wondered why she put herself through the wringer. Kids being beaten and starved. Addicts spiraling out of control, unwilling to accept help. Runaways. Veterans feeling lost and broken. Women being treated like property. Hungry, desperate and emotionally devastated people—that’s what she dealt with all day.
The ones who fell through the cracks or didn’t think they deserved better broke her heart the most. Some days she left the office with a seemingly permanent ache in the center of her chest.
It was hard, seeing that kind of devastation and desperation. It wore on a person. But just when she’d get to the point where she thought she couldn’t take one more, something would always happen to remind her why she could. A runaway was reunited with a parent. A drug addict went into treatment. Or a battered woman discovered the strength to leave.
Those were the days she felt she was making a difference in people’s lives. Just as others had made a difference in her life when she’d needed it most.
So Warren could try his best, but there was no way in hell Quinn was giving him a damn thing. It had taken courage for Caroline to leave, and Quinn wasn’t repaying that by abandoning her.
Pulling up to the house she’d purchased over two years ago, Quinn sat in her car and stared at the sunny yellow siding.
A memory, one she hadn’t thought about in a very long time, swelled up to overwhelm her. The moment Michael had seen the place he’d known it was home. She hadn’t been as convinced.
Pulling her out of the car, he’d coaxed her down the cracked walk. “Come on, baby, you’re gonna love it. Promise.”
He’d tried to butter her up, wrapping his arms around her waist and nibbling on her neck as they’d closed in on the front door.
It had almost worked, although not even his enthusiasm could mask the flaws. “The walk is all cracked. And the paint’s peeling off the door.”
“Easily fixed. That’s cosmetic stuff. What you can’t change is the history of the house or the fantastic school district.”
“School district?” She couldn’t hide the squeak of surprise. Swallowing, she’d tried to force down the knot of anxiety and dread that had threatened to choke her. After three years of dating, she’d just finally agreed to marry him. And he’d instantly had them pushing strollers and walking toddlers to kindergarten.
Always tuned into her reactions, Michael had smoothed his hands down her bare arms and turned her softly to face him. “Not now. I know we’re not ready. But some day, yeah?”
God, what she wouldn’t give to go back to that day and let him get her pregnant right then and there. That way she’d still have a piece of him, one she could kiss and hug and love.
As always, Michael had been able to talk his way into what he wanted. Although, by the time they were finished with the grand tour Quinn hadn’t minded. She’d fallen in love with the house as surely as he had.
They’d bought it together. Michael, ever planning for the future, had insisted on the insurance that would pay off the mortgage should anything happen to either of them. She’d scoffed. Michael was a finance guy, far from living life on the edge. They were both young.
Little did they know that five months later Michael would be gone. It had happened so fast....
With a sigh, Quinn pushed away the sad thoughts. Not for the first time, she wondered if maybe she should sell the place. It had been two years. And the house was big. Too big for one person.
Unlocking the front door, she pushed inside the cool foyer. Dropping her purse onto the antique bench she kept by the entrance, she toed off her ballet flats and nudged them beneath it.
No, she didn’t want to give up the place. It had been hers longer than hers and Michael’s. It was home.
Padding to the back of the house and her bedroom, she was already fantasizing about ditching her bra, putting on yoga pants and curling up with a good book.
But passing by the wide picture window in her den, she froze.
It wasn’t every day she came home to a sweaty man mowing her back lawn. Especially a man with his shirt off, muscles rippling down his back with every shove of her ancient push mower over the grass.
For a few minutes, she had the luxury of watching him work. Or maybe she was just dumbstruck and unable to move. Her body flushed hot, as if the air conditioning had stopped working and the hot June air had rushed in.
Running her tongue across suddenly parched lips, she couldn’t tear her gaze away from him. Or the twisting gray, black and red ink down his right arm, a helicopter surrounded by flames and chaos behind a group of shadowy soldiers, two holding one up. That was Jace Hyland to a T, always holding up the people around him, sacrificing and supporting with a silent austerity that mostly intimidated.
Every time she saw it, that tattoo made the center of her chest hurt. It was an amazing piece of art, but it was the emotion behind it that got to her. That, and the silent reminder that Jace was the kind of man who put himself in harm’s way without hesitation.
However, it was the huge angel wings, feathers so detailed Quinn thought they might lift straight off his body and take flight, spread wide across his broad shoulders that always made her throat tighten and close. They were for Michael.
As was the swirl of black ink, a scrolling tribal pattern that snaked up from the band of Jace’s loose gym shorts over his abs, left hip and up his ribs, camouflaging the scars.
Not that either of them would ever forget they existed. Four of them. The biggest one was just below and to the left of his belly button where they’d taken out his kidney. Another smaller one above and two more along his side where the cameras had been inserted.
The only reason she knew they were there was because she’d seen them before the stark black marks had covered up the pink, puckered flesh.
The familiar knot dropped into Quinn’s stomach, dread, grief and something she’d been fighting for a very long time—interest.
She thought about leaving, just walking back out the door and pretending she hadn’t seen him. But before she could move, he reached the end of the row he was mowing, turned and, with the instincts she knew he’d honed over years in hostile territory, zeroed right in on her standing there gawking.
He held her gaze for several moments, too far away for Quinn to really decipher his expression. Then he left the mower and crossed her lawn in sure, powerful strides that ate up ground and left her insides a little shaky.
The sound of the door bouncing against her kitchen wall echoed deep inside her chest, rumbling and rattling and skittering across her skin with a flush of something she really didn’t want to think about. Didn’t want to want.
It had been weeks since they’d seen each other. Jace made a point of checking in with her—usually by arranging to meet for dinner—at least once a month. Those nights were often strained and fraught with things neither of them wanted to say, so Quinn ate quickly and disappeared as fast as possible.
She knew Jace viewed those nights as an obligation. A promise he’d made to his dying brother. Quinn hated feeling like a burden—especially when being around the man made her feel things she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. But the few times she’d told Jace his obligation
