Chapter 14
“What’s wrong with her?” Mikita demanded. “She’s not sick, is she?”
Quinn paced to the other side of the office, rubbing Charli’s back. “She’s fine.”
Balfour, the shorter of the two CIA men who sat in the chairs in front of Mikita’s desk, shifted to follow Quinn’s movements. “Could be colic,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the din. “My youngest was like that.”
“She’s fine,” Quinn repeated, making another circuit. “Just hungry.”
“Then feed her,” Mikita snapped.
“She needs to calm down first or she will be sick,” Quinn said.
“Good set of lungs on her,” the Judge Advocate General lawyer commented. He brushed at a wrinkle in his white uniform. “She’s got a bright future in the military. Reminds me of a certain sergeant I once knew.”
“Hell of a way to conduct a meeting,” Mikita said, reaching for his pipe.
“Sir, I’d prefer it if you didn’t smoke,” Quinn said immediately.
Mikita scowled and crossed his arms. “You should have left the kid at the apartment.”
Quinn set his jaw as his ears rang from another wail. He would have preferred to have left Charli with Rachel, but Rachel had decided to go jogging just minutes before Mikita’s aide had arrived. And after eight days of waiting, there was no way Quinn was going to miss the opportunity to be present at this meeting. So he had stuffed a bottle into the baby’s diaper bag and had carried Charli out to the commander’s jeep. The baby had been quiet on the ride. But the moment they had stopped, she had started to cry.
Rachel had had difficulty settling her down earlier, too. She’d said it was because Charli was picking up on the tension around her.
And there’d been plenty of that in the apartment this morning. Something had changed last night. It was as if the comfortable bubble he and Rachel had built around themselves was collapsing, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Instead of the sweet giving he’d grown accustomed to, there had been a desperate edge to Rachel’s lovemaking.
What do you feel, Rachel?
She hadn’t answered him when he’d asked her that. And the hell of it was, Quinn hadn’t really wanted an answer. He wanted things to go on the way they were. She’d said they’d talk about it in the morning, but the cranky baby had needed attention, and then Rachel had decided to go out, and the opportunity to talk hadn’t come up. And he’d been glad that it hadn’t.
He knew what he was doing—he was running away again. It was so much easier to bury the emotions instead of dealing with them.
Yet this wasn’t the time or the place for worrying about his relationship with Rachel. He had more immediate concerns. With an effort, he focused his thoughts on his present situation, his gaze going over the men who were gathered in Mikita’s office.
Except for Quinn, they all wore uniforms. Although the dark suits of the men from the CIA weren’t as obvious a uniform as the Navy’s dress whites, the purpose they served was the same. They were symbols of authority. And judging by the atmosphere that was crackling around them when Quinn had arrived, not one man here wanted to acknowledge the authority of another.
It wasn’t any mystery why the investigation into the explosion and Norlander’s involvement in the drug ring had been going on for more than a year. It had been caught in the noman’s -land of cross-agency rivalry.
“This is ridiculous,” Mikita snapped. “I’ll have my secretary take the kid—”
“No, she’s my responsibility,” Quinn said, lifting the baby in front of him. He waited for her to take a breath, then blew gently into her face. Startled out of the rhythm of her crying, she inhaled sharply and blinked at him.
Encouraged, he did it again.
Charli hiccuped, her chin trembling. But the next breath she drew was almost silent.
“Those SEALs have a truly amazing range of skills,” the second CIA man, the taller one, drawled. “Are you teaching them how to be nursemaids before you show them how to blow up warehouses, Mikita?”
The commander picked up his pipe again. He glanced at his tin of tobacco, his scowl deepening, then clamped the cold pipe stem between his teeth. “My people are the best,” he said. “Whatever job they take on.”
“They’re a bunch of overrated loose cannons,” the CIA man muttered.
“You don’t mind using them for jobs you pencil pushers don’t want to dirty your hands with,” the JAG lawyer said. “And if your intelligence was half as reliable as you claimed it was—”
“Gentlemen,” Mikita growled. “We’ve already covered this.”
The CIA man appeared to be preparing to retort when Charli snuffled loudly. He frowned at the baby, then pressed his lips together and drummed his fingers against his knee.
Quinn ignored the bickering and went over to get the bottle out of the baby’s bag, then took the last remaining chair and settled Charli in the crook of his arm.
Mikita narrowed his eyes, watching in silence for a moment as Quinn fed the baby. “All right. Let’s get on with this.”
“Good idea.” Balfour conferred briefly with his partner, then reached beside his chair, swung a briefcase onto his lap and unlocked the clasps. “All right. As agreed, here are our files on the individuals we have in custody.”
Mikita leaned across his desk to take the folders. He glanced through them, nodded, then handed them to the lawyer. More papers were grudgingly exchanged and examined, along with terse summaries of the status of the case.
As Quinn had guessed when he’d received Mikita’s summons, matters were drawing to a close. Enough evidence had been assembled to arrest the key people in the smuggling operation. A predawn raid this morning had made a clean sweep of the rest of the criminals. It was no longer either Navy or CIA jurisdiction. Now it was up to the courts.
And that was that.
Somehow Quinn hadn’t thought the end would feel so anticlimactic. Darlene’s desperate abandonment of her child, her futile attempt to escape the criminals, the pain of John’s betrayal, the terrible deaths of the team...it didn’t seem right that it had all been reduced to a group of well-dressed men having a meeting.
But of course, why shouldn’t it be like that? Emotions had no place in this kind of situation. Emotions only messed things up.
There was a round of curt handshakes, then the two government men left with the Navy lawyer. Quinn picked up the diaper bag and lifted Charli to his shoulder, preparing to follow them, when Mikita called him back.
The commander’s mouth thinned. He regarded the baby for a moment before he lifted his gaze to Quinn. “The Navy appreciates your cooperation, Keelor.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“The Norlander case is finished. The investigation into the incident in Panama will be officially closed.”
“I gathered that, sir.”
“That means you’ve got no more reason to remain on the base,” Mikita stated bluntly.
More than the investigation was over, Quinn knew. His time here with Rachel was over, too. He’d known it would happen eventually, but having it end like this also seemed too... anticlimactic.
“I’m aware of that,” Quinn said finally. “We’ll be moved out of the apartment as soon as possible.”
“There is another option for you to consider.”
Quinn lifted his brows. “What?”
“We can always use instructors in the BUDs program. That bum leg of yours wouldn’t stop you from training the recruits.”
Rejoin the Navy? Quinn paused. “I hadn’t considered that possibility.”
“What else would you do?” Mikita asked.
“I intend to return home.”
“And be some second-rate mechanic in a small-town garage? That’s a hell of a waste of the education the Navy gave you.”
“I have other responsibilities now.” Quinn felt Charli draw her knees up to her chest. He rubbed his fingertips lightly between her shoulder blades, and the baby obliged immediately with a loud burp.
Mikita swore under his breath. “Keelor, you don’t have to keep that kid.”
Quinn’s hand splayed over Charli’s back. “Darlene Norlander made me her daughter’s guardian.”
“The investigation is finished, so your obligation to Norlander is over. That guardianship paper wouldn’t hold up if you contested it. Any good lawyer would be able to get you out of this.”
Mikita was right. Legally there was nothing compelling Quinn to assume the duty of raising this child. That’s what the lawyer he’d hired before he’d left New York had told him, too. If he chose, he could turn his back on this entire situation.
And if he thought about it, that would be the logical thing to do, wouldn’t it? Why should he take on this responsibility? Child rearing wasn’t what he was trained for. Any debt he owed his team had been canceled by John’s betrayal, hadn’t it?
He rubbed his thumb over John’s ring. No. He still had a duty to his men. It wasn’t over.
And as long as he had the baby, there would still be a reason to keep Rachel in his life.
Rachel paused outside the apartment door to catch her breath and leaned over to brace her hands on her knees. She was out of condition. For the past two months, she’d let her usual exercise regimen slide. It had been almost two weeks since she’d gone running. More than that since she’d gone to the gym for a workout. She shouldn’t have pushed herself so hard today. She’d undoubtedly be sore tomorrow.
But if her muscles ached, perhaps it would be for the best. It would serve as a reminder. She wasn’t going to slide back into the old self-destructive pattern. It wasn’t going to start again. It couldn’t. Because she was no longer the same girl.
She used her forearm to wipe the sweat off her face and straightened up. No, she was no longer the same weak person she used to be. She might have had a lapse with the fried chicken and the brownies, but she was taking control of her life once more. She wouldn’t let her love for Quinn—for anyone—make her vulnerable, she thought, reaching for the doorknob.
Before she could touch the knob, the door swung open. Quinn stood in the doorway, his face creased with worry. “Where have you been?”
Until yesterday, the protectiveness in his tone would have pleased her. But her emotions were too volatile, too close to that fine line between love and hate, for her to accept his concern. She bristled. “I told you I was going jogging.”
“It’s been two hours.”
“I took a break for a while. And I didn’t think I had to check in with you,” she said, brushing past him to enter the apartment. “I stayed on the base so there was no need to worry...” Her words trailed off as she caught sight of the suitcase. “What’s going on?” she asked.
“We have to move out.”
She pushed back a strand of damp hair that had come loose from her ponytail and turned to face him. “Why?”
“I just came from Mikita’s office.”
Her heartbeat, still elevated from her run, slammed into a new rhythm. “What did he say?”
“The Feds moved in on the drug gang early this morning. They have the entire group in custody.”
“They’re in jail?”
“Yes.”
“We’re no longer in danger?”
“That’s right.”
“Then—” she looked back at the suitcase “—it’s over.”
“Yes.”
She’d known it would happen. She just hadn’t expected the announcement to come so quickly, without any fuss or fanfare. It seemed too easy, for something that was going to be so difficult. She inhaled unsteadily. “We can go home.”
“I’ll be meeting with my lawyer first to finalize the guardianship documents for Charli, but we’ll be able to return to Maple Ridge in a few days.”
“We?”
“I thought since Charli’s so accustomed to you, it might be best if you came with us.”
“For Charli.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s all?”
He stepped closer, lilting his hand to stroke her cheek. “Things won’t be the same once we get home. I don’t want to say goodbye to you yet, Rachel.”
Oh, damn. Damn! How much longer was he going to drag this out? How many more times would they extend their temporary association? She wasn’t going to go on like this. She couldn’t. Last night had shown her that. So despite the way she felt her body soften at his touch, despite the way she was already swaying toward him, she squared her shoulders and stepped back. “No, Quinn.”
His hand dropped. “I don’t want to say goodbye,” he repeated. “We’re good together, Rachel. When we get home—”
“What? What exactly do you think will happen?”
“I thought we could continue to see each other.”
She shook her head. “It’s a small town. We both know we can’t continue what we’re doing. No one’s going to believe I’m simply your baby-sitter. It would be easier for both of us if we ended this affair now.”
“I don’t want it to end.”
“That’s the definition of temporary, isn’t it? Eventually it has to end.”
Quinn looked at her in silence for a minute. A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Then be my wife,” he said finally.
“What?”
“I remember you said you didn’t want a permanent relationship, but I’m not going to interfere with your career. And you don’t have to lose your independence—”
“Quinn, are you saying you want to marry me?”
“It seems like the best solution. It would put a stop to any gossip that might have gotten started about us.”
Rachel rubbed her face, getting rid of the remnants of sweat from her run. Her T-shirt stuck clammily to her back, her ponytail drooped against the back of her neck. And Quinn was asking her to marry him.
Fifteen years ago this would have been a dream come true. No, she hadn’t gone so far as to even dream this could happen. Quinn Keelor wanted to many her. Shock took her voice. She could only stare.
“I know you’ve grown attached to Charli,” he went on. “This way you won’t have to leave her, either. You’d be able to watch her grow up.”
Oh, God. It was more than she’d ever dreamed, way more.
“Charli needs a mother,” Quinn said, reaching for her hand to stop her from retreating further. “She probably already has bonded with you. I know you don’t really want to leave her.”
Her heart swelled with love and with a mad, irrepressible seed of hope. Could it be possible? Not only Quinn Keelor, but Charli, the abandoned cherub with the powder-soft baby scent and the wispy blond hair and the trusting blue eyes and the solid little body that felt so right in her arms...
Rachel inhaled unsteadily as the future she had wanted too strongly, too deeply, to dare to consider until now fitted through her mind. A child of her own. Her arms wouldn’t need to feel empty ever again. On the parents’ nights at school she would have her own child to take pictures of and to cheer for during the Christmas pageant, and she’d have Quinn by her side as they drank the watery punch and made small talk with the other families. And when she went home it wouldn’t be to a lonely apartment, it would be to their daughter’s good-night kiss and Quinn’s embrace and...
But a marriage only for the sake of a child never worked. That’s how it had been for her parents—they’d married because Ann had been pregnant, and it had led to nothing but misery for all of them. She searched Quinn’s gaze. “Is that the only reason you want to marry me? Because of Charli?”
“No, that’s not the only reason.” He smiled. “Like I said, we’re good together.”
She waited, but that was as far as he went. The hope wavered. “You mean we’re good in bed.”
“Among other places.”
“So you want me to marry you so you can get free baby-sitting and plenty of regular sex.”
His smile faded. “Rachel...”
“Those seem like rational, logical reasons, all right. What about love?”
He went suddenly, completely still. And just like last night, the words she wanted to say hung heavily in the air between them. Only this time she wasn’t going to retreat. This time she would take the chance.
“I love you, Quinn,” she said, proud of the way her voice was steady despite the shaking in her knees. “I don’t care if you don’t want to hear it. I’m through burying my feelings. I love you.”
He tightened his grip on her fingers.
She could feel tears bum her eyes at his silence. She had known it would be like this. That’s why she’d delayed for so long.
But why should she worry about losing him? It didn’t look as if she’d really ever had him in the first place.
“I love you,” she repeated. “But I won’t be compared to some impossible ideal. I’m not willing to take whatever you deign to give me, while you keep your heart locked away for Louisa.”
“This has nothing to do with Louisa.”
“No? Did you love her?”
“Of course I loved her.”
“Do you love me?”
The hesitation was no more than the blink of an eye, but it was long enough to cut Rachel to the bone. Snatching her hand from his, she spun around.
“Rachel, what I feel for you is completely different from what I felt for Louisa, because you’re different people. I like your warmth and your generosity. I admire your strength. I respect your intelligence.” He came up behind her and lowered his head to the crook of her neck. “And I can’t get enough of your body.”
His breath teased over her damp skin, making her quiver with longing. “But do you love me?” she whispered.
He pressed his lips to the side of her throat, his tongue sending sparks of pleasure across her skin.
She felt something tear apart inside. Blinking hard, she pushed his head away. “Quinn, no. We can’t keep using sex to avoid our feelings.”
He caught her shoulders. “You don’t have to decide right away. You can take a few days to think it over.”
She pressed her knuckles to her eyes. But she wasn’t going to back down now. And she wasn’t going to run to the kitchen and hide her insecurities under a pan of chocolate brownies. “No,” she said. “I’m not going to get caught in the pattern.”
“What?”
“I’m not unlovable,” she said, turning around to face him. “I’m not going to spend my life loving someone who won’t love me.”
“I’m offering you marriage. And a child.”
A tear brimmed over her eyelid and trickled hotly down her cheek. “But without love, our relationship wouldn’t last. I know. I’ve seen it happen. We’d only end up hurting each other and Charli.”
“Our situation isn’t the same as your parents’.”
“In all the ways that matter, it’s the same pattern. There are just too damn many patterns.”
Quinn brushed her cheek with the tip of his thumb, feeling the heat of her tears burn through to his soul. He had never felt more helpless in his life. He wished he could lie. He wished he could promise her the love she wanted, but he respected her too much to pretend.
Did he love her? He didn’t love her the way he had loved his wife. He’d known that yesterday, when the idea of marriage to Rachel had first occurred to him.
And dammit, he didn’t want to love her. Emotions made a man weak. They lowered his defenses. They led to mistakes and death and betrayal and disaster—
Yet the idea of giving her up, of watching her walk away, was absolutely unthinkable.
“Excuse me,” Rachel said, pulling away. “I need to pack my things.”
He acted without thinking, stepping in front of her and wrapping her in a hard embrace. “Not yet.”
She trembled. “Quinn, let me go.”
“Not yet,” he repeated. “I want to hold you. I want to see you smile. I need to feel your heat surround me—”
“No!” She struck him hard in the chest with her fist. “No, Quinn. I’m not going to take any more.”
“But I—”
“This has always been about you, hasn’t it? Your nightmares, your problems, your needs.” She hit him again, fresh tears flowing down her cheeks. “What about me? What about my needs?”
The pain in Rachel’s voice was more than he could bear. “I’ve tried to take care of you.”
“Take care of me? If you mean the sex, then yes, you’ve performed admirably.”
“I mean I’ve always cared, Rachel. That’s why we should get married. I don’t want you to be the target of gossip again. I saw what it was like for you as a teenager.”
“I survived just fine.” She shoved away and headed for the bedroom. “You don’t have to feel responsible for me.”
He followed her through the doorway, standing to one side as she tossed her suitcase on the bed. “But I do feel responsible,” he said. “I always have. Even when we were kids.”
“Don’t pretend, Quinn.” She wrenched open a dresser drawer and scooped out handfuls of clothes to dump in the suitcase. “You never knew I existed. You didn’t see anyone but Louisa.”
“That’s not true. I saw how you felt about me, but I was too caught up—”
“What do you mean?” she asked, her head snapping up. “How do you know how I felt?”
He gestured impatiently. “That crush you had on me. I didn’t know how to handle it—”
“You knew?” she cried. “How? I never told anyone.”
“Your eyes, Rachel. They’ve always shown what you’re feeling.”
Hot color flooded her face. “Oh, my God. You knew all along?”
“Yes, I knew. But—”
“My God,” she repeated, the strength seeming to go out of her knees. She sat down heavily on the edge of the mattress. “All those years of watching your games. All those times I helped you study. You knew.”
It had been the wrong thing to say, he realized belatedly. He hadn’t stopped to think how she would react. It had been so obvious to him, he’d assumed she had been aware that her crush hadn’t been a secret. “We were young, Rachel. And we—”
“Did Louisa know, too?” she asked. “Did you two have a good laugh about how the Blimp—”
“It wasn’t like that,” he said. In three strides he closed the distance between them. “Rachel, please don’t do this to yourself.”
She rolled away from him before he could touch her, scrambling to the other side of the bed. The same bed where they had slept in each other’s arms. Now it was like a barrier between them. “God, I’m a fool. I loved you fifteen years ago. And you knew. And you didn’t care then, either.”
“I did care.”
“Right. You pitied me. You felt responsible. Damn, I should have seen it. I just didn’t want to.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m just another responsibility to you, aren’t I? Like Charli. Like your team. You feel obligated to marry me because you think it’s your duty to take care of me.”
“You’ve got this all wrong.”
She shook her head. “No, I think it’s finally starting to make sense. Why are you keeping Charli?”
“You know why. You saw the paper Darlene signed.”
“You look at that baby as a mission, don’t you?” she went on. “You don’t want to love her, either.”
“I’m willing to make a lifetime commitment to her,” he said. “That’s more than most men would do.”
“That’s true. But you’re not like most men.” She wiped her eyes roughly with the back of her hand. “You’re so determined to be strong by burying your emotions, you can’t see that it takes more strength to set them free.”
Quinn clenched his jaw. She was talking about strength, when he felt completely powerless. “Rachel, don’t go yet. We can work this out somehow.”
She snapped shut her suitcase. She didn’t move away, but everything about her seemed to withdraw. Her back straightened and a veil of defensiveness descended over her gaze. “No, Quinn.”
His pulse stuttered with a surge of panic. “Rachel!”
The smile she gave him was strained, and so full of sadness that he felt his eyes sting. She was retreating further and further with each second that went by. He could still touch her if he lifted his arm, but he knew she was already out of his reach.
“I love you, Quinn,” she said finally. “But I won’t go back to the way I used to be. I’m no longer going to settle for what you’re willing to give. Yes, I want Charli. and I want the pleasure you and I can share with our bodies, but that’s not enough. I want it all, Quinn. And if I can’t have your love, then I’d be better off on my own.”
He swallowed, his throat thick with words he wished he could say.
Picking up her suitcase, Rachel walked out the door.