Broken (6 page)

“Perhaps if we made it three hundred . . . and you could help me in the gardens from time to time.”

Sara shook her head. “No, I’m sorry.” She started for the door.

She had her hand on the doorknob when Theresa spoke again. “You’d be safe here.”

Sara froze. Every muscle in her back tensed up and she took a deep breath, consciously made herself relax and give Theresa a puzzled smile. “I’m sorry?”

“You heard me, darling.” Theresa sighed and the happy, contented mask on her face fell away, revealing a woman who looked as if she understood worry . . . fear. “You’d be safe. You can pay me in cash and I don’t need to run a credit check, I won’t ask for identification. There is no security deposit—the only thing I ask is that you not steal anything from me when it’s time for you to go.”

Her breath was trapped in her lungs. She didn’t even realize she’d stopped breathing until her chest started to ache. Releasing a pent-up breath, she collapsed back against the door and stared at Theresa. “What are you talking about?”

God, does she know? Did I give myself away . . .
how
?

As though she knew every thought running through Sara’s mind, Theresa shook her head. “Don’t worry, Sara. I don’t know who you are and I don’t know why you’re running or what you’re running from. But you
are
running. Aren’t you?”

“If you think I’m running from something, the last thing you should do is offer me a place to stay.”

“Oh, sweetheart . . . not everybody runs away because they’ve done something wrong. A lot of people run away because they have no choice.” Theresa settled on the futon, crossed her feet at the ankles, and rested her hands in her lap.

People run away because they have no choice
—nobody knew that better than Sara.

Staring into Theresa’s kind eyes, her heart ached. Those faded blue eyes seemed to hold a thousand secrets and there was a knowledge in her face that made her seem ancient, older than time.

Still, Sara wasn’t going to believe in that gentle look. Wasn’t going to let herself fall into the trap of trusting somebody. All it would take was trusting the wrong person and life could get shot straight to hell.

“Look, Theresa, I realize you think I’m in some sort of trouble or something, but I’m not. I’m just a waitress, looking for a place to stay.” Although the lie left a bad taste in her mouth, she knew she said it convincingly. She’d stood in front of her mirror, practicing each and every lie she’d have to tell, until she could do it without blushing, without blinking, until the lies rolled off her lips with an easy smile.

“Bullshit.” Theresa returned Sara’s smile with a cool one of her own. “If you don’t want the apartment, that’s fine. If you don’t want to tell me what’s going on, that’s fine. I don’t expect you to, I don’t need you to, and truthfully, I don’t want you to. But please, Sara, don’t lie to me. Not when I’m only trying to help.”

Those simple words drove a shard into Sara’s heart, and she closed her eyes, dropped her head back against the door. Keeping her eyes closed, she said quietly, “I appreciate that, Theresa. I really do.”

“Then let me help. Trust me . . . just a little.”

Opening her eyes, Sara stared at Theresa. “How did you know?”

“Instinct, I suppose.” Theresa’s eyes, kind and gentle, so full of understanding, stared back, held Sara’s gaze for a brief moment, and then she looked away, smoothed a hand down her skirt.

“I had three children. My boys are grown—one lives in Minneapolis, married to a wonderful woman. My other son is a bachelor and seems quite happy that way. My daughter . . .” Her voice wobbled and she stopped, pressed her lips together. When she spoke again, her voice was level and steady. “My daughter is dead—the man she was engaged to marry killed her when she tried to break the engagement.”

“My God, Theresa, I’m so sorry.”

Theresa nodded. “Thank you. It’s been more than twenty years, but it’s a pain that never truly goes away, you know?” She looked back at Sara, intensity glowing in her eyes. “A few years ago, a friend of mine that lives across the street had her little girl come to her in the middle of the night. Crying, bruised, her mouth busted open. Her husband had hit her—he’d been doing it for a long time, but this time was different. He’d hit their little boy as well. That was the final straw—it pushed her over the edge and while he was sleeping, she left him. But he came looking for her there. Where else would she go? And that’s where he found her. The police were called. My friend didn’t know what to do. Her daughter didn’t know what to do.”

“You offered to let them stay here,” Sara said when Theresa’s voice trailed off.

“Yes.” She smiled, staring off into the distance. “I did. And it felt
right
. Ever since my daughter died, nothing has felt
right
. So I started helping. As often as I can. When I can.”

Rising off the bench, Theresa came to stand in front of Sara. With her hands folded at her waist, she studied Sara’s face. “So will you let me help you? I promise you—you
will
be safe here.”

Questions and doubts raged inside her.

You need to leave, Sara. And you need to do it now
.

It made sense. Perfect sense.

She took another look around the small, cozy apartment.

Want
.

A
FTER swapping out the car for his bike, Quinn made a quick stop by the bank and deposited the check he’d received for bringing in Blanford. Now the punk could spend the rest of the time until his trial in jail, where he belonged. Quinn was realistic, though. It was entirely possible the man wouldn’t get much of a sentence, even if his wife did testify against him.

The legal system at its finest.

He hit the expressway early enough to beat most of the afternoon rush. Martin Gearing, the owner of the private detective agency that Quinn sort of worked for, hadn’t been in the office—again. That wasn’t a surprise, although Quinn really did want to tell the bastard not to ambush him like that again.

Not that it would do any good.

Gearing knew his business well, and he knew his employees well. Even his “sort of” employees, like Quinn.

He defined his job status with Gearing as “sort of” because he didn’t want the entanglements that could come with a full-time job, namely, the responsibility of having somebody counting on him.

So he refused offers of full-time employment, kept his freelance status . . . which gave him the freedom to walk out of there after collecting his money from Juanita.

She was busy on the phone, but he ignored her
wait a minute
signals. She wasn’t going to trip him up again. After being spit on and dealing with Blanford’s stink for half of the afternoon, he wasn’t in any hurry to do another job today. No, what he wanted to do was go to the little basement apartment where he’d been living for the past six months, climb into the shower, and scrub the grime from his body.

Then he just might see if his landlady had any plans on cooking tonight. Theresa invited him for dinner nearly every night, and nearly every night he refused. He didn’t like getting close to people, but the nice lady made it hard to avoid her, to shut her out.

His stomach was grumbling by the time he pulled his bike into the small space Theresa had cleared for him. He hadn’t gotten around to eating lunch and he never messed with breakfast—come to think of it, he’d probably skipped dinner the night before, too.

Days had a habit of running together on him. It was better than it had been, though. For a while, right after he’d left the army, days had passed by in an endless mess with nothing to separate one from the other. Unless he’d drunk himself into a stupor and spent the next day dealing with a hangover as well as guilt and grief.

Grief and guilt, over the death of a woman he hadn’t been able to save—Elena. It wasn’t until after she’d been lost to him that he realized how much she had meant. It was a serious bitch, realizing too late that he’d finally fallen in love. It wasn’t until after she’d died that he’d figured it out, not until after she’d been kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered for daring to fight against the drug-dealing bastards who’d torn her country apart.

Don’t, man . . .
He stopped in the middle of the brick-paved walkway and closed his eyes.
Don’t.
He still dealt with the grief, and the guilt still crept up on him, but for the most part, he maintained fairly well.

But today he was pissed off, tired, and in one fucking lousy mood, which meant it wouldn’t take as much to push him over the edge. He didn’t want those brutal emotions sinking their claws into him again.

It had been one hell of a battle breaking free the last time he’d sunk too low, and it had almost come with a price that he couldn’t have lived with. For months after he’d gotten out of the army, he’d lived as hard and fast as he could. He’d skipped things like food and sleep, much preferring to drink himself under the table on a regular basis. He’d picked fights in the hopes that sooner or later, somebody else would win.

It had taken seeing his twin flirting with death for Quinn to realize he didn’t like the place he’d been in. He had been flirting with death himself, but he hadn’t been doing it for altruistic reasons.

Luke had risked death to save his lady—Quinn had been chasing death because he’d thought it was better than the alternative.

Then he’d seen a man holding a gun on his brother. A man the twins had known, had trusted. Tony Malone had been in the army with them, had fought with them, bled with them . . . lost friends right along with them. But the losses had proved too much for Tony, and the man had gone off the deep end. As unstable as Quinn had been, Tony had been much, much worse.

Tony had let the losses, the grief, the guilt fester inside him and it had driven him crazy.

That wasn’t going to happen to Quinn. He wouldn’t let it. He wasn’t going to get lost in bitterness. He wasn’t going to choke on the guilt. He’d done better, too, and not just because he’d promised his brother, Luke, he’d take better care of himself.

Still, it was easy to forget about things like food, decent sleep. Sex. All too often, he had to remind himself to eat, will himself to sleep. Sex was a nonissue, because he just wasn’t interested.

The truth of it was that up until the past few months, he had had a hard time working up interest in much of anything. That was why he had to make himself think about eating. Make himself go to sleep. Force himself to leave the apartment and face the world. Face life.

Life as he knew it had sucked for so damn long, doing anything to try improving it seemed like a waste of energy.

Things had gotten better, though. The fact that he was actually hungry, that he was kind of looking forward to sitting down and talking with a friend—or at least listening to a friend talk—was a step forward.

With his belly rumbling a reminder at him, he sauntered down the walkway and followed it around the house. His nostrils flared and he caught the scent of something absolutely divine—spaghetti. The lady was making spaghetti and when she made spaghetti, she also had homemade garlic bread.

Suddenly, Quinn was damn glad he hadn’t hung around after he’d turned over Blanford. If he’d been given another job, he would have missed out on what was rapidly becoming his favorite meal, with a woman who was rapidly becoming one of his favorite people—and that was no small feat. Quinn could count the people he really liked on one hand. Until Theresa had smilingly bowled him over, he would have had a finger left over after he counted up his friends.

He opened the door—

And stopped dead in his tracks as somebody all but fell into his arms. Somebody . . . a woman. And
not
Theresa.

He caught her just above her elbows, automatically steadying her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice soft and low.

Then she lifted her face, and Quinn found himself gazing into the biggest, brownest eyes he’d ever seen in his life. Feeling a little dazed, he studied her face while she stammered out another apology.

Quinn barely heard it.

He was too busy staring at her mouth. A very pretty mouth, a cupid’s bow slicked with deep, vibrant red. Under his hands, he could feel silken smooth skin and, unable to resist, he stroked a thumb along her inner arm.

Her skin was soft, soft and warm—the creamiest, most flawless skin imaginable. Her shoulder-length hair was a shade caught between blonde and brown, nondescript, but for some reason, he found himself thinking about tangling his fingers in that hair and holding her head still while he kissed that red-slicked mouth.

Well, hello
. . . he could all but feel his libido kicking up as he stared at that mouth. Every last one of his senses tuned in on her—

The way she looked . . . sex and sin.

The way she smelled . . . sex and sin.

The way she sounded . . . sex and sin.

The way she felt . . . the way she might taste. He knew it without a doubt. She’d taste like sex and sin.

His mouth was all but watering.

“Ahhh . . . excuse me,” she said, tugging against his light hold.

“Uh . . . yeah.” He uncurled his fingers and let go, although he hated every second of it.

She immediately backed away, putting a good five feet between them and eying him nervously. In that moment, he was acutely aware of the fact that he hadn’t bothered shaving that morning, or the morning before. He was also acutely aware of the wrinkled state of his gray T-shirt and the jeans he wore. He’d finally gotten into the habit of wearing the unofficial uniform—a black shirt with
Bond Enforcement
printed on the front and back, and either jeans or black fatigues—worn by most of the guys who worked for Gearing. He wore the
Bond
shirts for work, but usually changed before leaving. Wearing those particular shirts outside of work had ended up causing him a headache or two.