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She hadn’t slept all that much herself; after he’d left the morning before, she had wandered around the apartment, feeling restless and unable to settle on anything to do. It had taken her a while to identify it, but at last she had realized that she was lonely. He had been with her for thirty-six hours straight, holding her while they slept, making love, talking, arguing, laughing. The blackout had forced them into a hothouse intimacy, leading her to explore old nightmares and maybe even come to terms with them.
The bed had seemed too big, too cold, too empty. For the first time she began to question whether or not she had been right in breaking off with him. Quinlan definitely was not Eric Landers. Physically, she felt infinitely safe and cherished with him; on that level, at least, she didn’t think he would ever hurt her.
It was the other facet of his personality that worried her the most, his secrecy and insistence on being in control. She had some sympathy with the control thing; after all, she was a bit fanatic on the subject herself. The problem was that she had had to fight so hard to get herself back, how could she risk her identity again? Quinlan was as relentless as the tides; lesser personalities crumbled before him. She didn’t know anything about huge chunks of his life, what had made him the man he was. What if he were hiding something from her that she absolutely couldn’t live with? What if there was a darkness to his soul that he could keep under control until it was too late for her to protect herself?
She was under no illusions about marriage. Even in this day and age, it gave a man a certain autonomy over his wife. People weren’t inclined to get involved in domestic “disputes,” even when the dispute involved a man beating the hell out of his smaller, weaker wife. Some police departments were starting to view it more seriously, but they were so inundated with street crime, drug and highway carnage that, objectively, she could see how a woman’s swollen face or broken arm didn’t seem as critical when weighed in that balance.
And marriage was what Quinlan wanted. If she resumed a relationship with him, he might not mention it for a while—she gave him a week, at the outside—but he would be as relen
tless in his pursuit of that goal as he was in everything else. She loved him so much that she knew he would eventually wear her down, which was why she had to make a final decision now. And she could do it now—if the answer was no. She still had enough strength to walk away from him, in her own best interests. If she waited, every day would weaken that resolve a little more.
He had been silent while she moved around the kitchen, preparing the coffeemaker and turning it on. Hisses and gurgles filled the air as the water heated; then came the soft tinkle of water into the pot and the delicious aroma of fresh coffee filled the room.
“Let’s sit down,” he said, and placed his briefcase on the table. It was the first time she had noticed it.
She shook her head. “If this requires thinking, at least wait until I’ve had a cup of coffee.”
His mouth quirked. “I don’t know. Somehow I think I’d stand a better chance if your brain stayed in neutral and you just went with your instincts.”
“Hormones, you mean.”
“I have nothing against those, either.” He rubbed his beard and sighed wearily. “But I guess I could use a cup of coffee, too.”
He had taken the time to change clothes, she saw; he was wearing jeans that looked to be at least ten years old, and a soft, white, cotton shirt. But his eyes were circled with dark rings and were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and he obviously hadn’t shaved since the morning before the blackout. The blackness of his heavy beard made him look like a ruffian; actually, he looked exactly like the type of people he hired.
When the coffee stopped dripping, she filled two mugs and slid one in front of him as she took a seat at the table. Cautiously sipping the hot brew, she wondered how long it would take to hit the bloodstream.
He opened the briefcase and took out two files, one very thin and the other over an inch thick. He slid the thin one toward her. “Okay, read this one first.”
She opened it and lifted her eyebrows when she saw that it was basically the same type of file that he’d had on her, though this one was on himself. Only it seemed to be rather sketchy. Bare bones was more like it, and even then, part of the skeleton was missing. It gave his name, birthdate, birthplace, social security number, physical description, education and present employment, as well as the sketchy facts of his brief marriage, so many years ago. Other than that, he seemed not to have existed between the years of his divorce and when he had started his security business.
“Were you in cold storage for about fifteen years?” she finally asked, shoving the file back toward him. “I appreciate the gesture, but if this was supposed to tell me about you, it lacks a little something.”
He eyed her warily, then grinned. “Not many people can manage to be sarcastic at five o’clock in the morning.”
“At five o’clock, that’s about all I can manage.”
“I’ll remember that,” he murmured, and slid the second file, the thick one, toward her. “This is the information you wouldn’t have gotten if you investigated me.”
Her interest level immediately soared, and she flipped the manila folder open. The documents before her weren’t originals, but were a mixture of photostats and faxes. She looked at the top of one and then gave him a startled look. “Government, huh?”
“I had to get a buddy to pull up my file and send it to me. Nothing in there is going to reveal state secrets, but the information is protected, for my sake. I could have hacked into the computer, but I’d just as soon not face a jail term, so it took some time to get it all put together.”
“Just exactly what did you do?” she asked, not at all certain that she wanted to know. After being so frustrated by his lack of openness, now that his life lay open before her, she wasn’t all that eager to know the details. If he had been shot at, if he had been in danger in any way…that could give her a different set of nightmares.
“No Hollywood stuff,” he assured her, grinning.
“I’m disappointed. You mean you weren’t a secret agent?” Relieved was more like it.
“That’s a Hollywood term. In the business, it’s called a field operative. And no, that isn’t what I did. I gathered information, set up surveillance and security systems, worked with antiterrorist squads. It wasn’t the kind of job that you talk over with your buddies in the bar after work.”
“I can understand that. You got in the habit of not talking about yourself or what you did.”
“It was more than just a habit, it could have meant people’s lives. I still don’t talk about it, because I still know people in the business. Information is the greatest asset a government can have, and the most dangerous.”
She tapped the file. “So why are you showing me this?”
“Because I trust you,” he said simply; then another grin spread across his face. “And because I didn’t think you’d believe me if I just said, ‘I can’t talk about myself, government stuff, very hush-hush.’ You would have laughed in my face. It’s the kind of crap you hear in singles bars, hot-shot studs trying to impress the airheads. You aren’t an airhead.”
