Page 54 of Long Past Deadly

She could go to her quarters upstairs. Pretend to work. Except she knew she’d dither over the next steps – avoidance procrastination. In truth, in only four days, she had come to depend on Quaid’s solid presence and needed to smooth over the unintentional hurt. Because that’s what she’d done. Hurt him. Not acceptable.

She sipped and waited. The caffeine did not help calm her, but she drank anyway, drawing Mercer’s psychological profile on a whiteboard in her head. Lost in her thoughts, she didn’t hear him come in until the door clicked shut.

She glanced at him, assessing his mood. He shed his suit jacket, and left her stunned at his silhouette in the dark slacks and white shirt. He went to the fridge for his own diet coke.

She needed to break every boundary.

He came and sat next to her, invading her space, and something sighed inside.

“I’m sorry.” His low, even tone reassured her.

“This is on me.” The confession came hard. She didn’t like making mistakes.

“I promise I will never charm or force you, and especially not at a bad moment.”

“I know.” She touched his arm. “I know. This isn’t you. It’s me being all screwed up.”

He took her hand and laced their fingers together. “Everybody I know is screwed up in some way.”

“Mine doesn’t feel like it’s ever going to get put away. I quit actively working on it.”

“Or maybe it’s sitting in front of you in living, breathing technicolor right now because of what happened. It’s valid the memories would be messing with you.”

She shifted, needing eye contact. “When I was first on the streets, I was on my own. I’d hang at the library mostly, but I went hungry when I took that safety approach. But the streets were dangerous for a girl alone. When Whit pulled me in, he got me back in school, and he gave me rules. Because he was such a force on the streets, I felt safer than most. Without him, I might have ran from Mercer, left Esme to fend for herself – results would have been the same. Her gone. Me hurt.

“You dead, more likely.”

“He didn’t kill me because of Whit?”

“I’m guessing, but yes.”

The conclusion tumble through her memories, but she let it go. “After my injuries, I stayed ridiculously close to Whit and only went to school. I was his shadow. I shoved what happened aside. I was a kid. I couldn’t do anything about it. What’s a healthy response to the violence anyway? I certainly didn’t have that playbook.”

“Understandable, Lani. I have stuff that happened overseas, and I still wake up in the night from those chaotic memories.”

“This is different. When I got into college, I went through a period where I drank and partied. It would dull the pain, everybody was doing it, so what could it hurt, right? It made me horribly vulnerable. And in the midst of one party, I realized the mess I was putting myself in, and left. I’ll pass over describing the freak out and hysteria. I quit drinking, and I avoided drugs, sex, making friends, and focused on school.”

He stayed silent, as if he knew there was more.

“I haven’t changed my habits. I have people I interact with at work, but I don’t do the friends thing, and men get an automatic no-go. I protect myself always.”

He squeezed her hand. “Do you want to change that? Because I’d like to point out, you and I are already friends.”

“Yeah, but could we be more?” She turned away to stare outside again.

Her heart died a little when he didn’t answer.

Instead, he rose, pulled her to her feet, and eased her close to kiss her forehead. “We’re already there, Lani. Do you want to go further?”

“You…”

“I what?”

“Our worlds are really different.”

“My money, your homelessness? My business, you in the FBI? Those aren’t differences. They’re details. Things in our lives. If you are comfortable with this, we’ll build together. We’ll find out what works, explore and fight out what we want together. This is us, not you and me. We’re already partners. I can and will work with you whenever I get a chance. We work well together. But the question is, do you want to have the personal and the intimate with me?”

“We’re talking sex and rock and roll here, aren’t we?”