Broken (34 page)

“Offering to protect me now, Quinn?” she asked softly. “First you’re all set to sell me off, and now you’re offering your protection?”

“If he’s hurt you, just say it. If there’s a reason you don’t want to go back to him, just nod. It won’t happen.”

Sarah tugged on her hand and this time, he let go. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at the scarred tabletop. “This has to happen, Quinn. It’s time.”

Silence stretched out between them, seconds ticking away as he stared at her.
Let me help
—it was a demand that echoed inside him, but even as one part of him insisted Sarah was in danger, that she needed help, another part of him didn’t believe it.

Maybe he was so desperate to believe she needed help because it was a way to stay in her life. A way to try holding on to what was slipping farther and farther out of his reach.

The walls threatened to close in around him, and his throat had narrowed down so that it was a chore just to breathe. “I’ve got to get out of here,” he muttered. With a headache pounding behind his eyes and his heart in nasty little knots, he climbed out of the booth and headed for the door.

She watched him go, his shoulders and back rigid and his eyes staring straight ahead. That man was confusing the hell out of her. As he stormed outside, she leaned back against the faded pseudo-leather booth. Tension held his body stiff. He seemed furious. Hell, he
was
furious—she felt like she’d spent the night in the same room with a ticking time bomb.

The anger was easy for her to deal with—even though part of her understood it, his anger didn’t make her feel so broken. She’d gotten through the night nursing her own anger, her own sense of betrayal . . . and planning.

Then this morning, something had seemed different. She’d seen something else in his eyes besides the anger. Hurt.

And the hurt was killing her.

Every time he’d offered to help her, it had been like a dagger pierced her heart, and then did a slow, torturous turn. It would have been so much easier if he had just stayed mad. If he acted like she disgusted him. Anything but looking at her like he wanted to play knight in shining armor, if only she’d let him.

But she didn’t need a knight. She’d damn well take care of this herself. Even if part of her wanted to tell him the truth, even if part of her wished she could lean on him, she wasn’t going to do it. He hadn’t trusted her, and she was still rubbed raw over it.

Grimacing, she shoved her hair back from her face. She hated the lie she’d been living, and the thought that she’d hurt him was rubbing salt into an open wound. She’d take the anger over his hurt any day of the week.

God, why couldn’t he have just trusted her enough to ask? Instead of assuming the very worst, right off the bat, why couldn’t he have asked what was going on? If he’d just asked, if he hadn’t just assumed the worst of her, if he hadn’t accused her of ripping off Theresa . . .

If he’d just believed in her, just a little . . .

Fuck.
Fury and heartache pounded through him. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hit something.

He wanted . . .

“Quinn?”

Sarah. Slowly, he turned around and saw her standing on the busted steps that led to the diner’s entrance. The cool mask crumbled and she stared at him with misery in her eyes. Her throat worked as she swallowed and her eyes fell away from his as she descended the crumbling concrete and came to stand in front of him. Small white teeth caught her lower lip. She stared somewhere over his shoulder. “Quinn, I wish there—”

“Don’t,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Just don’t, Sarah.”

He didn’t want to hear it—didn’t want to hear a damn thing she had to say.

No. Not true.
There was one thing he needed to hear. He needed her to answer one question for him.

“Why?” he asked hoarsely. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me you were married?”

This was why he didn’t let himself want things. Lessons learned back in childhood still had their nasty hooks in him—when he wanted something, it was destroyed. Even something as simple as a book, and Sarah was so much more than that.

He wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything. He wanted her for always and damn it all to hell and back, he couldn’t have her. She wouldn’t let him help and no matter what she said, he knew there was more going on than what she was telling him.

She remained silent and still wouldn’t look at him. Reaching out, he caught her chin in his hand, forced her to look at him. “Can’t you even answer that one simple question, Sarah?”

“I could . . . but it’s not a simple question, and there is no simple answer.”

“Then how about this one? Can you look me in the eye and tell me, swear that he never hurt you?
Never?
”

She reached up and curled her fingers around his wrist. Squeezing lightly, she tugged his hand away and once he was no longer touching her, she let go of his wrist and stepped back.

“Tell me, damn it,” he snarled at her. “Tell me that he never hurt you—but damn you, you’d better tell me the
truth
.”

She smiled at him. It was a bittersweet, sad smile. “James Morgan never laid a hand on me.”

He stared at her, into those dark brown eyes that had begun to haunt his dreams. Good dreams . . . for a while. They’d been good dreams. But now those dreams were going to torment him.

His heart told him there was something wrong here. Majorly wrong. But she wouldn’t talk to him, wouldn’t explain, wouldn’t help him at all. He needed more information, and Sarah was the only one who could give it to him.

And she wouldn’t.

She just fucking wouldn’t.

I can’t do this
, he realized. There was no way in hell he could take her to Chicago.

So what in the hell did he do?

But even as the question formed, he knew the answer. He had to walk away. He had to let her go. She would lose herself again, and after he’d straightened up the mess he was getting ready to cause with Gearing, maybe he’d do some nosing around, see if he couldn’t figure out for himself why she’d run. Deal with it.

Wasn’t much of a plan, but the knot in his gut eased just a little.

Gruffly, he said, “We need to get our stuff.” Without bothering to see if she followed him, he headed back into the diner. The waitress appeared in the doorway and he shot her a look. “Sorry . . . something’s come up. We can’t stay.”

He threw a twenty on the table to cover the food they wouldn’t eat and then grabbed Sarah’s bag. Sarah stood behind him, a frown on her face as she studied him. He caught her elbow and guided her out of the diner, his mind racing.

Back in the car, he turned on the GPS and brought up the menu. He could feel Sarah’s eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. He’d been this close to really being happy . . . this close to feeling complete. Every time he looked at her, he remembered just how close he’d been and it hurt. It hurt worse than anything he could remember . . . more than all the shit his mother had done to him. More than losing Elena. More than the distance he too often tried to force between himself and his twin.

It hurt like acid poured on an open wound, and something told him this was one that wouldn’t heal with time. It would fester and ache, linger with him long after Sarah disappeared from his life.

Nothing he did was going to change that.

But there were some things he could do that might make things easier for her. That much he could control.

EYING the counter, she glanced around at the people waiting in line, or sitting in seats scattered here and there. Finally, she turned and looked at Quinn.

She looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. And he wouldn’t, she realized. He stared off past her shoulder, at his feet, anywhere but at her face.

“What are we doing here?” she asked, gesturing to the bus station. An hour had passed since they’d left the diner, but they weren’t in Chicago. Instead of continuing on north when they left, Quinn had headed south, and now they were in a bus station in some town she hadn’t ever heard of.

“
We
aren’t doing anything,” he said, shrugging. He reached out and clasped her arm, guiding her away from the counter to one of the semi-enclosed phone booths. It wasn’t exactly private, but it was as private as they would get here. “Take this.”

Automatically, she glanced down, and when she saw what he held in his hand, she gulped.

It was the money he’d taken from her pocket yesterday.

“What’s this for?”

“It’s yours,” he said. “So take it.” Then he reached inside the black backpack he’d grabbed from the car. He pulled out her belt, the one designed to hold money, and gave it to her.

She took it, fumbled with it as she slipped it around her waist, adjusting it so that it lay under the waistband of her jeans. “Why are you giving me this?”

He didn’t answer.

“Quinn?”

She stared at his face, trying to see his eyes, but he had a pair of sunglasses on. Frustrated, she lunged for the sunglasses, but he sidestepped out of reach. “Quinn, what’s the deal here?”

“No deal, Sarah.” He reached up and brushed his fingers over her cheek. “You disappeared once. Do it again.”

Then he walked away.

Dumbfounded, she gaped at him, frozen in place. He strode away, his long legs eating up the ground, and it wasn’t until he turned a corner and disappeared from her sight that she was able to make herself move.

But she didn’t make a beeline for the counter.

She took off running after Quinn. What was he doing? Why was he just walking away?

She caught up with him just outside the bus station, but when she called his name, he didn’t respond. Finally, she grabbed ahold of his arm and jerked. “Damn it, would you wait a minute?”

He stood in place, staring straight ahead. When she circled around to look up at him, he didn’t once look down at her.

“Why are you doing this? Why are you walking away?”

“Does it matter?” he asked, his voice weary.

“If it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t have asked,” she replied, shoving her hands into her pockets. She was still clutching her money, she realized, the rolled-up bills he’d pressed into her hand. She pushed the money deep into her hip pocket, curling her fingers around it.

“Because I can’t take you to Chicago.”

Scowling, she shoved her hair back from her face. “I don’t see why the hell not—we were only an hour away until you made this little detour.”

“Because I
can’t
,” he snapped. He tore his sunglasses off, glaring down at her.

His eyes weren’t blank.

They weren’t cold.

They were full of emotions that left her throat tight and her heart racing, although she didn’t fully comprehend why. Instinctively, she backed away and just as soon as she did it, she wished she hadn’t. “Why can’t you?” she asked, lifting her chin. “You didn’t seem to have any problem with it a couple of hours ago.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about what kind of problems I’m having,” Quinn snarled. He dipped his head, staring at her eye to eye. Their breath mingled. She could feel the heat coming off him. See the harsh, unsteady rhythm of his breathing as his shoulders rose and fell. “I’ve got so many
problems
here, I don’t even know where to begin.”

He spun away from her and lifted his hands. “I just can’t do this,” he said, his voice low and rough. “I can’t take you back to him.”

“But that’s your job,” she pointed out. Damn it, what was she doing? She should be dancing a jig here and instead, she felt a cold knot settling inside her gut. She was so ready for this to be done. So ready for it to be over with, and she’d been this close . . .

“I know what my fucking job is.” Quinn shot her a narrow glare over his shoulder. “What are you waiting for? There are three different buses leaving this station in under an hour. Go buy your ticket. Figure out where you’re going from here.”