Broken (3 page)

Patrick sighed and rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.

Quinn’s belly knotted as a look crossed over the man’s face. Jerking his attention away from Patrick, he sought out the face of his brother.

Luke. His twin. Luke was staring at Quinn like he had two heads. Curling a lip at him, Quinn sneered, “What the fuck are you looking at?”

The weirdest damn thing happened.

Quinn felt a jolt of surprise shoot through him. But it wasn’t coming from
him
. As sure as he stood there, he knew he wasn’t feeling
his
surprise. He was feeling something from Luke.

Luke’s eyes widened and he shot a look at Patrick.

Patrick sighed and lowered the hand he’d been using to rub his neck. “Quinn, I’m getting tired of telling you that I don’t allow that sort of talk from a child of mine.”

The words were spoken in a flat, level voice, a quiet voice, even. But still, Quinn flinched, bracing himself unconsciously for a strike.

He’d been pushing the guy for the past two days. Sooner or later, he was going to show his true colors. But the waiting part was hell—Quinn wished Patrick would just get it over with. He smirked and said, “Yeah, and I don’t give a fuck.”

Then he raised his chin. If Patrick Rafferty was going to whale on Quinn, he just wanted it to happen. He wanted it done and over with. He wanted the man to stop pretending to be nice, to stop acting like he cared.

“Boy, you are going to learn some respect,” Patrick said, narrowing his eyes.

Quinn laughed. It was ragged and hoarse and it hurt to do it.

“How you going to make me do that, old man? Beat it into me?” Quinn shrugged. “Won’t be the first time.”

He waited for the blow.

But it didn’t come.

Luke moved forward, frowning at Quinn. “Dad doesn’t hit people.”

“Yeah, right. Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?”

Luke blushed, blood rushing to stain his cheeks red.

Off to the side, Patrick said quietly, “Luke, why don’t you go out to the stables, see if you can help the boys for a while?”

Quinn laughed and thought,
Yeah, get him out of here so he doesn’t see what you really want to do
. “Yeah, you don’t want him to see you hit me.”

“Luke, get out to the stables. Now.”

“My dad doesn’t hit,” Luke snapped as he shoved his hands in his pockets and glared at Quinn.

“Shit.” Quinn shoved a hand through his hair. Luke’s eyes dropped and Quinn remembered too late the bruise on his arm. It was a couple of weeks old, yellow and sickly green. In a few more days, it would be gone altogether.

Quinn flushed, but he didn’t try to hide the bruise. He just glared at his brother and demanded, “What the fuck is your problem?”

“What’s
yours
?” Luke replied.

Man, Quinn couldn’t even begin to list his problems. Setting his jaw, he pushed past the boy who shared his face and the man who shared his eyes. He didn’t want to be here.

Really. He didn’t.

Never mind that it was clean.

Never mind that it was warm.

Never mind that he hadn’t heard hardly anybody yelling.

He didn’t want to be here. And as soon as he could, he was going to get the hell out of there.

Get very far away. But for now, he’d settle for out of the house.

EVEN before he heard the sound of footsteps, Quinn knew his brother was coming.

“She hit you, didn’t she?” Luke said as he dropped down on the grass.

Quinn tensed. He didn’t really want to talk to this kid. His brother . . . his
twin
brother.

Brother or not, twin or not, he didn’t want to talk to Luke and he definitely didn’t want to talk about his mother.

Our mother—not just mine. She’s his mother, too.
Thinking that, though, made him feel even madder, more ashamed. Luke seemed to be one of those
nice
people . . . the kind of people who did nice things, who thought nice things, who didn’t have bad stuff happening, who didn’t realize all the crap that did happen.

Having
her
for a mom ruined some of that nice. Quinn couldn’t understand why, but that realization really pissed him off.

Luke continued to stare at him, waiting. He’d keep on waiting, too, until he got an answer.

“What the hell does it matter?” Quinn mumbled, shrugging.

“Because it ain’t right.”

“You really think I’m gonna believe that your old man never hits you?” Quinn demanded with a smirk.

“He’s
your
old man, too, Quinn. I’m not going to lie and say he’s never spanked me. But the last time he did was a couple years ago when he caught me getting into the gun cabinet.”

Gun cabinet? Wow.
Cool. His eyes widened and for a second, he was overcome with curiosity, so much of it that he almost asked to see it.

“Gun cabinet?”

“Yeah, a gun cabinet. This is a ranch, not the city.” A big grin appeared on his face as he stared at Quinn.

“What were you . . . ?” Quinn snapped his jaw shut and looked away.
What did it matter what the Boy Scout was doing?

“I wasn’t really doing anything. I just . . . Dad had been showing me how to hold the shotgun, how to clean it and stuff and I wanted to see if I could do it without his help.”

“And when he caught you, he beat the shit out of you,” Quinn said, feeling oddly disappointed. He really didn’t want to believe that Patrick was anything like his mother had been.

“No. He turned me over his knee and spanked my butt a few times. Sent me to my room. Came upstairs later and gave me one of his ‘talking-tos.’ ”

Quinn blinked. Swatted his butt? A ‘talking-to’? His mother had never messed with swatting his butt—she much preferred to smack him or punch him.

“Decent people don’t beat their kids, Quinn.” Luke said it quietly, his voice full of certainty. He looked at Quinn like he wanted to urge Quinn to believe him.

To trust him.

But Quinn knew better than to trust people.

Period.

ALONE in a night-dark forest, Quinn Rafferty shoveled dirt into the hole. He tried hard not to think about what he was doing. Why.

He tried hard not to think about the still body that lay in the shallow grave at his feet. If he thought about it too much, he was going to lose his mind. He had a fragile hold on sanity and he knew it wouldn’t take much to snap.

But he couldn’t
not
think. Couldn’t
not
remember.

Elena was dead.

“
Trust me
,” she had whispered to him. She had given him that serene, enigmatic smile and kissed him, stroked a hand down his chest and murmured, “
Trust me, Quinn. I will do this—one more time. One last time. I have to
.”

She’d been right—she’d done it one last time . . . and it had gotten her killed. Now her last words haunted him. Even as he’d left her alone in the hellhole dive where they’d met to exchange information, he’d wanted to go back to her. Go back, demand that she stop. Demand that she come with him.

Quinn had no idea how he’d possibly have gotten Elena out of Colombia, but he would have worked something out. Broken whatever laws necessary, kept her with him.

But she’d told him to trust her.

It was something she’d asked him months ago—yet more words to haunt him.

It was quiet in the forest, the air hot and heavy. He worked in the dark, because he couldn’t risk somebody discovering him. Not that he feared they would—he almost hoped that would happen soon. But not until he’d taken care of Elena first. Then his team. Had to make sure the team was safe.

Fuck, by rights, he should be doing that
now
. A Ranger didn’t leave his team hanging.

But a man couldn’t leave the woman he lo—

“Shit.” He drove his stolen shovel into the ground and covered his face with grimy, bloodstained hands. He wasn’t going there—too fucking late now. Too fucking late. Too late for him, and too fucking late for Elena.

Her body lay wrapped in a blanket that was soaked through with blood. Broken . . . broken, and battered.

He couldn’t ask it of her—he never had, and he never would have. But she’d looked at him and known that he felt something. She probably understood how he’d felt better than he did. Quinn sucked at feelings. But he’d wanted her. For always. Elena had known and she’d wanted to give it to him.

But he had to trust her.

Trust me
. . .

So he had made himself trust her. And by doing it, he’d let her die.

Tears burned his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them fall. He couldn’t cry. Not right now. He had to take care of Elena. If he managed that without getting caught, then he would get back to his team.

No time to fall apart, not now.

God, the team.
Man, he needed to get back to them. He’d already sent a message back—the mission had been ready to blow up in their faces and he needed to get back to them—
now
.

But he couldn’t leave Elena . . .

He should have known better. Trust was dangerous, and this time, it had gotten a woman killed.

“
B
UT I still can’t leave.”

Sometimes, when she lay there on the thin, uncomfortable mattress, she wondered if the guilt could get any worse. There were days it didn’t bother her so bad. But then there were days—or nights—when it hung in the back of her throat, cloying and cold, an ugly knot that made breathing difficult.

Tonight was one of those nights.

The guilt was bad.

Sara Davis squeezed her eyes closed and rolled onto her belly. She pulled her pillow on top of her head and used it to muffle the noises coming from the other apartments around hers.

Off to her left, she could hear the wannabe playboy grunting and groaning while he did the nasty with whatever girl had been stupid enough to fall for his lines. Sometimes, listening to him was amusing—he thought he understood dirty talk, thought he was a real slick piece of work. Tonight, though, listening to them through the thin walls was anything but entertaining. It was close to nauseating, but Sara would have given her right arm to be able to play voyeur just then.

Anything was better than her memories.

To her right, she could hear a baby crying. She couldn’t remember the couple’s name, but the baby had been crying at night on a regular basis since they brought the little boy home from the hospital.

In the apartment below hers, they were fighting. Nothing new there.

In the apartment above hers, the TV was playing way too loud. She was wrapped in a cocoon of noise, but the loudest voices came from her memories.

“YOU can’t leave!”

Quinn Rafferty shot a look over his shoulder. He was an attractive man, but something about his face, the way he carried himself, the way he looked at people, made others keep their distance.

His eyes were wide-set and gray—when he was angry, the gray of his eyes could flash hot or freeze over like winter ice. More often than not, though, they were blank. Carefully blank, a mask that revealed very little about whatever thoughts might run through his head.

He didn’t smile much and when he did, it was one of those faint smiles, the sort of smile that made others suspect he either didn’t
want
to smile, or he wasn’t used to doing it.