This wasn’t one of her proudest moments.
“Put it on, sweetheart…for me.” He picked her up again, setting her properly on the bed, and tried to tug the chain from her grasp. “Hold your hair up so I can place the angel back where she belongs. And, once I’ve got my necklace back on you, I’m going to give you hell for scaring me like you did tonight. Don’t you ever resort to cutting yourself. Shit, I’d rather you chased me down with a razor blade and sliced me to shreds.”
The corners of her lips lifted. “Now there’s an appealing thought, but, for now, I’m not ready to wear this.” Before she put the piece of jewelry back on, she had to be sure of his feelings toward her. Right now, she was more confused than positive.
“If you two are through, we have some important issues to discuss.” Dr. Paxwell slid the pen from its resting place on top of her ear and jotted on some cards. “I want to see each of you separately for a month.” She handed an ivory card to Cassie: “I’ll see you once a week.” She shook an appointment card filled with lots of writing at Quinn: “You, I’ll want in my office twice a week. We have a lot of post-traumatic stress issues to resolve.”
He extended an open hand in a stop gesture. “I don’t need counseling.”
“Typical man,” the doctor quipped. “The only things he’ll confess to needing are cold beer, more food and a hot woman.” Dr. Paxwell’s eyebrow quirked in challenge. “Do you want Cassie in your life? If you do, then you’ll go through counseling.”
He snatched the card from her outstretched hand and slid it into his wallet. “I know when I’m being manipulated, and I don’t like it.”
His wide hand, warm and strong, swept up
Cassie’s spine, a caressing yet possessive move. “I want her more than anything. I’d planned on leaving Clearwater because I was afraid of the passion we had for each other, given our age difference, but we’ve already crossed that line. I can’t walk away from her now. Even though I have job applications at other fire companies in the state, I might talk to my current boss about staying on here.”
Cassie gulped her next few breaths of air. This sudden transformation in him was certainly unexpected. Was he thinking of staying because of guilt over her cutting or because he really couldn’t bear to leave her? “Why the change of heart?” She had to know.
He cupped her chin in his hand and lifted her face for a quick kiss. “Sometimes it takes a man a while to admit what or who is really important in his life. For me, it’s you. It will always be you.” He glanced at Dr. Paxwell. “You’ve scheduled the appointments. I’ll be there, but I’m warning you, I won’t be an easy patient.”
“You government, military-damaged men never are. If I could survive Wolf, believe me, I can take on your issues and help you whip them.”
Cassie’s head popped up. “Wolf was a patient of yours?”
“That’s between me and him. Now, I want the two of you to stop seeing each other as friends and lovers for a month. Will you agree to that?”
Quinn’s gaze swept over Cassie. “I can’t see her for a month?” He crossed his arms, his square jaw jutted in that pugnacious way he had. “Tell me why, in a way that makes one damn bit of sense.”
“You two need to learn to operate independently of each other. To lead your own lives. I might even suggest you date others.”
“Oh no. Oh, hell no!” His hand gently fisted in Cassie’s hair. “This woman is mine.”
Dr. Paxwell stepped closer until she was almost nose to nose with Quinn. “She’s not a dog or a cat. She’s a grown female. You cannot think of her as an object you own but as an equal.”
“As an equal?” Those three words exploded through his clenched jaws. The expressions that played across his face were priceless as his index finger pointed in the doctor’s face. “Just one fucking moment. I may have thought of her as too young. For damn sure, I have always thought her too good for me. But make no mistake about this, I have always thought of her as my equal. She can do the crossword puzzle in the Sunday papers with a pen. Not using a pencil so she can erase her mistakes, but in ink because she makes none. This young woman can make her point known in the most bizarre and maddening way. Try running ten miles with her or scuba-diving for hours. I don’t think of her as an object, but as someone I’m not sure I can live without.”